Verdict with Ted Cruz - June 14, 2022


How To Not Destroy Our Government ft. Senator Mike Lee


Episode Stats


Length

32 minutes

Words per minute

173.38657

Word count

5,632

Sentence count

419

Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Ted Cruz is joined by Sen. Cory Booker (D-D.C.) and Amy Klobuchar (D, D-N.J.) as they join Sen. Marco Rubio (R-R.I.P.S.A.) to discuss the possibility of a Supreme Court overruling Roe v. Wade.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
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00:00:04.140 We are potentially days away from the Supreme Court of the United States potentially overruling Roe v. Wade.
00:00:13.120 This would be the biggest bombshell from the Supreme Court in 50 years, I guess since the ruling of Roe v. Wade.
00:00:21.080 And this is going to fuel the already pretty loud demands from Democrats to pack the Supreme Court. 0.98
00:00:29.300 I am very privileged to be joined by not just one, but two United States senators, both of whom have a whole lot of experience inside the court.
00:00:39.460 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
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00:03:12.400 This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is brought to you by Matt Walsh's new film,
00:03:16.640 the new Daily Wire documentary, What is a Woman?
00:03:19.480 I've been waiting for this film since the day Matt announced it, and it does not disappoint.
00:03:24.180 Radical gender ideology is corrupting our nation right now. 1.00
00:03:27.340 It's seeping into our children's classrooms as young as kindergarten and preschool.
00:03:31.800 It's even poisoned corporate culture.
00:03:33.800 We see Disney and their queerness agenda that they're inserting into their children's programming.
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00:04:27.660 Not just one, but two senators in this episode. 0.71
00:04:31.160 Not just one guy who's written a book about the Supreme Court, but two guys who have written a book about the Supreme Court.
00:04:36.260 And both guys really, really don't think that the Democrats should pack it.
00:04:41.900 Senator Cruz, as always, thank you for being on your own show.
00:04:44.780 And Senator Lee, thank you so much for being here.
00:04:47.880 A senator from Utah, Mike Lee, an expert on the Supreme Court.
00:04:52.000 And the author of a wonderful new book on how we can save the nine justices and not destroy one of the branches of our government.
00:04:59.800 I will tell you, Michael, two interesting bits of trivia that have to do with our guest on the pod today.
00:05:06.740 Number one, he is the first Supreme Court clerk in the history of the United States to become a United States senator.
00:05:15.020 There have been clerks for many, many years.
00:05:18.040 No clerk had ever become a senator until Mike was elected.
00:05:21.200 They're now four.
00:05:22.820 So Mike got elected the same year as Richard Blumenthal, who was a clerk for Harry Blackmun.
00:05:27.360 So they were together, the first two.
00:05:29.580 I was the third and then Josh Hawley's the fourth.
00:05:32.080 But prior to 2010, when Mike got elected, no clerk had ever gone to the Senate.
00:05:36.960 But secondly, and I want Mike to amplify on that in a second.
00:05:40.720 But secondly, he is also the only person I know and certainly the only senator I know whom Harry Reid has locked in a garage.
00:05:50.200 Harry Reid's son, Josh, became my best friend when I was in the sixth grade.
00:05:55.940 This was while my dad was serving as Solicitor General.
00:05:59.020 And there was this new congressman elected from Nevada, elected to the House named Harry Reid.
00:06:05.080 And his son, Josh, became my friend.
00:06:07.000 And I got to know him well.
00:06:09.000 One day, for no particular reason, Harry, who liked to play practical jokes, figured out a way to lock us into the garage.
00:06:16.060 We couldn't get out of it, either in through the house or out the garage door.
00:06:20.520 So we just rode bikes and skateboards in there for a few hours.
00:06:23.920 It was a lot of fun.
00:06:25.740 Harry was an eccentric guy and he had a wonderful sense of humor.
00:06:29.020 He was always very nice to me.
00:06:30.660 You know, we disagreed on almost everything politically.
00:06:33.800 But until the moment he left the Senate, he would bring me into his office periodically just to ask how my family was doing and check in on me.
00:06:42.760 He was a he was a wonderful person in many respects.
00:06:46.460 Michael, this is reflective of the relationships that exist within the Senate and also within the Supreme Court.
00:06:52.440 Relationships that transcend party affiliation and political ideology of every kind.
00:06:59.680 It it actually is a place where the relationships are much better than they appear on TV.
00:07:05.900 That is good to hear, though, Senator Lee, I don't want to just skip over.
00:07:10.220 Reid left you in the garage for hours.
00:07:12.360 This wasn't a 15 minute practical joke.
00:07:14.700 That's that man.
00:07:15.920 He has real chutzpah and stamina or certainly he did.
00:07:19.280 That's a great story.
00:07:20.340 Yeah.
00:07:20.520 My wife used to joke that maybe Harry had accidentally sparked the creation of the Tea Party movement by doing so.
00:07:27.560 I may have been overstating it, but it's a good observation.
00:07:31.000 Senator Cruz, I guess I'll have you lead it off because I know basically nothing about the Supreme Court beyond what I learned from the bill up on Capitol Hill and in Schoolhouse Rock.
00:07:41.700 But I do know from reading the news that the Supreme Court appears to be in greater peril than at any time in my life.
00:07:51.580 Support for the court, trust in the court seems to be dropping.
00:07:55.480 You have this major decision that could be coming out after the leaked opinion, which itself seemed unprecedented.
00:08:02.060 And now you've got major calls to upend the whole institution.
00:08:06.600 Well, look, that's exactly right.
00:08:07.780 The left is launching unprecedented attacks at the Supreme Court, at the rule of law, at the Constitution.
00:08:14.020 They're trying to politicize the court.
00:08:15.940 They're trying to intimidate and bully the justices.
00:08:19.440 They're trying to directly threaten their families.
00:08:21.420 They're sending angry protesters to their homes to threaten their families.
00:08:26.400 And all of this is is a naked desire attempt to destroy one of the foundational institutions that protects our fundamental liberties.
00:08:36.980 You know, I have to say, I'm really glad that that Mike is joining us again on verdict.
00:08:42.820 So Mike is now the first and only repeat guest on this podcast.
00:08:48.420 He was an early guest and he's now the first recidivist to be back.
00:08:54.960 And he's back with a brand new book.
00:08:57.700 Mike, tell us about your brand new book.
00:08:59.800 What's the title?
00:09:00.660 Where can they get it?
00:09:01.540 And why is it essential that they rush out and buy it right now?
00:09:04.440 The name of the book is Saving Nine.
00:09:06.540 I wrote Saving Nine because a little over a year ago, I started seeing all the warning signs that the left was getting ready to pack the Supreme Court, something they haven't tried since 1937.
00:09:17.340 As soon as I realized that they might actually be serious, I started thinking about it and I realized, oh, my gosh, nobody's comprehensively written, at least in modern times, a book explaining how you defeat this and why it needs to be defeated.
00:09:31.520 But I had long been of the belief that one of the worst things that happened in American constitutional history was in 1937.
00:09:39.680 But it's my belief, and that belief is born out in Saving Nine, where I tell the story of Associate Justice Owen Roberts flipping his vote in a seminal case called NLRB versus Jones and Laughlin Steele.
00:09:52.400 That case was decided on April 12, 1937, two years from the date that the Supreme Court had moved into its new Marvel Palace, the first time in history it had had its own courthouse.
00:10:03.680 Associate Justice Owen Roberts flipped his vote in that case and effectively redefined the Commerce Clause.
00:10:10.400 He amended the Constitution, as it were.
00:10:12.220 Had it been a constitutional amendment, this would have been among the most impactful constitutional amendments ever adopted into the Constitution because it changed the nature of the federal government.
00:10:24.180 It turned it from a limited-purpose federal government into a general-purpose national government.
00:10:29.260 All of this because Owen Roberts was afraid of FDR's threats.
00:10:33.320 It worked.
00:10:34.640 Even though FDR's court-packing plan failed legislatively, it succeeded and left an ugly, indelible mark, one that's costing the American people dearly to this day.
00:10:43.880 So you're pointing out that even though by the numbers FDR's plan did not work, the political pressure that came about because of that really did transform the court.
00:10:55.420 So is there something about the number nine?
00:10:59.300 I don't want to diminish your book sales by having you give away the answer to the main question of the book, but what is it about this number nine that is so important?
00:11:08.560 The number has changed over the course of the court, though it hasn't changed in recent memory, not just for Republicans or Democrats or conservatives or liberals, but for the functioning of our republic.
00:11:19.520 Why is nine the right number to keep?
00:11:21.680 So as I explained in Chapter 2 of Saving Nine, there's nothing magical about the number nine.
00:11:26.920 It's not foreordained by the Constitution.
00:11:29.920 It's not anything that it's not the inexorable result of common sense.
00:11:35.540 It is rather a compromise that was reached.
00:11:38.580 It was a number that we arrived at as a country in 1869.
00:11:44.060 So for more than a century and a half, it's worked and we've stuck with it because it works.
00:11:49.940 The court isn't understaffed.
00:11:51.900 There's no need from a human resources standpoint to add justices to spread the work around.
00:11:57.860 No, it's not that at all.
00:11:58.800 It's just that Joe Biden, well, number one, he views himself as the modern reincarnation of Franklin D. Roosevelt, something that's very scary in and of itself.
00:12:06.700 But number two, he wants to pack the court so he can change the court so he can remake it in its own image so that the court can be brought to heel to do his will and make sure that whatever he wants goes on the court.
00:12:20.620 Well, you know, if Joe Biden were here, Mike, I think he'd say, Mike, I knew FDR.
00:12:26.800 FDR was a friend of mine.
00:12:29.900 And I think he probably thinks he's talking to Eleanor Roosevelt now.
00:12:33.760 Well, this was one of my favorite observations in the book, actually, is I didn't realize, Senator Lee, I knew that both of you gentlemen have a long history with the court.
00:12:43.080 Senator Cruz, you clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist, you've argued cases before the court.
00:12:48.640 Senator Lee, you clerked for Justice Alito.
00:12:52.340 And and also your father was the Solicitor General of the United States under Ronald Reagan.
00:12:57.580 So you've got this chapter in the book where you talk about going to the Supreme Court as a kid.
00:13:02.920 And I loved your description of walking up the steps of the Supreme Court.
00:13:08.140 And and even though obviously the courts right there in Washington, D.C., you describe it as feeling as though you're leaving the petty swamp of Washington and going into a place with a little more dignity.
00:13:19.800 That might be a little bit above the usual fray of politics.
00:13:24.840 That's right. It was it was different than any proceeding I had ever been a part of.
00:13:28.920 It was different than other government offices that I had ever seen.
00:13:33.520 There was a reverence for the court and there was a careful deliberation that I saw in there.
00:13:37.740 You know, at the age of 10, when I started watching Supreme Court arguments for fun, I didn't understand everything that was going on.
00:13:44.140 I didn't understand most of it. It felt like church in a foreign language.
00:13:47.320 You had to hold still. You had to be really quiet and pay close attention.
00:13:51.860 But over time, I started figuring out the rhythm of the place and I developed a great respect for it.
00:13:58.140 My my late father taught me that, you know, even when you disagree with the court's ruling, you've got to respect the court because our entire system depends on the integrity and the independence of the court.
00:14:09.780 And that this is this is not a tribunal.
00:14:12.720 This is not a court that sometimes does good things and is mostly bad.
00:14:16.920 It's quite the opposite. It's a good court. It's the best of its kind, I believe, anywhere in the world, warts and all.
00:14:23.720 It is it is a court that is basically good that sometimes makes mistakes because it's run by mortals.
00:14:29.940 But what Joe Biden and the Democrats are trying to do, they're trying to demonize and delegitimize the court.
00:14:35.500 They're trying to isolate those justices who dare to actually interpret the Constitution based on what it says.
00:14:41.600 And they want to remake it in their own image in order to achieve a different policy outcome.
00:14:46.600 The minute you do that, you rip off that Band-Aid, bad things will happen and it's not limited to abortion.
00:14:53.340 This will extend into all sorts of other things and will end up reflecting the political will of power incumbents, principally presidents of the United States.
00:15:02.820 So let me take a digression here. You know, Michael, you and I have talked about how Mike is my closest friend in the Senate by far.
00:15:11.160 I love this man. He is both his staff and my staff get frightened when we get together.
00:15:18.760 It is not over booze because Mike is a teetotaler, although being Cuban, Irish and Italian, I am not.
00:15:24.160 As Mr. Knowles can attest, since since between scotch and cigars, we have killed a few liver cells together.
00:15:32.960 But but when when Mike and I get together, we geek out as law geeks in a way that really scares our staff.
00:15:40.680 And they're actually like, OK, enough of this.
00:15:43.180 Like, like, like. But but I got to say, I want to take a digression for something you two were talking about a second ago, which is Mike's dad.
00:15:49.160 So so I never had the privilege of knowing Mike's dad, but he is legendary.
00:15:54.340 So listen, the position of Solicitor General of the United States.
00:16:00.040 Is a unique position in our nation's history, it is the only position in all of government that is required by statute.
00:16:08.580 It is written into statute that the Solicitor General must be learned in the law.
00:16:13.580 That is a requirement of the job. And and there have been legendary Solicitor General.
00:16:21.420 There have been legendary Solicitor General who were among the finest advocates ever to to be in in those marbled halls.
00:16:30.220 And and I say with no exaggeration that that universally Mike's dad is considered one of the finest Solicitor General to have ever served.
00:16:40.380 He is considered to be simply an extraordinary Supreme Court advocate.
00:16:44.740 And Mike, as a kid, one of the reasons I love hanging out with Mike is he literally grew up watching arguments and around the dinner table debating bills of attainder and debating obscure, obscure aspects of the Constitution.
00:17:01.940 On one occasion, he was arguing a case on behalf of the corporation of the presiding bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
00:17:09.140 And there was a question in there about a janitor who had not obeyed the teachings of the Church.
00:17:16.900 Justice Scalia asked him a question. OK, so this janitor, if he were a good member of the Church, he would neither drink nor smoke.
00:17:22.820 My dad said something to the effect of, yes, Justice Scalia.
00:17:25.580 And that's a lot more than I can say for some of the Catholics I know.
00:17:29.260 Apparently, the courtroom went entirely quiet.
00:17:33.840 You could hear a pin drop because everybody was nervous about what was going to happen.
00:17:38.300 Fortunately for my dad, Justice Scalia belted out laughing and the rest of the court joined him.
00:17:43.700 But he developed this kind of fluidity, this kind of comfort with the court.
00:17:47.480 It was not impertinence.
00:17:48.900 It was respect.
00:17:50.040 But a degree of familiarity that helped them trust him.
00:17:54.820 We have this sense right now that things used to be more cordial.
00:18:00.140 They used to be more professional.
00:18:02.500 The court used to function a little bit better.
00:18:04.580 And now it's not functioning well.
00:18:06.320 And you're getting leaked draft opinions, for goodness sakes.
00:18:09.440 And you're getting really petty fights, especially between the other branches of government.
00:18:13.540 Chuck Schumer saying, we're coming for you, Brett Kavanaugh.
00:18:17.420 I mean, direct threats to the justices.
00:18:19.740 What is your historical sense here?
00:18:22.140 Are our conditions at the court really at some relative low right now?
00:18:27.780 Or is nostalgia just history after a few drinks?
00:18:31.320 And have things really always been just about this bad?
00:18:34.560 Well, first of all, I don't think we should confuse a lack of decorum and cordiality and civility
00:18:40.740 among and between the justices within the court itself.
00:18:44.600 I think it's in pretty good shape.
00:18:47.260 I mean, we're certainly better off than we were in other prior eras, like with Associate
00:18:53.900 Justice James McReynolds, who was openly contemptuous of a number of his colleagues.
00:19:00.560 He was bigoted.
00:19:01.780 He was mean. 0.97
00:19:02.380 He was rude.
00:19:03.180 And that sort of thing happened in previous eras of the court.
00:19:07.320 You don't have that today.
00:19:08.480 I think you actually have a pretty healthy degree of respect and civility among and between
00:19:15.480 the justices.
00:19:16.340 But this one is different.
00:19:17.800 What you're getting at, Michael, is a very significant thing.
00:19:20.140 We have never, ever had a draft opinion of the court leak like this.
00:19:25.120 For reasons I don't entirely understand, or maybe I do, the mainstream media keeps trying
00:19:30.720 to downplay this leak by saying, oh, leaks have happened.
00:19:33.860 Leaks, shmeak, it's not that big of a deal.
00:19:35.820 Happens all the time.
00:19:36.680 Well, yeah, so once or twice in a decade, somebody will leak a rumor about which way a case is
00:19:43.900 going to be decided.
00:19:45.240 It's like betting on the roulette table, red or black.
00:19:49.000 You've got a 50 shot at being right.
00:19:52.400 And so sometimes those predictions would turn out to be correct.
00:19:55.980 None of them were anything like this, where somebody took a draft majority opinion and leaked
00:20:01.060 it. This is horrendous.
00:20:02.480 So this speaks not ill of the justices themselves, I believe, but of everyone around the court.
00:20:10.220 The way others treat the court has changed.
00:20:12.800 And what you were pointing out a moment ago, Michael, is very significant.
00:20:16.900 Chuck Schumer going to the steps of the Supreme Court, talking about unleashing the whirlwind.
00:20:21.140 I mean, what's up with that?
00:20:23.360 The fact that you would have, I suspect, a law clerk with the temerity to go out and violate
00:20:32.140 everything we know about an attorney's duty of confidentiality and about an attorney's
00:20:39.140 duty to safeguard property and material that's not his or her own and leak it to the press.
00:20:45.420 Because there's something terribly wrong with that, especially because I suspect what we
00:20:49.860 will find is whoever did it knew that they would likely be disbarred and will never practice
00:20:54.160 law again, but also knew that they'd probably get a tenured track faculty position at Yale
00:20:59.560 for it and an anchor position at MSNBC paying millions of dollars a year.
00:21:06.300 That's what's new.
00:21:07.660 And that's frightening.
00:21:09.060 When Mike and I were both clerks at the court, the two justices who were the closest friends
00:21:13.740 were Justice Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
00:21:17.200 And they hung out.
00:21:18.320 They went to operas together.
00:21:19.700 They're very different.
00:21:20.660 It was almost like the odd couple, like, you know, Felix and Oscar.
00:21:26.040 You know, he was the ebullient, loud Italian conservative.
00:21:31.000 She was the librarian-ish prim and proper.
00:21:35.180 But they got along beautifully.
00:21:37.640 I remember, Senator, a beautiful photo of them.
00:21:40.120 I believe they went to India or something together or Egypt.
00:21:43.920 I don't know.
00:21:44.140 They were somewhere riding an elephant.
00:21:46.780 And some feminists were angry with Justice Ginsburg because she allowed Justice Scalia 1.00
00:21:54.000 to sit in front of her on the elephant.
00:21:56.420 But she did point out that the issue was less one of patriarchy and more one of sheer weight.
00:22:02.500 And so, fair enough, you know, it's good that the institution works.
00:22:09.700 And I'll actually say, even on the political side, in the Senate, most senators get along.
00:22:16.260 In the House, that's not true.
00:22:17.480 There is some genuine nastiness and unpleasantness on the House.
00:22:21.380 But in the Senate, out of 100 senators, I'd say there are at most maybe five who are unpleasant.
00:22:28.180 And it's unusual enough that it's an outlier.
00:22:31.700 And most senators, even though they have strong disagreements, get along well.
00:22:36.700 I just wrote a remembrance in a book for Harry Reid's family for his passing.
00:22:45.640 And I wrote a story to his family about one time when I was a brand new senator and Harry
00:22:51.420 Reid was on the Senate floor and was lambasting me, lighting into me.
00:22:55.660 And then when he finished, he started to walk off the floor.
00:22:59.340 He turned to me and winked with a grin.
00:23:01.380 And it was kind of I laughed out loud.
00:23:03.580 It was it was pretty funny.
00:23:05.020 So, so, Mike, you mentioned that your book talks about the fundamental reason why packing
00:23:11.520 the cord is is bad.
00:23:13.340 And the listeners and viewers of this podcast are smart, educated, informed.
00:23:19.660 They care about substance.
00:23:21.480 They care about understanding what's going on.
00:23:25.260 And so if you're a verdict viewer and you're standing at the water cooler tomorrow and
00:23:30.940 somehow the topic of packing the court comes up, what are the best reasons why that is
00:23:37.800 a really, really, really bad idea?
00:23:41.240 OK, the very best reasons why it's a bad idea is because in a constitutional republic like ours,
00:23:47.740 we aspire to live under the rule of law, the rule of law as opposed to the rule of individual
00:23:54.140 men and women.
00:23:55.840 And because we aspire to live under the rule of law, we need an independent branch to
00:24:02.180 resolve disputes about what the law means.
00:24:05.440 We've got three branches of government.
00:24:07.220 It's essentially two pens and a sword.
00:24:09.780 You've got the legislative pen that writes the law, decides what the policy should be.
00:24:13.900 You've got the executive branch that wields the sword and enforces the law.
00:24:18.460 But then from time to time, people will disagree about what the law passed by the legislative
00:24:23.040 branch means.
00:24:24.240 You've got to have somebody who can resolve that.
00:24:26.500 You want that somebody, that something to be independent and immune from the political
00:24:32.180 winds that can change from time to time.
00:24:34.720 That's why you need an independent judiciary.
00:24:36.760 The reason I wrote Saving Nine and the reason court packing is so bad is because if you pack
00:24:43.180 the court in order to achieve a preferred political outcome, you will have destroyed the independence
00:24:49.300 of the judiciary and we will no longer live under the rule of law.
00:24:53.300 Without the rule of law, the Constitution itself crumbles and the greatest civilization the
00:24:58.340 world has ever known, which has been facilitated by the U.S. Constitution, will exist no more.
00:25:04.420 It is that simple and it is that easy to do.
00:25:07.640 And this is the irony of it.
00:25:08.960 So one of the things that I described in Saving Nine is the fact that it's funny, it's curious
00:25:14.500 that something so fundamentally counter-constitutional, anti-constitutional is itself not unconstitutional.
00:25:23.280 It should be.
00:25:23.980 And that's why I support Ted's constitutional amendment that he's proposed to lock this in through
00:25:30.800 the Constitution.
00:25:31.560 But it's not unconstitutional.
00:25:33.240 But this is a way in which you could really destroy the Constitution without ever having
00:25:39.300 to amend it.
00:25:40.240 We can't let that happen.
00:25:41.760 Now, Senators, before I let you both go, we've been speaking from your positions of expertise
00:25:47.380 on the court and your legal careers and all your experience up there in that great marbled
00:25:52.100 hall.
00:25:52.520 But now I want to hear about your political guts because you are both United States senators
00:25:57.500 and you have a pretty good sense of which way the winds are blowing.
00:26:00.740 So we know that we shouldn't go past nine justices on the court.
00:26:04.780 But will we, Senator Lee?
00:26:07.820 I believe we will not.
00:26:09.240 I believe in something that's a statement attributed to Winston Churchill, that the American
00:26:13.480 people can always be counted on to do the right thing after they've exhausted every other
00:26:17.720 alternative.
00:26:18.700 And because I believe in the American people, I don't believe we'll do that.
00:26:22.960 I think the American people will stop it.
00:26:24.960 But, you know, that part remains unwritten.
00:26:27.920 It's up to us to decide that.
00:26:30.200 But I want the American people to be armed with this.
00:26:33.180 So whether they buy the book or not is less important to me than that people read this.
00:26:37.600 I want all of your readers to be able to read this.
00:26:39.120 So if you want to just buy one copy and loan it thousands of times, that's fine, too.
00:26:45.080 But read this book, read Saving Nine, for a couple of reasons.
00:26:47.980 Number one, Senator, first, I just have to interrupt you very quickly before you know,
00:26:51.660 you are just such a kind, polite, nice man.
00:26:55.200 But absolutely, you should not be sharing this book with your friends.
00:26:58.020 Go buy the book.
00:26:59.060 Put your money on the line, folks.
00:27:00.700 Absolutely.
00:27:01.240 You're going to want your own copy.
00:27:02.540 Sorry.
00:27:03.200 Digression over.
00:27:04.000 You were saying.
00:27:04.580 And they do sell it on Amazon.
00:27:05.920 Thank you, Michael.
00:27:07.020 But yeah.
00:27:07.660 So buy your copy of Saving Nine and read it because when you read it, you're going to
00:27:13.440 be armed with the facts.
00:27:15.320 You're going to be armed with the arguments that you'll need to make.
00:27:17.520 In fact, once you read Saving Nine, you will never lose another political argument again
00:27:21.500 in your life.
00:27:22.920 It's not just about the Supreme Court.
00:27:25.520 This is about the fundamental relationship between the three branches of our government
00:27:29.500 and the relationship between the federal government and the states.
00:27:33.100 In the end, it's also about the relationship between the individual and society, the individual
00:27:39.540 and government in general.
00:27:41.620 And so this book is a first of its kind.
00:27:44.880 It synthesizes all of these points and will allow the American people to stand up to this
00:27:50.140 form of attempted tyranny.
00:27:52.040 But we have to be able to recognize it as such.
00:27:54.980 And we need to be armed with the facts in order to be able to stop it.
00:27:58.240 You asked a minute ago, politically, what is the likelihood of the left succeeding in
00:28:05.200 packing the court?
00:28:06.720 And I agree with Mike.
00:28:07.900 I think it's not going to happen.
00:28:09.820 But I also think we are unbelievably close to it happening.
00:28:15.940 So my last book was one vote away in the Senate on this.
00:28:20.260 I think we're two votes away.
00:28:22.060 We are two votes away.
00:28:23.660 Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are the only two Democrats who are refusing to end the filibuster.
00:28:31.580 There are 50 Democrats in the Senate.
00:28:34.320 48 of them are ready to do so.
00:28:36.580 We're two votes away.
00:28:37.720 If those two votes flip, they'll end the filibuster.
00:28:41.660 And I think if they end the filibuster, they will pack the cord.
00:28:45.280 You know, the way you open the pod, Michael, the pressure from the left lighting their hair
00:28:50.400 on fire, if and when the Dobbs decision comes down and overturns Roe, we've already seen
00:28:57.900 crazy left wing activists rowing up in kayaks to yell at Manchin at his houseboat and chasing
00:29:05.500 Kyrsten Sinema into the ladies room.
00:29:07.800 That's how bad it's been.
00:29:09.840 And to use a Spinal Tap reference, I think they'll take it to 11.
00:29:13.640 So I hope and believe Joe and Kyrsten will withstand that pressure, but understand how
00:29:21.140 unbelievably close we are to this happening and why it matters to engage and not to wake
00:29:27.600 up one day a week after the Supreme Court decision and go, oh, crap, we now have a 13 justice court.
00:29:35.600 That is the key.
00:29:36.460 The urgency here is the key.
00:29:37.880 The best time to have figured this out and fight back against it is yesterday.
00:29:42.880 The second best time is today.
00:29:45.580 And Senator Lee, I think your book is a wonderful contribution to that fight.
00:29:49.580 Thank you.
00:29:50.060 I certainly think so, too.
00:29:51.620 And I want to emphasize what Ted is saying here, that the pressure that those two are
00:29:57.320 under is immense.
00:29:58.360 When you couple that with the amount of emotional intensity that's likely to flow from a Dobbs 1.00
00:30:04.920 ruling, one that reflects the draft opinion of Justice Alito.
00:30:08.540 And by the way, regardless of how you think you stand on Roe versus Wade, everyone should
00:30:13.680 read Justice Alito's masterpiece of a draft majority opinion in that case.
00:30:19.120 It's phenomenal.
00:30:20.300 It makes the case abundantly clear as to why this is an issue to be decided by lawmakers rather
00:30:26.840 than judges.
00:30:27.480 But the pressure that they're going to feel is going to be intense.
00:30:33.320 The bad things that happen in government, they're always due to what's going to be an
00:30:38.920 emergency or an exception.
00:30:41.220 And the pressure that we've brought to bear on Manchin and Sinema will focus on the fact
00:30:46.020 that, look, this time it's different.
00:30:48.020 They got rid of Roe.
00:30:49.440 That's, you know, that's a sacrament on the left.
00:30:51.580 And so this one could flip.
00:30:54.820 And that's why we've got to be ready.
00:30:56.140 The only way we can be ready is if people, not just lawmakers, but Americans generally,
00:31:02.660 if we're educated on the facts, if we understand what happens, what happens when you even threaten
00:31:07.700 to pack the court, then we can stop it.
00:31:10.500 Otherwise, it's going to be an uphill slog, one that we might eventually lose.
00:31:14.460 That is why people right now, the show's over.
00:31:17.240 There's no more to listen to.
00:31:18.460 You now have the opportunity to go order the book.
00:31:21.220 By the way, Michael, I got to say, just there, I loved that you channeled Ferris Bueller
00:31:27.280 at the end of the movie.
00:31:28.500 Go home.
00:31:29.200 The movie's over.
00:31:30.040 It's done.
00:31:30.560 Go home.
00:31:31.120 It's done.
00:31:31.800 The podcast is done.
00:31:33.200 Well, you know, I also, I don't want to leave without saying, one, congratulations on the
00:31:37.720 book, Senator Lee.
00:31:38.700 Two, congratulations on being our only repeat guest.
00:31:41.900 We're going to have to make it a three-peat very soon.
00:31:44.580 Thank you for coming.
00:31:45.680 Best of luck with the book.
00:31:46.660 I know it's going to be a big hit.
00:31:48.020 Everyone should go buy it.
00:31:48.880 Senator Cruz, thank you, as always, for being on your own show.
00:31:52.040 I'm Michael Knowles.
00:31:53.100 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
00:31:54.460 This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs Freedom and Security
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