Verdict with Ted Cruz - How to WIN：The Inside Story on the Battle to Enact Trump's Legislative Agenda

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.660 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.300 There is a really big debate happening in Washington, D.C. right now,

00:00:09.500 and this is why I love doing this show,

00:00:11.260 because reconciliation is already underway.

00:00:14.640 The debate, how it's going to be done,

00:00:16.620 even before Donald Trump is inaugurated,

00:00:19.240 and you have a lot to say about what happened in D.C.

00:00:22.040 Well, there's a major strategic decision,

00:00:24.500 a major battle that is playing out right now in Washington, D.C.,

00:00:27.620 and it concerns how do we win the biggest legislative victories of the Trump presidency.

00:00:33.900 There are two paths to doing it, what's called one bill or two bill.

00:00:38.040 Now, that may sound arcane,

00:00:39.800 but I think it's the difference between failure and success.

00:00:43.460 This week, Donald Trump came and spent two, two and a half hours with all the Republican senators.

00:00:48.860 It's all we talked about that time together.

00:00:51.180 I'm going to break it down and explain it to you,

00:00:53.040 because it matters enormously.

00:00:55.300 If you want to see President Trump and this Republican Congress deliver on our promises,

00:01:02.020 how we do it, how we get to success matters a lot.

00:01:05.340 We're going to deal with all that,

00:01:06.420 but first I want to talk to you real quick about this new year

00:01:09.260 and help that is needed for the people in Israel.

00:01:12.540 On January the 27th, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day will be here,

00:01:17.160 and we're going to remember the great evil of the Holocaust 0.99

00:01:19.800 when millions of Jews were slaughtered during the Nazi's regime

00:01:23.120 and the reign that they had over people with just pure terror.

00:01:27.180 Today, the rise in global anti-Semitism and the constant attacks on Israel

00:01:32.180 show us that it's more important than ever to remember the atrocities of the Holocaust

00:01:36.640 to ensure it never, ever happens again.

00:01:39.440 And that's why I've partnered with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.

00:01:43.820 They provide food, shelter, and safety to Jews in Israel and around the world,

00:01:49.320 including those remaining Holocaust survivors.

00:01:52.440 Your donation today will help provide food, water, medicine,

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00:02:34.220 So, Senator, a lot of the news, and we talked about this week on Verdict,

00:02:38.840 has been around the wildfires and all the politics are going on in California.

00:02:43.440 But what you guys have been working on in Washington, D.C.

00:02:46.800 is a massive, not only just strategy of how we're going to move forward

00:02:51.660 with the Republicans having control of the House and the White House,

00:02:54.940 but also this could be a big failure if we get it wrong.

00:02:58.480 So break it down, explain to people,

00:03:00.260 there seems to be two pathways here people are fighting over.

00:03:02.860 And you had this conversation with Donald Trump for several hours.

00:03:06.440 Yeah, so look, we had an incredible election in November.

00:03:09.840 We have a mandate from the voters.

00:03:12.460 It's now our job to deliver on that mandate,

00:03:14.940 to deliver on the promises we made to the American people.

00:03:18.100 How do we get it done?

00:03:19.720 This week, Donald Trump came to Capitol Hill.

00:03:22.540 He came up to D.C. for Jimmy Carter's funeral.

00:03:25.240 He spent over two hours with all of the Republican senators up on the Capitol

00:03:29.540 talking and what we talked about virtually the entire time

00:03:33.520 was how to proceed to enact his legislative agenda.

00:03:37.440 Now, as you know, in the Senate, we have a filibuster.

00:03:41.660 What is the filibuster?

00:03:42.640 The filibuster is the requirement that you need 60 votes to take up major legislation.

00:03:48.280 The effect of the filibuster is, because we have a 53-vote majority of Republicans,

00:03:53.740 you cannot take up major legislation in the Senate unless you get seven Democrats to support us.

00:03:59.640 So the bulk of the mandate from the voters, things like securing the border,

00:04:04.940 they're not going to get seven votes from Democrats.

00:04:08.060 So we can't get it done through ordinary legislation.

00:04:12.920 So how are we going to get it done?

00:04:14.380 We're going to get it done using something called reconciliation.

00:04:18.220 What is reconciliation?

00:04:19.000 Reconciliation is a process that comes from a specific statute, the Budget Act of 1974.

00:04:25.820 And the Budget Act sets up that when both chambers pass a budget,

00:04:30.200 they come together and you reconcile the budget.

00:04:32.680 By the way, none of that matters.

00:04:34.060 That's all gobbledygook.

00:04:35.080 Here's what matters.

00:04:36.480 Under budget reconciliation, you only need 50 votes to pass it, not 60.

00:04:40.880 So budget reconciliation is the vehicle that you can get around the filibuster

00:04:46.600 and pass our agenda.

00:04:48.700 So the reconciliation matters enormously.

00:04:51.900 Now, there are a whole series of rules for what's permissible on reconciliation and what isn't,

00:04:56.820 and they're laid out in the statute.

00:04:58.600 The basic idea is that on reconciliation, you can pass things that are budgetary,

00:05:05.980 but you cannot pass things that are policy.

00:05:09.780 Now, how should we proceed?

00:05:12.700 The House of Representatives and the Senate are having a big argument right now,

00:05:16.760 and the House and Senate are on different places.

00:05:19.140 What the House has argued for is that we should do one gigantic reconciliation bill.

00:05:27.280 We should do a bill that secures the border.

00:05:30.140 We should do a bill that rebuilds the military.

00:05:33.040 We should do a bill that unleashes American energy. 0.99

00:05:35.860 We should do a bill that extends the 2017 Trump tax cuts and makes them bigger and bolder.

00:05:42.960 And we should do all of that gigantic bill as part of one bill, one big, beautiful bill.

00:05:49.100 It is how Speaker Johnson has said that Donald Trump has put it.

00:05:53.040 And by the way, there's a lot of people that just heard what you said and go,

00:05:55.800 that sounds amazing.

00:05:56.820 So what's the problem?

00:05:58.560 The problem is it is a path that I think is almost certain to fail.

00:06:03.560 Explain why.

00:06:04.420 Yes.

00:06:05.560 Look, number one, doing a massive bill, complicating things,

00:06:09.660 doing a ton of things all at the same time makes it harder to accomplish.

00:06:14.240 We just had a couple of weeks ago a big fight in Washington over a CR, a continuing resolution.

00:06:19.580 The first version of it fell.

00:06:21.640 Why did the first version of it fall?

00:06:23.860 Because a bunch of people criticized it and said,

00:06:25.740 it's too damn big.

00:06:26.720 It's 1,400 pages.

00:06:28.080 This is too much.

00:06:28.940 And everyone went nuts and the whole thing collapsed.

00:06:31.080 Apparently, the lesson we've taken from that is that CR was too big.

00:06:37.600 And our solution is let's have something 10 times bigger.

00:06:40.460 Let's have something so massive because that's what it'll take to get the votes on board.

00:06:45.560 I believe if we end up trying to put everything in one bill, it'll drag on for seven, eight months,

00:06:53.620 and it'll collapse in August, and we risk losing all of the momentum we have right now

00:06:59.920 to accomplish and deliver results on Trump's legislative agenda.

00:07:05.600 So what's the alternative?

00:07:07.280 When we were with President Trump, this is the case I made to him, and I argued this forcefully.

00:07:11.700 The alternative is to do two reconciliation bills.

00:07:16.080 The first bill we would take up right now, and it would do three things.

00:07:20.620 Number one, it would secure the border.

00:07:22.680 Number two, it would rebuild the military.

00:07:25.100 And number three, it would unleash American energy.

00:07:28.580 Why do we start with those three?

00:07:30.600 Because those three are relatively easy.

00:07:32.540 Among Republicans, we have widespread consensus on all three of those.

00:07:39.380 On those issues in the Senate, we've got 53 Republicans.

00:07:43.160 We can get 53 Republicans to come together through.

00:07:46.300 So you think those three are unanimous?

00:07:48.900 Yes.

00:07:49.760 I think all three of those.

00:07:51.660 So that's why it's a no-brainer in the sense of, like, we get this done,

00:07:54.440 and we can get it done quickly for that reason.

00:07:56.200 It's a quick, early win, number one.

00:07:58.280 And that's important.

00:07:59.220 Momentum's everything.

00:08:00.320 Quick, early wins matter.

00:08:01.300 But more importantly, let's take the border.

00:08:04.600 The number one mandate out of the election is secure the border.

00:08:08.940 100%.

00:08:09.380 Now, Trump is going to show up on January 20th,

00:08:12.320 and he's going to issue a whole series of executive orders.

00:08:14.640 I think we may see up to 100 executive orders issued on day one.

00:08:19.320 It is going to be shock and awe that is going to come,

00:08:22.560 and I expect a lot of that to focus on the border.

00:08:24.800 And we will see the border crossing numbers plummet.

00:08:28.160 All of that is good.

00:08:29.120 The biggest driver of that will be Trump ending catch and release

00:08:32.540 and actually deporting people who are here illegally.

00:08:35.480 However, you still need resources.

00:08:37.540 You need Congress to come in and appropriate, likely $100 billion,

00:08:42.420 to build the wall, to hire more Border Patrol agents,

00:08:47.200 to hire more ICE agents,

00:08:48.860 to build more detention facilities and more detention beds,

00:08:52.280 to purchase more assets like fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft and infrared and drones,

00:08:59.440 all of the materiel you need to secure the border to back up the policy changes.

00:09:04.680 We can get all the Republicans on one page to do that and get that done quickly.

00:09:10.240 That's number one.

00:09:10.680 That's a day one thing.

00:09:11.600 It's not day one, but it's February or March.

00:09:14.500 It's very fast, yeah.

00:09:14.840 It's a month or two or three.

00:09:16.720 It's early.

00:09:18.740 Border security, we can come together and do that quickly.

00:09:21.740 Secondly, the military.

00:09:22.720 We have got to invest and rebuild our military.

00:09:26.440 With the threat of China abroad, every enemy has gotten stronger. 0.97

00:09:30.320 We need a serious investment in our military to enhance our ability to defend ourselves,

00:09:35.120 in particular to rebuild our Navy. 1.00

00:09:37.260 China is kicking our ass. 0.99

00:09:40.040 They are investing in their Navy, and under Joe Biden and the Democrats, 1.00

00:09:43.660 they have allowed our investment into our Navy to wither dramatically.

00:09:46.900 Now, why is it important to do the military bill in an early reconciliation?

00:09:54.240 Well, this is where strategy and the realities of legislation matter.

00:09:58.860 By the way, this is a moment in the podcast where I would say to everybody listening,

00:10:02.100 pay very close attention so you can advocate for this,

00:10:04.580 because this might be the most brilliant thing said all day.

00:10:07.320 In the middle of March, the continuing resolution is going to expire.

00:10:11.520 That is what funds the government.

00:10:12.980 When that happens, Chuck Schumer and the Democrats are going to use the expiration of the funding

00:10:20.320 to hold Donald Trump hostage.

00:10:23.360 Chuck Schumer wants to force a government shutdown.

00:10:27.040 Yeah.

00:10:27.420 The biggest reason a government shutdown is really, really painful for Republicans

00:10:32.480 is it shuts down much of the military, and Republicans care about defending this nation.

00:10:38.760 Democrats, many of them simply don't.

00:10:41.480 They're happy to shut the military down.

00:10:44.240 They do it because it drives Republicans crazy.

00:10:48.200 If we pass military funding as part of the reconciliation before March,

00:10:54.320 we take it off the table.

00:10:56.120 It's done.

00:10:57.100 It's funded.

00:10:58.100 It's not depending on the CR for funding.

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00:11:30.820 So even if there is a government shutdown, and this is where it gets complicated by one

00:11:36.800 people to understand, you do it early, before there could be the threat of the government

00:11:40.360 shutdown.

00:11:41.200 If once you've funded the military, regardless of a, quote, shutdown, the military still has

00:11:46.480 everything they need to operate on normal terms.

00:11:48.520 It means we would have fully funded the military.

00:11:50.340 It means we would have fully funded border security.

00:11:52.620 So both of those continue. 0.97

00:11:53.880 And now Chuck Schumer is saying, damn it, I'm going to shut the government down and we're 0.97

00:11:59.040 not going to pay RS agents and the EPA will shut down. 0.99

00:12:02.420 You're like, OK, not a bad deal.

00:12:04.180 And suddenly Republicans are like, OK, Chuck, let us know when you're done with this little

00:12:07.380 shutdown thing.

00:12:08.440 It shifts the entire leverage and it's how Trump wins.

00:12:14.200 That is hugely important.

00:12:17.360 A third component is energy.

00:12:19.380 And again, you've got absolute consensus among Republicans that we want to unleash American

00:12:25.740 energy.

00:12:26.800 America is the world's energy superpower.

00:12:29.320 We're the number one producer of oil and gas.

00:12:31.640 The Biden administration has been waging war on Texas energy, on oil and gas for four years.

00:12:37.880 That's going to end January 20th.

00:12:39.420 But we can pass major legislation to really unleash energy, which, A, drives down prices and tackles

00:12:48.240 inflation, the second huge mandate that came out of the election.

00:12:53.220 Secure the border, drive down inflation.

00:12:55.240 We can do both of those early, early on.

00:12:57.860 And unleashing energy also drives job creation, which is another huge mandate.

00:13:02.600 So all of this we can get done and done quickly.

00:13:06.920 The second bill, I believe, should be another reconciliation.

00:13:11.600 We can take up more than one.

00:13:13.620 And that should be tax reform.

00:13:15.740 That should be taking the 2017 Trump tax cuts that are expiring this year and extending

00:13:22.480 them, making them permanent.

00:13:24.040 And I hope making them bigger and bolder.

00:13:27.020 Now, why should that be broken into a separate piece rather than combined with the first one?

00:13:33.340 Because tax reform is really damn complicated.

00:13:37.180 There are lots of tradeoffs that happen.

00:13:39.000 There are tradeoffs that are tradeoffs between all of the different interest effects affected.

00:13:42.860 So you have tradeoffs between C corporations and S corporations, big companies and little

00:13:48.120 companies.

00:13:48.860 You have tradeoffs between employers and employees.

00:13:51.920 You have tradeoffs between individuals and families.

00:13:55.160 You have tradeoffs between parents and kids.

00:13:57.460 You have tradeoffs between how you handle seniors.

00:14:00.000 You have tradeoffs between how you handle capital gains and dividends.

00:14:03.600 And we'll resolve all of that.

00:14:05.920 but that takes a lot of time when we did this in 2017 i spent literally hundreds of hours

00:14:15.080 negotiating all of these trade-offs you can't get that done in a month or two or even three

00:14:23.800 so what is that is that an eight month nine month timeline yeah it'll be the way we ought to do it

00:14:29.560 i think we ought to pass the first reconciliation and get it done by say march one we can do border

00:14:35.760 security rebuild the military and energy by february or march and then it's done and then it's

00:14:42.140 off the table and that's a big win and then do tax reform i look if if we leaned in we could do tax

00:14:49.640 reform by the end of july right before the august recess i think we either do it uh then or in

00:14:55.540 september those are the two times on either side of the august recess but the trade-offs you got to

00:15:01.440 understand when tax reform is happening every single lobbyist in washington is engaged because the tax

00:15:08.380 code affects everything yeah and that process of trade-offs just takes time and when you say it

00:15:16.300 takes time can you paint a picture of of what it looks like on capitol hill because there's certain

00:15:21.040 let's say you're a hardcore lefty you're going to have certain lobbyists are coming to you saying we

00:15:25.380 need x y and z then that office takes it up on their day to say we're going to get this in there

00:15:31.300 is that how that works and there's conservatives saying we need this over here and then there's

00:15:35.200 trade-offs is it is that how this works yes yes but remember this is during reconciliation so this is

00:15:40.540 almost certainly a republicans only play okay so it's only republicans in all likelihood all of the

00:15:46.500 democrats will vote now maybe they'll surprise us but the last time we passed the trump tax cuts

00:15:52.400 so you look at something like tax cuts historically tax cuts have been bipartisan yeah not anymore not

00:15:58.360 anymore the trump tax cuts in 2017 in the house of representatives zero democrats voted for them in

00:16:04.320 the senate zero democrats voted for them by the way that's a big shift from you go back to the 80s

00:16:10.300 when ronald reagan was president the 1981 tax cut the lead author of the 1981 tax cut was phil graham who

00:16:18.440 was then a conservative democrat in the house from texas later became a republican when he was a

00:16:23.840 democrat then you look at 1986 reagan's major tax simplification one of the leading authors of that

00:16:30.540 was bill bradley a liberal democrat senator from new jersey it used to be that when you're cutting

00:16:36.820 people's taxes you could get both parties together today's democrat party is so radical that at least in

00:16:42.260 2017 they weren't willing to do it so that's part of what makes this so complicated the house of

00:16:48.220 representatives has a two-vote majority and you can lose votes on all sorts of things now here is the

00:16:56.780 argument of the house for why they say they want one big beautiful bill they say well we got to get

00:17:04.720 the votes and we need all of the elements in there to get the votes we need to get to 218

00:17:10.280 and i gotta say i think that argument makes no sense whatsoever so they're claiming

00:17:15.040 we gotta have border security in there because they're people who wouldn't vote for the tax cut

00:17:21.900 unless border security was part of it and they're also claiming we gotta have the tax cut in there

00:17:28.980 because they're people who wouldn't vote for border security but they'll vote for that unless the tax

00:17:33.940 cuts there now i'm going to call bs on all of that and i'll tell you we sat down and i made this

00:17:40.600 point to president trump so i spoke very forcefully making this case out i said mr president i want

00:17:45.000 because the house had leaned in they said this is the only way we can get it past one big beautiful

00:17:49.120 bill and so trump came in and said hey that's what the house has told me let me ask you this

00:17:53.000 just to paint the picture of the room when you guys meet with him are you seated yep and then when

00:17:57.940 you talk to him when you're making your points do you stand how does it what does it look like is it

00:18:01.900 very chill room is it a is a casual room or very formal so we're we're in a room called the mansfield

00:18:08.140 room which is a room named for mike mansfield former uh senate majority leader democrat senator

00:18:13.920 for montana has a big picture of mike mansfield holding a pipe the big painting on the wall um

00:18:19.740 it is a large room in the capitol and when when we met with him there's a table that's basically a

00:18:27.920 giant table set in a rectangle so we're all facing each other okay so you know 53 of us plus the

00:18:34.740 president around a table looking at each other um and it's a very nice room and it's where we have

00:18:40.620 lunch every day it's it's it is it's actually one of the perks of being in the majority so the majority

00:18:47.380 has lunch in the mansfield room the minority has lunch in the lbj room which is smaller so when we

00:18:52.580 became a majority we got into the bigger room which is nice because the lbj room if you it's

00:18:57.520 pretty tight quarters and so there's a lot more space in the mansfield room so look i i made a case

00:19:02.700 to him because he came in and he'd been told by the house hey this is the only way we can get it done

00:19:06.840 and i said mr president i want you to understand something i said we had a meeting earlier today of

00:19:11.960 all of the senate committee chairs all of us every single one of us agrees that doing this with two

00:19:22.580 bills is the only way to get it done and one bill has a massive massive risk of failure and extending

00:19:30.300 it to eight months and i pointed out to him i said look there are 53 of us in this room i want you to

00:19:36.240 look around the room every single one of us agrees all of us i agree john thune agrees lindsey

00:19:43.420 graham agrees said look you've got susan collins and ran paul they agree on nothing they agree on this

00:19:49.200 i want you to understand why and one point that i made to him is i said look you need to understand

00:19:54.520 i love the house of representatives i love mike johnson he's a great man he's a good friend he has

00:20:00.240 nearly impossible job so i feel for how difficult that job is the house of representatives more than

00:20:07.320 60 percent of the house was not here when we passed 2017 tax wow that's that is significant number so

00:20:17.760 so they do not understand what goes into it they do not understand the thousands of hours of back and

00:20:24.860 forth look they're they're passionate they they believe in what they're saying but they don't have

00:20:29.200 the experience of having gone through this by the way they also many of them don't understand the

00:20:34.520 rules of reconciliation of what the senate could do remember i talked about we can do budgetary

00:20:38.980 things and not policy things yeah there's always a battle between the house and senate because the 0.99

00:20:43.480 house gets mad at the senate you damn senators you won't do what we want it's like well there's a 0.98

00:20:48.400 statute that governs what we can do and it does limit what the senate could do on reconciliation 0.99

00:20:52.200 that'll be a back and forth it always is every reconciliation there's a battle between the house and senate

00:20:57.240 because the house wants to do things that the senate is not allowed to do under the terms of

00:21:03.100 the statute what i told president trump is i said listen if we put this all in one bill we have a

00:21:09.880 massive risk of failure if we do it in two bills we can start with a huge victory securing the border

00:21:15.780 rebuilding the military unleashing american energy and then we will get tax cuts passed it's just going

00:21:22.780 to take longer and and you know on the argument that well gosh this is the house leadership's

00:21:30.000 argument we need each piece as a sweetener to get the votes what i've said in response is okay

00:21:34.860 show me this magical unicorn of a house member because i know most of these guys yeah so show me

00:21:42.520 don't talk about well i got members i can't get their vote without it all right tell me who 0.85

00:21:46.300 you talking about crazy right-wing knuckle-draggers okay i'm a crazy right-wing knuckle-draggers those

00:21:51.900 are my peeps i'll go talk to them i'll go talk to them but when i'm talking to them they're not saying 0.96

00:21:56.820 that are you talking about really moderate republicans all right fine that's a different

00:22:01.360 that's a different uh different problem to solve but we talk about that one of the issues

00:22:07.760 that complicates this is what's called the salt tax explain that okay so the salt tax

00:22:14.960 is state and local tax deduction so one of the things that happened when we passed the 2017

00:22:22.160 tax cut is we eliminated initially we eliminated deducting state and local taxes so it used to be

00:22:30.060 before 2017 if you're in california and you pay a crap ton of taxes to the state of california

00:22:36.420 you could deduct all those taxes on your federal taxes now what that ended up doing was having the

00:22:42.860 federal government subsidize big blue states that tax the hell out of their their constituents right

00:22:48.540 and big blue states that have massive taxes you just got it deducted for your federal taxes and so we

00:22:54.140 were like gavin newsom keep raising taxes the feds will subsidize you on that so in 2017 we eliminated

00:23:01.440 that now we eliminated it but we actually allowed some deduction we put a cap of ten thousand dollars

00:23:06.120 so you can deduct up to ten thousand dollars of state and local taxes so you and i are both

00:23:11.340 homeowners in texas the biggest state tax we pay is property tax yeah so you and i deduct our property

00:23:17.120 tax on our federal income tax but it's capped at ten thousand dollars so if you're paying more than

00:23:22.080 ten thousand dollars it's on you it's on you now what's the political problem the political problem

00:23:28.600 is there are a number of house republicans who come from blue states in particular new york and

00:23:34.760 california and the blue state republicans the new york and california republicans have a problem

00:23:40.020 because eliminating the salt deduction really impacted people in high-tax states because

00:23:46.600 unfortunately their big government democrats keep taxing the hell out of them we talked about this

00:23:51.340 in california this past week those new york and california republicans feel an obligation

00:23:57.660 to do something to help the problem of not being able to deduct more than 10 more than 10 now and so

00:24:08.880 the argument is well if we add border security to it they'll have to vote for it because they can't

00:24:14.920 vote against border security so this is where the argument makes no sense i'm like all right first of

00:24:19.700 all we tee up the first bill securing the border rebuilding our military unleashing american energy

00:24:25.380 i don't know a republican is voting against that the mandate out of this election was secure the 0.99

00:24:30.580 border show me the idiot republican is going to say no i'm for open borders that that is a recipe 1.00

00:24:36.220 for disaster you're retiring when you're doing that because you ain't running again and if you do you're 1.00

00:24:41.140 going to get primaried you'll get killed none of them will vote against border security they're just

00:24:45.480 not going to they know the american people they know what they want on the salt issue look will there

00:24:51.960 have to be an accommodation for new york and california republicans sure there will there will

00:24:58.980 have to be an accommodation i i understand that that's part of why this takes a while you got to

00:25:03.780 negotiate there are geographic and regional issues that you have to negotiate and there's a trade-off

00:25:09.100 now will the accommodation be restoring in full the state and local tax deduction i don't believe it

00:25:16.920 will be because that's terrible tax policy that means the red states are all subsidizing the blue 1.00

00:25:22.980 states and their bad tax policy here's what i think the resolution will be this is actually an idea i got

00:25:28.980 from grover norquist grover norquist runs americans for tax reform he's a long-time friend of mine one of

00:25:35.100 the leading thinkers when it comes to tax policy and grover's idea so right now there is a marriage

00:25:43.160 penalty in how you deduct state and local taxes you as an individual if you file your tax return you

00:25:51.680 could deduct up to ten thousand dollars of state and local taxes if you are married as you are you

00:25:59.380 and your wife can deduct a total of ten thousand dollars on state and local taxes what grover suggested 1.00

00:26:06.300 as a fix is eliminate the marriage penalty which means you and your wife would be able to deduct not

00:26:11.020 ten thousand twenty twenty thousand so there's so it doesn't hurt you you're not being penalized

00:26:16.360 for being married right now that's good tax policy as well getting rid of the marriage penalty one of 0.88

00:26:21.480 the negative things federal law does is discourages marriage and marriage is a very good thing for our

00:26:26.940 society i think we'll end up if i were to predict the bill that gets enacted i think we'll end up

00:26:32.680 eliminating the marriage penalty on the salt deduction which lets the california and new york

00:26:37.860 republicans go back and say hey big win big win we doubled the deduction now what it doesn't do

00:26:43.860 is give a multi-million dollar tax break to michael bloomberg what it doesn't do is give a massive

00:26:49.080 benefit to billionaires in new york and california who have massive taxes and and i i think that's where

00:26:55.380 we'll end up but again that takes time and so i don't know how we resolve this i think we'll end up

00:27:02.880 seeing the two proceed on parallel tracks i think we're going to see the set the house for a while

00:27:07.580 go forward and say we're doing one big beautiful bill yeah and i think the senate's going to say

00:27:12.680 yeah that's fine we're moving forward we're not wasting time we're moving forward with our bill

00:27:18.100 on the border on the military and on energy because we can get it done we want a victory and this is how

00:27:24.680 you win and and look i don't know how it resolves but i can tell you i think it is an enormously

00:27:31.420 consequential question and frankly this is exactly the reason i think people listen to verdict

00:27:37.800 for sure because there is not another show there's not a new no one's talking about this or covering

00:27:43.580 it or explaining not a podcast people don't understand this and i will tell you this is the

00:27:48.220 single biggest topic that the senate and house and president trump are discussing right now and

00:27:54.920 nobody is covering it in the news but the reason it's the single biggest topic is i believe it is

00:28:00.820 the difference between succeeding on trump's legislative agenda and winning massive victories

00:28:06.600 or losing and having a crushing failure and in my view failure is not an option we cannot fail

00:28:12.920 which means we got to do it right so let's talk strategy to wrap this up because i think this is an

00:28:17.380 important point you you i go back to one of the best i think pr moves i've ever seen was in 1994

00:28:23.760 contract with america first hundred days we've got a contract with the american voters newt gingerts

00:28:28.900 comes in we get the house for the first time in 40 years we're delivering quickly i believe a lot of

00:28:34.440 voters feel like that is the mentality right now and if we wait eight months i think there's a lot of

00:28:40.220 people going to be very angry that just took so long to get it done and this is about momentum

00:28:44.880 because and you've been in washington for a while how important is momentum out of the chute here

00:28:49.440 to get the win early to then have momentum on other issues because i also think that helps people get

00:28:55.440 along i think that helps conservatives go hey we just had a big win we just got along we just worked

00:28:59.740 out this last deal let's do it again look a quick win momentum helps when winning produces winning

00:29:05.860 there is an argument from the house well we we can't do two reconciliations it's too hard for us

00:29:11.660 we only get one bite at the apple i don't find that remotely plausible again show me the hypothetical

00:29:17.460 republican that all right we passed the bill securing the border and then the republican says all right i

00:29:23.360 don't want to do tax reform i'm out and by the way if we do nothing on tax reform on december 31st there

00:29:29.940 is a four and a half trillion dollar tax increase that happens automatically there is not a republican in

00:29:35.200 the house or senate that is willing to vote for a four and a half trillion dollar tax increase so we

00:29:40.060 have to get this done so in my view yes momentum if you score victories you win victories that helps

00:29:48.720 you win more victories that helps you win more victories to say hey wait we can get this done this

00:29:53.040 is good let's get another victory let's get another victory let's get another victory um but there's an

00:30:00.160 even broader risk if the one big beautiful bill would happen and it would happen in say

00:30:05.900 eight months okay fine that would be okay i'm very concerned we get to eight months and the whole thing

00:30:13.100 collapses because when you make something so complicated you put so many pieces in there

00:30:18.240 you just increase the risk of people bailing for one reason or another it becomes much harder to resolve

00:30:25.160 the trade-offs when you complicate it i think one of the keys to getting things done is simplifying and

00:30:31.160 focusing on where you can come together and i think breaking it up and doing a big victory on

00:30:36.520 the border of the military and energy and a big victory then next on taxes i think that's the path

00:30:42.140 to success final question for you on this and that deals with the listeners they're going to say what do

00:30:46.340 i need to do is this one of those moments where you encourage your member of congress to get a quick

00:30:51.700 win and you say hey i sent you there i want to secure border i want to encourage you to do this now

00:30:57.600 you know look i don't know that this is the kind of issue that you i mean if you want to call your

00:31:02.260 congressman you can i don't know that this is the kind of issue that that is needed this is more just

00:31:08.100 look deliver wins this is for you to understand what's going on because these are the discussions and

00:31:14.540 fights that are happening behind the scenes and what the stakes are and what we try to do in verdict

00:31:19.760 is explain things that that the media won't explain to you yeah they're not touching this one at all

00:31:25.760 don't forget we do this show monday wednesday and friday this is why it's going to be a very fun

00:31:30.560 year here on verdict so make sure you grab this podcast hit that subscribe auto download button

00:31:35.040 many of you maybe watch this on youtube make sure you hit that follow on youtube as well so you don't

00:31:39.720 miss one of these video episodes as well uh and the center and i will see you back here on wednesday

00:31:44.300 morning this is an iheart podcast guaranteed human

00:31:49.660 it's okay

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - January 13, 2025

How to WIN：The Inside Story on the Battle to Enact Trump's Legislative Agenda

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