Verdict with Ted Cruz - July 23, 2025


Hunter Melts Down, Targeting the Funders of Riots across America & Combating the Threat of Drone Attacks in Coming Decades


Episode Stats


Length

32 minutes

Words per minute

166.23306

Word count

5,346

Sentence count

435

Harmful content

Misogyny

8

sentences flagged

Toxicity

37

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) sits down with Sen. Hunter Biden (D-Illinois) to discuss the Biden gaffe and why he should run for president in 2020. Plus, he talks about his new legislation to fight against the "Stop Funders Act" and drone warfare.

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.
00:00:02.600 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.380 Welcome. It is Vertic with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:08.860 It's nice to have you along with us today.
00:00:11.440 And Senator, you've run for president before.
00:00:14.820 And Hunter Biden may be calling you because apparently he's thinking about running for president as well in this new interview.
00:00:20.760 On top of the fact he's very angry with rich Democrats that helped his dad get elected the first time.
00:00:26.540 I got to say, we've seen bad interviews, but wow.
00:00:31.360 Like, Hunter Biden utterly and completely melted down.
00:00:35.680 There's an old line that a gaffe in Washington is when a politician actually says something they believe.
00:00:42.720 Well, Hunter Biden let loose.
00:00:44.380 He is the id of the Democrat Party.
00:00:46.440 He's announced apparently he's launching a campaign for president.
00:00:49.660 I actually think he'd be a fantastic representative of today's Democrat Party.
00:00:53.620 He embodies everything today's Democrats stand for.
00:00:56.920 We're going to break down this train wreck of an interview.
00:01:00.700 And actually, that's not fair to train wrecks because they're usually more disciplined, more orderly, and result in less chaos than this interview.
00:01:10.120 We're also going to talk about legislation that I've introduced this week called the Stop Funders Act to go after the people who are writing the checks that are funding these pro-illegal immigrant riots that are funding anti-Semitic riots, that are funding Antifa riots, that are funding Black Lives Matter riots.
00:01:28.320 We're going to talk about following the money.
00:01:29.960 And finally, we're going to talk about a growing national security threat and law enforcement threat, which is drones.
00:01:35.700 We're seeing criminal cartels using drones.
00:01:38.180 We're seeing terrorists using drones.
00:01:40.200 And right now, the current legal system, the federal government, is not prepared to keep us safe.
00:01:45.260 We're going to talk about the threat of drone warfare, the next generation of threats our families and our country are facing.
00:01:52.300 Yeah, it's a really important issue.
00:01:54.020 We're going to deal with that in a second.
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00:03:54.580 All right, so Senator, let's just start with this interview.
00:03:57.600 It was a three-hour interview.
00:04:00.420 Once a crackhead, always a crackhead was the takeaway for me.
00:04:04.440 And Hunter Biden loves to use the F-bomb.
00:04:06.800 That's takeaway number two.
00:04:09.380 He's really angry, though, at the Democratic machine for turning on daddy.
00:04:15.340 That got him really fired up.
00:04:17.780 Yeah, I've got to say one of the consequences of this interview, it's actually had a real impact on the verdict podcast because it's forced us to increase our compensation for Diaz,
00:04:29.240 as our producer, because the amount of time that he's had to put in just to bleeping the F-bombs. 0.83
00:04:35.620 Yes.
00:04:35.980 I mean, it really is.
00:04:37.120 Full time.
00:04:37.740 He went pro in it.
00:04:38.940 There are overtime limits.
00:04:41.340 We're going to play this.
00:04:42.460 And let me say thank you to Diaz for hitting bleep, bleep, bleep.
00:04:45.920 You've got to be really fast on this.
00:04:47.840 Give a listen to Hunter Biden's careful, nuanced assessment of George Clooney, of David Axelrod, of the gray-beard eminences in the Democrat Party.
00:05:00.700 Here, give a listen. 0.94
00:05:01.680 I don't have to be f***ing nice. 0.86
00:05:02.960 Number one, I agree with Quentin Tarantino. 0.99
00:05:05.100 F***ing George Clooney is not a f***ing actor. 1.00
00:05:07.700 He is a f***ing, like, I don't know what he is. 1.00
00:05:10.940 F*** you. 1.00
00:05:11.700 What do you have to do with f***ing anything? 1.00
00:05:13.400 Why do I have to f***ing listen to you? 0.97
00:05:14.760 What right do you have to step on a man who's given 52 years of his f***ing life to the service of this country 0.95
00:05:20.980 and decide that you, George Clooney, are going to take out basically a full-page ad in the f***ing New York Times
00:05:26.260 to undermine the president at a time in which, by the way, what do people care about the most?
00:05:31.440 Why do you think that the Republicans have an advantage over us?
00:05:34.680 Because they're unified.
00:05:36.000 They will go along with anything.
00:05:37.960 I wasn't asking anybody to go along with anything.
00:05:39.720 I was asking people to go along with this.
00:05:42.020 The most successful administration in my lifetime.
00:05:46.080 I mean, Senator, it was successful.
00:05:48.080 Hunter Biden said so.
00:05:49.420 And he wasn't asking anybody to go along with anything unless you were sending money from Ukraine or from Russia or from China.
00:05:56.080 Outside of that, or buying some of his artwork, I mean, this was just a straight shooting guy, right?
00:06:02.160 Look, it was the most successful administration of his lifetime.
00:06:06.160 Now, to be clear, Hunter has a memory of about four seconds.
00:06:09.620 So in the last four seconds that he can remember, it was the most successful he can remember because he's blocked out the current administration.
00:06:16.760 You look at – listen, even Democrats are not making arguments that Joe Biden was a successful administration.
00:06:23.940 It was a train wreck.
00:06:25.920 Joe Biden gave us a new Trump presidency.
00:06:28.860 He gave us a Republican Senate.
00:06:30.220 He gave us a Republican House.
00:06:31.880 And it's because every policy that the Democrats adopted was a disaster.
00:06:35.840 Open borders, 12 million people invading this country, the American people didn't like.
00:06:40.020 The victims of crime, the American people didn't like.
00:06:42.620 The disastrous war on American energy that drove inflation, drove up the cost for working people across the country, the American people didn't like.
00:06:49.540 And as bad as all the domestic policy was, the foreign policy was even worse.
00:06:55.640 Every friend of America, Joe Biden and the Democrats abandoned.
00:06:59.800 Every enemy of America, Joe Biden and the Democrats, showed weakness and appeasement.
00:07:04.480 So Biden and the Democrats inherited peace and prosperity.
00:07:08.280 And we were given instead two wars.
00:07:10.680 We were given the war on Ukraine and the absolute disaster of October 7th.
00:07:14.420 Why? Because Joe Biden and the Democrats gave $100 billion to Iran that they used to fund the death squads on October 7th. 0.52
00:07:22.700 That is the legacy of the Biden presidency.
00:07:25.560 There is not a single Democrat in the Congress that I know of that is defending the Biden presidency.
00:07:30.240 But to Joe Biden and to Hunter Biden, the problem is George Clooney.
00:07:36.160 That clearly is the problem.
00:07:37.880 But I got to say, Hunter went further than that. 0.75
00:07:41.600 And I want to listen to I want you to listen to what he had to say about El Salvador, because he's really, really mad that President Trump is deporting violent, criminal, illegal alien Venezuelan gang members.
00:07:56.920 Listen to Hunter Biden's solution to stop this.
00:07:59.880 But these guys think that we need to run away from all values in order for us to lead.
00:08:04.580 I say, you, how are we getting those people back from El Salvador? 0.98
00:08:08.180 Because I'll tell you what, if I became president in two years from now or four years from now or three years from now, I would pick up the phone and call the president of El Salvador and say, you either send them back or I'm going to fucking invade. 0.98
00:08:22.160 It's a crime what they're doing. 0.99
00:08:25.660 He's a dictator thug. 0.96
00:08:27.960 Both. 0.90
00:08:29.420 Biden 2028 campaign right there.
00:08:32.320 Slogan, I'll invade El Salvador and anybody else that makes me blank and angry. 1.00
00:08:36.740 Right.
00:08:37.940 So to be clear, you're doing some math there because you said it's Biden 2028.
00:08:42.420 And Hunter was clear.
00:08:44.080 He said, if I became president in two years or four years or three years, apparently he doesn't know when the presidential election was.
00:08:50.200 Maybe it's 27.
00:08:51.020 Maybe it's 28.
00:08:51.720 Maybe it's 29.
00:08:53.060 Maybe it's 42.
00:08:55.340 You know, math is.
00:08:55.740 When it's weekend at Bernie's at the White House when he was there, does it really matter what election year it is?
00:09:00.580 I do like that he broke the news that apparently Hunter is running.
00:09:05.040 It is 128.
00:09:06.980 You're right.
00:09:07.540 That's at least what they'll print on the bumper stickers.
00:09:10.600 And by the way, does anyone better represent the mess that is today's Democrat Party?
00:09:17.420 The corruption, the anger, the listen to what he just said.
00:09:27.240 If he were president, he would invade El Salvador.
00:09:33.400 He would send the military to invade El Salvador.
00:09:36.260 To what end? 0.94
00:09:37.920 To bring back criminal illegal aliens, to bring back murderers and rapists and child molesters who are MS-13 gang members because he would send the army to say, you know what? 1.00
00:09:49.660 We don't have enough criminals and murderers and rapists. 0.99
00:09:54.200 I'm going to send the army to bring us some more. 0.98
00:09:57.180 That is today's Democrat Party.
00:09:59.020 But holy cow. 1.00
00:10:00.760 Yeah, it makes sense.
00:10:02.040 I kind of I'm kind of digging the honesty here.
00:10:04.480 Right.
00:10:04.780 And this is coming from the same.
00:10:06.640 Now, let's also be clear.
00:10:08.560 Joe Biden said Hunter Biden was the smartest man he knew.
00:10:11.500 So this is the guy that's like, watch this.
00:10:14.340 Here's foreign policy.
00:10:15.500 If you want to know who was running the White House, what does worry me is how much Hunter Biden was around the White House and around emails.
00:10:23.280 He was plugged in.
00:10:24.640 If there was any foreign despot, if there were any any enemy of America, Hunter Biden was plugged in.
00:10:31.260 Why?
00:10:31.560 Because he would then shake down people for tens of millions of dollars.
00:10:34.900 This guy.
00:10:36.000 Look, we are watching one of the great businessmen of modern times because he has figured out he could sell access to daddy and favors from daddy and make tens of millions of dollars.
00:10:45.500 And and look, you listen to his answer just a minute ago where he said if he were president, he would send in the military to invade El Salvador to bring back illegal immigrants.
00:10:55.260 You might think this guy loves illegal immigrants.
00:10:58.400 He just has a warm spot.
00:11:00.380 He has a heart for immigrants.
00:11:01.900 He thinks they're wonderful, incredible people.
00:11:05.040 Well, not so much.
00:11:06.520 Listen to this clip where he describes what he really thinks of the illegal immigrants that that daddy led into this country.
00:11:12.720 People are really upset about illegal immigration. 1.00
00:11:16.620 F*** you. 1.00
00:11:17.780 How do you think your hotel room gets cleaned? 1.00
00:11:19.780 How do you think you have food on your f***ing table? 0.95
00:11:22.600 Who do you think washes your dishes? 1.00
00:11:24.620 Who do you think does your f***ing garden? 1.00
00:11:26.320 I would pick up the phone and call the f***ing president of El Salvador and say, you either f***ing send them back or I'm going to f***ing invade. 0.99
00:11:33.660 It's a f***ing crime what they're doing. 1.00
00:11:37.200 He's a f***ing dictator. 0.99
00:11:38.780 Well, look, that is what Hunter thinks of immigrants. 1.00
00:11:46.000 They clean hotels.
00:11:47.420 They clean your dishes. 1.00
00:11:48.400 It reminds me of that wackadoodle Democrat congresswoman from Vermont who said, if we don't let in illegal immigrants, who's going to wipe your ass? 1.00
00:11:59.140 I mean, it is a level of contempt and condescension. 1.00
00:12:02.760 This isn't 101, isn't it? 0.98
00:12:04.040 Yeah, look, they look down on the illegals that they allowed to flood into this country, but they think they're dumb enough that they will end up voting for Democrats ultimately. 0.96
00:12:16.600 So it's all about political power. 0.97
00:12:18.580 But this is the condescension and contempt.
00:12:21.900 And Hunter is not unique.
00:12:22.980 He is today's Democrat Party, that they have everything is politics and partisan politics.
00:12:32.460 They are willing to endanger your family and my family if they believe it will elect more Democrats.
00:12:38.140 The takeaway from this interview was, for me, two big themes.
00:12:43.440 Number one, it is scary who had access to this White House and influence over the president, especially when he was in such a cognitive decline.
00:12:53.520 That terrifies me that Hunter Biden was around and flying on Air Force One and involved in meetings and was read in and was on all the email chains that we've witnessed recently.
00:13:04.180 That's number one.
00:13:05.140 But number two, it also tells you, I think, about just the disarray of the Democratic Party and the fact that they turned so quickly on Joe when they saw the debate.
00:13:16.500 And now he's like, well, I want to burn it all down.
00:13:19.240 And everybody that didn't stand with my dad, how dare you?
00:13:23.060 And I may even come back.
00:13:24.440 There's a derangement aspect of the Biden family at this moment.
00:13:28.500 And listen, I don't fault Hunter for defending his dad.
00:13:31.460 I actually support familial loyalty.
00:13:35.140 But he is lashing out in a way that is unhinged and unconnected to reality.
00:13:40.780 He's mad at George Clooney.
00:13:42.380 He's mad at David Axelrod.
00:13:43.820 He's mad at the Democrats.
00:13:45.540 And in one exchange, he explains, he actually broke some news.
00:13:50.360 He said the person who was responsible for his father being pulled from the ticket.
00:13:56.220 And it turns out, according to Hunter, it was Nancy Pelosi.
00:13:58.820 Here, give a listen.
00:13:59.320 Yeah.
00:13:59.540 And you would have the speaker and emeritus that would say, well, you know, I'm going to leave it up to, but I don't know.
00:14:08.460 And and and they had already made a decision.
00:14:12.680 They had clearly made a decision.
00:14:14.480 And when I say they, I'm I mean the speaker.
00:14:18.840 And, you know, I heard Alexander Pelosi say something.
00:14:22.340 Call my my like put your big girl pants on to my mom or something. 1.00
00:14:26.160 And I kind of feel like saying, who the do you think you are?
00:14:29.520 I would never speak about your mom that way.
00:14:31.260 Yeah.
00:14:31.660 I would never speak about your father that way.
00:14:33.760 I would never insult your parents that way.
00:14:36.880 He would never.
00:14:38.080 But he's really mad about it right now.
00:14:40.440 He would never, except for the moments that he is.
00:14:42.440 Yeah.
00:14:43.200 All right.
00:14:43.940 Let's shift to the next topic, which is violence in America.
00:14:48.920 Look, the last five years, we've seen a pattern of riot after riot after riot.
00:14:57.060 We saw in 2020 the Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots. 0.54
00:15:03.020 We saw cities all across this country lit on fire.
00:15:06.520 We saw police cars firebombed.
00:15:08.720 We saw stores looted.
00:15:10.480 We saw people murdered.
00:15:12.440 We saw following October 7th, anti-Semitic riots and hostile protests on college campuses
00:15:21.640 all across this country, especially in bright blue liberal states.
00:15:26.140 And now, this year, we've seen violent protests, typically in Democrat cities, started in Los Angeles,
00:15:36.340 spread across the country, in favor of illegal immigrants, in favor of Venezuelan gang members,
00:15:43.820 opposing deportation, saying, we want as many criminal illegal aliens in this country. 0.95
00:15:48.860 There is a pattern behind all of these, which is these are not organic.
00:15:54.680 These are not just people who got pissed off and decided, I'm going to go protest.
00:15:58.540 There is money behind these.
00:16:02.280 Checks are being written that are funding them.
00:16:04.520 And so I introduced legislation this week called the Stop Funders Act.
00:16:09.220 And what the Stop Funders Act does is very simple.
00:16:12.380 It adds to the list of predicate crimes for RICO rioting.
00:16:18.360 Now, what does that mean?
00:16:19.280 RICO is legislation that is used to go after racketeering.
00:16:23.240 It is very powerful legislation that prosecutors have used to go after the mob.
00:16:28.400 And it goes after a criminal enterprise, a criminal organization.
00:16:32.840 Right now, rioting is not one of the predicate crimes.
00:16:36.380 But in this instance, if you want to go after, for five years, we have seen these violent riots.
00:16:43.660 And look, I'm not the only person in the country who noticed that the anti-Semitic riots on college campuses,
00:16:50.480 that many of the protesters had matching tents.
00:16:54.740 Yeah.
00:16:54.880 There are clearly checks being written.
00:16:58.840 Some of them, I believe, are from foreign nations like Qatar or Iran.
00:17:04.180 But others are from radical left-wing organizations.
00:17:08.620 And during the Biden administration, you and I on this podcast repeatedly called on the Department of Justice to follow the money.
00:17:16.560 With Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, I've told both of them, follow the money.
00:17:20.160 Prosecute the people who are writing checks, not just the thugs who are on the street, who are attacking police officers, who are attacking innocent people,
00:17:28.660 but the people who are paying for it all.
00:17:32.940 And going after the money is the best way to stop these violent riots.
00:17:38.800 And if we don't, they will continue because, understand, the radical left wants them to continue.
00:17:43.980 Yeah, this is one of those where, as you mentioned, follow the money, it's very clearly well organized.
00:17:49.240 We're seeing this even over the last two weeks when they've gone after the president of the United States of America.
00:17:54.520 And we see all these, you know, protests that they try to act like they're spontaneous.
00:17:59.840 No, they're paid for.
00:18:01.440 They're funded.
00:18:02.180 They're well organized, Senator.
00:18:03.520 Everyone can see it.
00:18:06.020 And so the question people, I'm sure, are going to say, well, hold on a second.
00:18:09.640 If I want to spend my money to support a protest, why should I be held accountable for that if they decide to get angry or violent on their own?
00:18:19.900 How do you separate those two things?
00:18:22.520 Well, you have to demonstrate under RICO that you're part of a criminal enterprise and the Predicate Act.
00:18:28.840 Rioting is different from protesting.
00:18:30.380 Peaceful protest is protected by the Constitution.
00:18:32.600 But rioting is not when you're using violence, when you're using weapons, when you're intimidating, when you're threatening, when you're hurting, when you're murdering people.
00:18:42.340 And many of these riots have involved people being killed.
00:18:46.540 That is fundamentally different.
00:18:48.840 And I'll use an example, one we've talked about occasionally on this podcast.
00:18:53.600 Last year, for a period of about nine months, Heidi and I had every Saturday morning pro-Hamas protesters at our house.
00:19:02.600 Yeah.
00:19:03.240 They would show up at 7 a.m.
00:19:05.220 They would leave at 8.
00:19:07.440 When they showed up, they would scream.
00:19:09.760 They would bang cowbells.
00:19:11.200 They would blow missiles.
00:19:12.920 Whistles, rather.
00:19:14.180 Thankfully, they did not blow missiles, but they blew whistles.
00:19:17.220 That would have been intense.
00:19:18.980 Yeah, that would have been different.
00:19:21.140 They would scream curse words.
00:19:23.540 They cursed as much as Hunter Biden did.
00:19:25.660 They dropped F-bombs over and over and over again.
00:19:29.020 Look, we have teenage daughters.
00:19:30.540 There are few things that can tick teenagers off more than waking them up at 7 a.m. on a Saturday.
00:19:36.060 Teenagers like to sleep in. 0.96
00:19:37.340 Certainly my girls do. 0.63
00:19:38.880 Yeah.
00:19:39.080 And it was week after week after week.
00:19:43.740 Now, what was striking, this was a job.
00:19:47.120 It was clearly paid for.
00:19:48.540 They showed up at 7 a.m.
00:19:49.820 They left at 8 a.m.
00:19:51.540 That was what they were paid for.
00:19:53.160 One hour, boom, they were done.
00:19:55.080 And then after nine months spent, it just stopped.
00:19:58.360 And it didn't trickle off.
00:19:59.840 It didn't occur only occasionally.
00:20:02.740 It was like the money was over.
00:20:04.200 The instant the money was over, it was done.
00:20:08.360 In other words, these weren't actual protesters.
00:20:11.600 These were paid agitators.
00:20:14.060 Yeah, look, this is apparently the living they have as they go to places where people pay them to scream and yell and be obnoxious.
00:20:20.760 And in the case of the riots, you have people who are criminals who will engage in violence.
00:20:26.660 But the real driver behind this is the money.
00:20:30.140 It's the funders, and we need to go after and cut off the money.
00:20:36.380 So if you cut off this money, how long does it take for this to become a thing where people are then afraid to fund these types of things, these extremist riots?
00:20:45.040 And how fast could these RICO laws be used if this becomes reality?
00:20:49.580 Yeah, it doesn't take long.
00:20:51.080 Look, one or two people writing checks gets prosecuted, gets put in jail, and people will be very reluctant.
00:20:58.120 It's much like funding terrorism.
00:20:59.820 Look, you and I and normal people don't write checks to Hamas, because if you write checks to Hamas, they will prosecute you and put you in jail.
00:21:08.420 And so there is a high threshold.
00:21:10.740 The Department of Justice has brought a lot of cases for people funding terrorist organizations.
00:21:17.580 These violent riots, they're not organic.
00:21:20.380 They're not just occurring.
00:21:21.360 If you look at the college campuses where they've arrested people, they typically find about half the people there are not students and not affiliated with the university.
00:21:30.880 They've showed up because their business is a rent-a-riot.
00:21:34.940 And listen, I'm interested in the thugs who are engaging in violence, but I'm more interested in the people who are sitting there funding this and saying, we're going to tear down our country.
00:21:46.500 We're going to tear down our universities. 0.61
00:21:48.760 We are going to promote radical hatred, hatred of Jews, hatred of America, hatred of our Constitution. 0.99
00:21:56.820 And the key is going after the money.
00:22:01.920 By the way, it speaks volumes.
00:22:05.320 In the entire Joe Biden presidency, they did not indict anybody for funding these protests.
00:22:12.060 They did not prosecute anybody for funding these protests.
00:22:15.180 And the reason, Ben, is the same people writing checks and funding these protests are the same people writing checks and funding Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and the Democrats.
00:22:25.040 And they're not going to go after their donors because their donors are paying the bills.
00:22:29.460 And by the way, these are also the people that funded Mondani's campaign in New York, who is an open Marxist.
00:22:37.180 He's not a socialist.
00:22:38.260 He's not a leftist.
00:22:39.320 He is a communist.
00:22:40.440 And that is who is funding this, is people who support destroying this country.
00:22:48.020 We need serious, focused law enforcement and all the tools to go after the people who are paying to undermine this country.
00:22:54.560 Yeah, it's a great point.
00:22:55.940 What are the chances you think this is becoming a reality, by the way, for people that are excited?
00:23:00.940 I don't know.
00:23:01.880 Right now, we have no Democrats supporting it.
00:23:04.040 We have a number.
00:23:04.680 We have seven Republicans who are supporting it.
00:23:06.840 We have no Democrats.
00:23:07.280 By the way, I wonder why, right?
00:23:08.440 No Democrats?
00:23:09.160 I wonder why.
00:23:09.880 Because these are their donors.
00:23:11.480 These are the people that fund their campaigns.
00:23:13.980 My hope is I'm going to press for us to have a vote.
00:23:16.680 I want to put the Democrats on record.
00:23:18.180 My guess is most, if not all, the Democrats will vote.
00:23:21.880 No, I don't want to go after the funders of these riots because they won't say this, but because we, the Democrats, support the riots.
00:23:28.940 But let's put them on record.
00:23:30.160 Let's have them take a position because this ought to be a simple, common-sense position.
00:23:35.120 And my suspicion is every Democrat will vote no, but if they do, that will be highly, highly revealing.
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00:24:13.780 I want to move to something else, and this is about securing our skies.
00:24:18.320 Law enforcement and drones and public safety are something I think a lot of people are paying attention to,
00:24:23.860 especially since we really exposed this on Verdict where we were talking about how the cartels have got an amazing ability to use drones now.
00:24:34.960 They are heavily advanced and invested in this technology for drones to be able to see what we're doing on our side of the border,
00:24:43.460 see when Border Patrol agents are going one direction or the other so they can get people across, drugs across.
00:24:49.420 It's incredible.
00:24:50.380 There's also another national security standpoint on drones as well.
00:24:54.300 We've witnessed what drones have become in this war with Russia and Ukraine.
00:24:57.600 And it terrifies me what we're seeing now with drone technology and how drones are changing warfare.
00:25:06.380 And unfortunately, you're seeing it have a massive impact on the number of casualties between Russia and Ukraine.
00:25:12.960 You combine those two things, the cartels, the drugs, the human trafficking, sex trafficking, child trafficking, the fentanyl,
00:25:20.780 and the war aspect of this, and there's nefarious individuals, ISIS, al-Qaeda, the list goes on and on.
00:25:27.860 You guys are looking at this from an issue of we've got to secure our skies with this new legislation that you're advocating for.
00:25:35.060 Talk about that.
00:25:36.000 Well, war often foreshadows the next threats we will face, the next threats we will face from terrorism,
00:25:42.780 the next threats we will face from criminal attacks.
00:25:45.700 And you're right.
00:25:46.780 The war in Ukraine right now, if you look at how drones are being used, it illustrates the profound threat.
00:25:53.060 We had a hearing this week in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
00:25:56.140 I raised some questions on this.
00:25:58.460 I laid this out.
00:25:59.640 Give a listen to what I had to say in the Judiciary Committee hearing this week.
00:26:02.520 In 2024, Thomas Crooks flew a drone over a Trump rally site for 11 minutes,
00:26:09.800 scouting the grounds before his attempted assassination of President Trump.
00:26:15.560 That same year, drones hovered over Naval Air Station Fort Worth for more than two hours, unintercepted.
00:26:25.240 At our southern border, cartels now operate drone fleets, smuggling fentanyl, coordinating illegal crossings, and jamming U.S. surveillance.
00:26:37.660 They've formed specialized drone units.
00:26:41.780 They've dropped bombs.
00:26:44.360 They've deployed jammers.
00:26:48.440 Drones right now are outpacing our law enforcement at every turn.
00:26:53.640 In our prisons, drones drop weapons, phones, and fentanyl, arming inmates and fueling the deadliest drug epidemic in American history.
00:27:09.080 And here's the most damning part.
00:27:12.040 Cartels right now have more drone capability than American law enforcement.
00:27:19.200 Let me repeat that.
00:27:20.400 Cartels today have more drone capability than American law enforcement.
00:27:29.180 Mr. Hardy, you work at the intersection of law and policy regarding drones at the DOJ.
00:27:34.480 Is it true that only a handful of federal agents under narrow legal authority can intercept or disable a drone?
00:27:44.160 Thank you, Senator.
00:27:46.000 That is generally true under the 2018 Act that gives DHS and DOJ authority to conduct detection and mitigation operations.
00:27:57.440 That's shocking, Senator.
00:27:59.200 That's it.
00:28:00.540 Like, that's weird.
00:28:01.540 You want to talk about being behind the eight ball.
00:28:03.720 Like, good grief.
00:28:04.940 Yes, and it's not just at the hearing.
00:28:06.980 We also got into the fact that federal law enforcement is highly limited and actually state and local law enforcement is even more limited.
00:28:14.580 So understand the threat we're going to face.
00:28:16.500 We are going to see a major terrorist attack carried out by drones.
00:28:22.740 We are going to see people killed via drones.
00:28:27.420 We may see a drone flown into a commercial airline.
00:28:32.060 We are going to see, I believe, political leaders assassinated using drones.
00:28:37.120 The threats are massive, and right now the authority of law enforcement to take out a drone, if there's a drone that is over a sports stadium for a football game, a baseball game, a World Cup game, right now there is extremely limited, almost no authority to take out that drone.
00:28:57.080 Even moments before it detonates a bomb or distributes a bioweapon or engages in some other act of terrorism.
00:29:09.320 This is the most scary, I think, part about red tape with government.
00:29:12.940 If you see a threat and it's there, it's almost like you have to hope that law enforcement will just say, I'll deal with one of the consequences later because I know I'm doing the right thing.
00:29:23.420 And you worry that people are like, well, hold on a second.
00:29:25.760 You can't do that.
00:29:26.560 You don't have the authority.
00:29:27.600 And then the worst case scenario happens.
00:29:30.120 Yeah, look, and this hearing is driving we need legislation that gives law enforcement the authority to protect us, to take out drones, take out drones that are a threat to airplanes.
00:29:41.140 I am very concerned about an aviation accident of a drone getting in the way of a commercial aircraft.
00:29:47.300 We need authority to take out drones that pose a threat to civilians, pose a threat to sports gatherings, pose a threat.
00:29:56.560 As I laid out the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, the assassin who shot President Trump used a drone initially to scout it out.
00:30:08.340 This is coming, and it is dangerous, and I think we have a responsibility to act and to act.
00:30:14.640 You know, there's a long phenomenon that when it comes to warfare, generals far too often fight the last war rather than the next war.
00:30:23.720 If you look at the war in Ukraine, it gives us a window into the future because drones allow for asymmetric attacks for those who lack power to use a $400 drone to take out a multimillion-dollar tank or a multimillion-dollar fighter jet.
00:30:43.060 That asymmetry is dangerous, and I think we need real leadership, real leadership on the part of the Trump administration, real leadership on the part of Congress to enhance our ability to stop dangerous drones and to recognize this is the next frontier for warfare, for terrorism, and for threats of violence against civilians across this country.
00:31:08.940 Final question on this. Do you believe this is at least one of those issues where you can get bipartisan support, that this won't be Republican v. Democrat and make this so hard to do?
00:31:20.140 Are Democrats on board with this because it's a national security issue?
00:31:24.440 So I hope so. I don't know yet if Democrats will be willing to work together. It should be.
00:31:29.700 I mean, this ought to be a level of common sense that people would recognize.
00:31:33.780 This threat is not a partisan threat. It's not a right-wing threat or a left-wing threat.
00:31:37.940 It's a vulnerability we have as a society, and so I'm certainly going to try to get Democrats and Republicans to come together, but I will say it is early, so we don't know for sure, but this ought to be an issue that brings us all together.
00:31:49.740 Yeah, it's a great point. Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
00:31:53.340 Hit that subscribe or auto-download button wherever you get your podcasts so that you don't miss a single episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz.
00:32:02.000 And the Senator and I will see you back here on Friday morning.
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