00:04:52.080And they just stood back and abstained.
00:04:54.780And I will tell you this week, I had a classified briefing with Tony Blinken, the secretary of state.
00:04:59.900And I asked him very directly in that briefing.
00:05:02.240Is the Biden administration going to do the same thing?
00:05:07.900Because last time y'all did that, it profoundly hurt Israel.
00:05:13.500It was used by the enemies of Israel to justify all sorts of targeting against the people of Israel.
00:05:20.480And I'm very concerned the Biden administration is going to try to orchestrate something similar at the United Nations.
00:05:27.200We had a vote this week that actually the Biden administration blocked, to their credit, where the UN was trying to call for an immediate ceasefire of the war against Hamas.
00:05:37.960But they did not include within it a demand that the hostages be released.
00:05:42.440And the Biden administration vetoed it without the hostages being released as part of the language.
00:05:48.460But I'm worried in the next two months that they will try to do something very similar to what happened in December of 2016 with 2334.
00:05:59.860And I think that this ICC arrest warrant is shameful.
00:06:04.560I also think the incoming Trump administration is going to stand very strongly against this absolutely disgraceful decision.
00:06:12.420Thune came out and threatened the International Criminal Court with sanctions if it doesn't drop the Netanyahu warrant for arrest.
00:06:17.920But he also called on Schumer to not wait for the Republicans to get in charge to do the right thing and to do something now on this.
00:06:27.500He said if Majority Leader Schumer does not act, the Senate Republicans' majority will stand with our key ally Israel and make this and other supportive legislation a top priority in the next Congress.
00:06:40.180Is there a chance that Schumer could actually lead on this as Thune called on him to do and said, don't make us wait till January, do the right thing now for Israel?
00:06:50.020I think the chances are virtually zero.
00:06:53.380So the House has passed legislation to do exactly that.
00:06:57.620And Schumer has refused to take it up.
00:06:59.720The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, we have had legislation before us from Jim Risch, who's getting ready to be the Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, to do exactly that, to sanction the ICC for doing this.
00:07:11.520And the Democrats have refused to take it up.
00:07:14.140It's basically shut down the Foreign Relations Committee for the last six months because the Democrats have blocked legislation standing up to the ICC.
00:07:23.100And look, this is the unfortunate reality that in today's Democrat Party, there is a pro-Hamas faction of the Democrat Party.
00:07:40.300We just had votes this week that Bernie Sanders pushed on the floor to cut off weapons to Israel, to cut off 32,000 tank rounds to Israel, to cut off over 50,000 mortar cartridges to Israel, to cut off the kits that are used to make precision bombs.
00:07:59.360Now, understand, the argument of the leftists is that when Israel is bombing Hamas or Hezbollah, they accidentally have incidental civilian casualties.
00:08:12.560Take away the ability to have targeted smart bombs so they can only drop dumb bombs that they can't steer.
00:08:17.820The difference, a precision bomb, you can direct it so you hit your target, and it's much less likely to have collateral damage.
00:08:24.300These leftists hate Israel so much they want to say, no, let's take away your ability to target your weapons so we increase the number of civilians killed.
00:08:33.580And 19 Senate Democrats voted to cut off Israel's funds.
00:08:38.260That pro-Hamas faction of the Democrat Party, not every Democrat in the House and Senate is a member of it, but just about every single Democrat is terrified of that faction.
00:08:49.300And it's why Schumer, look, the internal notes from Columbia University, when Columbia was having the anti-Semitic protest and the leaders of Columbia were talking to Schumer, Schumer told them, don't worry about it.
00:09:05.120It's only the Republicans who care about this.
00:09:07.300Understand what that admission was, and that was out of Schumer's own mouth, that we, the Democrats, don't care about violent anti-Semites terrorizing students in Columbia University and other universities, threatening Jewish students.
00:09:25.620Because they're terrified by the pro-Hamas faction of the party who supports the radicals and the anti-Semites.
00:09:32.520That is tragically where we are, and so I'm going to predict we will take up the legislation to sanction the ICC, and we will do it early next year when we have a Republican Congress and a Republican president.
00:09:45.980I don't even know that we'll need that legislation, though, because I expect the Trump administration to act unilaterally.
00:09:52.100I think there's ample authority under the law for them to act, even if the Democrats filibuster legislation to sanction the ICC.
00:09:59.480I think the president will have ample authority to act come January 20.
00:10:03.640Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week.
00:10:10.780Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.
00:10:17.020And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.
00:10:23.260And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.
00:10:32.680So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:10:35.920Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:10:44.400As we were watching, or I was watching on TV and many others were, I do have to say one of the most fun parts for me of watching, you know, Trump and you and everybody there is just the boyhood excitement.
00:10:57.420And I say that in the most sincere and authentic way ever, on the faces of everyone that was able to watch this.
00:11:06.400I don't care who you are, just getting to watch it and to see Elon's face and your face and President Trump's face and others that were around you guys.
00:11:16.800It was just the moment of like, this is unbelievable.
00:11:19.860Well, and it was traveling, so the Starship itself traveled halfway around the world.
00:11:27.640The booster separated, we saw the booster separate, and initially the plan was that it was going to go down and be caught by the robot arms where it had been launched.
00:11:38.260And in fact, it separates, so the booster was attached to the Starship for a minute and a half, and then it separated.
00:11:44.260And we initially got the call, catch as a go, which we were excited about, because they only try to catch it if all the conditions are right.
00:11:52.300And so they were going to catch the booster.
00:11:54.660And then they ended up altering the plan and not doing the catch, but having it instead land in the Gulf of Mexico.
00:12:01.360And so the conditions were slightly off, and so they had it land in the Gulf.
00:12:04.840But Elon was really happy because it landed in the Gulf, but it did not explode.
00:12:10.080And last time when it landed in the Gulf, it did explode.
00:12:12.400And so, look, they're testing different things to see what happens.
00:12:57.940We arrived probably an hour before the launch.
00:13:00.220And so we were talking with Elon, and we were in the control room and just having conversations.
00:13:05.500And we watched the launch, and we watched the booster separate, and then we watched the booster come down, although we couldn't see.
00:13:13.160The booster landed far enough out in the Gulf that we couldn't see with our naked eye the booster landing in the water.
00:13:18.640But we had the video on a big screen, so we were watching it there.
00:13:21.820And then what we did, because you had about an hour while the Starship was traveling in space, and it was going about 26,000 kilometers an hour.
00:13:31.880It was about 160 kilometers above planet Earth.
00:13:34.380One of the things Elon said is that the Starship was traveling about 10 times the speed of a bullet out of an assault rifle, which there's an analogy you can understand, Dan.
00:13:47.140And it's funny, Doug Jr. was laughing, going, all right, that makes sense to me, too.
00:14:18.680And while the Starship was flying halfway around the world, we left the launch observation site.
00:14:24.820We went to the factory, which is right at the launch site.
00:14:29.680Now, the factory, so five years ago, this was essentially an empty beach, like just sand and nothing was on it.
00:14:38.180And in five years, Elon has built this incredible, and I've been to it before, I've toured it before, but it is, it takes your breath away.
00:14:47.780They are manufacturing about one rocket ship a month.
00:15:13.080It's not like, it's not like SpaceX is making just widgets.
00:15:16.780I mean, if a screw is wrong, the damn thing can blow up.
00:15:20.400Like, there's so many ways for something to go wrong.
00:15:26.180And they have a level of precision that is just astonishing.
00:15:31.980And so we went in and saw and toured, and one of the things Elon said is, look, they're doing launch after launch after launch.
00:15:39.100And every one, they're improving the technology, and they're trying different things.
00:15:41.920So one of the things they did on this one is they're testing different angles of reentry to see, okay, if you angle the Starship at a slightly different angle, is there more heat?
00:16:09.580One of the things Elon said that, you know, is a challenge when you're recruiting the best engineers and rocket scientists, and they're literally rocket scientists, is he said, you've got to find a place that their significant others want to live.
00:16:22.180And so they basically built a whole community with, like, houses all around there, and, like, I didn't go this time, but I've been previously.
00:16:29.620They have, like, a little tiki bar that's sort of a club that the employees can go and hang out.
00:16:35.900And, you know, he said, look, you have to create an environment that both your incredibly skilled employees and their significant others want to be in.
00:16:45.600And one thing you know, but not every verdict listener may know, look, Brownsville has historically been, faced very significant economic challenges.
00:16:57.480And so to have this incredible high-tech billions and billions of dollars invested in Brownsville and in deep south Texas and the Rio Grande Valley was really significant.
00:17:10.300By the way, when we took the motorcade from where Trump Force One landed to the launch site, the entire roadside of driving along, there were thousands of people waving signs, waving American flags, cheering.
00:17:26.060And one of the most significant aspects of this election in Texas is that both Donald Trump and I, both of us, won Hispanics in the state of Texas.
00:17:37.580I won Hispanics by six points statewide.
00:20:15.220And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.
00:20:18.940Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.
00:20:24.420So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:20:27.960Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:20:33.700I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed.
00:20:38.440All right, I want to ask you lastly about big news that happened.
00:20:42.780And this is much more of a serious topic.
00:20:45.520Trump team is declaring victory after the Manhattan prosecutors pushed for a four-year freeze on sentencing Donald Trump in his business records case.
00:20:57.980I've never heard of this before in my life.
00:21:00.460Maybe this is something that's normal.
00:21:38.180And look, you've got to understand, Alvin Bragg is an elected Democrat in Manhattan.
00:21:44.500In Manhattan, you've still got an overwhelming majority of Democrats, many of whom hate Donald Trump's guts.
00:21:51.480And so for Alvin Bragg, even though politically, nationally, the persecution and lawfare of Donald Trump, I think, actually played a significant factor in his winning.
00:22:02.500And that was a point I made to him on the flight is that I said, we talked quite a bit about all the cases and everything he's endured.
00:22:09.220And I said, look, ironically, the more they went after you, the more I think it helped you.
00:22:14.060And if it had been just one indictment, it might have been more harmful.
00:22:17.420But there were so many that it became obvious to anyone that this was just a persecution.
00:22:25.760This was a partisan effort to go after someone because they were terrified that what would happen is what in fact did happen, that the American people would vote to reelect him.
00:22:36.420And I think, as I said, it ended up boosting him significantly in the polls.
00:22:42.360Well, even though it, I think, was harmful to Democrats nationally, in Manhattan, I suspect it's quite helpful to Alvin Bragg because there are a lot of partisans who hate Trump.
00:22:54.300And I've got to say, I am very hopeful, you know, that this will be thrown out.
00:23:02.560The judge, Juan Merchan, has demonstrated, I think, a lot of bias.
00:23:10.780It will be interesting to see what he does because I think if he agrees with the prosecutor, if he says, OK, we're going to just put this on ice for four years, I think that will prompt an appeal.
00:23:27.420It will probably prompt what's called a writ of mandamus to an appellate court to order either the case dismissed or to order him to rule, because what Alvin Bragg wants to do is he wants to run for reelection, saying, I prosecuted Donald Trump.
00:23:45.260And to use it, number one, for his political advantage.
00:23:48.920Number two, he wants to avoid an appellate reversal.
00:23:51.160So he wants four years of the appellate courts not examining the many and the rampant legal errors in his rulings.
00:23:59.820But number three, he wants to use this to threaten the president, to have it hang over.
00:24:05.360And this guy's enough of a zealot that, I mean, he's literally talking about, OK, four plus years from now when he's done with being president, he's 82 years old.
00:24:14.240Alvin Bragg wants to put him in jail, like it just to be there to threaten the president every day.
00:24:19.980And by the way, number four, he wants CNN and MSNBC and all of the corporate media to refer to him as a convicted felon over and over and over again.
00:24:28.320And if the case is thrown out, that becomes a lot more problematic.
00:24:33.600I do not believe Alvin Bragg will succeed in this.
00:24:36.860Either the trial judge will say, look, this is not tenable.
00:24:40.720You can't you can't have a jury verdict and then just free sentencing for four years.
00:24:45.980Or if not, I think we will see an appellate court step in and say that this is inconsistent with New York law and is inconsistent with the Constitution.
00:24:55.780I'm very hopeful that's what will happen.
00:24:58.180Senator, finally, I want to hit something else that is I have to admit, I am enjoying this watching the liberal media meltdown.
00:25:05.740The View had an all time meltdown about Donald Trump's win.
00:25:10.660Joy Behar on The View said this to the audience.
00:25:29.360I mean, I know we're all like Nazis and I know that we're all deplorables and I know that we're all floating garbage, but you would think they would have learned from losing an election and clearly they're not.
00:25:45.220Look, I got to say, if Joy Behar is crying on TV and is miserable and is unhappy, that's a good day for America because her radical and extreme ideas, they're hurting the country.
00:26:01.220And, you know, that may be the most honest thing she's ever said on The View because she is a hard leftist.
00:26:12.700There's no part – nobody on that show has stopped to say, wait, why did the American people overwhelmingly reject our disastrous policy agenda?
00:26:23.860They're just mad at what they view as the idiot voters.
00:26:29.560And listen, that's an arrogance that we see in elected Democrats.
00:26:33.100It's an arrogance we see throughout the corporate media.
00:26:35.360And I think it's going to fuel their doubling down and getting, if anything, even more extreme.
00:26:44.640As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:26:49.780Don't forget to download my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day you're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards.
00:26:56.400I'd love to have you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson podcast.
00:27:00.560And we will see you back here on Monday morning.