Verdict with Ted Cruz - Inside El Salvador's CECOT Prison for MS-13 Gang Members, plus Stopping China from Having Control of the Panama Canal

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.580 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.520 Welcome.

00:00:06.240 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:09.260 And it's really nice to have you with us wherever you are around the country.

00:00:12.680 We have got a lot to chat about on today's show as you, Senator, have been on a Codell

00:00:19.440 in Latin America.

00:00:21.440 Well, that's exactly right.

00:00:22.640 I left several days ago, spent two days in El Salvador, and then went to Panama and went

00:00:28.860 and toured the Panama Canal in El Salvador.

00:00:31.720 I sat down with the president of El Salvador, President Bukele, had a one-on-one meeting

00:00:37.540 with him.

00:00:38.680 The results he has produced are extraordinary, and we talked about that on Wednesday's podcast,

00:00:44.380 how El Salvador went from having the highest murder rate on planet Earth of 100 murders

00:00:53.760 per 100,000 people, to the murder rate plummeting 98%.

00:01:00.600 Last year, the murder rate was 1.9 murders per 100,000 people, making it one of the safest

00:01:08.960 countries on Earth and, indeed, significantly safer than the United States.

00:01:12.920 That result is extraordinary.

00:01:15.780 And what I did this week is I actually toured the Seacott Prison, the prison where El Salvador

00:01:23.540 is putting MS-13 and Barrio 18 gang members.

00:01:27.520 It was astonishing.

00:01:28.800 I'm going to bring you inside that prison. 0.80

00:01:30.140 I'm going to tell you exactly what I saw.

00:01:31.780 I also spent a day and a half in Panama meeting with senior government officials in Panama and

00:01:39.360 went and toured the Panama Canal, saw firsthand how the Panama Canal operates, and saw one of

00:01:45.340 the two Chinese ports that is right at the Pacific mouth of the Panama Canal.

00:01:50.740 I'm going to tell you what I saw on the ground and what the real threat is to American national

00:01:56.900 security and American commerce from China having a decisive position on the Panama Canal.

00:02:04.180 All of that we're going to bring you inside.

00:02:06.560 Yeah, it's really incredible.

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00:04:19.500 So, Senator, let's start with the big part of your trip you mentioned a moment ago.

00:04:22.940 You actually went in and saw the prison that everybody's been talking about.

00:04:27.380 Well, I did.

00:04:27.980 The Seacot Prison, El Salvador built to house the very worst gang members.

00:04:33.760 It's a maximum security prison.

00:04:35.140 It has the capacity of 40,000 prisoners.

00:04:38.960 And they built it with that capacity because that was their estimate of the gang members

00:04:43.220 that they were looking at that they wanted to incapacitate.

00:04:48.360 I drove from the capital city, San Salvador.

00:04:51.360 It is 45 minutes to an hour to get to the prison.

00:04:53.980 I drove to the prison.

00:04:56.260 One of the things that is striking, as you're pulling up to the prison, they instruct you,

00:05:02.060 turn your cell phone on.

00:05:03.360 Put it on airplane mode.

00:05:05.040 And the reason is there are no cell phones.

00:05:07.280 And, in fact, they have jammers in the prison.

00:05:09.100 So, unlike most prisons, if not every prison on the planet, where prisoners frequently smuggle

00:05:17.860 in cell phones, often with the complicity of prison guards, at the Seacot Prison, there

00:05:23.320 are no cell phones.

00:05:24.520 The cell phones are jammed.

00:05:26.480 And, in fact, what the El Salvador government has done is imposed massive fines on the cell

00:05:35.600 phone companies.

00:05:36.280 Even a single call goes through from the prison.

00:05:41.020 And so the cell phone companies, to avoid, and the fines, if I remember correctly, what

00:05:47.040 the justice minister said to me, it is $100,000 per violation.

00:05:52.500 So, it can rack up very, very quickly.

00:05:55.700 Ten calls is a million bucks.

00:05:57.580 Which means the cell phone companies don't want a single call coming out of that prison.

00:06:02.840 And, as a result, the prison is totally locked down.

00:06:06.280 So, we drove to the prison.

00:06:07.140 You hear something like that, by the way, and you sit there and you're like, wait, why

00:06:09.800 aren't we doing that here, right?

00:06:11.200 Like, why aren't we doing things like this to make prison not like an easy place?

00:06:15.360 And to make sure that, exactly as you just mentioned, this stuff doesn't happen in America.

00:06:19.160 That's, I love when you hear other ideas from other countries like this.

00:06:22.200 Yeah, I have to admit, I thought about the cell phone blockers, and I've been supportive

00:06:26.840 of legislation to increase the punishment for having a cell phone in U.S. prisons, because

00:06:32.040 you end up having gangs and drugs.

00:06:36.920 And many of the worst criminals in America are operating out of prisons and are inflicting

00:06:44.760 enormous violence on civilian populations outside of prison.

00:06:48.680 And so, that's certainly a lesson I think we can learn in terms of how to be more effective

00:06:54.440 shutting off the means of communication.

00:06:56.920 So, you go from there, you see this, and then what happens next?

00:07:01.340 All right, so you drive up to, first of all, a massive steel gate, and concrete walls, concrete

00:07:10.200 walls that go up, I'd say about 30 feet, and then on top of the concrete walls is barbed

00:07:17.900 wire, and then on top of the barbed wire is electrified wire.

00:07:22.560 So, it's an imposing front entrance that you come to it.

00:07:26.680 You then go through these giant steel doors, you go through a second set of giant steel

00:07:33.800 doors, you go in, it's very much at this prison like an airlock, where you go in, we were in

00:07:39.320 a bus, and we got out of the bus, and we went in where they require every prison guard every

00:07:45.900 day to go through, and they go through a metal detector, it's very much like going into an

00:07:51.660 airport, where you go through a metal detector, you scan any bag you have with you, and then

00:07:55.800 they have a scanner, an x-ray machine designed to find things that are even within body cavities

00:08:03.820 if you've ingested anything.

00:08:05.720 I mean, it was impressive technology that every guard is required to go through every day when

00:08:11.260 they walk in.

00:08:12.140 I will say, they didn't make me go through those scans, so I guess that there are some

00:08:16.640 benefits to being part of the United States government.

00:08:19.860 I was there with the justice minister who was giving me the tour himself, so I guess they were

00:08:24.560 not terribly worried about my having swallowed balloons with heroin in them, or having a

00:08:29.420 shank concealed somewhere.

00:08:31.840 I had neither, but I was glad that they did not check.

00:08:36.640 So I went into the main prison, and you drive, and you have a whole series, there's a gate,

00:08:41.340 there's another gate, there's another gate, and there are walls.

00:08:44.420 It's a little bit like the opening of Get Smart, where you go through gate after gate after

00:08:47.580 gate, I mean, it's a whole series of walls and barbed wire, and I mean, it's imposing.

00:08:55.540 I mean, it is not, it is designed so there ain't nobody getting out.

00:09:00.800 I asked them if they had anyone escape, if they've never had anyone escape, I believe

00:09:04.460 them, and I believe them because what I saw, Ben, I've never seen anything like this.

00:09:09.240 So, they have eight units that are built.

00:09:13.860 Each of the units is designed to house 5,000 prisoners.

00:09:17.360 That's why the capacity is 40,000 prisoners.

00:09:19.940 They're at about 50% capacity right now.

00:09:22.460 They're just under 20,000 prisoners that are there right now.

00:09:25.480 So I went into one of the eight units.

00:09:29.060 In that unit, they have a series of massive cells.

00:09:33.700 Each of the cells holds 100 prisoners.

00:09:38.860 Now, the cells that hold 100 prisoners, they have four sets of long bunk beds that go up

00:09:47.800 four levels high.

00:09:50.040 So these cells are, I don't know, probably 30 feet up in the air.

00:09:54.600 I mean, they're, in terms of height, they're high cells, and they have these bunk beds.

00:09:59.980 The bunk beds are made out of stainless steel.

00:10:01.780 So the prisoners, you walk in, and you see 100 prisoners sitting on these bunk beds.

00:10:08.120 And these bunk beds are stainless steel.

00:10:10.660 There are no sheets.

00:10:12.120 There are no blankets.

00:10:13.760 There are no pillows.

00:10:15.880 It is 100 prisoners.

00:10:17.900 They're dressed in white.

00:10:18.880 They're dressed in white, kind of loose-fitting shorts and T-shirts.

00:10:24.420 And they are sitting there on these bunk beds, four levels up.

00:10:30.180 So the fourth level up is, I don't know, it's north of 20 feet up.

00:10:34.680 I mean, you have to climb up a ladder to get on it.

00:10:36.940 And so you just see 100 prisoners.

00:10:40.140 And you have to envision almost all of these.

00:10:43.100 So they're all adults.

00:10:44.180 This prison does not have any juveniles.

00:10:45.980 No one under 18 is there. 0.75

00:10:47.640 And there are no women there. 1.00

00:10:48.720 So these are all men, and they're overwhelmingly young men.

00:10:52.720 I would say they're overwhelmingly 18 to 35.

00:10:57.920 And they're all gang members.

00:11:01.620 And there's no subtlety about this.

00:11:03.700 In fact, at one point in one of the cells, they had the prisoners come forward.

00:11:08.940 They instructed them, remove their T-shirts.

00:11:11.360 And you could see them remove their T-shirts.

00:11:13.880 And all of them had gang tattoos on them.

00:11:17.720 And it wasn't subtle.

00:11:19.060 It was a giant MS-13, like, across their chest.

00:11:22.020 I mean, it's not.

00:11:22.860 They're proud of it.

00:11:23.780 It's a right of process.

00:11:25.060 They're not trying to hide it.

00:11:26.960 It was.

00:11:28.580 There was no ambiguity.

00:11:31.140 And the prisoners, 23 hours a day, they're in those cells.

00:11:37.540 And in front of the cells are prison guards.

00:11:42.940 And the prison guards are standing there holding machine guns, watching them through the front of the bars.

00:11:50.260 Above the prison cell, there's a whole level above the prison cell.

00:11:57.440 And it's basically bars on top as well.

00:12:00.760 And so there are prison guards on top of the prison cell looking down on them.

00:12:05.560 So, unlike, you know, you and I have both seen a lot of prison movies where people are off in dark corners and doing things in their cells where they can't be seen.

00:12:16.660 Sure.

00:12:17.260 These prisoners are being monitored constantly.

00:12:20.500 The lights are on 24 hours a day.

00:12:22.880 They do not turn the lights off.

00:12:24.920 And they have prison guards with machine guns watching them 24 hours a day.

00:12:31.200 They allow the prisoners out of their cells for an hour a day.

00:12:37.400 And they allow them in small groups of about 20.

00:12:40.080 So it's not very many.

00:12:41.740 And the small groups come out and they do 30 minutes of calisthenics.

00:12:45.520 So the calisthenics are led by a prison employee.

00:12:49.600 And it's so they don't have weight equipment or anything else.

00:12:52.620 But they're doing kind of stretches and jumping jacks and various calisthenics.

00:12:57.580 And then they have 30 minutes of religious instruction.

00:13:00.940 And I asked, I said, OK, are those optional or mandatory?

00:13:05.040 They said, no, they're mandatory.

00:13:05.960 And so other than that one hour, the remaining 23 hours a day, they're in that cell.

00:13:15.140 And I will tell you, I asked the justice minister, I asked the head of the prison, who was also with me in giving me the tour.

00:13:22.460 I said, you know, I asked, how much violence do you have?

00:13:26.800 The answer was essentially none.

00:13:28.540 And you could see it.

00:13:31.420 I mean, given that the prison guards are watching the truth.

00:13:33.240 And by the way, why is that?

00:13:33.880 Is there afraid of the consequences?

00:13:35.720 Like, explain the logic behind the reason why there's virtually none.

00:13:39.620 Look, I don't know.

00:13:40.680 I'm just telling you what they told me.

00:13:42.420 Yeah.

00:13:42.760 I asked about prison rape.

00:13:45.540 Look, tragically, in virtually every prison on Earth, rape is a significant risk.

00:13:53.000 It happens with far too common frequency.

00:13:56.380 They said it didn't happen there, that they did not deal with prison rape.

00:14:03.500 And I don't know that I entirely believe that, but I got to say I mostly believe that because prison rape normally occurs where you have prisoners that are out of view of anyone and able to be somewhere where someone can be the victim of sexual assault.

00:14:20.240 In this instance, when you have prison guards with machine guns watching you at every moment, there's not a lot of capacity to engage in an act of violence.

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00:15:02.380 I want to go back to what you were talking about, the conditions there, and also the rules, and how they're running their prisons down there in a way that I'm kind of jealous that we're not doing it here.

00:15:12.520 Well, you mentioned that it is designed to make life unpleasant.

00:15:18.680 And I will say, look, it's clearly designed to incapacitate, and it's doing that incredibly effectively.

00:15:25.880 They've taken the murderers off the streets.

00:15:29.020 But it is also designed – listen, I've been to prisons before in Texas.

00:15:33.820 I've been to the prison in Huntsville.

00:15:36.260 I've been to death row in Huntsville.

00:15:37.780 When I was the Solicitor General of Texas, there were multiple legal challenges to the method of capital punishment in Texas.

00:15:46.600 And I was defending that.

00:15:47.960 I was defending that in federal court.

00:15:49.440 So I felt an obligation that I needed to go and personally observe an execution, that I couldn't do my job effectively and litigate defending the method that Texas used for capital punishment unless I observed it myself.

00:16:03.860 So I went there.

00:16:04.700 I was behind the scenes and saw how capital punishment was executed.

00:16:09.320 And I will tell you, look, being in a Texas prison is no walk in a park, to put it mildly.

00:16:16.960 But it pales in comparison to what I observed there.

00:16:21.560 I have to say, I cannot imagine life – it is hell on earth.

00:16:28.680 It is – you are locked up every minute of the day.

00:16:34.300 Now, you're not subjected – assuming the reports from the head of the prison is accurate, you're not subjected to violence and threats.

00:16:41.480 And by the way, one of the things they do – so previously prisons had separated each gang, so they'd send MS-13 to one and 18th Street Barrio to another.

00:16:52.580 In this instance, they don't do that.

00:16:54.320 In fact, they mix gang members, multiple gang members, in the same cell.

00:16:59.560 Wow.

00:16:59.700 And part of the reason for that is they said, look, if you put all the MS-13 gang members in one prison, they end up operating the gang out of there, and it becomes a safe haven.

00:17:09.900 And in this case – and by the way, these gangs, they're not just sort of rivals.

00:17:14.800 It's not like, you know, the Yankees and the Mets.

00:17:17.260 I mean, they are actively murdering each other.

00:17:20.700 Yeah.

00:17:20.840 Yeah, like if they see each other in the street, they open fire, and they're suddenly locked together in a cell.

00:17:26.580 So of the hundred prisoners in a cell – and I saw them, like, lined up, you would see them.

00:17:31.580 The main ones were MS-13 and 18th Street Barrio, and you would see the tats, and they're all together, and they had to learn to, like, they're going to be locked up in the same cage together for a long time.

00:17:43.280 And I saw several prisoners – and I'm going to tell you in a minute about an extended conversation I had with an MS-13 gang member, which was chilling.

00:17:52.540 But I will say I saw several prisoners – there was one they showed me that had a prison sentence of over 1,000 years.

00:18:00.920 Wow.

00:18:01.400 So he had been convicted of over six homicides, at least six.

00:18:06.980 And one of the things the justice minister said to me about MS-13, he said, in the United States, to become an MS-13 member, you have to murder someone.

00:18:16.740 That is the process of admission.

00:18:20.000 You cannot be admitted to the gang if you don't kill somebody.

00:18:24.580 What the justice minister told me is in El Salvador, to be a member of the gang, you had to commit 10 murders.

00:18:33.040 So one of the things he described to me, he said, listen, these people are serial killers.

00:18:38.820 They are mass murderers.

00:18:41.660 And the reason the crime rate plummeted is because they took all the mass murderers off the street.

00:18:48.840 They took the gang members.

00:18:50.460 And gang activity is essentially nonexistent.

00:18:53.440 And so, like, I had dinner in downtown San Salvador in a very nice restaurant, a steak restaurant there.

00:19:00.580 And the folks I was having dinner with, it was a cabinet member I was having dinner with, and she said, look, it used to be a few years ago nobody would come here at night because you would be robbed, you would be kidnapped, you'd be murdered.

00:19:15.960 And I'll tell you, when I came to downtown, downtown was beautiful.

00:19:19.880 There were families.

00:19:21.780 There were kids playing.

00:19:23.320 Like, it was transformation.

00:19:25.340 And this prison and this zero tolerance they went after, and they arrested, they put in jail all the gang members.

00:19:32.720 They said, if you join the gang, it is a terrorist organization.

00:19:36.720 To join the gang, you are a murderer, and we are taking you off the street.

00:19:40.900 And the success of it is incredible.

00:19:43.320 But they gave me an opportunity to visit with an MS-13 gang member who was from Texas.

00:19:49.920 And so they pulled him aside because he was from Texas.

00:19:53.760 Interesting.

00:19:54.080 And they said, you may want to talk with him.

00:19:57.280 And so I did.

00:19:58.880 I talked with him for quite a bit of time.

00:20:02.200 He was in his early 40s.

00:20:04.820 He had lived much of his life in the United States.

00:20:07.360 So he had perfect English.

00:20:09.660 And he had lived in Dallas for many years as an MS-13 gang member.

00:20:13.900 And he described how he had grown up in Virginia.

00:20:20.780 And he had lived in Virginia and Maryland and D.C.

00:20:24.580 And he said that he became an MS-13 gang member when he was 13 years old in Falls Church, Virginia.

00:20:33.080 And he described it.

00:20:34.600 I said, well, how did you come to be at this prison?

00:20:36.320 And he said, well, I was deported.

00:20:38.520 So he was illegally in the United States.

00:20:40.340 He said, I was deported.

00:20:41.220 I was sent back to El Salvador.

00:20:42.320 And he said, I committed a homicide here and was convicted of homicide.

00:20:46.660 So he murdered someone in El Salvador, at least one person.

00:20:50.380 And he admitted to it.

00:20:51.460 He was not hiding it.

00:20:52.320 He's like, yeah, I committed a homicide.

00:20:53.920 And that's why I'm here.

00:20:56.020 And I said, well, did you commit crimes in the United States?

00:20:59.520 He said, yes, yes, I did.

00:21:01.320 And I said, well, what crimes did you commit?

00:21:04.860 Did you commit murder in the United States?

00:21:07.180 And he wouldn't answer.

00:21:08.760 And it was clear.

00:21:09.540 Look, he hadn't been convicted of murder in the United States.

00:21:11.640 But he said, well, I committed crimes.

00:21:14.920 But he didn't want to answer the specific question.

00:21:17.640 And it was interesting.

00:21:18.480 The justice minister was standing there with me.

00:21:21.120 And he chimed in.

00:21:22.360 He pressed again.

00:21:23.140 He said, look, did you commit homicide in the United States?

00:21:25.860 Tell us.

00:21:27.300 And his response, he said, well, you know how you become a member of MS-13.

00:21:33.540 So he didn't say yes.

00:21:35.740 I mean, yeah, that's about as honest as an answer you're going to get, right?

00:21:38.540 Yeah.

00:21:39.080 Yeah.

00:21:39.400 He said he became a member when he was 13.

00:21:42.580 And the way you become a member is you murder some.

00:21:45.580 And he'd been in Virginia at extended times.

00:21:48.780 He'd been in Dallas as a gang member.

00:21:51.840 So I don't know.

00:21:52.460 He may have murdered Texans. 0.89

00:21:53.860 He did not detail.

00:21:56.760 And he was covered in tats.

00:21:58.000 And I talked to him.

00:22:00.800 And he had a 40-year sentence.

00:22:04.740 So he will get out in his 80s.

00:22:07.100 Wow.

00:22:07.340 And I was asking about that.

00:22:11.560 And he has a family.

00:22:12.860 He has a wife.

00:22:14.340 And he has two kids.

00:22:16.120 He has a daughter.

00:22:17.300 And he has a 13-year-old son.

00:22:20.140 They're all in El Salvador. 0.99

00:22:22.440 And I asked him.

00:22:23.540 I said, okay, your son is 13.

00:22:25.180 He's the same age you were when you joined MS-13.

00:22:29.840 I asked him, do you want him to join the gang?

00:22:32.760 And he looked at me horrified.

00:22:34.400 He said, no, God, no.

00:22:36.520 And he had a comment.

00:22:38.340 It was a weird comment where he said, look, my son is living here now.

00:22:42.900 And it's safe.

00:22:43.640 And he doesn't have to join a gang.

00:22:45.500 And it was, this is someone whose entire life is going to be in a cage, in a hole.

00:22:51.960 And by the way, he said, I'll never see my wife again.

00:22:54.420 I will never see my children again.

00:22:56.200 But, like, there's no visitation.

00:22:58.620 There's no, he is locked in a cage with 99 other gang members for the rest of his life.

00:23:04.460 Wow.

00:23:04.900 And there, look, there was a despair.

00:23:09.720 And I asked him, I said, look, you became, you joined the gang at 13.

00:23:13.640 Why did you join the gang?

00:23:15.160 He said, look, all my friends were, everyone I knew was.

00:23:18.200 That was the world I was in, that you joined the gang.

00:23:20.700 You joined the gang to survive.

00:23:21.760 And I asked him, I said, well, if you wanted to, could you quit?

00:23:26.720 Let's say you were 15 or 16 or 17.

00:23:28.780 You said, all right, I'm done.

00:23:30.480 He said, no, there's no way to quit. 1.00

00:23:32.500 He said, you had two options, kill or die. 0.59

00:23:36.260 That's what life was as a gang member.

00:23:38.760 And I have to say, listen, this is someone who I assume has committed multiple murders.

00:23:43.260 He admitted to at least two, one in El Salvador and at least one in the United States.

00:23:47.780 And it may have been many more.

00:23:50.200 And so I'm very glad he's incarcerated and not murdering people anymore.

00:23:54.940 But, but I will say, you know, I mean, I felt a sadness that this is a human being whose entire life is just a waste.

00:24:05.340 Yeah.

00:24:06.700 And it was, and the sentiment he expressed, I mean, he really did express joy is the wrong word for it.

00:24:15.140 But, but I'd say gratitude that his 13 year old son does not have to live in a world.

00:24:22.400 And he, he, he basically said, look, El Salvador is much safer than it's ever been.

00:24:27.260 I mean, he was almost saying it's a good thing.

00:24:29.840 He's in prison.

00:24:30.540 He didn't quite say that, but when he was talking about his son, that's basically what he was saying.

00:24:35.680 And, and that I got to say, look in, in U S prisons, they'll, they'll let you read books.

00:24:43.160 They'll let you watch TV.

00:24:45.160 They'll let you lift weights.

00:24:46.480 They'll let you play basketball.

00:24:47.660 They'll let you play sports.

00:24:48.780 You socialize.

00:24:49.800 And, and, and there's, there may be some virtue to that, but I got to say any gang members, gang activity has disappeared in El Salvador.

00:25:02.520 And if you knew what life was like for these guys, there's no way on earth you'd be willing to join a gang because their life is effectively over.

00:25:10.040 One of the other parts of your trip involved going to the Panama Canal, uh, and seeing some different things, including, uh, a lot that deals with China.

00:25:19.860 Now it's been a big concern.

00:25:21.600 Talk about that.

00:25:22.760 So I spent a day and a half in Panama, uh, I flew from El Salvador to Panama and, and met with, with, with multiple cabinet members, uh, the finance minister, the, the, the, the public safety minister, uh, and, and, and the head of the Panama Canal.

00:25:41.360 Now, and, and, and, and, and, and I will say, number one, Panama is a beautiful country.

00:25:46.320 Uh, uh, it, it is, it is a gorgeous place.

00:25:50.540 And, and, and the people of Panama have a deep affinity for America.

00:25:54.540 I was struck by that.

00:25:55.980 I, you know, that they repeatedly, the government officials, the, the Panamanians that I visited with, there's a long history and a close, close affinity for the United States.

00:26:08.560 The Panama Canal is amazing.

00:26:11.000 So, so I went out on a boat and, and, and, and went, went to, to the outer parts of the Panama Canal.

00:26:16.880 And then I went to one of the locks and I saw, I, I saw one of the Panama max, like the, the, the super tankers coming through and, and then also saw a little sailboat coming through.

00:26:28.960 And then a kind of medium sized container ship coming through.

00:26:32.360 It is amazing.

00:26:33.880 It is very, like, it is very cool.

00:26:37.840 Number one, just how the Panama Canal operates.

00:26:40.400 Like you see the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the super tanker, the container ship is the largest size possible to fit through the Panama Canal.

00:26:51.520 It's built for that size.

00:26:53.080 I mean, it is literally this massive ship that is going through these locks and these locks have concrete on the side and it's built.

00:27:01.620 So the sides of the ship are within two feet of the concrete walls on both sides.

00:27:06.740 Like it's that big.

00:27:08.660 And, and what happens, so, so we were on the Pacific end of the canal and, and a ship comes in and each of the locks has to lower the ship 27 feet.

00:27:19.540 So it comes in, into the locks.

00:27:21.280 And it's interesting for the big tanker, they connect steel cables to the tanker and they have locomotives on both sides to help keep, keep the ship right in the center.

00:27:31.140 You've got only two feet of clearance on both sides.

00:27:33.140 So it'd be really easy for it to smack into the side of the canal and, and it is in the lock and then it takes about eight to 10 minutes for the water to drain and for it to lower 27 feet.

00:27:47.560 And it's lowering 27 feet and it goes to the next lock and it lowers another, I believe it's 27 feet.

00:27:53.000 We all told it's about eight, I think it's 81 feet that it has to rise to get to the height of the lake in the interior.

00:28:01.080 And then it has to lower it to get to the Atlantic ocean, the Pacific ocean, and both the Atlantic and Pacific are about the same distance to, to lower the water.

00:28:11.760 27 feet takes eight to 10 minutes.

00:28:14.560 And, and so the water goes down and then the giant gates open.

00:28:18.540 It was amazing to watch the technology.

00:28:21.660 I saw the old control room.

00:28:23.840 I saw the control room where the lock is being operated, the old control room.

00:28:27.740 So, so the Panama Canal was built in 1914, the United States built it.

00:28:31.900 Uh, and, and we, we lost thousands and thousands of lives building it.

00:28:36.240 It's an incredible engineering marvel.

00:28:38.880 So the old control room had these, these brass, uh, GE equipment.

00:28:45.880 You saw the old GE general electric and electric.

00:28:48.940 And it, they, they, they, they built one of the first early computers to help operate the locks.

00:28:55.160 It's amazing.

00:28:56.000 Now, now it's all computerized and high tech.

00:28:57.920 So the, the old brass controls of each lock that gives you the, the water height.

00:29:03.380 And it was literally, it, it, it, it almost looked like something Captain Nemo would have in terms of the 1914, uh, levers and, and switches to operate the canal.

00:29:13.920 That, that's still preserved there.

00:29:16.140 When I went out on the boat, one of the things I saw, Ben, is right at the entrance, the Pacific entrance of the canal, there is a gigantic porch that is owned and controlled by communist China.

00:29:30.400 And it's right there.

00:29:32.600 And, and they have cranes.

00:29:34.220 They're right there in a position.

00:29:35.940 Um, there is also China is building a bridge, a bridge across the canal.

00:29:42.860 It is a bridge for cars.

00:29:44.900 They're in the, they were awarded the contract to build the bridge.

00:29:48.660 China is also, there's a Chinese company that is digging a tunnel under the canal for a metro train.

00:29:56.140 And so I saw, I saw where the metro was going to go.

00:29:59.940 I saw the bridge being built and it's all right there at the mouth of the canal.

00:30:04.480 And, and, and, and I went, the purpose of my visit was, was to meet with the Panamanian government and say, look, China cannot have control of this canal.

00:30:14.980 It is too important to the United States, to our national security, to our economic security.

00:30:21.460 As you know, I'm the chairman of the Senate commerce committee.

00:30:24.100 The commerce committee has jurisdiction over the Panama canal.

00:30:27.920 And so earlier this year, I chaired a hearing on the Panama canal in the commerce committee.

00:30:34.160 And, and we laid out the concerns in particular, the concerns of China.

00:30:39.620 And, and what I laid out to the Panamanian officials, I said, look, if God forbid, we, we find ourselves in a military conflict with China.

00:30:48.220 Let's say next year, China invades Taiwan and, and, and president, she has repeatedly said he wants to invade Taiwan.

00:30:57.320 If he does.

00:30:58.360 So there's a very real possibility that escalates into a military conflict with the United States.

00:31:04.340 If China is in an active military conflict with the United States, I think the risk is unacceptable that China would try to shut down the Panama canal.

00:31:17.900 Because if they shut down the Panama canal, it massively delays our ability to move military ships from the Atlantic to the Pacific to engage with the Chinese in Taiwan.

00:31:29.400 Because it forces our military ships instead to go around the southern tip of South America rather than cut through the canal.

00:31:35.940 And so if you're president, she, look, you wouldn't do it in time of peace, but, but, but if they're at war, it becomes a, a really compelling situation to say, let's impose massive economic harm on the United States.

00:31:52.920 And we get enormous benefits of, of, of, of, of, of revenue that comes from shipping, shipping, whether it is, is oil and gas through, through the Panama canal or goods and containers and, and shutting down the Panama canal would be a real blow to the United States economy.

00:32:10.820 But it would also be a real blow to our military because it would limit our ability to move naval ships from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

00:32:17.820 It would massively delay moving that, the, the, the, those ships.

00:32:22.840 And, and so I, what I'm pressing Panama, I will say when I chaired the hearing on the Panama canal, within a week, they announced the deal to sell those two Chinese ports to, to an American business consortium.

00:32:40.080 And that deal has not gone through yet.

00:32:42.500 The Chinese are slow walking it. 1.00

00:32:44.340 And part of the purpose of my trip was, was to press the, the Panamanian government and say, look, you need to get the Chinese the hell out of here. 0.99

00:32:51.900 Do not leave them in a position where they can shut down this canal because shutting down this canal would be an enormous economic and national security blow to the United States, but it would also be an enormous blow to Panama.

00:33:03.160 And so part of the case I was making them is their interests and our interests are aligned.

00:33:09.220 They don't want China to be in a position to shut down the canal.

00:33:12.160 Yeah.

00:33:12.660 Great point.

00:33:13.420 We're going to continue talking about this issue.

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - August 29, 2025

Inside El Salvador's CECOT Prison for MS-13 Gang Members, plus Stopping China from Having Control of the Panama Canal

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