Verdict with Ted Cruz - March 07, 2026


Iran Invites Neighbors to War by Attacking Them, Noem Out-Mullin In & Elections are BIGGER in Texas Week In Review

Topics
military strikes on Iran mines in Hormuz Strait Gary Wayne mullin confirmation vote
Hosted by
Ted Cruz
Mentioned
Donald Trump Ayatollah John F. Kennedy Mark Wayne Mullen Kristi Noem John Fetterman Steve Toth Verdict Ben Ferguson Dan Crenshaw Dana Bash Mandami Sam Harris Liz Cheney John Bonk Hormuz Willie Obama Ken Paxton Margaret Brennan and 12 more
What's the Objective in Iran๏ผŸ plus New DHS Secretary & Big Texas Primaries Big Victories in Iran, More Risks of Terrorism at Home and Tucker & Dems Both Attack Trump

Episode Stats


Length

33 minutes

Words per minute

164.54

Word count

5,532

Sentence count

443

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

24

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Ted Cruz and Ben Fergus Ferguson discuss Iran's latest attack on the Middle East, a major shake-up at Homeland Security, and the results of Tuesday's primary election in Texas. They also discuss the latest on the Iran nuclear deal and what it means for the midterm elections.

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 .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.580 Guaranteed human.
00:00:04.480 Welcome. It is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
00:00:06.620 Week in Review. Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:08.820 And these are the stories that you may have missed that we talked about this week.
00:00:12.080 First up, Iran doing everything wrong. 1.00
00:00:15.060 Now attacking countries all around them.
00:00:17.960 So what does that mean for the region and the escalation of this war?
00:00:22.300 Also, a big shakeup of the Department of Homeland Security as Kristi Noem is out.
00:00:27.540 Who's replacing her? We'll give you the background.
00:00:30.500 And finally, it was election night in America.
00:00:33.120 A big primary on Tuesday and a lot of big things happening in Texas.
00:00:37.840 We break it all down for you.
00:00:39.620 It's the Week in Review and it starts right now.
00:00:43.080 Well, let's go back to the Middle East for a moment.
00:00:45.180 One of the things that we talk about, you know, the Ayatollah and his team,
00:00:49.340 they're homicidal and you could also even say suicidal.
00:00:53.080 And their obsession with killing, you know, innocent people in their own country, 0.89
00:00:57.600 going after Americans, going after Israelis as well. 0.83
00:01:01.720 But one of the things that I was even a little bit shocked by was how quickly they decided to bring in every other country on the side of Israel and the U.S.
00:01:08.720 by attacking these other Middle Eastern nations around them that weren't involved.
00:01:13.320 Right. They were they were outside.
00:01:15.340 Were you as shocked as I was that they just decided, all right, like whoever's still left standing, let's just go after Bahrain. 0.79
00:01:21.400 Let's go after Qatar. Let's go after. 1.00
00:01:22.840 I mean, the list is pretty long now of countries they've attacked.
00:01:25.140 And now they brought them into the fold.
00:01:27.540 I mean, that that to me just seems like a suicidal mission on their part.
00:01:32.600 Yeah, I will admit I was surprised by that.
00:01:36.060 There's been a lot of public reporting that suggested that other Middle Eastern nations were discouraging President Trump from going after Iran.
00:01:44.840 I'm a little bit skeptical of that.
00:01:46.620 I have not recently had those conversations with other Middle Eastern nations, but I've had many conversations with the Saudis, UAE, Bahrain.
00:01:57.540 And they have always been very focused on, number one, doing everything necessary to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. 0.60
00:02:05.700 The Saudis have said publicly if Iran ever got a nuclear weapon, that they would do everything possible to get a nuke themselves to defend themselves from Iran. 0.91
00:02:13.240 And so I don't know if it's true or not that in the recent weeks Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries were urging Trump not to attack.
00:02:25.080 But I do know that Iran's behavior โ€“ so they fired missiles and sent drones and had attacks at almost every single Arab country all throughout the Middle East. 0.82
00:02:34.980 So they've attacked Saudi Arabia.
00:02:36.220 They've attacked UAE. 1.00
00:02:37.160 They've attacked Kuwait. 0.98
00:02:38.080 They've attacked Qatar.
00:02:39.420 They've attacked Bahrain.
00:02:40.820 They've attacked Jordan. 0.78
00:02:41.940 And we've seen statements from many of those other Middle Eastern countries, mostly Arab countries, expressing, condemning Iran's response.
00:02:55.300 And, you know, in my view, they're just indiscriminately firing abroad.
00:03:03.420 And I think their reasoning was that if the United States and or Israel hit them, that they wanted to make it as painful as possible for the entirety of the region, what they have ensured is that there's basically nobody standing up and siding with the Iranians. 0.78
00:03:22.060 They're demonstrating essentially they're willing to kill anybody and everybody.
00:03:26.860 I've got to say that's also a really powerful illustration.
00:03:30.480 If that's what they do now โ€“
00:03:32.060 Yeah.
00:03:32.920 What would they have done with a nuclear weapon?
00:03:34.820 Yeah.
00:03:35.080 Can you imagine how much worse if they had a nuclear weapon?
00:03:38.160 And during the whole โ€“ go back to Obama and the debates on Obama's terrible Iran nuclear deal.
00:03:44.120 I always said most of the debate rotated around, well, if they had a nuclear weapon, it would change the balance of power.
00:03:52.520 It would make them more aggressive.
00:03:53.740 They would fund more terrorism.
00:03:55.400 And I always said, look, that's the best case scenario.
00:03:59.180 The best case scenario is a horrible situation.
00:04:02.020 The worst case is that they would actually use the nuclear weapon.
00:04:05.360 And everyone operates under an assumption, well, having a nuclear weapon doesn't mean you use it.
00:04:11.140 Listen, when the Ayatollah chants death to Israel and death to America, I believe him. 1.00
00:04:18.220 When he calls Israel the little Satan and America the great Satan, I believe him. 1.00
00:04:24.180 And I think the odds are unacceptably high.
00:04:26.420 I don't know what they were, but they were unacceptably high that the Ayatollah, if he had a nuclear weapon, would detonate it.
00:04:32.780 Maybe in Tel Aviv or maybe in New York or Los Angeles.
00:04:37.680 And I don't want to wake up and discover, uh-oh, the predictions were wrong because we have a mushroom cloud and hundreds of thousands or even millions of Americans being killed.
00:04:49.660 The reason โ€“ and by the way, I've got to say a lot of the news reporting is challenging.
00:04:56.880 Why would Trump do this attack?
00:04:58.860 You heard Margaret Brennan there say Trump campaigned on not getting in wars.
00:05:04.680 I did after Face the Nation.
00:05:06.280 I also did State of the Union with Dana Bash.
00:05:08.840 And Dana Bash asked a question of me.
00:05:10.720 She said, you know, President Trump campaigned on no more wars.
00:05:17.260 And I โ€“ in my response, I said, well, Dana, you actually misquoted what the president said.
00:05:23.020 What the president said was no more forever wars.
00:05:25.860 War wars.
00:05:26.520 Yeah, referring to Iraq and Afghanistan.
00:05:28.560 Right.
00:05:28.920 Totally โ€“ and troops on the ground, just completely different doctrine, you can tell.
00:05:33.040 Yeah.
00:05:33.560 And I said, listen, we're not going to see troops on the ground in Iran.
00:05:37.580 We're not going to see hundreds of thousands of Americans there for an extended period of time.
00:05:40.980 I don't think we'll see that at all.
00:05:43.340 That is very different.
00:05:44.840 And I said, look, there are isolationists who want America to withdraw from the world.
00:05:50.960 Donald Trump has never been an isolationist.
00:05:54.000 And he is acting to protect America.
00:05:57.660 This is America first. 0.74
00:05:59.060 The reason we are striking Iran right now is because the odds are unacceptably high. 0.88
00:06:05.260 Iran has already killed nearly a thousand Americans, and they have every desire to kill more. 1.00
00:06:09.800 As I told the president, driving in the beast, I said, if the Ayatollah could kill the two of us right now, he would. 0.95
00:06:16.600 The only thing that is preventing him is that he's not able to because he is trying.
00:06:20.920 And so if we have an opportunity to take out this regime, and look, my hope is we see a new government in Iran that wants to be friends with America.
00:06:33.680 That would make this country massively safer.
00:06:37.920 Removing these psychopaths from power and replacing them with anything resembling a normal government would massively improve the safety of every American.
00:06:49.000 Two questions to wrap things up.
00:06:50.920 Number one, I thought it was really interesting to see the compare and contrast of the women standing up for themselves in Iran on the streets, risking their lives, while women in America were actually standing up angry at America for going into Iran.
00:07:03.940 We saw that in New York City, for example.
00:07:05.460 We saw that in some other college campuses.
00:07:08.200 The disconnect from reality from some of these leftists is amazing.
00:07:11.760 I want to get your take on that real quick.
00:07:13.440 And then also I want to talk about the possible closing straight of Hormuz and what that means and what America's role could be in that as well.
00:07:19.340 Yeah, so today, Comrade Mandami put out a statement that I want to read to you.
00:07:28.340 Today's military strikes on Iran carried out by the United States and Israel mark a catastrophic escalation of an illegal war of aggression.
00:07:35.900 Bombing cities, bombing cities, killing civilians, opening a new theater of war.
00:07:40.680 Americans do not want this.
00:07:42.580 They do not want another war in pursuit of regime change.
00:07:46.040 They want relief from the affordability crisis.
00:07:48.600 They want peace.
00:07:49.940 I am focused on making sure every New Yorker is safe.
00:07:53.120 I've been in contact with our police commissioner and emergency management officials.
00:07:56.300 We are taking proactive steps, including increasing coordination across agencies and enhancing patrols of sensitive locations out of an abundance of conscience.
00:08:07.020 Caution.
00:08:07.600 Additionally, I want to speak directly to Iranian New Yorkers.
00:08:11.580 You are part of the fabric of this city.
00:08:13.560 You are our neighbors, small business owners, students, artists, workers and community leaders.
00:08:17.600 You will be safe here.
00:08:19.000 Look, this is Comrade Mandami cheering for the Ayatollah because they are both jihadists and they both want to see the great Satan of America. 0.83
00:08:32.620 They want to see this country fundamentally changed and to become an Islamic caliphate. 1.00
00:08:39.760 That was the Ayatollah's objective. 0.59
00:08:42.940 That sadly, I believe, is Comrade Mandami's objective.
00:08:47.120 And I want to contrast that with the reaction of protesters, Iranians, like his line to Iranians, you will be safe here.
00:08:55.780 I know a great many Iranians.
00:08:57.880 Every Iranian I know hates the regime, is cheering. 1.00
00:09:02.000 And I want you to watch in particular this scene that played out on the ground in Austin, Texas,
00:09:08.420 and a CBS News reporter who was told, don't cover the protests celebrating the Ayatollah being killed.
00:09:17.280 Cover that up.
00:09:18.060 And this brave reporter didn't do that.
00:09:19.860 Give a listen.
00:09:20.320 Give a watch.
00:09:20.760 It's incredible there.
00:09:42.940 And again, for people that can't see the video, you have this Austin CBS reporter.
00:09:48.040 He was handed the phone from his cameraman and he reads it and he's like, what does that mean?
00:09:52.880 And the cameraman responds, they don't want us to focus on this.
00:09:57.060 And this brave local reporter said, all right, well, I am.
00:10:00.900 And now it's out there on the Internet of him having this moment.
00:10:04.240 It's sad that you've got to be this brave in America at a local affiliate to report the news,
00:10:08.800 which was the news that you had people celebrating and waving American flags and Iranian flags
00:10:14.740 and standing up for the innocent people in Iran.
00:10:19.020 And they're like, no, no, no, we don't want you to focus on that at CBS.
00:10:22.180 Yeah, look, this is happening all over the country, all over America.
00:10:25.540 It's happening on the ground, on the streets of Iran.
00:10:28.160 It's happening around the world.
00:10:29.460 You know, Kamala Harris today put out a statement, quote,
00:10:32.840 Donald Trump is dragging the United States into a war the American people do not want.
00:10:37.820 Let me be clear.
00:10:38.900 I am opposed to a regime change war in Iran and our troops are being put in harm's way
00:10:43.580 for the sake of Trump's war of choice.
00:10:46.540 Now, I will tell you, I responded to her on X and I said,
00:10:49.640 your administration gave over $100 billion to the Ayatollah, who kept killing Americans. 1.00
00:11:00.500 We know you're sad that your friend isn't with us anymore.
00:11:04.500 Look, the Democrat Party was all in in support of the Ayatollah. 0.84
00:11:10.880 Now, sometimes they pretended they weren't.
00:11:12.740 But when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris sent over $100 billion, flowed that money into the Ayatollah,
00:11:17.840 they funded his terror.
00:11:21.160 The Obama-Iran nuclear deal was designed to inevitably lead to a nuclear Iran,
00:11:27.180 to the Ayatollah with nuclear weapons.
00:11:29.180 And so this is, I'll tell you, and folks that deal with conflict in the Middle East
00:11:35.660 and that deal with foreign policy frequently refer to Iran as, quote, the head of the snake.
00:11:42.560 Why do they call it the head of the snake?
00:11:44.320 Because it is what is leading and directing and funding the vast majority of the terrorism you see.
00:11:51.900 Without Iran, Hamas has no resources.
00:11:55.060 Without Iran, Hezbollah and the Houthis have no resources. 0.96
00:11:57.700 And so what President Trump is doing here is being a strong commander-in-chief
00:12:03.520 and making Americans safer.
00:12:06.340 Final question on the Strait of Hormuz and the reality of what's happening there.
00:12:09.960 Give us your thoughts and perspective on that and what you think can happen moving forward.
00:12:15.220 So we don't know that there is reporting that the Iranians may have mined the Straits of Hormuz.
00:12:21.280 So we don't have an answer to that right now.
00:12:23.560 Right now, there's not shipping.
00:12:25.000 There are not ships going through the Straits of Hormuz until it is determined whether or not they have mined it.
00:12:30.780 And to be clear, that's significant.
00:12:32.480 People just don't understand how important that is.
00:12:34.920 A significant amount of oil supply goes through there.
00:12:38.800 Yeah.
00:12:39.040 So right now, that is shut down.
00:12:40.640 By the way, right now, civilian air traffic is shut down throughout the Middle East.
00:12:44.820 You can't get on an airline and fly into and out of most of the cities in the Middle East because you've got missiles flying everywhere.
00:12:52.940 And so all of the countries have understandably shut their airspace down.
00:12:56.800 And so I am confident that we will have minesweepers go into the Straits of Hormuz.
00:13:03.620 That may be happening now.
00:13:04.620 I don't know.
00:13:05.740 And examine and determine if their mines there.
00:13:08.200 But at least right now, you're not seeing ships go through there because these guys are just crazy enough to have put mines there.
00:13:14.580 And so no one wants to risk it until it's determined one way or another whether it's safe.
00:13:19.440 Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week.
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00:13:58.340 Now on to story number two.
00:14:00.820 There was a shakeup.
00:14:02.220 You don't want to ever be the first one to be a cabinet secretary to get the boot, but it was pretty clear.
00:14:07.480 Christy Noem got the boot this week.
00:14:09.440 One of your colleagues is going to take over at Department of Home and Security.
00:14:12.540 Mark Wayne Mullen, I want to get your take on all of that.
00:14:14.820 Well, the president announced this week that he was removing Christy Noem from secretary of DHS and replacing her with Mark Wayne Mullen.
00:14:25.160 I have to say this was not much of a surprise to anyone watching closely.
00:14:31.100 Christy Noem testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week.
00:14:34.440 I was part of that hearing.
00:14:35.880 I questioned her on it.
00:14:38.640 The questioning was bumpy, and she got โ€“ the Democrats, of course, went after her hard, but a number of Republicans went after her hard as well.
00:14:47.840 And I have to say one of those that was the most effective was my friend and colleague from Louisiana, John Kennedy.
00:14:57.700 John has been on this podcast, and he's someone who's a good friend of mine.
00:15:03.140 I want to play John Kennedy's cross-examination at Christy Noem because this proved very consequential cross-examination.
00:15:11.500 Give a listen.
00:15:12.020 How do you square that concern for waste, which I share, with the fact that you have spent $220 million running television advertisements that feature you prominently?
00:15:36.020 Sir, the president tasked me with getting the message out to the country and to other countries where we were seeing the invasion come from,
00:15:45.960 with putting commercials out that told them that if they were in this country illegally, that they needed to leave,
00:15:52.180 or we would detain them and remove them, and they'd not get the chance to come back to America the right way.
00:15:57.460 That has been extremely effective.
00:15:59.160 The president asked you to run these advertisements, is that right?
00:16:03.880 We had that conversation, yes, before I was put in this position and sworn in and confirmed, and since then as well.
00:16:11.740 Okay.
00:16:12.380 Did you bid out those service contracts?
00:16:17.600 Yes, they did.
00:16:18.260 They went out to a competitive bid, and career officials at the department chose who would do those advertising commercials.
00:16:25.620 And the people that you ended up picking were people who had formerly done your political work back in South Dakota, is that right?
00:16:38.420 No, that's not correct, sir.
00:16:39.820 I think it is.
00:16:40.560 No, it's not, sir.
00:16:41.440 We, the individuals who, I believe the careers who they chose were two different media firms.
00:16:49.400 There's been conversation about their subcontractors, but we have no legal authority to look into subcontractors on work like that.
00:16:57.180 Okay.
00:16:58.220 And you're saying that you're testifying that President Trump approved this ahead of time.
00:17:05.240 Is that my understanding?
00:17:06.000 We had conversations about making sure that we were telling people.
00:17:10.800 No, ma'am.
00:17:11.140 I'm asking you, sorry to interrupt, but the President approved ahead of time you spending $220 million running TV ads across the country in which you are featured prominently.
00:17:25.500 Yes, sir.
00:17:25.880 We went through the legal processes.
00:17:27.940 Did it correct?
00:17:28.440 Did the President know you were going to do this?
00:17:30.180 Yes.
00:17:30.960 He did?
00:17:31.560 Mm-hmm.
00:17:32.040 Yes.
00:17:32.460 Okay.
00:17:32.720 And one thing, Senator, I think would be helpful to know is how effective that communications has been.
00:17:40.540 Well, they were effective in your name recognition.
00:17:44.800 I mean, I personally just, I mean, to me, it puts the President in a terribly awkward spot.
00:17:52.260 And it, and I just, I'm not saying you're not telling the truth.
00:17:57.580 It's just hard for me to believe, you know, and the President, as I do, that you said, Mr. President, here's some ads I've cut and I'm going to spend $220 million running them, that he would have agreed to that.
00:18:12.720 But I don't think Russ Vogt at OMB would have agreed to that.
00:18:18.480 It's something we have to defend.
00:18:20.640 I'm on the Appropriations Committee.
00:18:22.320 I mean, my research shows that you did not bid them out, that you, in fact, one of the people you picked, the strategy group, I'm sorry, Safe America Media, was a company formed 11 days before you picked them.
00:18:45.240 And that the strategy group got most of the money, and the head of that is married to your former spokesperson.
00:18:55.420 I'm, I'm, I'm, look, we all have friends who are qualified.
00:18:58.880 I'm not quibbling with that.
00:19:00.900 I'm just, it troubles me.
00:19:03.340 A quarter, a fifth to a quarter of a billion dollars of taxpayer money, when we're scratching for every penny and we're fighting over rescission packages.
00:19:15.240 But I just can't agree with Madam Secretary.
00:19:20.120 Are you still running those ads?
00:19:22.000 No, Senator, I did not have anything to do with picking those contractors.
00:19:27.020 I know politicals at the Department of Homeland Security did.
00:19:30.000 I understand.
00:19:30.860 Are you still running those ads?
00:19:32.080 The competitive bid process for that.
00:19:34.120 Are you still running those ads?
00:19:35.500 I think the ads are due to end here in March, I think within a week or two.
00:19:39.420 So they are still running?
00:19:41.140 The one that is running is focusing on angel families.
00:19:43.940 Have you seen that?
00:19:44.700 It is the one that's talking about.
00:19:46.120 This is our why.
00:19:47.320 This is why we work every day is for the angel families and their victims.
00:19:52.940 Senator, it was, it was not, not a good showing there for, for her.
00:19:56.920 And, you know, your colleague there, Senator Kennedy asking questions.
00:20:01.100 I think a lot of Americans care about the presence also come out saying she did not run this by him in the, in the, in the amount of money being spent either.
00:20:08.300 That, that, that, that also didn't work well for her either.
00:20:12.660 Well, and, and, and that, that's something that, uh, that, that, that John Kennedy pointed out.
00:20:19.040 Um, he, he, he said in the aftermath, uh, he, he said that President Trump was, quote, mad as a murder hornet that Noem claimed he approved the $200 million ads contract.
00:20:33.120 Uh, and, and, and, and listen, John is a good friend of mine.
00:20:37.120 Um, I, I, I talked to him today on the Senate floor, and, and I just, the number of nominees that his cross-examinations have taken out is, is quite remarkable.
00:20:47.700 And, and, and, and I think it, it was John Kennedy's cross-examination that, that, that was pivotal in the decision to, to shift from Christie.
00:20:57.020 Look, I, I like Christie personally.
00:20:58.940 I had dinner with, with, with her just a few weeks ago.
00:21:01.760 Uh, and, and, and I do think the results of the Department of Homeland Security, in terms of securing the border, have been very effective.
00:21:08.820 Uh, and, and so that, that is beneficial.
00:21:12.260 Um, I, I think John Kennedy's line of questioning here was fair. 0.95
00:21:16.260 Um, and, and, and it was, uh, it, it was incredibly effective.
00:21:22.140 Uh, I, I also think, and we've talked about this, uh, on the podcast before, that the messaging from the administration, particularly following,
00:21:31.100 uh, the shooting of two different Americans in Minneapolis, uh, that, that the messaging was, was wrong.
00:21:39.300 And, and it did real damage, uh, that, that, that, that I think the, the, the messaging was, look, anytime an American citizen is killed in a confrontation with law enforcement, it's a tragedy.
00:21:51.720 Uh, and, and, and we should see our officials acknowledging it's a tragedy.
00:21:56.120 Uh, we should see our officials saying, listen, if there's an officer involved shooting, there's going to be an investigation.
00:22:01.620 We're going to examine what happened and, and determine what exactly caused it.
00:22:06.060 Uh, and instead, the rhetoric immediately leaped to, to really aggressive rhetoric, calling both of the individuals, um, using language like terrorists and seeking mass murder.
00:22:21.040 And, and, and, and that was, that was hard to square with the facts of what occurred.
00:22:26.580 Uh, I, I think that rhetoric did damage to the administration.
00:22:32.400 And I think it was one of the things that contributed to the decision, uh, of the president to shift from, uh, Christy Dome as, as the leader of Homeland Security.
00:22:43.880 Mark Wayne Mullen, Mark Wayne, I've, I've served with him in the Senate.
00:22:46.700 Um, he, uh, he, uh, he's a good guy.
00:22:50.380 He's someone the president trusts.
00:22:52.460 Uh, I think he will be confirmed.
00:22:54.300 I think it will be a party line vote in the Senate.
00:22:57.160 We may get John Fetterman, uh, but I would be surprised if any other Democrat votes for him.
00:23:03.360 So my prediction is the vote on Mark Wayne Mullen will, will be 54 to 46, that 46 Democrats will vote now.
00:23:11.140 So, and, and I think Mark Wayne, look, there, there are advantages to being, uh, an experienced elected official.
00:23:19.180 He was a House member.
00:23:20.120 He's been a senator.
00:23:21.320 Um, I'm hopeful that he will bring a level of professionalism and effectiveness.
00:23:25.740 The results of DHS have been quite strong, uh, but, but I, I, I do think, uh, I, I do think that the testimony that Secretary Noem gave, it was not an easy day for her.
00:23:40.860 And I think John Kennedy, Tom Tillis also lit into her really hard.
00:23:45.320 But, but I think the Kennedy cross-examination was more significant.
00:23:49.560 There's been quite a bit of reporting that, that the president was unhappy that she said that he knew about the ad she had run.
00:23:56.860 And, and, and I don't have independent knowledge of that, but, but, but I don't have reason to, to doubt that reporting.
00:24:03.760 Yeah.
00:24:04.340 Uh, and, and, and so, look, we need to secure our border.
00:24:08.760 We've had an incredible success rate doing so, so far.
00:24:11.620 And I'm hopeful that Mark Wade Mullen coming in will continue with that success and continue to keep our family safe.
00:24:18.040 As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and download the podcast from early this week to hear the entire thing.
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00:24:58.180 I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed.
00:25:02.600 It was election day on Tuesday in America.
00:25:05.640 It was a very big election day in Texas.
00:25:08.800 There were certainly some upsets on the House side.
00:25:11.520 There was a lot of people around the country watching Dan Crenshaw's race.
00:25:14.320 He lost that race to someone that you endorsed.
00:25:17.780 That was a big one that I was on national TV talking about over and over again.
00:25:22.520 And then there's obviously the Senate race that's happening as well.
00:25:25.360 That's now gone into a runoff between two people that you know well.
00:25:29.360 Your colleague in the Senate and also Ken Paxson.
00:25:33.140 So we're going to have to wait and see how that plays out as well.
00:25:36.000 But then there's also the Democrat running against whoever wins that runoff.
00:25:41.040 And this is a guy that Democrats are really excited about.
00:25:44.800 He's talented.
00:25:45.680 He's radical.
00:25:47.240 He's extreme.
00:25:48.120 But he comes across like a very moderate guy if you listen to him today.
00:25:53.400 Well, we had primary day in Texas this week.
00:25:56.640 And it was highly consequential.
00:25:58.200 Number one, there were a number of House candidates who I endorsed who prevailed.
00:26:03.280 We had one, Jessica Steinman, who was my former regional director in Houston.
00:26:09.460 She won decisively the Republican primary.
00:26:12.300 She is going to be in all likelihood the next Republican Congress member from Houston.
00:26:18.720 We had another, Chris Gober, who's been my lawyer for 10 years.
00:26:22.180 He won his primary decisively.
00:26:24.100 He's going to be a new Republican congressman from Central Texas.
00:26:27.940 We had another, John Bonk, who I endorsed, who is a close friend.
00:26:34.120 He is the son-in-law of one of my closest friends in the world, who has been my national finance chairman for years.
00:26:42.100 By the way, that was a fun night.
00:26:43.860 Just let's take a moment to talk about how fun that was.
00:26:46.840 So you were obviously in D.C., but I went to the victory party.
00:26:50.680 And it's fun to see someone that you and I know personally and the smile on your dear friend Willie's face.
00:26:55.960 And even Heidi was there as well, your wife.
00:26:59.320 It was really a cool evening to see someone work hard and win.
00:27:02.760 I know you had to have a really โ€“ that had to feel personal to you.
00:27:07.120 So Willie, who's John Bonk's father-in-law, is one of my two or three closest friends on planet Earth.
00:27:14.240 And I love him.
00:27:15.180 He's a good man.
00:27:16.320 He's a principled man.
00:27:17.460 He's a conservative.
00:27:18.640 He's a godly man.
00:27:19.800 He's someone who, frankly, I rely on for advice, for spiritual counseling.
00:27:25.420 We pray together.
00:27:26.460 We talk together.
00:27:28.620 And John is very likely to win.
00:27:33.460 He did not clear 50 percent, so unfortunately there's going to be a runoff.
00:27:36.680 But I think he's going to prevail.
00:27:38.800 I actually did a rally for him just a week ago.
00:27:41.100 In the middle of the rally, while I had several hundred people there rallying for him,
00:27:45.300 I got the chance to announce from the stage while I was up there that President Trump had endorsed him.
00:27:51.500 That was a very cool moment.
00:27:53.580 We knew it was likely to come.
00:27:54.920 I thought there was a chance that Trump would call on the cell phone.
00:27:58.520 If he had called, I would have put the cell phone up to the microphone and let him announce it to the whole crowd.
00:28:03.940 Instead, I got to announce, and the crowd went nuts.
00:28:06.060 That was really gratifying to have three people who are two who are members of my team and have been employees and another who's a very close friend to see three new likely members of Congress coming.
00:28:20.200 That was a big deal.
00:28:21.600 We also had Don Huffines, who I endorsed for Comptroller in a statewide position in Texas that won decisively.
00:28:30.160 That was a big victory.
00:28:31.140 And then you noted, Dan Crenshaw, look, in my 14 years in the Senate, I almost never endorse against Republican incumbents.
00:28:42.920 And there's a reason.
00:28:45.060 If you're serving in the Senate, if you're working in Congress, if you're endorsing against your colleagues, it makes it very hard to get anything done.
00:28:52.480 Like that makes lifelong enemies.
00:28:55.420 And so you just have to be really reluctant to do so.
00:28:58.000 So I endorse in open races, but I almost never endorse in races against Republican incumbents.
00:29:05.500 I've made two exceptions in 14 years.
00:29:07.720 The first was Liz Cheney because Liz Cheney lost her mind and became a radical leftist who hated President Trump.
00:29:14.020 And so I endorsed her opponent, Harriet Hageman, who beat her and is getting ready to be the new senator from Wyoming now. 0.96
00:29:20.800 And then I did it again for Dan Crenshaw for much the same reason, because he had really lost his way.
00:29:30.860 He had gotten angry with his constituents.
00:29:35.000 There were multiple instances in which he yelled.
00:29:37.520 There was one instance where he yelled at a 14-year-old girl and just got angry.
00:29:41.720 In this race, there's a very good friend of mine who's been a longtime supporter and close friend who was supporting Dan's opponent.
00:29:54.800 And Dan decided to just light him up.
00:29:57.360 This is a banker, a private citizen in Texas, and Dan decided to go after him personally.
00:30:03.880 And I've got to say, that pissed me off.
00:30:05.420 He's a close friend of mine, and I didn't like Dan just attacking him directly.
00:30:13.500 And so I endorsed his opponent, Steve Toth.
00:30:16.360 Steve Toth has been a state legislator for a number of years.
00:30:18.900 He's a very strong conservative.
00:30:21.600 And it ended up that Steve Toth won, and won decisively, won by a big margin.
00:30:27.840 And that was a little bit of a cannon shot. 0.90
00:30:29.800 But, you know, I will say, Dan also, oh, a couple of months ago, we were on a plane landing in D.C.,
00:30:40.420 and in the jetway walking off, Dan began screaming and cursing at me.
00:30:46.360 And it was really a little unhinged.
00:30:48.840 And he was like, why are you coming after me?
00:30:51.220 And I was like, well, I'm not.
00:30:53.180 And he was mad that supporters of mine were supporting his opponents.
00:31:01.260 And, look, I don't control what my supporters do.
00:31:04.400 They're, you know, individuals who have free choice.
00:31:07.920 But he was literally screaming and cursing at me.
00:31:10.780 And I told him at the time, I said, Dan, if I come after you, I promise you, you'll know.
00:31:19.960 Like, it will not be subtle.
00:31:21.520 It will not be hidden.
00:31:23.360 You will have full awareness of it.
00:31:26.100 But I told him afterwards, I said, listen, in 14 years in the Senate,
00:31:32.000 you were the only House member who's ever screamed and cursed at me on an airplane,
00:31:35.580 and that includes all the Democrats.
00:31:37.780 And so it just pushed me beyond the edge,
00:31:41.220 and the voters of Texas decided that he was not reflecting their conservative values.
00:31:46.220 And so they've elected Steve Toth.
00:31:47.960 He'll be a great member of Congress.
00:31:50.000 He'll be a strong conservative.
00:31:51.100 Now, we've got the Senate race.
00:31:53.380 The Senate race, there is a runoff between John Cornyn, my colleague right now, and Ken Paxton, the Attorney General.
00:32:00.280 Both of them I know very well.
00:32:02.540 Both of them are friends of mine.
00:32:03.740 Both of them I've worked together closely with for years.
00:32:07.560 I've endorsed both of them in the past.
00:32:09.460 I've campaigned with both of them in the past.
00:32:11.300 And I've got to say, this primary is bitter and nasty.
00:32:14.940 Look, it is, to date, the most expensive primary in American history.
00:32:19.980 Yeah.
00:32:20.480 And John and Ken really dislike each other.
00:32:25.040 And so it is going to be brutal.
00:32:26.620 It is going to be ugly.
00:32:27.460 I don't know how it's going to resolve.
00:32:30.880 President Trump tweeted out this week that he is going to make an endorsement.
00:32:34.920 He is not yet.
00:32:35.840 So we'll see what the president decides to do on this.
00:32:39.040 But I will say, at the same time, the Democrats nominated a guy named James Tallarico, who's a state rep.
00:32:45.320 And this guy is dangerous.
00:32:46.740 He's an ordained minister.
00:32:48.520 He's a radical.
00:32:49.180 He's a hardcore leftist and will, in subsequent podcasts, break down just how radical and extreme his record is.
00:32:56.900 But what makes him dangerous is he sounds reasonable.
00:33:00.580 He masks his radicalism in reasonable-sounding, soft language.
00:33:08.180 He masks it in the language of a pastor.
00:33:11.740 It's incredibly deceptive and dishonest, but that makes it dangerous.
00:33:15.520 And so we've got a real fight in Texas, and I don't know what the result will be.
00:33:18.720 As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:33:24.100 Don't forget to download my podcast, and you can listen to my podcast every other day if you're not listening to Verdict,
00:33:28.740 or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards.
00:33:31.140 I'd love to have you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson podcast.
00:33:34.880 And we will see you back here on Monday morning.