Verdict with Ted Cruz - November 09, 2026


It Begins: Dems Start Impeachment, Investigations & Full-scale Partisan War

The Road Back After a Historic Collapse BONUS POD: Democrats Declare War on Trump's Cabinet

Episode Stats


Length

42 minutes

Words per minute

172.2

Word count

7,253

Sentence count

504

Harmful content

Toxicity

5

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
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.
00:00:02.560 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.340 Oh, group shot. 0.98
00:00:06.840 I'll take it.
00:00:07.860 No, we're good.
00:00:09.100 There's one in every group. 0.78
00:00:10.440 The Notographer.
00:00:11.660 Best intentions, worst shots.
00:00:13.680 But there's hope.
00:00:14.460 The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra on Bell.
00:00:17.400 Super steady videos and perfectly framed shots with my FamCam.
00:00:20.700 And nightography for stellar pics even in low light.
00:00:23.440 I want that.
00:00:24.280 Yep, post-worthy with just a click.
00:00:26.140 All on Bell, Canada's fastest 5G plus network.
00:00:28.800 Visit a Bell store or bell.ca slash Samsung for details.
00:00:32.220 Bell. Connection is everything.
00:00:34.720 Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong. He's Joe Getty.
00:00:36.400 We've been trying to figure out how to describe what is Armstrong and Getty on demand for many years.
00:00:40.880 I'm going to give it a shot.
00:00:41.880 So most media is either agenda-driven or they're so shallow.
00:00:45.340 And boring.
00:00:46.620 You don't learn anything anyway.
00:00:48.140 We try to get to the bottom of the stories that are shaping our worlds
00:00:51.180 and help you understand what's actually happening.
00:00:54.140 So give it a try sometime.
00:00:55.400 Entertaining and you learn something?
00:00:56.660 Where do I tune in?
00:00:57.440 Listen to Armstrong and Getty on demand on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:05.440 Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:01:09.280 And Senator, it is, I tell you what, we're back in the swing of things after last week's election results.
00:01:14.760 And Democrats are wasting no time telling you exactly what they're going to do with their power.
00:01:20.040 It is not going to fix the economy. No, no, no. It is lawfare.
00:01:23.980 That's what they're going to do with all the power they just gained.
00:01:26.300 And they're coming after conservatives and anyone around the president, apparently.
00:01:31.100 Well, it is less than a week after Election Day.
00:01:34.180 And last week we had a bloodbath of an election.
00:01:40.420 It was an epic rout of Republicans.
00:01:43.320 We've lost the House.
00:01:44.240 We've lost the Senate.
00:01:45.200 We've lost governorships all across the country.
00:01:47.500 We've lost the state of Texas.
00:01:49.660 Every single statewide elected official that was on the ballot lost.
00:01:54.900 And, you know, it was striking for three months going into the election.
00:01:58.620 The only thing Democrats talked about was affordability.
00:02:01.180 They talked about the economy.
00:02:02.680 And now that they've won, the affordability doesn't matter to them at all.
00:02:07.480 The economy doesn't matter to them at all.
00:02:10.220 This is all about now partisan warfare.
00:02:13.900 It is about hatred for Trump.
00:02:16.260 You listen to what they're saying, you know, today on Monday, everyone from the Senate is going to be coming back to D.C.
00:02:23.080 And I will tell you, Senate Democrats, I can already anticipate they're going to be exultant.
00:02:29.020 I understand why.
00:02:30.700 I talked with one of the more senior Democrats earlier this past week, and I congratulated him.
00:02:37.720 I said, congratulations, you had an impressive victory.
00:02:40.220 Now, this particular Democrat has been around in the Senate for a while, and he said what I thought was a pretty mature response.
00:02:47.560 He said, well, the pendulum will swing another way in time.
00:02:50.080 And he's right.
00:02:50.880 I will say now I'm about to enter my 15th year in the Senate, and I've seen elections that are great elections for Republicans, and we're feeling wonderful.
00:03:02.380 I've seen elections that are great elections for Democrats, and they're feeling wonderful.
00:03:05.980 And one of the advantages of the framers design of the Constitution is the Senate is intended to be to provide some modicum of stability so that when you have the passions of one side or the passions of the other, it will even it out.
00:03:23.260 Now, that being said, I think very little is going to even out the rage on the Democrat side.
00:03:30.560 And they're already anticipating, they're already foreshadowing that they are going to engage in relentless impeachments, investigations, subpoenas.
00:03:38.720 We're going to break down some of what they're telling us is coming, because this is the beginning of what will be a two-year nonstop onslaught.
00:03:50.200 We're going to break down all the details.
00:03:52.120 Yeah, it really is exactly that.
00:03:53.920 They're going to war and we've got their battle plans.
00:03:56.240 We're going to explain it to you in a moment.
00:03:57.560 I want to also talk to you real quick about the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
00:04:03.620 The election is over, but don't confuse an election result with peace.
00:04:07.620 The anger and the political unrest we've seen won't disappear because the votes have been counted.
00:04:12.700 If anything, it's about to get a lot worse.
00:04:15.160 The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews looks at what Jewish communities are facing from Europe
00:04:21.320 to Israel, to Brooklyn?
00:04:23.220 Can Jewish students feel safe on their college campuses?
00:04:26.580 Can families worship without fear? 1.00
00:04:28.940 Can a Jewish man wear his yarmulke in public
00:04:31.740 without wondering whether he'll be targeted?
00:04:34.480 These are questions that no free society should have to ask,
00:04:38.620 but we're about to have to.
00:04:40.600 I think you know the answer.
00:04:42.160 Never again is now.
00:04:43.440 The fellowship provides food, shelter, and emergency assistance
00:04:47.240 to vulnerable people in Europe, Israel, and where it is needed the most.
00:04:52.360 We cannot wait until it's too late to show them that they have true friends.
00:04:56.520 So please donate right now.
00:04:58.700 Go to giveifcj.org.
00:05:01.800 That's one word.
00:05:02.800 The website giveifcj.org.
00:05:06.140 That's giveifcj.org.
00:05:10.540 So, Senator, the election was all about affordability.
00:05:13.980 That's what a lot of the Democrats were talking about.
00:05:16.300 They were saying if you vote for us, we're going to make your life easier and that the conservatives didn't do that for you.
00:05:22.280 But now we are saying less than a week from Election Day, that has never been their plan.
00:05:29.180 Their new plan is impeachment on steroids.
00:05:31.840 They got pretty good at it, I think, in their mindset the last time impeaching Donald Trump twice.
00:05:36.500 But they want to expand impeachment and do it across the entire administration.
00:05:41.420 And they're grinning and proud of this being their first moves, apparently.
00:05:44.840 Yeah, no, I think the very first thing the House of Representatives is going to do when it comes back, we're going to come back.
00:05:50.440 There's going to be a leadership battle determining who the House minority leader will be and whether it will be Steve Scalise or Jim Jordan or somebody else.
00:06:02.920 And that will be a battle.
00:06:04.200 And then I think right hand in hand with that is going to be an impeachment battle over initially Pete Hegseth.
00:06:13.000 So I expect that to be the opening salvo.
00:06:17.080 Listen, one of the reasons the House has been out of session for a couple of months, and the reason they've been out of session is because they didn't have the votes to stop a Hegseth impeachment back in September.
00:06:30.440 That you have all the Democrats who are eager to impeach Hegseth, and you had several Republicans.
00:06:35.860 It's being led by Thomas Massey.
00:06:37.600 Now, Massey is going to be out of Congress come January.
00:06:41.520 He was defeated in the Republican primary. President Trump opposed him because Massey has been a no on almost every one of the Trump agenda items.
00:06:50.580 But Massey is very unhappy. His foreign policy has long been very isolationist, and so he wants to see Hegseth removed.
00:07:00.820 And as I said, the reason the Speaker sent everyone home is as they were counting votes, they didn't have the votes to stop a Hegseth impeachment.
00:07:08.040 I think we're going to see that teed up very, very quickly.
00:07:13.260 And one of two things is going to happen.
00:07:16.480 Either Hegseth is going to step down, either he will resign voluntarily or Trump will fire him.
00:07:22.860 Or if that does not happen, I think it is extremely likely, if not certain, that the House will impeach him.
00:07:29.940 Because on the face of it, the votes are there.
00:07:31.780 Now, it only takes a majority to impeach.
00:07:33.460 But but here I want you to listen to Hakeem Jeffries when he was asked about his view on on impeaching Pete Hegseth.
00:07:39.220 I'm a hard yes on the Hegseth resolution. The so-called secretary of defense has abused his power, undermined our national security and engineered this reckless and costly war of choice in Iran, which has skyrocketed prices on the American people and made the country less safe.
00:08:00.280 Pete Hegseth has got to go.
00:08:01.960 You can hear Jeffrey's there. He's making it clear this is their bullseye. They want him gone. You said it takes a simple majority. That happens in the House. Then what would happen next? Is it the same procedures as when they go after Donald Trump?
00:08:16.880 Yeah, so it takes a majority in the House to impeach Pete Hegseth. If that happens, it then goes to the Senate, and the Senate has the responsibility of conducting the trial.
00:08:27.020 Now, if it happens now during the lame duck, it's possible that the majority still under Republican control could dispose of it.
00:08:35.620 Depending on the timing, it could also, if that happens, it wouldn't surprise me if Hegseth is still in office,
00:08:42.820 if they impeach him again come January so that Schumer would be in charge of the trial.
00:08:48.540 And I expect if Schumer has the option of conducting a trial, I would anticipate that he would conduct an extended trial,
00:08:55.820 That he would spend real time, weeks if not months, using the trial to prosecute, number one, their opposition to the Iran war.
00:09:07.480 And so I would expect a Hegseth impeachment trial to focus a lot on the Iran war, but I think they would also push their themes of corruption, because you're going to see corruption.
00:09:17.740 It was a major issue in the election on Tuesday, and I think that the Democrats will use impeachment as a vehicle to highlight those issues.
00:09:27.380 Now, with an impeachment that is not the president, if it's the president who's being impeached, and by the way, I think the odds are extremely likely, the Democrat House will impeach Donald Trump as well.
00:09:38.540 So this is only the first of what I expect to be multiple impeachments.
00:09:42.060 with an impeachment of the president the trial is is conducted on the senate floor and it's
00:09:48.700 actually presided over by the chief justice of the united states with a cabinet member impeachment
00:09:54.320 there are multiple ways it can be disposed of but what i would anticipate is is is that schumer
00:10:00.640 when when he's majority leader would direct either the relevant committee the senate armed
00:10:05.900 Services Committee, or more conceivably a special committee, to conduct the impeachment trial. And
00:10:13.440 they would do that to be televised, to have a very systematic prosecution of their attacks,
00:10:19.580 not just on Hegseth. Hegseth, I think, is just a convenient target. The real target is President
00:10:25.060 Trump. The real target is more broadly the administration and foreign policy. And I think,
00:10:32.060 as I said, that's just the first shoe to drop. There are going to be a lot more after that.
00:10:35.900 You know, it's interesting, when you started this podcast, it was actually all-around impeachment, oddly enough.
00:10:41.800 It's like we're coming back full circle, and this time it's going to be not just one, but multiple.
00:10:47.360 And when you say multiple, is it two or three, or is this like, hey, we can just keep rolling with this?
00:10:52.920 It could be four, five, six, seven, eight people in this administration.
00:10:56.480 It could be a lot.
00:10:57.920 So we've also seen this week that Bernie Sanders and Annie Andrews,
00:11:01.840 Annie Andrews is the new incoming Democrat senator from South Carolina,
00:11:04.980 They both called for impeaching Bobby Kennedy, and it's not even clear why they want to impeach Bobby Kennedy other than they just hate him.
00:11:13.160 And they particularly hate him because as a son of the Kennedy political dynasty, really democratic royalty, to end up supporting Donald Trump is the ultimate betrayal.
00:11:26.280 And so they hate him with a particular passion as well.
00:11:30.300 I don't know if they will end up impeaching him.
00:11:32.480 Now, understand, let's take the Hegseth impeachment.
00:11:34.980 I think it is very clear the votes are there in the House.
00:11:38.720 So if Hegseth does not resign and if the president does not fire him,
00:11:43.340 then the House, I believe, will impeach him.
00:11:46.160 You'll see a majority of the House members vote to impeach him.
00:11:48.340 Now, to remove him from office in the Senate takes two-thirds.
00:11:52.020 I do not believe that's going to happen.
00:11:53.800 You could end up in a Hegseth trial.
00:11:56.380 You could end up with some Republicans voting to remove him.
00:11:59.180 For example, Tom Tillis has a famously antagonistic relationship with Pete Hegseth.
00:12:06.740 Tom Tillis is not coming back to the Senate. He chose not to run again.
00:12:10.720 He's going to be replaced and he chose not to run again in significant part because President Trump made clear that he was likely to support a primary opponent to him.
00:12:19.740 And so Tom said, all right, I'm out. Tom is unfortunately going to be replaced by a Democrat, by Roy Cooper, the former governor, who's going to come in from North Carolina.
00:12:29.760 Tillis, I could easily see voting to convict Hegseth.
00:12:34.660 And I could see a number of other senators, particularly Republicans who just lost, voting to convict Hegseth.
00:12:41.160 I could see Mitch McConnell doing that.
00:12:43.360 I do not believe we would get to two-thirds.
00:12:45.880 I don't think we'd get to 67 senators.
00:12:48.400 It's still two-thirds, just so they understand.
00:12:50.980 On any impeachment, whether it's the president or not, it's still got to get to 60.
00:12:55.440 Not 60, 67. It's two-thirds.
00:12:57.660 67, excuse me, yeah, two-thirds, correct.
00:12:59.120 You know, I get you're a radio guy, so math is not your strong suit.
00:13:04.620 But 60 is not two-thirds, 67 is.
00:13:09.460 So, look, the objective here is not actually to convict and remove.
00:13:16.400 The objective is PR and attacking the president.
00:13:20.900 And the Democrats' hope over the next two years is to just have a nonstop assault on the president.
00:13:28.660 Now, the president's approval ratings have gone down significantly, and they want to drive them down further and further and further.
00:13:36.800 That was clearly one of the factors in the midterm elections.
00:13:40.400 And from Schumer's perspective, from Hakeem Jeffries' perspective, they want the next two years just to be a constant deluge of impeachment proceedings, of subpoenas, of hearings directed at,
00:13:56.440 Number one, the president will have at least one impeachment of the president.
00:13:59.780 We might have more than one.
00:14:01.640 We will see the same thing directed at Trump family members.
00:14:05.620 We will see the same thing directed at multiple cabinet members.
00:14:09.160 If Republicans had the Senate, you could dispose of, say, an impeachment of a cabinet member fairly quickly.
00:14:16.360 If you remember, during the Biden administration, the House impeached Alejandro Mayorkas, the head of the Department of Homeland Security.
00:14:24.480 And they impeached him for utterly defying immigration law because Mayorkas, the immigration law said if someone, an illegal immigrant is detained, they shall be detained, they shall be deported.
00:14:38.100 Those are mandatory statutory commands.
00:14:41.580 And Mayorkas, on behalf of Biden, just utterly ignored federal law and not only did not detain people, but let them go.
00:14:48.000 And so he was impeached for brazen disregarding and defiance of federal law.
00:14:53.340 Well, what Schumer did is he just just there was a motion to dismiss on the Senate floor and all the Democrats voted to dismiss it.
00:15:02.000 It was over. So it was one vote in one afternoon.
00:15:04.920 I spoke on the Senate floor against it. Several others spoke of the Senate floor against it.
00:15:08.760 But it was over quickly. If we had a Republican control of the Senate, that could happen.
00:15:13.420 We don't. So it will be in Schumer and the Democrats partisan interest to drag this on, to make this painful.
00:15:20.740 that's what I expect. Now, before we get into that, I want to talk to you real quick about
00:15:24.400 Compassion International. Right now, somewhere in the world, there's a child waiting, not waiting
00:15:29.080 for a birthday, not waiting for Christmas, waiting for someone to choose them. That's what Compassion
00:15:35.600 International does every single day. They connect children living in poverty with someone who will
00:15:40.560 know their name, who will pray for them, encourage them, and help provide the food, medical care,
00:15:45.560 education and hope they need through a local church and that is key the local church now this
00:15:52.280 year compassion is expanding into four new countries malawi zambia cambodia and mirmar
00:15:58.320 meaning thousands of children are being reached for the very first time for just 43 hours a month
00:16:04.860 you can be the reason one child stops waiting and let me just tell you this is a great opportunity
00:16:10.180 for you to teach your kids your grandkids about helping others so do it as a family sponsor child
00:16:17.380 today at compassion.com that's compassion.com so when you say drag it on and make it painful
00:16:24.520 let's really paint that picture so that people understand let's say you start with with with
00:16:29.120 pete you could you could make that go weeks or even months is that sure months and and is that
00:16:35.520 every day that they're in session or is it certain maybe we have one day in this week and two days
00:16:40.820 in the next week when you're in session how how does that calendar work and how much power they
00:16:44.960 have over extending it to as you described it months where maybe they're not even finished
00:16:49.260 with him yet then they start with a a a rfk junior or someone else well the the democrats have a lot
00:16:56.980 of ball control on that so so they could decide they could decide to do a trial every day uh in
00:17:03.100 a committee. They could decide, you know, think about how they handled the January 6th special
00:17:08.360 committee. And remember, the January 6th special committee ended up including no Republicans,
00:17:13.120 because Nancy Pelosi refused to seat the Republicans that Kevin McCarthy wanted to
00:17:20.160 put on the committee. And so it ended up, well, okay, actually, technically, it had Liz Cheney
00:17:24.380 and Adam Kinzinger. So the only, quote, Republicans were left-wing Republicans that Pelosi wanted,
00:17:31.060 who hated the president and were opposed to the president.
00:17:33.020 But it had no Republicans who were actually defending the president.
00:17:36.460 But you remember the way they orchestrated those hearings,
00:17:39.560 they actually brought in a producer from Hollywood to produce a story, to tell a narrative.
00:17:46.200 They included no countervailing facts.
00:17:49.500 They included, they did not try to tell the other side of the story.
00:17:52.700 It was...
00:17:52.920 Wasn't it in prime time, by the way, if I remember correctly?
00:17:56.260 Yeah, for substantial portions of it.
00:17:58.000 It was designed to be a multi-hour and multi-day political infomercial that, you know, Republicans battered.
00:18:07.100 It was an attack on Republicans.
00:18:08.400 We're going to have two years of that.
00:18:10.400 And I expect, you know, one of the things we will see, I believe, is every committee chair in the House and the Senate taking things within their particular slice of jurisdiction and attacking the administration on that.
00:18:24.300 And so we're going to get hearing after hearing after hearing.
00:18:27.180 And the theme that is consistently going to undergird it all is going to be corruption.
00:18:33.280 And they're going to press that on every front.
00:18:37.100 I also expect them to tie much of corruption to issues like AI and data centers and cryptocurrency.
00:18:44.120 I think all of those are going to be swept together.
00:18:47.080 We're also going to see that this attack is not just going to be directed at the president and the administration.
00:18:54.540 It's also going to be directed at the private sector, and it's going to be directed at any businesses that tried to work with President Trump and the administration.
00:19:08.260 So, for example, Fox News reported, and I'll read from this, quote,
00:19:13.120 Progressive Group's 182-page blueprint maps out potential Democrat investigations into Trump corporate allies.
00:19:21.820 A progressive policy institute led by former aides to President Joe Biden and former aides to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren assembled a detailed blueprint for potential Democratic congressional investigations to target President Donald Trump and his allies beyond the White House, which could foreshadow the goals of the 120th Congress.
00:19:42.080 Groundwork Collaborative's dossier, obtained and analyzed by Fox News Digital,
00:19:47.120 maps Trump donors and corporate allies for potential Democratic congressional investigations.
00:19:53.220 Leaders in big tech and CEOs of large corporations are likely to be among the targets of the anti-Trump
00:19:58.200 crusade. A longtime Democratic Senate staffer familiar with the process told Fox News Digital
00:20:04.160 that the Democratic majorities on these committees already plan to exclusively focus
00:20:09.000 on targeting allies and donors of the president,
00:20:12.880 going as far as targeting the ones who donated to the new White House ballroom
00:20:17.500 once they move into the majority.
00:20:20.620 The article continues.
00:20:22.000 However, the staffer did not see the document,
00:20:23.860 which specifically says to target those who gave to the ballroom,
00:20:27.800 library, Trump inauguration, and campaign.
00:20:32.720 Reports have said it was obtained by House committees as well,
00:20:36.020 but a House Judiciary Committee aide for Democrats told Semaphore
00:20:38.920 It was, quote, one of many and dismissed it, saying we all get a lot of emails, but other plans outlined in the document, including targeting Trump aligned corporations such as Tesla, Apple, Amazon, Oracle, Trump Media and World Liberty Financial.
00:20:59.660 The letter also mentions Palantir's Alex Karp and Coinbase's Brian Armstrong by name, with possible hearings involve executives from OpenAI, Meta, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, and others.
00:21:15.620 And understand that the Democrats' objectives here are multiple.
00:21:20.580 Number one, it's just pure vindictive.
00:21:23.460 They're angry.
00:21:24.420 They're filled with hate, with any business that said,
00:21:27.200 and mind you, President Trump was elected by the American people.
00:21:30.440 He is the sitting president.
00:21:32.020 You have an administration in place.
00:21:34.220 Any corporation doing business needs to deal with the federal government
00:21:37.840 if they're a major corporation.
00:21:40.180 The Democrats don't care.
00:21:42.020 They're like, you need to be resistance.
00:21:43.800 You need to have your little pink hat on.
00:21:46.660 You need to be, we hate Trump no matter what.
00:21:49.580 And if you didn't, we are going to punish you.
00:21:51.880 So the first objective is just pure retribution.
00:21:55.980 Yeah.
00:21:56.340 The second objective will be a shakedown, telling every one of these corporations, you need to go and make right.
00:22:02.240 And the way you make right is write gigantic checks to the Democrats.
00:22:05.560 So this will be a fundraising effort from them to say, we want massive political support for our next campaigns.
00:22:13.720 And we're going to keep beating on you until you, A, cut off support for Republicans, but B, write us ginormous checks.
00:22:21.740 But number three, a major objective here is deterrence.
00:22:27.080 They want to make it so that no business wants to do business with not just President Trump, but with Republicans.
00:22:36.940 The next CEO saying, gosh, do I want to work along with the government to do something that is beneficial for America?
00:22:44.280 No, no, because I will get persecuted and I will say, you know, look, Tesla's on there.
00:22:50.000 I expect Elon Musk in particular to be targeted.
00:22:54.140 I expect every one of his companies to be targeted.
00:22:56.400 I expect him personally to be targeted.
00:22:59.020 They hate Elon Musk with a hate that is exceeded only by their hate for President Trump.
00:23:06.120 And so the amazing thing is the Democrats are not hiding that this is weaponization.
00:23:13.580 They're not hiding that their objective is simply to inflict pain.
00:23:19.400 And look, remember this right before the election, we had Alyssa Slotkin, the Democrat from Michigan, who was saying they should also persecute young people, people in their 20s who go to work for the federal government.
00:23:32.720 You know, a 25-year-old who goes and takes a junior job at the Department of Commerce, they want to go investigate them.
00:23:40.060 They want to go prosecute them.
00:23:41.480 And they want to go drive up so this kid has hundreds of thousands in legal bills and they bankrupt kids a couple of years out of college.
00:23:49.260 Why?
00:23:50.540 A, retribution, as I said before.
00:23:53.540 But B, and Slotkin was very open about this.
00:23:57.140 They want to make it so that no young person in their right mind would go work for a Republican administration.
00:24:03.200 They want to make it so.
00:24:04.600 Yeah.
00:24:05.100 And that's sad, by the way.
00:24:07.100 It's twisted.
00:24:07.860 It's so sad.
00:24:09.020 Yeah.
00:24:09.160 And mind you, let's be clear. We had Republican majorities in the House and Senate the last two years. We didn't do that. We didn't target kids who went to work for the Biden administration. We didn't persecute corporations who supported Joe Biden.
00:24:27.860 That was not—this weaponization is entirely one-sided, and the media is not upset at all.
00:24:35.780 They're reporting it.
00:24:36.520 Oh, yeah, of course, they're going to punish anyone.
00:24:38.440 They're going to use the government power they have to inflict harm on anyone who supports their opponents politically.
00:24:48.840 I think that's what the next two years are going to be.
00:24:51.740 This also is probably going to go to staff as well, of those that they believe are the closest allies of the president.
00:24:58.140 That is something that in many ways is unprecedented.
00:25:00.900 Usually you think, OK, it's cabinet.
00:25:02.620 But we're also being told, Senator, that there's a lot of people that are like, hey, whoever is close to the president, get ready because we're coming for you, too.
00:25:11.040 That's that's a whole nother level of deviant lawfare.
00:25:14.540 Yeah. And look, one of the challenges we're already seeing, and it's going to accelerate an exodus of talent from the administration, people that are in the White House, people that are in in cabinet agencies are saying, I don't want to be the target of these attacks.
00:25:27.660 So let's just leave. It becomes very hard to actually do your job if you can't recruit talent around you to implement the president's priorities.
00:25:35.980 And so this is designed, look, this is designed to effectively be a coup, to stop the president from carrying out the agenda that the voters two years ago voted him to carry out.
00:25:49.360 Now, to be clear, the voters also voted on Tuesday for a Democrat House and Senate.
00:25:54.440 So they are entitled to pursue the priorities they believe, even if I believe those priorities are harmful.
00:26:01.200 But there's a difference between pursuing what you legitimately believe and what you campaigned upon, that's democracy, versus weaponizing government power and doing it particularly to attack the powerless.
00:26:15.300 When you're attacking a 25-year-old kid, that kid has no ability to defend himself, to defend herself.
00:26:22.740 And that's what the Democrats are openly, brazenly promising to do.
00:26:27.760 All right. Now, before we get into that, I do want to talk to you real quick about Regent University.
00:26:33.500 Somewhere along the way, we got the idea that a serious education and a strong Christian faith have to live in two different worlds. 0.58
00:26:40.700 They don't. At Regent University, faith isn't an afterthought.
00:26:45.460 It's at the heart of the education.
00:26:47.920 Students are challenged to think deeply, pursue excellence and see their education through a Christian worldview.
00:26:54.120 And make no mistake, Regent is serious about academics.
00:26:58.300 With more than 150 areas of study,
00:27:01.160 Regent has earned national recognition for academic excellence.
00:27:05.560 Because a great education shouldn't just prepare you to make a living,
00:27:09.700 it should prepare you to make a difference.
00:27:12.280 Plus, you can get the same Regent education online.
00:27:16.600 Learn from wherever you are on a schedule that works around your life.
00:27:21.220 Now, getting started is easy.
00:27:22.700 Just fill out a simple online form to request information and connect with an admissions counselor who will answer all your questions about degrees, online programs, financial aid, and more.
00:27:35.040 Go to regent.edu.
00:27:37.180 That's regent.edu. 0.75
00:27:39.720 Exceptional academics, flexible online learning, unapologetically Christian values.
00:27:45.680 Regent University, Christian leadership to change the world.
00:27:48.560 It's not only that, we're also getting some of the plans of what they want to do outside of the impeachment and the lawfare.
00:27:56.600 Hakeem Jeffries went on ABC this week, Senator, and this was something that wasn't talked about very much during the campaign.
00:28:04.520 That's the reason why I think it's significant now.
00:28:06.960 And Hakeem Jeffries is now calling for a new push for amnesty.
00:28:12.280 Here is what he had to say in the ABC this week interview.
00:28:15.760 We're committed to moving aggressively during the first 100 days of the new Congress and beyond to keep our word, to fight for an affordable America, to bring about accountability because we've seen unprecedented corruption that has been visited upon the American people.
00:28:34.020 And we are committed to holding the crooks accountable and making sure that Congress functions like a separate and co-equal branch of government and a check and balance on an out of control executive branch.
00:28:45.080 And we also have to restore American values like liberty and justice for all equal protection under the law, our commitment to the unfettered right to vote and to lift up our glorious history as a nation of immigrants.
00:29:01.640 By the way, I love how this is unfettered when it comes to voting, but they were against the SAVE Act, which was going to protect the right of every American to vote.
00:29:09.900 Well, that's right.
00:29:11.180 And I do think one thing, there's a very real possibility that we see in January of next year,
00:29:17.480 which is I think it is very possible and maybe even likely that the Democrats will nuke the filibuster and end the filibuster in the Senate.
00:29:26.280 I don't know if they will or not.
00:29:27.880 So what does that mean?
00:29:28.960 It's been a while since we've talked about that.
00:29:30.620 So for people that are listening, nuking the filibuster was something that some conservatives were advocating for,
00:29:35.740 hoping was going to happen, that you guys would just hurry up and do it to get certain things
00:29:39.700 done. How does that fundamentally change things? So the filibuster refers to the rule in the Senate
00:29:46.480 that it takes 60 votes under the rules of the Senate to proceed to legislation. And so as a
00:29:51.480 functional matter, if you can't get 60 votes, virtually all legislation you can't move to.
00:29:56.240 And it produces compromise in the Senate. If you've got to get 60 votes, you've got to find
00:30:01.480 something bipartisan that people of both parties can come together and agree on. And it is one of,
00:30:07.880 if not the biggest difference between the Senate and the House. In the House, there is no filibuster,
00:30:11.800 which means a majority can do anything it wants. And so in the House, being the majority, you can
00:30:17.720 ram through your priorities willy-nilly. And by the way, being in the minority in the House
00:30:23.860 really sucks because you have no leverage. You have no ability to stop anything. You can just
00:30:28.640 give speeches and say this is terrible but you don't have the ability to stop it if the filibuster
00:30:34.280 is ended in the senate it will make it very much like the house that whatever the majority wants
00:30:38.900 it can do um and and the mechanics of how you nuke the filibuster so the the filibuster is
00:30:45.420 written in the senate rules that it takes takes two-thirds or not two-thirds it takes 60 votes
00:30:50.260 to proceed to legislation however the way you do it is is any ruling of the chair the presiding
00:30:58.560 officer can be appealed and overturned by the body. And so the way you nuke the filibuster is
00:31:05.840 that the chair rules that it takes 60 votes to proceed to legislation. And Chuck Schumer would
00:31:12.780 stand up and say, I appeal the ruling of the chair. And if 51 votes are cast to overturn the
00:31:23.220 ruling of the chair, then the ruling of the chair is reversed. And that becomes a precedent. And you
00:31:27.920 essentially break the rules of the Senate to change the rules of the Senate. I used to think
00:31:33.960 a week or two ago, if you'd asked me, I would have said, look, if the Democrats take the majority,
00:31:39.440 I doubt they will nuke the filibuster. Why? Because they don't have a Democrat president.
00:31:43.940 And it's really valuable when you have a House and a Senate and a president all of the same party,
00:31:49.260 then you can pass the legislation you really want for Republicans like the Save America Act.
00:31:53.760 because Trump will be in the White House.
00:31:56.520 I had thought a week ago that the Democrats in all likelihood would not nuke the filibuster.
00:32:04.360 I may have changed my mind on that.
00:32:06.620 I think the odds are probably 60-40 or even 70-30 that they nuke the filibuster early next year
00:32:13.900 because they're going to have 55-56 Senate Democrats.
00:32:20.500 And they've got some radicals.
00:32:22.180 They've got some radicals who campaigned for a long time saying the filibuster is Jim Crow.
00:32:27.680 It is oppressive. They've been out there campaigning.
00:32:30.840 And I think Schumer is going to have a hard time holding down his radicals.
00:32:34.820 And so I think they might nuke it, even though they don't have a president who will sign their legislation.
00:32:40.760 And so that and my guess is you heard Akeem Jeffries saying we need to fight for unfettered access to the ballot box.
00:32:49.760 Ironically, this is the same Democrats who oppose democracy over and over again.
00:32:54.540 Mind you, these are the same Democrats that put fake Dan Sullivan on the ballot in Alaska in order to steal votes and confuse the voters and rig the election.
00:33:03.760 These are the same Democrats who supported state Supreme Courts ordering Donald Trump being removed from the ballot in 2024 because they didn't want the voters to be able to reelect him.
00:33:13.360 So these are not people who actually care about democracy.
00:33:17.400 But in every Senate for the last several Congresses, the first bill that is filed is S-1.
00:33:24.460 That will be the first bill Chuck Schumer will file in the new Congress.
00:33:27.460 S-1 is a federal takeover of all elections.
00:33:30.900 It strikes down virtually every election integrity law all across the country.
00:33:35.600 It strikes down restrictions on mail-in voting.
00:33:38.780 So every state would have universal mail-in voting.
00:33:41.280 It strikes down photo ID laws.
00:33:43.500 So every state, it would be legal to vote without a photo ID. It strikes down prohibitions on ballot harvesting. So in every state, you could have political operatives handling the ballots of others, which really facilitates and encourages voter fraud.
00:33:57.640 That's the first bill Schumer always introduces.
00:34:00.420 My prediction is early next year, Schumer will schedule a vote on S-1.
00:34:05.880 And under the filibuster rules, Republicans would defeat it.
00:34:09.520 We would vote it down.
00:34:11.060 I think if they're going to nuke the filibuster, my guess is it would be on S-1 that Schumer would appeal the ruling of this chair,
00:34:18.980 end the filibuster, and then pass it with just 51 votes in the Senate.
00:34:24.460 And then it would go to Trump, and Trump would veto it.
00:34:26.440 But I think one of the things we're going to see in the next two years is the Democrats trying to put bill after bill after bill on Trump's desk and force him to veto one after the other after the other.
00:34:36.840 I think we're going to see a lot of that.
00:34:39.420 Oh, group shot.
00:34:40.840 I'll take it.
00:34:41.860 No, we're good.
00:34:42.900 There's one in every group. 0.78
00:34:44.460 The Notographer.
00:34:45.660 Best intentions.
00:34:46.760 Worst shots.
00:34:47.680 But there's hope.
00:34:48.480 The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra on Bell.
00:34:51.420 Super steady videos and perfectly framed shots with my fan cam.
00:34:54.520 and nightography for stellar picks
00:34:56.420 even in low light. I want that.
00:34:58.280 Yep, post-worthy with just a click. All on
00:35:00.540 Bell, Canada's fastest 5G plus
00:35:02.460 network. Visit a Bell store or bell.ca
00:35:04.420 slash Samsung for details. Bell.
00:35:06.800 Connection is everything.
00:35:09.000 Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong. He's
00:35:10.560 Joe Getty. We're Armstrong and Getty. We've been
00:35:12.380 trying to figure out how to describe what is
00:35:14.220 Armstrong and Getty on demand for many years.
00:35:16.620 I'm going to give it a shot. So most media
00:35:18.440 is either agenda driven. So they intentionally
00:35:20.340 leave parts out or they lie to you. Or they're so
00:35:22.280 shallow. And boring.
00:35:24.140 You don't learn anything anyway.
00:35:25.940 We try to get to the bottom of the stories that are shaping our world
00:35:28.920 and help you understand what's actually happening.
00:35:31.940 The Armstrong and Getty Show, practically perfect in every way.
00:35:35.020 Yeah, I really like you guys' show. I've been listening for over 10 years.
00:35:38.200 And I'll always be an avid listener and better informed for it. 0.63
00:35:41.220 The show is a collection of silly, serious, and irreverent musings of the day.
00:35:45.800 Hilariously balanced with more than just a pinch of sarcasm. 0.99
00:35:50.020 Whether it's on the left or the right, if somebody does something or says something stupid, 0.99
00:35:54.140 they're going to call it out. And I love that. I love it. Keep up the great work. 0.99
00:35:58.180 I'm rocking with A&G. So give it a try sometime. Entertaining and you learn something? Where do I
00:36:02.080 do now? Listen to Armstrong and Getty on demand on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
00:36:06.580 or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:36:10.660 Football's back. Hey, it's Drew Franklin from NFL Cover Zero.
00:36:14.000 Enjoy the NFL season while listening to NFL Cover Zero. We have
00:36:17.860 storylines, predictions, and lots of silliness. Here's what you can expect from the podcast
00:36:22.180 in our second season when you meet people and you say your job's a sports announcer it's always
00:36:27.760 interesting to see what the first thing they say is i did have one of the more difficult questions
00:36:34.340 though he sits next to me and he sees i'm i'm um i'm on my computer and he goes big sports fan and
00:36:41.300 i was like yeah actually uh and he goes we think about my jaguars this year i realized like no one's
00:36:47.760 never asked me that question ever about anything.
00:36:51.280 And I was like, Duvall.
00:36:55.720 Listen to NFL Cover Zero on the iHeartRadio app,
00:36:58.860 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:37:05.320 Final question for you on this, and that also comes down to
00:37:09.040 there is a lot of people that are saying,
00:37:10.860 hey, you still have the majority.
00:37:13.100 Why aren't you guys going back to Washington this week
00:37:15.860 and doing some of the things that Democrats are going to do when they get the majority.
00:37:20.080 Why wouldn't you guys nuke it right now, pass the SAVE Act, do things like that?
00:37:24.240 Explain why that's probably not going to happen.
00:37:27.320 Well, look, I hope we do.
00:37:28.960 And when we return this week to the Senate, there are a couple of things we need to do.
00:37:32.860 Number one, on nominations, we need to clear the deck.
00:37:36.200 So there are a number of nominations pending executive branch nominations,
00:37:40.540 and we need to confirm every one we can.
00:37:43.580 And the way it worked, we changed the rules earlier this year so we can now do confirmations in block so we can group together a bunch of nominations together.
00:37:52.600 We did that because the Democrats started this Trump term with unprecedented obstruction, delaying and obstructing every single confirmation.
00:38:02.300 And so we changed the rules so that you can block them together.
00:38:04.680 Now, the way we did that, any individual Republican senator can object to a nominee and throw them out of the block.
00:38:13.780 So you would have to have Trump nominees that you've got all 53 Republicans behind.
00:38:19.580 If there's an individual senator who doesn't like a nominee, they'd be thrown out of the block.
00:38:24.320 If they're thrown out of the block, the only way they can get confirmed is to have them separately scheduled for floor time, which burns a lot of floor time.
00:38:31.080 I think we will clear the deck of most of the pending nominees, except for those to whom there are individual objections by Republican senators.
00:38:41.880 Secondly, I think we're going to clear the decks of all or virtually all of the judicial nominees.
00:38:47.940 And I think that's very good. I'm pressing for that.
00:38:50.360 The reason is, I think starting next year, there are no more confirmations.
00:38:54.740 If they're cabinet vacancies, those will not be confirmed.
00:38:57.080 I think they won't confirm sub-cabinet vacancies, and I think they will stop judicial confirmation.
00:39:02.220 So my hope is we can confirm every judge humanly possible between now and the end of the year.
00:39:08.100 I think we'll probably do that as well.
00:39:10.820 I've also advised the White House.
00:39:13.640 I've said, look, after this election, you all need to sit down with your cabinet and tell every one of the cabinet members you need to decide right now.
00:39:23.320 Are you going to stay or are you going to leave?
00:39:25.460 Often after a midterm election, sub-Cabinet members decide to step down.
00:39:29.280 And what I encourage the White House, you ought to tell everyone,
00:39:31.900 either you decide I'm staying for the next two years, I'm here for the duration,
00:39:36.080 or if not, if you plan to step down, step down now.
00:39:39.500 Because let's take Hegseth.
00:39:40.940 If Hegseth is going to resign, if he resigns now and the president nominates a new defense secretary,
00:39:48.280 we can nominate, we can confirm the new defense secretary.
00:39:51.180 If he resigns or is fired next year, we can't confirm a replacement.
00:39:57.460 I don't think the Democrats will agree to confirm anybody at the Pentagon or anywhere else.
00:40:02.840 And so I would expect the next two months to be filled with a lot of confirmations, judicial confirmations, cabinet confirmations.
00:40:11.240 If conceivably there were a Supreme Court vacancy, we would do that,
00:40:15.180 although there have been public reports that Alito and Thomas have said that they're not going to step down.
00:40:20.100 So, I mean, we would not have a Supreme Court vacancy.
00:40:23.820 And then what I'm also urging is that we do a reconciliation.
00:40:28.060 Reconciliation is the major exception to the filibuster.
00:40:31.880 I would like to see us accomplish some major vehicles, including significant portions of the Save America Act that we could pass on reconciliation.
00:40:41.400 You asked, Ben, why we wouldn't do that.
00:40:43.860 Listen, the impediment is, can we get 50 votes in the Senate?
00:40:47.900 Prior to Election Day, we couldn't.
00:40:49.620 We only have 53 Republicans. There were more than three Republicans who were objecting to do that.
00:40:55.500 And so if we can only get to 49 or 48 or 47, we can't get it done.
00:40:59.480 I'm going to press let's win legislative victories in November and December because we're about to go through two years of time in the wilderness where we're not going to pass meaningful legislation for two years and instead go through the Democrat circus.
00:41:16.700 I hope we have a very productive lame duck for the next two months.
00:41:20.100 Yeah, we're going to keep you updated on it every day.
00:41:21.880 I promise you're going to know more here than any other show out there
00:41:24.880 because the center will be doing the show Monday Wednesday Friday
00:41:27.520 from Washington, D.C. when they're there,
00:41:29.020 and we'll get you all the latest news on where we're headed.
00:41:31.960 Don't forget, download the show every day we have it
00:41:34.200 and on YouTube as well,
00:41:35.520 and the center and I will see you back here on Wednesday morning.
00:41:38.620 Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong. He's Joe Getty.
00:41:40.420 We've been trying to figure out how to describe
00:41:42.120 what is Armstrong and Getty on demand for many years.
00:41:44.900 I'm going to give it a shot.
00:41:45.900 So most media is either agenda-driven or they're so shallow and boring you don't learn anything anyway.
00:41:52.160 We try to get to the bottom of the stories that are shaping our worlds and help you understand what's actually happening.
00:41:58.160 So give it a try sometime.
00:41:59.420 Entertaining and you learn something?
00:42:00.680 Where do I tune in?
00:42:01.480 Listen to Armstrong and Getty on demand on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.