Verdict with Ted Cruz - Judge Harboring a Gang Member, Trump Smacks down ABC News & DOGE finds Institute of Peace NOT so Peaceful Week In Review

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.540 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.260 Welcome.

00:00:06.020 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz.

00:00:07.940 Week in Review.

00:00:09.140 Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:10.240 And here are the big stories that you may have missed that we talked about this week.

00:00:14.280 First up, a New Mexico judge now behind bars for housing an illegal gang member.

00:00:21.220 And the AG is not backing down on activist judges either.

00:00:25.120 I'll have that for you in just a second.

00:00:26.600 Also, Donald Trump roasts ABC News in a 100-day interview in the Oval Office.

00:00:33.320 And what he had to say, it went viral and we'll play it for you as well.

00:00:36.980 And finally, Doge and the Institute for Peace, well, they're exposing they weren't actually very peaceful.

00:00:43.820 Is they were giving money to former terrorist members.

00:00:47.740 It's the Week in Review and it starts right now.

00:00:50.500 So when you combine this and these types of arrests, there is no inclination here that this is preemptively an idea or a mindset by the DOJ or anybody else.

00:01:04.480 This is reactionary to these activist judges.

00:01:07.780 And that's something that the media is also distorting.

00:01:10.320 Well, it is.

00:01:12.940 And I will say, look, there's another story out of New Mexico, which is former Doña Ana County magistrate judge Joel Cano, 67, his wife Nancy Cano, 68, are in custody right now.

00:01:28.680 They were arrested by Homeland Security at their Las Cruces home.

00:01:32.860 They were arrested for harboring a gang member, a Trender-Aragua gang member in their home.

00:01:43.820 And this Trender-Aragua gang member, he's covered in gang tattoos, and the judge faces charges of tampering with evidence.

00:01:55.280 Now, you know what he did?

00:01:56.520 What was that?

00:01:57.340 He took this Venezuelan gang member's cell phone, smashed it with a hammer because it had incriminating evidence of the gang member with firearms, and then he went and disposed of the cell phone.

00:02:14.560 So he was trying to hide evidence.

00:02:15.960 Now, do you know one of the pictures that was on the cell phone, allegedly, that the judge destroyed with a hammer?

00:02:24.080 I'm going to guess it's probably one of those good old gang sign pictures, right?

00:02:28.160 Because that's always what the gang members have on their phone.

00:02:31.140 No, it's worse than that.

00:02:32.640 It's a picture of two victims who are decapitated.

00:02:37.600 We're not talking nice, fuzzy, friendly gang members.

00:02:41.600 We're not talking, as the media loves to call the illegal immigrant up in Maryland, a, quote, Maryland man.

00:02:48.420 Listen, this is a gang member who allegedly had pictures of two people with their heads cut off on the cell phone.

00:02:55.880 And what does a Democrat judge do in New Mexico?

00:02:59.040 Well, you got a gang member.

00:03:00.680 He says, hey, let me hide you in my house.

00:03:02.620 And here, give me that phone, because they could use that to prosecute you.

00:03:06.120 I'm going to smash it with a hammer and dispose of it so they don't have the evidence to convict you. 0.81

00:03:12.020 That is bizarre. 0.97

00:03:14.120 And that is a Democrat judge. 0.59

00:03:17.500 The attorney general, by the way, she came out strong and said, we're not backing down when we see this type of activism.

00:03:25.500 Here's part of what she had to say on Fox.

00:03:28.040 And to set the stage for you and Sandra, this was truly horrific.

00:03:32.580 This guy was in court being prosecuted by a state prosecutor for domestic violence battery.

00:03:38.380 He had beat up two people, a guy and a girl, beat the guy, hit the guy 30 times, knocked him to the ground, choked him, beat up a woman so badly they both had to go to the hospital.

00:03:49.800 And, John, you know, it's so rare for victims to want to cooperate.

00:03:52.840 They wanted to cooperate.

00:03:53.880 They were sitting in the courtroom with the state prosecutor.

00:03:57.960 The judge learns that ICE was outside to get the guy because he had been deported in 2013, came back in our country, commits these crimes, charged with committing these crimes.

00:04:07.720 Victims in court.

00:04:09.140 Judge finds out.

00:04:10.160 She goes out in the hallway, screams at the immigration officers. 0.53

00:04:13.720 She's furious, visibly shaken, upset, sends them off to talk to the chief judge.

00:04:19.520 She comes back in the courtroom.

00:04:21.400 You're not going to believe this.

00:04:22.280 Takes the defendant and the defense attorney back in her chambers, takes them out of private exit and tells them to leave. 0.99

00:04:28.780 While a state prosecutor and victims of domestic violence are sitting in the courtroom.

00:04:35.720 You hear her explaining this.

00:04:37.960 And you've got to think the majority of Americans, if they know that story, they're going to be outraged just as outraged as she is.

00:04:45.920 Yeah, no, that's exactly right.

00:04:47.200 And I want to play a second clip from from Pam Bondi where she's talking about the New Mexico judge, because this is not this is not a crazy outlier.

00:04:55.180 Unfortunately, this is a pattern.

00:04:56.420 Give a listen to the attorney general talking about this New Mexico judge harboring a Trender-Aragua gang member in his home.

00:05:02.680 I mean, when you look at the associations with this violent Venezuelan gang, Trender-Aragua, and this person that they harbored in their home, he was showing signs through clothing, we're told tattoos.

00:05:17.900 There was evidence through voice messages and text messages of his association to TDA.

00:05:23.740 So what charges will Cano and his wife face, if any?

00:05:27.940 So Judge Cano, soon to be former Judge Cano, got he got his charges were just unsealed.

00:05:35.600 He's charged with obstruction.

00:05:37.240 He is charged.

00:05:38.300 He admitted post Miranda.

00:05:40.000 He took one of the TDA members cell phones himself, took it, beat it with a hammer, destroyed it, and then walked to the pieces to a city dumpster to dispose of it to protect him.

00:05:52.360 The wife also is charged with destroying evidence.

00:05:55.540 Sandra, not only that, this TDA member, and he had on a necklace that said, kill, something about death.

00:06:02.540 He had tattoos all over him.

00:06:04.360 He also had on his cell phone pictures of two decapitated victims.

00:06:11.120 Two victims.

00:06:12.780 Decapitated, gruesome photos.

00:06:14.860 And he was sending them out.

00:06:16.900 And whoever he was sending them to was sending back saying, hey, you need to be careful.

00:06:20.440 You shouldn't be sending these.

00:06:21.920 You shouldn't be texting these photos out.

00:06:23.740 Not only that, the judge and his wife gave him assault rifles that belonged to their daughter.

00:06:30.100 That's what they're charged with.

00:06:31.820 In the criminal report affidavit, he goes to a shooting range with these assault rifles, with a suppressor, with other known TDA members, and they're shooting.

00:06:42.280 This is the last person that we want in our country.

00:06:45.320 Nor will we ever tolerate a judge or anyone else harboring them.

00:06:50.500 I'm just so glad we have an attorney general.

00:06:53.060 You're good friends with Pam.

00:06:54.000 We've had her on the show.

00:06:55.080 Yes.

00:06:55.280 That is able to articulate this the way that she is, to continue to combat the lies that are being put out there about who is actually getting arrested, who we're targeting, and who we're trying to get out of the country.

00:07:07.400 No, that's exactly right, and it's the simple principle that no one is above the law.

00:07:13.660 Well, here's what Kash Patel, the head of the FBI, tweeted out.

00:07:17.740 Quote,

00:07:18.060 Just now, the FBI arrested Judge Hannah Dugan out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on charges of obstruction after evidence of Judge Dugan obstructing an immigration arrest operation last week.

00:07:30.540 We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject, an illegal alien, to evade arrest.

00:07:40.840 Thankfully, our agents chased down the perp on foot, and he's been in custody since.

00:07:46.440 But the judge's obstruction created increased danger to the public.

00:07:50.220 We will have more to share soon.

00:07:52.960 Excellent work.

00:07:53.980 And then the attorney general, Pam Bondi, she tweeted,

00:07:56.280 I can confirm that our FBI agents just arrested Hannah Dugan, a county judge in Milwaukee, for allegedly helping an illegal alien avoid arrest by ICE.

00:08:05.000 No one is above the law.

00:08:07.100 Somehow, Democrats believe that if they don't like a law, they can just ignore it.

00:08:14.460 They can defy it.

00:08:15.460 By the way, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did that for four years.

00:08:18.460 They just utterly ignored federal immigration law.

00:08:21.620 And unfortunately, this attitude of lawlessness, we're not bound by the law.

00:08:27.580 Not only that, we're going to actively fight federal law enforcement, who is trying to enforce the law.

00:08:33.800 And what are they doing this for?

00:08:36.320 I mean, Ben, seriously, explain to me.

00:08:39.180 Help me get in the head of, let's say, this New Mexico judge.

00:08:43.940 New Mexico judge, you and your wife say, hey, we got some gang members from Venezuela.

00:08:49.060 Venezuela, they're covered in tattoos. 0.88

00:08:51.360 They've got a necklace that says kill. 0.98

00:08:55.240 They have cell phones with pictures of people with their heads cut off. 0.99

00:09:00.880 Let's bring them to my house.

00:09:03.140 Like, explain to me that thought process.

00:09:06.920 My brain is not nimble enough to get around this.

00:09:09.340 See, this is where I think to myself, I'm like, all right, well, then there's got to be some sort of incentive that is connecting them.

00:09:14.980 There's got to be something to gain here personally, because I can't just imagine this judge is just like, yeah, genuinely want to hang out with people that are celebrating or involved in this type of criminal activity, including, as you described it, beheadings.

00:09:30.920 Yeah, look, you and I watch Breaking Bad.

00:09:33.500 I don't know if this is a judge that's on the take, if there's corruption, if he's been paid by the gang. 1.00

00:09:38.780 I don't know if he's ideological and stupid or corrupt or what. 0.99

00:09:45.500 There's clearly more to this story we will learn, but the facts on the face of it are astonishing. 1.00

00:09:52.840 And what's amazing, I don't know of a single Democrat elected official who's denounced this conduct by the judges.

00:10:00.000 Instead, what they're saying is they're rushing to defend these judges that are brazenly, brazenly defying the law.

00:10:09.160 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.

00:10:16.000 Canadian women are looking for more. 1.00

00:10:18.160 More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.

00:10:22.320 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:10:26.040 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:10:27.240 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:10:28.200 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

00:10:37.980 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:10:41.220 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:10:46.980 Now on to story number two.

00:10:48.880 Here's something else that President Trump said at the rally where he actually reprised my favorite line from his State of the Union address this year,

00:10:58.860 where he talked about how Joe Biden had said just one year earlier that the only way to secure the border is if Congress passed new legislation.

00:11:07.720 Give a listen to what President Trump said.

00:11:09.520 For years, Joe Biden and the media told us that stopping the flood of illegal immigration was absolutely impossible.

00:11:18.300 He said it was impossible.

00:11:20.180 He didn't know what the hell anybody was talking about.

00:11:22.300 He said it was impossible that the president had no power to stop what was needed in the form of legislation.

00:11:31.880 He needed legislation.

00:11:33.980 He had no power to get it.

00:11:35.580 But it turned out that all we needed was a new president.

00:11:40.980 He's right.

00:11:41.800 All we need was a new president.

00:11:43.200 They said that wouldn't even get it done.

00:11:44.760 Well, guess what?

00:11:45.460 Not only did he get it done, but even the mainstream media now.

00:11:49.020 Senator is forced to report on just how big of a victory this is for Trump at the border.

00:11:55.060 ABC News.

00:11:56.620 They put it this way in their own interview with the president.

00:12:00.200 Here in the Oval Office, it's special.

00:12:03.440 A hundred days into your second term.

00:12:06.380 So what's the one thing, just one thing, that you think is the most significant thing you've done so far in these hundred days?

00:12:15.840 Well, I think maybe the border is the most significant because our country was really going bad.

00:12:20.860 They were allowing people to come in from prisons, as you know, and you've heard me say it, but you've heard a lot of people say it.

00:12:26.820 Prisons, mental institutions, gang members, murderers.

00:12:31.060 We had many murderers, 11,888, they think.

00:12:35.500 Some murdered more than one person.

00:12:37.820 So you had murderers coming in.

00:12:39.280 You had everybody coming in.

00:12:40.880 And not just South America, from all over the world.

00:12:43.060 They were emptying their prisons into our country. 0.96

00:12:45.200 And now it's totally closed down.

00:12:47.780 And you've seen just yesterday, they announced 99.9%.

00:12:52.360 Nobody thought that could happen.

00:12:54.120 And it happened quickly, very quickly.

00:12:56.320 And I think that's very significant.

00:12:57.580 But we're doing other things that are very significant.

00:13:01.180 The results will take a little bit longer because it's one of those, you know, it's complicated.

00:13:06.020 It's many years of trading abuse.

00:13:08.740 We've been abused by other countries for years and years.

00:13:12.260 They laughed at us. 1.00

00:13:13.480 They thought we were stupid people. 1.00

00:13:15.000 And we're fixing it. 0.99

00:13:16.760 And I think that's going to be very, very important.

00:13:19.400 But I have a lot of ground to cover.

00:13:21.180 Yeah, I would really say that the border is so important.

00:13:24.840 You know, just can't.

00:13:25.460 And we'll get there.

00:13:26.100 Immigration is huge.

00:13:27.360 And we're going to get there.

00:13:27.960 But I want to start.

00:13:29.360 You hear him say the southern border is totally closed down 99.9%.

00:13:33.600 I'll be honest with you, I don't even think Americans that voted for Donald Trump, that

00:13:38.300 believed in him, thought he could get this done this quick with those types of numbers.

00:13:43.020 The numbers are staggering.

00:13:44.280 He said nobody believed we could get there.

00:13:46.060 I actually think that's wrong.

00:13:47.300 I think Donald Trump believed he could get there.

00:13:49.040 He knew he could get there.

00:13:50.260 And I'll tell you, you and I, we both predicted it, that we would see the numbers absolutely

00:13:54.900 plummet.

00:13:55.320 Although, it's a fair point.

00:13:57.100 We said absolutely plummet.

00:13:58.280 I don't think I said 99.9%.

00:14:00.420 I might have thought it'd be 90% or 95%.

00:14:03.740 But 99.9% is, to be honest, Trump might even be surprised it's that high.

00:14:11.080 It's staggering.

00:14:12.340 And it's an example of a commander in chief who's actually following law.

00:14:16.960 You know, I got to say that ABC interview was really striking.

00:14:20.480 There's a great exchange where the ABC reporter comes after him.

00:14:26.800 And Trump just body slams him.

00:14:30.220 Here, give a listen.

00:14:31.620 Do you think the reputation of the United States has gone down under your presidency?

00:14:36.900 No, I think it's gone way up.

00:14:38.240 And I think we're a respected country.

00:14:39.920 Again, we were left at all over the world.

00:14:42.620 We had a president that couldn't walk up a flight of stairs, couldn't walk down a flight

00:14:47.140 of stairs, couldn't walk across the stage without falling. 0.98

00:14:50.260 We had a president that was grossly incompetent. 0.97

00:14:52.740 You knew it. 0.96

00:14:53.340 I knew it.

00:14:53.920 And everybody knew it.

00:14:54.920 But you guys didn't want to write it because you're fake news.

00:14:57.540 All right.

00:14:58.580 Thank you.

00:14:59.000 And by the way, ABC is one of the worst.

00:15:00.900 I have to be honest with you.

00:15:02.140 Thank you.

00:15:03.700 I'm sorry.

00:15:04.440 That's just amazing.

00:15:05.520 He's looking at the main guy. 0.95

00:15:06.960 He's like roasting them to their faces.

00:15:08.740 He's like, by the way, ABC. 0.97

00:15:10.280 Yeah.

00:15:10.520 You guys, by the way, are one of the worst. 0.92

00:15:12.020 He's like, thank you. 0.96

00:15:12.680 We're going to wrap now.

00:15:13.460 He's like, thank you.

00:15:14.740 Thank you.

00:15:15.080 And you actually have to watch it watching the.

00:15:17.360 And I will say one of the things Trump doesn't get nearly enough credit for is how damn funny 0.92

00:15:23.000 he is, where he's like, look, it's one thing if he could just say, look, Joe Biden was incompetent. 0.66

00:15:28.340 But he's like, he couldn't walk up the stairs.

00:15:30.220 He couldn't walk down the stairs.

00:15:31.580 He fall like you couldn't walk in the room.

00:15:33.280 Like, it's just it is funny, but it's true.

00:15:37.280 And he's right.

00:15:37.940 He's like, you knew it.

00:15:38.820 I knew it.

00:15:39.360 Everyone knew it.

00:15:40.240 And yet you were lying about it.

00:15:42.240 And nobody in the media.

00:15:44.460 Have you seen a single mea culpa from anyone in the media saying we knew Joe Biden was mentally

00:15:50.760 incompetent and we deliberately lied to the American people about it?

00:15:54.500 Nobody's done that.

00:15:55.860 No, no one has it all.

00:15:57.780 One other thing I do have to say about all of this 100 days is the the the speed at which

00:16:04.600 this administration is working and how well this team is working in the White House is

00:16:09.680 really impressive.

00:16:10.480 You and I have been over there with Doge when we were interviewing Elon Musk.

00:16:13.500 I've been back last week as well to the White House.

00:16:16.780 This team around him is just incredible compared to what he had in 2016.

00:16:22.640 And I think that's part of the reason why he's getting so much done.

00:16:25.220 Would you agree with that?

00:16:26.100 Fully agree.

00:16:26.520 I think the cabinet is much stronger than than the 2016 or the 2017 cabinet.

00:16:32.040 I think in the first term he made some appointments that frankly did not serve him well.

00:16:37.200 He put people in place who disagreed with him, who undermined him.

00:16:40.860 And I think this second term, I think he learned.

00:16:44.180 I think he learned during during the four years of his first term as president.

00:16:48.000 I think he learned during the four years he was out of office.

00:16:50.460 I think he had a lot of time to think about if and when he came back, what he would do.

00:16:55.380 And I think he put in place change agents.

00:16:59.020 And, you know, there's another exchange in that ABC News interview that I really like where where ABC News is defending illegal immigration and the open borders under the Democrats.

00:17:10.600 And he just utterly calls them out here.

00:17:13.320 Give and listen to that talking about, you know, you're making this person sound.

00:17:16.500 This is a MS-13 gang member, a tough cookie, been in lots of skirmishes, beat the hell out of his wife.

00:17:24.920 And the wife was petrified to even talk about him.

00:17:27.380 OK, this is not an innocent, wonderful gentleman from now.

00:17:31.140 I'm not saying he's a good guy.

00:17:32.440 It's about the rule of law.

00:17:33.560 The order from the Supreme Court stands.

00:17:35.340 I mean, I love it.

00:17:39.360 He's not going to back down.

00:17:40.440 He's not afraid of the guys in the press at all.

00:17:43.140 And the Democrats, you want to talk about stepping into their trap that the Democrats have happily embraced.

00:17:51.120 We, the Democrat Party, are the party of illegal immigrants. 0.79

00:17:54.740 We are the party of gang members.

00:17:57.000 We are, you know, our pod two days ago, if you didn't listen to it, really is astonishing.

00:18:01.260 There are two different Democrat judges in jail right now for obstructing justice, for blocking federal law enforcement, for arresting illegal immigrants.

00:18:12.920 And one of the two, a judge from New Mexico, is charged with sheltering a Trender-Aragua Venezuelan gang member in his home and destroying evidence.

00:18:25.580 It's really shocking.

00:18:26.500 So this gang member had a cell phone, and this Democrat judge took the cell phone, smashed it with a hammer, went and threw the cell phone away in a dumpster, all in an effort to cover up the evidence of this gang member's criminality.

00:18:39.840 And one of the astonishing things that the Department of Justice has told us is that cell phone that the Democrat judge destroyed had pictures of two people who had been decapitated, two victims presumably of gang violence who had their heads cut off.

00:18:56.820 And Ben, like what does it say that today's Democrat Party, what they're about, is there for Venezuelan gang members who cut people's heads off? 0.96

00:19:05.920 Literally, I don't know how you could be in a more radical position than where they are right now.

00:19:12.500 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.

00:19:21.540 Canadian women are looking for more. 1.00

00:19:23.760 More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.

00:19:27.900 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:19:31.600 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:19:32.780 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:19:33.740 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

00:19:43.540 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:19:46.760 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:19:52.540 I want to get back to the big story, number three of the week you may have missed.

00:19:57.240 Senator, I want to talk about what we just found out with Doge.

00:20:01.760 And I think it's an important point to reset because we saw a lot of press about Doge early on.

00:20:08.780 We've now moved on to other topics, or I should say the media has moved on to other topics.

00:20:12.900 It does not mean that Elon Musk and the Doge staff have stopped doing their job.

00:20:18.100 In fact, they are still finding incredible amounts of waste, fraud, and abuse.

00:20:24.340 And they sat down with Jesse Waters at Fox to kind of give an update of like, hey, here we are.

00:20:29.520 It was also a very cool interview because what we're witnessing is Elon Musk showing these do-gooders that he has brought in.

00:20:38.300 They could be making a lot more money in the private sector.

00:20:41.420 There are a lot of young, brilliant minds that are finding all of this information and digging and digging in our government.

00:20:48.020 And he's letting them tell the stories of what they're finding.

00:20:50.980 I love this management style from him.

00:20:53.240 Well, I got to say, every week there are new bombshells that are coming out from Doge of just astonishing waste, fraud, and abuse.

00:21:01.460 And so this latest interview that Elon did with Jesse Waters, he laid out, for example, that the Institute of Peace had a $130,000 contract with a former member of the Taliban.

00:21:18.960 Now, just let that sink in for a minute.

00:21:21.400 $130,000 to a former member of the Taliban, and that is from the, quote, Institute of Peace.

00:21:29.800 Nothing like paying a terrorist if you're the Institute of Peace.

00:21:34.660 And by the way, that same Institute of Peace deleted one terabyte of accounting records when Doge entered their headquarters.

00:21:44.240 So they came in.

00:21:45.300 I got to tell you, if you're prosecuting criminal conduct in a court of law and a defendant destroys evidence, deletes data on their computer, burns papers, burns receipts, burns photographs,

00:21:59.840 that can be taken as evidence of guilt, the fact that you are deleting evidence.

00:22:05.760 But here, give a listen to the description of what they found from the Institute of Peace.

00:22:10.380 Yeah, so it was by far the least peaceful agency that we've worked with, ironically.

00:22:15.360 Of course.

00:22:16.200 Additionally, we found that they were spending money on things like private jets, and they even had a $130,000 contract with a former member of the Taliban.

00:22:24.180 This is real.

00:22:24.860 We don't encounter that in most agencies.

00:22:26.600 Yeah.

00:22:27.740 What was the money going to the Taliban for?

00:22:31.460 So it was a contractor.

00:22:32.660 They received $130,000 for generic services.

00:22:35.740 And to Elon's point, there was not actually a clear description of what the contractor services were for.

00:22:40.160 Was it for opium?

00:22:42.960 Unclear.

00:22:43.360 Or weapons.

00:22:46.380 Or nothing.

00:22:47.400 Or nothing.

00:22:48.120 Or abroad.

00:22:49.740 Or, yeah, nothing.

00:22:50.320 And you naturally have to ask the question, how did we get here?

00:22:52.920 Like, when the country was founded, there were only four agencies.

00:22:55.800 Today, there are over 400.

00:22:57.540 So there's been a 100x increase in the number of agencies since the founding of the nation.

00:23:01.940 And thanks to President Trump, he's now signed two executive orders to start to reduce the number of agencies in the government.

00:23:06.940 And the Institute of Peace was one of them, which is why our team went in to try and understand what was going on.

00:23:11.000 And that's when we found all of the craziness, like the weapons in their armory.

00:23:14.800 We found the payments to the Taliban.

00:23:16.960 Oh, yeah.

00:23:17.620 The accountants.

00:23:19.120 Oh, yeah.

00:23:20.000 The accountants.

00:23:20.500 Hide the evidence.

00:23:21.940 Right.

00:23:22.180 So just a few hours after we got into their headquarters, we found that their chief accountant had actually deleted over a terabyte of accounting records from several years.

00:23:28.720 So you'd have to ask the question, well, why would somebody do that?

00:23:31.580 The Doge team, unfortunately, was able to recover that data with the help of a few great employees at the Institute of Peace.

00:23:36.600 And I think the most troubling thing was they received $55 million a year from Congress.

00:23:40.800 And any money that went unspent, instead of returning that to Congress, they would sweep it into a private bank account, which had no congressional oversight.

00:23:48.020 And that's what they would use to fund things like events at their headquarters and the private jets.

00:23:53.800 And so I think it's a great example because most Americans don't know what's going on at a lot of these smaller agencies.

00:23:59.080 And this is, I think, the most extreme case of some of the wasteful spend that we're finding.

00:24:05.120 So the agencies are hiding money from you.

00:24:07.760 They're sending it to the Taliban. 0.88

00:24:10.140 They have loaded weapons in the department buildings.

00:24:13.960 At the Institute of Peace.

00:24:15.060 At the Institute of Peace.

00:24:16.680 That's right.

00:24:17.160 So this is a cover-up when you guys roll in.

00:24:20.860 This one, yes, a cover-up.

00:24:22.340 It's a cover-up.

00:24:23.500 They did delete a vast amount of financial information.

00:24:26.940 That's really a definition of a cover-up.

00:24:29.520 Isn't that illegal to delete evidence?

00:24:32.180 Yes.

00:24:32.580 Shred documents? 0.97

00:24:34.220 It is.

00:24:34.560 It's certainly illegal to delete accounting records that Congress would certainly want to know where the congressionally appropriated funds are going from taxpayers.

00:24:41.940 When you catch them going Hillary-style on their computers, do you refer this to the Department of Justice?

00:24:50.020 In this case, we did refer the evidence in the accounting example to the FBI and DOJ.

00:24:53.940 We were proud to do that.

00:24:56.940 So, yes, we did.

00:24:58.020 I mean, let's just go back to what you said, Senator, a moment ago and dive into this a little bit more.

00:25:06.100 If this is that type of activity in this type of cover-up and referring this to the DOJ, what would the next step be on that?

00:25:15.360 And then also, what can Congress do, if anything, knowing now what they've just told you?

00:25:21.860 Look, I've got to say almost every word of that is shocking.

00:25:25.660 That they gave $130,000 to a foreign member of the Taliban, that's astonishing.

00:25:31.160 That they spent taxpayer money on private jets, that's astonishing.

00:25:35.660 That the Institute of Peace had an armory with a whole bunch of weapons.

00:25:41.180 Now, let me repeat that.

00:25:42.040 The Institute of Peace apparently felt the need to be packing.

00:25:47.120 And when DOJ showed up, they started deleting their accounting records, which screams guilt.

00:25:53.240 By the way, when President Trump did the interview with ABC News in the Oval, one of the things ABC News says is,

00:25:58.980 well, there have been no referrals to the Department of Justice.

00:26:02.140 And President Trump quite rightly says, how do you know that?

00:26:05.260 Well, this is one.

00:26:07.040 And it turns out there have been multiple referrals to the Department of Justice for fraud.

00:26:10.880 It's just ABC News doesn't want people to know that.

00:26:13.880 Here, I want you to listen to another clip.

00:26:15.160 This is another clip where the Department of Education had a $4 billion COVID fund that let government employees draw down.

00:26:25.500 They used it for things like parties and rent out venues like Caesar's Palace.

00:26:30.520 Give a listen.

00:26:30.960 There was a $4 billion COVID fund in the Department of Education, and there was no receipts required.

00:26:38.920 So people would just draw down on it.

00:26:40.400 And when people looked into it, this wasn't us, this was before us.

00:26:43.700 They found that money was being used to rent out Caesar's Palace for parties, rent out stadiums, et cetera.

00:26:48.700 And so the one change that Doge made with Department of Education is we had the simple requirement that if you draw down money, you must first upload a receipt.

00:26:57.780 That was the only change that was made.

00:26:59.700 You must upload your receipt.

00:27:01.100 And upon doing so, nobody drew down any money anymore.

00:27:04.640 Yes, but we didn't say that we'd check the receipt.

00:27:07.520 You could send a fake receipt.

00:27:09.340 You could send a picture of your dog.

00:27:12.460 Anything.

00:27:13.140 Anything.

00:27:13.940 Anything.

00:27:15.100 And as soon as we asked for anything at all, suddenly the requests were like, oh, we don't need it anymore.

00:27:22.760 Huh.

00:27:22.980 That's interesting.

00:27:23.700 They were renting Caesar's Palace.

00:27:26.240 Yes.

00:27:26.920 They were like basically partying on the taxpayer money.

00:27:29.980 Basically partying on the taxpayer's money.

00:27:33.120 This sounds criminal.

00:27:34.060 Let me just ask, like the man on the street.

00:27:38.720 Did you think the Department of Education was spending your money, your taxpayer money, to rent out Caesar's Palace?

00:27:49.480 That is the very definition of waste, fraud, and abuse.

00:27:53.840 Four billion dollars in a COVID slush fund with zero receipts required.

00:27:59.260 Let me just say thank God for President Trump and Elon Musk and Doge uncovering this, revealing it, because it is completely indefensible. 0.97

00:28:07.480 And by the way, the Democrats, just like they've decided they're all in for illegal immigrants and gang members and violent criminals and white beaters, 0.59

00:28:14.820 they're also all in for this kind of waste, fraud, and abuse, including renting out Caesar's Palace with your taxpayer money. 0.97

00:28:21.400 As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:28:26.740 Don't forget to download my podcast, and you can listen to my podcast every other day if you're not listening to Verdict,

00:28:31.360 or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards.

00:28:33.780 I'd love to have you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson podcast, and we will see you back here on Monday morning.

00:28:41.040 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:28:43.920 Guaranteed human.

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - May 03, 2025

Judge Harboring a Gang Member, Trump Smacks down ABC News & DOGE finds Institute of Peace NOT so Peaceful Week In Review

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