Verdict with Ted Cruz - October 07, 2023


MAGA Republicans Targeted by the FBI, Crime In America Effecting Democrats, plus Questions on the Minds of Young Voters the Week In Review

Topics
MAGA Republicans targeted by FBI leadership election in House Republican caucus crime wave affecting Democrats term limits in senate
Hosted by
Ted Cruz
Mentioned
Henry Cuellar Donald Trump Hunter Biden Kevin McCarthy Glenn Youngkin Steve Scalise Ben Ferguson Verdict Chuck Schumer Jim Jordan Joe Biden Christopher Wray Jennifer Stewart Caitlin Clark Mitch McConnell Mary Melleveed Jamal Bowman Chip Roy Vicente Gonzalez Kevin Hearn and 7 more
Now Biden Says He'll BUILD THE WALL! plus FBI Targets Trump Supporters & More Speaker Drama Israel's 9⧸11-and How the Biden Administration Provided Billions of Dollars that Funded It

Episode Stats


Length

38 minutes

Words per minute

164.78

Word count

6,295

Sentence count

479

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Toxicity

10

sentences flagged

Hate speech

7

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Ted Cruz answers a question from a young audience at the Texas Youth Summit. The FBI has a new strategy to target and spy on Donald Trump supporters. Crime in America is out of control, and it's affecting Democrats, including a Congressman who was carjacked.

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.
00:00:05.540 Welcome.
00:00:06.300 It is the Verdict with Ted Cruz.
00:00:08.120 Weekend review.
00:00:09.120 Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:10.420 And these are the big stories that you may have missed that we talked about this week.
00:00:14.960 Number one, the big story of the week.
00:00:17.040 Donald Trump voters and those that consider themselves MAGA supporters are now going to
00:00:22.480 be targeted by the FBI in a shocking new memo.
00:00:27.360 The federal government believes that the, quote, threat of violence and major civil
00:00:31.820 disturbances from MAGA supporters is so great that they have created a new category of extremists
00:00:39.320 that it seeks to, quote, track and counter.
00:00:43.300 Who are they tracking?
00:00:44.540 You and Donald Trump's army of MAGA followers.
00:00:49.660 Number two, crime in America out of control.
00:00:52.720 But this time it's affecting Democrats, including one congressman that was carjacked.
00:00:59.200 And finally, we had a very interesting Q&A with Senator Ted Cruz at the Texas Youth Summit.
00:01:05.620 I want you to hear some of the brilliant questions that were asked of the senator.
00:01:10.280 It is the Weekend Review with Ted Cruz, and it starts right now.
00:01:14.020 There is now intel that shows that MAGA Republicans, Donald Trump supporters, will be targeted by
00:01:24.520 the FBI as the 2024 election nears.
00:01:28.540 Newsweek is now reporting on this.
00:01:31.420 And Biden, to go back, tweeted in September of last year, quote, Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans
00:01:37.680 are a threat to the very soul of this country.
00:01:40.940 The very soul of this country.
00:01:42.800 Christopher, FBI Director Christopher Wray, in sworn testimony, said it's not just Trump
00:01:48.920 supporters early this year.
00:01:50.160 He said House Republicans say the FBI document that they've obtained proved that several field
00:01:54.520 offices contributed to a memo that targeted traditional Catholics.
00:01:58.420 We talked about this extensively on this show as potential terrorists and tried to turn
00:02:04.420 parishioners on their fellow churchgoers.
00:02:08.000 So so if you just look at the last year, parents who show up at school board meetings are to
00:02:14.060 be labeled domestic terrorists.
00:02:16.160 The FBI was spending time recruiting people in the Catholic Church to spy on their friends 0.97
00:02:22.380 and family.
00:02:23.060 And now we are being told that heading into the 2024 election, that if you are a Donald Trump
00:02:30.460 follower, supporter, that you may be now monitored or targeted by the FBI.
00:02:39.620 Well, that's exactly right.
00:02:41.980 And part of the challenge here, like, for example, you focused on the FBI's targeting of traditional
00:02:48.500 Catholics, which they rightly got enormous grief because they were talking about infiltrating 1.00
00:02:53.180 Catholic churches and trying to get priests to spy on their parishioners and become FBI informants
00:03:00.200 to inform on the members of their church.
00:03:02.600 So initially, the FBI said, oh, that was a rogue office down in Richmond, Virginia.
00:03:09.240 It's not a broader problem now that they've admitted that it was multiple offices that
00:03:14.560 participated in that.
00:03:15.740 This was a much broader effort to target traditional Catholics.
00:03:21.120 And the same is true with with the targeting of Donald Trump supporters, you know, even this
00:03:28.180 language.
00:03:28.640 So you can tell someone did a focus group on the Democrat side and they discovered the
00:03:34.360 phrase MAGA Republican.
00:03:36.280 They're going to brand that that like MAGA.
00:03:38.580 By the way, MAGA Republican in their definition, they mean everybody.
00:03:41.600 They literally mean every Republican is a MAGA Republican.
00:03:45.580 And then they just think the word MAGA is really scary.
00:03:49.020 And they claim that that if you are a MAGA Republican is defined as a Republican who voted for Donald
00:03:55.580 Trump.
00:03:55.980 So, you know, 75 to 80 million Americans are defined according to to this White House as
00:04:04.420 potential terrorists, as threats to democracy.
00:04:08.220 And this is this is how Democrats have become radicalized.
00:04:11.560 They now say, if you dare vote against Democrats, you are a threat to democracy.
00:04:18.100 Just understand, every time Democrats use the word democracy, what they mean is me.
00:04:25.860 I'm a Democrat.
00:04:27.260 I want to get elected.
00:04:28.580 And anything that stands in my way is a, quote, threat to democracy.
00:04:34.320 They don't actually want that.
00:04:38.680 They don't actually want real democracy.
00:04:41.320 If it elects Republicans, what they want is Democrats to be in power forever.
00:04:45.920 And by the way, this is intimately connected to their lawlessness on the southern border,
00:04:50.700 because the reason they've allowed 7.6 million illegal immigrants into the country is because
00:04:56.100 they want to subvert democracy by getting them to vote for Democrats and keep Democrats in power.
00:05:02.180 Senator, I also think we should bring up in the Newsweek article.
00:05:05.440 It says that if you voted for Donald Trump, the government will track you.
00:05:10.900 Well, that's right.
00:05:12.580 And in June of this year, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security filed a joint report with Congress.
00:05:23.180 And what they say in that joint report is they say, quote,
00:05:27.300 threats from domestic violent extremists have increased in the last two years.
00:05:33.280 And any further increases in threats likely will correspond to potential flashpoints,
00:05:39.860 such as high-profile elections and campaigns or contentious current events.
00:05:46.900 So they're saying terrorists are associated with high-profile elections.
00:05:52.900 And just to make sure there's no ambiguity that they're not talking about Antifa,
00:05:57.280 they're not talking about left-wing terrorists, they are focused on Republicans.
00:06:01.320 Here's what the report concludes, quote,
00:06:05.740 socio-political developments, such as narratives of fraud in the recent general election,
00:06:14.600 conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories promoting violence,
00:06:21.680 will almost certainly spur some domestic terrorists to try to engage in violence.
00:06:29.120 Now, everything they list there, they associate with Republicans.
00:06:34.540 And notice they say COVID.
00:06:35.800 So if you don't like lockdowns, you're a terrorist.
00:06:38.760 If you don't like forced maskings, you're a terrorist. 0.66
00:06:41.960 If you don't like vaccine mandates, you're a terrorist.
00:06:44.380 If you're concerned about the potential health negative effects of forced vaccines,
00:06:49.920 of the COVID vaccines, you're a terrorist. 0.75
00:06:51.720 That is the narrative.
00:06:54.020 Anyone that disagrees with the regime, they now define as a violent extremist.
00:07:00.660 And amazingly enough, left-wing violence in their narrative doesn't exist.
00:07:05.280 So Black Lives Matter, not a word about that. 0.72
00:07:08.880 Antifa, not a word about that.
00:07:11.320 But the efforts targeting, look, we've got now violent riots that are playing out right now
00:07:18.920 in cities like Philadelphia, where they're ransacking and looting stores,
00:07:23.840 where they're attacking police officers.
00:07:25.580 That is not violent extremism.
00:07:27.840 If you're a leftist, that's okay.
00:07:30.500 That's wonderful.
00:07:31.780 That is beautiful social protest to burn American cities.
00:07:36.900 But yet, if you don't want to see America locked down again on COVID, 0.85
00:07:43.260 clearly you're a terrorist. 0.77
00:07:44.860 Final question to you. 0.94
00:07:46.280 I think we should give a quick update on that speakership and the House vote
00:07:51.180 kind of risen to the top at this point.
00:07:53.780 He said he's willing to be the speaker.
00:07:56.520 That would be, and if you missed our interview with him,
00:07:59.300 a two-part series on the Hunter Biden investigation, go back and listen to it.
00:08:03.540 He's phenomenal on this issue.
00:08:05.240 Talk about the timeline now of when we expect the House side to take this up,
00:08:11.560 of deciding again who's going to be the speaker.
00:08:13.760 Well, my understanding is the House is going to vote on speaker next week,
00:08:18.220 and I expect it to be a rollercoaster ride.
00:08:21.580 I mean, you remember back in January, we had a rollercoaster ride
00:08:24.560 of over a dozen different ballots before Kevin McCarthy was elected speaker,
00:08:30.700 and it was very narrow.
00:08:31.720 It may well be a similar battle.
00:08:35.160 At this point, there are several contenders that are talking about running.
00:08:39.120 Two have announced publicly.
00:08:41.500 One is Steve Scalise.
00:08:42.740 Steve Scalise is the majority leader, was Kevin McCarthy's number two.
00:08:49.160 Steve is generally perceived to be more conservative than McCarthy.
00:08:54.040 And so Steve is running as the candidate that can unify both the moderates in the Republican conference
00:09:03.740 and also some of the conservatives.
00:09:06.260 A second candidate who's running, as you noted, is Jim Jordan.
00:09:09.700 Jim Jordan was one of the original founders of the Freedom Caucus.
00:09:13.960 He is a prominent and well-known conservative.
00:09:16.740 The media is deeply skeptical of Jim Jordan, and they say he's too conservative to get elected.
00:09:22.660 The moderates will never support him.
00:09:24.200 I don't know if that's true or not.
00:09:26.580 There is also discussion that Kevin Hearn, who is a Republican from Oklahoma, that he may run.
00:09:34.120 Kevin is a good man.
00:09:36.020 It's not clear if he will, although there have been reports that he's telling other Republicans
00:09:40.480 he's looking at the race seriously.
00:09:42.980 And then there's been some chatter that Chip Roy might run.
00:09:46.580 I don't know if Chip will run or not.
00:09:49.140 At this point, neither Kevin nor Chip are in the race, but next week they might both be in the race.
00:09:54.620 And I don't know if yet another Republican might jump in.
00:09:59.000 So I think it will be vigorously contested.
00:10:03.000 I'm sure there is a lot of horse trading going on right now.
00:10:06.700 There's a lot of negotiations going on right now.
00:10:09.660 What's striking is that each of the potential candidates went and met with the Texas delegation.
00:10:15.480 The reason they met with the Texas delegation is Texas is the largest contingent of House Republicans.
00:10:21.760 And so you've got the biggest block of votes, particularly if the Texas delegation votes together.
00:10:26.720 It's not clear that they will, but they might.
00:10:29.860 And so at this point, I don't know what will happen.
00:10:32.740 My intention is to stay out of it and to leave leadership elections to House Republicans.
00:10:38.780 But the answer as to who comes out of it is going to matter quite a bit.
00:10:43.800 And so we will certainly watch with interest and continue to provide the best analysis we can.
00:10:50.600 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.
00:10:57.280 Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders and the world around them. 0.97
00:11:04.140 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.
00:11:07.860 I'm Jennifer Stewart.
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00:11:19.760 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:11:22.740 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:11:28.580 Now on to story number two.
00:11:31.240 I want to move to something else that obviously got pushed back in the headlines, but it still is important.
00:11:35.940 The crime wave that we're seeing is not just sweeping the nation, but now it's affecting Democratic leaders and leaders in the liberal movement like we haven't seen before.
00:11:47.540 And it's happening way more often.
00:11:48.880 I'll give you an example.
00:11:49.580 You have a Democratic representative, Henry Queller, who was carjacked at gunpoint in D.C.
00:11:57.020 This comes as in just the past, well, it was in a 24-hour period.
00:12:01.360 You had a liberal gay reporter that was shot and killed in his home in Philly.
00:12:05.940 You had a far-left activist that was stabbed to death by a deranged stranger in Brooklyn in front of his girlfriend. 0.80
00:12:12.920 You had this Democratic congressman who was carjacked at gunpoint in D.C. by four African-American men.
00:12:19.160 And yet we have Democrats who have a soft on crime policies that aren't just hurting their neighborhoods that I mentioned, these different spots, but it's hurting people in Texas as well.
00:12:30.180 And almost every House Democrat voted against the Republican efforts to stop the D.C.
00:12:37.300 Weak on crime bill, which specifically would have reduced carjacking penalties.
00:12:43.660 This is something that the Democrats, I mean, they voted for this.
00:12:48.280 Aldridge, for example, voted with the Dems on this one.
00:12:51.040 It's shocking to me.
00:12:52.080 Well, listen, crime is out of control in this country, and it's an issue that has people understandably very concerned.
00:12:59.200 I watched tonight the video of the liberal activist in New York at 4 in the morning being stabbed to death on the streets of New York by a guy that certainly appears deranged.
00:13:10.940 It was horrific to watch.
00:13:12.140 You're right, the news of the left-wing journalist in Philadelphia who was shot, I think, seven times at his own home and killed in the past few days.
00:13:22.320 And Henry Cuellar.
00:13:23.580 Look, Henry Cuellar is a Democrat congressman from Texas.
00:13:26.280 I know Henry well.
00:13:27.100 Henry represents Laredo up to San Antonio.
00:13:30.020 Henry is the most conservative of the Texas Democrats.
00:13:33.360 I worked hand-in-hand with Henry, for example, on the Texas bridges.
00:13:39.600 We've talked on this podcast before about four bridges from Texas to Mexico that Henry and I teamed up in and won big legislative victories to build new bridges to Mexico for legal commerce, to expand bridges.
00:13:52.480 Henry, as I said, is by far the most conservative of the Texas Democrats.
00:13:56.400 Well, in the last couple of days, Henry was coming to his apartment in D.C.
00:14:01.520 It was 9.30 at night, and he was getting out of his car, and he was carjacked.
00:14:04.660 He was carjacked by four individuals.
00:14:06.300 They put a gun in his face.
00:14:07.440 They stole the car.
00:14:08.280 They stole his luggage.
00:14:11.000 Presumably, I haven't spoken to Henry since it happened, but you have to assume that with a gun in his face, he was afraid for his life.
00:14:17.560 I mean, that is frightening.
00:14:18.840 My understanding is Henry lives at an apartment building where there are multiple members of Congress who live there.
00:14:26.100 There are apparently multiple members of congressional leadership who live there, which means there are a lot of Capitol Police around there.
00:14:32.400 At 9.30 at night, he was carjacked on the streets of D.C., and then that reflects the crime wave that is sweeping this country.
00:14:41.300 Now, the D.C.
00:14:43.620 The city council, which is populated by left-wing Democrats, they voted to lower the penalties for violent crimes, including carjackings.
00:14:52.080 In particular, they voted to lower the sentence from 21 years to seven years, and they voted to lower the sentence from 40 years, if armed, to 15 years.
00:15:06.680 And under the revised code, carjacking is now divided into three gradations, dependent on severity, with the lowest penalties for an unarmed defense ranging from 4 to 18 years, and the highest penalties from an armed defense ranging from 12 to 24 years.
00:15:25.160 Now, in the Congress, thankfully, the Congress has the ability to rescind any legislation in the District of Columbia, and the reason for that is the Constitution gives Congress total authority over D.C., unlike a state.
00:15:37.620 We can't rescind laws in Texas or any other state, but D.C. is a federal district, and Congress has plenary authority over it.
00:15:44.400 And so, in Congress, we voted to rescind these softened crime laws that lessened the penalties for violent crimes, and the results are horrific, as we're seeing carjacking, murders, crime rates skyrocketing in D.C. and all across the country.
00:16:01.260 You also have the White House, who was asked about part of this, and I want to play that for everybody. Take a listen.
00:16:07.640 If a member of Congress is not safe on the streets of the nation's capital, who is?
00:16:14.760 Look, we're grateful and relieved that the congressman is unharmed. We understand what communities are going through across the country, not just in D.C.
00:16:24.880 That's why the president took action very early on in his administration to get the American Rescue Plan done, without the help of Republicans.
00:16:32.080 That's why every time he puts forward his budget, he makes sure there are billions of dollars to deal with crime.
00:16:37.880 That's just a fact. All you've got to look at is what the president has been able to do this past two years.
00:16:43.060 There's always going to be more work to be done, but the fact is, the president has taken action.
00:16:48.920 He hasn't taken action. He's done the opposite of that.
00:16:51.820 She didn't have an answer to that. Holy crap, if a Democrat congressman is getting carjacked on the streets of D.C. at 9.30 p.m., what the heck is the answer? 0.97
00:17:00.940 And she's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to answer that. 0.97
00:17:04.020 And what was her answer? Well, you know, Joe Biden's spending a ton of money.
00:17:07.760 Mind you, not actually putting criminals in jail, not supporting police, not doing anything to stop crime.
00:17:12.920 But he's shoveling a whole lot of cash at Democrat special interest groups.
00:17:17.840 He's shoveling a whole lot of cash at deficit spending that's causing rampant inflation.
00:17:22.700 That is her answer. It's an utter non sequitur.
00:17:25.760 And by the way, it's not just Henry Cuellar.
00:17:28.320 Angie Craig, who is a Democrat member of Congress from Minnesota, was assaulted in the apartment of her D.C. 1.00
00:17:34.740 her D.C. apartment in February of this year.
00:17:38.620 And this is a pattern that is happening over and over and over again.
00:17:43.900 Let me give you some stats.
00:17:45.520 Carjackings in D.C. are up 109 percent.
00:17:51.160 Robberies are up 68 percent.
00:17:54.740 Theft is up 22 percent.
00:17:58.160 Homicides are up 38 percent.
00:18:01.540 And the city is on pace for the deadliest year in two decades.
00:18:06.720 Not only that, nine of the top 10 cities with the highest homicide rights are run by Democrats.
00:18:13.440 Twenty seven of the top 30 cities with the highest murder rates are run by Democrats.
00:18:19.340 This is a pattern.
00:18:21.040 And you're saying Corrine Jean-Pierre and the Biden White House utterly dodging responsibilities for their soft on crime policies that are endangering people all across the country.
00:18:33.740 One last question for you.
00:18:35.480 Will Democrats move on this?
00:18:37.100 Because even the White House president was asked a question, a follow up where she could have kind of gotten a redo.
00:18:42.380 I got to play it.
00:18:43.180 It's too good not to.
00:18:44.180 If President Biden's policies are helping bring crime down, would he be comfortable with somebody borrowing his Corvette and parking it on the street overnight in southeast D.C.?
00:18:55.000 I'm not going to get into hypotheticals.
00:18:56.740 I'm just going to get into the facts about what this president has done in this president.
00:19:00.680 I mean, she's still screwed it up.
00:19:02.920 Look, of course not.
00:19:04.620 Nobody would.
00:19:05.500 You park your Corvette on the street, it's going to get robbed.
00:19:07.820 It's going to get broken into.
00:19:08.900 It's going to get keyed.
00:19:09.660 It's going to get vandalized.
00:19:11.260 She can't answer that question.
00:19:12.980 And so, you know what she's counting on?
00:19:15.540 Look, that was a question from Fox News.
00:19:19.180 So Fox will cover it.
00:19:20.900 Ben, you worked for years at CNN.
00:19:23.540 Did CNN cover that exchange?
00:19:25.140 Hell no.
00:19:26.460 MSNBC?
00:19:27.980 No.
00:19:29.060 ABC, NBC, CBS?
00:19:30.880 Nope.
00:19:31.820 They know that the corporate media, they are the puppets for the administration.
00:19:37.940 They are the propagandists for the administration.
00:19:39.960 They will repeat the regime line.
00:19:43.440 And so, look, any sane person would say no to the question, would you be happy with your classic Corvette parked on the streets of D.C.?
00:19:54.380 Of course not, because crime is out of control.
00:19:59.240 And the problem is, look, let me underscore that again.
00:20:03.760 When the D.C.
00:20:04.820 City Council looked at skyrocketing crime rates and said, you know what the answer here is, let's lower the penalties on violent crime.
00:20:11.440 That's the best solution.
00:20:12.500 We've got too many murders, too many carjackings.
00:20:15.600 Let's send people to jail for shorter times for murder and carjacking. 0.58
00:20:20.240 That's a great idea.
00:20:21.720 In Congress, thankfully, we overturned that.
00:20:25.020 In the House, every single House Democrat except two.
00:20:31.960 Vicente Gonzalez, a Texan, and Henry Cuellar, a Texan who was just carjacked in the last 48 hours, are the only two who voted no.
00:20:40.900 That means every other House Democrat, if you can think of a House Democrat, they voted in favor of lessening the penalties on carjackers and on murderers.
00:20:51.240 Why do you think crime is out of control?
00:20:53.120 Yeah, this is a Democratic Party, and this is certainly going to be an issue with the presidential election.
00:20:57.400 Don't forget.
00:20:58.120 Ben, Ben, Ben, hold on.
00:20:58.960 Before we wrap up, I want to ask you a final question.
00:21:01.280 I'm ready.
00:21:02.240 If you're standing by a doorway and you see a little red box that is three inches by four inches and it says the word fire on it,
00:21:10.500 and it says pull this for the fire alarm, my question to you is, is that a doorknob?
00:21:17.120 That is not a doorknob, and that is not a way to exit the building.
00:21:21.040 But how do you know?
00:21:22.000 How do you know, Ben?
00:21:23.300 Seriously.
00:21:24.200 I mean, look, it's not like you—
00:21:26.080 Isn't that insurrectionism 101, right?
00:21:28.260 Like, don't you immediately lock that person up forever?
00:21:30.720 Well, let me ask you this.
00:21:32.280 It's not like you were a high school principal.
00:21:35.360 It's not like you were a high school principal in a high school that had fire alarms.
00:21:38.680 It's not like you were a high school principal in a high school that had fire alarms that had a policy that said if you, a student, pulls the fire alarm, you will be expelled.
00:21:48.300 Jamal Bowman, the Democrat congressman, was a principal at a high school that had a policy that if you, Ben Ferguson, a student in his high school, pulled the fire alarm, you would be expelled.
00:21:58.680 And yet what did Jamal Bowman do?
00:22:00.460 Oh, I'm going to pull the fire alarm because I want to stop the Republican vote. 0.71
00:22:04.140 And why is it his claim, if you believe him, his defense is, I'm dumber than a box of rocks, and I think a fire alarm is a doorknob.
00:22:14.900 That is his defense, and that's the best interpretation he can hope for.
00:22:19.360 By the way, I have to ask now, because you brought it up.
00:22:21.960 If a Republican would have done that, how fast would they have been kicked out of Congress?
00:22:25.900 And would they have a mugshot at this point?
00:22:29.760 To be honest, I don't think they'd be kicked out of Congress, but I think they might have a mugshot.
00:22:35.040 And my guess is, look, kicking people out of Congress is pretty severe.
00:22:41.120 My guess is the votes won't be there for that.
00:22:43.160 My prediction is they will censure him.
00:22:45.800 I think the votes will be there for censuring him.
00:22:48.060 But it is a criminal offense in the District of Columbia to pull a fire alarm fraudulently, and he is on video doing that, but he is counting on the corporate media to ignore the fact that he was willing to pull a fire alarm to try to stop the Congress from voting on a provision that he didn't like, which, mind you, was a provision to fund the government.
00:23:08.380 And he wanted to force a government shutdown, so he pulled a fire alarm to cause it to happen.
00:23:13.280 But again, he knew the corporate media would cover for him, and they're doing it right now.
00:23:18.460 As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and download the podcast from earlier this week to hear the entire thing.
00:23:27.760 Canadian women are looking for more. 1.00
00:23:29.920 More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.
00:23:34.080 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.
00:23:37.800 I'm Jennifer Stewart.
00:23:39.000 And I'm Catherine Clark.
00:23:40.240 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.
00:23:43.940 Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers.
00:23:47.280 All at different stages of their journey.
00:23:49.740 So, if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:23:52.940 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:23:57.020 I want to get back to the big story, number three of the week you may have missed.
00:24:04.040 Senator, you're going to love this.
00:24:05.340 The T-shirts of the Texas Youth Summit are Don't Tread on Me, which is awesome.
00:24:11.220 And our next question is coming from someone that has that T-shirt on.
00:24:13.640 I love it.
00:24:14.100 Well done.
00:24:14.500 Hello, Senator Cruz.
00:24:16.060 My name is Jenna.
00:24:17.460 I go to U of H here.
00:24:19.140 And I work at a tax firm as a tax consultant.
00:24:22.480 And the tax deadline is coming up October 18th.
00:24:25.300 And I was wondering how the government shutdown is going to affect the IRS and the accounting
00:24:30.740 industry regarding that deadline that's coming up.
00:24:33.660 And if you could explain kind of what's going to happen.
00:24:36.500 Yeah, look, that's a very good question.
00:24:39.100 And I expect that if the shutdown goes long and it could easily go a month, the last one
00:24:44.760 was 35 days in 2019, the Schumer shutdown, it could easily go a month.
00:24:49.660 What it would mean as a practical matter is that much of the manpower at the IRS that would
00:24:55.640 be available to assist you, that would be available to process returns, that would be available
00:25:01.560 to answer questions, much of that manpower is not going to be there.
00:25:05.400 They will keep essential workers and it's up to each agency to decide who is essential.
00:25:11.760 But things like customer service almost always get deemed non-essential and you end up with
00:25:17.720 a significantly reduced workforce.
00:25:20.020 And so you're working at a private firm, that's going to mean that your clients are
00:25:25.240 going to need your advice more significantly because the IRS is going to be less available
00:25:31.780 to be responsive, even less than they normally are.
00:25:35.400 Let's take a question from over here.
00:25:38.120 Hi, Senator Cruz.
00:25:39.140 My name is Helen and I'm from the Woodlands.
00:25:41.640 My question to you is, are you in favor of the age and term limits to be elected for Senate
00:25:47.520 and Congress?
00:25:48.580 Thank you.
00:25:50.120 Helen, thank you for that question.
00:25:51.900 So let me break them down one at a time.
00:25:54.120 You asked about age limits and term limits.
00:25:56.120 On age limits, the only age limit we have for the Senate is the Constitution.
00:26:01.820 So the Constitution provides that you have to be 25 years old to be elected to the House
00:26:06.240 of Representatives.
00:26:07.560 You have to be 30 years old to be elected to the Senate.
00:26:10.680 And you have to be 35 years old to be elected president.
00:26:14.020 Other than that, there are currently no limits when it comes to serving in federal elected office.
00:26:19.280 And it's one of the reasons why you see so many people in the Senate who are 142 years old.
00:26:25.640 I have joked, if you ever want to feel young, come work in the U.S. Senate because the median age is such
00:26:33.100 that I have colleagues reminiscing about Eisenhower.
00:26:36.020 I mean, it's, you know, I feel like a sprightly young lad in the body in which I serve.
00:26:44.060 Term limits is something that I emphatically support. 0.96
00:26:48.460 And so I have repeatedly introduced in the Senate a constitutional amendment to mandate term limits,
00:26:56.040 to limit senators, each senator to two terms, to limit each House member to three terms.
00:27:00.880 You know, it's interesting. Term limits was something I supported before I got to the Senate.
00:27:07.180 But having seen this place firsthand now, I support it a thousand times more.
00:27:12.220 Because this place is the swamp. It is corrupt. 0.98
00:27:16.140 And the people who are here a long time are the worst.
00:27:19.260 You get drawn in and corrupted by the swamp.
00:27:22.080 And it's both parties. Look, the Democrats are bad. 0.96
00:27:25.120 But for much of this spending that is bankrupting the country, we have a uniparty.
00:27:30.100 We have Republican career politicians who jump in bed with the Democrats and eagerly spend trillions of dollars.
00:27:37.580 And so term limits would be a major step to reducing that power and reducing that corruption.
00:27:45.180 And it's an amazing thing if you look at term limits nationally.
00:27:48.920 Over 70% of Americans support term limits.
00:27:51.600 That's true among Republicans, among Democrats, and among independents.
00:27:56.000 You see massive majorities supporting term limits.
00:27:59.040 The one group that doesn't is career politicians in Washington.
00:28:04.040 In the Senate, I have zero Democrats who support my term limits amendment.
00:28:08.360 Every one of the Democrats is opposed to it.
00:28:11.300 And I've chaired—I used to be chairman of the Constitution subcommittee, the Senate Judiciary Committee.
00:28:17.240 I chaired a hearing on term limits, brought in witnesses to talk about term limits.
00:28:22.260 And the reality is in the Senate, the young guys support my term limits amendments, and none of the long-time career politicians do.
00:28:31.980 And that's why neither Chuck Schumer nor Mitch McConnell wants term limits to get a vote on the Senate floor because they oppose it that much.
00:28:39.920 So I've been fighting, but I have not been able to get it on the floor because Schumer and McConnell control what gets on the floor.
00:28:47.560 Let's get a question on this side over here.
00:28:49.800 Howdy. My name is Chad.
00:28:51.080 I'm a sophomore in Houston.
00:28:52.700 And I wanted to ask how Congress can give back some Tenth Amendment rights to the state and people after events like 9-11 and COVID have taken it away and given it to the federal government.
00:29:02.240 Look, that is a fantastic question.
00:29:07.140 If you look at the Bill of Rights and you asked about the Tenth Amendment, when I was in college, I wrote my senior thesis on the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution.
00:29:16.480 And I'll tell you a little bit of the history of why they're written, and then I will get straight to your question.
00:29:22.260 But originally the Constitution was written.
00:29:24.540 There was no Bill of Rights.
00:29:26.260 It was just the Constitution itself.
00:29:28.020 And then there was a debate over whether to ratify the Constitution.
00:29:31.180 And the two groups, there were the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists.
00:29:34.700 And the Federalists were advocating the Constitution is a good idea.
00:29:37.640 We should ratify it.
00:29:38.620 We should have it be the organic document forming our government.
00:29:42.640 The Anti-Federalists were arguing against it.
00:29:44.900 And one of the big arguments the Anti-Federalists had is they said, well, there's no Bill of Rights.
00:29:49.860 This is a flawed document because there's no provision in it protecting our fundamental liberties.
00:29:55.300 Now, the Federalists came back and they said, no, no, no, we don't need a Bill of Rights.
00:30:00.300 And the reason the Federalists gave is they said, this is a government of enumerated powers.
00:30:05.600 If you look at Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, Article I establishes the Congress, the legislative function.
00:30:12.760 And Article I, Section 8 specifies it enumerates 18 specific powers that Congress has.
00:30:19.760 And the argument the Federalists said is, look, we don't need to say that the Federal government cannot violate your free speech, cannot violate your religious liberty, cannot violate your right to keep and bear arms,
00:30:32.760 because there's nothing in the enumerated powers that gives the Federal government the power to violate those rights.
00:30:39.980 And so we've already done that by limiting the Federal government's authority initially.
00:30:44.360 Now, the Anti-Federalists came back and they had lots of arguments, one of which was, well, there's nothing to stop them from violating those rights within the enumerated powers.
00:30:55.880 So, for example, one of the enumerated powers is the power to create and maintain post offices.
00:31:02.160 Under the original Constitution, without a Bill of Rights, a government could say, the Biden administration will say, we will only transport letters from Democrats.
00:31:12.280 All Republicans, we've decided, we don't want Republicans speaking anymore, so we won't transport their letters.
00:31:20.900 Now, if the government tried to do that today, that would obviously be an unconstitutional violation of free speech.
00:31:28.140 Without a Bill of Rights, it would be permissible. 1.00
00:31:30.280 I think the Anti-Federalists won that debate.
00:31:33.260 So we now have a Bill of Rights.
00:31:35.420 The first ten amendments to the Constitution are the Bill of Rights.
00:31:38.180 And the first eight are protecting specific rights.
00:31:44.960 And then amendments nine and ten both say, amendment nine says the enumeration of certain rights in the Bill of Rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people.
00:32:00.120 The tenth amendment says the powers not given to the federal government are reserved to the states and to the people.
00:32:10.000 Basically, the ninth and tenth amendments restate that the Constitution is a constitution of enumerated powers.
00:32:17.580 In other words, they say, even though we just listed these eight Bill of Rights,
00:32:20.740 we agree that the federal government probably couldn't have done any of this anyway.
00:32:25.740 But we want belt and suspenders.
00:32:27.800 And so the question, I think the Tenth Amendment solves an enormous number of problems in our country.
00:32:33.820 I think federalism, having states decide.
00:32:37.840 And I would actually advise you to take a look at a center at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
00:32:42.780 It's called the Center for Tenth Amendment Studies.
00:32:45.640 I started it.
00:32:46.680 I was the first director, the first leader of the Center for Tenth Amendment Studies at TPPF.
00:32:53.400 And it's continued.
00:32:54.760 It is ongoing.
00:32:56.400 I agree that a vast we should put as much decision making, as much authority as possible at the state level or even better at the local level,
00:33:06.140 because it's more likely to meet the needs of the people that are being affected.
00:33:10.660 And it's also more accountable.
00:33:12.140 You, the citizen, are much more able to express your views and hold accountable local officials and state officials
00:33:19.960 than some bureaucrat in a windowless office in Washington, D.C.
00:33:24.740 Let's get a couple more questions in here on this side.
00:33:26.940 Go ahead.
00:33:28.600 Hello, Senator Cruz.
00:33:30.080 My name is Mary Melleveed.
00:33:31.400 I am 18 and from Magnolia, Texas.
00:33:36.140 It appears that Democrats have control of the elections illegally through mules and in counting ballots.
00:33:45.060 How is our vote even going to matter?
00:33:48.820 Is there a plan in place for actually having our votes count?
00:33:54.600 Well, Mary, thank you for that question.
00:33:56.600 It's a hugely important question.
00:33:58.500 You are right that voter fraud is a real problem.
00:34:01.660 It is a persistent problem.
00:34:03.560 It's a problem that has been around since the dawn of time, since the very first elections.
00:34:09.680 I'm convinced that when the cavemen sat, got together to vote on who was going to be Grand Poobah,
00:34:16.080 somebody stuffed the ballot box.
00:34:17.820 That's just human nature, that we have crooks and crooks try to steal things.
00:34:22.580 So we need to fight against voter fraud.
00:34:27.100 We need to fight to preserve voter integrity.
00:34:30.580 Now, the good news is we're in Texas.
00:34:33.340 And Texas, the Texas legislature has passed legislation, strong legislation, designed to prevent voter fraud.
00:34:41.120 It's not perfect.
00:34:41.960 It still exists.
00:34:43.240 But we have tools in place to prevent voter fraud.
00:34:46.500 There are things like requiring photo ID, which we do in Texas.
00:34:50.180 That reduces fraud.
00:34:51.760 There are things like prohibiting ballot harvesting, prohibiting paid political operatives from handling someone else's ballot.
00:34:59.420 That reduces voter fraud significantly.
00:35:01.900 Ballot harvesting invites voter fraud.
00:35:04.740 Things like limiting mail-in ballots.
00:35:07.100 In Texas, we do so only in limited circumstances, typically seniors or people with significant disabilities.
00:35:13.780 But for the vast majority of Texans, the way you vote is you go vote in person.
00:35:18.020 We have a two-week period of early voting, so it's actually pretty easy to vote, but you vote in person.
00:35:23.160 In-person voting reduces the chances of voter fraud.
00:35:26.960 I think we need to be vigilant fighting against voter fraud.
00:35:30.500 I've spent 20-plus years fighting against voter fraud.
00:35:34.020 At the same time, if you look nationally, they're blue states, they're purple states,
00:35:40.120 that they're not going to pass legislation to protect election integrity because the Democrats have decided they support voter fraud.
00:35:47.440 It helps them.
00:35:48.980 And it's a way the world's changed.
00:35:50.600 Ten years ago, there were Democrats who would work with you on something like photo ID.
00:35:55.360 There are none today because they've decided voter fraud is good for them.
00:35:59.720 In blue states and purple states, they're not going to change their laws to stop voter fraud.
00:36:05.840 Here's the good news.
00:36:08.220 Historically, voter fraud typically only matters at the margins.
00:36:11.940 It matters in a close election.
00:36:13.660 So the answer is, in those blue states and purple states, we've got to win by a big enough margin, they can't steal the race from us.
00:36:22.380 Now, that's not fair.
00:36:23.860 It's frustrating.
00:36:25.400 But the alternative is give up on our country.
00:36:28.320 And I've got to tell you, there are a lot of Democrats and a lot of people in the corporate media that want all of us to give up on our country.
00:36:35.240 They want conservatives to say, well, voter fraud is still there, so I'm not going to vote to hell with it.
00:36:41.000 And I'll tell you what, if we do that, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
00:36:46.560 Then our country truly is lost.
00:36:49.980 And I'll point as a moment of encouragement, look no further than the state of Virginia.
00:36:56.600 Virginia went for Joe Biden by 10 points.
00:37:00.860 Virginia has been blue for the past decade.
00:37:03.460 Biden won Virginia by 10 points.
00:37:05.160 One year later, in 2021, Glenn Youngkin, who's a good friend of mine, I campaigned with Glenn Youngkin all over Virginia, spent two days barnstorming the state of Virginia with Glenn.
00:37:17.240 One year after Biden was elected, Glenn Youngkin was elected as a Republican in Virginia.
00:37:23.000 Now, Virginia had not changed a single voter integrity law.
00:37:25.940 They had the same lousy election laws they had the year before.
00:37:29.560 But a whole bunch of moms, moms who had voted for Joe Biden, got ticked off at what the schools were doing to our kids, and they flipped over and voted Republican.
00:37:40.600 That gives us a roadmap to what we can and I think what we have to do in this next election.
00:37:46.260 As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:37:54.120 Don't forget to download my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day.
00:37:57.780 You're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards.
00:38:01.040 I'd love to have you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson podcast.
00:38:04.880 And we will see you back here on Monday morning.
00:38:08.300 This is an iHeart podcast.
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