Verdict with Ted Cruz - Montecristos with Bibi (and Peace in the Middle East)

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.580 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.540 There have been very few things harder to achieve in foreign policy,

00:00:08.320 maybe nothing harder to achieve in foreign policy,

00:00:10.800 than peace in the Middle East.

00:00:13.440 Nobody was able to see that coming.

00:00:15.540 And yet, just this past week,

00:00:18.720 we have had an historic deal for peace in the Middle East,

00:00:22.500 and we happen to have a guy who was there for all of it.

00:00:25.580 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:30.000 Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:35.180 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:00:36.460 Senator, I have to point out that this past week,

00:00:40.180 we've seen not just one, but two historic milestones.

00:00:43.900 A pathway to peace in the Middle East,

00:00:46.140 and episode 50 of Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:48.400 I don't know which one is more historic.

00:00:51.460 Look, it's been 50 episodes, and I gotta say,

00:00:55.300 you know, when it was clear to me you weren't paying attention

00:00:57.600 is when the fellow came up with a little clicky thing.

00:01:00.000 And said episode 50.

00:01:01.780 Well, what's that called, by the way, the clicky thing?

00:01:03.480 It's called the clicky thing, actually.

00:01:04.400 That's the technical term for it.

00:01:05.600 And you apparently had no idea,

00:01:07.780 so you weren't listening to him when he said episode 50.

00:01:09.880 I've had some of my eyes glazed over, absolutely,

00:01:12.560 because I was focusing on this other, I suppose,

00:01:15.440 more minor historic milestone, peace in the Middle East.

00:01:18.380 World peace.

00:01:19.840 You know, I just think you need to re-examine your priorities, Michael.

00:01:23.280 That's true.

00:01:23.840 You're right, absolutely.

00:01:25.200 Well, I wasn't there.

00:01:26.380 I wasn't there for the Abraham Accord at the White House. 0.60

00:01:30.000 You've got President Trump, Bibi Netanyahu, leader of Bahrain,

00:01:33.780 leader of the United Arab Emirates.

00:01:36.980 What makes this historic, and what happened?

00:01:39.900 So the Abraham Accords, they were signed this past week,

00:01:43.120 and the signing was on the south lawn of the White House.

00:01:46.160 Yeah.

00:01:46.320 So I was there, and then they had chairs set up outside.

00:01:50.180 It was a beautiful September day, probably 70 degrees outside.

00:01:54.540 I mean, it was as pretty a day as you ever see in Washington.

00:01:57.420 And there are a number of us gathered on these little white wooden folding chairs,

00:02:01.240 and out from the White House comes the president, comes Bibi Netanyahu,

00:02:07.020 the prime minister of Israel, and then the foreign minister of the UAE,

00:02:11.420 and the foreign minister of Bahrain.

00:02:13.080 And they each give speeches, and then they sit at a table down below,

00:02:20.000 and each of them signs the agreement.

00:02:21.940 And what has happened is both the UAE and Bahrain

00:02:25.960 have normalized relationships with Israel.

00:02:30.040 In other words, they're treating Israel just like any other country.

00:02:33.520 And that's a big damn deal.

00:02:37.540 This is the first time an Arab country has normalized relations with Israel in 26 years.

00:02:44.540 The last time was 1994, Jordan.

00:02:47.400 Okay. What about before that?

00:02:49.160 Before that was Egypt, 1978, Camp David.

00:02:53.080 Wow.

00:02:53.300 So this doesn't happen very often.

00:02:55.180 And I think it's an extraordinary step forward in terms of bringing peace to the region,

00:03:05.200 but also peace globally.

00:03:07.360 Because look, for a long time, the Middle East has been a powder keg. 0.99

00:03:10.200 Yeah.

00:03:10.300 And diffusing the tensions, and it was really fitting,

00:03:14.620 the Bahrain peace was announced on September 11th.

00:03:18.120 And I pointed out, I said, you know,

00:03:20.600 there are few greater acts of revenge we can have on the terrorists

00:03:24.840 who committed that horrific attack on September 11th

00:03:27.860 than to bring about peace in the Middle East

00:03:32.140 and help make Jews and Arabs and Americans friends.

00:03:37.800 Yeah.

00:03:38.160 Well, you mentioned 1978.

00:03:40.020 So we've been working on peace in the Middle East

00:03:42.820 since at least the Carter administration,

00:03:44.680 I suppose, further back than that.

00:03:46.380 And I know this is probably a simple question,

00:03:49.400 but I think sometimes when we think about our own domestic problems,

00:03:52.540 we do wonder this,

00:03:53.600 which is why is America always trying to broker peace in the Middle East?

00:03:57.960 Why do we care?

00:03:59.440 Well, Israel is a unique country.

00:04:00.900 It is the world's only Jewish nation.

00:04:04.120 It was founded in 1948, so it's just over 70 years old, 72.

00:04:10.340 And you look at 1948, it was coming out of World War II.

00:04:16.000 It was coming out of the Holocaust, 0.97

00:04:19.160 six million Jews being murdered by the Nazis.

00:04:23.460 And the state of Israel was formed for many reasons.

00:04:27.940 One, the historical connection of the Jewish people to Judah and Samaria

00:04:34.760 and to the land of Israel,

00:04:36.700 but also to ensure that never again would something like the Holocaust happen, 0.97

00:04:42.700 that there would always be a Jewish state 0.99

00:04:44.720 where Jews could be safe and avoid persecution.

00:04:51.700 Now, when Israel was formed in 1948,

00:04:56.040 the Arab nations all declared war.

00:04:58.380 Yeah.

00:04:58.720 And there was war after war after war.

00:05:00.940 It was not something that happened happily.

00:05:05.380 It's not that their neighbors did not celebrate, to put it mild.

00:05:09.260 And, you know, you think about it.

00:05:10.600 UAE and Bahrain are nearby neighbors who,

00:05:15.420 until this week, didn't recognize Israel.

00:05:20.000 Because some people have been saying,

00:05:21.900 well, it's not a peace deal because the UAE and Bahrain,

00:05:25.240 they've never been in open war with Israel.

00:05:27.240 So, oh, you know, guys, look, it's not a big deal.

00:05:29.320 Forget about it.

00:05:30.040 Okay.

00:05:30.240 And that's just a weird argument.

00:05:32.360 Listen, Democrats are scrambling

00:05:33.900 because President Trump helping broker a peace deal in the Middle East

00:05:39.680 really counteracts their narrative

00:05:41.420 as him as the embodiment of everything that is terrible in the world.

00:05:44.600 Right.

00:05:44.720 And so there's a combination.

00:05:47.880 Joe Biden, when the UAE deal broke, he said,

00:05:50.400 well, this is really the culmination of his work.

00:05:53.920 And so.

00:05:54.980 It's convenient.

00:05:55.860 You know, it's a big deal if Biden's trying to take credit for it.

00:05:58.980 Yeah.

00:06:00.220 And then the other sort of democratic talking point is,

00:06:03.480 well, it's not that important because they weren't

00:06:06.320 actively in a state of war firing missiles at each other.

00:06:09.440 They didn't recognize each other.

00:06:11.000 They didn't acknowledge the Arab states.

00:06:13.400 UAE and Bahrain didn't acknowledge that Israel existed as a nation,

00:06:17.440 as a Jewish state.

00:06:18.380 Yeah.

00:06:18.660 And I think it's important to pause and reflect how this came about,

00:06:22.520 because part of the reason that we're seeing the left,

00:06:25.180 both the media and the academic world and Democrats,

00:06:28.040 pushing back so hard on this is these Abraham Accords

00:06:32.540 are the culmination of a very, very different approach

00:06:35.380 Trump took than Obama-Biden.

00:06:38.000 And the Obama-Biden approach doesn't work.

00:06:40.480 Yeah.

00:06:40.660 And the approach we've taken the last four years does.

00:06:43.240 Well, this is the issue.

00:06:44.560 I remember when Barack Obama was running,

00:06:46.880 this was 2008, people told me,

00:06:48.940 if I voted for John McCain, we'd get more wars in the Middle East,

00:06:51.860 which was true.

00:06:52.680 I voted for John McCain, and we got more wars in the Middle East,

00:06:55.160 even though Barack Obama got elected.

00:06:57.780 We haven't had one of these peace deals in 26 years, right?

00:07:02.240 So what did they do wrong?

00:07:04.140 And what did Trump do right?

00:07:05.480 Because we were told Trump was going to lead to World War III.

00:07:07.580 Yeah, and to some extent, those are different issues,

00:07:12.380 or they're parallel issues.

00:07:13.720 I do think too many Democrats, including the Clintons,

00:07:17.180 including Hillary, and too many Republicans, 0.99

00:07:19.320 including John McCain,

00:07:21.580 have been too eager to get us into wars,

00:07:24.340 have been too eager to use U.S. military force.

00:07:27.080 And I think that has been an important and worthwhile shift

00:07:30.340 the last four years,

00:07:31.320 is to be much more restrained

00:07:32.900 in terms of when we get into foreign entanglements,

00:07:37.140 to use a phrase from George Washington.

00:07:42.460 With respect to Israel,

00:07:43.740 I think there were two decisions early on

00:07:45.900 in the first year of the Trump administration

00:07:48.780 that really set the stage for this,

00:07:50.460 and they were intertwined.

00:07:51.520 I think these are the two most important

00:07:52.960 foreign policy decisions President Trump has made.

00:07:56.100 The first was moving the embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

00:07:59.980 Now, we had our embassy in Tel Aviv.

00:08:01.860 Tel Aviv's not the capital of Israel.

00:08:04.040 Jerusalem's the capital of Israel.

00:08:05.680 We had our embassy in Tel Aviv

00:08:07.440 because the Palestinians lay claim to Jerusalem as well,

00:08:11.380 and so it was viewed as if you have your embassy in Jerusalem,

00:08:15.180 you are somehow favoring Israel's choice of its capital city.

00:08:19.840 Now, mind you, we have our embassies in the capitals

00:08:22.240 everywhere else on Earth.

00:08:23.420 Yeah, just this one exception that we didn't.

00:08:26.060 When the Trump administration began,

00:08:27.780 there was a big debate within the administration

00:08:30.680 about whether or not to move the embassy.

00:08:33.140 Because presidents had been promising to do this for decades.

00:08:36.820 It had been official U.S. policy,

00:08:38.620 and just no one actually did it.

00:08:40.140 Obama promised to do it.

00:08:41.460 George W. Bush promised to do it.

00:08:43.220 Bill Clinton promised to do it.

00:08:44.520 Both Democrats and Republicans had broken that promise

00:08:46.860 over and over and over again.

00:08:49.100 In 2017, the Trump administration,

00:08:51.220 both the State Department and the Defense Department

00:08:53.020 opposed moving the embassy.

00:08:54.600 Yeah.

00:08:54.740 You had Rex Tillerson, he was Secretary of State.

00:08:57.700 You had Jim Mattis, he was Secretary of Defense,

00:08:59.680 and they both didn't want to move the embassy.

00:09:01.800 And the reason they said they didn't want to move the embassy

00:09:04.320 is they said it would enrage the enemies of Israel

00:09:07.240 and the enemies of America.

00:09:09.500 This is a foreign policy battle I engaged in very actively.

00:09:13.740 And so, I mean, I spent a lot of time talking to the president,

00:09:17.080 leaning in, making the case.

00:09:19.200 Look, the enemies of Israel and America, 0.95

00:09:20.880 they hate us anyway.

00:09:22.520 It's not like there's suddenly some other day

00:09:25.100 where they break out in hosannas and start singing songs.

00:09:28.580 You're not going to appease them.

00:09:30.120 And that appeasement word, we're going to come back to that,

00:09:31.960 because that appeasement word is very, very important

00:09:34.380 for understanding the shift in path

00:09:36.260 that led to this peace agreement the past week.

00:09:39.620 There were voices in the White House

00:09:41.480 who were arguing against moving the embassy to Jerusalem

00:09:44.760 because they said this will make peace harder

00:09:48.200 to achieve in the Middle East.

00:09:49.500 We want to see peace in the Middle East.

00:09:51.740 If we move the embassy, it will tick off everyone

00:09:54.380 who's angry with Israel, and that makes it harder to achieve.

00:09:56.840 And you saw this throughout the mainstream media as well.

00:09:59.060 This was being echoed in the popular press.

00:10:01.300 And the case I made to President Trump

00:10:03.340 and the case I made repeatedly in the White House

00:10:05.040 is I said, look, there is virtue to clarity

00:10:08.920 and lack of ambiguity.

00:10:11.700 If we move the embassy,

00:10:14.060 it will be seen by both our friends and our enemies

00:10:17.120 as a statement that the United States stands

00:10:19.640 unapologetically in foursquare with Israel, 0.70

00:10:22.900 and that there's a president

00:10:23.940 who is not going to be cowed

00:10:27.540 by the New York Times or CNN.

00:10:29.340 At the end of the day, the president agreed with me.

00:10:35.220 He overruled his own State Department.

00:10:37.080 He overruled his own Defense Department.

00:10:39.440 And he moved the embassy.

00:10:41.160 I was there when we opened the embassy in Jerusalem.

00:10:44.060 It was in May of 2018.

00:10:45.880 It was actually on the date of the 70th anniversary

00:10:48.860 of the creation of the modern state of Israel.

00:10:50.700 And it was powerful.

00:10:53.600 It was emotional.

00:10:54.540 There's literally dancing in the street in Jerusalem.

00:10:56.540 I've been to Jerusalem four times.

00:10:59.300 I've never seen jubilation

00:11:01.120 like there was when we opened the embassy.

00:11:04.360 And what I argued to the president

00:11:07.160 when he was debating whether or not to move the embassy

00:11:09.420 is I said, listen, our Arab allies,

00:11:13.660 Jordan, Egypt, the Saudis, UAE,

00:11:16.940 said they will all publicly denounce the decision.

00:11:19.500 Because they'll feel they have to.

00:11:21.360 For domestic political reasons,

00:11:22.720 they'll feel obliged to denounce it.

00:11:25.520 But what I argued is I said,

00:11:27.660 secretly, they will be overjoyed.

00:11:31.260 And here's why.

00:11:33.000 They will say a president with the backbone

00:11:36.680 to move the embassy,

00:11:39.680 maybe, just maybe, just maybe,

00:11:41.460 will have the backbone to stand up to Iran 1.00

00:11:43.760 and stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

00:11:46.540 And there are few things that have clarified

00:11:51.600 the minds of our Arab allies more

00:11:53.720 than the Obama-Iran nuclear deal,

00:11:55.780 which put Iran on a barreling path 0.94

00:12:00.780 towards getting nuclear weapons.

00:12:02.080 And sent them pallets of cash,

00:12:03.720 very famously, right?

00:12:04.640 Over $100 billion.

00:12:05.960 I do not believe it is a coincidence

00:12:10.940 that the very same week we opened our embassy

00:12:15.000 in Jerusalem is the week the president announced

00:12:17.980 he was withdrawing from the disastrous

00:12:20.180 Obama-Iran nuclear deal.

00:12:22.120 Those two were connected.

00:12:23.240 Okay.

00:12:23.540 And the same fight played out

00:12:28.100 in the Trump administration.

00:12:29.320 On pulling out of the Obama-Iran deal,

00:12:31.620 state was opposed, defense was opposed.

00:12:33.960 Even though it was clear when President Trump was running,

00:12:36.740 he said, I'm going to get out of this Iran nuclear deal,

00:12:39.920 the base hates it.

00:12:40.860 So he actually didn't.

00:12:42.660 It is a little bit astonishing.

00:12:45.480 The Iran nuclear deal is one of the issues

00:12:47.840 on which Donald Trump and I sharply disagreed

00:12:51.120 in the 2016 primary.

00:12:52.260 Really? Well, I remember you were certainly opposed to it.

00:12:54.460 So when I was running in 2016,

00:12:56.080 I pledged to do five things

00:12:57.980 on the first day in office, January 20th, 2017.

00:13:00.860 One was move the embassy to Jerusalem.

00:13:02.460 Yeah.

00:13:03.160 Another was rip the Iran deal to shreds.

00:13:05.160 So those were two of the five things I pledged to do.

00:13:09.460 Trump as a candidate in 2016

00:13:11.560 explicitly disagreed with me.

00:13:13.820 And he said, no, I'm not going to rip the deal up.

00:13:16.080 I'm going to renegotiate.

00:13:17.060 I'm going to try to get a better deal.

00:13:18.200 And so we had, we had, I mean,

00:13:20.840 in several presidential debates,

00:13:22.400 we disagreed on this policy issue.

00:13:24.820 So you fast forward to 2017,

00:13:26.660 there's a debate within the Trump administration.

00:13:29.640 Tillerson and Mattis are both saying,

00:13:31.260 stay in the deal.

00:13:31.920 Mattis kept saying, a deal is a deal.

00:13:34.720 America's given our word.

00:13:36.100 Yeah.

00:13:36.700 And I kept pointing out to, to, to, to Mattis.

00:13:39.660 I said, no, America didn't give our word.

00:13:43.200 Obama signed that agreement

00:13:44.560 with the explicit opposition of the United States Congress.

00:13:48.980 The America gives our word,

00:13:51.060 either when we pass a statute

00:13:52.520 or a treaty ratified by the Senate.

00:13:55.060 The Obama-Iran deal was neither.

00:13:56.900 He, he made an end run to the UN

00:13:58.600 to try to get around Congress and the opposition.

00:14:03.800 Once again, Trump agreed with me

00:14:06.080 and overruled his own state and defense department.

00:14:09.580 Now let's fast forward to now.

00:14:12.560 Those decisions, part of the reasons

00:14:14.140 those decisions were so important

00:14:15.620 is, is you look at the UAE and Bahrain.

00:14:19.500 You no longer had this moral ambiguity,

00:14:22.500 this hang, hand wringing.

00:14:24.140 This is, oh, we don't want to take a stance on Israel.

00:14:26.740 We don't know what we believe,

00:14:28.080 which I think prolonged conflict.

00:14:30.020 You talked about appeasement.

00:14:31.480 The Obama-Biden path was appeasement

00:14:33.580 over and over and over again.

00:14:35.160 It was undermining Israel 0.90

00:14:36.480 and undermining Israel ironically produces

00:14:40.280 more terrorism, tension, warfare,

00:14:42.720 dissension in the Middle East.

00:14:45.060 In the last couple of weeks,

00:14:46.440 I've spoken with the UAE ambassador.

00:14:48.980 I've spoken with the Saudi ambassador.

00:14:50.560 So Saudi Arabia has not normalized relationships.

00:14:53.320 But we've been told there could be other countries,

00:14:55.980 as many as nine countries,

00:14:57.140 that will join on to this sort of a peace deal.

00:14:59.440 And look, the Saudis are the whale. 1.00

00:15:02.540 They're the biggest of the players

00:15:04.820 that is outstanding.

00:15:06.540 And Bahrain is very closely allied with the Saudis.

00:15:10.360 Most people think that Bahrain would not have done this 0.97

00:15:13.740 without the Saudis at least giving implicit approval to it.

00:15:18.060 The Saudis also announced,

00:15:19.660 and this is historic as well,

00:15:21.620 that they would allow Israel to have overflights, 0.61

00:15:25.280 to have their airplanes fly over Saudi Arabian territory.

00:15:28.700 That's a big deal.

00:15:29.640 Used to be Israel had to fly around Saudi Arabia 0.58

00:15:31.540 because Saudi Arabia would not allow

00:15:33.140 Israeli planes in their airspace.

00:15:36.780 Both the UAE ambassador and the Saudi ambassador

00:15:39.240 in the past week when I spoke to them,

00:15:42.180 they said, listen, we're doing this

00:15:44.620 because we want to be friends with America.

00:15:47.600 Because it is important for us to be friends with America.

00:15:50.940 And we know that it is important to you

00:15:55.560 for us to be friends with Israel.

00:15:57.400 We know where you stand.

00:15:59.440 It's the clarity.

00:16:01.040 And they said, that's why we're doing this.

00:16:03.460 There's something called the Iran echo chamber.

00:16:06.260 Okay.

00:16:06.340 So that was when Barack Obama was president.

00:16:09.640 They were negotiating the Iran nuclear deal.

00:16:11.440 There was a so-called echo chamber that it's locus

00:16:15.960 was the National Security Council under Obama.

00:16:18.320 Yeah.

00:16:18.900 But it was reporters.

00:16:20.440 It was academics.

00:16:21.160 It was think tanks.

00:16:22.320 And it was all these lefties who were pushing

00:16:24.100 the Iran nuclear deal.

00:16:25.480 Yeah.

00:16:25.860 They viewed that as the single biggest foreign policy

00:16:28.460 accomplishment of the Obama presidency.

00:16:32.300 And it's all predicated on appeasement.

00:16:35.840 It's predicated on if we give Iran $100 billion,

00:16:39.780 they'll make nice and won't make nuclear weapons,

00:16:42.900 even though the Ayatollah regularly chants

00:16:46.160 death to America and death to Israel. 0.99

00:16:48.380 It should be made clear.

00:16:49.500 This is not ambiguous here.

00:16:50.860 You've got a country that chants death to America.

00:16:52.960 You've got a country that is an open,

00:16:54.440 explicit ally of the United States.

00:16:56.100 And yet under the Obama administration,

00:16:57.620 it made us all scratch our heads.

00:16:58.920 They thought the path to peace was to make nice

00:17:02.240 with the people chanting death to America.

00:17:03.880 This obviously, look, Middle East peace

00:17:05.180 is perhaps the most complicated foreign policy issue.

00:17:08.940 So just to simplify here,

00:17:10.560 because it seems like there are so many layers,

00:17:13.060 we were told for a very long time

00:17:14.860 that supporting Israel was the cause of this chaos 1.00

00:17:19.360 and violence in the Middle East.

00:17:20.880 It would seem to be that the opposite has been proved true.

00:17:24.980 We were told by the leaders of these countries

00:17:27.820 that they hated our support for Israel explicitly,

00:17:30.660 and yet behind closed doors and in their own interest,

00:17:33.840 it would seem that they actually have supported American clear support for Israel.

00:17:39.580 Is that right?

00:17:40.180 Am I clarifying here a little?

00:17:41.920 I think that's right.

00:17:43.340 On the latter point,

00:17:44.340 they haven't as much explicitly supported it

00:17:46.400 as I think it is in their interest.

00:17:48.460 And they are, you know, I've joked,

00:17:51.340 you remember Barack Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009,

00:17:54.920 right after he was elected.

00:17:55.920 He literally, I don't think he'd unpacked his boxes yet.

00:17:58.760 He was still trying to find a stapler.

00:18:00.220 I believe it was nine days after he was sworn in,

00:18:04.880 he was nominated for the Peace Prize.

00:18:06.380 And he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

00:18:08.800 for not being George W. Bush.

00:18:11.340 The fact that he was,

00:18:12.400 by the way, why didn't you win a Nobel Peace Prize?

00:18:14.160 You're not George W. Bush.

00:18:14.680 I'm waiting.

00:18:15.300 I know, where's my phone call?

00:18:16.880 So they awarded him that prize,

00:18:21.300 but you look at,

00:18:24.400 I've joked that in retrospect,

00:18:27.260 Obama may have deserved it

00:18:28.900 because he did something heretofore impossible,

00:18:32.220 which is he united the Arabs and the Israelis.

00:18:35.160 All he had to do was put in place a plan

00:18:37.340 to give $100 billion to the Ayatollah Khamenei

00:18:39.880 that he could use to develop nuclear weapons

00:18:41.860 to threaten all of their lives.

00:18:43.640 And suddenly the Jews and the Arabs are like, 1.00

00:18:46.100 holy crap, are you out of your mind?

00:18:48.020 Well, because this introduces an aspect

00:18:50.300 that I think is often overlooked

00:18:51.540 when people are trying to grapple with this,

00:18:53.360 which is they think of the issue as Jews versus Muslims.

00:18:56.320 And that's a simple,

00:18:57.160 but of course we're talking about nation states here.

00:18:59.580 And there are a lot of these Arab states

00:19:01.300 that don't particularly like Iran.

00:19:03.600 So you've, instead of just two-

00:19:05.080 And there's a divide between Sunnis and Shiites.

00:19:07.480 Exactly.

00:19:07.660 And so Iran is a Shiite state 0.62

00:19:09.540 and most of the Arab states are Sunni states.

00:19:13.800 And so there's a religious divide within Islam

00:19:17.040 between the Sunnis and Shiites.

00:19:18.420 And they're fully aware of what Iran is capable of. 0.99

00:19:22.680 I mean, Iran is the leading state sponsor 0.84

00:19:24.300 of terrorism in the world,

00:19:25.600 but yet both Obama and Joe Biden,

00:19:29.520 who was very active in foreign policy as vice president,

00:19:32.840 they fully believed in appeasement.

00:19:36.180 I've also joked,

00:19:37.160 there's a reason we don't see

00:19:39.120 the Neville Chamberlain school of foreign policy.

00:19:41.200 Neville Chamberlain was prime minister of Great Britain,

00:19:45.980 championed appeasement of Adolf Hitler

00:19:48.840 and said, if we just give him what he wants-

00:19:51.620 He'll leave us alone.

00:19:52.840 Everything will be fine.

00:19:54.060 And history teaches us that appeasement doesn't work,

00:19:58.100 that it's provocative,

00:19:59.080 that actually weakness and appeasement

00:20:01.140 to a dictator, to a tyrant,

00:20:03.620 makes war more likely.

00:20:05.240 This is where a lot of the media gets it backwards.

00:20:07.140 Listen, I agree with Ronald Reagan,

00:20:09.460 who talked about and emphasized

00:20:12.760 and built his foreign policy on peace through strength,

00:20:15.560 that if you want to avoid war,

00:20:17.880 be strong enough that no one wants to mess with you.

00:20:20.320 Well, it's interesting on that point

00:20:21.960 of peace through strength.

00:20:23.320 And we were told at that time that Reagan's a cowboy,

00:20:26.920 he's a warmonger, he's crazy.

00:20:28.560 I guess we were told the same thing

00:20:29.700 when the Trump administration came in as well.

00:20:31.680 But there is an irony here

00:20:32.960 to both of those administrations.

00:20:35.320 We really did get that peace.

00:20:37.080 I mean, it's not just an empty slogan.

00:20:39.480 When you have weakness,

00:20:40.800 you're inviting this kind of aggression.

00:20:43.060 Look, in eight years in the White House,

00:20:44.820 the biggest nation Reagan ever invaded was Grenada.

00:20:48.140 That's right.

00:20:49.040 He was reluctant to use military force,

00:20:53.180 as Trump has been as well.

00:20:54.640 And I think that is exactly right.

00:20:56.140 I think there were too many cowboys in the GOP

00:20:59.560 and the Democratic Party

00:21:00.800 that option A was always send the Marines.

00:21:05.100 And listen, if there's a threat

00:21:07.040 to the national security of the United States,

00:21:08.860 if Americans' lives are being threatened,

00:21:10.480 that's what the armed forces is for,

00:21:12.520 is to keep us safe.

00:21:13.940 But being reluctant to pull that trigger,

00:21:16.340 I think, is the right thing to do,

00:21:17.760 not to put our sons and daughters in harm's way,

00:21:19.860 but also being clear and strong.

00:21:22.820 It's why moving the embassy was such an important pivot point.

00:21:28.340 And, you know, look, I'll give you an example

00:21:30.160 of Obama-Biden and their policies.

00:21:34.100 Back in, I think it was 2014,

00:21:35.940 I was in Israel.

00:21:38.500 And I had a meeting set up with Netanyahu.

00:21:41.820 Okay.

00:21:42.100 And I've gotten to know Bibi well.

00:21:44.800 Yeah.

00:21:46.500 And the meeting was set up,

00:21:48.540 and the U.S. ambassador,

00:21:50.240 the Obama ambassador,

00:21:51.300 is a guy named Daniel Shapiro.

00:21:53.400 And Shapiro told me,

00:21:55.820 the meeting was the next day with Bibi,

00:21:57.280 and he said,

00:21:57.780 you are not meeting with Netanyahu without me.

00:22:00.920 Did he now?

00:22:01.560 He just said flat out,

00:22:02.660 you are not going to meet with him without me.

00:22:05.300 And I said,

00:22:06.520 well, listen,

00:22:07.160 this is a trip I set up.

00:22:09.340 I set up this meeting.

00:22:10.680 I didn't go through you.

00:22:13.680 And you're not invited to the meeting.

00:22:17.080 You know, sir,

00:22:17.720 I am a senator.

00:22:18.520 You don't get to tell me what to do.

00:22:20.220 Well,

00:22:20.720 and Shapiro comes back,

00:22:22.840 and he threatens me.

00:22:23.760 He says,

00:22:23.980 well, then I'll pull your security.

00:22:26.040 So when you're traveling in Israel,

00:22:27.420 you get a security detail from the embassy.

00:22:29.580 Right.

00:22:30.180 He said,

00:22:30.540 I'll pull your security.

00:22:31.780 I said,

00:22:32.040 fine.

00:22:32.440 Within an hour,

00:22:33.460 I'll hire private security.

00:22:34.660 If you want to do that.

00:22:35.900 And it was clearly a bluff.

00:22:38.640 Yeah.

00:22:39.160 They're not going to let a U.S. senator

00:22:40.760 go without security.

00:22:41.880 But what was obvious

00:22:43.160 is John Kerry,

00:22:44.720 who was Secretary of State,

00:22:46.400 had told Shapiro,

00:22:47.880 you keep an eye on Cruz.

00:22:50.040 Yeah.

00:22:50.820 And don't you dare let him in a room

00:22:52.700 together with Bibi.

00:22:53.640 That we don't want this

00:22:55.120 because they hated Netanyahu.

00:22:57.800 Yeah.

00:22:58.200 And they hated me.

00:22:59.020 Right.

00:22:59.300 And the last thing they wanted

00:23:00.560 was us talking to each other.

00:23:01.880 Right.

00:23:02.580 And so,

00:23:03.920 but you got to picture it.

00:23:05.440 So,

00:23:05.460 so Ambassador Shapiro is not a very big guy.

00:23:08.400 Yeah.

00:23:09.160 And we were literally bumping chests,

00:23:12.640 standing in front of the Knesset,

00:23:14.960 which is the Israeli parliament.

00:23:16.300 Yeah.

00:23:16.620 And we're,

00:23:17.300 I mean,

00:23:17.460 it was a junior high,

00:23:19.100 like chest to chest of him saying,

00:23:22.040 I'm coming.

00:23:22.540 And me saying,

00:23:24.020 you're not invited.

00:23:26.620 And he backed down.

00:23:28.220 And so the next day.

00:23:29.260 Peace through strength.

00:23:30.320 Well,

00:23:30.940 and clarity and lack of ambiguity.

00:23:34.460 Right.

00:23:34.760 And,

00:23:34.920 and,

00:23:35.140 and so the next day,

00:23:36.340 when you,

00:23:36.600 when you go and meet with,

00:23:37.800 with Netanyahu,

00:23:38.520 there's a conference room

00:23:39.760 that you do all the meetings in.

00:23:41.300 And so if you look at any picture

00:23:42.360 of any delegations,

00:23:43.940 it's in Israel,

00:23:44.780 there's Israeli flags.

00:23:46.540 And you'd take a picture

00:23:47.260 with the prime minister

00:23:47.900 and you sit at the conference table

00:23:48.920 and talk about issues.

00:23:49.660 And so I've done that multiple times.

00:23:52.260 This time we'd prearranged

00:23:53.900 with,

00:23:54.160 with BB's office

00:23:55.000 that we'd come into the conference room,

00:23:56.800 but that BB would say,

00:23:58.160 here,

00:23:58.300 come on back to my office,

00:23:59.340 Ted.

00:24:00.100 And so I went back to his office,

00:24:01.720 which is actually not that big an office.

00:24:03.300 It's right adjoining the conference room.

00:24:06.280 And we sat down

00:24:07.620 and,

00:24:07.900 and I had brought two cigars.

00:24:10.080 BB loves to smoke cigars.

00:24:11.840 I knew I liked that guy.

00:24:13.140 And we lit up two Monte Cristos.

00:24:16.540 And we sat there smoking cigars.

00:24:19.200 And for,

00:24:20.000 I don't know,

00:24:20.380 an hour,

00:24:21.300 maybe a little bit longer,

00:24:22.620 we talked geopolitics.

00:24:24.640 We talked Middle East.

00:24:25.540 We talked Middle East peace,

00:24:26.680 America,

00:24:27.240 the world.

00:24:28.500 And I got to say,

00:24:30.620 that may have been

00:24:33.200 the single coolest moment

00:24:34.440 I've had in the entire USA.

00:24:36.220 Like it,

00:24:37.680 look,

00:24:38.260 you get a chance

00:24:40.000 to meet all sorts of people.

00:24:41.660 You meet presidents,

00:24:43.380 you meet senators,

00:24:44.140 you meet cabinet officials,

00:24:46.540 you meet heads of state.

00:24:50.480 Bibi Netanyahu

00:24:51.440 is one of the most serious,

00:24:53.560 impressive,

00:24:54.780 brilliant world leaders

00:24:56.040 I've ever encountered.

00:24:57.200 And I'm sitting there

00:24:58.200 smoking a Monte Cristo cigar

00:25:00.060 in his office going,

00:25:01.080 what in the hell

00:25:02.420 am I doing here?

00:25:03.820 Like,

00:25:04.280 hold on,

00:25:04.660 like,

00:25:05.080 like it was,

00:25:06.280 it was surreal.

00:25:07.880 I kept thinking

00:25:08.480 like it was candid camera.

00:25:09.680 Someone was going to come out

00:25:10.480 and say this was all a joke.

00:25:12.520 But,

00:25:12.960 part of it is

00:25:14.880 Netanyahu has

00:25:16.180 a seriousness,

00:25:18.880 a gravity.

00:25:19.920 Listen,

00:25:20.200 he,

00:25:20.420 he leads a country

00:25:21.520 that historically

00:25:22.880 has been surrounded

00:25:23.720 by enemies

00:25:24.320 that would drive them

00:25:25.080 into the sea.

00:25:25.880 Yeah.

00:25:26.900 Um,

00:25:27.920 and he's been running it

00:25:28.880 forever it seems.

00:25:29.760 So,

00:25:30.040 let me give it an analogy

00:25:31.100 from literature.

00:25:32.340 And you're going to laugh

00:25:33.080 at what the literature is.

00:25:35.140 Um,

00:25:35.700 which is a children's book.

00:25:37.080 Okay.

00:25:37.340 That I read as a kid.

00:25:38.240 Did you ever read the series

00:25:39.160 called The Great Brain?

00:25:40.080 The Great Brain?

00:25:40.600 No,

00:25:40.920 I had,

00:25:41.200 I didn't.

00:25:41.780 I read The Mediocre Brain.

00:25:43.160 That's probably,

00:25:43.800 it didn't work out.

00:25:45.080 All right.

00:25:45.360 So,

00:25:45.560 The Great Brain

00:25:46.240 is a seven book series

00:25:48.320 that I read as a,

00:25:49.540 I don't know,

00:25:50.260 as a kid.

00:25:50.900 It's by,

00:25:51.820 uh,

00:25:52.520 John D. Fitzgerald,

00:25:53.500 J.D. Fitzgerald.

00:25:54.400 And it,

00:25:55.340 he is the younger brother

00:25:56.700 and it's talking about his,

00:25:58.500 the middle brother,

00:25:59.300 Tom D. Fitzgerald

00:26:00.240 and the older brother,

00:26:01.040 Swen D. Fitzgerald.

00:26:02.240 And Tom,

00:26:02.980 the middle brother,

00:26:03.720 is a con man.

00:26:04.560 I mean,

00:26:04.720 he's just a huckster

00:26:06.000 and he,

00:26:06.560 he's always coming up

00:26:08.000 with these sort of scams

00:26:09.220 to con the other kids

00:26:10.260 out of something

00:26:10.860 and sort of think Tom Sawyer

00:26:12.400 in Painting the Fence,

00:26:13.300 but,

00:26:13.520 but every chapter

00:26:15.580 was a different elaborate con.

00:26:17.640 And they're growing up

00:26:18.980 in Utah,

00:26:20.580 um,

00:26:21.000 if I remember correctly

00:26:22.020 at,

00:26:22.360 at,

00:26:22.580 at essentially the,

00:26:23.580 the turn of the 1900s.

00:26:26.760 So late 1800s,

00:26:27.820 early 1900s.

00:26:29.140 And,

00:26:29.740 and in,

00:26:30.100 in one of the books

00:26:30.860 early on,

00:26:31.640 uh,

00:26:34.080 Fitzgerald is explaining,

00:26:35.800 he said,

00:26:36.760 he said,

00:26:37.260 you know,

00:26:37.540 when we were growing up

00:26:38.580 in Utah,

00:26:39.040 he said,

00:26:39.520 almost all the other kids

00:26:40.600 were Mormon.

00:26:41.360 Yeah.

00:26:42.040 And he said,

00:26:42.620 my family,

00:26:43.240 we weren't Mormon.

00:26:45.360 And he said,

00:26:46.880 it really wasn't all that hard.

00:26:48.320 It was simply a matter

00:26:49.460 of me learning

00:26:50.640 to whip all the boys

00:26:51.500 my age

00:26:52.180 and Tom D

00:26:53.140 learning to whip

00:26:53.800 all the boys his age

00:26:54.840 and Swendi learning

00:26:56.340 to whip all the boys

00:26:57.360 his age.

00:26:58.260 And,

00:26:58.740 and once we did that,

00:27:00.340 they were very,

00:27:01.240 very tolerant.

00:27:02.280 It's amazing

00:27:03.120 how tolerant

00:27:03.760 a boy can be

00:27:04.380 when you can whip it.

00:27:06.720 There's a geopolitical

00:27:07.860 lesson there.

00:27:08.360 I read that

00:27:09.440 probably at age 10

00:27:11.020 and it's stuck

00:27:12.220 in my brain then.

00:27:13.740 And that's frankly

00:27:14.440 Israel's view.

00:27:15.380 It's,

00:27:15.480 it's amazing

00:27:16.180 how tolerant

00:27:16.840 their neighbors

00:27:17.360 can be

00:27:17.980 when Israel's military

00:27:19.600 has defeated them

00:27:20.440 over and over again.

00:27:21.360 And the qualitative

00:27:22.400 military advantage

00:27:23.520 they have

00:27:24.140 is,

00:27:26.600 is part of what

00:27:27.840 produces peace

00:27:28.820 in the Middle East.

00:27:29.560 And so

00:27:29.960 this past week

00:27:31.500 was a big deal.

00:27:32.180 It's a big deal.

00:27:32.640 I think we should

00:27:33.200 celebrate with

00:27:33.780 Monte Cristos

00:27:34.460 and we will

00:27:35.320 hopefully bring peace

00:27:36.140 not just to the

00:27:36.840 Middle East

00:27:37.200 but to the

00:27:37.760 Southeast as well

00:27:38.720 and then rejoin you

00:27:40.140 over here

00:27:40.620 for the next episode.

00:27:42.380 In the meantime,

00:27:43.120 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:27:43.920 This is Verdict

00:27:44.620 with Ted Cruz.

00:27:45.620 This episode of

00:27:55.720 Verdict

00:27:56.120 with Ted Cruz

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - September 22, 2020

Montecristos with Bibi (and Peace in the Middle East)

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