Verdict with Ted Cruz - April 16, 2025


MS-13 & Harvard-Democrats Defend More Illegal Aliens, More Gang Members, More Anti-Semites & More Anti-American Radicals


Episode Stats


Length

35 minutes

Words per minute

170.06207

Word count

6,091

Sentence count

382

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

7

sentences flagged

Hate speech

20

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ben Friesen (D-Massachusetts) join me to discuss the Democratic Party's rush to bring back MS-13 gang members, and Harvard University's defense of anti-Semites.

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 .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.540 Guaranteed human.
00:00:04.360 Welcome.
00:00:05.100 It is verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:08.600 And Senator, this may be one of the most interesting stories we've gotten to talk about in a while.
00:00:14.860 And that is Democrats are so hellbent on being the opposite of Donald Trump and conservatives
00:00:20.220 that they're now advocating for people that are members of terrorist gang organizations
00:00:26.620 and demanding that we bring illegals back into America. 0.88
00:00:31.260 You cannot make this up.
00:00:32.800 Well, ever since the election in November, Democrats have been flailing about.
00:00:37.260 They have been unable to coalesce behind any clear platform, any clear policy agenda,
00:00:43.420 other than hatred for Donald Trump and anger and rage at the voters for reelecting him.
00:00:50.200 They've now seemed to settle on two policy positions,
00:00:53.280 which I have to admit are curious policy positions for a party that was just resoundingly defeated at the polls.
00:01:00.780 Number one, Democrats have apparently decided the issue that's going to bring them back to power
00:01:05.000 is that Democrats want more illegal aliens and especially more illegal aliens
00:01:11.140 who have been found by courts to be members of MS-13.
00:01:14.920 That's a fairly remarkable position, and yet that is where they are.
00:01:18.680 Secondly, they have decided that what we need in our college campuses is more anti-Semitism,
00:01:24.280 more radicals, more pro-Hamas protesters, and more anti-American zealots who hate our nation.
00:01:31.180 Now, I've got to say, Ben, as I say both of those propositions,
00:01:34.240 the words coming out of my mouth sound absurd,
00:01:37.860 except for the fact that that is exactly where today's Democrat Party has decided to land.
00:01:43.560 And we're going to lay out the facts behind both of those,
00:01:46.400 both the all-in Democrat rush to get behind bringing more illegals who are MS-13 gang members
00:01:53.600 back into this country, 1.00
00:01:54.720 and the Democrats' defense of Harvard University,
00:01:57.880 which has decided they're not going to change a damn thing.
00:02:00.780 They're going to continue to discriminate on race, 0.97
00:02:03.140 and they're going to continue to let in every anti-Semite they want to,
00:02:07.360 and who the heck is the federal government to try to enforce civil rights laws against them?
00:02:11.480 We're going to break both those stories down today.
00:02:13.740 Yeah, it really is incredible.
00:02:15.180 I also want to remind you guys,
00:02:16.600 many of you may be listening to the show and you're new to the show.
00:02:19.200 Hit that subscribe or auto-download button so you do not miss an episode.
00:02:24.140 So do that right now as well.
00:02:25.760 Also, I want to tell you about our friends at the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
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00:03:54.240 So, Senator, let's go back to this story.
00:03:57.740 And Democrats are now coalescing around an individual that was deported out of this country.
00:04:05.300 And not only are they rallying, but they're putting together apparently a delegation
00:04:10.160 that they want to send down to El Salvador to, quote,
00:04:14.880 stand up for the illegal immigrant that's a MS-13 gang member. 0.54
00:04:19.480 Well, there was an illegal immigrant whom the Trump administration deported to El Salvador.
00:04:23.700 El Salvador, Abrego Garcia is his name.
00:04:27.100 And he was here illegally.
00:04:29.160 Everyone admits that.
00:04:30.100 He came into this country illegally. 0.99
00:04:32.280 And he was also adjudicated not once but twice to be an MS-13 gang member.
00:04:37.160 Now, President Trump has determined MS-13 to be a terrorist organization,
00:04:41.220 and so he was apprehended, and he was deported by the Trump administration.
00:04:45.460 Now, it so happened that there was a court order that said, not that Abrego Garcia could
00:04:51.900 not be deported, but that he could not be deported back to El Salvador, which is where
00:04:56.140 he's from.
00:04:56.580 He's an El Salvadorian national.
00:04:58.060 And that court order was a long, it was an older court order that was missed, that was
00:05:04.180 overlooked, and he was deported and sent to El Salvador.
00:05:06.700 And the Democrats have decided that that error is sufficient reason they are jumping on airplanes
00:05:13.460 and headed down to El Salvador to apparently go camp outside the prison camp where terrorists
00:05:19.480 and murderers and rapists are held to say, you know what America needs is more of those 0.98
00:05:23.820 terrorists, murderers, and rapists back in America. 0.97
00:05:26.780 Now, I got to say that that's a stunning position. 0.97
00:05:30.840 So here's how the Washington Examiner put it.
00:05:33.660 Quote, to hear Democrats like Chris Murphy tell it, Garcia was just an innocent, doting
00:05:39.120 father who was randomly targeted by the Trump administration to be sent to El Salvador's
00:05:44.520 terrorism confinement senator.
00:05:46.380 The Supreme Court then ordered Trump to return this, quote, legal resident back to the United
00:05:52.140 States.
00:05:52.580 Trump has refused, sending our nation into a constitutional crisis.
00:05:57.720 Senator Chris Van Hollen has even announced that he's going to personally travel to El Salvador
00:06:02.400 to bring Garcia home because, you know, that's what you want is Democrats trafficking and 0.61
00:06:06.440 illegal immigrants.
00:06:08.080 Sure.
00:06:08.260 The problem is that Democrats leave a lot out of Garcia's story.
00:06:13.100 And the truth makes Trump's failure to return him quite reasonable.
00:06:16.520 For starters, Garcia was not in the United States legally.
00:06:20.880 By the way, nobody disputes that.
00:06:22.360 That is undisputed.
00:06:24.340 By his lawyer's own admission, he enters the country illegally in 2011.
00:06:30.400 Then eight years later, Garcia was arrested at Home Depot while illegally soliciting employment.
00:06:36.820 The Prince George's County Police Department then transferred him to Immigration and Customs
00:06:42.160 Enforcement, which began deportation proceedings against him.
00:06:45.660 As a defense to deportation, Garcia tried to claim asylum, claiming that his life was in danger from the Barrio 18 gang.
00:06:53.140 But his asylum claim was denied and the judge ordered his removal.
00:06:59.140 Let me repeat that statement.
00:07:01.160 But his asylum claim was denied and the judge ordered his removal.
00:07:08.580 Now, here's the sentence that complicates it.
00:07:11.660 The judge did, however, grant Garcia a, quote, withholding of removal order, forbidding his removal to El Salvador.
00:07:19.040 But that did not make him a legal resident.
00:07:22.220 As Garcia's own lawyers admit, should the Trump administration wish to remove plaintiff Abrego Garcia to any other country, they would have no legal impediment in doing so.
00:07:34.820 And so these are the facts that the Democrats have decided their party is all about.
00:07:40.480 You want to know what does today's Democrat Party stand for?
00:07:43.180 More illegal immigrants, more gang members. 0.99
00:07:46.080 That, you know what, this ain't your grandfather's Democrat Party.
00:07:49.540 So you've done international trips before, and if I remember the name, I think it's Codell.
00:07:57.020 So is this an official, like, delegation if it's senators and congressmen going down there?
00:08:03.200 This is a real Codell, and are the American taxpayers going to pay for this photo op?
00:08:07.820 Yes, and look, that's one of the prerogatives of being in the Senate is that you can travel internationally on official travel.
00:08:14.580 And each senator can make a determination of where he or she wants to go, and it should be related to your responsibilities, related to your work.
00:08:24.940 But particularly for someone like Van Hollen or Murphy, they both served with me on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
00:08:31.220 And so that in and of itself gives you a significant justification to travel abroad, work-related.
00:08:38.760 Let me give you an example of that.
00:08:40.620 If you go back during the first Trump administration, when President Trump moved our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, that's something I had been fighting for for the entire time I'd been in the Senate.
00:08:52.140 Presidents from both parties, both Republicans and Democrats, had promised to move our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and presidents in both parties had broken that promise.
00:09:00.220 Well, Donald Trump followed through on that promise, and it was the right thing to do.
00:09:03.920 It was something that I advocated vigorously to President Trump repeatedly in the Oval Office for him to do so, and he did.
00:09:10.820 When we were opening our embassy about a year later, I decided I wanted to be there.
00:09:16.200 And so I went down, and I traveled down, and there were a number of other senators, a number of other House members that went.
00:09:22.180 And, you know, what was striking, Ben, is when the embassy was opened, it was actually on the date of the 70th anniversary of the creation of the modern state of Israel, not a single Democrat member of Congress came.
00:09:36.580 Chuck Schumer didn't come.
00:09:37.660 No Democrat senators came.
00:09:39.020 No Democrat House members came.
00:09:40.180 By the way, historically, many congressional Democrats, including Chuck Schumer, had called for moving our embassy to Jerusalem.
00:09:46.860 But when it was actually moved, none of them came, and several of them whined publicly, well, the Trump administration didn't invite us.
00:09:55.160 Well, you know what?
00:09:56.000 They didn't invite me either.
00:09:57.060 I don't think they invited any member of Congress.
00:09:59.040 They just opened the embassy.
00:10:00.880 I ended up going, and I actually ended up going with Mike Lee and Lindsey Graham, and I was literally walking along in the Capitol, and I turned to Mike, who's a very dear friend of mine, and I said, Mike, we're going to open the embassy in Jerusalem.
00:10:14.000 I've been fighting for this for years.
00:10:15.260 I want to be there.
00:10:16.080 Do you want to be there, too?
00:10:16.920 He said, absolutely, let's go, and Lindsey wanted to come, too, and so we went out of our official budgets.
00:10:22.400 We had the ability to purchase plane tickets and travel, and so we traveled there to be there.
00:10:26.060 We met with Prime Minister Netanyahu.
00:10:27.700 We met with senior government officials.
00:10:29.780 That's part of the job.
00:10:30.980 So, look, can the Democrats travel to El Salvador if they want, and is that part reasonably of their work?
00:10:37.060 Yes, but what they're doing is traveling there in order to highlight,
00:10:42.560 we want to bring this illegal immigrant, whom two courts have found as an MS-13 member, back to America.
00:10:50.620 That's astonishingly bad policy, and I think astonishingly bad politics.
00:10:56.120 You mentioned that this is, I agree with you, astonishing policy, bad politics, but the media has been giving them cover on this story.
00:11:05.600 If you listen to the media, I was watching MSNBC, for example, and they were talking about this.
00:11:11.620 You were the one?
00:11:11.940 Yeah, I was the one, right?
00:11:14.500 And I was watching, and they had the mother who said it's the next number of days since he has disappeared,
00:11:21.920 and I'm like, well, hold on.
00:11:23.520 If he's disappeared, then how do you guys know where to go to find him and see him and to have this delegation go down there?
00:11:29.240 Which one is it?
00:11:30.220 He's disappeared, or you know exactly where he is?
00:11:32.660 And, of course, the answer is they obviously know where he is.
00:11:34.460 But MSNBC was like, we stand with you to the mother, like we're with you in solidarity right now to his wife.
00:11:42.760 And I'm laughing because none of the facts have come up about not one but two courts saying this guy's an MS-13 gang member.
00:11:51.300 None of these Democrats could even bring themselves to utter the name Lincoln Riley.
00:11:55.780 None of these Democrats could bring themselves to utter the name Jocelyn Nungary.
00:11:59.560 None of these Democrats could bring themselves to utter the name Rachel Moran.
00:12:03.560 The American victims who were murdered by criminal illegal aliens whom Democrats had released, they won't acknowledge, they won't fight for, they don't care about it.
00:12:13.480 The State of the Union, when Alexis Nungary, Jocelyn Nungary's mom, was sitting next to the First Lady, Melania Trump, and the president introduced her.
00:12:22.500 I know Jocelyn's mom really well.
00:12:24.780 She's an incredible young woman who's shown great courage and fortitude.
00:12:29.060 Not a single Democrat in the chamber would applaud for.
00:12:31.500 So they cannot bring themselves to stand with Americans whose children have been murdered by violent illegal immigrants whom they've released. 0.98
00:12:40.760 But you give them an illegal immigrant, ordered deported by a court, determined to be an MS-13 gang member, and they are all in. 0.77
00:12:48.680 And I want you to listen to this exchange.
00:12:50.540 So in the Oval Office, the president of El Salvador, President Bukele, was here this week, and he met with President Trump in the Oval Office, and there were a number of members of the cabinet there.
00:13:01.960 And CNN, of course, immediately asked, are you going to send this individual back?
00:13:07.960 And the exchange is quite striking.
00:13:10.860 President Bukele, his answer was quite strong.
00:13:13.880 And President Trump asked three people.
00:13:16.480 Asked Pam Bondi, the attorney general.
00:13:19.020 Asked Stephen Miller, who's the deputy chief of staff and an expert on immigration law.
00:13:23.360 And asked Marco Rubio all to respond to CNN's questions.
00:13:27.820 And I've got to say, their answers were a master class in how to deal with media misinformation and disinformation.
00:13:37.020 It's a lengthy excerpt, but it's worth hearing because it really does lay out the truth and expose the media lies.
00:13:45.160 Give a listen.
00:13:45.980 The man who your administration says was mistakenly deported.
00:13:48.720 The man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador.
00:13:51.340 Well, let me ask, Pam, would you answer that question?
00:13:54.500 Sure, President.
00:13:55.620 First and foremost, he was illegally in our country. 0.94
00:13:59.320 He had been illegally in our country. 0.55
00:14:01.680 And in 2019, two courts, an immigration court and an appellate immigration court, ruled that he was a member of MS-13 and he was illegally in our country.
00:14:13.920 Right now, it was a paperwork.
00:14:16.020 It was additional paperwork that needed to be done.
00:14:19.160 That's up to El Salvador if they want to return him.
00:14:22.840 That's not up to us.
00:14:24.100 The Supreme Court ruled, President, that if, as El Salvador wants to return him, this is international matters, foreign affairs, if they wanted to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane.
00:14:38.260 So will you return him, President?
00:14:39.400 And you are doing a great job.
00:14:41.340 Thank you.
00:14:41.700 Can you just also respond to that question?
00:14:46.140 Because, you know, it's asked by CNN and they always ask it with a slant because they're totally slanted because they don't know what's happening. 0.65
00:14:53.280 That's why nobody's watching them.
00:14:54.540 But would you answer that question also, please?
00:14:56.920 Yes, gladly.
00:14:57.680 So, as Pam mentioned, there's an illegal alien from El Salvador.
00:15:03.120 So, with respect to you, he's a citizen of El Salvador.
00:15:07.580 So, it's very arrogant even for American media to suggest that we would even tell El Salvador how to handle their own citizens as a starting point.
00:15:16.340 As two immigration courts found that he was a member of MS-13, when President Trump declared MS-13 to be a foreign terrorist organization,
00:15:23.860 that meant that he was no longer eligible under federal law, which I'm sure you know, you're very familiar with the INA,
00:15:30.460 that he was no longer eligible for any form of immigration relief in the United States.
00:15:34.780 So, he had a deportation order that was valid, which meant that under our law, he's not even allowed to be present in the United States
00:15:42.200 and had to be returned because of the foreign terrorist designation.
00:15:46.960 This issue was then, by a district court judge, completely inverted,
00:15:51.800 and a district court judge tried to tell the administration that they had to kidnap a citizen of El Salvador and fly him back here.
00:15:58.800 That issue was raised with the Supreme Court.
00:16:01.180 And the Supreme Court said the district court order was unlawful and its main components were reversed 9-0 unanimously,
00:16:08.900 stating clearly that neither Secretary of State nor the President could be compelled by anybody
00:16:14.580 to forcibly retrieve a citizen of El Salvador from El Salvador, who, again, is a member of MS-13, 0.70
00:16:22.040 which, as I'm sure you understand, rapes little girls, murders women, murders children, 0.89
00:16:26.900 is engaged in the most barbaric activities in the world, and I can promise you, if he was your neighbor, you would move right away.
00:16:31.880 So, you don't plan to ask for any help if you get him back?
00:16:33.900 And what was the ruling in the Supreme Court, Steve, was it 9-0?
00:16:38.860 Yes, it was a 9-0.
00:16:40.840 In our favor.
00:16:41.520 In our favor, against the district court ruling, saying that no district court has the power
00:16:45.920 to compel the foreign policy function of the United States.
00:16:48.920 As Pam said, the ruling solely stated that if this individual, at El Salvador's sole discretion,
00:16:55.800 was sent back to our country, that we could deport him a second time.
00:16:58.780 No version of this legally ends up with him ever living here, because he is a citizen of El Salvador.
00:17:05.060 That is the President of El Salvador.
00:17:06.940 Your questions about it, per the court, can only be directed to him.
00:17:09.940 I asked President Bukele.
00:17:12.320 Can President Bukele weigh in on this?
00:17:14.540 Do you plan to return him?
00:17:15.880 Well, I'm supposed to have suggested that I smuggle a terrorist into the United States, right?
00:17:21.180 How can I smuggle?
00:17:23.620 How can I return him to the United States?
00:17:25.260 Is that I smuggle him into the United States?
00:17:27.520 Of course, I'm not going to do it.
00:17:29.900 It's like, I mean, the question is preposterous.
00:17:33.320 How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?
00:17:36.520 I don't have the power to return him to the United States.
00:17:39.180 But you can release him inside of El Salvador.
00:17:41.060 Yeah, but I'm not releasing, I mean, we're not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country.
00:17:45.060 I mean, we just turned the murder capital of the world into the safest country in the Western Hemisphere,
00:17:48.580 and you want us to go back into the releasing criminals so we can go back to being the murder capital of the world?
00:17:54.320 That's not going to happen.
00:17:55.640 Well, they'd love to have a criminal, you know, released into our country.
00:17:58.980 Yeah, I mean, there's a fascination.
00:18:00.980 They would love it.
00:18:01.900 Yeah. 1.00
00:18:03.280 These are sick people.
00:18:05.180 Mark, do you have something to say about that?
00:18:06.680 Yeah, I mean, Steve and I outlined it.
00:18:08.120 I don't understand what the confusion is.
00:18:10.280 This individual is a citizen of El Salvador.
00:18:12.840 He was illegally in the United States and was returned to his country.
00:18:16.160 That's where you deport people, back to their country of origin, 1.00
00:18:18.760 except for Venezuela that wasn't refusing to take people back or places like that.
00:18:22.220 I can tell you this, Mr. President.
00:18:24.320 No, the foreign policy of the United States is conducted by the president of the United States, not by a court.
00:18:29.560 And no court in the United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States.
00:18:34.240 It's that simple.
00:18:34.980 Senator, you can hear it there.
00:18:36.880 They laid out the facts, the facts that the media are not telling the American people.
00:18:41.560 They laid out the connections to the terrorist organization, which is MS-13.
00:18:44.680 They laid out the facts that not one but two judges have said he's an MS-13 gang member.
00:18:49.740 And oh, by the way, when the media says this guy did nothing wrong, he was in the country illegally.
00:18:55.120 He broke into the United States of America.
00:18:57.540 So the entire thing is propaganda from the left.
00:19:01.720 It is.
00:19:02.560 And by the way, I will say on X, multiple media outlets have tweeted about this illegal immigrant who's been adjudicated to be a gang member.
00:19:09.420 They keep describing him as a, quote, Maryland father.
00:19:14.020 Since when does an illegal immigrant who happened to be living in Maryland make him a Maryland father? 0.87
00:19:19.320 Yes, he was, in fact, apprehended in Maryland, but he is from El Salvador.
00:19:24.320 It's why, actually, they asked the president of El Salvador, are you going to send him back?
00:19:27.860 And at the end of the day, the president of El Salvador said, look, why would I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?
00:19:35.160 This is someone who's been found to be a member of MS-13.
00:19:38.300 It is illegal for him to come to America. 0.52
00:19:41.220 You're asking me, would I bring an illegal immigrant terrorist into America? 0.99
00:19:45.220 My answer is no.
00:19:46.260 And the media has no answer for that.
00:19:48.600 They're like, no, no, no, we want that.
00:19:50.340 And what's astonishing, okay, nobody's surprised. 0.89
00:19:53.220 CNN wants more illegal immigrant terrorists into this country. 0.78
00:19:56.800 MSNBC wants more illegal immigrant terrorists into this country.
00:20:00.120 Now, to be fair, CNN and MSNBC don't have to get votes.
00:20:03.340 They just have to appeal to radical leftists.
00:20:05.240 But Democrats presumably want to get votes from normal people.
00:20:08.840 This is a very curious issue for them to lean all in on.
00:20:12.900 But I got to say, this defines who today's Democrat Party is.
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00:22:10.780 Make the switch today.
00:22:12.280 Senator, which this issue that we just talked about brings us to another double-down issue with Democrats.
00:22:17.660 That, again, they, without leadership in the Democratic Party right now, it's pretty clear they're trying to, A, figure out who's in charge.
00:22:26.720 And, B, the radicals are getting to push the agenda.
00:22:30.180 Which brings us to Harvard.
00:22:32.400 And Trump has said we are freezing the funding going to Harvard.
00:22:37.440 They have slashed over $2.2 billion in funding to Harvard after the school has defied federal law.
00:22:44.860 And the White House says we're not playing around.
00:22:47.860 A lot of Americans, by the way, may not realize that $2.2 billion, in fact a lot more than that,
00:22:52.860 is going to Harvard of your tax dollars.
00:22:56.300 Yeah, Harvard gets roughly $9 billion in federal taxpayer dollars.
00:23:00.440 So it gets an enormous amount.
00:23:01.880 Now, it's a huge research institution, and it does some good research.
00:23:05.000 It does medical research and scientific research, and some of that research is valuable.
00:23:09.720 But what the Trump administration has announced, the Joint Task Force on Combating Antisemitism,
00:23:15.320 has announced that it's freezing over $2 billion in multi-year grants and contracts to Harvard.
00:23:20.820 And that was following the school's president putting out a statement saying it would not comply
00:23:27.200 with the Trump administration's demands on anti-Semitism.
00:23:32.220 And I've got to say, this is a battle that Harvard and a lot of academic institutions
00:23:38.280 are putting out statements in support of Harvard, so brave, so brave.
00:23:41.840 Now, I will say, most other institutions, when the Trump administration has threatened their funding,
00:23:46.220 they've caved, and they've caved very quickly.
00:23:47.920 But the other institutions are happy to applaud Harvard and say, yes, yes, yes, lose your funds.
00:23:53.420 You're so brave.
00:23:55.280 And what is striking is that Democrats, Barack Obama, the Democrat governor of Massachusetts,
00:24:01.260 are all lining up behind Harvard.
00:24:03.000 And there is a reason.
00:24:05.040 When you look at the core bases of the Democrat Party,
00:24:08.300 you know, there was a time in a prior generation when the Democrat Party was considered a blue-collar
00:24:14.800 party in the age of FDR.
00:24:16.700 It was a party of union members and working class.
00:24:20.520 And in fact, one of the reasons that FDR was treated with contempt is because he was a very
00:24:26.280 wealthy person, as many Democrats are.
00:24:28.240 But he was considered a, quote, traitor to his class because he was a rich man who became a historic
00:24:35.480 Democrat leader.
00:24:36.440 Well, that Democrat Party doesn't exist anymore.
00:24:39.900 The Democrat Party no longer cares about the blue-collar.
00:24:42.300 And in fact, they routinely destroy blue-collar jobs.
00:24:45.360 Today's Democrat Party is a party of coastal elites.
00:24:48.080 And it is a party that is comprised of big universities and big business and big tech and big
00:24:56.120 Hollywood, all of whom have overlapping problems.
00:25:00.240 All of them are in bed with China. 0.99
00:25:03.900 And all of them have been taken over by radical leftism, by cultural Marxism.
00:25:09.700 As you know, the most recent book I wrote is entitled Unwoke, How to Defeat Cultural Marxism
00:25:15.640 in America, and each chapter breaks down a different major institution that's been captured by the
00:25:21.040 radical left.
00:25:21.700 The first chapter is entitled Universities, the Wuhan Lab of the Woke Virus.
00:25:29.100 And what I argue is that it is universities, and sadly my alma mater, Harvard, where the
00:25:35.340 Woke Virus was first created in a lab, and then it mutated and spread, and it spread throughout 0.87
00:25:42.100 just about every other major institution in this country.
00:25:45.900 And so Harvard has been the locus of much of the radical leftism and cultural Marxism that has done
00:25:52.940 enormous damage to our institutions.
00:25:55.240 And Harvard is digging in, and they're claiming that they're digging in in defense of free speech,
00:26:02.960 but what they're really digging in on is they don't want to change their policies,
00:26:07.960 number one, that discriminate on race. They love discriminating on race. They love DEI.
00:26:13.500 They love putting race front and center, which, by the way, is directly contrary to federal civil
00:26:18.280 rights law. And they also want to continue admitting radical anti-Semites. They want to
00:26:23.880 continue looking the other way at pro-Hamas protesters who threaten Jewish students, who threaten
00:26:29.100 violence, who threaten intimidation, who call for genocide. And they want to continue admitting and
00:26:35.000 promoting anti-American radicals, and that includes both students and faculty. And so when the
00:26:40.880 administration put a series of demands in place, Harvard said no. I got to tell you, Harvard thinks
00:26:48.560 they want this fight. In my opinion, the Trump administration is eager for this fight with
00:26:55.260 Harvard. And you could not ask. Harvard has an endowment of over $50 billion. And, you know,
00:27:01.440 one of my favorite responses to that, to Harvard's supposed stance on principle, where they talked
00:27:07.300 about standing for the First Amendment is Hillsdale College, which is a great college. It is a
00:27:14.320 conservative college, a free market college. But one of the things they do is they don't take federal
00:27:19.820 money. And Hillsdale actually tweeted, well, you can say anything you like, just don't take federal
00:27:23.960 money. And oddly enough, Harvard doesn't want to do that. They want the taxpayers to fund them,
00:27:28.680 but they want to continue to be embracing racism and vitriolic anti-American sentiment while at the
00:27:37.360 same time being funded by American taxpayers. Canadian women are looking for more, more out of 1.00
00:27:42.620 themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them. And that's why we're
00:27:47.080 thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this
00:27:53.040 podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians,
00:27:58.720 and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect,
00:28:03.880 then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to
00:28:08.760 your podcasts. So when you look at this, this fight, I do think one of the very interesting parts
00:28:15.880 of all of this that we're talking about is now Americans are really waking up and realizing like
00:28:20.900 where their money has been going, how much of it is going. And you're right, there's some of this
00:28:24.920 is research and that's something we can be proud of. And that's a good thing. But a lot of this is
00:28:29.060 going to indoctrinating kids with radical leftist ideals. And that's part of the reason why I think
00:28:35.640 they will need this money, right? They want the money for that reason. They've been doing a great
00:28:39.540 job of doing that for the last several decades. So if the money does dry up at places like Harvard,
00:28:45.180 and then we start to see more questions being asked about other money, not only could this change
00:28:51.080 universities in a positive way, I think, for free speech and not having one set of views that are
00:28:56.680 indoctrinated, but it could also save the taxpayers a hell of a lot of money because it's not just Harvard
00:29:01.780 that's getting cash. Oh, yeah, but Harvard is the perfect test subject. And our universities right now
00:29:08.480 have become indoctrination labs. They've become places that enforce rigid orthodoxy. And if you say
00:29:15.280 something that is contrary to the radical leftist view, you risk being disciplined, you risk being
00:29:21.340 having your grades, and you also risk just not being admitted. And look, some of the question
00:29:27.660 comes down to a very simple, what is it that the administration was requesting? Because if the
00:29:34.560 administration was demanding Harvard must teach in every class that Donald Trump is the greatest
00:29:39.340 president to have ever lived, I would agree with Harvard that no university could give in to a
00:29:45.160 government demand about a specific position like that, particularly if it's one they disagree with.
00:29:51.480 But that's not what the Trump administration said. And I have in front of me the letter that the Trump
00:29:57.360 administration said. It's five pages. I'm not going to read it all, but I'm going to read some of the
00:30:01.460 portions of it. So it is addressed both to Alan Garber, who is the president of Harvard University,
00:30:08.900 and to Penny Pritzker, who is the lead member of the Harvard Corporation. Penny Pritzker, by the way,
00:30:12.740 was a cabinet member under Barack Obama. And the Harvard Corporation runs all of Harvard, and it's this
00:30:18.160 privately held corporation of all Democrats that run Harvard as this left-wing bastion.
00:30:25.000 Here's how the letter begins.
00:30:26.360 Dear Dr. Garber, the United States has invested in Harvard University's operation because of the
00:30:31.860 value to the country of scholarly discovery and academic excellence. But an investment is not an
00:30:37.580 entitlement. It depends on Harvard upholding federal civil rights law, and it only makes sense if Harvard
00:30:43.200 fosters the kind of environment that produces intellectual creativity and scholarly rigor, both of
00:30:48.600 which are antithetical to ideological capture. Harvard has in recent years failed to live up to both the
00:30:55.800 intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment. But we appreciate
00:31:00.760 your expression of commitment to repairing those failures and welcome your collaboration in restoring
00:31:05.420 the university to its promise. We therefore present the below provisions as the basis for an agreement
00:31:11.220 in principle that will maintain Harvard's financial relationship with the federal government.
00:31:15.820 Here's the first. Governance and leadership reforms. By August 2025, Harvard must make meaningful
00:31:23.660 governance reform and restructuring to make possible major change consistent with this letter, including
00:31:29.920 fostering clear lines of authority and accountability. Apparently that was objectionable.
00:31:36.180 Empowering tenured professors and senior leadership, and from among the tenured professorate
00:31:40.720 and senior leadership, exclusively those most devoted to the scholarly mission of the university and
00:31:46.840 committed to the changes indicated in this letter. Reducing the power held by students and
00:31:51.740 untenured faculty. Reducing the power held by faculty, whether tenured or untenured, and administrators
00:31:57.720 more committed to activism than scholarship. Now, again, this is something Harvard found
00:32:04.300 unacceptable. We're not willing to focus on scholarship instead of activism. Nope, that's a violation of
00:32:09.880 what we want to do. And reducing forms of governance, bloat, duplication, or decentralization that
00:32:16.300 interfere with the possibility of the reforms indicated in this letter. So that's the first one.
00:32:20.940 Apparently something was objectionable about that. What's the next one? Merit-based hiring reform.
00:32:28.000 By August 2025, the university must adopt and implement merit-based hiring policies and ceased
00:32:33.420 all preferences based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin throughout its hiring, promotion,
00:32:39.020 compensation, and related practices among faculty, staff, and leadership. Now, mind you, that is existing
00:32:45.960 federal civil rights law. You cannot discriminate based on race. And yet, for Harvard, that is
00:32:53.600 outrageous. Of course they want to discriminate based on race. It's an ideological commitment.
00:32:59.020 What's the next one? Merit-based admissions reform. By August 2025, the university must adopt and implement
00:33:05.120 merit-based admission policies and ceased all preferences based on race, color, national origin,
00:33:10.460 or proxies thereof throughout its undergraduate program, each graduate program individually, each of
00:33:15.160 its professional schools, and other programs. Again, the idea of actually admitting students based
00:33:21.240 on merit rather than discriminating based on race, which, mind you, discriminating based on race is
00:33:26.000 illegal under federal civil rights law, to Harvard is anathema. What's the next one?
00:33:31.780 International admissions reform. By August 2025, the university must reform its recruitment screening
00:33:38.620 and admission of international students to prevent admitting students hostile to the American values
00:33:46.560 and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including students
00:33:54.140 supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism. Again, apparently that is outrageous and unacceptable.
00:34:01.780 The next one, viewpoint diversity in admission and hiring. By August 2025, the university shall commission
00:34:09.280 an external party, which will satisfy the federal government as to its competence and good faith to audit the
00:34:15.500 student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity, such that each department, field, or teaching
00:34:22.580 unit must be individually viewpoint diverse. Now, notably, they're not saying hire conservatives. They're not saying
00:34:28.800 hire Trump supporters. They're saying you cannot have a faculty that is universally orthodox and
00:34:36.840 indoctrinating, that all have the same view, that, you know, the left loves to prattle on about diversity as
00:34:43.460 our strength. And by diversity, they mean we must all be leftists who believe the same thing, but say so with
00:34:49.620 different skin colors. Now, I actually think diversity means having different ideas, confronting ideas you disagree
00:34:56.620 with. Look, I go through these to give an example. I think each of those demands are very reasonable.
00:35:03.680 They're saying comply with federal law, be an institution that actually does what you say, what you claim to be
00:35:09.220 doing, and yet Harvard is outraged. How dare you hold us to the terms of federal law? We cannot comply with that.
00:35:19.640 Yeah, it's truly incredible. Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Hit that
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00:35:43.100 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.