Verdict with Ted Cruz - May 24, 2023


NAACP Boycotts Florida & AOC Steps in it on Race, plus Target Stores target Kids with Sexually Explicit Products, and an AM Radio Victory


Episode Stats


Length

45 minutes

Words per minute

157.35335

Word count

7,205

Sentence count

524

Harmful content

Misogyny

13

sentences flagged

Toxicity

36

sentences flagged

Hate speech

10

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Ted Cruz responds to the NAACP's travel advisory to Florida on the same week that Ron DeSantis announces he's running for president. Plus, AOC takes aim at the Democratic Party with a 7-tweet rant about race.

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.
00:00:02.560 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.320 Welcome.
00:00:06.040 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you as well.
00:00:10.340 And we have got a loaded show for you.
00:00:12.760 The NAACP doesn't want you to go to Florida,
00:00:16.020 specifically if you are African-American, saying it's unsafe.
00:00:20.260 On the same exact week that Ron DeSantis is announcing he's going to run for president.
00:00:24.500 Yeah, there's no coincidence there at all.
00:00:26.280 Also, mothers standing up and saying no to Target coming after children.
00:00:33.580 And now it looks like we're winning, just like there was big victories with Bud Light.
00:00:38.940 And finally, AM radio.
00:00:41.100 Yes, it may be sticking around for a little while longer in your vehicles.
00:00:45.200 We're going to give you an update on that.
00:00:46.820 But first, Senator, let's get back to this big story.
00:00:49.360 And that is the NAACP came out with, I think, which was one of the most disgusting warnings about Florida,
00:00:58.420 clearly political, and saying they have a travel advisory to Florida.
00:01:03.300 The exact same week that Ron DeSantis is announcing he's running for president.
00:01:06.660 What's funny about this is there are actually several NAACP top executives that live in Florida.
00:01:13.620 Florida, I'm curious, are they going to sell their houses right away?
00:01:18.360 Well, it was obviously partisan.
00:01:20.080 It was obviously political.
00:01:21.260 And it's sad to see what's happened to the NAACP.
00:01:25.240 You know, I have to say this topic sparked something of a Twitter war.
00:01:29.920 And I think it's worth it for listeners of the pod to walk through the Twitter war.
00:01:34.880 So when the NAACP issued its, quote, travel advisory for the state of Florida over the weekend,
00:01:40.640 saying that Republican Governor Ron DeSantis' policies constitute an all-out attack on black Americans and other minorities,
00:01:47.000 I responded and said, quote, this is bizarre and utterly dishonest.
00:01:54.120 In the 1950s and 60s, the NAACP did extraordinary good helping lead the civil rights movement.
00:01:59.960 And today, Dr. King would be ashamed of how profoundly they've lost their way.
00:02:06.200 Now, that comment triggered a whole bunch of leftists, including one very lefty professor at my alma mater,
00:02:14.160 a guy named Kevin Cruz, K-R-U-S-E, who says, quote,
00:02:18.620 In 1965, Dr. King called for a national boycott of the state of Alabama,
00:02:23.180 saying that Democratic Governor George Wallace's policies constitute constituted a, quote,
00:02:29.120 reign of terror against black Americans.
00:02:32.060 Well, from there, Norm Ornstein, who's the big lefty Democrat commentator, said, quote,
00:02:40.380 Guess who would have been first in line to filibuster against the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act?
00:02:45.940 Yes, Ted Cruz.
00:02:48.160 Ooh, they got me now.
00:02:49.380 So I responded to Norm Ornstein, and I said, quote,
00:02:53.660 Nonsense.
00:02:55.140 That shameful filibuster was led by Democrats, your party. 0.96
00:03:00.720 My party, the Republicans, proudly voted for the Civil Rights Act in much higher percentages than the racist Dems.
00:03:08.880 Now, here's where it gets interesting.
00:03:10.740 This great scholar of American history, this learned analyst on all things concerning race,
00:03:18.120 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, sends the following tweet.
00:03:23.660 Why don't you go ahead and tell people what happened to the parties after that, Ted?
00:03:30.500 Well, I'm never one to turn down a kind invitation from someone trying to be helpful to the discussion.
00:03:37.140 So I happily replied, and I, quote, tweeted AOC, and I said, sure.
00:03:44.400 And what follows is a seven-tweet thread, which, if you will indulge, I'm going to walk you through.
00:03:50.680 Sure.
00:03:52.040 First, the Dem Party founded the KKK.
00:03:56.040 Then, the Dem Party wrote Jim Crow laws.
00:03:58.760 Then, the Dem Party filibustered the Civil Rights Act.
00:04:04.300 Tweet number two.
00:04:05.840 Today, the Dem Party filibusters school choice, trapping millions of black kids in failing schools.
00:04:13.340 Today, the Dem Party pushes abolishing the police, which results in many more black lives murdered.
00:04:21.360 Today, the Dem Party voted against my bill to stop D.C. from throwing 40% of black kids out of schools because of the vax mandate.
00:04:35.140 Tweet number three.
00:04:37.000 The Republican Party was founded to oppose slavery.
00:04:41.520 Our first president, Republican president, was Abraham Lincoln, who won the Civil War and ended slavery.
00:04:48.720 It was Republicans who voted for the Civil Rights Act in a much higher percentage than racist Democrats.
00:04:56.200 Tweet number four.
00:04:58.060 Today, we produced the lowest African-American unemployment ever under the Trump economic boom.
00:05:04.560 Today, we produced the lowest African-American poverty levels ever under the Trump economic boom.
00:05:13.060 Tweet number five.
00:05:14.420 Today, in 2017, I passed the largest expansion of federal school choice ever, making 529 plans cover K-12, over the objection of every single Senate Democrat.
00:05:32.800 Tweet number six.
00:05:33.660 Also, just two years ago, the Democrat governor of Virginia had put the photo of a man dressed as a KKK Klansman on his personal yearbook page.
00:05:47.300 And today, the sitting Democrat president, Joe Biden, gave in 2011 a flowery eulogy for an exalted cyclops of the KKK.
00:05:59.740 And final tweet, tweet number seven.
00:06:03.620 And to add all that.
00:06:06.340 The Democrat Party aggressively supports open borders, which has led to the deaths and brutal assaults of thousands of Hispanics.
00:06:16.800 And AOC somehow can't seem to find her white pantsuit to cry over their suffering. 1.00
00:06:24.920 Senator, it's amazing how easy it is for the left to play the race card.
00:06:31.180 And I love the fact that you had that Twitter thread with her.
00:06:35.600 I also think this is going to clearly be part of the strategy for the Democratic Party going into this next election cycle.
00:06:41.740 It seems to be the strategy that they're going to use no matter what on anybody that they see as a threat, a conservative that's up and coming.
00:06:48.480 The fact that the NAACP has now done this, they've not put out a travel warning to places like New York City, San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago, my hometown of Memphis.
00:07:00.240 They haven't put out travel warnings to any of these other top crime cities.
00:07:04.560 They haven't done it in Baltimore, even in Washington, D.C.
00:07:06.960 But they're doing it for an entire state of Florida because they don't like the guy who's the governor and they don't like he's about to announce he's running for president.
00:07:15.380 So, therefore, we're going to label him a racist.
00:07:19.060 And sure enough, it worked because in a lot of the news stories in the last 24 hours, they're like, well, Ron DeSantis is going to announce he's running for president.
00:07:27.600 And the NAACP has said it's not safe for African-Americans to go to Florida.
00:07:35.020 Tiger Woods lives in Florida.
00:07:36.120 I don't think he's going to be moving anytime soon.
00:07:38.220 And vast numbers of African-Americans are moving to Florida because Florida has been an oasis of freedom, just like Texas.
00:07:45.400 Texas and Florida, people are moving.
00:07:47.560 They're voting with their feet.
00:07:48.640 They're leaving Democrat states like New York, like California, like Illinois.
00:07:52.420 They're fleeing in vast numbers and coming to states like Texas and Florida.
00:07:56.260 Democrats hate that.
00:07:58.580 And listen, as I said in my initial tweet, I really do respect the NAACP.
00:08:04.420 What they did in the 1950s and 60s, standing up against segregated schools, which coincidentally had been put in place 100 percent of the times by Democrat politicians.
00:08:17.240 What they did litigating Brown versus Board of Education at the Supreme Court and ending segregation.
00:08:23.920 That was historic.
00:08:25.240 What they did fighting the civil rights movement, what they did in sit-ins, what they did at lunch counters, what they did in marches, what they did with Dr.
00:08:33.780 King and nonviolent protests.
00:08:35.980 There's a reason in my office in the Senate for over a decade I've had a bust of Dr.
00:08:40.260 King directly across from my desk.
00:08:42.500 It was extraordinary, and it is sad to see the current leadership, who they're just Democrat partisans.
00:08:50.460 They're not pretending to be concerned.
00:08:51.920 If they actually cared about civil rights, the NAACP would join me in leading the fight for school choice, in leading the fight to say every African-American child in this country has a right to access quality education.
00:09:05.040 And we're not going to accept politicians trapping our kids in failing schools.
00:09:10.140 We're not going to accept African-American kids in schools where children aren't learning, where they don't have literacy, where they're dropping out of schools, where they're drug dealers in the hallways, where little girls are being violently assaulted in the bathrooms. 1.00
00:09:25.640 They would have righteous indignation and rage, but they don't have any of that. 0.83
00:09:31.920 Instead, they are simply partisans.
00:09:35.320 And I got to say, AOC, her response to this, look, it typifies the response of many hyper-partisan Democrats that are suffused in ignorance, but also supremely sure that the corporate media will never report on what they're saying.
00:09:52.100 So I actually think when she typed in, why don't you tell us, Ted, what happened to the parties after that, that it never occurred to her that I would accept her invitation.
00:10:01.800 Now, I got to say, you and I are recording this late in the evening, Tuesday night.
00:10:06.080 To date, AOC has not responded.
00:10:07.900 She's quietly shut her mouth.
00:10:10.200 This may be the first time in history AOC has failed to respond to something.
00:10:15.620 We'll see if she rises to the occasion or not.
00:10:18.080 She may do some sort of Cancun insult or something. 1.00
00:10:20.460 That's the typical leftist, like, oh, yeah, your mama. 0.96
00:10:23.480 So maybe that's coming.
00:10:25.600 But she won't respond on the substance because she can't. 0.79
00:10:29.820 And let me tell you something else, Ben.
00:10:32.100 So there are some lefties on Twitter that are like, oh, your staff researched this and wrote this Twitter thread.
00:10:38.660 Let me be clear.
00:10:39.420 And you spent a lot of time with me.
00:10:41.220 You know exactly where this thread came from. 1.00
00:10:43.340 I read the idiotic tweet from AOC and I sat in the car. 0.99
00:10:47.440 In fact, I delayed a meeting to sit there on my phone and type out each of these seven responses because I was so pissed at her dishonesty. 1.00
00:10:56.400 Because the Democrat Party record on race is shameful.
00:11:01.940 And they eagerly lie to the American people about it.
00:11:07.060 Yeah, they do.
00:11:08.100 And seeing you, by the way, I've witnessed you in the zone.
00:11:11.240 And when there's something that catches you like this, it is don't talk to me until I'm done moment.
00:11:16.040 And I'm glad that you owned it this way.
00:11:18.400 And I agree with you.
00:11:20.480 I doubt she responds with anything substantive at all.
00:11:25.640 If she does respond.
00:11:27.020 Yeah, if she does respond, it'll be some sort of ad hominem attack that that is just personal and nasty. 0.67
00:11:33.100 And her legions of left wing Twitter followers will all immediately coup. 1.00
00:11:37.540 Oh, you got him by saying something nasty.
00:11:40.080 But what she won't do is respond substantively.
00:11:42.940 What she won't do is dispute the points.
00:11:44.920 Look, the incumbent Democrat president gave a glowing eulogy of a self-declared exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan.
00:11:56.460 Now, the Democrats live in this bizarre fiction, which is they admit from 1860 to 1870 to 1880 to 1890 to 1900 to 1910 to 1920 to 1930 to 1940 to 1950 to 1960. 0.93
00:12:11.960 Their party were a bunch of bigoted racists who hated African-Americans, who founded the Klans, who engaged in lynching, who discriminated, who put in segregated schools and were horrible, vicious bigots. 0.62
00:12:22.420 And they also admit from 1860 to 1870 to 1880 to 1890 to 1900 to 1910 to 1920 to 1930 to 1940 to 1950 to 1960. 0.91
00:12:33.140 The Republican Party was founded to end slavery, was fighting for civil rights, was fighting against the Democrat bigots and was the one leading those efforts for more than a century.
00:12:44.300 Now, here's the weird Democrat fiction that all of these historically illiterate leftists insist on Twitter.
00:12:53.020 They say, well, yeah, that's all true.
00:12:55.840 But in 19 in the 1960s, the two parties magically switch places. 0.92
00:13:01.920 And suddenly all of these evil, vicious, bigoted Democrats became Republicans.
00:13:09.840 And suddenly, by the way, so the way their narrative works, all of the noble Republicans who were fighting racism apparently decided to become the old racist Democrats, which is a really weird like how exactly does that work? 0.71
00:13:25.560 You know, I just wish I was in the party of Bull Connor, I'd feel better about race if Bull Connor and I were aligned.
00:13:33.500 Like what on earth?
00:13:35.460 It's a bizarre idea.
00:13:37.360 And by the way, virtually all of those Democrats stayed Democrats their whole lives.
00:13:43.540 You didn't actually see the South shift to Republican until the 1980s or the 1990s or the 2000s.
00:13:49.540 And it shifted really because the Democrat Party abandoned working class voters and abandoned cultural sanity.
00:13:58.520 But none of that Democrats can't be bothered with it.
00:14:02.900 They just assume there's a fairy godmother that came from Cinderella, waved her wand, and suddenly the bigoted Klan founding Democrats became noble Democrats. 0.62
00:14:15.100 And if that's true, why did Joseph Robinette Biden praise and give a flowery eulogy to Robert Byrd?
00:14:25.480 Robert Byrd was the Senate Majority Leader.
00:14:28.140 He was a Democrat Senate, and he was a, quote, exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan. 1.00
00:14:32.600 By the way, the Klan gives idiotic names to their idiotic racist positions. 1.00
00:14:37.280 But Robert Byrd got that because he was a recruiter for the Klan. 1.00
00:14:41.120 He called up people and said, hey, I'm a bigoted Klan's member.
00:14:44.460 Wouldn't you like to be one, too?
00:14:46.520 And he became a Democrat senator.
00:14:48.000 Then he became the Senate Majority Leader for Democrats.
00:14:50.660 And then Joe Biden stood up and said, the exalted Cyclops for the Klan, he was my mentor in the Senate.
00:14:57.360 I'm sorry, AOC.
00:14:59.060 You don't get to pretend that the history of bigotry in your party that extends to the current resident of the Oval Office has magically disappeared.
00:15:08.980 Yeah, great point, Senator.
00:15:10.640 Great point.
00:15:11.420 I also want to talk about something else that's happened, and that is I am so happy and encouraged to watch what's happened with Bud Light.
00:15:20.220 And the sales have declined now.
00:15:22.160 They're off about 25 percent year over year because people are standing up saying they've had enough.
00:15:29.180 This is now turned into a Bud Light 2.0 situation at Target stores.
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00:16:57.360 Senator, you've been watching and it's been very interesting to see and it makes me happy to watch conservatives that are organizing to the point where Target has had to hold an emergency meeting over their LGBTQ plus merchandise for Pride Month.
00:17:14.900 In some of their stores, they're even moving these displays from the front of the store to other areas of the store because in some of their, quote, southern locations, because they're trying to avoid the customer outrage that Bud Light, and as they described it, apparently, the Bud Light situation.
00:17:34.200 Many Target locations across the country are featuring a massive area.
00:17:39.360 I'm talking about real square footage of June Pride Month displays on an annual basis.
00:17:44.580 They've gotten bigger and bigger, but this year they seem to have crossed a line that many mothers are saying no.
00:17:51.260 This includes tuck-friendly bathing suits so young boys can look like girls and wear girls' bathing suits for, quote, transgender people.
00:17:59.380 And they are also having a line of gender-fluid outfits.
00:18:03.860 On top of the fact that they also brought an artist to design these children's clothing items and different things for Pride Month.
00:18:11.800 One of those designers, artists, is a well-known Satanist who says that Satan is actually the party of trans people.
00:18:20.760 And he is proud to be working with Target and to be designing many of these outfits for you to put your kids in them.
00:18:31.180 Now, moms are standing up. 0.99
00:18:32.600 I know this has to make you happy as well.
00:18:35.180 Well, Ben, as I listen to you describe this, my first reaction is, oh, come on.
00:18:39.380 This is a Babylon Bee story, right?
00:18:42.000 This can't actually be real. 0.99
00:18:43.920 Like, when you threw in the Satanist thing, I'm like, oh, nobody could be that ridiculous. 0.71
00:18:49.780 Look, we saw Bud Light when we discovered they had no idea who their customers were. 0.99
00:18:55.920 And they frankly looked down on them and thought they were a bunch of ignorant oafs. 0.97
00:18:59.900 And so they wanted instead to get some new, young, woke teenagers drinking Bud Light. 0.98
00:19:05.460 That has backfired on them, I think, mightily.
00:19:07.760 Now, Target, listen, it would be nice if big corporations just stayed out of politics, just didn't engage, just if beer companies made beer and sold us beer.
00:19:22.400 If Target made lots of inexpensive stuff that you need around the house and sold it to us.
00:19:28.580 It would be nice if they didn't, if Disney wasn't preaching their woke agenda day in, day out.
00:19:38.800 But at a minimum, is it too much to ask that they leave our kids alone?
00:19:46.780 Look, when I saw what Target was doing, at first I was skeptical.
00:19:51.340 I'm like, okay, fine.
00:19:52.300 And so if they've got some gay pride stuff that people who were gay or lesbian want to wear, okay, they're customers too.
00:19:59.120 If they want to buy a rainbow shirt, okay, that's fine.
00:20:03.220 But you know what?
00:20:04.880 They're not marketing rainbow shirts to adults who choose or identify as gay.
00:20:13.640 They're marketing it to children, little children.
00:20:17.940 They're literally selling onesies, onesies for babies that have queer pride flags and slogans covering them. 0.51
00:20:29.860 Now, the last I checked, a baby doesn't know what the hell he or she is.
00:20:36.920 And any parent that looks at their one-year-old and said, I've decided you're gay, that doesn't say anything about the baby. 0.95
00:20:44.540 That says everything about the adult projecting that on that infant.
00:20:51.040 And they're marketing these.
00:20:54.420 Look, I got to admit, you showed this to me.
00:20:56.120 I'd never seen this before.
00:20:57.180 Or you showed me the bathing suits, the tuck bathing suits.
00:21:01.460 That's just weird.
00:21:03.440 But I guess it would be one thing.
00:21:05.480 Look, it frankly would be a weird thing if Target were selling tuck bathing suits for adults.
00:21:11.160 I'd be a little skeptical of, okay, why is that commanding shelf space instead of at some specialty store?
00:21:18.120 But they're selling these, quote, tuck bathing suits for three-year-olds.
00:21:26.180 Yeah.
00:21:26.880 Three-year-olds, boys who apparently mommy and daddy have told them that their ding-a-ling is a bad thing.
00:21:37.460 And they need to hide it as a three-year-old.
00:21:41.740 And I got to say, I look at this and my reaction is, leave our kids the hell alone.
00:21:46.960 And then you throw in, Ben, that it's literally a guy who calls himself a Satanist who designed this.
00:21:56.060 And let's be clear.
00:21:57.520 You're not calling him a Satanist.
00:21:59.180 I'm not calling him a Satanist. 0.99
00:22:00.520 I don't know if this clown worships Satan or not. 0.99
00:22:03.160 He's calling himself a Satanist. 0.99
00:22:06.100 He says, yep, that's me. 0.69
00:22:07.400 I worship the devil.
00:22:09.540 Like at some point, did anyone at Target say, hey, maybe hiring the Satanists to design queer clothing for three-year-olds 0.98
00:22:22.100 and to encourage them to hide their genitalia and bind them back? 0.61
00:22:29.760 Just look at this guy's actual words.
00:22:31.760 He said on his own social media that clearly Target could have checked out if they, and they probably did.
00:22:37.560 Quote, Satan loves you and respects who you are. 0.97
00:22:41.400 LGBTQIA plus people are so often referred to as being a product of sex with Satan instead. 0.91
00:22:47.900 That is who they hired to hire for Gay Pride Month at Target. 0.98
00:22:53.380 And it's not just there.
00:22:54.900 Like you said, it's about the kids and leaving our kids the hell alone.
00:22:57.940 You click, if you go to Target.com, and I think people need to see this for themselves because when you see it, you'll be outraged.
00:23:04.740 Go to Target.com.
00:23:06.220 People won't believe it.
00:23:06.700 Like this, when I first heard the story, I'm like, that's nutty.
00:23:10.520 Yeah.
00:23:11.400 Go to Target.com slash pride.
00:23:14.340 And there's children's books for, I'm talking about like one-year-olds.
00:23:18.160 One of them is Dotson.
00:23:19.840 It's a book for young, young children.
00:23:22.340 Not like six and eight-year-olds.
00:23:24.000 Like we're talking about little, like a baby color, like flip hard book.
00:23:28.080 Those hard pages, short book.
00:23:30.060 Dotson, My Journey to Growing Up Transgender.
00:23:33.060 Illustrations by, and then it has the name of the person.
00:23:36.180 There's the net right next to that.
00:23:37.580 Bye-bye Binary.
00:23:39.600 It's a board book.
00:23:41.560 Now, a board book is for young, young, we're talking about one-year-olds.
00:23:44.760 Another board book, the Pronouns book.
00:23:48.280 And it shows a bunch of gay pride stuff in pronouns.
00:23:52.060 So, Ben, I want to ask a serious question.
00:23:55.160 I want to ask a serious question.
00:23:56.660 The left, whether elected Democrats or lefties on Twitter, they lose their mind when anyone
00:24:03.000 uses the word groomers, people that are grooming young children.
00:24:08.220 What else is this, if not grooming, when you're talking about one and two and three-year-olds?
00:24:15.220 Bingo.
00:24:15.820 I don't even know how you defend this or argue to the contrary.
00:24:20.260 And I don't want them selling t-shirts for three-year-olds, a little boy saying,
00:24:25.560 I want to get jiggy with a woman. 1.00
00:24:27.680 Like, I don't want them selling fishnet stockings and stripper clothes to four-year-old girls. 0.94
00:24:35.600 Like, you know, this reminds me of in Florida, the law they call the don't say gay law.
00:24:41.680 And my reaction was always, it's not the don't say gay law.
00:24:44.960 It's the don't say sex law.
00:24:46.580 Like, with little kids, with three-year-olds, four-year-olds, five-year-olds, six-year-olds, 0.82
00:24:51.300 I don't want the schools talking about gay sex. 0.96
00:24:53.700 I don't want them talking about straight sex. 0.99
00:24:55.080 I'd like them to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic and leave our kids alone.
00:24:59.480 And my view is the same of Target.
00:25:01.960 They ought to stay out of the sex business altogether.
00:25:04.480 If they're selling kids swimsuits, they ought to have swimsuits with the Dallas Cowboys on them.
00:25:11.920 They ought to have swimsuits with a mermaid on them or a unicorn or a transformer. 0.99
00:25:20.180 But they shouldn't be trying to turn the kids into transformers.
00:25:24.600 Just let kids be kids.
00:25:27.060 And, you know, what's infuriating is some senior official or multiple senior executives at Target
00:25:33.840 signed off on this campaign and thought it was a good idea to sexualize our children.
00:25:39.580 Yeah, I tell everybody that's listening right now, go look at it for yourself.
00:25:42.940 Target.com slash pride.
00:25:44.560 And you'll understand how much of an important issue they've gone all in on this.
00:25:50.400 If you click on the book section for the children's books, for example, just to put it in perspective,
00:25:55.060 there are 51 pages of propaganda books, hardcore books, pushing your children beyond the gender binary,
00:26:06.880 hard book for kids, bye-bye binary, the pronoun book, mama and mommy and me in the middle.
00:26:14.220 I mean, the list goes on and on of how they're trying to indoctrinate.
00:26:18.260 Look at it.
00:26:18.960 And I will say this to all the moms out there that are really exposing Target. 0.98
00:26:25.060 Thank you for doing it.
00:26:26.140 I just say that personally.
00:26:27.620 Watching people stand up for their kids is amazing.
00:26:30.740 I think a lot of people were inspired during COVID to start standing up for their kids in a different way.
00:26:35.160 And I think that may be the best part of this story is mothers and fathers and grandparents
00:26:41.120 and grandmothers are paying attention now like never before after what we found out
00:26:45.360 when they were teaching our kids in our schools.
00:26:47.120 And this is another example of the success we have as conservatives when we stick together.
00:26:52.280 Ben, Ben, let me ask one more question.
00:26:55.540 You know, one thing I noticed about all the press stories on this is it says that Target is reconsidering this
00:27:02.460 in their southern stores.
00:27:06.080 Now, I got to say, I find that amazing.
00:27:08.000 I certainly believe that parents in Texas and Florida and other places in the south are unhappy about this.
00:27:16.740 But is it really the case that parents in New York are happy about this?
00:27:21.820 That in the Midwest, that in Nebraska, they think it's a good idea for Target to be sexualizing our kids? 0.97
00:27:29.460 If they're just addressing this in the south, I find it hard to believe that in many states,
00:27:39.520 maybe in San Francisco, maybe in the most aggressively left-wing places in the country,
00:27:46.020 but in most of the country, I think parents don't want sex of any kind, straight or gay, 0.83
00:27:54.160 being thrust upon their kids. 0.99
00:27:56.020 And it's remarkable that Target thinks it's only the ignorant Rube Southerners, in their view, 0.99
00:28:03.760 that care about this. 0.98
00:28:04.880 Yeah, it's pandering.
00:28:05.860 And that's why we've got to keep it up no matter where you live, like you said, all over the country,
00:28:09.440 because it's just an emergency meeting that we were described for southern states.
00:28:14.480 And to be clear, they're just moving the merchandise from the front of the store,
00:28:18.980 where it was prime shopping location, back into the sections where the stuff would normally go,
00:28:26.240 like the children's section, the adult section of clothing.
00:28:28.840 Instead of having this massive amount of square footage they're doing at the front of the store,
00:28:33.100 this is pandering.
00:28:34.160 Don't be hoodwinked by this.
00:28:35.760 Don't think that they're doing you a favor.
00:28:37.980 The stuff is still in their stores.
00:28:39.480 And that goes back to the buying issue.
00:28:41.220 You look at Bud Light, Bud Light sales are down almost 25% year over year right now.
00:28:45.940 And that's because people said, hey, I'm not buying it, and I'm not going to come back anytime soon.
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00:30:44.980 Listen to the Honest Talk Podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:30:50.900 Lastly, Senator, there was a big victory that took place this week.
00:30:54.460 You were instrumental in it.
00:30:56.040 A lot of people may not know about this, so I want you to give a little bit of the background.
00:31:00.020 There are a lot of car manufacturers that were going to get rid of AM radios.
00:31:04.740 AM radio is something that a lot of people rely on in emergencies.
00:31:10.260 AM radio and the signal of AM is very different than FM.
00:31:13.880 And when there's outages and cell phones go down, whether it be in tornadoes or natural
00:31:19.500 disasters or a terrorism attack, heaven forbid, or hurricanes, AM radio has the ability to
00:31:24.860 reach people with the crank AM radios that you can have that you don't even need power
00:31:28.220 for.
00:31:29.120 They were looking at taking these out of cars.
00:31:32.360 And it looks like now we've had a victory where at least one manufacturer is saying,
00:31:36.620 hey, we now understand this safety side of things.
00:31:40.660 We're going to keep them in our automobiles.
00:31:43.180 Tell people a little bit more about that.
00:31:44.960 Well, that's exactly right.
00:31:46.800 There were multiple big car manufacturers that were talking about taking AM radio out of
00:31:51.720 cars.
00:31:52.380 And there are lots of downsides of that.
00:31:54.720 Number one, as you noted, is the downside of emergencies.
00:31:57.900 In a hurricane, in a tornado, in a time of emergency, you often have FM stations going down.
00:32:03.780 And much of our emergency broadcast system is designed to go out over AM radio so it would
00:32:08.640 place people unable to hear the essential communications during an emergency.
00:32:14.040 But, Ben, I also think more broadly than that, I think there's a reason that big car companies
00:32:20.300 were open to taking down AM radio, which is AM radio is where a lot of talk radio is found.
00:32:26.360 And talk radio is overwhelmingly conservative.
00:32:31.180 And let's be clear, big business doesn't like things that are overwhelmingly conservative.
00:32:37.080 If the only source of your news is watching CNN or MSNBC or even the big networks, your news is going to skew hard left.
00:32:46.480 Talk radio, and whether it was Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Mark Levin or Ben Ferguson, goes out and has an enormous impact over AM radio.
00:32:58.740 I think that was a major reason why you were seeing multiple car companies move in that direction.
00:33:04.840 And the consequence, an awful lot of people listen to talk radio when they're driving to work or they're driving home.
00:33:11.380 And so removing AM radio means that people wouldn't do it.
00:33:14.320 By the way, this also impacts farms and ranches, rural and agricultural listeners, where there are a lot of places where you're out in the country,
00:33:22.580 where AM radio stations can be the only choices you have to hear what's going on on Ag Matters or music or talk or news.
00:33:32.140 And so what I did, I joined with Ed Markey.
00:33:37.020 Ed Markey is a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts.
00:33:40.080 It's maybe one of, if not the most liberal senator in the entire U.S. Senate.
00:33:45.520 And Ed Markey and I together introduced legislation that would mandate that car manufacturers include AM radio on their cars,
00:33:55.200 that they not remove the ability of customers to listen to AM radio.
00:34:00.560 Because in my view, as I said, it was an effort at censorship to silence conservative voices.
00:34:07.900 Well, I got to say, number one, for Ed Markey and me to introduce a bill together in the world of Washington is a pretty shocking thing.
00:34:15.540 Because, look, Markey and I agree on very, very little.
00:34:20.700 And the most conservative member of the Senate, along with one of the, if not the most liberal member of the Senate, joining together,
00:34:28.340 I think that kind of freaked a lot of observers out in Washington.
00:34:32.000 It may have made them think it was a sign of the apocalypse.
00:34:34.400 And what happened yesterday was a big deal.
00:34:38.740 The CEO of Ford Motor Company, and Ford was one of the companies that said they were going to pull AM radio.
00:34:44.280 The CEO of Ford Motor Company sent out a tweet, and I will read it to you.
00:34:50.200 After speaking with policy leaders about the importance of AM broadcast radio as a part of the emergency alert system,
00:34:57.180 we've decided to include it on all 2024 Ford and Lincoln Motor Company vehicles.
00:35:03.200 For any owners of Ford electric vehicles without AM broadcast capability, we'll offer a software update.
00:35:11.360 So that is a terrific victory.
00:35:14.760 And, look, I hope with Ford making this decision, the other car makers will follow suit.
00:35:19.680 Because that ensures that customers have choices.
00:35:25.420 And I actually view this very similar to the fight we had earlier this year where DirecTV had deplatformed Newsmax.
00:35:34.540 And I engaged vigorously to press DirecTV to put Newsmax back on air.
00:35:40.300 Because I think customers deserve the right to choose to watch Newsmax if they want.
00:35:46.880 I know a lot of Texans enjoy watching Newsmax.
00:35:49.100 I enjoy watching Newsmax.
00:35:51.000 And when you have giant corporations deciding we're only going to allow left-of-center news to be consumed, that's a real problem.
00:35:59.980 I viewed the removal of AM radio from cars in a similar light.
00:36:04.880 And so we have a lot to celebrate.
00:36:06.660 Ford is a huge seller of cars.
00:36:08.460 So congratulations to Ford on doing the right thing.
00:36:11.620 Your customers appreciate it.
00:36:13.620 And I think it will be rewarded in the marketplace.
00:36:16.160 Yeah.
00:36:16.380 And I'm one of those, obviously, do a radio show on AM and have virtually my entire life since I started at 12.
00:36:24.540 But for me, yes, I was terrified of the aspect of the censorship that you just mentioned.
00:36:29.760 But if you know anything about AM radio, it saves lives when there are natural disasters.
00:36:36.360 And that, for me, was part of the shock, I think, of this plan, as so many of these car makers were really just lockstep one after the other.
00:36:47.120 Yeah, we're not going to offer AM.
00:36:48.120 We're not going to offer AM.
00:36:49.000 We're not going to offer AM anymore.
00:36:50.360 And, by the way, it costs nothing, just so people understand.
00:36:54.340 AM radio technology in cars is, I mean, we're talking pennies to put it in if you're already putting in all the other FM technology, et cetera.
00:37:02.260 And that's where it was like, okay, not only do they seem to not understand the safety aspect of this, but is it about censorship?
00:37:10.720 And that's why I'm so glad you guys got together to do this.
00:37:14.320 I have to ask you, how did this alliance between the two of you happen, and what was his mindset about this going in?
00:37:22.640 Well, look, and I'll say the boycott on AM radio started with electric vehicle manufacturers who argued that the electric vehicle technology interfered with the AM radio antenna and the signal, and it caused interference.
00:37:39.080 Now, technologically, on an electric vehicle, it's relatively simple to solve.
00:37:43.960 My understanding is with a quite inexpensive shield, you don't have the interference.
00:37:50.080 But they didn't want to add the shield, and so they were removing AM radio.
00:37:54.960 And when it was limited to a couple of electric vehicle manufacturers or models, it was still a pretty small presence in the marketplace.
00:38:04.460 What had happened now is that more and more big manufacturers were extending this more broadly, and we were facing a very real scenario where a significant percentage of new vehicles sold would not have AM radio at all.
00:38:17.860 And that would be a real problem from an emergency response perspective and a real problem from a censorship perspective.
00:38:25.400 So I'll tell you, Markey reached out to me.
00:38:27.100 I'm the ranking member on the Senate Commerce Committee, and Ed is on the Senate Commerce Committee.
00:38:31.860 I don't know what his motivation was, but look, for many Democrats, they are in favor of all sorts of mandates, and so they're often willing to mandate that a manufacturer provide all sorts of things.
00:38:49.160 As a general matter, I'm pretty skeptical of mandates, and so on many things we don't see eye to eye.
00:38:55.260 But in this instance, the emergency response factor persuaded me, and the viewpoint discrimination targeting talk radio, in particular, that moved me significantly.
00:39:08.640 I don't want to see important voices and free speech silenced, and I think pulling AM radio out of automobiles would have done that.
00:39:17.740 And so I agreed to sign on, and the two of us rolled it out together, and I think the fact of our legislation played a pivotal role in forcing Ford to change its policy, and I hope that other car manufacturers will follow suit.
00:39:31.420 One other thing that is really cool about the history of AM radio, the first station in history to be programmed for African-American programming is still on AM radio, only in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, WDIA.
00:39:46.220 And the many African-American radio stations in America also came together over the last several weeks as well to demand that AM stay, because it's part of history, it's a part of their business, they have invested in these radio stations and bought them, and it was really nice to see so many different people come together.
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00:41:25.200 Center, lastly, I just got to ask you one other question, and that is, are you watching the NBA Finals?
00:41:33.460 Have you picked a team at the end of this, or have you totally checked out?
00:41:37.540 Look, to be honest, once the Rockets are out of it, I tend not to follow it terribly closely.
00:41:48.200 My rule on sports is that I root for any Texas team against any non-Texas team.
00:41:56.620 But I'm a diehard Rockets fan, and listen, this past season was not a good Rockets season.
00:42:02.640 Now, it's a rebuilding season.
00:42:03.780 They have a bunch of young players, and I think they have great talent.
00:42:10.140 But at the end of the day, the Rockets aren't in it, the Spurs aren't in it, the Mavericks aren't in it, so I haven't watched it close.
00:42:17.820 I've watched a couple of the games.
00:42:19.040 I do think the NBA was really, really hoping for a Lakers-Celtics matchup.
00:42:26.880 Yes, they were.
00:42:27.800 And the basketball gods decided that was not what was going to happen.
00:42:32.640 You know, I'll probably watch some of the Finals, and I'll enjoy it.
00:42:36.040 But without the Rockets in it, I'm not following it closely.
00:42:39.440 Let me tell you, though.
00:42:40.740 I got to tell you, I loved watching the Nuggets sweep the Lakers, Senator.
00:42:45.020 I was hoping you were going to go there at the beginning of your response, because watching the Lakers, I'm just not a fan of the Lakers, get swept by the Nuggets was a blast to watch.
00:42:57.160 Listen, LeBron James, my last re-election campaign, he endorsed against me.
00:43:01.820 He showed up in Texas wearing a Beto O'Rourke hat.
00:43:05.220 And so I have to admit, no part of me is weeping that LeBron is going to be watching the Finals on TV.
00:43:11.660 You know, that's, you know, karma has a wonderful sense of humor.
00:43:20.600 I love it.
00:43:21.500 I will say this on a light note that I think you'll like.
00:43:26.240 I've spent the last three days, as you know, in New York City.
00:43:28.880 I've been doing fundraising meetings and also doing a bunch of media interviews for the past several days.
00:43:35.020 And I was having lunch in a nice New York restaurant yesterday.
00:43:42.560 And as I was walking through the restaurant, the bartender stopped me.
00:43:49.940 And he said, Ted, I love the podcast.
00:43:55.300 I listened to it three days a week.
00:43:58.820 And he said, today's podcast, so this was Monday, he said was awesome.
00:44:03.320 I listened to it this morning already.
00:44:05.960 His name was Salvatore.
00:44:07.340 And I was having dinner with a gentleman, a friend of mine, who is older, who was asking me, what exactly is a podcast?
00:44:15.600 Like, who listens to it?
00:44:17.260 I don't understand.
00:44:18.300 Explain this to me.
00:44:19.860 And so I asked Salvatore.
00:44:21.300 I said, Salvatore, can I ask you something?
00:44:23.200 Will you come with me to my table?
00:44:25.900 And I introduced Salvatore to my friend.
00:44:28.040 I was having dinner.
00:44:28.720 And I said, would you just tell my friend what you said?
00:44:31.740 And he tells him it.
00:44:34.580 And my friend says, so are you from Texas?
00:44:37.300 And I'm laughing, but no, he's the bartender here in Manhattan who listens to Verdict three days a week.
00:44:46.480 That's awesome.
00:44:47.300 That happens every day as I travel across Texas and travel across the country.
00:44:52.200 So I want to say to our Verdict listeners, you guys are awesome.
00:44:55.400 And Salvatore, if you're listening and listening to the end, you rock, and I appreciate you.
00:44:59.980 There you go.
00:45:00.480 I love it.
00:45:00.900 Don't forget, download this podcast.
00:45:02.400 We do it Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays.
00:45:04.540 And if there's big breaking news, we even throw in special pods in between.
00:45:08.140 Make sure you hit that share button and share this on social media.
00:45:11.760 And we will see you back here in a couple of days.
00:45:15.360 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:45:18.240 Guaranteed Human.
00:45:18.860 Thank you.
00:45:20.520 Bye-bye.
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