Verdict with Ted Cruz - No Deal： Trump Moves to Blockade the Strait of Hormuz as Iran Defies Nuclear Demands plus Swalwell Bombshell

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00:00:20.240 Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson.

00:00:23.400 With you, Senator, we've got a lot to talk about that's happened over the weekend.

00:00:26.620 The news was not sleeping, and CINCOM and the White House has now confirmed that the U.S. Navy

00:00:32.620 is going to block ships entering and exiting the Iranian ports, and that has nothing to do with

00:00:39.280 what's going on in California with Eric Swallow on top of that. Well, we had 20 hours of negotiations

00:00:45.200 in Pakistan, and unsurprisingly, the Iranians were unwilling to move at all, in particular on

00:00:52.500 nuclear weapons. They want a nuclear weapon, and I think they want a nuclear weapon because they 0.98

00:00:56.660 want to be able to use a nuclear weapon. And President Trump, quite rightly, is insisting

00:01:02.120 under no circumstances will the regime of Iran be allowed to have nuclear weapons. And so 1.00

00:01:08.120 the president responded by ordering a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, shutting down every ship

00:01:13.900 going into and out of the Strait. We're going to break that down. We're going to talk about what

00:01:18.040 that means for Iran, what that means for America, what that means for China and Europe, what's going

00:01:23.180 to happen next. And then we're going to talk about poor Eric Swalwell, who seems to be

00:01:31.060 on a train, falling off a cliff, on fire, exploding, and it's all self-inflicted. And,

00:01:39.760 And, you know, schadenfreude is not a pretty sentiment,

00:01:43.980 but I guess people will be forgiven for just kind of shaking their head

00:01:52.060 and saying, well, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

00:01:55.220 Yeah, yeah.

00:01:56.080 Fang Fang you thought was the worst, the low.

00:01:58.420 Nope, it wasn't.

00:01:59.180 Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00:02:01.160 Fang Fang was a high point for Eric Swalwell.

00:02:04.360 He is looking back to the halcyon glory days of Fang Fang, 1.00

00:02:09.760 he wishes that that's where he was today. 0.98

00:02:13.220 No doubt about it.

00:02:14.460 We'll explain all of this story as it is continuing to unfold as we speak.

00:02:19.760 Plus, he's running or was running for governor.

00:02:22.340 We're going to explain that to you as well.

00:02:24.540 Before we get to that, though, there are still so many people

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00:04:05.540 All right, so Senator, you wake up Sunday and you get the news.

00:04:09.620 The president's like, all right, we had these 20 hours of talks.

00:04:12.300 They're not going well.

00:04:13.580 We were about 95% of the way there. 0.79

00:04:15.340 The only problem is that last 5% dealt with Iran getting nuclear weapons.

00:04:19.740 We say no to that, and now the president is saying,

00:04:22.580 we're going to do this blockade with the Strait of Hormuz.

00:04:24.480 They're not going to hold us or the rest of the world hostage anymore.

00:04:28.020 this is a very bold move. I want to get your initial reaction to it.

00:04:32.200 Well, I have to say none of this, I think, is surprising. If you go back to our last pod on

00:04:38.780 Friday, we laid out that the president had drawn a series of red lines. His red lines were, number

00:04:44.880 one, Iran must have no enrichment whatsoever. Number two, Iran must give up all of its already 0.98

00:04:52.300 enriched uranium. Number three, Iran had to agree to completely open the Strait of Hormuz.

00:04:59.280 And actually, number four was Iran had to stop funding terrorism across the globe. Those were

00:05:05.480 the demands. Those were the red lines. As you and I discussed on the pod, I emphatically agree with

00:05:11.260 all four of those red lines. Those are the right things to insist upon. The president asked J.D. 1.00

00:05:16.020 Vance and Jared Kushner and Steve Whitcoff to go and negotiate. So they went to Islamabad. They

00:05:21.460 They negotiated with multiple officials from Iran that they had.

00:05:27.280 Pakistan was hosting and was intermediating.

00:05:30.180 Apparently, the negotiations went 20 hours.

00:05:33.020 I got to say, it was not surprising they didn't go anywhere.

00:05:36.700 It was very interesting that J.D. Vance was the person asked to lead this and that J.D.

00:05:41.260 has been the most vocal opponent of military action against Iran.

00:05:45.480 And so the fact that the president asked him to lead it, I'm not sure what the thinking was there, but it's an interesting statement.

00:05:51.460 But here's what the president put out.

00:05:53.800 He put out two lengthy truth socials, which said as follows.

00:06:01.520 Iran promised to open the Strait of Hormuz, and they knowingly failed to do so.

00:06:07.100 This caused anxiety, dislocation, and pain to many people in countries throughout the world.

00:06:13.800 They say they put mines in the water, even though all of their navy and most of their mine droppers have been completely blown up.

00:06:20.980 They may have done so, but what ship owner would want to take the chance? 0.81

00:06:25.760 There is great dishonor and permanent harm to the reputation of Iran and what's left of their quote-unquote leaders. 0.97

00:06:33.640 But we are beyond all of that.

00:06:36.260 As they promised, they better begin the process of getting this international waterway open and fast.

00:06:44.680 Every law in the book is being violated by them.

00:06:47.880 I have been fully debriefed by Vice President J.D. Vance, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner on the meeting that took place in Islamabad through the kind and very competent leadership of Field Marshal Asim Muneer and Prime Minister Shabazz Sharif of Pakistan.

00:07:05.740 They are very extraordinary men and continuously thank me for saving 30 to 50 million lives in what would have been a horrendous war with India.

00:07:14.080 I always appreciate hearing that. The amount of humanity spoken of is incomprehensible.

00:07:21.260 The meeting with Iran began early in the morning, lasted throughout the night, close to 20 hours.

00:07:27.860 I could go into great detail and talk about much that has been gotten, but there is only one thing

00:07:34.300 that matters, and this is in all caps. Iran is unwilling to give up its nuclear ambitions.

00:07:41.260 In many ways, the points that were agreed to are better than us continuing our military operations to conclusion, but all of those points don't matter compared to allowing nuclear power to be in the hands of such volatile, difficult, and unpredictable people. 0.84

00:07:59.660 my three representatives as as all of this time went by became not surprisingly very friendly

00:08:08.020 and respectful of iran's representatives muhammad bagar galabaf abbas argachi and ali baghari

00:08:17.620 but that doesn't matter because they were very unyielding as the as to the single most important

00:08:23.780 issue and as i have always said right from the beginning and many years ago again in all caps

00:08:29.580 Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. And then here's the second truth socially sent.

00:08:37.580 So there you have it. The meeting went well. Most points were agreed to, but the only point that

00:08:44.780 really mattered, nuclear was not. Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the finest

00:08:51.660 in the world, will begin the process of blockading any and all ships trying to enter or leave the

00:08:58.940 Strait of Hormuz. At some point, we will reach an all-being-allowed-to-go-in, all-being-allowed-to-go-out

00:09:06.860 basis. But Iran has not allowed that to happen by merely saying, there may be a mine out there

00:09:14.380 somewhere that nobody knows about but them. This is world extortion, and leaders of countries, 0.69

00:09:22.600 especially the United States of America, will never be extorted. I have also instructed our

00:09:28.680 Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in international waters that has paid a toll 0.99

00:09:35.140 to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas.

00:09:42.720 We will also begin destroying the mines the Iranians laid in the Straits. Any Iranian who 1.00

00:09:49.600 fires at us or at peaceful vessels will be, again in all caps, blown to hell. Iran knows better than 1.00

00:09:59.960 anyone how to end this situation, which has already devastated their country. Their navy is 1.00

00:10:07.000 gone. Their air force is gone. Their anti-aircraft and radar are useless. Khamenei and most of their

00:10:14.180 leaders are dead, all because of their nuclear ambition. The blockade will begin shortly. 0.88

00:10:22.640 Other countries will be involved with this blockade. Iran will not be allowed to profit 0.94

00:10:28.180 off this illegal act of extortion. They want money, and more importantly, they want nuclear. 0.79

00:10:35.940 Additionally, and at an appropriate moment, we are fully locked and loaded, and our military 0.72

00:10:43.600 will finish up the little that is left of Iran, President Donald J. Trump. Those are remarkable,

00:10:53.140 detailed, and I think absolutely clear messages from the President of the United States. 1.00

00:10:58.800 And I got to say, if you're an Iranian mullah, if you're the Ayatollah, you are not happy to read 0.99

00:11:03.640 one word of that. Yeah. And the President reiterated some of that as well when he called 0.90

00:11:09.620 in to Maria Bartiromo on Fox Sunday, on her show, Sunday Futures.

00:11:14.680 And the transparency here, I do think, is one of the things that I just love about this

00:11:19.700 president.

00:11:20.680 And he said publicly the same things that he's saying privately.

00:11:24.720 And he's making it clear that what they're doing is unacceptable.

00:11:28.500 Now, the question becomes, what's next?

00:11:30.900 And this has also been part of the politics of this.

00:11:35.580 You know, Democrats really honed in and obsessed over if Donald Trump hit the bridges and the tunnels and then hit the power infrastructure, the electrical grid, the power plants that they were going to declare that he has committed war crimes.

00:11:52.740 And by the way, we talked about this on verdict.

00:11:54.900 That's not true.

00:11:55.640 It's not accurate.

00:11:56.240 But regardless, this does seem to be another, I've exhausted every mean, every measure possible before I go there.

00:12:05.400 And if he does this the way he's saying he's going to do it, this is just another example of the president trying to give diplomacy, but also having accountability at the same time.

00:12:13.120 You come to the meetings, you screw with us for 20 hours, you won't agree, fine.

00:12:17.380 Here's another step forward. 1.00

00:12:19.080 Look, this is a massive hammer to the Iranian economy. 1.00

00:12:23.600 The vast majority of the revenue Iran takes in is from selling their oil.

00:12:28.620 They sell the bulk of that oil to China.

00:12:31.740 So this blockade shutting down all of the ships,

00:12:34.640 and there's an entire ghost fleet that has been built up of ships that have been taking Iranian oil to China.

00:12:41.800 That ghost fleet will not be able to travel through the Strait of Hormuz,

00:12:46.340 will not be able to carry any Iranian oil.

00:12:48.500 It means there's going to be no Iranian oil being sold, no money coming in.

00:12:54.080 It also means there have been reports that China might be sending weapons to Iran.

00:13:00.800 I don't know if that's true or not.

00:13:02.500 But by shutting down the strait, it also means that there are going to be no incoming material to Iran through the Strait of Hormuz.

00:13:11.420 That puts enormous pressure on Iran.

00:13:14.300 And now it also puts a lot of pressure on China because they rely on that oil from Iran.

00:13:18.660 They're not going to be able to get that oil from Iran anymore.

00:13:21.220 And it puts significant pressure on Europe.

00:13:24.540 You know, I will say one of the amazing things that has happened in this military conflict

00:13:29.360 is Europe has shown how much they have changed.

00:13:34.820 And Western Europe, look, Western Europe, I think, is basically on a suicide pact. 1.00

00:13:40.480 They have brought in such a massive Muslim immigration. 1.00

00:13:44.300 that the leaders in Western Europe are terrified to stand up even against an Ayatollah who is 1.00

00:13:52.440 screaming death to America. They're terrified to stand up. I'm sure you've seen the meme online

00:13:57.820 that shows Muslim countries standing with America, and it lists every Arab country in the Middle East,

00:14:03.600 the Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain. They're all standing with us. And then Muslim countries

00:14:08.820 opposing us and you've got france and the united kingdom and germany and italy and and western 0.74

00:14:14.700 europe has not crowned itself in glory to put it mildly eastern europe has look eastern europe

00:14:22.080 you know if you remember back when george w bush was president don don rumsfeld the secretary

00:14:27.640 of defense at the time made a reference to old europe meaning western europe and new europe and

00:14:33.220 he said old europe is a lot less relevant than new europe uh the eastern european countries that

00:14:38.480 were under Soviet domination and that are eager to stand with America. One of the most far-reaching

00:14:45.880 consequences of this military action, the fact that our European allies said, we want nothing

00:14:53.140 to do with America in this conflict, that's going to have consequences. That's going to have real

00:14:58.360 consequences for decades. And those consequences are not good for Europe. And they're frankly not

00:15:06.640 good they're not good for the world it is unfortunate and i gotta say i was surprised

00:15:11.040 to see even italy joining that that that that group saying no we won't stand with america on

00:15:18.300 this conflict but the strait of hormuz shutting down is going to put real pressure on on europe

00:15:24.140 real massive pressure on iran and very significant pressure on china you know let's talk about the

00:15:29.240 oil coming out of there because i don't think people understand how iran gets their oil out

00:15:33.760 and these black ships that you described it.

00:15:37.040 When there have been these, you know, basically,

00:15:41.280 hey, we're not going to let your oil come out into the market this way

00:15:45.000 and we're going to put, you know, all these restrictions.

00:15:48.720 You sell that oil.

00:15:49.620 Venezuela had done this and others where they sell it in the black market.

00:15:53.520 They get a little less for it, but they find a buyer.

00:15:56.240 They put it in these ships that are unmarked in essence

00:15:58.300 and they keep it and we all know it's happening and it's happening. 0.96

00:16:00.800 Iran has operated in that space for quite a long time

00:16:04.260 With all of the sanctions that have been on them

00:16:07.220 But as it was described to me by an old trader

00:16:10.160 That I was talking to as we were watching the Masters

00:16:12.720 They said, you literally can decimate financially Iran

00:16:18.980 If this actually happens

00:16:21.380 Because this is the only way that they get a substantial amount of oil out of the country

00:16:25.760 There's no way to put it on 18-wheelers

00:16:27.900 And get it out in a big way to Europe

00:16:29.280 There's no way to get it out, driving it somewhere.

00:16:32.640 It's either this or nothing.

00:16:34.360 And the regime relies on these tankers 24-7 moving their currency, which is oil,

00:16:42.980 and then turning that into cash for them to keep their government propped up.

00:16:47.040 If you shut this down, he said, this is a country that in essence can go bankrupt

00:16:51.220 in a very short window of time.

00:16:54.220 Well, and let's back up a little bit of history on this.

00:16:57.920 So at the beginning of the Trump administration, Iran was selling roughly one million barrels a day of oil.

00:17:05.660 President Trump in the first term, there was a massive battle within the Trump administration about whether to withdraw from the Obama-Iran nuclear deal.

00:17:13.280 It was a disastrous deal.

00:17:15.500 Both state and defense urged him not to withdraw from the deal.

00:17:19.640 I vigorously urged the president to pull out.

00:17:23.220 I probably talked to him in the Oval Office on Air Force One 20 or 30 times about pulling out

00:17:30.340 of the Iran nuclear deal. He agreed with me. He overruled his own Secretary of State, his own 0.89

00:17:35.640 Secretary of Defense in the first term he pulled out of the deal. Once he pulled out of the deal,

00:17:40.860 there were a series of waivers that remained in place. There were seven civilian nuclear waivers

00:17:46.140 that allowed Iran to conduct what they called, quote, civilian nuclear research with the Russians.

00:17:51.980 It wasn't civilian at all, but they claimed that it was.

00:17:56.000 And then there was an oil waiver that specifically allowed them to sell oil.

00:18:00.380 After President Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, we had a second battle to end the civilian nuclear waivers and to end the oil waiver.

00:18:09.120 On both of those, again, the State Department opposed ending those waivers.

00:18:13.660 On both of those, I led the charge to end those waivers.

00:18:18.080 When it came to the oil waiver, the Department of State and the Department of Energy had a sharp disagreement.

00:18:24.060 State said if you end the oil waiver, the price of oil will skyrocket and that'll drive up the price of gasoline at the pump.

00:18:31.980 The Department of Energy, and Trump won, which you would think the Department of Energy would know something about, well, energy,

00:18:39.560 said, no, that's ridiculous, there's plenty of global supply, we can enforce these sanctions and it's not going to materially affect the price.

00:18:46.520 I leaned in aggressively with the president and said, end the oil waivers. Again, he agreed with

00:18:52.560 me, overruled state yet again. And we now know who was right. The Department of Energy was right

00:18:58.600 and state was wrong because when he ended the oil waivers, Iran's exports fell from a million

00:19:04.580 barrels a day to about 300,000. So they fell 70%. That was a massive blow. And so under Trump one,

00:19:14.540 By the end of Trump 1, the Iranian economy was in freefall because down to 300,000 barrels a day was starving them of cash.

00:19:23.520 Joe Biden came in and almost immediately just stopped enforcing the sanctions.

00:19:29.940 What do you think?

00:19:31.000 Don't forget, just everybody listening to remind them.

00:19:34.360 Every time that the Biden administration was challenged on the point you just made, they said, we haven't lifted the sanctions.

00:19:41.420 The sanctions are still there.

00:19:42.480 But it was very clear

00:19:44.020 What they said was

00:19:44.840 We just want to say on paper

00:19:46.460 There's sanctions

00:19:47.040 So you can't criticize us

00:19:48.240 They were not enforcing the sanctions

00:19:50.620 That's the key point

00:19:52.240 That Americans need to understand

00:19:53.420 Because the Biden administration

00:19:54.800 They did it time and time again

00:19:56.340 From the podium

00:19:56.960 Jen Psaki remembers

00:19:58.660 Like we have not gotten rid of sanctions

00:20:00.480 That is a lie

00:20:01.320 That is not true

00:20:02.080 That's the right wing lying to you

00:20:04.440 And it was true by the way

00:20:05.700 They had not like

00:20:06.660 Gotten rid of sanctions

00:20:07.600 They just said

00:20:08.320 We're not going to enforce them

00:20:09.240 So they're meaningless

00:20:10.000 Well, they stopped enforcing them and what they allowed to grow was this ghost fleet of ships, some 400 ships, some 400 tankers, many of them flagged under the flag of Panama. And when I've met with the government of Panama multiple times, I've leaned on them to stop flagging the ghost ship that is taking Iranian oil to China. 0.62

00:20:31.200 but the result of Biden not enforcing the sanctions, Iran's oil exports grew from 300,000

00:20:40.660 barrels a day to what do you think they hit under Joe Biden? I'm going to go all the way back up to

00:20:45.500 a million? Two million. They doubled where they had. The consequence of that, going from 300,000

00:20:54.480 barrels a day to two million barrels a day was more than 80 billion dollars that the Biden

00:21:02.380 administration flowed into Iran in a very real way. The Biden administration, by not enforcing

00:21:09.160 the oil sanctions, funded Hamas and Hezbollah because 90 percent of Hamas and Hezbollah's money

00:21:14.820 comes from Iran. And that 80 billion dollars, in a real sense, paid for the death squads on

00:21:21.640 October 7th. What President Trump is doing with this blockade is shutting down the ghost fleet.

00:21:29.980 That is incredibly potent. I don't know what the resolution of this will be, but you're right. It's

00:21:36.620 an intermediate step. It is another way of inflicting enormous leverage on Iran. It's not 0.78

00:21:43.180 as significant as taking out the power plants and the bridges, which the president may still do.

00:21:48.300 uh it also shuts down iran was trying to say hey we're going to charge a toll of two million bucks

00:21:56.100 a ship and suddenly make revenue i love that the president said you know what any ship that pays

00:22:01.780 that toll will not be allowed to to traverse the seas uh and and by the way for 60 plus years since

00:22:10.320 world war ii the seas have been free and open and navigable because the united states protects the

00:22:17.320 waterways. It's the Pax Americana that we have had in place. And the president is saying, you know

00:22:23.440 what? We don't have to enforce the waterways. We've done that for the good of the world. It

00:22:29.320 helps America, but it helps the entire world. But we're certainly not going to do it if Iran is 1.00

00:22:35.860 sitting there extracting a toll on every ship traveling through this waterway. 0.55

00:22:47.320 0.9% plus delivery credits of up to $1,500 only until April 30th.

00:22:52.740 Visit dawnvalleynorthlexus.com.

00:22:56.140 I want to ask you one other question about this.

00:22:58.880 I've been getting this question a lot and it's the question of, okay, how's the president

00:23:03.820 wind this thing down?

00:23:05.520 Number one, two, what is the definition of success?

00:23:10.200 I answered it this way.

00:23:11.920 I said, there's two different definitions of success. 0.92

00:23:13.880 One is to make sure that Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon

00:23:17.280 That for me is the number one priority 0.65

00:23:19.920 I said a bonus, obviously, success barrier

00:23:25.100 The second tier for me would be if the regime falls

00:23:28.900 There's a lot of conversations of

00:23:32.020 Well, can Democrats say the president failed

00:23:34.760 If he doesn't get the regime to fall 0.59

00:23:37.980 But make sure they don't get nuclear weapons

00:23:40.240 And then Democrats will use that against us

00:23:42.580 And I'm like, look, as long as they don't get a nuclear weapon, that is the ballgame for me, first and foremost.

00:23:48.220 I would love for the regime to fall.

00:23:50.560 But that takes an extended amount of time.

00:23:54.240 Is that worth it to make that, in essence, a new objective?

00:23:57.900 Now, the president said early on he wanted regime change.

00:24:01.000 Yes.

00:24:01.580 It doesn't mean exporting democracy.

00:24:03.760 But explain to everyone listening, what is your definition of success here?

00:24:08.740 And is it both now that both are one in the same or is it a two tier system?

00:24:14.900 So let's be clear, whatever happens, the Democrats and the media are going to say President Trump failed.

00:24:20.700 It doesn't matter. On day one of this military conflict, they said it's a failure.

00:24:25.160 Every day since then, they said it's a failure. They are rooting for it to fail.

00:24:28.920 It is. I got to say, I am so disappointed in my colleagues.

00:24:32.700 It used to be that politics ends at the water's edge.

00:24:36.000 They are now so filled with partisan hatred that they are rooting against the American military.

00:24:41.740 It's sad.

00:24:43.280 In terms of success, I'd say success is threefold. 0.95

00:24:46.660 Number one is the military success, taking out the ballistic missiles, the drones, the Air Force, the air defenses, the Navy, the Ayatollah, and the military leaders. 0.83

00:24:57.060 That is almost entirely achieved.

00:24:59.540 The success of that has been astonishing.

00:25:02.720 It took Iran 40 years to build up its military. 1.00

00:25:05.320 it took us 39 days to utterly and completely destroy it. That is a massive victory, and that 1.00

00:25:11.560 has essentially already been achieved. The second major objective is the nuclear objective. No

00:25:19.500 enrichment, handing over the enriched uranium. I think that is incredibly important. President

00:25:26.300 Trump is right to insist on that red line, and he should continue to insist on the red line.

00:25:31.520 Now, the question of regime change. The Trump administration has been very reluctant to use

00:25:37.980 the words regime change. And there's a reason for that, which is they're really nervous after the

00:25:43.900 Iraq war. People are really leery. They don't want to see another Iraq war. This is not, Iran is not

00:25:53.020 Iraq. There is zero chance that we are going to see hundreds of thousands of US troops invading

00:25:59.800 and occupying for years to come. That's simply not in the cards. President Trump's not going to

00:26:05.780 order that. That is not contemplated. I am quite willing to use the words regime change, and

00:26:11.760 actually the way I've been putting it is regime collapse. This is a regime that hates America,

00:26:18.480 that is a radical theocratic regime, that for 47 years has been actively murdering Americans, 0.98

00:26:24.760 funding terrorists who are murdering Americans, calling for death to America. The reason they 0.87

00:26:29.900 want nuclear weapons is to murder Americans. And what I urge President Trump at the outset

00:26:36.360 of this conflict is the regime has never been weaker. And if we do not take this opportunity

00:26:45.300 to collapse this regime, we will regret it for decades to come. I still think that is an

00:26:52.600 objective. Now, will we achieve it? I don't know. That's not an easy goal to achieve, but I think

00:26:58.780 we should be trying. It's one of the reasons I have repeatedly been urging, fund the protesters,

00:27:06.440 fund the Kurds on the ground, fund the Balacis, fund their groups that are armed and trained.

00:27:12.380 Look, the Kurds, the Peshmerga, are trained fighters. And by the way, Turkey,

00:27:18.800 One of the reasons against arming the Kurds is Turkey is arguing, don't do it.

00:27:24.280 You know what? I don't give a damn what Turkey is arguing.

00:27:29.760 That's very nice for Erdogan.

00:27:31.600 Some other time I'll talk to you about in Trump 1,

00:27:34.660 when Erdogan came to D.C. and met with President Trump in the Oval Office,

00:27:38.700 and the president had me and four other senators.

00:27:41.020 We were in about a two-and-a-half-hour, three-hour meeting with Erdogan.

00:27:43.980 at the end of the day we ought to be arming rebel groups in Iran to topple the regime

00:27:50.940 we're not going to send our sons and daughters to bleed and die for it but we certainly should 0.52

00:27:55.780 be assisting the Iranian people in getting these lunatics out of power because Americans will be 0.91

00:28:02.360 much much safer without this regime and control of Iran so for you to be clear you would say 0.98

00:28:09.080 regime change is certainly something that you think is extremely important in in the way that

00:28:13.300 you just described it. Yes, it is a major objective. Now, if we end up shutting down

00:28:20.400 enrichment, getting the enriched uranium, that is a massive victory. Look, on the face of it,

00:28:25.660 taking out the military, what we've achieved, the goal the Trump administration stated was

00:28:31.220 goal number one, the military victories, which we've achieved. Taking out the Ayatollah and the 0.97

00:28:36.820 senior leadership is a big, big deal. So we have already achieved a massive victory to finish the 0.71

00:28:42.620 job, where the president is focused, is preventing a nuclear weapon. He is right to do that. And I

00:28:49.280 think we ought to be using every lever point we have to try to collapse this regime, because that 0.98

00:28:56.080 would be much better for the Iranian people, but much, much better for the American people and our 0.64

00:29:01.080 safety and security as well. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. It's going to be very interesting 0.99

00:29:04.620 to see how this blockade works. We're going to keep covering it here and we'll keep you up to

00:29:08.120 on it i want to move on to this other story uh the headline that broke uh on sunday evening and

00:29:14.040 i'm going to read this headline from cnn eric swalwell ends campaign for california governor

00:29:19.040 after sexual misconduct allegations he said sunday would withdraw from the california governor's race

00:29:25.760 in the wake of allegations of sexual misconduct that led to a nearly immediate campaign collapse

00:29:30.900 as staffers quit on him prominent democrat supporters now urging him to drop out he then

00:29:37.080 put out a statement on x saying i am suspending my campaign for governor to my family staff friends

00:29:43.060 and supporters i'm deeply sorry for mistakes in judgment i've made in my past then he says i will

00:29:50.660 fight the serious false allegations that have been made but that's my fight not a campaigns

00:29:58.920 after that we found out even more about what's happening and that is the manhattan district

00:30:04.280 Attorney's Office has opened a criminal investigation into sexual assault allegations.

00:30:09.820 The key claim is a former staffer alleges assault in 2024, apparently in New York, and another

00:30:16.000 earlier incident in 2019.

00:30:19.100 Prosecutors are reportedly reviewing evidence, asking for additional witnesses to come forward,

00:30:24.400 as the AP put it, and that is the most serious legal exposure right now because it could

00:30:28.960 lead to criminal charges.

00:30:30.020 And then you have multiple sexual misconduct allegations.

00:30:33.560 At least four women have accused Swalwell of misconduct ranging from sexual assault, rape allegations, unwanted contacts, sending explicit images, and one alleged allegation claims the accuser was too intoxicated to consent.

00:30:48.440 He has denied all those allegations, calling them false and politically motivated.

00:30:53.500 What's even more shocking is now I think it's 50 of his former staffers

00:30:58.440 have come out against him saying he needs to resign

00:31:02.280 and basically defending one another, saying he's a terrible guy.

00:31:06.420 There's two parts of this story, Senator.

00:31:08.060 One, how the hell did the Democratic Party protect this guy for this long?

00:31:13.100 And two, why are all the Democrats now turning against him?

00:31:16.800 It's because they're afraid they're going to lose the governor's race in California.

00:31:20.080 Yeah. Well, just a week ago, this guy was the front runner among the Democrats to be the next

00:31:26.560 governor of California. I was actually in California this weekend. I spoke at the

00:31:32.160 California Republican Convention. So I was there when this was breaking. And you could see,

00:31:38.540 look, it was clear. When this story broke, everyone knew Swalwell's gubernatorial campaign

00:31:43.860 was over the instant it broke. The breadth and volume of this, this is not just one allegation,

00:31:51.180 it's multiple allegations, it's allegations of a pattern of misconduct, a pattern of repeated

00:31:57.180 sexual harassment of multiple employees. One staffer who was interviewed by CNN

00:32:02.940 alleged that twice she got very, very drunk with him and that he had sex with her,

00:32:12.080 not only without her consent but over her vigorous resistance and objection if that is true that is

00:32:19.900 rape uh that is criminal conduct that is criminal conduct for which anyone who commits it should

00:32:25.860 should be prosecuted and go to jail uh there are a number of points that are obvious number one

00:32:33.760 this was so widespread to see 50 swalwell staffers come out against him

00:32:38.760 strongly suggest everybody knew now you asked me right before before we recorded this pod

00:32:46.140 did i know this look to be honest i i don't hang out with democrat house members i'm not

00:32:50.960 particularly privy to the gossip uh among the rumors are true that you alienate yourself from

00:32:57.060 democratic radical house members i just am glad we cleared that up those are not my peeps so so

00:33:03.380 I have no idea what the gossip was about this guy, but given how widespread this is, the allegations, I think it is impossible that it was not common knowledge, that there were not a lot of Democrats who knew this guy was doing this, that this was a pattern of conduct, and that suggests that they all covered it up, they all looked the other way.

00:33:24.960 when he was an attack dog attacking Republicans, attacking President Trump, attacking Brett

00:33:31.120 Kavanaugh, they were perfectly happy to have him be the attack dog. And you're right, what has

00:33:37.160 changed is the Democrats are in a panic because you've got multiple Democrats running for governor

00:33:42.460 in California, and you have two Republicans running for governor in California. And California

00:33:47.300 has this weird jungle primary where there's not a Democrat primary and a Republican primary.

00:33:52.600 everyone runs on the same ballot and the top two vote getters make it to the general election and

00:33:59.600 so there was a possibility not a likelihood but a possibility that the top two vote getters could

00:34:06.520 be the two republicans and and i will say for democrats their heads would explode if they went

00:34:12.160 to the general election and it were a hundred percent certainty that the next governor of

00:34:16.980 california was going to be a republican but there were multiple polls that had come out

00:34:20.440 that showed the two Republicans as one and two.

00:34:23.160 And part of the reason is that you had multiple Democrats splitting the vote.

00:34:28.360 And you had Eric Swalwell and Katie Porter, both a former House member and current House member, slugging it out.

00:34:36.460 You've also got Tom Steyer, the billionaire who is spending millions and millions of dollars trying to buy the nomination.

00:34:44.540 And so you had Democrats splitting their votes.

00:34:47.200 That was helping the Republicans.

00:34:48.420 and suddenly i think democrats saw a partisan value to getting rid of swalwell and they took

00:34:55.280 him out ruthlessly now now ben i want to point to you the tell you can tell any democrat

00:35:04.440 if they're just being a partisan hack by the following tell are they calling for him to

00:35:13.300 suspend his gubernatorial campaign yep or are they calling for him to resign from congress

00:35:19.680 yeah it's just a gubernatorial campaign that's the tell they don't want him to resign no no no

00:35:25.560 don't resign because look republicans barely have a two-vote majority they want swalwell there they

00:35:31.860 don't want to jeopardize their majority also they're perfectly happy to have a serial sexual 0.77

00:35:36.860 harasser even a rapist as long as they get partisan advantage now the momentum is shifting

00:35:43.820 it would not surprise me if swalwell is out of congress by the end of the week because this is

00:35:48.820 you talk about the second tell the other tell is those that are calling for him to resign are

00:35:55.080 saying well he should resign and a republican should also resign that has allegations against

00:35:59.580 him in the republican side so they get rid of one of the republicans and that's the only reason why

00:36:04.160 they're saying it now is, well, all right, I'll call for both of them to resign.

00:36:08.560 Look, and by the way, I could see that potentially happening. The Republican, the facts

00:36:13.880 around him are really pretty ugly. He's not running for reelection because they are so ugly 0.97

00:36:19.640 and disturbing. And so it would not shock me to see both of them resign. And that's an outcome I

00:36:27.920 could see the House getting to. But it's been fascinating that virtually every Democrat who's

00:36:33.060 come out with this big bold statement they've said suspend the campaign but they haven't said

00:36:37.600 resign from congress now yeah it is it's going to be interesting to see how this ends but i think

00:36:43.760 you are not far off i i think they want to finish him off and be done with him and they knew all

00:36:49.320 this and the only reason why they they defended him indefinitely they they pushed him to be the

00:36:54.780 guy in california and then they turned on him when they realized that a republican could win

00:36:59.120 And that is the only reason why we're hearing about any of this.

00:37:01.760 And also, the media, you just want to talk about hypocrisy, Senator.

00:37:05.980 The way that the media, the liberal media, I mean, this was on the morning shows.

00:37:10.520 The Meet the Press, the Face the Nations, whatever the hell the other one's called.

00:37:15.780 Like, they were, CNN was wall-to-wall on this.

00:37:18.480 They were covering it like it was a Republican who had done something, but it was a Democrat

00:37:23.820 more of their own.

00:37:24.560 And they were like, yeah, we got to get rid of him.

00:37:26.240 Because if we don't get rid of him, what happens next?

00:37:28.520 Well, then the Republican can win. So, you know, who cares about the victims here?

00:37:32.500 This is all about the politics, as you described in a moment ago.

00:37:37.240 It is. And I'll point out there is a second Democrat House member,

00:37:42.400 Shelia Cherflius McCormick of Florida, who should also be expelled from Congress. 0.99

00:37:50.060 She has the Ethics Committee, which is bipartisan, 0.99

00:37:53.560 declared her guilty on 25 out of 27 ethics charges

00:37:58.840 from stealing up to $5 million of FEMA money.

00:38:06.160 So she is likely going to jail

00:38:08.360 for stealing millions of taxpayer dollars,

00:38:12.180 and yet the Democrats are amazingly silent. 0.81

00:38:15.680 You've got an alleged serial sexual harasser 1.00

00:38:20.500 and potentially even serial rapist, 1.00

00:38:22.760 and an embezzler and thief and they're sitting there going oh we're great having both of them

00:38:29.480 there because you know partisan power matters more than anything and by the way can't make the

00:38:34.080 press on the coverage of of of uh trephilius mccormick almost all the press coverage there's 0.80

00:38:42.520 actually very little coverage but what little there is they almost all leave out that she's a

00:38:47.220 democrat they just that fact never mind just just just nothing to see here just some random person

00:38:54.020 in congress yeah that's how it works don't forget we do this show monday wednesday and friday hit

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00:39:03.540 and if you are a youtube person you love watching on youtube you can watch almost every episode of

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00:39:15.760 making sure we get a lot of video out there for you guys.

00:39:18.020 And the Senate and I will see you back here on Wednesday morning.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - April 13, 2026

No Deal： Trump Moves to Blockade the Strait of Hormuz as Iran Defies Nuclear Demands plus Swalwell Bombshell

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