Verdict with Ted Cruz - Oceania Had Always Been at War with Eastasia

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00:00:04.140 The Supreme Court has concluded its absolutely magnificent term

00:00:09.520 with a major blow to the deep state.

00:00:14.020 So now we are in the dog days of summer,

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00:01:42.640 Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:01:44.480 I am Michael Knowles.

00:01:46.200 So pleased to be joined by the senator who is on vacation, but there is no vacation when it comes to verdict.

00:01:53.260 So, Senator, thank you for jumping off the beach for a few moments to join us on the show.

00:01:58.760 Well, happy Fourth of July.

00:01:59.980 And it's great to celebrate our nation's birth and independence.

00:02:04.900 And it's great to do that with the family at the beach.

00:02:08.020 But sometimes you've got to come back and address major issues that have come up.

00:02:13.120 One of them is we've covered so much of this Supreme Court term,

00:02:17.200 which seems to me certainly the greatest Supreme Court term in my lifetime.

00:02:20.760 Perhaps in American history with the overruling of Roe, you had the major win for Second Amendment rights,

00:02:27.800 major win for religious liberty, major win for education freedom.

00:02:31.880 And now in West Virginia versus EPA, a major blow for the administrative state.

00:02:38.820 But this case, probably more than any of the others, is pretty complex.

00:02:43.460 I don't know all the nuances of it, and I've really tried to dig into it.

00:02:47.600 But the case does not overrule what is called Chevron deference,

00:02:52.980 which is a major source of power for the administrative state.

00:02:56.340 But it does beef up the major questions doctrine,

00:02:59.760 which is to protect the power of the people,

00:03:02.760 to make their voices heard against the administrative agencies of the executive.

00:03:08.520 What does this case do?

00:03:11.100 So, cutting to the bottom line, I think this case is an important victory,

00:03:15.500 A, for democracy, for actually having control of policy,

00:03:19.920 B, in the democratically elected branches of government,

00:03:22.640 and B, for jobs and our ability to pay our bills.

00:03:30.600 So, what this concerned was under the Obama administration,

00:03:33.720 they rolled out what they called their Clean Power Plan.

00:03:37.140 And it was the EPA, it was a massive power grab to essentially shut down coal-fired power plants

00:03:46.240 across the country and force a transition to natural gas and to wind and solar.

00:03:51.240 And to do so, the EPA itself admitted that its plan, the Obama EPA,

00:03:56.240 would cost billions of dollars in the economy, would destroy tens of thousands of jobs,

00:04:01.360 this was their own estimate, and would drive up everyone's cost of energy.

00:04:05.040 So, that was the Obama administration's big present to America.

00:04:10.360 Now, the plan has been litigated ever since the Obama administration.

00:04:15.240 Under Trump, they rescinded the rule.

00:04:18.400 Under Biden, they rescinded the rescission.

00:04:20.820 In other words, they potentially teed it up again.

00:04:24.640 Just when we've got $5 gasoline and electricity prices going through the roof,

00:04:29.040 the Biden EPA was threatening to put yet more regulatory burdens driving up the cost of energy.

00:04:35.040 And what the Supreme Court did is struck it down.

00:04:38.100 It was a 6-3 decision.

00:04:40.300 Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion.

00:04:42.840 And what Chief Justice Roberts relied on is, as you mentioned it there,

00:04:47.200 it's called the Major Questions Doctrine.

00:04:48.760 The Major Questions Doctrine essentially says that if there is a regulatory decision

00:04:57.400 that is a big deal, that has big consequences economically, politically,

00:05:02.260 that Congress has to have been very clear in giving the agency the authority to do it.

00:05:08.780 That the court is not going to read in some vague, ambiguous language.

00:05:13.460 In this case, the Obama EPA was relying on language that had been on the books for decades,

00:05:19.840 had never been applied to have such a massive power grab.

00:05:23.980 And the Supreme Court said, look, if you're looking at a regulation that is going to have

00:05:30.560 a massive economic impact, you can do that.

00:05:34.140 But Congress has to be really clear that it wants to give the agency that authority,

00:05:39.300 that we're not going to read in just through vague and ambiguous language.

00:05:44.800 And I think that's an important decision.

00:05:47.260 One of the things the court relied on quite a bit is the fact that Congress had repeatedly

00:05:52.040 debated cap and trade, had debated putting a tax on carbon, had debated a lot of these

00:05:58.380 policies and had rejected it over and over and over again.

00:06:01.880 And the court said, look, if Congress, when they try to vote on it, can't decide this is

00:06:06.760 a good idea, we're not going to read into ambiguous language the ability for the agency

00:06:12.420 to just circumvent Congress.

00:06:13.760 So this is a big win for the conservatives who have for a long time wanted to deal a

00:06:21.160 blow against the administrative state and against the EPA in particular.

00:06:25.600 For goodness sakes, the EPA is the villain in Ghostbusters. 0.84

00:06:28.220 They've been in our crosshairs for a very long time.

00:06:30.780 But it doesn't seem to go all the way that many libertarians and conservatives have wanted

00:06:35.940 the court to go, which is to overrule Chevron deference, which comes out of a Supreme Court

00:06:42.360 decision that gives a lot of authority to the agencies to regulate themselves.

00:06:47.160 Is that right?

00:06:48.380 That's right.

00:06:48.980 And look, I think it's entirely possible that this court will overrule Chevron deference

00:06:53.740 in a subsequent case.

00:06:56.820 The court didn't need to go there in this case because the major questions doctrine resolved

00:07:01.520 the matter and resolved it effectively.

00:07:04.860 And so it was unnecessary to consider Chevron deference and to decide it on that basis.

00:07:10.020 You know, what I would say in so a legislative proposal that I've long been a proponent of

00:07:17.560 is something called the RAINS Act, and I'm a co-sponsor of the RAINS Act.

00:07:20.700 The RAINS Act provides that any regulation that imposes an economic cost of $100 million or

00:07:29.980 more requires an up-down vote from Congress before going into effect.

00:07:34.940 And the RAINS Act hasn't passed.

00:07:38.240 I have fought hard to try to get it passed, and we haven't gotten it done yet.

00:07:43.260 I tried very hard with the Trump administration for them to make it a priority, and the Trump

00:07:47.480 White House, it just wasn't a priority for them.

00:07:50.520 I think it would have been the most significant regulatory reform we could do to create an environment

00:07:57.800 where jobs are plentiful.

00:07:59.020 So this Supreme Court decision is a step in that direction because it is saying the way

00:08:06.160 they laid out the major questions doctrine, they said if it has a big economic impact.

00:08:11.240 Now, they didn't quantify what a big economic impact was.

00:08:14.620 And here, the Obama administration's own estimate is that they were destroying tens of thousands

00:08:19.700 of jobs.

00:08:20.260 So they were readily admitting that they were having a big, big economic impact.

00:08:25.680 But this decision, I think, is positive for limiting executive power absent congressional

00:08:35.060 authorization.

00:08:36.380 And I think that's important for part of the reason why you see regulations that are really

00:08:43.660 harmful to jobs and businesses coming from the executive branch is because bureaucrats are 0.99

00:08:51.560 unaccountable.

00:08:52.100 They don't have to face the people.

00:08:53.400 And there's a power to having elected officials vote on it because, look, if you're a member

00:08:59.020 of Congress, it's not an easy vote to cast a vote to destroy tens of thousands of jobs.

00:09:04.840 You tend to have the people whose jobs you're destroying get really ticked off at you and

00:09:09.660 show up at town halls and yell at you.

00:09:12.440 And so there's a reason even Democrats and look, some of the crazies don't mind voting that

00:09:16.720 way.

00:09:16.920 But even Democrats get nervous about directly voting to destroy a lot of jobs.

00:09:23.120 That democratic accountability, I think, is good for economic freedom, because if you

00:09:27.700 have people who vote for it, it lets the voters in the next election step up and throw the

00:09:33.020 bums out.

00:09:34.160 Now, you mentioned crazy Democrats, and this brings up a completely unrelated issue, only 0.79

00:09:40.220 related in the sense that unaccountable people are passing lots of insane regulations right

00:09:44.640 now.

00:09:44.900 But I do have to get your take on it because it has somehow come to dominate a lot of the

00:09:49.540 political conversation over the past few days.

00:09:52.540 Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin were just thrown off of Twitter.

00:09:57.500 They've been suspended.

00:09:59.080 Jordan for making a comment and then Dave for reposting his comment.

00:10:02.600 And the comment was that Ellen Page, the actress, is Ellen Page, the actress.

00:10:11.000 That was essentially the comment.

00:10:12.140 Jordan referred to Ellen Page, who's the girl from Juno, who now identifies as a man and

00:10:16.960 calls herself Elliot.

00:10:18.220 He just called her Ellen and didn't disparage her really in any way, just pointed out that

00:10:23.280 she had gone through this gender transition and used the female pronouns.

00:10:27.740 He was thrown off for that.

00:10:29.360 Dave was then thrown off the internet for that.

00:10:31.600 Have we really descended this far where if you call a celebrity, a very well-known woman

00:10:40.760 by the name that she was known by for most of her career, that you can now be thrown out

00:10:47.360 of the public square with basically no way to fight back?

00:10:51.040 Look, it is true insanity.

00:10:53.300 And the woke rules are changing so fast, you need a guide to reference it.

00:10:59.780 So apparently you're not allowed to say the words Ellen Page.

00:11:02.680 Are you allowed to say the words Ellen Page with reference to when Ellen was going by Ellen

00:11:08.080 and starring in movies with the names Ellen Page on them?

00:11:11.060 Are you allowed to say that?

00:11:12.480 Are you allowed to say that Bruce Jenner was on the cover of Wheaties?

00:11:15.180 Or was that Caitlyn Jenner?

00:11:16.520 And we didn't know it, even though it had the words Bruce Jenner printed on the cover,

00:11:20.400 on the outside of the Wheaties box, there's a level of, you know, the term Orwellian gets

00:11:28.200 tossed around a lot, but it really is big tech trying to erase, we're at war with Eurasia. 0.95

00:11:35.500 We've always been at war with Eurasia. 1.00

00:11:37.400 And anyone who says to the contrary shall be disappeared.

00:11:40.960 Now, look, if Ellen or Elliot or whoever wants to go by whatever name they want to go, fine.

00:11:47.560 Like, go by whatever name you want.

00:11:49.200 That's, but to say no one is allowed to say anything different.

00:11:57.980 It's the opposite of liberty.

00:11:59.760 It's totalitarianism.

00:12:00.960 I think Ellen or Elliot or whatever name tomorrow, if you want to go by Moon Unit, I don't care.

00:12:07.100 Like, call yourself whatever you want.

00:12:08.520 That's fine.

00:12:09.800 But nobody has the right to silence others.

00:12:12.180 And to see Twitter just so casually flick Jordan Peterson off Twitter, so casually flick Dave Rubin off Twitter,

00:12:19.800 I think is one of the reasons we've talked about it a lot.

00:12:23.780 I very much hope Elon Musk goes through with this purchase.

00:12:26.560 I think it may be the most important development for free speech in decades. 1.00

00:12:31.520 And hopefully if and when Musk buys Twitter, this sort of garbage will stop because it is idiocy. 0.99

00:12:40.500 There's a kind of irony here, too, because before Ellen started identifying as Elliot, she was gay married to a woman, to a woman who identifies as a lesbian. 0.99

00:12:51.680 This was after same-sex marriage became a cultural phenomenon, but sort of before transgenderism became a cultural phenomenon.

00:12:59.780 And it occurred to me that to affirm Ellen, who now goes by Elliot's gender identity, is to deny her lesbian partner's sexual orientation.

00:13:15.360 I'm trying to see if I can keep that straight, which is to say we cannot simultaneously affirm so many contradictory things.

00:13:25.060 And you mentioned it's Oceania being at war with East Asia.

00:13:29.580 Oceania has always been at war with East Asia.

00:13:31.760 The rules are changing so constantly.

00:13:34.100 I think what is really scary for Americans who aren't keeping up and who don't really care what Ellen Page does is that you can be ostracized.

00:13:43.000 You can be censored and removed from the town square, because Twitter and Google and Facebook, those are the town square now, for simply saying the thing that every single person believed until about five minutes ago.

00:13:55.340 If Twitter now holds that you cannot call a woman who identifies as a man a woman, well, then effectively aren't they prohibiting any disagreement with transgenderism?

00:14:08.060 The vast majority of Americans who I suspect do not go along with a radical transgender kind of worldview.

00:14:15.020 Does that mean that now the people who control the public square, the flow of 90 percent of information around the Internet, Google, Facebook and Twitter, we're just not allowed to express our opinions?

00:14:24.900 Look, that's exactly what it means that they want to silence dissent.

00:14:28.120 You know, I will say back in 2016, I actually had a person who identified herself to me as Ellen Page confront me in Iowa.

00:14:38.000 So I was at the Iowa State Fair.

00:14:39.480 I was actually cooking pork chops at the Iowa State Fair.

00:14:43.080 And this this young woman walked up to me and began questioning me on I don't remember exactly.

00:14:50.300 It was gay marriage, gay, lesbian issues.

00:14:53.860 I had no idea who she was, but I had a conversation with her.

00:14:57.040 It was filmed and put out there.

00:14:58.340 And at the time she had later identified herself as actress Ellen Page.

00:15:01.920 I am I allowed to say that?

00:15:03.640 That's what she told me her name was when she was questioning me.

00:15:05.960 And that's what she said online.

00:15:07.040 And maybe I was being questioned by Elliot and I didn't know it like it.

00:15:11.640 There is a level of.

00:15:16.600 This gets pitched and it's like through the looking glass where.

00:15:22.320 They say this is all about, I guess the phrase is dead name.

00:15:25.740 You know, you don't have a right to control what other people say.

00:15:31.280 You know, if, Michael, you want to go by Michelle.

00:15:35.120 Knock yourself out.

00:15:36.360 But but you don't have.

00:15:39.720 The right.

00:15:40.920 You know, it's like the old phrase, my freedom to swing my fist ends at the tip of your nose.

00:15:45.440 You have all the liberty you want to say what you want, but that doesn't extend to silencing

00:15:49.780 someone else saying something that you don't like.

00:15:53.240 And today's left doesn't believe that part of it is.

00:15:57.180 There are rules on things like like gender and I don't know how many hundred and fifty seven 1.00

00:16:04.280 genders. I can't keep up with the latest the latest fantastical distinctions. 0.99

00:16:10.560 Their rules make so little sense that I think they realize they must silence anyone questioning

00:16:17.160 them.

00:16:17.700 Because they can't defend them on the merits.

00:16:20.500 And that does fundamentally reflect an acknowledgement of weakness on their part.

00:16:24.340 It also does seem to go along with the broad, broader leftist ethos, which is a rejection of

00:16:30.740 the past.

00:16:31.400 Actually, if you read some of the literature around the phenomenon of dead naming, this phrase

00:16:36.920 only cropped up about 10 years ago on the Internet to refer to the names that people have gone

00:16:42.460 by their whole lives until they decide to identify as the opposite sex.

00:16:46.320 The a lot of the literature around that will discuss it as a rejection of the past.

00:16:51.520 It didn't happen.

00:16:52.940 Ellen was never Ellen.

00:16:54.300 Ellen was always Elliot.

00:16:56.140 Your Oceani was always at war with East Asia, as you say.

00:17:00.080 Well, and let me ask a question.

00:17:01.120 Let me ask a question on this, Michael.

00:17:02.460 And this is this is where you're you're good at theoretical navel gazing is the current

00:17:11.780 theory of transgenderism.

00:17:13.680 Let's take it that Ellen was always Elliot.

00:17:17.380 And if that's the case, that does that imply that there actually is objective truth that

00:17:22.500 Ellen was, in fact, Elliot?

00:17:24.840 And isn't that in contradiction with the other left wing tenet that you can change whatever

00:17:30.240 the hell you are right now?

00:17:31.380 You can become a woman, a man and a chipmunk all in the course of this podcast. 0.98

00:17:35.800 Like, is there objective truth or not?

00:17:39.640 And what I don't know is, do the leftist activists, do they distinguish?

00:17:45.020 Like, do are they willing to say, well, Ellen may have been a woman in 2016 when she introduced 0.98

00:17:51.420 herself as Ellen and said she was a woman.

00:17:53.240 But now she's a man.

00:17:58.000 Or do they maintain that what is today was yesterday, too, and she didn't change anything?

00:18:04.100 And how do you tell the difference?

00:18:05.640 Is there like a guide?

00:18:07.940 Some people say they change and some didn't.

00:18:09.840 Like, what's the what is the reasoning behind this?

00:18:13.540 The current view held by the people who promote this kind of ideology is that Ellen is now and

00:18:20.980 always was Elliot, even when she was in that movie about being pregnant and possibly having

00:18:26.260 an abortion when she was in Juneau.

00:18:28.120 Even then, she was really a man.

00:18:30.580 But but what if Elliot believes that she was Ellen then?

00:18:34.880 Like, like, is she allowed or he allowed to do that?

00:18:37.680 This, I think, is the key.

00:18:38.740 Is that an acceptable thing?

00:18:40.100 This is the key because, you know, on Wikipedia, if you look at Ellen Page or Bruce Jenner or

00:18:44.740 any really prominent person who identifies as transgender, the way that that person will

00:18:49.960 be described will always be with the pronouns that they are now using, including going back

00:18:55.420 to the very moment of birth.

00:18:57.080 But but your question is such an important one because you're saying, well, what decides

00:19:02.260 if Ellen wakes up tomorrow and says, oh, I'm Ellen again, I'm I'm a she again. 0.74

00:19:06.260 And people have done that plenty of times.

00:19:08.680 Then is she a she again? 1.00

00:19:10.100 And I think that's the case.

00:19:11.140 I think what this ultimately comes down to is not that there is objective truth for the

00:19:16.420 obviously there is objective truth.

00:19:17.600 But I don't think the contention of the left and the transgender ideology is that there is

00:19:22.340 objective truth.

00:19:23.180 I think what it comes down to is the primacy of the will.

00:19:26.260 Well, whatever Ellen says is true, even if what Ellen says contradicts what Ellen said

00:19:32.800 yesterday.

00:19:33.540 And so politics devolves from a reasoned debate that you constantly hear conservatives and

00:19:39.920 old school liberals lamenting the loss of reasoned civil dialogue.

00:19:43.220 Well, that has to go away.

00:19:45.080 If politics really only comes down to my will versus your will and my interest versus your

00:19:51.500 interest, well, then we can't talk to each other.

00:19:53.240 Then then we we really can't even communicate.

00:19:55.500 It's just all a bunch of sounds and pronouns and new noises that that don't really have

00:20:01.540 any any coherence to them.

00:20:02.880 Well, unless they're connected to force and you will be fired, you will be silenced, you

00:20:07.800 will be blocked, you will be canceled if you don't comply with what I demand.

00:20:13.160 And that's the call of the left.

00:20:16.200 You know, on these names, I also I also it's also seems to me that the names are intentionally

00:20:21.060 provocative.

00:20:21.660 You know, there are plenty of names that are androgynous and ambiguous.

00:20:24.720 I don't know.

00:20:26.120 Taylor, Skyler, Madison, you know, but but when it comes down to this question of someone who's

00:20:32.620 obviously a woman going by, I don't know, Hank or something that seems a little little 1.00

00:20:37.200 crazy as well.

00:20:38.120 And I think this issue keeps getting so much play in large part because ordinary people

00:20:45.920 who are not engaging in all this kind of ideological navel gazing, who are not very online or marching

00:20:52.620 with the radical leftists in the streets, who are just kind of conducting their ordinary

00:20:56.600 lives.

00:20:57.200 They're looking at this and they're saying, I know this is obviously wrong.

00:21:00.960 Well, I will say so.

00:21:02.820 I'm on a plane an awful lot.

00:21:04.140 And so I download lots and lots of shows, streaming shows.

00:21:08.340 And one of the shows that I've watched on Netflix is something called Umbrella Academy

00:21:11.960 about these students who have sort of superhero type powers.

00:21:17.580 And for the first two seasons, Umbrella Academy starred Ellen Page.

00:21:23.500 And the third season, which I just finished watching, it now stars Elliot Page.

00:21:28.780 And what's interesting is the character in the Netflix series has the same transition

00:21:37.100 that Ellen slash Elliot has had.

00:21:40.760 And in fact, the beginning of season three, the character is a woman.

00:21:46.380 Although the credits say it's Elliot Page playing a woman.

00:21:51.960 And then the character decides that she is a he. 0.92

00:21:57.400 And part of how Hollywood does this is every single person immediately just.

00:22:03.160 This is reality.

00:22:04.260 And it was an interesting example because when I started watching season three, I was kind

00:22:10.300 of curious how they were going to handle this issue.

00:22:12.960 And so they made the character completely mirror what the actor was going through as

00:22:20.020 well, which I just thought was an interesting wrinkle.

00:22:22.500 It's a total failure of imagination, it seems.

00:22:25.900 Also, it seems that now it used to be that acting was when you pretended to be someone

00:22:30.160 that you were not. 0.90

00:22:31.220 Now we're told that unless you're gay, you can't play a gay character.

00:22:35.180 Unless you're this specific sub race of a group of people, you can't play a person of 0.59

00:22:40.440 that group.

00:22:41.520 Unless you know what?

00:22:42.280 Whatever happened to playing pretend?

00:22:43.980 Whatever happened to the imagination?

00:22:45.340 That seems to be out the window right now.

00:22:48.680 Michael, that's exactly right.

00:22:50.000 The concept of acting has just gone away.

00:22:53.540 Now, in order to play Michael Knowles, one must be a Catholic, conservative, Italian,

00:23:04.880 Sicilian. 0.92

00:23:05.480 And nobody other than Michael Knowles can play not Michael Knowles.

00:23:08.280 That's right.

00:23:08.660 And the whole concept of acting has gone, you know, there's a famous story of when Sir

00:23:15.940 Laurence Olivier was doing a movie along with Dustin Hoffman.

00:23:19.380 And, you know, Hoffman is famously a method actor.

00:23:22.340 And in the scene, he was required to be very, very tired.

00:23:25.540 So he stayed up all night and he was exhausted.

00:23:28.580 And for some reason, there was a problem shooting and they weren't able to film the scene.

00:23:32.120 And Hoffman got upset and, you know, was like, look, I stayed up all night.

00:23:37.760 I was like, getting ready now.

00:23:38.840 We're not going to shoot the scene.

00:23:40.040 And Sir Laurence Olivier famously quipped to him.

00:23:43.520 He said, my dear boy, why don't you try acting?

00:23:48.500 Right.

00:23:49.640 And then the sort of meta story on top of that, did you ever see the movie Hook?

00:23:56.020 Yeah.

00:23:56.280 Oh, years ago.

00:23:56.900 But yes.

00:23:57.580 You know, it's a great movie with Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman.

00:24:01.540 And Robin Williams plays a grown up Peter Pan.

00:24:04.040 And Dustin Hoffman plays Captain Hook.

00:24:06.320 And apparently while they were filming Hook, Robin Williams would make fun of Hoffman.

00:24:13.580 And he would, you know, he'd make the voice of a parrot and he'd go,

00:24:15.820 Caw, try acting.

00:24:17.700 Caw, try acting.

00:24:19.760 And apparently there is no acting anymore.

00:24:22.140 No, no.

00:24:23.060 Acting is over.

00:24:24.580 I do want to clarify for people too.

00:24:26.840 If you do want to play me, not just any Italian will do.

00:24:30.020 I don't want any Northern Italian. 1.00

00:24:31.480 It's got to be from the town in Sicily where my family comes from.

00:24:34.860 That's how particular we're going to get.

00:24:37.940 Now that, you know, they say that politics is show business for ugly people. 1.00

00:24:42.320 And speaking of particularity, I want to get nitty.

00:24:45.340 Well, thank you, Michael.

00:24:46.100 I take that personally.

00:24:47.360 So thank you very much.

00:24:49.600 With notable exceptions, of course.

00:24:52.320 Of course, obviously for the people on this podcast.

00:24:54.100 But, you know, when we're looking ahead to the midterms, we got a whole lot of seats.

00:25:00.400 We got all of those hundreds of congressional seats.

00:25:04.520 We've got a whole bunch of Senate seats up to say nothing about the state houses. 1.00

00:25:08.640 So since you're much more focused on the ground, on the nitty gritty, know the players very closely,

00:25:15.060 what should conservatives be looking at?

00:25:17.040 Where should we be looking?

00:25:18.080 What races should we be focused on?

00:25:20.680 And by what margin are we going to win?

00:25:24.300 So I'm very optimistic for November.

00:25:26.360 I think it is going to be an historic victory.

00:25:29.980 I think the chances of our taking the House are approaching 100%.

00:25:33.960 I think it is virtually a certainty that we'll take the House.

00:25:37.280 I think the real question is how big of a margin.

00:25:39.660 And I think the chances are good that we'll take the Senate.

00:25:42.480 I'd probably handicap the Senate at 65-35.

00:25:46.220 On the House side, some of the reason why I'm so optimistic.

00:25:50.440 Let me give you just some of the specific data because the two best predictors for elections historically

00:26:00.920 have been the generic congressional ballot, which is just asking people in the upcoming congressional election,

00:26:08.240 do you intend to vote Republican or Democrat?

00:26:10.100 So without a name of a candidate.

00:26:11.900 That is measured every year.

00:26:14.020 That's a very good predictor for what's going to happen in November.

00:26:17.560 And then the presidential approval or disapproval.

00:26:20.720 And consistently, those two together had been very good predictors.

00:26:24.260 So if you look at, for example, 2010, which was an historic year,

00:26:31.680 in that election, the generic ballot was Republican plus 9.4.

00:26:36.360 So it was a really strong generic ballot.

00:26:39.000 Presidential approval was actually not too bad.

00:26:41.760 It was minus 0.5.

00:26:44.700 So it was just the disapproval was just slightly above approval.

00:26:50.460 And we ended up picking up 63 seats, getting to a majority of 242 seats.

00:26:58.620 Likewise, 2014, the generic was R plus 2.4.

00:27:03.500 Presidential approval was minus 10.4.

00:27:06.820 And we got to 247 seats.

00:27:09.980 Now, if you look at where we are today in 2022, the generic congressional is R plus 3.3.

00:27:17.980 So that means by 3.3 percent, people say they're going to vote Republican instead of Democrat.

00:27:23.020 That's better than it was in 2014, although not as good as it was in 2010.

00:27:27.560 But the presidential approval is minus 11.5, which is by far the worst, much, much worse than 2010, much, much worse than 2014.

00:27:38.480 Let me give you another stat that is a very interesting predictor, which is the enthusiasm gap.

00:27:44.160 Now, if you ask voters, are you very excited to vote in November, it's a really good predictor of what's going to happen.

00:27:51.160 And if you go back and look at it, in 2006, Democrats who were very interested in voting in November, 69 percent, Republicans, 56 percent.

00:28:02.740 So the Democrats had a 13 percentage advantage on enthusiasm.

00:28:08.280 They picked up 30 seats.

00:28:10.720 2010, Democrats who were very interested was 49 percent.

00:28:15.020 Republicans was 66 percent.

00:28:17.600 So Republicans had a 17 percent advantage.

00:28:21.120 We picked up 63.

00:28:22.660 2014, the differential was 11 percent.

00:28:26.360 We picked up 13 seats.

00:28:28.200 Since 2018, the differential Democrats who were interested was 66 percent, Republicans 57.

00:28:38.340 So Democrats had a nine point advantage in enthusiasm.

00:28:42.520 They picked up 40 seats.

00:28:44.880 And then if you go and look to March of 2022, Democrats, 50 percent are very interested in voting in November.

00:28:53.200 Republicans, 67 percent.

00:28:55.020 So we've got a 17 percent advantage.

00:28:56.940 All of that is suggesting that we could see a Republican victory in the House with potentially a pickup anywhere from 30 to 60 seats.

00:29:08.080 I think that's the spread that's in play, which is a whole lot of seats.

00:29:14.580 What we're seeing is congressional seats that are, say, a D plus six or a D plus eight are right now polling time.

00:29:24.200 If you look at Virginia, Virginia last year, as you know, elected Glenn Youngkin.

00:29:30.600 Biden won Virginia by 10 points.

00:29:32.660 So Virginia was a D plus 10.

00:29:35.340 And on election day last year, it went Republican.

00:29:37.860 If we're winning D plus 10 congressional seats, we're looking at 60 plus pickups in the House.

00:29:43.940 So I think it's going to be a big, big deal.

00:29:47.820 So I think the Senate is, too.

00:29:50.420 So there are far too many congressional House seats to track in terms of the Senate races.

00:29:57.520 You've got some big celebrity candidates.

00:30:00.600 J.D. Vance has made a huge splash in Ohio.

00:30:04.100 Dr. Oz is already a celebrity and has been for a long time in Pennsylvania.

00:30:07.940 What are the races that we should really be looking at, whether because they're bellwethers, you know, they're going to they're going to tell us which way the winds are blowing or just because they're so crucial for Republicans to pick.

00:30:20.940 Sure. So the reason the Senate is far less certain than the House is that we don't have a great map this year.

00:30:26.700 So Republicans are defending more vulnerable seats than Democrats are.

00:30:30.200 And that just is luck of the draw of who happens to be up, because in the Senate, only a third of the senators are up every two years.

00:30:38.060 If you look at Republican pickup opportunities.

00:30:42.160 The four most natural.

00:30:45.240 Are Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and New Hampshire.

00:30:51.500 Georgia and Arizona have historically been red states.

00:30:54.300 Just a couple of years ago, they had both had two reds, two Republican senators.

00:30:59.880 Now, both Georgia and Arizona have two Democrat senators in Georgia. 0.87

00:31:05.360 You've got Herschel Walker running.

00:31:08.220 I think I think Walker's got a good shot at winning that race.

00:31:11.800 I think Georgia is still fundamentally a red state.

00:31:14.780 The special elections or the runoff elections that that happened in in twenty twenty one.

00:31:22.700 Republican turnout was depressed.

00:31:24.480 It was right after the election.

00:31:25.840 I was on the ground.

00:31:26.800 I saw it, that that our base was demoralized and didn't show up in that special election.

00:31:31.680 And if if your guys stay home and the other guys show up, that's that's a recipe for losing.

00:31:36.300 So I think Georgia is a real pickup opportunity.

00:31:39.820 Arizona is a real pickup opportunity.

00:31:41.780 That's got a messy primary right now. 1.00

00:31:43.740 There's several candidates slugging it out in that primary.

00:31:46.020 So it's not clear who the Republican nominee is going to be.

00:31:50.840 Mark Kelly is the incumbent Democrat, and he is he's formidable.

00:31:55.640 He's an astronaut.

00:31:58.600 His temperament seems moderate.

00:32:01.700 I do think Kelly has been really, really hurt by Kyrsten Sinema, the other Democrat senator from Arizona,

00:32:08.480 because Sinema on a number of issues, most notably the filibuster, has stood up to party leadership and has has tacked a more moderate course.

00:32:18.600 And it's made Kelly.

00:32:20.260 It's revealed him.

00:32:21.880 His voting record is in many ways indistinguishable from Bernie Sanders.

00:32:24.800 And I think that even though he cultivates a persona of being a moderate, his voting record now does not match up with that.

00:32:33.200 I think Arizona, we got a good pickup opportunity.

00:32:36.500 Nevada, Adam Laxalt won the primary.

00:32:39.920 I endorsed Adam.

00:32:40.800 I campaigned with him.

00:32:41.780 I think Adam is a great pickup opportunity.

00:32:44.400 If I were.

00:32:45.580 In fact, I think Nevada, Adam is the most likely Republican pickup this cycle, because I think he's done a good job of unifying the party.

00:32:53.920 I think he's running a good campaign.

00:32:55.280 I think we're going to win in Nevada.

00:32:56.380 Nevada, New Hampshire, Maggie Hassan is on the ballot. 0.95

00:33:03.860 Her she's underwater.

00:33:05.660 Her disapproval is greater than her approval.

00:33:07.800 I think she's vulnerable.

00:33:09.780 It's not clear who the Republican is going to be.

00:33:12.540 And if we're going to have a strong candidate, I hope we do.

00:33:15.140 If we have a strong candidate, I think New Hampshire is winnable.

00:33:18.740 But we've got to get someone who is able to raise the money and be competitive.

00:33:23.820 If the governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, had run, I think he would have won easily.

00:33:29.400 He decided not to run.

00:33:30.700 And so New Hampshire is a state where we just got to wait and see if we're going to have a candidate that can be competitive.

00:33:37.220 Those are the four best pickup opportunities.

00:33:40.460 There are other pickup opportunities that are more of a long shot.

00:33:45.220 Colorado, Michael Bennett, I think, is vulnerable.

00:33:48.620 He doesn't have great name ID.

00:33:50.280 He hasn't accomplished much of anything in the Senate.

00:33:52.600 Colorado is a bluish state that in a really good year could conceivably go red.

00:33:57.680 So I think Colorado is a possible pickup.

00:34:00.340 Washington state right now, the polling in Washington state is showing the Republican within just a couple of points of Patty Murray, the incumbent Democrat.

00:34:09.340 I'll give you a long shot, Vermont.

00:34:13.720 So Pat Leahy is retiring.

00:34:18.760 Pat Leahy is actually the only Democrat in the history of Vermont elected to the Senate, which is really quite remarkable.

00:34:24.760 The other senator is Bernie Sanders, who's not a Democrat.

00:34:26.880 He's a socialist.

00:34:27.320 He's not not a member of the Democrat Party.

00:34:31.820 You know, there's a former U.S.

00:34:33.580 attorney running in Vermont, a woman who I think is in a really good year, has a shot at that race. 1.00

00:34:41.560 So there are, depending on how good a year there is, there are four natural pickup opportunities and then I think several more.

00:34:49.800 Now, where are we on defense?

00:34:52.360 We're on defense, number one, in Pennsylvania, as you noted.

00:34:56.760 So Pat Toomey is the incumbent.

00:34:58.280 He's a Republican.

00:34:59.040 He's retiring.

00:34:59.680 I think Dr. Oz is the Republican nominee.

00:35:02.840 I think Dr. Oz can win.

00:35:04.860 He just went through a tough primary between him and Dave McCormick, who's another very strong candidate.

00:35:12.780 But I'm optimistic that Oz's numbers are not terrific right now, but he just came out of the primary.

00:35:19.760 I'm optimistic that's a winnable seat, but we need to hold Pennsylvania.

00:35:25.240 Wisconsin, Ron Johnson is the incumbent Republican.

00:35:28.080 He probably is, faces the greatest threat for any incumbent Republican.

00:35:34.900 Wisconsin's a historically purple state.

00:35:37.700 I think Ron will win this year.

00:35:40.140 I was just out in Milwaukee and supporting him and campaigning for him.

00:35:44.600 I think he'll win this year.

00:35:46.380 But history teaches that race is likely to be close.

00:35:51.740 You mentioned Ohio.

00:35:53.720 Rob Portman, a Republican, is retiring.

00:35:56.080 J.D. Vance is the nominee.

00:35:57.220 I think J.D. will win that race.

00:35:59.880 But Ohio has certainly historically been a swing seat.

00:36:04.200 Missouri, you've got Roy Blunt, who's retiring.

00:36:07.960 There you've got a crowdy and messy primary.

00:36:10.900 The candidate I've supported, Eric Schmidt, who's the attorney general, I think is the strongest conservative that can win.

00:36:18.720 But whether that race is competitive will depend on what happens in the primary.

00:36:25.120 One of the candidates in the primary, Eric Greitens, the former governor, resigned in scandal.

00:36:30.660 I think if Greitens wins the primary, you'll see Democrats invest a lot of money in Missouri.

00:36:35.300 I think they'll think that that's a seat they can steal if Greitens wins the nomination.

00:36:41.160 You know, another state that could get bumpy is Alaska.

00:36:44.120 So Alaska, you've got Lisa Murkowski, who's the incumbent. 1.00

00:36:46.900 She's the Republican.

00:36:47.680 Donald Trump has endorsed against her.

00:36:50.940 He's campaigning against her.

00:36:55.680 Alaska also has a weird system of voting, of ranked choice voting.

00:36:59.900 Right.

00:37:00.400 Where you vote for multiple candidates and then you eliminate the lowest vote getter and reallocate those votes.

00:37:06.060 So I don't know what will happen there.

00:37:09.600 But any time you have Republicans divided, in this case, you've got Trump on one side and the incumbent Republican on the other, it's messy.

00:37:18.080 And, you know, when I got to the Senate 10 years ago, Alaska had a Democrat, Mark Begich, in it.

00:37:23.360 I mean, Alaska is in a Senate race.

00:37:26.420 It's more purple than you might think.

00:37:28.060 So I think we will probably hold on to Alaska.

00:37:30.600 But it's not impossible that we lose that state.

00:37:34.460 So put all of that together, put it in the blender.

00:37:38.220 My guess right now, if the election were today, we'd win something like 53 seats altogether.

00:37:46.500 But I think the plus minus is anywhere from 49, if things just go spectacularly bad, to 56, if they go phenomenally and we win some seats like like a Vermont or a Washington state.

00:38:03.920 If it's that good a year, we could get up in the 55, 56 range.

00:38:08.160 So then you're if you're looking at retaking the House and especially if you're also looking at retaking the Senate, then you're setting the stage for two years of stopping Biden, slowing down Biden.

00:38:20.800 It's hard to slow down Biden.

00:38:21.920 Biden's pretty slow as it is right now.

00:38:23.540 But you you stop the administration and then you look ahead to 2024.

00:38:29.080 Is there is there anything that you're seeing right now that you think in 2022 will help to determine the shape of the 2024 field?

00:38:39.840 Oh, sure.

00:38:40.500 Number one, I think it's important that that we win in 22.

00:38:46.100 But then when we have majorities, we've got to do something with it.

00:38:49.120 And and, you know, that's just the beginning of the battle to win the majorities.

00:38:53.660 And if we get to January 2023 with majorities in both houses, if Republican leadership decides to play a prevent defense and do nothing and be risk averse, which is often leadership's instinct.

00:39:05.420 I think that will demoralize a lot of voters if you elect a bunch of squishes, you can't just go blaming leadership when they push squishy policies that the leadership is one trying to herd cats. 0.99

00:39:18.920 But but two, they are taking cues from their members.

00:39:22.460 You know, they're the they're trying to operate levers of power within the confines of reality.

00:39:27.660 So I love this idea.

00:39:28.920 You got to go out there.

00:39:29.920 You got to go elect the most right, viable candidates.

00:39:33.140 And then you're going to have a much better shot of encouraging leadership to actually stand up and fight.

00:39:38.620 Now, there is much more to talk about, Senator, before you return to your lovely family vacation that we have rudely interrupted.

00:39:45.400 There's a lot more to talk about on the cloakroom with our friend Liz Wheeler.

00:39:48.820 Hi, Senator.

00:39:49.500 Hi.

00:39:49.920 Is it Michelle?

00:39:50.680 I've been waiting in the wings and I just overheard that that perhaps you're identifying as Michelle.

00:39:54.920 OK, well, I just want to.

00:39:55.920 Or so I was told.

00:39:56.760 I just want to be the one to note that this is breaking national news.

00:40:00.440 We have a great topic that we're going to talk about on the cloakroom today.

00:40:03.620 We are going to talk about a very highly reported piece of the Dobbs decision.

00:40:09.400 This is, of course, Justice Clarence Thomas, who said in future cases, we should reconsider all of this court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence and Obergefell.

00:40:20.640 So we're going to talk about these cases and whether they should be overturned.

00:40:24.040 And if they were to be overturned, how that would be done.

00:40:27.080 You can join us on the cloakroom.

00:40:28.640 It's on verdict plus go to verdict with Ted Cruz dot com slash plus.

00:40:33.260 If you use my promo code, which is, of course, cloakroom, you can get your first month free on your annual subscription.

00:40:38.360 It is verdict with Ted Cruz dot com slash plus.

00:40:42.100 I cannot wait.

00:40:42.860 You were looking at the Clarence Thomas Nashville fan club over here.

00:40:46.960 President and chairman can't wait to hear that discussion of why we need to get rid of substantive due process.

00:40:52.580 All right.

00:40:53.400 That's enough for me.

00:40:54.080 I'm out of here.

00:40:54.600 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:40:55.340 This is verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:40:58.640 This episode of verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by jobs, freedom and security pack, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations and candidates across the country.

00:41:17.300 In 2022, jobs, freedom and security pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.

00:41:27.540 This is an iHeart podcast.

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - July 10, 2022

Oceania Had Always Been at War with Eastasia

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