Verdict with Ted Cruz - On the Ground with President Bukele in El Salvador plus Cracker Barrel Surrenders

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.580 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.260 Welcome.

00:00:06.000 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:09.660 Usually, I'm the one that's out of town far, far away.

00:00:13.340 Tonight, as we do this show, you're in another country, Senator,

00:00:17.420 and you're on a CODEL through Latin America.

00:00:21.300 Well, that's exactly right.

00:00:22.780 As you and I are talking, it is late Tuesday night, and I am in El Salvador.

00:00:27.320 I've spent the entire day in El Salvador meeting with senior government officials,

00:00:30.940 meeting with the president of El Salvador.

00:00:33.020 I'm going to walk you through exactly what I heard, what I saw, what is happening on the ground.

00:00:38.920 We're also going to talk about your and my favorite Maryland man, the MS-13 gangbanger,

00:00:44.820 who the Democrats have decided to make the poster child for their entire party,

00:00:49.260 and he has once again been arrested by ICE and is facing deportation.

00:00:53.500 We're going to lay out the facts of what's happening there.

00:00:55.200 And finally, Cracker Barrel.

00:00:57.340 Cracker Barrel, after deciding they hate their customers,

00:01:00.480 after deciding they hate everything their company was founded upon,

00:01:03.940 they utterly and completely surrendered.

00:01:06.580 They threw in the cracker.

00:01:07.780 They threw in the barrel.

00:01:09.220 We're going to break down the absolute mess that was behind that.

00:01:13.660 And I'll give you the punchline early.

00:01:15.840 Go woke, go broke.

00:01:17.300 Go woke, go broke.

00:01:18.500 And the best part about this story is this controversy,

00:01:21.240 they were warned about a long time ago, and we've got a new timeline on it.

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00:03:18.920 All right.

00:03:19.540 So, Senator, let's talk about why you are where you are right now in El Salvador.

00:03:24.780 Explain quickly what a CODEL is, what it means, and then why you chose to do this in Latin America.

00:03:32.160 Well, a CODEL is very simple.

00:03:33.680 That is an abbreviation for Congressional Delegation, and that is official travel as part of your job

00:03:39.520 serving in Congress or, in my case, serving in the Senate.

00:03:42.380 And I've done a number of CODELs to different parts of the world.

00:03:45.080 You do it because you need to go and meet with foreign leaders.

00:03:48.040 You need to understand the challenges in different countries as they impact the United States.

00:03:53.960 And so I am right now this week on a CODEL throughout Latin America.

00:03:57.780 And it started today in El Salvador.

00:04:01.360 And the reason I started in El Salvador is because it's a country that is impacting the United States profoundly.

00:04:06.720 It is impacting the United States because in the last several years, particularly in the Biden administration,

00:04:11.280 we saw a massive influx of illegal immigration from El Salvador that impacted Texas and the whole country.

00:04:18.520 And then we've seen El Salvador turn itself around.

00:04:21.900 President Bukele, the president here who was elected with overwhelming support, reelected with massive support,

00:04:29.980 the success he has had turning crime around, targeting the cartels, targeting the gangs, is extraordinary.

00:04:37.980 And I spent quite a bit of time this evening with President Bukele, with his senior team.

00:04:43.620 And that has made El Salvador safer, but it's also made America safer.

00:04:48.940 So that's why I'm here.

00:04:50.020 Now, let me tell you how a CODEL begins.

00:04:53.820 So I started the day early this morning in Houston in my home.

00:04:58.200 I got up, went to the airport, and I flew down to El Salvador.

00:05:01.400 I got off the plane, and I have a team from my office who's with me of my national security and foreign policy team.

00:05:08.200 We started by going to a military base that the United States Navy has right by the airport.

00:05:15.340 And I met with a number of American sailors who are there.

00:05:18.660 They're engaged significantly in drug interdiction and counterterrorism efforts.

00:05:25.460 And it's an air base where they can support planes, they can support drones, and they can support all sorts of air missions fighting terrorism and fighting cartels.

00:05:42.140 And so I met with the leadership there of the base, and I met with, there were a number of sailors from Texas.

00:05:48.680 And so I started by having lunch with them, asking them about how it was living in El Salvador, what their backgrounds were.

00:05:58.480 And they were from multiple places throughout Texas.

00:06:04.100 What is interesting, Ben, I asked each of those sailors.

00:06:08.120 I said, okay, you guys have lived, it varied anywhere from a few weeks to two years down in El Salvador.

00:06:15.600 I said, okay, how have things changed?

00:06:18.480 And what kind of job is President Bukele doing?

00:06:21.920 Every single American sailor I spoke with said it's extraordinary.

00:06:27.380 Like, this country has changed.

00:06:29.680 It is safe.

00:06:30.520 It used to be incredibly dangerous.

00:06:32.840 It is now safe.

00:06:34.120 People are willing to walk the streets.

00:06:36.340 They said people would not walk the streets at night.

00:06:38.640 It was not safe.

00:06:39.900 You would not go out after dark because you would be assaulted.

00:06:43.120 You'd be kidnapped.

00:06:43.840 You'd be murdered.

00:06:44.420 And it is now becoming incredibly safe.

00:06:48.980 That was the assessment of our sailors.

00:06:53.560 I then went to the U.S. Embassy, and I met with our country team there.

00:06:59.200 I had a classified briefing and a skiff where they walk through everything that's happening in El Salvador.

00:07:04.240 And then I met with a number of U.S. Marines.

00:07:06.780 They were all young men.

00:07:10.120 They had been in the country anywhere from, actually, one fellow was there literally a day.

00:07:16.800 Wow.

00:07:17.380 And it ranged.

00:07:18.980 This was his second day in country.

00:07:21.880 And it ranged from, I think, the Marine who had been there the longest was nine months.

00:07:26.680 And I asked them the same question.

00:07:27.940 There was about a dozen Marines.

00:07:28.940 And so I went and talked with them.

00:07:30.600 And I said, okay, what do you think of the country?

00:07:32.800 Every one of them said, this is an incredible place.

00:07:34.840 We love it down here.

00:07:36.780 But I also asked, okay, what kind of job is the current administration doing?

00:07:41.640 And again, they raved about it.

00:07:44.940 It was one of the interesting things, Ben.

00:07:46.600 Every single person I asked on this trip, I asked, how is President Bukele doing?

00:07:51.820 I did not find a single person, a single Salvadorian, a single American.

00:07:57.280 And I met, as I said, I talked with a number of especially American servicemen and women.

00:08:01.760 I didn't find a single one who had anything negative to say.

00:08:05.400 That is rare.

00:08:07.760 And there's a reason for that.

00:08:09.940 After meeting with the Marines, after meeting with our country team at the embassy, I went and sat down with the justice minister.

00:08:16.540 And I got to say, the justice minister, that presentation, Ben, there are very few presentations I've been in in my entire time in the Senate that have been more impressive.

00:08:27.840 Really?

00:08:28.140 Because the justice, yes.

00:08:30.100 The justice minister laid out what they've done.

00:08:33.500 In 2015, do you know that El Salvador was the murder capital of the world?

00:08:40.000 Yeah.

00:08:40.220 And I'm pretty sure, if I remember correctly, the State Department put it out there in essence as a do-not-travel zone for Americans.

00:08:48.580 In fact, in 2015, here are the data.

00:08:51.600 The murder rate in El Salvador was 100 people per 100,000.

00:08:57.540 That meant one out of 1,000 people in the country was murdered.

00:09:02.940 That was the single highest murder rate of any country on the planet.

00:09:07.500 But President Bukele came in, and he came in and began going after the cartels.

00:09:14.320 And he began arresting.

00:09:16.160 He arrested over 80,000 gang members.

00:09:19.280 He went after MS-13, and he locked them up.

00:09:22.220 He built a gigantic prison, the Seacott Prison, that houses up to 40,000 people.

00:09:27.860 It was designed to house gang members.

00:09:30.760 One of the things the justice minister said, he said, look, in the United States, MS-13, to become a member of MS-13, do you know what you have to do? 0.85

00:09:38.140 If I remember correctly, you've actually got to, like, kill somebody. 0.85

00:09:42.560 That's exactly right. 0.98

00:09:43.940 That is the test for membership, is you have to murder someone.

00:09:47.460 So here's what the justice minister told me that I did not know.

00:09:50.100 Do you know what the requirement was to become a member of MS-13 in El Salvador?

00:09:55.000 I'm assuming it's worse.

00:09:57.180 You had to murder 10 people. 0.99

00:09:59.980 Wow. 0.99

00:10:00.700 10.

00:10:01.500 So you're not in the gang unless you kill 10 people, and that explains the murder rate.

00:10:06.240 If you've killed nine, you're not in yet.

00:10:10.820 You're not bad enough. 0.88

00:10:12.040 If you've only killed nine, you're still an amateur. 0.64

00:10:14.780 And it was fascinating.

00:10:16.860 Like, listening to the judge describe it, he described how the old government of El Salvador, the leftists,

00:10:22.680 they made a decision to essentially hand government over to the cartels,

00:10:28.560 to disempower the police, to disempower the judiciary, to disempower the government from enforcing law and order.

00:10:36.440 And he said, look, there was a government, and the government was the gangs.

00:10:39.780 The gangs were in charge.

00:10:41.520 The gangs imposed taxes.

00:10:43.100 The gangs had an army.

00:10:45.200 The gangs had a justice system.

00:10:47.780 They were running the country.

00:10:49.180 And it was, the murder rate was so bad that nobody went out at night.

00:10:56.500 I was listening to, I was talking to American personnel who lived there, and they said,

00:11:01.300 if they had, say, a Salvadoran employee who was working for them,

00:11:06.260 they would insist on going home about 4 p.m.

00:11:09.060 Why?

00:11:10.080 Because they would not drive after dark.

00:11:12.740 Because if they did, they might be kidnapped, they might be assaulted, they might be murdered.

00:11:16.400 So you would not drive after dark.

00:11:19.140 So Bekele came in, and they said, we're not going to let the gangs be the government of El Salvador.

00:11:27.120 We are going to be the government, and we are going to go after them.

00:11:29.900 And they went in.

00:11:30.920 And what's fascinating is they said the prior government had a list of most of the gang members.

00:11:35.480 They'd arrest them.

00:11:36.300 They knew who the gang members were.

00:11:37.520 They'd let them go.

00:11:38.560 They'd arrest them again.

00:11:39.400 They'd let them go again.

00:11:40.200 They'd arrest them again.

00:11:40.920 They'd let them go again.

00:11:41.580 So they had a comprehensive list.

00:11:43.860 What it took was a simple decision.

00:11:46.980 We're done.

00:11:48.060 We are not letting gang members wreak havoc, murder our citizens, cause terror throughout the country.

00:11:56.340 And so they went and began arresting gang members.

00:11:59.780 They began arresting gang leaders and putting them in jail, taking them off the street.

00:12:05.840 Now, here is what is amazing, Ben.

00:12:08.080 The murder rate went from the worst murder rate on planet Earth to becoming one of the safest countries in the world.

00:12:18.620 It went from 100 murders per 100,000 people to last year in 2024.

00:12:27.200 It was 1.9 murders per 100,000 people.

00:12:31.640 It was a 98% decrease in murders.

00:12:36.840 It is stunning.

00:12:37.840 It is stunning.

00:12:39.000 Yeah.

00:12:39.280 And that's why President Bukali got reelected with over 80% of the vote, because when you take people from a Mad Max in Thunderdome dystopian hellscape, where you're terrified to be out at night, you do not leave your house because you and your family are risking death, to a place where this evening I was in the capital city and people were walking on the streets and they're safe and they're not afraid.

00:13:04.260 It turns out locking up the criminals, getting them off the street, that works.

00:13:09.260 All of you know that I am a pro Second Amendment guy.

00:13:12.700 I've shared on numerous occasions how carrying my firearm saved my life from a gang-related attack.

00:13:18.460 But for those of you out there with family members who may not be comfortable having a gun, by their side, you still want them to be able to protect themselves and others in times of danger.

00:13:27.920 And that's where the Berna launcher comes in.

00:13:30.780 Berna is a handheld pistol that fires both kinetic rounds and chemical irritants to separate you from an attacker.

00:13:36.920 And I'm here with Josh Sherrard from Berna to share the true story of how an avid hiker used his Berna to stop an attacking mountain lion.

00:13:45.400 Josh, tell us what happened.

00:13:46.940 Yeah, you know, Jason is an avid hiker, decided to take his family out on a hike that he's done several times.

00:13:53.520 Super easy hike, but super fun.

00:13:56.080 Armed with his Berna, you know, this is one of those things where he didn't expect to see anything.

00:13:59.920 And all of a sudden on this hike, this mountain lion appears out of nowhere.

00:14:03.580 Of course, he sends his family on down the trail, watches the lion for a few minutes, realizes it's not going away.

00:14:10.100 So uses his Berna, fires a few rounds to scare it off, continues down the trail.

00:14:14.400 But unfortunately, this mountain lion appears again, at which point he realized he was going to have to up his aggression with that Berna.

00:14:22.200 Fires four rounds, was able to strike the mountain lion all four times, the chest and torso, at which point that mountain lion tears off, never to be seen again.

00:14:30.460 These guys make it down the trail, but back to their car and back to home safely.

00:14:35.380 Fortunately, this is all it took to make sure and get this family back home safe off a hike that could have taken an obvious turn for the worst.

00:14:43.760 And I'm going to guess that Berna has been used to stop other types of animal attacks as well.

00:14:48.260 Absolutely.

00:14:48.700 We get stories all the time of users, whether it be dogs or other wildlife.

00:14:55.040 We even have an ecological park whose security carries Berna for bears out in the Smoky Mountains out there that's been effective there as well.

00:15:04.380 So, once again, not just a tool for people, but very effective against animals as well.

00:15:08.620 It's really incredible.

00:15:09.520 If you want to get more information on how you and your family member can protect themselves with the Berna Launcher, go to Berna.com.

00:15:17.160 That's B-Y-R-N-A dot com. 1.00

00:15:20.600 Again, B-Y-R-N-A dot com. 1.00

00:15:23.220 Berna dot com.

00:15:24.720 You know, this also reminds me so much of the conversation that I think we're trying to have right now in this country in so many of these dangerous cities.

00:15:33.720 It just takes the willpower and the leadership, whether it's New York, whether it's Memphis or Detroit or St. Louis or New Orleans, Baltimore.

00:15:42.160 The list goes on and on.

00:15:43.440 California, San Francisco, right?

00:15:45.000 And L.A., those types of areas where we've seen the criminals take over.

00:15:49.280 We've seen the gangs take over.

00:15:52.820 We've seen cartels that have clearly got their tentacles into so many of these cities and are making countless dollars off the drug trade,

00:16:00.580 the human trafficking, the sex trafficking, the child trafficking, the list goes on and on.

00:16:05.300 It just takes somebody willing to say enough.

00:16:08.160 That's what the president's doing in Washington, D.C.

00:16:10.360 We're witnessing it have instant effects.

00:16:12.520 It's a lot like what you're talking about right now where you are.

00:16:15.500 Yeah, it is a political choice.

00:16:17.780 And that's what everyone here was emphasizing.

00:16:19.760 It was a choice before.

00:16:21.720 We're going to allow the gangs to run this country.

00:16:24.360 And we don't care if people are murdered.

00:16:26.140 We're not going to do anything about it.

00:16:27.520 It was a choice to end it.

00:16:29.260 And it was a choice that was dramatic in terms of the effects.

00:16:34.040 You know, when I was sitting with the justice minister, he pulled up on the computer.

00:16:38.740 They have very detailed statistics.

00:16:43.900 So in 2018, right before Bukele came into office, there were across the country roughly 2,300 murders.

00:16:54.320 Do you know how many murders there have been this year?

00:16:56.280 How many?

00:16:57.440 50.

00:16:58.580 Wow.

00:16:59.880 It went from 2,300.

00:17:00.780 You want to talk about a legacy, by the way, of a leader?

00:17:03.660 Yeah, I mean, just think about a leader like a legacy.

00:17:06.420 Yeah, you're literally saving lives through this policy.

00:17:09.360 And so the justice minister pulled up on the computer.

00:17:14.060 They have, all across the country, he had every single police officer in the country on this computer.

00:17:22.120 You could see the cars.

00:17:23.020 You could see the foot patrols.

00:17:24.340 He could click on them.

00:17:25.760 And you would get the names of this is officer so-and-so, officer so-and-so, in every city across the country where they were.

00:17:32.280 He could actually click on them and connect with them.

00:17:34.740 He could call them on their cell phone.

00:17:36.280 He could video stream with them on their cell phones.

00:17:38.960 He also had a record of every person that had been arrested that day.

00:17:44.040 There were four people who were arrested today.

00:17:45.700 And he had, you could click on them, and at 4.32 p.m., I'm making that up, I don't remember the time.

00:17:51.500 But, you know, one guy was arrested for theft or whatever it was.

00:17:55.720 And you could click on it.

00:17:56.580 You could see their arrest report.

00:17:58.080 You could actually see the mugshot.

00:17:59.440 I saw the mugshot of a guy who was arrested today.

00:18:01.660 And he had real-time data literally all across the country.

00:18:07.520 And they're developing AI systems to go and target it.

00:18:11.220 And where they see crime is greater, they go and devote the resources, and they get the criminals off the street.

00:18:18.460 Well, I've got to say, having met with the justice minister, then I went to the presidential office, and I met with President Bukele.

00:18:25.620 And I've got to say, President Bukele is one of the most impressive leaders I've ever met.

00:18:33.220 He's young, he's charismatic, and his record of success is extraordinary.

00:18:40.660 His country is fundamentally different.

00:18:42.580 I shared with him, I shared with him the story that every person I had met in the country today, I asked,

00:18:48.720 Hey, what do you think of the president?

00:18:50.760 All of them, everyone, every Salvadoran, every American said he's doing a phenomenal job.

00:18:56.620 I laughed and said, you know what?

00:18:59.120 I don't know of a politician in America that would be true.

00:19:01.320 It's certainly not true of me.

00:19:02.280 If you ask a guy on the street, there's some people who like the job I'm doing.

00:19:05.080 There are other people who would tell you what a terrible, horrible human being I am.

00:19:09.640 That's a little bit of the price of politics.

00:19:12.500 It says something.

00:19:13.880 But you know what?

00:19:14.520 When you go from the worst murder capital on the planet to one of the safest countries in the world,

00:19:21.960 it turns out people really appreciate that.

00:19:24.460 Well, and when you're living in that type of fear and hell, it's not political.

00:19:27.640 It's about your family and safety.

00:19:29.280 And it sounds like people are judging him based on that, not on, like, look, you interact with somebody that's conservative.

00:19:34.860 They're going to love you.

00:19:35.580 Liberals automatically hate you.

00:19:37.280 That's like a 50-50 split right away when you wake up every morning.

00:19:40.760 It would be nice, by the way, if while President Trump is doing what he's doing in D.C., if people in D.C. would look at this as a safety issue, not as a political issue.

00:19:50.980 Maybe they could take that away from what you're witnessing down there right now.

00:19:55.200 Well, and listen, President Bukele expressed real frustration because the Biden administration did everything they could to undermine him, to attack the government of El Salvador.

00:20:03.660 And I was laughing with President Bukele saying, you know, it is bizarre.

00:20:08.980 I think the policy of America ought to be that we treat our friends well.

00:20:14.340 We are good friends to our friends and we stand up to our enemies. 0.97

00:20:18.580 And under Biden, the policy seemed to be that we treat our friends like crap and we give in and show weakness and appeasement to our enemies. 0.97

00:20:27.140 And I got to say, I think President Bukele, he agreed with that. 0.91

00:20:31.760 The Biden administration put sanctions on government officials in El Salvador.

00:20:37.940 They undermined it.

00:20:39.000 They attacked it and they did everything they could to drive El Salvador away. 1.00

00:20:42.420 By the way, when they're locking up these MS-13 gang members, these leaders, they're making America safer.

00:20:49.500 And yet the Biden administration undermined them.

00:20:51.780 And one of the things President Bukele was very grateful about is President Trump is exactly the opposite.

00:20:57.200 He and President Trump are quite close.

00:20:59.040 You'll remember not too long ago he was in D.C. in the Oval Office with President Trump.

00:21:04.400 They've worked together very, very closely.

00:21:07.140 And the difference in what he was emphasizing, he said, this is a choice.

00:21:12.660 It is a choice.

00:21:13.360 And we talked about D.C.

00:21:14.440 We actually analogized it.

00:21:15.880 Look, the president in D.C. said we're going to put federal law enforcement officials on the ground.

00:21:20.640 We're going to arrest murderers.

00:21:21.720 We're going to arrest criminals and keep people safe.

00:21:24.380 And the results have been dramatic.

00:21:26.200 Violent crime has dropped significantly in D.C. because of the simple act of saying we're going to arrest violent criminals.

00:21:32.920 That's a choice.

00:21:33.580 I'll tell you, President Bukele brought up San Francisco. 0.54

00:21:36.420 He brought up when Xi from China came to San Francisco and he said it was amazing.

00:21:41.500 Suddenly all the homeless people and drug addicts, they removed them all from the streets.

00:21:45.600 And I was laughing.

00:21:46.660 And this is what you and I talked about just two days ago on the podcast.

00:21:49.420 Gavin Newsom, when he was able to clean up San Francisco, he told every resident of San Francisco, you don't matter to me.

00:22:01.140 Let's assume, Ben, this is a little bit of a stretch, but let's assume you're a lefty, granola-crunching Marxist in San Francisco.

00:22:10.020 And you've been told over and over again, there's nothing we can do about homelessness or there were nothing we can do about heroin addicts shooting up on the street.

00:22:19.880 There's nothing we can do about people defecating on the streets.

00:22:23.340 And then suddenly the leader of communist China shows up and Gavin Newsom cleans everything in its sparkling spick and span. 0.99

00:22:31.360 And how, even if you were the most left-wing Democrat on earth, how do you not stop and say, wait a second?

00:22:36.800 You told me you couldn't fix this, and then in 24 hours you fixed it.

00:22:43.200 What that means is you could have fixed it a week ago, a month ago, a year ago, and you didn't.

00:22:48.360 Because my kids don't matter to you as much as the leader of China.

00:22:53.840 And that's what Bukele brought up, and he and I were both agreeing.

00:22:57.840 You can fix this problem if you choose to fix this problem.

00:23:02.500 And I've got to say, Bukele's results, and we talked about it, I did a press conference this evening where, of course, the reporters were attacking Bukele because they don't like his results.

00:23:11.760 And I said, listen, when you have a 98% reduction in the murder rates, the results speak for themselves.

00:23:19.400 And I said, there's an analogy to President Trump in the United States where, when he got sworn in, we have a 99% reduction in the rate of illegal border crossings that happened immediately.

00:23:31.940 And I did point out to Bukele when I said that. 0.66

00:23:34.100 I said, look, you're at 98.

00:23:36.500 President Trump's at 99.

00:23:37.780 I'm not trying to one-up you.

00:23:38.760 And I said, to be fair, I said, to be fair, your stat is murder, so that's, like, incredibly acute.

00:23:46.420 But if we're arguing between 98 and 99, that is incredible success for both our nations.

00:23:53.500 Canadian women are looking for more. 1.00

00:23:55.640 More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.

00:23:59.780 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:24:03.520 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:24:04.660 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:24:05.680 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

00:24:15.460 So, if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:24:18.680 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:24:22.760 And this, by the way, brings me to subject number two.

00:24:27.760 And you talk about how the left is just hell-bent on crime and making sure that crime stays high.

00:24:34.740 They're fighting law and order everywhere they can.

00:24:37.700 They still haven't even learned of how bad it makes them look to support an illegal alien criminal who has become the poster child of the Democratic Party. 0.55

00:24:47.760 And let's talk about the update to this Camaro Abrego-Garcia story.

00:24:53.380 Well, this is the Maryland man who the Democrats have decided is who they stand for.

00:25:00.360 And he's an MS-13 gangbanger.

00:25:02.920 And he was arrested.

00:25:04.920 He was deported to El Salvador.

00:25:06.580 He was brought back.

00:25:07.540 He's been charged with human trafficking.

00:25:09.240 He's also been alleged to have physically assaulted and beaten his wife.

00:25:18.000 You and I on this podcast read through the indictment and the human trafficking, the crimes that he'd been involved with MS-13 for a decade.

00:25:27.580 And yet Democrat senators, including Chris Van Hollen, the Democrat from Maryland, who's my colleague, flew down to El Salvador and did something very different than what I did.

00:25:38.360 I sat down with McKellie and wanted to talk about his incredible success making the country safer and protecting innocent families.

00:25:45.700 Chris Van Hollen wanted to go to the prison where Abrego-Garcia was and sit down and have margaritas with him and be like, oh, it's terrible that they're locking up gang members.

00:25:55.740 And you know what Americans want, apparently what Van Hollen thinks Marylanders want, is more illegal immigrants and more gang members.

00:26:04.140 And so what happened is ICE arrested Brego-Garcia, and they're in the process of deporting him yet again.

00:26:12.720 And the Democrats are once again circling around him because apparently they believe that's what Americans want.

00:26:21.500 And I want you to listen to this clip of what happened concerning his arrest.

00:26:30.360 Give a listen.

00:26:31.600 Thank you, Mr. President.

00:26:33.720 Today, MS-13 gangbaker and human trafficker Kilmar Abrego-Garcia turned himself into ICE in Baltimore.

00:26:40.460 Do you have any comment on this?

00:26:41.720 And why are the Democrats so emotionally attached to this man who beats his wife and is part of a terrorist organization?

00:26:48.260 Because they think he's going to be good for votes.

00:26:52.380 And I think he's very bad for votes. 0.97

00:26:54.540 These people are deranged. 0.54

00:26:56.180 He's not good for votes. 0.99

00:26:58.040 He beat the hell out of his wife. 0.99

00:26:59.800 His wife is afraid to even talk about him. 0.99

00:27:01.860 She's been mauled by this animal.

00:27:05.040 And, you know, through a system of liberal courts, you know, he's doing things.

00:27:11.380 But, no, we have that under control, and Pam has got that very much under control. 0.89

00:27:16.540 Do you want to comment on it, Pam?

00:27:17.820 No, no, we've got him under control.

00:27:20.580 He will no longer terrorize our country.

00:27:22.820 He's currently charged with human smuggling, including children.

00:27:27.100 The guy needs to be in prison.

00:27:29.020 He doesn't need to be on the streets like all these liberals want him to be.

00:27:33.160 And as part of this operation here in D.C., we've also taken off MS-13 members.

00:27:39.220 We've taken, I think just last night, we got a TDA guy off our streets right here, right around from where we all work.

00:27:46.140 Another TDA member gone because of this project.

00:27:49.540 So we're going to keep America safe from all of these foreign terrorist organizations, including Abrego Garcia. 0.97

00:27:56.240 You know, one of the funniest things, Pam Bondi, when she's talking about it, she said, you know, in D.C., we got an MS, and she starts to say MSNBC, and then she's like an MSN-13.

00:28:08.580 Yeah.

00:28:09.800 And like an MSNBC reporter, an MSNBC commentator off the street, who, to be honest, there may not be a massive difference because on MSNBC, what are they doing?

00:28:19.900 They're defending MS-13.

00:28:21.360 But I just thought that was a really amusing Freudian slip.

00:28:24.440 Yeah.

00:28:24.780 No, you can't make it up.

00:28:26.040 It's one of those that makes me laugh.

00:28:27.560 You look at this story, and I've got to say, I really like our chances right now going into a midterm.

00:28:35.260 If Democrats cannot get it together, even their national, I don't know, convention, whatever the hell you call it, they're obsessed over words and language.

00:28:45.120 They're obsessed with defending criminals and illegal alien criminals. 0.56

00:28:48.740 Like, they're learning nothing, and they're certainly not listening to the American people and what they're saying either.

00:28:56.040 Which is the most important thing.

00:28:57.460 Yeah, well, look.

00:28:58.960 We saw an illustration of this with Cracker Barrel.

00:29:01.240 Cracker Barrel is a terrific institution, particularly in the South.

00:29:04.780 And their woke leadership decided that everything the company was built on, they didn't like.

00:29:10.000 And in particular, they didn't like their customers.

00:29:12.740 You know, their customers, they thought, were not nearly as enlightened as they should be.

00:29:17.600 They were not nearly as woke as they should be.

00:29:19.460 And the whole thing was very reminiscent of Bud Light.

00:29:22.660 You know, Bud Light, you had a marketing executive who said, you know, the people who buy Bud Light, we don't like them.

00:29:28.220 We need to have, you know, a bunch of woke transgender activists drinking our beer instead. 1.00

00:29:34.460 It was reminiscent of what happened with Target, where they decided to market, you know, to market to transgender toddlers and do it prominently, pushing bathing suits for two-year-old boys to tuck their genitals to hide them away to pretend they're not boys. 0.61

00:29:56.980 That was Target thinking, this is really what America wants, because, you know, if you're the parent of a two-year-old, clearly you want your son to believe he's a daughter when he's two.

00:30:06.600 This is a phenomenon of business leaders who buy into an ideology that is wildly unpopular and ultimately directly antithetical to their customers.

00:30:20.100 And so Cracker Barrel had a logo, had a logo of, you know, an old guy sitting on a chair next to a giant barrel, and they decided, okay, let's get rid of the cracker, let's get rid of the barrel, let's get rid of it all.

00:30:31.160 And we'll just have anodyne words because we're really embarrassed that we're for anything nostalgic, anything that is Americana.

00:30:41.220 And the pushback has been phenomenal.

00:30:44.680 Their stock price has tanked, just like Bud Light, just like Target.

00:30:48.740 And just today they announced, never mind, okay, yeah, this has not worked well, the beatings are really hurting, so we're going to stop.

00:30:58.800 But it is striking that it took the reaction of the market for them to figure it out.

00:31:06.940 I want to say, though, it is a great, great victory for common sense that Cracker Barrel finally gave in and said, you know what, we're going to stop being woke because we'd like to actually have one or two customers when this is all said and done.

00:31:21.200 Yeah, I think the frustration of conservatives now voting with our dollars, and that is what ultimately this came down to with Cracker Barrel.

00:31:29.520 This was a bunch of Americans that said, okay, you despise us, you despise, you know, who we are as a customer base.

00:31:39.120 You're basically telling us you don't want us anymore.

00:31:41.820 Watch this.

00:31:43.540 And that is exactly how they got to this point very quickly. 1.00

00:31:47.260 And look, I also think when you have people like you and the president who are willing to speak out on this and say, you guys are being stupid, 0.99

00:31:53.520 they realize how quickly others are like, yeah, us too, like we're going to, you know, we're going to say that we think this is ridiculous. 0.98

00:32:01.900 And we're starting to finally, I think, see the pendulum swing back the other way, which is really, really cool.

00:32:08.120 I was gratified because yesterday President Trump publicly called out Cracker Barrel and said, look, you need to just go back to your old logo, like give this up, end the rebranding, and accept that you were wrong.

00:32:19.400 And I'll tell you, I jumped in on Twitter, I retweeted him, I said, this is absolutely right.

00:32:24.080 And the two of us were very vocal saying, go back to where you were.

00:32:28.020 And 24 hours later, they did so.

00:32:30.200 That was gratifying.

00:32:31.540 It's not always that people listen, they listen to common sense.

00:32:35.060 In this case, they did.

00:32:36.640 And it's worth noting, it isn't just in the last week that people noticed that what Cracker Barrel was doing was nuts.

00:32:46.140 Almost a year ago, November of last year, a big investor in Cracker Barrel, a guy named Sardar Big Laurie, he owns approximately 5% of the restaurant chain stock.

00:33:01.200 He wrote to his fellow shareholders that the Cracker Barrel transformation was a, quote, mistake of misguided executives falling into a textbook trap of overspending on cosmetic remodeling.

00:33:14.360 And he continued, the day Cracker Barrel opened, it was already old.

00:33:20.720 Its theme derived from the 1920s.

00:33:24.240 And he wrote, I am concerned that not only will the remodel not work, but it could actually damage the brand further.

00:33:33.340 These decisions are taking us down the same path, I believe, as Ruby Tuesday, Red Lobster, TGI Fridays, and the like.

00:33:40.500 Let me make my position clear.

00:33:43.200 The company's $700 million remodel plan will not work.

00:33:50.680 And he called in a letter to the shareholders in October of 2024, the board's transformation plan, quote, obvious folly.

00:33:59.840 And yet the corporate leadership ignored the shareholder owned 5% of the company.

00:34:05.320 And they charged down that road anyway, and they vaporized roughly 15% of the market cap of the company because they were more interested in listening to woke marketing executives.

00:34:18.540 And by the way, the entire marketing world, much of that is a scam of left-wing woke people who despise their customers.

00:34:27.480 And let me say, if you're in corporate America, don't listen to marketing executives that don't understand and don't like your customers.

00:34:33.480 But in this instance, Cracker Barrel should have listened to its investor and not these marketing execs.

00:34:39.480 And it paid the price.

00:34:40.500 But the good news is they finally, finally, finally listened and reversed and said, you know what?

00:34:46.600 The principles we were founded on, the principles America was founded on, those principles are pretty good.

00:34:52.240 We're going to get back to them.

00:34:53.500 Yeah, it's incredible.

00:34:54.400 All right, final question for you.

00:34:56.540 You've got day one in the books of the Codell.

00:34:58.740 You're going to be down there and also doing more.

00:35:02.460 We're going to be able to talk about that coming up on the next episode of Verdict.

00:35:06.380 That's right.

00:35:07.380 This is a multi-day trip, and we're traveling to two other countries throughout Latin America.

00:35:12.440 And the focus is really on meeting with heads of state, meeting with leaders in each of these countries,

00:35:17.580 where the issues directly impact the United States, directly impact Texas.

00:35:23.040 They impact our national security.

00:35:24.900 They impact our economy.

00:35:26.680 By the way, I had dinner tonight with the economy minister here in El Salvador.

00:35:30.220 They're very focused on American investment, on energy, on technology, on pharmaceuticals, on creating jobs.

00:35:38.540 And by the way, to give a sense of how much these changes matter, I'm going to give you two stats to wrap up with.

00:35:45.240 The justice minister told me they've had over 10,000 applications for people who want to be police officers.

00:35:51.700 Suddenly, people are eager to be police officers because it's making a difference because they're making their community safe.

00:35:58.500 Previously, when the gangs were running the country, they had in one year over 300 police officers murdered.

00:36:04.840 Being a police officer was literally taking your life and your family's life in danger.

00:36:10.480 Now people are lining up to be police officers because they see the difference.

00:36:13.820 But here's something else.

00:36:14.740 It used to be that the people of El Salvador were fleeing this country because, look, you were risking being murdered.

00:36:21.200 Your kids were risking being murdered.

00:36:23.060 You wanted to get out.

00:36:24.940 Now we are seeing reverse migration.

00:36:28.540 There are roughly 6 million Salvadorans in El Salvador.

00:36:31.460 There are about 3 million Salvadorans in the United States.

00:36:34.400 President Bucalli told me roughly half of those Salvadorans in America, about 1.5 million, have said they want to come back to El Salvador.

00:36:44.040 They're seeing reverse migration because suddenly people are saying, wait, I fled my country because I was terrified for my safety and my family.

00:36:51.740 Now the country's safe.

00:36:53.220 I want to come back.

00:36:54.280 I love the beach and the mountains and the people and the culture.

00:36:57.440 That is changing this country, and it ought to be an encouragement to any other leader, to any mayor, to anyone facing crime and challenges.

00:37:08.340 When you fix these problems, it doesn't just keep people safe, which it does, but it has economic benefits.

00:37:15.080 It literally transforms your community.

00:37:18.280 That's inspirational, and as I said, this is the beginning of a multi-day trip throughout Latin America, so in two days we'll report on the rest of the trip.

00:37:26.260 It's going to be awesome.

00:37:27.060 Don't forget we do this show Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so hit that subscribe or auto-download button, and the center and I will see you back here in a couple of days.

00:37:36.080 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:37:38.960 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - August 27, 2025

On the Ground with President Bukele in El Salvador plus Cracker Barrel Surrenders

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