00:04:42.440So, what is happening is a poor clerk of the court, or clerk of the Senate, rather, has to sit there and read a thousand-page bill.
00:04:52.920And so, all night, Saturday night, at 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 4 a.m., 5 a.m., a clerk of the court is reading page after page of a thousand-page bill.
00:05:03.660They're going to read the entirety of the bill.
00:05:07.940We will then, shortly thereafter, so the Democrats then have 10 hours of debate where they're all going to stand up.
00:05:14.100And the preview that they're going to say on Sunday is they're going to say Republicans are horrible.
00:05:18.840They're going to say Republicans are throwing granny off the cliff.
00:05:21.500They're going to say Republicans hate poor kids, hate people with disabilities, hate women, children, men, old people, young people, puppies, kittens, everyone and everything.
00:05:50.360My prediction is this podcast will come out, and we'll still be voting.
00:05:54.680We'll end voting sometime between midnight, 1, 2, 3, 4 a.m., 5 a.m.
00:06:00.980It could be as late as 7, 8, 9, 10 a.m. on Monday.
00:06:05.240It depends how long the Democrats delay.
00:06:08.300One of the weird things about budget reconciliation, the entire process proceeds under the Budget Act of 1974.
00:06:14.400The reason reconciliation matters, there's a lot of procedural gobbledygook that doesn't matter, but the reason it matters, it's the principal exception to the Senate filibuster.
00:06:25.240The ordinary rules in the Senate are that you need 60 votes to proceed on legislation.
00:07:20.340They spent trillions of dollars through budget reconciliation.
00:07:23.400The so-called Inflation Reduction Act was passed through budget reconciliation.
00:07:28.280And so, look, we teed up all sorts of terrible votes, which, frankly, we ran campaign ads against them and beat them in November on that.
00:07:35.840And so there is value in forcing your opponents to vote on things they don't want to vote for, particularly when your opponents are embracing unpopular positions.
00:07:45.060In this case, they'll try to tee up bad amendments, and hopefully Republicans will rally together and reject those amendments.
00:07:52.800I expect that all 100 senators – and by the way, the median age is about 106, so that says something – at the end of the day, I believe we'll get this done.
00:09:24.440On top of that, there's another $150 billion to rebuild the military, to invest in defeating China,
00:09:32.960defeating our adversaries, to invest in hypersonics, to invest in the next generation of military defense.
00:09:41.900Historically, the Democrats keep defense hostage.
00:09:45.140So the battle that you have in Washington, classically, is between guns and butter, where Republicans care about guns.
00:09:52.220We care about actually defending the nation, supporting our military.
00:09:55.740The Democrats, by and large, don't care about that, and they try to hold defense spending hostage to push for more domestic spending, more welfare.
00:10:08.340We're making a major investment in the military precisely because the Democrats can't hold that hostage.
00:10:15.060And then there are a ton of other priorities, including three huge priorities of mine, legislation that I introduced that are in this bill.
00:10:23.600Number one, auctioning off 800 megahertz of spectrum.
00:10:43.180And 60% of the most valuable spectrum is controlled by the federal government.
00:10:48.400I wrote the provision in this bill that mandates the federal government sell a significant chunk of that spectrum to the private sector.
00:10:56.040That's going to do a couple of things, Ben.
00:10:57.600And number one, it's going to produce, I believe, over $100 billion in real revenue to the taxpayers, money that will pay down the deficit, pay down the debt.
00:11:07.580So that's real revenue to the federal government.
00:11:09.920But number two, even more importantly, it will unleash billions of dollars of private sector investment and create hundreds of thousands of jobs.
00:11:18.360Because America needs to win the race for 6G, which is the next generation of telecom, and beat China.
00:11:40.340As we speak now, I'm battling with the Senate parliamentarian to keep that in the bill.
00:11:45.240I believe we will keep that in the bill.
00:11:47.520And that investment, I think, school choice is the civil rights issue of the 21st century.
00:11:52.700And finally, there are the Invest America accounts, the Trump accounts, where this bill will create a private investment account for every child in America, will seed it with $1,000, will allow family and employers and parents to contribute $5,000 a year in a tax-advantaged fund.
00:12:11.920That fund will be invested in the S&P 500.
00:12:15.280It will grow with compound growth, and it will make a whole new generation of capitalists.
00:12:21.780I actually think this provision, it's a very small part of the bill.
00:12:25.360I think 10, 20, 30 years from now, it will be the single most impactful part of the bill because we will have a whole generation of kids who have built up savings and investment in the market.
00:12:36.680They will be owners of the major employers in America.
00:12:42.320It's going to be, as you said, one of the core things, I think, for Donald Trump and a victory for him and for the American people.
00:12:48.120How significant do you think the boost could be just to the rest of the agenda of putting America first, the MAGA agenda, because of this big victory?
00:12:58.800I say early on in his administration, yes, we're well past 100 days.
00:13:02.880It takes time to get these things done.
00:13:05.060But this could also be momentum building for other agenda items.
00:14:26.680And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.
00:14:36.460So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:14:39.700Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:14:43.760I want to move to the other big story as well.
00:14:48.100And this one deals with the Supreme Court.
00:14:50.320The Supreme Court's term has come to an end.
00:14:53.360And there was a major, not just win, but wins for President Trump and also the rule of law.
00:15:01.900I love talking Supreme Court with you.
00:15:34.860The most important was a decision on President Trump's birthright citizenship executive order.
00:15:41.520And the punchline is the court dramatically reined in the ability of district courts to issue nationwide injunctions, universal injunctions.
00:15:50.540We're going to break all that down momentarily.
00:15:52.080There was also a big victory that held that the parents of public school children can opt out of LGBT curriculum.
00:16:02.440It's a big win for religious liberty, big win for parental rights.
00:16:06.940And finally, one other decision upheld a Texas law.
00:16:11.400So Texas passed a law requiring age verification for porn sites.
00:16:15.780That was challenged as unconstitutional.
00:16:18.360And the Supreme Court upheld that 6-3 as well.
00:16:21.900So three big victories, really important.
00:16:31.480This is also, by the way, something that you chaired the subcommittee hearing on that very issue earlier this month.
00:16:39.320So explain why this is such an important issue for everyone listening.
00:16:44.860Well, this was a case challenging President Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship.
00:16:50.400Birthright citizenship is the law that says that a baby born in America is a U.S. citizen, even if that baby's parents are illegal, even if they came illegally precisely to have that baby in America.
00:17:03.000Nonetheless, that baby is a U.S. citizen.
00:17:05.060As a policy matter, I think that is a very foolish policy.
00:17:10.740It is a policy that incentivizes illegal immigration.
00:17:15.820I spend a lot of time at the southern border.
00:17:17.880I go out on midnight patrols with the border patrol agents.
00:17:20.780We see everyday pregnant women coming across the border illegally, coming across, being brought in by human traffickers with the express purpose of coming here to have their baby in America because that baby then becomes an anchor baby.
00:17:38.040And by the way, most of the other countries on earth don't have that policy.
00:17:40.880If you sneak into another country illegally, most other countries don't make them a citizen of that country.
00:17:47.320It is an accident of American history that our law has done that.
00:17:51.720And so for more than a decade, I've been advocating for ending birthright citizenship.
00:17:57.980Now, Ben, there is an open legal debate about how you can end birthright citizenship.
00:18:03.100There are some legal scholars who argue it can only be done through a constitutional amendment, and the reason is part of the predicate for birthright citizenship is the language of the 14th Amendment that talks about granting citizenship to people born in America.
00:18:20.580Now, there's a phrase in the 14th Amendment which is subject to the jurisdiction thereof, and legal scholars argue back and forth.
00:18:30.440Some say you can only change birthright citizenship through a constitutional amendment.
00:18:35.120If that's the case, we should have an amendment because it's a policy that is foolish.
00:18:40.280Others say Congress can pass legislation to end birthright citizenship because someone who comes here illegally is not subject to the jurisdiction thereof, is not subject to American jurisdiction, but rather came here illegally.
00:18:53.800I've introduced legislation to end birthright citizenship through legislation.
00:18:58.680What President Trump has done is he's tried to do it a third way, which is through an executive order.
00:19:04.580That's going to be a harder hurdle to get through, but he's trying to do it, and on the policy grounds, he is exactly right.
00:19:11.420So what happened is in this case there was a lawsuit challenging President Trump's executive order, purporting to eliminate birthright citizenship.
00:19:21.960And the district judge issued a nationwide injunction, a so-called universal injunction.
00:19:28.860So ordinarily, courts have jurisdiction, have authority over the parties in front of them.
00:19:35.200So if you have two parties in a car wreck and they crash into each other and one party sues the other, the court has jurisdiction over those two parties to say, okay, you're at fault.
00:19:45.200You pay for the repairs, the medical bills of the person injured.
00:19:49.120That is called, under the Constitution, Article III of the Constitution, courts are given jurisdiction over cases and controversies, so actual disputes between real people.
00:19:58.820What the district judge did in this case is issued an injunction prohibiting Donald Trump and prohibiting the entire federal government from enforcing the birthright citizenship executive order against anybody, not just against the parties in front of the court.
00:20:15.440But 330 million people in this country, the court said, you cannot enforce this against anybody.
00:20:23.200That is something that, for the first 100-plus years of our country, never occurred.
00:20:31.880Universal injunctions began occurring more frequently, but not that much more frequently.
00:20:37.440There have been over 40 universal injunctions issued against Donald Trump in the first five months of his presidency.
00:20:44.840Now, how does that compare to the historical record?
00:20:47.360There are more universal injunctions that have been issued against President Trump than were issued in the entire 20th century, from 1900 to 2000.
00:20:58.720There have been more in the last five months than there were in those 100 years.
00:21:05.900There have been more universal injunctions issued against President Trump than were issued against all eight years of George W. Bush, all eight years of Barack Obama, and all four years of Joe Biden.
00:21:20.100Five months, Trump has even more than that.
00:21:22.600It has been an abuse of power, and as you noted, I have been very vocal.
00:21:35.900During the last four years, we saw Democrat prosecutors indicting Donald Trump that was using the courts to attack their political enemy to try to stop the voters from re-electing Donald Trump.
00:21:49.120Once President Trump was re-elected, this was the next iteration of lawfare.
00:21:52.780Get Democrat attorneys general, get left-wing radical groups to go seek out radical district judges put on the bench by Joe Biden and Barack Obama to issue injunctions and shut down the entire Trump agenda because, and understand, these Democrat attorneys general, they don't believe in democracy.
00:22:13.520They don't believe the voters have a right to decide this is what we want and to elect someone to carry it out.
00:22:18.240Instead, they want courts to stand in the way.
00:22:21.180Well, you and I talked about it on an earlier podcast, what I thought was likely here, and what I predicted on this podcast, as I said, I think the Supreme Court is going to rein in universal injunctions.
00:22:36.200The Supreme Court's going to make clear this is an abuse of power.
00:22:39.260And so I was really optimistic because in terms of the tools we have to rein in universal injunctions, the Supreme Court acting is by far the best.
00:23:02.240It makes clear that individual district judges do not have the legal authority, they don't have the jurisdiction, to issue universal injunctions.
00:23:11.580That is a massive victory for the rule of law, and it is a massive blow against the lawfare that the radical left is waging against President Trump.
00:23:22.120And that wasn't the only victory that came down.
00:23:24.980Another one was a free speech coalition versus Paxton.
00:23:29.680And this was a case out of Texas where the Supreme Court came down 6-3, and they held that Texas age verification law, where you have to verify your age to be on a pornographic website, is in fact constitutional.
00:23:46.240This is really a huge, I think, build-off to something that you worked so hard on that there was bipartisan support for, which was the Take It Down Act.
00:23:58.800And this really, coupled with that, is a significant move by the United States to protect kids under the age of 18.
00:24:09.900It's scary to be a parent right now because our kids, when our kids get to be teenagers, we give them phones.
00:24:17.600And phones are just this portal to everything evil and horrible in the world, the pressures that are on our kids.
00:24:26.040When you and I were young, the biggest thing you had to worry about was the kid down the street punching you in the nose and giving you a bloody nose.
00:24:32.800And that wasn't fun, but it didn't end your life.
00:24:37.620Today, our kids deal with, they deal with sexual predators online.
00:24:43.220They deal with social media pushing all sorts of negative content to them, pushing self-harm, pushing suicidal ideation, pushing substance abuse, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, pushing body image.
00:24:56.820Look, I'm the dad of two daughters, and there's so much garbage online telling young girls, you're too fat, you're too ugly, you're this, you're that.
00:25:04.880And it does real damage and depression, anxiety, all the pressures that are directed at kids.
00:25:10.960And one of the pressures that are directed at kids is there is so much sexual content that is just bombarding children and bombarding sometimes young kids.
00:25:22.480And so the state of Texas passed a law, I think it's a very common sense law, that says if you have a site that is putting pornography online, that you have to verify if the users are over 18 or not, that you should not be pushing out porn to kids.
00:25:36.080And listen, when it comes to questions of free speech, I'm very libertarian.
00:25:42.340I think adults have a right to speak, and if they want to go back and forth on issues like this, adults can.
00:26:10.160There was a lawsuit that said, look, we have a right to give five-year-olds graphic porn.
00:26:15.420And the Supreme Court, 6-3, Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion, said, no, there's nothing in the First Amendment that says you have the right to push pornography to young children.
00:26:25.880And states have a reasonable interest in protecting kids.
00:26:30.520I think that's a common-sense victory.
00:26:33.140And on free speech, I'm a free speech absolutist, but I also think there is room for protecting children.
00:26:40.240When it comes to adults, adults are welcome to consume all sorts of content.
00:26:45.020But there's no reason 5, 6, 7, 8, 9-year-olds should be seeing all the garbage that's there.
00:26:55.200I'm really gratified this was an important decision.
00:26:59.720And finally, the other one that you mentioned earlier, this one for me is so important for parental rights and getting parental rights back in our public schools.
00:27:09.440Because there was a massive fight where parents were saying, we should be able to opt our kids out of this LGBTQ plus curriculum.
00:28:00.480We're talking young kids, kids kindergarten through fifth grade.
00:28:04.900And they pushed content that was pushing LGBT content, that was pushing transgender content to little children, five, six, seven, eight-year-olds.
00:28:18.000And a group of parents said, hey, this is wrong.
00:28:22.980A group of parents, and they included Catholics, they included Muslims, they said, we don't want our school indoctrinating, brainwashing our kids that you think it's great to be gay, to be transgender.
00:28:36.380You think it's great, like if you're a boy, one day you think you're a girl.
00:28:40.300It's not the school's job to tell our five-year-olds that's your ideology.
00:28:44.760And so they sued, and the school board said, basically, go jump in a lake.
00:28:52.400We're going to indoctrinate your kids, and you have no right.
00:28:56.660And on appeal, well, the district court and the court of appeals both ruled against the parents and said they had no right.
00:29:06.860And it went to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court 6-3 upheld the right of the parents to opt out of that curriculum.
00:29:17.720And the court said, quote, because it has long recognized the rights of parents to direct the religious upbringing of their children,
00:29:25.420the court concluded that the parents are likely to succeed on the claim that the board's policies unconstitutionally burdens their religious exercise.
00:29:34.920Justice Alito wrote the majority opinion for a 6-3 court, and they said that parents' rights are violated
00:29:42.820when the government, quote, substantially interferes with their children's religious development.
00:29:49.940And so this is a great protection for parental rights.
00:29:54.520Look, parents ought to be in charge of what is being taught to their kids.
00:29:58.460It's also a great victory for religious liberty.
00:30:00.380If a parent wants to teach kids to embrace a radical agenda, whether on LGBT or anything else, a parent has a right to do that.
00:30:10.900But the school system should not be indoctrining children, in particular young children.
00:30:16.700Kindergarteners is what this case was about.
00:30:18.940And so this is a big victory, three big victories for our constitutional rights, for common sense,
00:30:26.460and all three of them were 6-3 out of the Supreme Court.