Verdict with Ted Cruz - September 06, 2025


Pritzker ＂Nothing to see here＂ on Chicago Crime, the Clean DC Act & Narcos in New England Week In Review


Episode Stats

Length

35 minutes

Words per Minute

176.0824

Word Count

6,217

Sentence Count

490

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

8


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.580 Guaranteed human.
00:00:06.300 Welcome.
00:00:07.020 It is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
00:00:08.740 Weekend Review.
00:00:09.740 Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:10.840 And these are the stories that you may have missed that we talked about this past week.
00:00:14.320 First up, Democrats, including the governor of Illinois,
00:00:18.340 they're going all in to defend their criminals and their cities that are ruining it.
00:00:24.040 So what is behind this logic?
00:00:26.480 We're going to break it down for you.
00:00:28.020 Also, D.C. is getting cleaned up, and now we have the Clean D.C. Act
00:00:32.920 and why other cities might have to look at the exact same blueprint.
00:00:37.700 And finally, 117 narco terrorists caught in New England,
00:00:43.300 all of them a part of one major narcos gang.
00:00:47.480 It's the Weekend Review, and it starts right now.
00:00:51.040 Which, Senator, brings us to part two of this conversation.
00:00:54.380 Let's bring it back home.
00:00:55.600 J.D. Pritzker is an interesting man.
00:00:59.500 He's got a lot of money.
00:01:00.940 He's a governor.
00:01:01.980 And he thinks he's succeeding at fighting crime.
00:01:05.520 But getting illegal immigrant killers and rapists off our streets is, quote-unquote, dangerous, he says.
00:01:11.880 And now it is apparently anti-American.
00:01:14.820 Tie that into your trip to Mexico.
00:01:16.900 I mean, you want to talk about two people that could have gotten together and had one heck of a lunch.
00:01:20.880 The people you met with, with J.D., they'd be, like, kumbaya-ing this stuff.
00:01:24.820 Well, J.B. Pritzker, he is a billionaire.
00:01:27.840 Like many Democrat billionaires, he did not make his money.
00:01:31.060 He inherited it.
00:01:32.580 He inherited a vast fortune, and he's now the governor of Illinois.
00:01:36.400 And presiding over a state where the people are fleeing his state, where crime is out of control, where left-wing policies are an absolute disaster.
00:01:46.800 And it's striking.
00:01:49.680 He has the same reality-denying vision.
00:01:53.580 And Gavin Newsom has the same thing in California, where they both, you know, it reminds me of that meme of the dumpster burning in the background and saying, you know, everything's fine here.
00:02:02.720 That is today's Democrats just telling you, don't believe your lying eyes.
00:02:07.160 Just make sure to duck the bullets when you're in your living room.
00:02:09.540 But everything other than that is great.
00:02:11.920 J.B. Pritzker says he's succeeding at fighting violent crime in Chicago.
00:02:15.820 And you're right, it is reminiscent of these Mexican government leaders who said they're handling it just fine.
00:02:21.220 Look at the great progress they're making.
00:02:22.700 And you look at the cartels who are murdering Mexicans with impunity and who are committing vast numbers of crime in the United States.
00:02:29.680 Here, give a listen to J.B. Pritzker, governor of Illinois.
00:02:32.860 What we won't do, however, is engage in what is a federal effort.
00:02:39.060 That is to say, they have their job, immigration.
00:02:42.500 We have our job, which is to fight violent crime on the streets of our city.
00:02:47.900 And by the way, we're succeeding at that job.
00:02:50.360 But when they bring people in and don't coordinate with us, they're going to cause enormous problems.
00:02:56.000 So going to cause enormous problems there, Senator.
00:02:58.460 I mean, if that doesn't sound like a threat, I don't know what is.
00:03:01.480 So Pritzker claims he is succeeding at fighting violent crime in Chicago.
00:03:05.220 Chicago has had the most murders of any American city for 13 consecutive years.
00:03:12.960 Thirteen years in a row, Chicago is number one.
00:03:16.000 Chicago's murder rate is three times higher than Los Angeles.
00:03:19.760 It is five times higher than New York City.
00:03:22.780 It is two times higher than Islamabad.
00:03:25.760 And it is 15 times higher than Delhi.
00:03:28.900 And the answer to a billionaire Democrat who is surrounded by police officers at all times.
00:03:35.300 So he's not worried about being mugged on the streets of Chicago.
00:03:38.040 That's not a threat he's facing.
00:03:40.060 He says, we've got the highest murder rate in America.
00:03:42.640 We're succeeding.
00:03:43.600 This is Democrat success.
00:03:46.220 You know, but he goes even further.
00:03:48.720 He expresses great dismay that if President Trump is successful in turning around crime in Chicago, that would be a bad thing.
00:03:58.520 Listen to the second clip.
00:04:00.540 So this is dangerous.
00:04:01.800 They shouldn't be doing it.
00:04:02.960 It's anti-American.
00:04:04.140 It's un-American.
00:04:05.520 And I would tell her to maybe check herself for what does she really believe.
00:04:12.080 Nothing says we're fighting crime like threatening the woman who's out there in Department of Homeland Security Secretary Noem and saying you need to check yourself, right?
00:04:19.600 And saying it's dangerous and un-American and anti-American to go after illegal killers and rapists.
00:04:25.660 It's stunning.
00:04:28.840 The Democrats are becoming more and more open that if they have a conflict between a murderer and a victim, if they have a conflict between a Venezuelan gang member and an innocent American citizen, if they have a conflict between a rapist and a single mom, if they have a conflict between a violent sexual predator and your children, the Democrats will pick the criminal every single time.
00:04:52.920 They're not even pretending anymore to go after those criminals, Democrat Governor Pritzker says, is dangerous, anti-American and un-American.
00:05:01.500 And I think the American people are getting fed up.
00:05:04.920 You know, there was a new poll from AP slash NORC that found that a large majority of Americans, 68 percent, see crime as a major problem in large cities.
00:05:17.120 And and and the approach of the Democrat Party is they're not going to do anything about it.
00:05:22.140 In fact, the highest murder rate in the U.S. they describe as a success.
00:05:27.400 And what it is, it's reminiscent of the leadership in El Salvador when they had the highest murder rate in the world and they describe what they were doing as a success.
00:05:36.120 And the only answer is new political leadership that actually says keeping our citizens safe is our number one priority and we're going to do so.
00:05:44.980 We've seen what happens when President Trump does so in the United States and the border is immediately secured.
00:05:51.140 We had a ninety nine percent decrease in illegal crossings.
00:05:54.660 We saw what happened with President Bukele in El Salvador where they had a ninety eight percent drop in homicides.
00:06:00.120 Homicides. Ironically, we saw what happened in San Francisco where President Xi came to San Francisco and Gavin Newsom immediately cleaned up San Francisco, removed the homeless people, took the junkies off the street and cleaned up the human feces off the street.
00:06:14.860 All of which demonstrates they know how to do so if they could do so on Monday, they could do so on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
00:06:22.620 The reason they don't, the reason the crime persists, the reason your family is threatened is because the Democrats politically, their ideology, they think it's better to side with the criminals than it is with you.
00:06:36.660 And that I don't get that, but that's where we are.
00:06:41.340 And I do think it's part of the reason we see today's Democrat Party getting more and more extreme and appealing to a smaller and smaller sliver of our society.
00:06:50.860 Final question on this. I believe now that the Democratic Party is in such shambles that they don't even know how to get out of this.
00:06:58.740 There is no real leader. We're being told Obama's coming back and going to, like, quote, start mentoring people in the Democratic Party.
00:07:05.160 That's how desperate they are. The same guy that's the godfather, as I described it on Laura Ingraham's show on Fox Friday night, as as as the godfather of this type of insanity and anarchy.
00:07:15.980 He's the guy that that created the AOCs of the party and gave them power.
00:07:21.420 And and so you look at the Democratic Party now, I don't want to be overconfident.
00:07:25.600 But what I do want to say is I feel like these midterms may actually be a big opportunity for Republican candidates coming up.
00:07:31.440 Usually you give up seats when you have all three branches in the midterms.
00:07:35.560 There's a chance this could actually work out for conservatives, as you mentioned, because the voters are so sick and tired of the left not keeping them safe.
00:07:44.780 It's not even about the economy. It's about safety.
00:07:47.500 Yeah, look, I hope so, Ben. I'll confess I'm I'm significantly more worried than you.
00:07:53.240 We've got crosscutting forces for the midterms on the positive side for Republicans.
00:07:58.440 The Democrats have gotten so extreme, so whack job out there that it seems like they took a list of a dozen 80 20 issues and they said, let's take the 20 percent side of all of them.
00:08:08.600 And in some instances, they've even taken 90 10 issues and said, let's appeal to the smallest sliver of America we can.
00:08:15.600 Generally speaking, that is a really bad political strategy. So that augers in our favor.
00:08:21.900 On the other side, we have a real enthusiasm gap and that this worries me about the midterms, which is an awful lot of Americans are really happy with with the success we've seen in the first eight months of 2025.
00:08:33.600 President Trump has been winning major victories. The danger is that when people are happy, when they're when they're seeing success, they're complacent.
00:08:42.300 They stay home. I'll tell you what. The left is not complacent. They are enraged.
00:08:46.600 They are out raising Republicans three to one. They hate Donald Trump.
00:08:50.980 And we saw we just saw a special election in Iowa state senator seat that that Trump had won that district by 11 points.
00:08:58.700 They just elected a Democrat state senator in that district. That, I believe, was an enthusiasm gap that the left is motivated by rage and hate.
00:09:07.980 And that means that they are definitely showing up. And it's our job to make sure that that that the the common sense majority of this country is not complacent,
00:09:19.160 but realizes if we don't show up to defend what we've got, that that's how you get these whack jobs elected in the first place.
00:09:26.540 Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week.
00:09:33.820 Canadian women are looking for more, more of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders and the world around them.
00:09:40.060 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.
00:09:43.920 I'm Jennifer Stewart and I'm Catherine Clark.
00:09:46.220 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians and newsmakers,
00:09:53.260 all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:09:58.940 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:10:04.840 Now on to story number two.
00:10:06.740 All right, Senator, I want to bring you back home to something.
00:10:09.340 And you talk about cleaning things up.
00:10:11.700 That's what President Trump has said he's going to do with the terrorists and those that are bringing drugs in this country.
00:10:17.580 But he's also doing big things in different cities.
00:10:21.000 And now you have introduced the Clean D.C. Act.
00:10:25.060 Explain to us what this is.
00:10:27.600 Well, the principle is very much the same as we were talking about in foreign policy with the terrorists,
00:10:32.540 which is when you react with weakness, the result is domestically you get more and more crime.
00:10:39.820 When you react with weakness abroad, the result is internationally you get more and more terrorism and more and more enemies attacking.
00:10:46.240 The converse is true.
00:10:48.320 When you react with strength with regard to crime, when you lock up murderers and rapists and child molesters,
00:10:54.560 you get fewer violent crimes, number one, because of deterrence, number two, because of prevention.
00:10:59.080 You get the bad guys off the street.
00:11:01.080 In D.C., the murder rate has consistently been one of the highest in the entire country among large cities.
00:11:07.060 It is 27 homicides per 100,000 residents each year.
00:11:11.880 That is higher than Bogota, Colombia.
00:11:14.200 D.C., not only that, but if you look at vehicle theft, vehicle theft is 842 per 100,000 residents,
00:11:22.460 which is three times the national average.
00:11:25.360 And carjackings have tripled in recent years.
00:11:27.920 I'll tell you, actually, one time I was filming several years ago, I was filming Verdict.
00:11:32.280 It was a little past midnight, and we had our truck parked on the street.
00:11:36.000 I was in the studio filming it.
00:11:37.300 The truck was broken into, and my briefcase was stolen on the streets of D.C.
00:11:42.880 If you look at D.C., which is our nation's capital, you've got elected representatives and staff from all 50 states,
00:11:48.780 from all over the country.
00:11:50.640 We had earlier this year, we had a staffer from the White House, from Doge,
00:11:54.940 who was violently assaulted in D.C., beaten up by 10 juvenile offenders.
00:12:00.020 We had, in recent years, we had a staffer for Rand Paul who was stabbed in the middle of the afternoon on a D.C. street.
00:12:09.760 We had a former official in the first Trump administration who was shot and killed at 5 o'clock in the afternoon,
00:12:15.800 parked in his car on a D.C. street.
00:12:17.360 The violence is out of control, and it was made worse by a 2022 law, a 2022 law in the wake of the George Floyd killing
00:12:28.160 and the Black Lives Matter protest when anti-police fervor was driving the left crazy.
00:12:34.940 The D.C. City Council and the D.C. mayor came in, and they passed a law that lessened the penalties for violent crimes
00:12:41.960 almost entirely across the board.
00:12:43.560 They lessened the penalty for murder.
00:12:45.100 They lessened the penalty for carjacking.
00:12:46.840 They lessened the penalty for violent assault, and the effect, understandably, was those crimes all increased.
00:12:54.240 If you lessen the penalty for violent crime, the crimes increase, and this is the thing that the left doesn't understand.
00:13:01.420 We saw a Democrat congressman, Henry Cuellar from Texas, who was carjacked in his car at about 8 or 9 o'clock at night.
00:13:09.680 He was coming home with his dinner, and he was carjacked outside an apartment building that, if I remember correctly,
00:13:14.580 five other congressmen lived in.
00:13:17.420 That's how bad it was.
00:13:18.700 Now, I will tell you, in the past Congress, Congress took up legislation to reverse that 2022 law.
00:13:25.980 It passed the House, and it passed the Senate, and then Joe Biden vetoed it.
00:13:30.380 Joe Biden decided, all right, we're not going to let this go into effect.
00:13:33.840 Well, I've introduced, again, legislation that is called the Clean D.C. Act, and the Clean D.C. Act is very simple.
00:13:41.140 It is designed to repeal the 2022 law lessening the penalty for violent crimes, and the Clean D.C. Act, we're pushing for a vote.
00:13:53.520 I think the House may vote on it as soon as the next week or two.
00:13:57.580 I'll tell you, the Clean D.C. Act, it's supported by the D.C. Police Union.
00:14:01.520 It's supported by the Fraternal Order of the Police, and it's a good opportunity.
00:14:05.440 I think every member of Congress, every Democrat, every House member, needs to decide, okay, where do you stand?
00:14:12.340 Do you stand with the violent criminals?
00:14:14.040 Do you stand with the murderers?
00:14:15.080 Do you stand with the rapists?
00:14:16.380 Do you stand with the carjackers?
00:14:17.760 Or do you stand with the citizens of America?
00:14:22.360 That ought to be an easy vote, although, sadly, I'm going to predict, I think, an awful lot of Democrats are going to vote with criminals.
00:14:29.880 Yeah, it really does tell you where the Democrats' mindset is right now, where they can't even agree that criminals should be held accountable.
00:14:36.900 And it also just, I think, tells you about how sinister they are, which brings us to our final story.
00:14:42.480 The idea that because the president wasn't seen like 24-7, totally different than Joe Biden when he was president, by the way, that somehow he was dead was a trend on social media, and Democrats were celebrating it.
00:14:56.760 Now, it really was bizarre.
00:14:58.520 The left was losing their mind because a couple of days, President Trump hadn't done a public event.
00:15:04.320 And so suddenly the left, they were so excited, they were so excited that, oh, this means Trump is really sick, he's in the hospital, he's had a stroke, he's dead.
00:15:16.160 You know, Andrew Yang, you remember the Democrat who ran for president, he tweeted out, quote,
00:15:22.180 I would be pumped to have a president whose physical vitality or mental fitness wasn't an ongoing issue or concern.
00:15:29.160 It's like, what? Where the hell were the Democrats during the last four years of Joe Biden?
00:15:35.320 The man was almost publicly in a coma for four years.
00:15:39.720 He was drooling and coloring with crayons, and the Democrats are like, nothing to see here.
00:15:44.780 No, no, no, it's perfectly fine.
00:15:46.700 Yes, we have a White House staffer, we dress as a giant Easter bunny to lead him away to keep him out of trouble,
00:15:53.020 but there's nothing to see here.
00:15:54.680 And I've got to say, so today President Trump was asked about this by Peter Doocy,
00:16:00.540 and in fact Peter Doocy asked about the stories that he'd been dead.
00:16:04.160 Listen to the exchange between Peter Doocy and President Trump.
00:16:07.680 About a big viral social media trend over the weekend.
00:16:11.440 How did you find out over the weekend that you were dead?
00:16:15.920 Did you see that?
00:16:16.840 No.
00:16:17.380 People didn't see it for a couple days.
00:16:18.800 1.3 million user engagements as of Saturday morning about your demise.
00:16:23.180 Really? I didn't see that.
00:16:25.600 You know, I have heard it's sort of crazy, but last week I did numerous news conferences, all successful.
00:16:31.980 They went very well, like this is going very well.
00:16:34.620 And then I didn't do any for two days, and they said there must be something wrong with him.
00:16:40.340 Biden wouldn't do him for months.
00:16:42.000 You wouldn't see him.
00:16:43.100 And nobody ever said there was ever anything wrong with him, and we know he wasn't in the greatest of shape.
00:16:48.540 No, I heard that.
00:16:49.300 I get reports.
00:16:50.360 Now, you knew I did an interview that lasted for about an hour and a half with somebody, and everybody saw that was on one of your competitors.
00:16:58.360 I did numerous shows and also did a number of truths, long truths, I think pretty poignant truths.
00:17:06.980 No, I was very active over the weekend.
00:17:08.560 They also went out to visit some people at the club that I own pretty nearby on the Potomac River.
00:17:16.460 And, no, I've been very active, actually, over the weekend.
00:17:19.040 I didn't hear that one.
00:17:19.940 That's pretty serious.
00:17:20.800 Well, it's fake news.
00:17:23.060 You know, it's just so, it's so fake.
00:17:25.160 That's why the media has so little credibility.
00:17:29.520 I knew they were saying, like, is he okay?
00:17:32.680 How's he feeling?
00:17:33.600 What's wrong?
00:17:34.580 I said, I just left.
00:17:36.340 And it's also sort of a longer weekend, you know.
00:17:38.880 It's Labor Day weekend.
00:17:39.680 So I would say a lot of people, no, I was very active this Labor Day.
00:17:43.620 I had heard that, but I didn't hear it to that extent.
00:17:47.300 I love how the president just trolls the media on this one, like, yeah, you guys are a bunch of scumbags, and I'm not surprised that this is what you did.
00:17:53.940 Yeah, no, look, it was absurd.
00:17:55.900 I mean, this president, you can disagree with him on substance.
00:18:00.020 You can disagree with him on style.
00:18:01.440 But the man has enormous energy.
00:18:03.860 I mean, if you look at the first seven months of this administration, I think there's been no administration in our lifetime.
00:18:09.680 That has had more velocity and volume and action.
00:18:13.780 And it has been incredible.
00:18:15.220 And this president, he is going.
00:18:17.020 This weekend, actually, President Trump called me.
00:18:19.240 I talked to him this weekend.
00:18:20.320 He was in great spirits.
00:18:21.400 We were talking.
00:18:22.240 Hold on.
00:18:22.800 You talked to him while he was dead but alive.
00:18:25.000 Oh, yeah.
00:18:25.400 That's breaking news.
00:18:26.280 And oddly enough, I didn't have a Ouija board.
00:18:28.180 I didn't have to do a seance.
00:18:29.300 And he was kind of – and it was – we were not talking about are you all right?
00:18:32.720 He called me on an issue that he and I had been working on, so we had a substantive conversation.
00:18:36.500 You know, today, the president announced that there was going to be a White House address at 2 o'clock.
00:18:42.540 And I got to say, Twitter went crazy with anticipation.
00:18:46.920 And I think people expected them to announce, OK, President Trump is dead.
00:18:51.620 He's entered a permanent vegetative state.
00:18:53.660 He's resigning.
00:18:54.680 Like the left was – they were beside themselves but particularly egregious.
00:19:01.000 I want you to listen to Tim Waltz.
00:19:03.220 Tim Waltz is the governor of Minnesota.
00:19:05.100 He's a weird dude.
00:19:07.860 And you'll remember for like 12 seconds he was Kamala Harris' vice presidential nominee.
00:19:13.260 Give a listen to what Tim Waltz had to say about President Trump and his hopes that the president was dead.
00:19:18.480 You get up in the morning and you doom scroll through things and although I will say this, the last few days you woke up thinking there might be news.
00:19:29.420 Just saying.
00:19:30.840 Just saying.
00:19:32.140 There will be news sometime.
00:19:33.960 Just so you know, there will be news.
00:19:36.120 I mean, that's sick.
00:19:37.120 And that's the guy who ran for vice president of the Democratic Party.
00:19:39.680 Let me say, that is sick and I have never wished death upon Joe Biden or Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or any of the Democrat leaders.
00:19:50.140 The president of the United States, whether you agree with them or not, what the hell is wrong with these people where they say they wake up every day hoping, please, please, please, let me see that he is dead.
00:20:01.280 You know, there used to be a notion – listen, when Barack Obama was president, I disagreed with a lot of the policies that he implemented.
00:20:09.460 I think they did a lot of damage, a lot of harm to this country.
00:20:12.620 But I wish success on them.
00:20:14.840 I wanted America to succeed.
00:20:16.880 You know, we talked about earlier this year President Trump's State of the Union address.
00:20:20.780 I've been to 13 State of the Union addresses.
00:20:23.480 Every single one begins the same way with the sergeant at arm calling out, the president of the United States.
00:20:30.900 And 12 of the 13 I've been to, every House member and senator stands and applauds.
00:20:35.900 And that's true whether it's a Democrat or Republican, whether it's your party or the other party, you respect the office.
00:20:41.860 And so when Barack Obama walked onto the floor of the House, I stood and applauded for him.
00:20:47.540 When Joe Biden walked onto the floor of the House, I stood and applauded for him.
00:20:50.740 This year when Trump walked onto the floor, every single Democrat I saw stayed sitting and would not applaud.
00:20:56.700 And there's something really wrong when you are openly cheering for the president of the United States to die.
00:21:06.780 And the people laughing, and I suspect there were reporters there and there were also leftist activists, the people laughing and cheering.
00:21:14.180 There's something just fundamentally wrong about that.
00:21:16.420 As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and download the podcast from early this week to hear the entire thing.
00:21:25.700 Canadian women are looking for more.
00:21:27.880 More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.
00:21:31.980 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.
00:21:35.720 I'm Jennifer Stewart.
00:21:36.840 And I'm Catherine Clark.
00:21:37.860 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.
00:21:47.640 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:21:50.880 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:21:56.580 I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed.
00:22:00.580 I want to also move on to the other story that is one that is not getting a lot of coverage, and it's really important.
00:22:07.740 It's why I love doing this show with you.
00:22:10.140 The Sinaloa cartel is now, in essence, in every single major city in America.
00:22:17.000 They have set up a massive network.
00:22:20.100 They are making billions and billions of dollars poisoning and killing Americans.
00:22:25.100 Human trafficking, sex trafficking, child trafficking, the list goes on and on.
00:22:29.600 And anything that's illegal, they've got their tentacles in it.
00:22:33.220 And you may think that you're far away from the border, so this isn't actually in your city or your big city or your area of the country.
00:22:41.880 Great example of that is New England.
00:22:43.700 If you're in New England listening to us right now, you're probably thinking,
00:22:46.120 ah, it's not near as bad as where we are in Houston at the moment.
00:22:49.520 Well, guess what?
00:22:50.540 You'd be wrong.
00:22:54.020 171 Sinaloa cartel members were arrested in New England, the DEA has now announced.
00:23:00.560 That was in a single week.
00:23:02.600 In a single week, 171 Sinaloa cartel members arrested in Boston.
00:23:07.320 The arrest also led to the seizure of more than 22,000 counterfeit pills, fentanyl powder,
00:23:13.960 and packaging branded with the Sinaloa cartel logo.
00:23:17.240 And the DEA agent in charge for the New England field division said the Sinaloa cartel is, quote,
00:23:25.060 public enemy number one in New England.
00:23:29.620 That's what the Democrats' open border policies have done.
00:23:32.880 And listen to a local news story covering this arrest of 171 Sinaloa cartel members in Boston.
00:23:39.420 Give a listen.
00:23:40.120 Yeah, and by the way, ask yourself this question, America.
00:23:42.880 Why did you not hear about this on the national news?
00:23:45.300 This is Boston 25 News covering it there.
00:23:48.580 The Federal Drug Enforcement Administration says a week-long cartel crackdown led to nearly 200 arrests
00:23:54.500 just in New England.
00:23:55.660 The DEA says they were all members of the Sinaloa cartel, the largest drug cartel in the world.
00:24:01.860 25 investigates went one-on-one with the DEA special agent in charge about their recent operation.
00:24:07.820 He says the vast Sinaloa network has deep roots in New England.
00:24:11.780 They're our public enemy number one.
00:24:13.540 Jared Forge, the special agent in charge of DEA's New England field division,
00:24:18.100 says last week the DEA set out to arrest as many members of the Mexico-based Sinaloa cartel as possible.
00:24:25.280 New England saw the highest number of regional arrests at 171.
00:24:29.500 With 49 in Massachusetts, 33 in New Hampshire, Connecticut saw the most at 64.
00:24:35.100 Do you think people would be surprised to learn how many members of that cartel are operating
00:24:40.880 probably in plain sight, in their communities?
00:24:44.220 Sure. So, Sinaloa cartel in every single state across America,
00:24:49.100 more than 40 countries around the world,
00:24:51.220 and obviously they're in every state throughout New England.
00:24:53.880 What's their number one product they push? Is it the pills?
00:24:56.860 So we see fentanyl powder, and we see counterfeit pills,
00:25:00.080 pills that are made to look like legitimate pills, notably M30s.
00:25:04.840 M30 pills are counterfeit oxycodone,
00:25:07.960 but Forge says they're also increasingly seeing counterfeit stimulant pills made to look like Adderall.
00:25:14.840 Forge showed us some of the more than 22,000 pills and other drugs seized during the operation,
00:25:21.200 like signature purple fentanyl,
00:25:23.440 and some drug packaging even displaying the Sinaloa cartel stamp.
00:25:27.520 I'm a DEA agent. I cannot tell the difference between a fake one and a real one.
00:25:31.460 So we need to remind parents, schools, caregivers, everybody in the community,
00:25:37.200 have those conversations with each other, have them with your kids.
00:25:40.300 Forge says the cartel targets unsuspecting young people online through common social media apps.
00:25:46.660 Many have no idea they're buying potentially deadly counterfeit pills.
00:25:51.300 171 arrests throughout New England. Does that make a dent?
00:25:55.260 We're the DEA. We're not going after low-level retail drug traffickers.
00:25:59.560 We are going after drug trafficking organizations, the networks.
00:26:03.120 How do you disrupt that, something that is so large, so vast, and seemingly so powerful?
00:26:09.320 Right. It's an ongoing battle, one that we cannot, we can't afford to give up, right?
00:26:13.300 It's, the Sinaloa cartel is a threat to public safety, our public health, and our national security as a country.
00:26:21.400 This year, the Centers for Disease Control reported while drug overdose deaths are declining,
00:26:26.880 overdose is the leading cause of death for young people ages 18 to 45.
00:26:31.640 Senator, you hear that report. It should be national news. It's not.
00:26:35.900 Thank goodness we're doing this show to make it national.
00:26:38.480 But this is concerning because it's not just in New England.
00:26:42.340 This is in every major city in America they've set up shop.
00:26:46.620 Well, CNN won't cover it. MSNBC won't cover it.
00:26:50.100 I'm glad the local news covered it, and it is critically important.
00:26:54.060 The cartels, public enemy number one in New England, brought to you by the Democrats, is the Sinaloa cartel.
00:27:00.340 And, you know, it was striking what they were arrested with.
00:27:02.420 They were arrested with, among other things, counterfeit pills, pills like Adderall.
00:27:07.840 And those are designed to be sold to your kids.
00:27:10.260 Ben, you and I are both parents.
00:27:12.120 I will tell you it is terrifying being the parents of young kids today.
00:27:17.480 Your kids are younger than mine, Ben.
00:27:19.440 My girls are teenagers.
00:27:20.980 And, you know, I think back when you and I were teenagers, you'd go out to a party.
00:27:25.400 There may be some kids in high school.
00:27:26.800 They might be drinking.
00:27:27.760 Maybe someone would smoke some marijuana.
00:27:30.820 But the odds were that you were not going to die going to a party when you and I were kids.
00:27:35.860 What is terrifying now is that kids go to a party and someone says, here, hey, try a pill.
00:27:42.400 It's an Adderall.
00:27:43.940 It's a Ritalin.
00:27:45.700 It's something they think is fairly innocuous.
00:27:48.960 And the kid takes one pill.
00:27:51.240 And it is a counterfeit pill that has fentanyl.
00:27:54.180 And the child drops dead.
00:27:55.680 And that is happening at a scale that is truly terrifying.
00:28:00.500 In 2023, more than 100,000 Americans died of overdoses.
00:28:06.980 Seventy percent of those were fentanyl.
00:28:08.940 And overdose is the wrong word for those.
00:28:11.680 Those are poisonings.
00:28:13.120 Because, you know, you think of an overdose.
00:28:15.440 If you have a junkie on the street who's shooting up heroin, he shoots up a little bit too much heroin.
00:28:20.400 That's a tragedy.
00:28:21.440 But there are a series of decisions that put the person in that situation.
00:28:26.980 This circumstance is much more frightening because it can be one tiny mistaken decision made by a 14-year-old that ends that child's life.
00:28:38.000 And that is the result.
00:28:39.440 Open borders are endangering our families in a very fundamental way.
00:28:43.720 It's an epidemic.
00:28:44.740 And what's interesting is when you do research on this, Senator, one of the things that's the most shocking about it is a lot of police forces are actually running out of their Narcan, which is what you can give to try to save someone's life when they overdose.
00:29:02.300 Their yearly supply, they're eating through it in two to three months into the year.
00:29:09.260 And they're having to go to their city council and their board of aldermen, their county commissioners, depending on what type of government they have.
00:29:15.180 And they're having to beg them for more money because they're running through the budget for what they need to save people's lives.
00:29:22.120 That's how big of an epidemic this has become.
00:29:24.360 And, again, it's the number one killer of young people in this country.
00:29:27.600 That is something that needs to be said over and over again.
00:29:29.720 And it's something that we must stop.
00:29:32.340 Well, and police officers and first responders, they often wear gloves.
00:29:37.160 They're very frightened because if they inadvertently touch fentanyl, a tiny amount can kill them.
00:29:43.460 The level that this is deadly is truly unprecedented.
00:29:48.980 And, you know, I'll say I want to share an illustration that a DEA agent told me a number of years ago, which we were sitting and doing a roundtable with a DEA agent and with a mom who had lost her child to fentanyl poisoning.
00:30:01.840 And here's what the DEA agent did is he handed out everyone sweet and low packets of the sweetener you put in your tea or coffee.
00:30:09.840 And he said, OK, tear open the sweet and low packet.
00:30:12.380 And he said, empty all the sweet and low onto the table.
00:30:15.160 So we all did that.
00:30:16.760 He then said, stick your pinky, your little finger, into the empty packet.
00:30:21.700 So we did that.
00:30:22.820 And he said, pull it out.
00:30:23.760 And you pull it out.
00:30:25.820 You have a handful of tiny little grains of sweet and low that are on your finger.
00:30:30.800 And he said, that is enough fentanyl to kill you.
00:30:35.260 And it's a very effective illustration.
00:30:37.440 I'll tell you, with both of our teenage girls, I sat them down in the kitchen.
00:30:41.920 I handed them packets of sweet and low.
00:30:43.540 And I had them do exactly that illustration.
00:30:46.880 And if you are a parent, if you are a grandparent, have this conversation with your kids or your grandkids.
00:30:54.180 Because, look, hopefully your kids will not make catastrophically wrong decisions.
00:30:59.060 But in this circumstance, one small decision that seems easy.
00:31:04.720 Hey, it's a friend of theirs that has, you know, hey, hey, try this pill.
00:31:08.480 We're all at a party.
00:31:09.420 And they don't think they are risking their lives.
00:31:13.740 I don't know a parent who is not terrified about the risks that their kids will make one wrong choice.
00:31:20.780 And it will cost them their entire life.
00:31:23.300 Yeah, it is.
00:31:23.920 It really is scary.
00:31:25.040 There's no doubt about it.
00:31:26.140 And this is part of the reason why I think the president is also, as you wrap up this last week,
00:31:31.480 going after these drug cartels and saying, we're going to use the full force of our government
00:31:38.060 to go after them since we've declared them terrorist organizations because they're killing Americans.
00:31:43.780 Look, obviously the U.S. military took out a Trenderagua narco-terrorist boat off the shores of Venezuela just this past week.
00:31:55.880 As you know, last week I was in Mexico meeting with senior government officials in Mexico and making clear to them,
00:32:02.140 the United States is going after these cartels, and we're going to do so either with or without you.
00:32:08.100 You know, listening to the story of the 171 Sinaloa cartel members arrested New England reminded me of the MS-13 cartel member
00:32:16.560 that I spoke with down in El Salvador.
00:32:19.880 I went to the SECOT, the Maximum Security Terrorist Prison.
00:32:23.380 And if you didn't listen to our podcast last week, let me encourage every one of you,
00:32:27.380 go back and listen to last week's podcast where I take you inside this prison,
00:32:32.160 this maximum security prison built for 40,000 gang members, mass murderers, and terrorists.
00:32:38.820 And I met with one MS-13 gang member who'd lived in Texas many years.
00:32:42.420 He spoke perfectly fluent English.
00:32:44.200 He became an MS-13 member when he was 13 years old, living in Falls Church, Virginia.
00:32:54.620 That's the level at which these gangs have penetrated our society.
00:33:00.280 And by the way, the only way you become a member of MS-13 is you have to murder someone.
00:33:05.180 So at age 13, he murdered someone to become a member of this gang.
00:33:10.200 When I asked him why he did it, he said all of his friends were doing the same thing,
00:33:13.780 that he was hanging out with other 13-year-olds who were joining the same gang.
00:33:18.860 And this is now a 42-year-old man who's spending the rest of his life in a maximum security prison
00:33:25.860 because of the multiple murders he committed.
00:33:28.340 That is not in Colombia.
00:33:31.360 That's not deep in Mexico City.
00:33:33.340 That was Falls Church, Virginia.
00:33:36.000 And later he moved to Dallas, Texas.
00:33:38.460 We've heard New England.
00:33:39.580 This is public enemy number one.
00:33:41.940 You and I and our families, we want the border secured.
00:33:45.100 And I'm grateful that we have a president, commander-in-chief who says,
00:33:49.020 we are going to stop the human trafficking.
00:33:50.740 We're going to stop the drug trafficking.
00:33:52.600 We are securing the border.
00:33:54.120 That's an incredible success, and it's incredibly important.
00:33:57.880 Yeah, you're absolutely right about that.
00:34:00.100 And also, Reuters is now reporting, and this is just showing, I think,
00:34:04.040 the president's commitment to fighting these narco-terrorists.
00:34:07.200 Reuters is now saying the U.S. is deploying stealth fighter jets to the Caribbean for drug fight
00:34:13.340 as the tensions with Venezuela continue to rise.
00:34:17.520 They're saying, Axios is saying, that 10 F-35 jets are being dispatched also to Puerto Rico
00:34:23.760 to support the drug war there.
00:34:26.000 And Ben, Ben, when I was down at the Panama Canal, I actually saw the USS Lake Erie
00:34:33.900 that was transiting from the Pacific to the Caribbean specifically to participate in the war on drugs.
00:34:41.420 This is a missile ship with enormous capacity.
00:34:44.640 I don't know if this was the particular ship that took out the Trandaragua,
00:34:48.200 but I went and toured the ship, met many of the sailors on board.
00:34:51.000 We are moving major assets to take on the cartels and to defeat the cartels.
00:34:56.380 As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz.
00:35:00.680 Ben Ferguson with you.
00:35:01.600 Don't forget to download my podcast, and you can listen to my podcast every other day
00:35:05.200 you're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards.
00:35:08.640 I'd love to have you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson podcast,
00:35:12.140 and we will see you back here on Monday morning.
00:35:14.760 This is an iHeart Podcast.
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