Verdict with Ted Cruz - Republicans' Secret Impeachment Weapon

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.580 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.000 The second full day of President Trump's impeachment trial has just concluded,

00:00:09.880 and Senator Ted Cruz has come straight from the Capitol to our studio here

00:00:13.360 to help give us all a behind-the-scenes look into what this means

00:00:16.100 for the president and the country.

00:00:18.280 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:19.920 Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:30.620 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:00:31.520 I am joined by the senator himself, clearly a glutton for punishment,

00:00:36.520 not sleeping at all this week, going straight from the impeachment trial

00:00:40.000 to the studio, right back to the Capitol.

00:00:42.480 Well, Michael, I'm thrilled that it's at least 11 p.m.

00:00:46.440 and not 3 in the morning like it was last night.

00:00:48.860 This is an early night.

00:00:49.920 It's been 22 hours now of the impeachment trial,

00:00:53.180 and we've still got a distance to go, but we're making progress.

00:00:57.020 You know what I want to do before we get into what happened today,

00:00:59.380 because I think some significant things happened today.

00:01:01.980 We're 22 hours in.

00:01:04.080 I think the vast majority of Americans have completely tuned out this impeachment.

00:01:08.860 They are simply not paying attention.

00:01:11.800 What is it that the House Democrats are accusing President Trump of having done?

00:01:18.220 What is at the core of this whole impeachment trial?

00:01:21.480 So the House Democrats voted out two articles of impeachment.

00:01:25.680 The first one is something they're calling abuse of power.

00:01:28.940 The second one they're calling obstruction of Congress.

00:01:33.140 Neither one of those is a crime.

00:01:35.260 Neither one of those, I believe, is an impeachable offense.

00:01:38.240 But what do those refer to specifically?

00:01:41.220 So abuse of power is where they focused most of their time.

00:01:45.340 And what they're arguing is that the president delayed military aid to Ukraine.

00:01:50.600 Now, Ukraine is a country in Europe, used to be part of the Soviet Union, broke off.

00:01:54.580 It's now a separate democracy.

00:01:56.000 It's a friend.

00:01:56.680 It's an ally.

00:01:57.920 Remember back in 2014, when Obama was president, Russia invaded Ukraine, invaded what's called Crimea.

00:02:04.660 And Russia and Ukraine have been in real tension.

00:02:07.480 The Ukrainians don't like that the Russians have had a bad history of riding in with tanks and invading their country.

00:02:13.460 And so we've given them military aid, and what the Democrats are arguing is the president delayed that military aid in exchange for asking Ukraine to launch two investigations.

00:02:26.620 One, an investigation into whether Ukraine had interfered in the 2016 presidential election, the election between Trump and Hillary.

00:02:33.940 And two, an investigation into Burisma, which is a Ukrainian natural gas company, on whose board, Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son, sat.

00:02:47.460 They'd paid Biden a whole lot of money.

00:02:50.000 And it was not for his expertise in Ukrainian natural gas.

00:02:53.440 Well, that is certainly true.

00:02:55.200 Right.

00:02:55.960 So this is what people refer to as the quid pro quo.

00:02:59.500 Yes.

00:02:59.720 That Trump was withholding military aid, and he wasn't going to release the aid until they launched an investigation into the Bidens because he is afraid that he's going to run against Joe Biden in 2020.

00:03:11.300 And they've spent almost every minute of the last 22 hours trying to prove those two points.

00:03:18.740 Okay.

00:03:19.260 Here's the problem.

00:03:19.940 Number one, temporarily delaying military aid is not illegal, and it's not an impeachable offense.

00:03:27.040 Presidents have done that over and over and over again.

00:03:29.520 In all sorts of foreign aid, you see temporary delays that are put into place.

00:03:34.360 But number two, asking a foreign country to engage in an investigation is not illegal on its face, and it's not an impeachable offense.

00:03:44.040 That's what there's – and in fact, the president admits he asked Ukraine to engage in these investigations.

00:03:49.580 So it's really kind of stunning.

00:03:51.480 They're standing up there arguing over and over again.

00:03:54.060 The president wanted Ukraine to investigate, and Trump has said on live TV over and over again, yes, I wanted Ukraine to investigate.

00:04:02.620 We've seen the transcripts from this phone call with the president of Ukraine, right?

00:04:07.400 This was released – I know most people's eyes glaze over when everyone gets into the weeds over what he did with Ukraine and is that impeachable and on and on and on.

00:04:16.140 But I think we all basically agree on the facts of the case, which is they withheld the aid, then they released the aid.

00:04:24.920 President Trump did ask for an investigation by Ukraine into this corruption.

00:04:28.440 And I guess what doesn't make sense to me is they impeached the president for this, except Ukraine got the aid, and we never got an investigation into the corruption.

00:04:40.400 Well, and it's even – you're right on both of those points, but even more broadly.

00:04:44.960 So it's – the narrative from the House Democrats has changed.

00:04:48.680 You remember there was – for a couple of months we were hearing over and over again the phrase quid pro quo.

00:04:53.360 Right. Quid pro quo is the sort of phrase – look, most people don't know what quid pro quo means.

00:04:59.160 It's a Latin phrase. It sounds kind of scary.

00:05:01.860 Quid pro quos are not illegal.

00:05:03.840 This would surprise anyone who's turning on the 6 o'clock news because the media were breathlessly saying, my God, this may have been a quid pro quo.

00:05:14.400 So quid pro quo is Latin for an exchange of something of value for something else of value.

00:05:20.400 Well, it means literally this for that, right?

00:05:23.220 I give you this. You give me that.

00:05:24.720 You know, it would take a Yale graduate to really dive down on the Latin translation.

00:05:30.280 You know what it is. It's my Roman heritage. That's where it comes from.

00:05:32.920 But look, quid pro quo is in foreign policy. We do every single day.

00:05:38.020 They're not only not illegal. It's the bread and butter of foreign policy.

00:05:41.600 I'll give you an example.

00:05:43.600 Nicolas Maduro is the dictator of Venezuela right now.

00:05:46.960 We have sanctions, economic sanctions in place against Venezuela.

00:05:51.560 We have said if Maduro steps down, we'll lift those sanctions.

00:05:55.500 That's a quid pro quo. It's out and it's open.

00:05:58.320 We're lifting sanctions if Maduro steps down.

00:06:01.160 You look at Obama's Iran nuclear deal. That was a quid pro quo.

00:06:04.620 Obama gave over $100 billion to Iran in exchange for a promise not to develop nuclear weapons.

00:06:11.000 Now, that's a promise they weren't keeping and they used the money to try to kill Americans.

00:06:15.060 But that was a quid pro quo. So all of this focus on was this a quid pro quo misses the point.

00:06:22.660 The question is whether it was done with corrupt intent.

00:06:27.740 And that all comes down to whether these investigations, whether the president had a valid reason to ask Ukraine to engage in these investigations.

00:06:36.700 And to withhold the aid.

00:06:39.420 Either or both.

00:06:40.720 But the real piece, if the president had a valid reason, a legitimate reason to ask Ukraine to engage in the investigations,

00:06:50.280 then everything the House is saying, everything the House Democrats are saying is nonsense.

00:06:55.500 Right.

00:06:55.940 And what is interesting now, two days into it, is they've devoted virtually every moment to trying to prove that he asked for the investigations, which he admits.

00:07:06.380 Which we already know. This is something we all agree on.

00:07:09.160 And almost zero to proving that asking for the investigations was illegitimate or inappropriate.

00:07:17.060 Well, this is what I want to get to. So you've now had to sit through 22 hours of this because there are three groups here, right?

00:07:23.720 There's there are the House Democrats. They're being led by Adam Schiff.

00:07:27.120 Yeah.

00:07:27.460 And they're the people who are pushing impeachment.

00:07:30.100 There's President Trump's legal team, the White House counsel and his lawyer.

00:07:33.480 And they're the ones defending the president.

00:07:35.800 Then there's the jury because this is a trial.

00:07:38.420 And this is a special jury because the jury is you guys.

00:07:42.340 The senators are the jury in the impeachment trial.

00:07:45.200 Well, you've been listening to this and let me correct you briefly on something.

00:07:49.200 Yes, the senators are the jury, but oddly enough, we're also the judges.

00:07:53.080 And it's a strange dynamic under the Constitution.

00:07:56.220 The hundred senators decide every question of law and every question of fact.

00:08:00.620 And it's not a jury like, you know, if you turn on law and order, it's not a jury like that.

00:08:04.780 You think about it, a jury is not supposed to know anything about the case, is not supposed to know the defendant, is not supposed to know the prosecutor, is not supposed to have conversations.

00:08:13.180 In this case, senators, look, senators deal with the president, deal with the president all the time.

00:08:19.280 The framers knew that when the Constitution gave impeachment to the Senate, they knew fully well senators would be dealing with players, would be involved, would be speaking to the public.

00:08:29.300 And so actually, I will point out that the president did tweet out this very podcast today.

00:08:35.600 So obviously, there is some relationship there.

00:08:38.060 Sure, but you know, it's interesting.

00:08:39.560 When Bill Clinton had an impeachment trial, there was actually an objection.

00:08:45.080 So one of the people in the trial referred to the senators as jurors, and they raise an objection.

00:08:51.860 And Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who's the chief justice, sustained the objection and said, you're right, you're not jurors, you're senators, and it's a different responsibility under the Constitution.

00:09:01.000 Because, not to get even more complicated here, but there is a fourth role, which is that the chief justice of the Supreme Court, head of the Supreme Court, is presiding over impeachment.

00:09:14.100 But he's not quite a normal judge, and the jury is not quite a normal jury.

00:09:18.940 And that is because an impeachment trial is unlike other kinds of trials.

00:09:24.000 Very much so.

00:09:24.940 Now, you've spent 22 hours listening to these two arguments from the House Democrats.

00:09:30.620 And let me say, by the way, to lock 100 senators in a room and to prevent all of them from speaking.

00:09:37.440 Look, I got to say, every one of us is suffering DTs.

00:09:41.000 There's a reason I'm launching a damn podcast in the middle of this.

00:09:43.820 I can't not talk for that long without medical treatment.

00:09:47.500 Well, you know, they used to say that the most dangerous place in Washington, D.C. was between Chuck Schumer and a television camera.

00:09:56.180 Now, I think...

00:09:56.960 But we actually don't know because no one's ever survived that experience.

00:09:59.620 That's true.

00:10:00.400 We need more investigation.

00:10:02.860 I'm actually thinking, having watched the House Democrats case for impeachment,

00:10:06.580 I think the most dangerous place might be between Adam Schiff and a camera because he's the one leading that case.

00:10:13.000 And I just want to hear your thoughts on how each side is presenting their case.

00:10:17.320 The House Democrats pushing impeachment, the White House lawyers defending the president.

00:10:21.960 So yesterday we had procedural fights all day long.

00:10:25.400 Half the time was the House Democrats.

00:10:27.980 Half the time was President Trump's lawyers.

00:10:30.540 I thought they both did fine.

00:10:32.140 I thought they both presented their case.

00:10:33.740 When you and I talked last night, I shared my views that I think the White House lawyers need to focus less on process and more on substance,

00:10:43.060 more on demonstrating why the president is innocent, why the conduct that he admits to is not illegal, is not inappropriate,

00:10:50.960 and is perfectly legitimate and justified for a president to investigate corruption

00:10:55.420 and to ask a foreign government to investigate corruption, that they need to make more of the affirmative case.

00:11:01.020 You've argued a lot of high-profile cases.

00:11:02.880 So what you're saying is maybe we're missing a little bit of the 30,000-foot view.

00:11:08.660 We're missing a little bit of the big picture from the White House.

00:11:11.400 You can get lost in the weeds, and it's easy to do it.

00:11:14.700 And I don't want that to happen to the American people.

00:11:18.160 They just see a lot of bickering.

00:11:19.400 That doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

00:11:21.500 The underlying, if you want to understand this case in one sentence,

00:11:25.720 can the president investigate corruption, yes or no?

00:11:29.140 And the Democrats are saying, no, you can't investigate corruption,

00:11:33.520 that he couldn't ask Ukraine to investigate Burisma, this natural gas company,

00:11:38.840 because Joe Biden, his son, was making millions of dollars from him.

00:11:44.280 And that is not a very good argument.

00:11:48.540 Any president has the authority to investigate corruption, but has the responsibility to investigate corruption.

00:11:56.180 And so I think we need to be talking more about the substance.

00:11:59.380 So today, though, President Trump's lawyers didn't get to talk at all.

00:12:03.020 So we're in opening arguments.

00:12:04.160 So today was all day long, nothing but House Democrats.

00:12:07.320 It was the Adam Schiff show.

00:12:08.940 That's not easy to say three times, by the way.

00:12:12.060 There's some slips that come in there sometimes.

00:12:15.040 But they were presenting their case.

00:12:18.680 And as I said, it's all focused on proving things that everyone agrees to.

00:12:24.780 How did they do in the sense of the political theater?

00:12:29.200 Do you think, if you're just judging this from the effectiveness of their objectives,

00:12:34.680 that the House Democrats are making a good argument?

00:12:36.780 Look, I think most partisans stayed where they are.

00:12:40.940 In other words, if you hate President Trump and think he's the embodiment of evil,

00:12:45.140 you probably thought today was a wonderful day.

00:12:47.660 Because it featured 10 hours of House Democrats describing how horrible Donald Trump is.

00:12:54.020 If you think the president has done a good job and we've gotten good results

00:13:00.780 and you're tired of House Democrats just attacking the presidents all day long,

00:13:05.020 then today was really hard to listen to.

00:13:07.240 And it was made worse by the fact that it was incredibly repetitive.

00:13:12.640 So yesterday, when we were having procedural arguments,

00:13:15.440 the House Democrats basically gave their opening argument.

00:13:18.060 Right.

00:13:18.320 And then today they turned around and gave the same thing.

00:13:20.680 So they keep making the same points and playing the same clips

00:13:24.180 and reading the same quotes over and over and over again.

00:13:27.000 And we've got two more days of opening arguments.

00:13:29.180 We're going to spend all day long tomorrow,

00:13:30.540 all day long the next day with them making those same arguments.

00:13:32.420 Did anything new happen in terms of the Democrats' case?

00:13:37.220 I think the single biggest thing, and I think the House Democrats made a strategic mistake,

00:13:43.140 which is they opened the door to Hunter Biden testify.

00:13:47.820 Now, here's why.

00:13:49.280 Adam Schiff got up and he argued, in his opening argument,

00:13:52.800 he based their whole case on the proposition that the two investigations that the president asked for

00:13:58.880 were sham investigations.

00:14:00.980 I want to read you a little bit from what Adam Schiff said.

00:14:03.720 He said that the president wanted Ukraine to launch investigations, quote,

00:14:10.800 that were completely without merit, that were sham investigations.

00:14:15.440 He later says the allegations are untrue and they've, quote, been widely debunked, patently false.

00:14:25.780 So that's the central question, that these investigations are untrue.

00:14:30.640 Now, let's take Burisma, which is the most important of the investigations.

00:14:33.920 Okay.

00:14:34.760 Burisma, big natural gas company, has had major problems with corruption.

00:14:40.300 Tomorrow, when we talk, we're going to talk a little bit more about the evidence on Burisma

00:14:44.180 that the White House lawyers have laid out and the media doesn't want to talk about.

00:14:47.780 I want to drill down, we'll do it tomorrow because it's going to take a lot of time,

00:14:51.260 but I want to drill down into Burisma and Hunter Biden.

00:14:54.560 Yes.

00:14:54.940 Because to me, that seems like the whole heart of this impeachment question.

00:14:58.640 It is the whole ball of wax.

00:15:00.300 Now, the Democrats, look, in the House, House Republicans wanted to call Hunter Biden as a witness.

00:15:07.280 And Adam Schiff said, no, said, we're not allowing you.

00:15:11.800 And it was interesting, yesterday, Adam Schiff said, if you have a trial and don't allow the

00:15:18.260 defendant to put on evidence of innocence, it's not a fair trial.

00:15:21.920 And it was, you know, it was all I could do not to laugh out loud because that's what they did in

00:15:26.280 the House because they based their whole case on arguing that asking for an investigation into

00:15:33.700 Burisma is false and completely without merit, it raises not just as relevant, but as central to

00:15:41.380 the defense, okay, what evidence was there that this was real corruption that needed to be investigated?

00:15:48.220 And even beyond, I mean, because I think when you get into this Ukrainian company and this

00:15:53.220 relative of Joe Biden, it's easy to get lost in it.

00:15:55.920 I just wonder if you're investigating the question of whether Trump should or should not

00:16:04.240 have asked for this investigation, whether that's an impeachable offense, perhaps the

00:16:10.960 most important person to talk to and get testimony from would be Hunter Biden.

00:16:16.460 To ask him, and by the way, I don't know as a fact that it was corrupt.

00:16:19.820 There's a lot of indication that it could well have been, but the House Democrats have had zero

00:16:25.460 interest in asking and they run around with their hair on fire.

00:16:28.960 If you even suggest that anyone would ask, much less ask Joe Biden, you know, hey, Joe, why,

00:16:35.100 why was your son getting paid a million bucks a year by a gas company?

00:16:38.100 We didn't know anything about gas.

00:16:39.440 I mean, I mean, this is not subtle and sophisticated, right?

00:16:43.640 But if the House Democrats are going to stop that, they do not want Hunter Biden to testify.

00:16:47.600 Obviously, Joe Biden is right now the frontrunner in the 2020 Democratic presidential race.

00:16:52.740 So they really don't want Hunter Biden to testify.

00:16:55.900 Last time I checked, I believe...

00:16:58.060 Although I do have to say, I kind of wonder if Bernie and Elizabeth Warren and Klobuchar

00:17:01.380 are secretly rooting for Joe and Hunter to testify.

00:17:05.600 But they haven't indicated that.

00:17:07.340 They have not yet.

00:17:08.220 However, they could give a little support to their Republican colleagues because last time

00:17:12.500 I checked, it is your political party that controls the Senate.

00:17:15.960 So can the Republicans in the Senate make Hunter Biden testify before the Senate?

00:17:21.520 Absolutely.

00:17:22.120 It takes 51 votes.

00:17:23.540 51 Republicans, we can call Hunter Biden.

00:17:25.980 Now, the way it works actually is the parties call the witnesses.

00:17:29.460 Okay.

00:17:29.660 So what it would mean is President Trump's lawyers, if they want to call Hunter Biden,

00:17:34.240 I've been saying for months, we ought to call Hunter Biden.

00:17:36.760 Why?

00:17:37.560 Look, the prosecutors, the House Democrats, they had 17 witnesses in the House.

00:17:41.680 They built the prosecution side in what was basically a kangaroo court, where you say

00:17:46.580 only prosecution witnesses and we don't allow the White House to call witnesses.

00:17:50.200 So you've got 17 witnesses for the anti-Trump, pro-impeachment side.

00:17:54.800 And you've got zero witnesses for the pro-Trump.

00:17:56.940 The president has not been able to call a single witness.

00:17:59.260 Now, if the president could call one, I'm pretty sure it would be Hunter Biden.

00:18:02.240 If the president could call two, it might be Hunter Biden and the so-called whistleblower.

00:18:06.140 If he could call three, my guess is Joe Biden might be number three on that.

00:18:09.800 We can call those witnesses or any others, and it just takes 51 votes.

00:18:15.640 We have 53 Republicans.

00:18:17.120 So if you simply have Republicans saying, you know what, we want to have a fair trial.

00:18:22.080 One side has had all their witnesses.

00:18:23.980 The other side, the defendant, the accused, has had zero witnesses.

00:18:29.020 That's not fair.

00:18:31.340 So is it going to happen?

00:18:32.320 I mean, is the White House going to call Hunter Biden to testify?

00:18:35.440 So it's up in the air.

00:18:36.500 The fight we had yesterday is we adopted basically the same scheduling order the Clinton impeachment

00:18:42.920 trial had, which is we'll go through opening arguments and questions from senators first,

00:18:47.640 and then we'll decide whether additional witnesses are needed.

00:18:51.600 Okay.

00:18:51.820 And so the House Democrats, they want to call a bunch of additional witnesses.

00:18:55.220 The big one they're focusing on is John Bolton.

00:18:57.640 Mm-hmm.

00:18:58.020 John Bolton was the national security advisor to President Trump.

00:19:01.820 They think they're going to get some dirt on Trump out of John Bolton.

00:19:05.100 That is their big focus.

00:19:08.280 Next week, the Senate is going to vote whether we're going to have additional witnesses or

00:19:11.940 not.

00:19:12.260 And it's going to make a big difference because, you know, one of the things you and I were

00:19:16.420 talking about a little earlier is how long is this thing going to last?

00:19:19.080 I really want to know that because I don't live in Washington, D.C., so I got to make some

00:19:22.940 plans.

00:19:23.440 Well, the vote next week on witnesses will make a massive difference.

00:19:26.640 Okay.

00:19:27.260 If 51 senators vote next week, we don't need any more witnesses.

00:19:31.100 We've got all the evidence we need, then the trial will end next week.

00:19:35.420 We'll move to final judgment.

00:19:37.060 And if and when that happens, the president will be acquitted because the House Democrats

00:19:41.400 haven't proven their case.

00:19:42.440 Okay.

00:19:42.900 On the other hand, if 51 senators vote that we do need additional witnesses, then it's

00:19:49.160 Katie Barred the door.

00:19:50.240 Then this thing could easily last weeks or even months.

00:19:53.880 You could see six, seven, eight, nine weeks, because if you go down in additional witnesses,

00:19:58.280 you're opening the door to litigation, to assertion of privileges, to all sorts of delays.

00:20:03.440 We could be sitting here months from now with the impeachment trial still going on if we call

00:20:08.820 additional witnesses.

00:20:09.620 But if you call additional witnesses, then we might finally hear from Hunter Biden.

00:20:14.000 Now, my question on this, though, is, and by the way, if we do call additional witnesses,

00:20:17.400 I'm very confident we'll call Hunter Biden.

00:20:20.500 But if you call Hunter Biden, or rather, if the White House calls Hunter Biden to testify

00:20:25.120 before the Senate, can't Hunter Biden just say, I don't want to answer your questions,

00:20:31.240 I plead the fifth, and I'm not going to say anything?

00:20:34.780 So he can, and if we call Hunter Biden, he will almost certainly plead the fifth.

00:20:39.340 Now, here's the interesting thing.

00:20:40.800 There's a federal statute that gives the Senate the authority to grant him what's called

00:20:44.860 transactional immunity, which means we can force him to testify.

00:20:49.000 Now, he can't be prosecuted for anything he testifies to.

00:20:52.420 Okay.

00:20:52.700 But you can find out, you can get his testimony, and that's something the Senate can do,

00:20:58.840 grant him immunity.

00:20:59.820 And I got to say, that idea, you want to talk about something to terrify 47 Democrats in the

00:21:05.720 Senate?

00:21:05.940 It is the fact that the Senate could grant Hunter Biden immunity and hear his testimony

00:21:11.000 testimony about whether, in fact, there was corruption from Joe Biden.

00:21:15.520 And let's be clear, this is not about, look, Hunter Biden is a guy who's led a troubled life.

00:21:20.760 Yes.

00:21:20.860 This is not about him.

00:21:22.660 This is the question about whether his dad abused his power.

00:21:26.920 So, in other words, I just want to be very clear about this.

00:21:30.740 Hunter Biden could be called to testify, and he could say, I don't want to testify, I plead the fifth.

00:21:37.020 And if he's going to be held responsible for anything he did, then it ends there.

00:21:41.880 However, the Senate can give him immunity, so he won't be held responsible for any crimes he

00:21:47.060 commits.

00:21:47.400 And no reporter in Washington knows this or understands this.

00:21:49.840 But the Senate can force Hunter Biden to testify.

00:21:54.160 You can, and I'll give an example.

00:21:55.980 Take a criminal case.

00:21:56.760 This is something prosecutors do all the time.

00:21:58.880 Let's say you have a criminal case, and you have, say, some drug dealers that you're

00:22:04.800 investigating, and you've got, say, a low-level guy, a drug dealer, you'll see prosecutors that

00:22:09.740 will give that drug dealer immunity to flip on the higher-ups, and to make them testify,

00:22:15.540 give them immunity to flip on the higher-ups.

00:22:17.460 It's the same basic principle.

00:22:19.540 Immunity is not always a good thing, because it means you can be forced to testify or be

00:22:23.980 put in jail if you don't.

00:22:25.540 That is a lot of leverage.

00:22:27.160 I have to tell you, Senator, I have not heard that anywhere else.

00:22:29.980 I had no idea that the Senate could make Hunter Biden testify.

00:22:32.440 Reporters don't want to talk about it.

00:22:33.700 Reporters don't want to talk about Burisma at all.

00:22:36.680 They don't want to talk about the evidence of corruption.

00:22:39.740 I mean, they're, and in fact, you know, it's even funnier than that.

00:22:43.860 So the Joe Biden campaign is sending out angry letters to media reporters saying,

00:22:49.780 whenever you mention the allegations of corruption, you must state on air,

00:22:54.160 these are false and have been disproven.

00:22:56.980 In what other instance are so-called reporters becoming an advocate?

00:23:02.280 Look, I don't know if there was corruption or not.

00:23:06.440 I do know that there's prima facie evidence of it.

00:23:09.240 And I know one way to find out.

00:23:11.600 At a minimum, the House Democrats don't even want to ask the questions.

00:23:16.460 And we ought to ask the questions.

00:23:18.480 Now, are we going to have additional witnesses?

00:23:21.380 I don't know.

00:23:22.720 Next week when we vote on it, all 47 Democrats will vote yes.

00:23:26.140 The question is, are there going to be four Republicans that vote yes?

00:23:30.280 Maybe.

00:23:31.280 I think I could name a few Republicans who might be likely to.

00:23:35.780 There are three who have spoken publicly about being open to it.

00:23:41.820 It's not clear if there's a fourth.

00:23:43.340 It's not clear if those three will vote.

00:23:45.180 Right.

00:23:45.920 If we have additional witnesses, we're going on for a long time.

00:23:49.660 But that means we may get John Bolton in, but we're going to get Hunter Biden.

00:23:53.820 We may get other witnesses, too.

00:23:55.000 This is the best argument I've heard so far for dragging this thing onward.

00:23:59.380 Obviously, we've got a whole lot more to get to.

00:24:01.800 We will be getting into Hunter Biden and Burisma and corruption in Ukraine specifically tomorrow.

00:24:07.700 Because I know pretty much nothing about it, and you know pretty much everything about it.

00:24:12.080 So I want to hear that.

00:24:13.340 Obviously, people need to subscribe and leave a five-star review, please, to this show.

00:24:18.580 It is Verdict with Ted Cruz, and we are now up on Apple Podcasts.

00:24:22.380 We are on YouTube.

00:24:23.260 We're on Spotify.

00:24:24.020 We are everywhere you get your podcasts.

00:24:26.840 One thing we want to do in these shows, because there is so much to cover, is take your questions from the mailbag.

00:24:34.720 So we have a few of these today.

00:24:36.240 They came out after our first episode.

00:24:37.700 In just our remaining one or two minutes here, let's try to get through a couple of them.

00:24:42.000 All right.

00:24:42.700 From Timmy.

00:24:46.080 Senator Cruz, who fell asleep?

00:24:49.620 22 hours of testimony.

00:24:51.660 Who fell asleep?

00:24:52.800 So there's been some reporting that accused Jim Risch of falling asleep.

00:24:56.420 I didn't see that.

00:24:57.680 I've got to admit, at points, I kind of feel like all of us fell asleep.

00:25:01.200 Did you fall asleep?

00:25:02.360 I didn't formally nod off, I will say.

00:25:05.620 So Jim's defense, and his press spokesperson said, he was closing his eyes and listening contemplatively.

00:25:12.960 You know, I've tried that with Heidi at home.

00:25:16.200 I'm not sure that story always works.

00:25:18.040 That's not a great excuse, no.

00:25:19.660 But I've got to admit, last night, so I will say, when we were there at 2 in the morning, I was asking Chuck Grassley, you know, Iowa farmer, 86 years old.

00:25:29.760 Chuck is an early bird.

00:25:30.660 And I asked Chuck last night, I said, all right, what time do you get up each morning?

00:25:33.460 And Chuck said, 4.

00:25:35.220 Now, he said he didn't get up.

00:25:36.380 I didn't ask him what time he got up today, but he said, I won't get up at 4 a.m.

00:25:39.240 When he was there at 2, he slept in.

00:25:40.640 He was still at the Senate at 4 a.m., probably.

00:25:41.860 But it was, you know, look, we stayed awake.

00:25:46.060 I'm not sure much of America did, but the 100 senators, by and large, stayed awake.

00:25:50.040 That almost sounds like you're pleading the fifth.

00:25:52.220 This brings up the immunity arguments.

00:25:54.400 We'll have to get into that tomorrow.

00:25:55.800 Final question from Carl.

00:25:59.880 Do you think, Senator, that they will try to impeach President Trump again if this one fails?

00:26:07.080 I think there'll certainly be Democrats that want to.

00:26:09.560 They could easily.

00:26:11.980 I don't think Pelosi wants to.

00:26:14.060 So one of the interesting things, you look a year ago, Pelosi was saying, don't impeach Trump.

00:26:18.660 A partisan impeachment doesn't work.

00:26:20.800 I think Pelosi thinks impeachment, I think she thought it was going to backfire.

00:26:24.700 I think she thinks it's backfired now.

00:26:26.500 Right.

00:26:26.800 And basically, the far left that hates Trump dragged her into doing this.

00:26:31.880 So I was having a conversation with one of the other Republican senators today who was saying,

00:26:35.860 why are they doing this now?

00:26:37.480 Why didn't they do this in June or July?

00:26:39.180 And that was my comment to him is, I think Pelosi thinks this is a political loser,

00:26:43.320 and she wants to get it over with.

00:26:45.540 So will the extreme left want to try to impeach Trump over and over and over again?

00:26:49.640 Yes.

00:26:50.640 But I'd be surprised if the House goes down this road again.

00:26:52.940 It didn't even occur to me that they could try to impeach him again.

00:26:55.740 I mean, I guess there have been a whole bunch of excuses for impeachment since the beginning.

00:26:59.980 Six out of seven of the House Democrat impeachment managers actually supported impeachment

00:27:05.540 before we knew anything about the current excuse to impeach Trump.

00:27:10.500 A lot of these Democrats called for impeaching Trump within days of his being elected,

00:27:14.920 before he'd been sworn in.

00:27:16.380 So this has nothing to do with Ukraine.

00:27:18.300 This has to do with Trump derangement syndrome.

00:27:20.840 Right.

00:27:21.080 And that's going to continue regardless.

00:27:22.840 And yet, somewhere at the heart of all this that nobody's talking about and the press are not

00:27:27.220 covering, is this incident, this corruption in Ukraine, the question of Burisma, the question

00:27:33.140 of Hunter Biden.

00:27:34.540 We will have to get into all of that tomorrow.

00:27:36.080 And by the way, the Obama administration wouldn't investigate it.

00:27:38.620 The Obama Justice Department wouldn't investigate it.

00:27:40.840 There was no accountability.

00:27:42.520 And I've got to say, when I'm back home in Texas, the frustration

00:27:45.600 about folks in the prior administration who abused power and were never held accountable,

00:27:51.540 that frustration is massive and it still needs to be dealt.

00:27:56.440 Are they going to be held accountable from the past administration?

00:27:58.860 Look, I hope so.

00:28:00.400 They haven't been so far.

00:28:01.620 And they need to be.

00:28:04.000 The law needs to be enforced fairly, regardless of party, which means the whole Democratic argument

00:28:10.580 that just because Joe Biden is vice president, you can't investigate when there's enormous

00:28:17.060 evidence of corruption, that's a pretty bogus argument.

00:28:20.000 It's a pretty weak argument.

00:28:20.920 I think hopefully we'll be able to just dismantle it tomorrow night.

00:28:24.860 But we've got to we've got to get you ready to go back on the hill and listen to another

00:28:27.880 10 hours of impeachment debate in this trial.

00:28:31.740 Senator, thank you as always.

00:28:33.280 See you manana.

00:28:34.040 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:28:36.080 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:28:36.840 We'll see you tomorrow.

00:28:44.600 This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security

00:28:49.920 PAC, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations

00:28:55.040 and candidates across the country.

00:28:57.080 In 2022, Jobs, Freedom and Security PAC plans to donate to conservative candidates running

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - January 23, 2020

Republicans' Secret Impeachment Weapon

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