Verdict with Ted Cruz - September 28, 2023


Ron DeSantis WINS Second Debate


Episode Stats


Length

39 minutes

Words per minute

178.24084

Word count

7,054

Sentence count

522

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Toxicity

22

sentences flagged

Hate speech

7

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Ted Cruz and Ben Fergusons break down the latest Republican primary debate, and why Ron DeSantis was the big winner. They also discuss what they liked and didn't like about the candidates' answers to a broad array of questions.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.520 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.180 Welcome.
00:00:06.000 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:09.460 And it is our debate show.
00:00:12.700 If you watch the Republican debate, you saw some lively moments.
00:00:17.520 Senator, you watched it.
00:00:18.600 I watched it.
00:00:19.520 Give me your overall takeaway.
00:00:21.460 Who was the big winner?
00:00:23.040 And was there even a second place?
00:00:26.300 So you and I are recording this.
00:00:28.180 It is 1141 p.m.
00:00:30.060 East Coast time.
00:00:30.940 I'm in D.C.
00:00:31.700 So the debate just ended a few minutes ago.
00:00:34.820 I got to say my reaction to it.
00:00:38.700 This was a bumpy debate.
00:00:40.220 There were a lot of rocky moments.
00:00:41.900 I think most of the candidates did not help themselves.
00:00:45.720 But my clear conclusion from tonight is the big winner was Ron DeSantis.
00:00:51.360 Why is that?
00:00:52.520 Well, I did not think that in debate one.
00:00:54.480 So remember, debate one, we came together and I said the winners in debate one
00:00:58.220 were Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley and a little bit Mike Pence.
00:01:03.040 And the real winner was Donald Trump because all three of them were elevated.
00:01:06.780 And that hurt DeSantis.
00:01:08.920 And DeSantis needs to make it a two-man race with Trump.
00:01:11.380 And so that was my take on debate one.
00:01:13.760 I think going into tonight, DeSantis needed to do well.
00:01:17.800 And I think he rose to the occasion.
00:01:19.660 I think he did by far the best of anyone on the stage.
00:01:22.560 Several reasons.
00:01:25.420 Number one is just the behavior of the others.
00:01:28.840 I think they bickered like children, and I don't think it helped them.
00:01:31.980 I think when they were just yelling at each other back and forth and back and forth and
00:01:35.240 back and forth, when you see a bunch of people screaming at each other, they don't look like
00:01:40.080 presidents.
00:01:40.700 They're not behaving like presidents.
00:01:42.440 Presidents don't have to yap at each other.
00:01:44.700 And I thought there were times, particularly early in the debate, when the debate kind
00:01:50.120 of got away from the moderators.
00:01:51.480 As the debate went on, the moderators did a better job of getting a little bit of control
00:01:57.040 of it and having a little bit more discussion.
00:01:59.800 But DeSantis had several—he had the best answers of the night.
00:02:04.280 The single best answer of the night was his answer on education.
00:02:08.540 And he was—the topic came up about education.
00:02:11.140 It came up about school choice.
00:02:12.420 And he gave a strong, powerful answer about school choice, about how, number one, Florida
00:02:18.800 had implemented universal school choice.
00:02:20.820 Florida's led the country in school choice, so they've got a heck of a record to talk
00:02:23.920 about.
00:02:25.260 He was asked about the attacks on their efforts to root out critical race theory in Florida,
00:02:31.560 and he directly confronted that.
00:02:33.600 And I thought it was a tight, crisp answer.
00:02:36.440 That was strong.
00:02:37.320 A second answer that was very, very strong is where he talked about having victories.
00:02:44.700 And listen, the reason people got excited about DeSantis when he launched the campaign
00:02:48.300 is the victories that he had in Florida, big policy victories.
00:02:52.020 He emphasized that.
00:02:53.660 The third answer that was really strong is where he talked about winning.
00:02:57.480 And he talked about winning in Florida, even as nationally we were getting clobbered in
00:03:02.080 2022, he won by 19 points.
00:03:04.700 And I think he did an effective argument.
00:03:08.040 In many ways, his strongest argument against Trump is that he won by—while many other
00:03:14.680 candidates that Trump had supported nationally did not win that cycle.
00:03:18.260 And his argument, you want a winner, you want someone who can beat the Democrats, I'm
00:03:23.160 that guy.
00:03:24.500 I think he articulated it much, much better tonight than he did in the first debate.
00:03:29.600 That's why I think Ron DeSantis won tonight.
00:03:31.680 You know, he mentioned that we've lost the last three times, as he described it, right?
00:03:36.240 We were supposed to win in the last midterm elections.
00:03:39.580 We were supposed to win the election before that and the one before that, and we didn't.
00:03:43.620 And he also compared and contrast, as you mentioned, I think extremely well.
00:03:48.140 And it clearly clicked, I think, with people watching.
00:03:50.480 As I was watching it live, just like you were, I was like, okay, this is one of those
00:03:55.860 quasi-moments where he was reminding people of history, like, not only did we win when
00:04:01.560 the nation was losing, when Republicans were losing on nights we should have won, but we
00:04:08.100 won and expanded in Florida.
00:04:10.780 That was a potent moment to remind people that we should have control of the Senate right
00:04:16.120 now, and we don't because we had some bad candidate selection, let's just be honest.
00:04:19.820 Look, Republicans desperately want to win.
00:04:23.480 The Biden record is an absolute train wreck, and I got to admit, I lay awake at night in
00:04:29.320 cold sweats that we will see the Democrats reelected in 2024.
00:04:34.120 The damage they've done to the country in the last two and a half years, holy cow, if
00:04:38.200 they get another four, what a bad outcome for the country. 0.99
00:04:41.860 So as I'm looking for a candidate, I want someone who can win the damn race. 0.99
00:04:45.060 And in many ways, that is DeSantis' strongest argument, and in the first debate, he didn't 0.99
00:04:51.920 really make it, and he came a lot closer to making it tonight, so I think he did better
00:04:56.460 as a result.
00:04:57.480 Let's talk about the poll numbers coming out of this real quick.
00:05:00.700 Give me your predictions of who rises and who falls.
00:05:05.140 We had already had one candidate out of Arkansas who's fallen off the debate stage, did not qualify
00:05:10.660 for this one.
00:05:12.680 Everybody's goal is to make it to Miami to the next debate in, what, four or five weeks.
00:05:17.420 That's obviously the center goal.
00:05:19.760 But who helped themselves?
00:05:21.840 Who is going to go backwards, and who could be in real trouble?
00:05:25.980 Look, I think the ends of the debate stage, we saw Asa Hutchison fall off.
00:05:30.780 I think the ends of the debate stage are at real risk of being eliminated from the stage.
00:05:37.140 Doug Burgum, his numbers, it's not clear that he qualified for tonight, but they allowed him
00:05:42.640 on the stage.
00:05:43.500 But I think his numbers, he's going to have to do a whole lot of movement to qualify for
00:05:47.860 the next debate stage.
00:05:49.520 I think Mike Pence, he's the former vice president of the United States.
00:05:53.620 He's a good man.
00:05:54.360 He's a friend.
00:05:54.920 But I think he's right at the edge of not making the next debate also.
00:06:02.000 Narrowing the debate stage is a good thing.
00:06:05.460 This race, if there's going to be a real race, look, in many ways, this is sort of like a 0.99
00:06:11.880 basketball playoff, where it's a playoff to see who gets to go against Donald Trump.
00:06:19.000 And I guess you can sort of think about it that Trump gets a bye.
00:06:21.620 He's the former president.
00:06:22.680 He's decided to skip the debates.
00:06:24.920 So, in some ways...
00:06:27.120 Let me ask you this real quick, though.
00:06:27.780 Is that still, you think, the smart strategy?
00:06:31.060 Obviously, I think, was the right strategy for debate number one.
00:06:34.260 At the end of tonight, was it also the right strategy for him to skip debate number two?
00:06:39.760 Maybe, maybe not.
00:06:42.440 Look, I think he's enough ahead in the polls, the national polls.
00:06:46.200 He's up 40-plus points.
00:06:48.160 I mean, that's a strong lead.
00:06:49.720 And I think his analysis, and it's not a crazy analysis, is he's so far ahead.
00:06:54.960 Why would he go and, from his perspective, elevate the other candidates?
00:06:59.780 You know, you think about in 2016, you had two debates.
00:07:03.180 You had the main debate, and then you had what everyone called the kids' table, which were the candidates that were at 1% and 2%.
00:07:08.100 And very few people watched the kids' table.
00:07:10.940 What Trump has effectively done by skipping the debate is he's trying to turn everyone else into the kids' table.
00:07:16.500 Like, this is not the real candidates.
00:07:18.160 He's the only candidate.
00:07:19.260 I understand that strategy.
00:07:20.420 That is a perfectly rational debate strategy.
00:07:23.720 I will say, you know, Trump got popped a little more tonight than he did on the first night.
00:07:28.800 And in particular, I think DeSantis hitting him on abortion and life.
00:07:34.580 Look, Trump's answer, where he said it was a terrible thing that the state of Florida passed a law protecting life.
00:07:42.400 That's an answer, if you're talking to pro-life activists in Iowa, I don't know how you defend that answer.
00:07:50.300 And I think Trump did a good, or rather, DeSantis did a good job of really holding Trump to account for it.
00:07:55.960 Now, if he'd been there, Trump could have given an answer.
00:07:58.340 Trump would have presumably said, look, I'm the guy that appointed three justices that overturned Roe versus Wade.
00:08:03.440 I mean, he would have made a forceful response, but he wasn't there.
00:08:06.660 And that's one of the consequences of not being there, is someone can take a swing, they can hit you, and there's not anyone there who's going to respond or defend you.
00:08:19.100 So there were several shots at Trump.
00:08:21.020 I think that's the two that hit in any material way, where I think DeSantis' point on abortion hit, and I also think the general point about we want to win.
00:08:32.700 And what DeSantis argued is that he won in Florida while Trump-supported candidates elsewhere were losing.
00:08:40.860 Those were two shots that scored some blood. 0.77
00:08:43.560 Now, do I expect major movements in the polls?
00:08:46.600 No.
00:08:46.940 I think the polls will be very similar next week to where they are this week.
00:08:50.900 So I don't think you're going to see a dramatic move.
00:08:52.800 But I think DeSantis took a meaningful step towards making this a two-man race.
00:09:01.720 And the only conceivable way anyone has a shot at beating Trump is for this to be a two-man race.
00:09:07.720 And I think this was a step in that direction.
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00:10:41.720 I want to talk to you, Senator, about age on the stage.
00:10:44.080 There was a very interesting dynamic on the stage where the elder statesman at the far right was Mike Pence.
00:10:50.220 If you were watching the instant responses on social media,
00:10:53.760 there were some people that felt that he came across as maybe a little bit too condescending to others on the stage.
00:10:59.040 Some referred to it as the Washington know-it-all arrogance.
00:11:03.400 And then you had Vivek, who had a pretty good debate last time.
00:11:06.960 I don't think he had as good of a debate this time.
00:11:08.940 That's my opinion.
00:11:10.140 And, you know, he was getting hit from all sides tonight.
00:11:13.380 A lot of people attacking him on maybe some of his naivete on things like China.
00:11:18.240 And he even said, look, sometimes I come across as a know-it-all, almost accepting that about him.
00:11:24.480 Your reaction to that dynamic of two very different people at very different stages in their career.
00:11:30.900 Yeah, look, Vivek had a much rougher night tonight than he did in the first debate.
00:11:37.780 The first debate, he did excellent.
00:11:39.180 He surprised a lot of people.
00:11:40.540 He got on a lot of people's radar.
00:11:42.700 He really did well.
00:11:43.560 Tonight, look, the other candidates don't like Vivek, and they did not hide that.
00:11:50.260 They were taking shots at him, and there were some pretty sneering moments.
00:11:55.360 I do think that the shot that scored the most was the argument that several candidates made,
00:12:01.760 that Nikki Haley made, that Tim Scott made, about Vivek being in bed with communist China.
00:12:06.740 And they made some pretty specific allegations of him being paid by the same players that paid Hunter Biden.
00:12:15.180 Five million, by the way.
00:12:16.600 Paid Hunter Biden five million dollars, the same people, which when you hear that on stage, that's a big, for me, a red flag, right?
00:12:24.140 And Vivek did not have a good answer to that.
00:12:26.560 He just, he didn't respond on the substance.
00:12:29.980 He just said, well, we need to follow Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment, so don't criticize me.
00:12:35.540 And I got to say, in the last debate, Vivek did not follow Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment.
00:12:44.040 And I will say, to Tim Scott's credit, Tim's best moment was when he turned to him and said,
00:12:49.120 hold on a second, Vivek, you said every one of us is bought and paid for.
00:12:53.460 Who the hell are you to say that?
00:12:54.780 That was a good moment for Tim, because it really was a pretty obnoxious thing for Vivek to say, 0.95
00:13:00.260 to allege that the other candidates are bought and paid for. 0.99
00:13:02.960 And if you're going to do that, if you're going to say to the other candidates, you guys are all prostitutes, 0.99
00:13:08.660 you don't get to complain moments later. 0.99
00:13:11.200 Hey, don't criticize me.
00:13:12.340 Be nice to me.
00:13:13.060 We shouldn't be criticizing each other.
00:13:15.980 And so I think that...
00:13:18.960 That was almost one of the big inexperienced moments when I laugh when people say,
00:13:23.480 I want a new face who hadn't done this before.
00:13:25.340 And I'm like, until you don't.
00:13:27.020 And my point is, sometimes experience in politics is actually important.
00:13:32.180 And it's important, especially when you get elected.
00:13:34.720 It's really important when you're dealing with foreign leaders and world leaders at a very high level.
00:13:39.740 When you're dealing with negotiations, if you've never been there before,
00:13:43.160 this whole idea of, oh, I'm the new guy on the block, it's cute until it's not.
00:13:48.120 Look, I think the job of President of the United States is a very serious position.
00:13:52.640 I think the burdens of it are enormous.
00:13:54.340 There's a reason why just about every president who's ever served seems to age about 20 years in the job.
00:14:00.080 It is an insanely difficult job.
00:14:02.180 You know, I'm reminded of when Trump was newly elected in, I think it was March of 2017,
00:14:10.200 Trump had Heidi and me and the girls to the White House for dinner.
00:14:15.040 It was a marvelous time.
00:14:16.300 It was very nice of him to invite them, and we brought our girls there.
00:14:19.940 And as we're walking by the Rose Garden, Trump looks at me and says,
00:14:23.920 wow, who knew this job was so tough?
00:14:27.880 And I got to admit, I am rarely at a loss for words.
00:14:31.940 I was genuinely flabbergasted.
00:14:33.620 I was like, yes, some of us kind of had that idea.
00:14:39.420 I mean, it was really a kind of – and listen, don't take that comment wrong.
00:14:45.420 I think when Trump was president, we accomplished an enormous amount.
00:14:49.760 But I also think this is a job that requires a seriousness of purpose, a seriousness of execution,
00:14:57.720 an ability to communicate, to motivate, to get the job done.
00:15:02.100 And it is a – I am generally skeptical of any candidate who's never served in any government position waking up and saying,
00:15:15.280 you know, I should be president of the United States.
00:15:17.720 Other than generals who won world wars, there's not a great history of that.
00:15:26.000 Yeah, great point.
00:15:27.100 When you look at this moving forward and you sit there and you go, okay, I'm Donald Trump tonight.
00:15:32.860 Afterwards, I'm obviously going to watch this thing.
00:15:35.820 He did his counter-programming with, you know, UAW, et cetera.
00:15:39.340 But afterwards, eventually you're going to sit down, you're going to take a look at this.
00:15:42.920 Are you uneasy or do you still feel very confident that you're still going to have a 40-point lead after all this?
00:15:49.200 Oh, look, I think Trump will still have a big, big lead.
00:15:52.820 But he's not happy that DeSantis did well. 0.98
00:15:55.820 Trump would have been very happy if Ron DeSantis had sucked tonight. 0.74
00:15:59.500 Because as long as there are a bunch of candidates – it's why in debate one I said the biggest winner in debate one was Donald Trump. 0.94
00:16:06.060 Because if there are two or three or four people on the stage that are gaining a point or two, he's winning.
00:16:12.520 As long as that field is fractured, he's winning.
00:16:16.360 If DeSantis gets some real momentum, if he makes it more of a two-man race, that's not ideal for Trump.
00:16:23.400 And so I'm confident Trump is not happy about that aspect.
00:16:27.420 I do think the next debate we will see one or two people eliminated from the stage.
00:16:32.520 I think the smaller it gets, the more of a threat it poses to Trump.
00:16:38.880 And everyone in the media was saying this race is over.
00:16:42.160 Listen, that is at least ahistorical.
00:16:44.720 At this point in the race, we're still in September before the election.
00:16:49.820 At this point in the race, Jeb Bush was still the dominant leader.
00:16:52.700 He was starting to fade.
00:16:53.700 And Scott Walker was becoming the dominant leader in 2016.
00:17:00.000 After Walker, you had a Ben Carson moment where he sizzled for about two weeks.
00:17:05.620 He had a huge surge.
00:17:07.360 And then after that, you had Marco Rubio.
00:17:10.120 And at the end of the day, if you look at 2016, Trump and I went head-to-head.
00:17:16.340 We were one and two in almost every single state.
00:17:19.360 No other candidate won more than a single state.
00:17:22.220 Kasich won Ohio, Rubio won Minnesota, and Trump and I won every other state in the country.
00:17:27.200 I won 12 states.
00:17:28.700 He won the rest of them.
00:17:30.140 So my point is the people who were dominant leaders in the polls today in the 2016 cycle
00:17:37.960 did not win a single state.
00:17:40.680 So the world can change a lot.
00:17:43.500 That being said, Trump is still in a very strong position.
00:17:46.560 I mean, a 40-point lead in the polls is not nothing.
00:17:49.080 It just doesn't mean the race is over, as some in the media want to say.
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00:18:25.420 Let's talk about foreign policy.
00:18:27.340 I actually was a little bit disappointed in the depth of that conversation.
00:18:33.600 And I want to get your reaction to it.
00:18:35.840 There was obviously a lot of talk about China, specifically with Vivek.
00:18:39.680 But then you deal with Ukraine and you deal with the border issue, for example.
00:18:44.020 It didn't seem to have a lot of depth there that I think many people are hoping for.
00:18:50.240 Yeah, there wasn't a whole lot of substance.
00:18:52.960 There wasn't a whole lot of analysis of what caused the border crisis.
00:18:57.180 I don't think any of those candidates have spent significant time at our southern border.
00:19:02.640 I didn't get the sense that any of them fully understood it.
00:19:05.380 You didn't have an explanation as to the real human tragedy that our crisis at the southern border is and why Joe Biden is directly responsible for it.
00:19:16.480 Look, I will say Chris Christie.
00:19:18.180 Chris Christie is the one candidate on that stage who attacks Trump and does so repeatedly.
00:19:24.600 I don't think he helped himself a whole lot tonight.
00:19:27.000 So, for example, one of his big attacks on Trump, and he's been doing this on Twitter before, is he says Trump didn't build the wall and he didn't make Mexico pay for it.
00:19:36.740 Now, look, I get that's probably a pretty good line if you're dealing with hedge fund owners and donors. 1.00
00:19:43.900 But it's a stupid policy attack. 0.99
00:19:46.740 Look, there are things that I wish Trump had done differently as president. 1.00
00:19:50.980 But on immigration, his record on immigration is excellent.
00:19:55.060 And when Trump left the White House, we had the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years.
00:20:03.320 He negotiated the Remain in Mexico agreement.
00:20:05.900 The Remain in Mexico agreement worked. 0.81
00:20:08.120 It worked spectacularly well.
00:20:10.840 Joe Biden inherited an incredible success on illegal immigration.
00:20:14.880 And Joe Biden deliberately blew it up within days of becoming president.
00:20:19.640 And so I think Christie attacking Trump.
00:20:22.100 Look, do I wish he'd built more border wall?
00:20:24.000 Sure.
00:20:25.060 But not acknowledging that on securing the border, Donald Trump did more to secure the border than any president we have had in our nation's history.
00:20:35.320 And any candidate not saying that is being dishonest.
00:20:38.780 So if you want to find grounds to disagree with Trump, fine.
00:20:42.440 But that attack, I don't know of a Republican voter who is persuaded by that attack unless it's someone that already hates Trump.
00:20:51.240 And then they're like, yeah, yeah, Mexico didn't pay for it.
00:20:54.060 It's like, come on, guys.
00:20:55.880 I mean, he did more than anyone else has ever done.
00:20:58.540 And the results were really good.
00:21:01.000 And look, he was he was clearly trying.
00:21:03.760 Chris Christie was clearly, clearly trying to have a moment.
00:21:05.800 And I want to play that because it was a very interesting part of the debate.
00:21:08.560 You just mentioned it.
00:21:09.780 Here is Chris Christie in his own words.
00:21:12.160 Governor Christie, as governor of a non-border state in 2010, you supported a path to citizenship.
00:21:18.340 But when you ran for president in 2016, you flipped, saying immigrants should be tracked like FedEx packages.
00:21:27.900 Where do you stand now on a path to citizenship for 11 million of undocumented immigrants?
00:21:33.920 Well, the problem is that since no one has done anything since we first had this discussion 13 years ago,
00:21:40.100 we're not in a position to be able to do any of that anymore.
00:21:43.440 What we have to do now is first treat this like the law enforcement problem it is.
00:21:48.340 Our laws are being broken every day at the southern border.
00:21:51.100 Every day.
00:21:52.460 And Joe Biden and his crew is doing nothing about enforcing that law.
00:21:56.640 They are letting it go.
00:21:57.720 And by the way, they announced during the presidential race that we're going to let it go.
00:22:01.760 And we need to have a president who acts like I did as governor enforce the law first and foremost.
00:22:10.440 And that means what I'll do on day one is sign an executive order to send the National Guard,
00:22:15.680 to partner with Customs and Border Patrol, to make sure that we stop the flow of fentanyl over the border,
00:22:21.860 but also to make sure that we send a much different message.
00:22:25.640 We want you here in this country to fill the six million vacant jobs we have,
00:22:30.300 but only if you come here to follow the law and only if you come here legally.
00:22:34.480 If you come here illegally, we will apprehend you and we will send you back across the border from which you came. 1.00
00:22:42.160 And the fact is that until we set a law and order agenda in this country,
00:22:46.100 not only now but in the future, we won't be able to continue this.
00:22:49.560 And I'll tell you this.
00:22:51.100 Donald Trump failed on this as well.
00:22:53.880 He said he was going to build a wall across the whole border.
00:22:57.060 He built 52 miles of wall and said Mexico would pay for it.
00:22:59.700 Guess what?
00:23:00.520 I think if Mexico knew that he was only going to build 52 miles, they might have paid for the 52 miles.
00:23:05.900 But by the way, Senator, if he would have just stopped before he took the cheap shot at Trump,
00:23:11.800 which I don't think landed with anybody that was watching, certainly not Trump supporters,
00:23:15.920 it would have actually been a pretty decent response to the question.
00:23:19.480 Yeah, look, there is not a single human being on planet Earth
00:23:23.540 that thinks Chris Christie would be better on stopping illegal immigration than Donald Trump was.
00:23:29.440 But there just isn't.
00:23:31.760 The question began with, gosh, you flip-flopped and you've embraced amnesty repeatedly in your career.
00:23:37.400 And Chris Christie built his career as a blue state governor and a liberal to moderate Republican.
00:23:42.840 And so the attack, look, I think in debates and in politics, truth and authenticity matters.
00:23:51.360 That when you have, when you make a point that's from the heart, that's real, that can land.
00:23:57.200 And so it's why I think DeSantis' point about we need to win and we didn't win the way we should have in 2018, 2020, and 2022.
00:24:05.620 That's a real argument.
00:24:06.860 That's something primary voters are like, holy crap, we can't lose in 24. 0.75
00:24:10.720 And I'm a little bit nervous. 0.94
00:24:12.540 I don't want us to lose.
00:24:13.420 Like, that's an argument that has some teeth.
00:24:16.040 The argument that Trump didn't care enough about securing the border, it's just not true.
00:24:22.020 And I don't think it hurts any of the candidates to acknowledge truth and reality, to say, yeah, look, I mean,
00:24:30.360 we had some real successes on securing the borders.
00:24:34.140 There are more to do, sure.
00:24:35.820 But you didn't have anyone explain.
00:24:37.800 What caused this crisis was the decision, one decision from Joe Biden, which is to embrace catch and release so that now when illegal immigrants are apprehended, they let them go and they don't deport them.
00:24:51.580 As long as you do that, you cannot solve the problem. 0.99
00:24:54.900 That means the next president, if you simply say, if you cross into this country illegally, we will catch you, we will put you on a plane, and we will fly you back to your damn country. 1.00
00:25:05.180 That's the answer. 1.00
00:25:06.820 That's how you secure the border.
00:25:09.200 And you didn't have anyone with that clarity.
00:25:11.860 But I think Christie's answer on that, it didn't land because it was hitting Trump on an area of strength and not an area of weakness.
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00:26:58.060 Senator, I also want to talk about China and fentanyl for a moment.
00:27:02.120 You've talked a lot about fentanyl and the issue at the border.
00:27:05.520 This did seem to be something that Republicans agreed on that we have a big problem.
00:27:10.460 The issue is how do you fight back?
00:27:12.580 Nikki Haley said it's time to go to war economically with China as she described it
00:27:17.480 until they stop sending all the fentanyl into this country that's killing Americans.
00:27:21.600 She described it as they're at war with us.
00:27:23.600 They're stealing our intellectual property.
00:27:26.320 They're stealing everything they can get their hands on from us.
00:27:29.660 They're setting up spy bases in Cuba.
00:27:31.920 They've done countless things to compromise this country.
00:27:34.760 Spy balloons over this country as well.
00:27:37.180 And this president clearly seems to be compromised and cannot stand up to China.
00:27:41.680 I think we can all agree on that.
00:27:43.140 But there did seem to be a sense on stage that, hey, it's time to go on offense
00:27:47.740 and to stop letting China run all over us.
00:27:51.720 Well, look, you know, it's interesting.
00:27:52.900 You just said a minute ago in your question, you said this president, Joe Biden, is compromised on China.
00:27:58.500 It was interesting.
00:27:59.560 There was not a word said tonight about Biden's corruption, about the evidence of corruption.
00:28:05.980 And there was very little said about Biden's record.
00:28:08.960 There was very little said.
00:28:10.360 And what I found curious, and it's why I think most of the candidates did not have a great night tonight,
00:28:18.400 there was very little said about why they were the best candidate to beat Donald Trump.
00:28:23.400 And in the primary, that's the only question, is who can win the primary?
00:28:27.500 And there was very little said about why they were the best candidate to beat Joe Biden.
00:28:32.000 And at the end of the day, that's what Republican primary voters are looking for.
00:28:36.480 And it was odd.
00:28:40.360 When it came to Trump, most of the candidates seemed to forget that he existed.
00:28:46.400 And when it came to Joe Biden, by and large, most of the candidates forgot he existed.
00:28:51.720 And you're trying to prosecute a case.
00:28:54.300 You're trying to make the case that I'm the guy or I'm the gal to take us to victory.
00:29:01.680 And on China, look, there was some rhetoric, China's bad, China's bad, China's bad.
00:29:07.600 But what we didn't hear from anybody was a systematic, comprehensive plan to how do we beat China.
00:29:14.740 And I believe, I've talked about this a lot, that we need the sort of systematic plan that Reagan had to win the Cold War.
00:29:23.400 A plan that takes on, that combats China's lies, its murder, its torture, its genocide, its espionage, its theft, its propaganda that goes after China. 0.54
00:29:33.720 And there was very little said about how specifically we do that.
00:29:38.080 There was some general rhetoric, China bad, but not a whole lot of substance, so therefore what?
00:29:45.880 I was shocked by what you just mentioned.
00:29:48.780 And let's dive into this for a moment.
00:29:50.520 I think it was a huge mistake to not bring up the big breaking news that you and I broke on this podcast yesterday.
00:29:59.500 You made a quarter million dollars sent to Joe Biden's house?
00:30:02.160 Yeah, from Beijing.
00:30:02.920 And no one mentioned it.
00:30:04.260 On top of the fact that it broke after we did that show, that based on the plea deal agreement that was given by David Weiss,
00:30:13.740 it said in that plea agreement that during the time that payment was made, the residence for Hunter Biden was in California.
00:30:21.940 That's in the plea agreement.
00:30:23.260 That came out as kind of like, hey, if you think that he was living in this house that's the same residence of the president of the United States of America, you know, in Delaware, you're wrong.
00:30:32.500 The plea agreement said during the time, and it also came out afterwards, Senator, that in his own book that Hunter Biden wrote, he also said in his book that he was living in California at the time that wire transfer would have come through.
00:30:46.060 So there's even a bigger problem there.
00:30:48.640 And no one said anything about it on stage.
00:30:51.700 That was a huge mistake, I think, for all of them.
00:30:53.940 Well, if you think about any moment, and this was a long debate, this was a two-hour debate.
00:31:00.540 And by the way, I got to say, there's something weird about the debate at the Reagan Library.
00:31:04.960 So in 2016, we had a debate at the Reagan Library right on the stage where they were.
00:31:09.940 And the 2016 debate, that was the CNN debate, and it went three hours.
00:31:14.040 It was the longest debate of the entire cycle.
00:31:16.800 And I remember, I don't know if this was true tonight, but in 2016, the Reagan Library did not have air conditioning that was made to survive the Klieg lights of a television debate.
00:31:29.600 And so it was hot.
00:31:32.200 And that many warm bodies in the room.
00:31:33.600 People don't realize those rooms get hot when you have that many people in there.
00:31:36.740 There was a whole audience of people.
00:31:38.940 There are bright lights.
00:31:40.080 I remember by the third hour, we were drenched in sweat.
00:31:44.500 And I was standing there.
00:31:46.040 I was actually standing.
00:31:46.960 Mike Huckabee was next to me.
00:31:49.080 Marco Rubio was next to me.
00:31:50.480 Actually, Marco, to his credit, had a handkerchief, which he let both Huckabee and me use because we were both sweating like crazy.
00:31:58.340 And it was, by hour three, it was unpleasant.
00:32:01.340 Now, the good news is, I think there were six people in the entire world that stayed up to watch the third hour of that debate.
00:32:06.860 So it didn't matter that we all looked like we were drowning in our own sweat.
00:32:10.080 But I couldn't tell if they had the same issue this time.
00:32:16.060 But I will say, in two hours, it was striking that there was not really an effective case made, here's how we beat Joe Biden.
00:32:26.620 And that matters a lot.
00:32:28.160 Nor was there an effective case.
00:32:29.920 You know, Dana Perino tried to get to it when she said, OK, write down on your piece of paper who you're going to vote off the island.
00:32:36.280 And by the way, I will credit the candidates for all of them saying, no, we're not playing that kind of BS game.
00:32:41.820 That was the right response for them to say no.
00:32:44.860 But even though you don't write on a card, you're not playing Jeopardy, there wasn't really anyone making the case, other than DeSantis, which is why I think he won tonight, there wasn't really anyone making the case, I'm the right standard bearer to win the primary and I'm the right standard bearer to win the general.
00:33:03.900 And here's how and here's how and why.
00:33:06.460 Yeah, there was also a lot of misses.
00:33:09.020 People said, at least in response online, that this debate was on Univision and they didn't feel like the candidates did a good enough job reaching out to Hispanic voters.
00:33:18.460 Your reaction to that as well?
00:33:20.900 Look, I think they did almost nothing.
00:33:23.200 I mean, I mean, to Hispanic voters.
00:33:25.600 Listen, the Hispanic community, our community is fundamentally conservative.
00:33:30.680 It is culturally conservative.
00:33:32.640 You look at the values that resonate in the Hispanic community.
00:33:36.360 Family oriented, very family oriented.
00:33:38.380 Family, faith, patriotism, hard work, the American dream.
00:33:43.680 Those are values that are fundamentally conservative.
00:33:46.440 You didn't see anyone saying, you know what?
00:33:47.880 You want to talk about the Hispanic community?
00:33:49.880 The Hispanic community in South Texas and in California and Arizona is getting hammered by 7.6 million illegal immigrants.
00:33:57.960 By the way, every candidate tonight got the number wrong.
00:34:00.600 They all said 6 million.
00:34:01.760 Your numbers are a million and a half off.
00:34:04.640 It's up to 7.6.
00:34:06.440 The candidates should get their numbers right.
00:34:08.460 But they didn't talk about the misery that is being imposed on the Hispanic community by this crisis of illegal immigration.
00:34:15.920 They didn't talk about Hispanic families that are getting hammered by rising inflation.
00:34:20.860 They didn't talk about Hispanic families that are getting hammered by rising crime rates.
00:34:25.080 They didn't talk extensively about the Democrat efforts to defund the police and George Soros prosecutors.
00:34:33.340 They had some of that, actually.
00:34:34.380 Their discussion of crime.
00:34:36.080 There were some decent moments.
00:34:38.020 But the point you just made, Ben, nobody connected it to the Hispanic community.
00:34:43.800 No one connected it to the African-American community.
00:34:46.160 And that's a point that I think is important to make that I hope in subsequent debates we get people making more clearly.
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00:36:13.780 Lastly, Senator, there was another moment, and it's a viral moment.
00:36:17.900 I understand, and you can explain this.
00:36:20.900 You want a moment.
00:36:21.900 Every candidate wants a moment when they're on stage.
00:36:24.940 And they want to have these big moments that are talked about.
00:36:28.360 Nikki Haley tried to land one against Vivek, and this is what it sounded like. 0.98
00:36:33.380 Every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.
00:36:36.660 I don't think that landed the way she was hoping. 0.90
00:36:39.840 It didn't come across to me as I was watching it as this, you know, big moment.
00:36:45.040 I get what she was trying to accomplish.
00:36:47.740 Was that a mistake?
00:36:49.480 Yeah, it was a mistake.
00:36:51.600 That moment was harsh, and it seemed too harsh.
00:36:55.240 Look, look, Haley's a talented candidate, and she's a talented communicator. 1.00
00:36:58.960 She's one of the best communicators on that stage. 0.97
00:37:01.160 She had a really good night in the first debate.
00:37:04.600 This one was not nearly as good.
00:37:06.480 That shot was mean-spirited.
00:37:09.420 It wasn't substantive.
00:37:11.120 In a debate, I think you're almost always better disagreeing with someone on substance
00:37:15.520 rather than just sort of one-line ad hominem attacks.
00:37:19.780 And by the way, look, you can disagree with Vivek because you could say that he doesn't have
00:37:24.420 the experience to be president.
00:37:25.900 You could disagree with him on policy. 0.94
00:37:28.220 But the guy's not dumb.
00:37:29.220 He's a smart guy. 0.96
00:37:31.400 So the claim, every time I listen to you, I feel dumber, like that, that is a pretty
00:37:38.460 condescending comment that, going back to my point before, in a debate, you want truth
00:37:43.900 and authenticity.
00:37:44.580 You want the words coming out of your mouth for people to say, yeah, yeah, that's right.
00:37:48.040 Yeah, I agree with that.
00:37:49.300 And I don't think very many people agreed with that.
00:37:53.320 And so it diminished her more than it diminished Vivek.
00:37:56.720 Now, I do think the other candidates on that stage are pretty chippy towards Vivek because
00:38:01.340 he was pretty condescending and nasty to them in debate number one, and it made him shine.
00:38:06.580 But there's some grudges that were playing out tonight.
00:38:09.100 I'll also point out that there were moments when Nikki Haley and Tim Scott were going at
00:38:14.420 each other, and they were just yelling at each other back and forth and back and forth.
00:38:17.300 And it was kind of a South Carolina pissing fight.
00:38:22.120 And my take on it, that didn't really help either one of them.
00:38:26.320 It was too parochial.
00:38:28.300 I don't know that a whole lot of people care about the internecine fights in South Carolina.
00:38:36.560 And I think the effect of it is that both of them seem to be taking their eye off the ball,
00:38:43.020 that the objective is first to win the primary and then to beat Joe Biden in the general.
00:38:47.600 And I think that back and forth bickering didn't help either one of them in that respect.
00:38:52.760 Yeah, it's going to be very interesting to see who gets kicked off that stage come Miami
00:38:58.120 in the next debate there.
00:39:00.180 Don't forget, if you missed our big podcast yesterday, go back and listen to it.
00:39:04.840 We talked about those payments coming in the Biden crime family from Beijing.
00:39:08.360 That news is still not being covered by the media.
00:39:13.040 If you missed it, make sure you go back and listen to that as well and share it on social media.
00:39:19.820 Also, in the in-between days between verdict, make sure you download my show,
00:39:23.080 the Ben Ferguson podcast as well.
00:39:24.560 I'll keep you updated on the breaking news in-between verdict shows.
00:39:27.540 And we'll see you back here in a couple of days.
00:39:30.960 This is an iHeart podcast.
00:39:33.840 Guaranteed human.