Verdict with Ted Cruz - Season Premiere： Biden’s America

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.680 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.300 One of the big issues in this whole objection,

00:00:07.320 January 6th issue,

00:00:09.320 was what is the function of the vice president

00:00:12.920 who's acting as the president of the Senate?

00:00:14.680 What is his function in the counting of the electoral votes?

00:00:17.900 Does he have some active role?

00:00:19.100 Is he merely reading them?

00:00:20.320 Does the Senate, what does the Senate do? 0.99

00:00:21.580 What does the House do?

00:00:22.420 And this same issue came up in the compromise of 1877,

00:00:25.760 which is you had one,

00:00:27.060 the Republican Party had one view of the vice president's role.

00:00:30.520 The Democrats had another view.

00:00:32.100 Depending on which way it worked out,

00:00:33.600 that could have thrown the election. 0.98

00:00:35.100 And so you end up with this bizarre sort of electoral commission

00:00:38.500 that would then go forward and decide the election.

00:00:42.360 That's right.

00:00:42.960 And as I was looking at that,

00:00:46.240 what initially struck me was just the weirdness

00:00:48.280 of five House members, five senators,

00:00:50.040 five Supreme Court justices.

00:00:51.100 I was like, well, gosh, that's an odd historical creature.

00:00:54.580 But as I was looking at the two choices we were facing,

00:00:58.960 I wanted a third option.

00:01:05.860 Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:01:08.120 I have missed all of you.

00:01:09.920 Thank you so much to everyone who's been writing in

00:01:12.240 asking where is Verdict.

00:01:13.680 We are back.

00:01:14.460 It's been kind of hectic.

00:01:15.640 Initially, it was just because of Christmas.

00:01:17.420 Then it's because of children popping out everywhere.

00:01:20.780 Mostly in my family, Senator,

00:01:22.160 I don't think there are any new kids going on by you.

00:01:24.220 And, of course, the madness that we've seen in Washington, D.C.,

00:01:27.540 which frankly resembles Baghdad these days.

00:01:30.720 All of the lockdowns, all of the heightened tensions.

00:01:35.120 Senator, it's good to see you again.

00:01:37.120 Let me say to all our viewers, it's good to be back with you.

00:01:39.980 In addition to everything Michael listed that has happened,

00:01:42.520 we also had Christmas.

00:01:43.600 We had New Year's.

00:01:44.600 I turned 50 years old.

00:01:47.040 That's right.

00:01:47.420 And you, Michael, became a father.

00:01:50.180 Simon John Knowles, your son, came into the world.

00:01:53.760 And so that is highly consequential.

00:01:57.820 Let me say congratulations.

00:01:59.660 And let me start.

00:02:01.180 Before we dive into constitutional law and what's happening in the country,

00:02:06.860 let me just ask you, how is it being a dad?

00:02:09.220 It is so great.

00:02:10.340 I appreciate your mentioning it.

00:02:12.260 Some people don't know that actually we had been keeping the pregnancy kind of quiet.

00:02:18.280 And two of the first people to know about it were you, Senator, and John Voight

00:02:23.840 because we were filming that earlier episode of Verdict.

00:02:27.100 And I think it was John said,

00:02:28.400 Michael Ladd, are you a father yet?

00:02:30.520 I forget, are you a father?

00:02:31.420 And I said, funny you should ask.

00:02:33.000 Kind of funny that it's going to be you two guys who find out first.

00:02:35.380 But, yes, as of a few weeks ago, I am going to be a father.

00:02:38.640 It's wonderful.

00:02:39.240 And I have to tell you, we're in a really awful political moment right now.

00:02:43.420 And a lot of the predictions that we have made on this show have sadly come true.

00:02:48.140 And they're coming true in real time.

00:02:49.920 And I'm not despondent about it because I've got this little bundle of joy.

00:02:55.040 And I didn't expect to have such an emotional reaction to it.

00:02:59.260 I thought it would be all intellectual.

00:03:00.500 And then I go back to writing or podcasting.

00:03:02.900 It's just wonderful.

00:03:03.840 It's tremendous.

00:03:04.760 And so it's really great.

00:03:05.940 And thank you for the congratulations and mentioning it.

00:03:08.860 Well, it is terrifying and all-consuming.

00:03:11.840 I still remember when we brought both our girls home from the hospital,

00:03:16.220 the absolute fear.

00:03:18.880 These things don't come with instruction manuals.

00:03:22.800 And I remember Heidi and I looked at the doctors and nurses and said,

00:03:27.500 who in their right mind would give us a living human being to take care of? 0.70

00:03:30.680 We don't know what we're doing.

00:03:31.600 And yet somehow you manage, and the desperation when your infant child is crying and won't stop crying,

00:03:40.760 you will do anything to soothe this child.

00:03:45.380 And so I actually found with Caroline late at night, 2, 3 in the morning when she was crying,

00:03:51.600 that rocking her and I would put on, I had a CD of Pavarotti opera.

00:03:56.580 And it, for whatever reason, it calmed her down.

00:04:01.580 So you may want to try some, I have a feeling there may be some opera in the Dole's household.

00:04:07.100 There certainly will be.

00:04:08.380 I'll be singing Nessun Dorma because it's true, because in Italian that means that nobody sleeps.

00:04:13.240 And that's what's been happening.

00:04:14.520 You know, I was worried that I might fall asleep at my desk today since it's sort of the first days back.

00:04:19.900 But fortunately, or I guess unfortunately, the news is so unbelievably impressive, intense.

00:04:29.900 Obviously, we have so much to get to today.

00:04:32.020 Let's begin with January 6th.

00:04:35.000 Reading the Electoral College votes at the Joint Session of Congress,

00:04:39.240 the objection to the Electoral College votes, the riot that ensued afterward,

00:04:43.820 you were there, I was not.

00:04:45.600 What happened?

00:04:46.100 I think it's helpful to take it back really starting about a week earlier

00:04:51.260 in the period between Christmas and New Year's because we were heading up to January 6th.

00:04:59.360 Under federal statute, January 6th was the date where the vice president reads the Electoral College votes

00:05:07.080 before the House and Senate and where objections can be made from either House members or senators.

00:05:13.920 And coming out of Christmas, a number of House members had made clear they were going to make objections.

00:05:19.840 And it wasn't clear if there were going to be any senators who made an objection.

00:05:24.440 And the reason that matters is there's a statute that was passed.

00:05:28.080 It's called the Electoral Count Act.

00:05:29.700 It was passed in 1877, and it lays out under what conditions objections can be made.

00:05:35.540 And for an objection to be made and be debated on and voted on, it has to be made by one House member and one senator.

00:05:45.320 So if there's not a senator, the objection is out of order and you don't have a debate or a vote.

00:05:53.180 If there's one House member and one senator, then you go automatically to two hours of debate in your separate chambers and a vote on that objection.

00:06:01.500 And so there were several days where it was unclear if any senators were going to raise an objection.

00:06:07.880 Then Josh Hawley, the senator from Missouri, who's been much of the news lately as well, he announced he was going to object.

00:06:14.480 He was going to object to the electors from Pennsylvania.

00:06:18.520 That changed things because it meant we were definitely going to go and have to vote on that objection.

00:06:24.680 We're going to have two hours of debate and all 100 senators were going to have to vote.

00:06:28.760 And I got to tell you, there was enormous pressure within the Senate, within the Republican conference, for no senator to object.

00:06:35.740 Leadership really didn't want to take this vote.

00:06:40.240 Josh decided he was going to object anyway.

00:06:43.100 I spent several weeks really wrestling with what's the right thing to do here.

00:06:49.320 What is the principled approach that is consistent with the Constitution, that is consistent with federal law, that's consistent with my responsibilities as a senator?

00:07:01.500 And as I looked at it, I thought all of the senators really faced a dilemma in that we had two terrible choices.

00:07:11.620 We were going to have to vote on the objection.

00:07:14.500 If we voted no, if we voted against the objection, that vote would be heard by tens of millions of Americans as saying,

00:07:24.620 you don't believe voter fraud is real.

00:07:27.440 You don't believe it's serious.

00:07:29.000 You don't believe it's significant.

00:07:31.020 And that's just not true.

00:07:33.020 That's certainly not true for me.

00:07:34.480 It's not true for many, if not most, of the Republicans that voter fraud has been a real and significant and persistent problem.

00:07:43.020 And it goes right to the heart of the integrity of the election.

00:07:45.880 And so voting no was a really lousy option.

00:07:49.480 But on the other hand, I was not willing to, and I think most of the Republicans in the Senate were not willing to,

00:07:56.560 vote to set aside the results of the election just because the candidate I was supporting hadn't won.

00:08:02.640 I mean, that is not a principled outcome either to say, well, gosh, my guy didn't win, so throw it out.

00:08:10.020 That was not, that was a terrible option.

00:08:14.020 And so as I looked at it, I spent some time really studying the precedents and trying to dig into, well, look,

00:08:21.760 this is not the first presidential election we've had in this country.

00:08:24.980 It's not the first election that was close.

00:08:27.000 What has happened in past elections, there have been objections raised over and over and over again.

00:08:34.380 And in looking through the historical precedents, I focused in particular on one, which was the presidential election of 1876.

00:08:43.720 1876 was a very contentious election between Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican, and Samuel Tilden, the Democrat.

00:08:52.640 And it was very close.

00:08:54.820 And that election, likewise, there were serious allegations of voter fraud in three different states, in Florida, in Louisiana, and in South Carolina.

00:09:08.640 And what Congress did in 1877, so right after the 1876 election, Congress appointed what it called an election commission.

00:09:23.180 And this was a strange creature.

00:09:25.540 It was a commission that consisted of five House members, five senators, and five Supreme Court justices,

00:09:33.120 which is really a curious, I mean, it's like a winged unicorn or something.

00:09:39.020 It's something that for which I don't know of any other parallel in U.S. history for an entity that is a hybrid entity like that.

00:09:47.280 Well, that's what Congress did.

00:09:48.860 And there's an important precedent set here too, which is one of the big issues in this whole objection January 6th issue

00:09:57.540 was what is the function of the vice president who's acting as the president of the Senate?

00:10:03.300 What is his function in the counting of the electoral votes?

00:10:06.540 Does he have some active role?

00:10:07.820 Is he merely reading them?

00:10:09.020 Does the Senate, what does the Senate do? 0.99

00:10:10.300 What does the House do?

00:10:10.920 And this same issue came up in the Compromise of 1877, which is you had one, the Republican Party had one view of the vice president's role.

00:10:19.240 The Democrats had another view.

00:10:20.820 Depending on which way it worked out, that could have thrown the election.

00:10:23.500 And so you end up with this bizarre sort of electoral commission that would then go forward and decide the election.

00:10:31.140 That's right.

00:10:31.640 And as I was looking at that, what initially struck me was just the weirdness of five House members, five senators, five Supreme Court justices.

00:10:39.840 I was like, well, gosh, that's an odd historical creature.

00:10:43.840 But as I was looking at the two choices we were facing, I wanted a third option.

00:10:49.400 I didn't like either one of the options.

00:10:51.260 And so I sat down actually on a plane on Southwest Airlines.

00:10:56.680 I pulled out my laptop and flying back and forth from Houston to D.C.

00:11:01.540 And I wrote what turned into about a two-page statement.

00:11:05.760 And what I did in the statement is I walked through the historical precedents.

00:11:11.900 And I walked through the legal precedents that govern this decision.

00:11:16.460 And I argued we should follow the precedent of 1877 and specifically that Congress should create an election commission that would conduct an emergency 10-day audit.

00:11:32.000 And just like in 1877, consider the evidence and make determinations on the disputed ballots.

00:11:38.920 The 10-day period was important because 10 days it would have been a daunting task had Congress agreed to do it.

00:11:47.980 But by doing it as a 10-day audit, it would be completed before January 20th.

00:11:53.360 So it wouldn't delay inauguration.

00:11:56.580 It wouldn't delay or impact the peaceful transfer of power.

00:12:00.220 But it would have a credible, impartial tribunal consider these very serious claims of voter fraud.

00:12:10.280 Now, after I wrote it, I thought about just putting the statement out as this is what I'm going to do.

00:12:16.160 But then as I thought about it some more, it occurred to me that it would be better, it would be stronger if other senators were standing with me.

00:12:27.260 And so this was on January 1, New Year's Day.

00:12:31.560 We had a vote.

00:12:32.360 So I was flying from Houston back to D.C. on New Year's Day because we had a vote on New Year's Day.

00:12:38.000 And so I began just talking to other senators.

00:12:41.220 And it started – so the first senator I saw was John Kennedy.

00:12:45.320 It just happened.

00:12:46.320 John Kennedy was on the Senate floor, and I called John off to the side.

00:12:50.940 And I said, hey, what are you thinking about January 6th?

00:12:54.720 And he was struggling with it.

00:12:56.320 He thought the two choices were crappy as well.

00:12:58.800 He didn't like them.

00:12:59.780 Right.

00:13:00.400 And so I said, well, here's this idea I have.

00:13:03.400 That's really door number three.

00:13:05.060 If you don't like the two options you've got, maybe there's a third option that is a better option that is grounded.

00:13:11.220 In principle, in the Constitution, in history, in precedent.

00:13:15.020 And I mentioned it to John, and I said, here, I've got this statement.

00:13:18.360 You want to take a look at it and see what you think.

00:13:20.840 He did, and he said he was interested and intrigued in the idea.

00:13:24.300 And what I proceeded to do over the next 24 hours is I talked to probably 15 senators.

00:13:33.520 And this was very much one-on-one, just calling my colleagues on the phone.

00:13:38.240 It was almost all on the phone.

00:13:39.180 And I spent, I'd say, roughly an hour apiece on the phone with them, where kind of I'd just call them and say, hey, what are you thinking about January 6th?

00:13:48.900 And everyone's like, yeah, I don't know what to do.

00:13:50.620 I'm really frustrated.

00:13:52.280 And I said, well, here's this idea.

00:13:54.140 What do you think of it?

00:13:54.940 Let me send you the statement.

00:13:55.920 You look at it.

00:13:56.640 What ended up happening is that a group of 11 senators came together.

00:14:03.060 So 10 other senators joined me in this statement, and they agreed that it was a much better option than the other two votes.

00:14:12.460 And so we put out that joint statement as a statement from 11 senators that we were going to object on January 6th.

00:14:21.260 But this is really important, Michael.

00:14:22.480 We weren't objecting, saying throw the results out.

00:14:25.520 We want the candidate we favored to win.

00:14:29.680 Instead, we were objecting, we were using the objection to press for an election commission to be a fair, impartial tribunal to actually consider the facts and the evidence and the claims of voter fraud, which I think would have been a much better path to go down than the one we went down.

00:14:51.620 Well, because, you know, we talked on this show.

00:14:53.960 So there have been a whole range of theories about the election, and some are a little more outlandish than others, and some are right in front of your nose.

00:15:03.440 I mean, what happened, for instance, in Pennsylvania where the election officials violated the state constitution?

00:15:09.880 That is the clearest example of irregularities, but you had other irregularities in Georgia and other places as well.

00:15:16.440 So there is this problem, this fear in people's minds that they can't trust the integrity of the electoral system.

00:15:24.800 And we've gotten mailbag questions saying, well, what are we going to do in the future if we can't trust the elections?

00:15:28.360 So it would seem that it's in everybody's interest, including Democrats for that matter, to shore up some trust in the system, have a commission, go out, do this for 10 days.

00:15:39.620 Is it going to, you know, throw out the results of Pennsylvania?

00:15:42.480 Probably not.

00:15:43.420 But to at least get on the record, take these issues seriously.

00:15:47.560 And there were other approaches to this.

00:15:49.620 I mean, I know Senator Hawley kind of had his own approach to these election issues.

00:15:54.520 But you had this.

00:15:55.360 You released the statement.

00:15:56.240 I read the statement.

00:15:56.900 You had other senators join on to it.

00:15:58.860 And then this riot breaks out.

00:16:01.720 And let me stop you.

00:16:02.860 But before we get to the riot, which was obviously a major occurrence, I think the point you just made is really important, that going into this election, coming out of this election,

00:16:13.000 we have seen overheated rhetoric like crazy on both sides of the political aisle.

00:16:20.160 The Democrats and the news media, and sadly the news media is now just part of the Democratic Party.

00:16:25.180 They are one.

00:16:26.800 Their talking point is there is no voter fraud.

00:16:29.600 It doesn't exist.

00:16:31.040 And for you to say voter fraud is just – I mean it's amazing.

00:16:35.720 You read any newspaper article and any time there's a reference to voter fraud, I think the editor's mandate they put in,

00:16:42.140 which is totally baseless and false.

00:16:44.900 And look, voter fraud has been a persistent challenge in elections.

00:16:50.280 And the media narrative that doesn't exist and you can't say it exists is weird rewriting history.

00:16:57.100 Now listen, on the other hand, President Trump's rhetoric I think went way too far over the line.

00:17:04.000 I think it was both reckless and irresponsible because he said repeatedly, and he said over and over again, he won by a landslide.

00:17:11.440 There was massive fraud.

00:17:12.580 It was all stolen everywhere.

00:17:14.980 That evidence, the campaign did not prove that in any court.

00:17:20.220 And to make a determination about an election, it has to be based on the evidence.

00:17:25.760 And so simply saying the result you want, that's not responsible, and you've never heard me use language like that.

00:17:32.880 What I've said is voter fraud is real, and we need to examine the evidence and look at the actual facts.

00:17:38.180 And in particular, what is the evidence of how much voter fraud occurred and did it occur in sufficient quantities and in sufficient states to alter the outcome of the election?

00:17:48.900 That would have been the mandate of the Election Commission to assess.

00:17:54.940 And, you know, one of the things I pointed out on the Senate floor, Reuters polling shows 39 percent of Americans believe the election was rigged.

00:18:06.440 That's a terrifying statistic, and I tried to make the case to Democrats.

00:18:11.100 I said, look, you should want this commission because that's not good for our nation.

00:18:16.580 It's not good for our country to go forward with nearly half of the country believing that our democracy is fraudulent.

00:18:24.540 We need to reestablish faith and trust in the democracy, and I think having a process to consider the evidence and the facts would have helped in that regard.

00:18:35.300 Well, I think these distinctions are so important because they've all been blurred, certainly by the media, but even just in the chaos, they've been blurred.

00:18:42.480 But it is a different thing.

00:18:44.180 On the one hand, you've got some people who are saying this election was completely stolen.

00:18:47.940 Trump definitely got more votes than Biden, and I know this with 100 percent certainty.

00:18:52.600 Even though we don't know that with 100 percent certainty, but there's another argument that you can make, which is Democratic election officials took away safeguards that protect election integrity.

00:19:04.560 And in some places, they did this brazenly in violation of the law, and therefore people have questions about the election.

00:19:10.980 Those are different statements.

00:19:12.720 I understand how they relate to one another, but it does seem important to get this on the record and hash it out.

00:19:17.900 I think that's exactly right.

00:19:20.080 All right, so let's go back to January 6th.

00:19:22.100 So the way this works, all the senators gather on the floor of the Senate, and then we walk over to the House together.

00:19:28.780 We walk over in a procession across the Capitol to come to the House floor.

00:19:33.460 And with COVID, we're kind of spread out.

00:19:35.320 Normally, everyone's on the House floor, all the House members and senators.

00:19:38.560 With COVID protocols, they had people really spread out.

00:19:41.300 So there were House members up in the gallery where they wouldn't normally be.

00:19:46.280 And what happens, the vice president goes through and opens the envelopes of the votes from the electors in alphabetical order and reads them and asks if there's any objection.

00:19:58.180 And so the group of 11 that had come together, I spent a lot of time between January 1 and January 6th talking to that group of 11 and trying to keep the coalition together, asking folks, all right, what's the right path here?

00:20:14.780 What we agreed to do was object on the first of the contested states.

00:20:20.200 And so that was Arizona, just it's alphabetical.

00:20:22.500 So Arizona, of the states where there were significant claims of voter fraud, Arizona was the first of those.

00:20:29.220 And so we said, all right, we're going to vote.

00:20:31.040 We're going to object on Arizona and use that as a vehicle to debate and lay out why we should appoint an election commission.

00:20:38.760 So I made the objection for Arizona.

00:20:41.500 Did it?

00:20:42.060 Paul Gosar, who's an Arizona congressman, objected as well because there was one senator and one House member.

00:20:49.260 There were actually – I think there were six or seven senators who joined my objection.

00:20:55.300 I think all 11 intended to, but not everyone actually physically got to sign the thing.

00:20:59.960 So some of it is actually just mechanically.

00:21:03.020 Like there is an objection that you have to sign, and it was kind of funny.

00:21:07.220 Like we couldn't find the paper for a little while.

00:21:08.900 So there were senators like, hey, I want to sign the objection.

00:21:11.360 And it's like, oh, well, the House members have got it.

00:21:13.760 We got to go find it.

00:21:14.700 And so six or so other senators joined my objection.

00:21:20.980 We go back to the Senate for two hours of debate, and it is alternating back and forth Democrat-Republican.

00:21:28.700 And so I get up and lay out the – and you're only allowed five minutes.

00:21:34.900 So I have five minutes to lay out what it is I'm seeking, which importantly, because the media refuses to acknowledge this, was not to set aside the results of the election but was to have the election commission appointed.

00:21:48.020 I present those remarks.

00:21:52.780 We go back and forth.

00:21:54.520 James Lankford, a Republican senator from Oklahoma who was one of the 11, part of the group that had put out the joint statement.

00:22:02.420 James was standing speaking, and while he was speaking, we notice a commotion.

00:22:09.140 And some secret service agents come in, and they pull the vice president out of the presiding chair, which was really odd.

00:22:19.800 And we're all kind of looking around going, what's going on?

00:22:23.180 And James is still speaking.

00:22:25.400 And so they grab Chuck Grassley, who's the president pro tem, who's the most senior senator in the majority party.

00:22:33.180 And so Grassley goes and takes the seat, and we're all kind of like, okay, well, what happened to the vice president?

00:22:38.220 Nobody knows at that point what's happening.

00:22:42.320 And then, I don't know, a minute or two later, police officers come in, and they interrupt the proceedings.

00:22:49.480 And they say, lock the doors.

00:22:52.540 And so we stop.

00:22:53.460 James stops talking, and they suspend the proceedings on the Senate floor.

00:22:57.560 And the police officers come in and say, close all of the doors to the Senate chambers.

00:23:02.720 There's doors around the bottom.

00:23:03.920 Close the doors up top around the Senate gallery.

00:23:06.800 And they're yelling.

00:23:08.180 I mean, there's an urgency.

00:23:10.460 They're saying, get everyone in here.

00:23:12.720 Everyone sit in your desks.

00:23:15.480 They're bringing the reporters who are in the hallways.

00:23:18.240 They're rushing them into the gallery.

00:23:21.720 There were a number of staff members who were back in the back areas.

00:23:25.420 They rush them all onto the Senate floor, and they kind of cluster in the back of the Senate floor.

00:23:32.440 And the police officers lock all the doors and physically stand guard.

00:23:37.700 And, you know, we're all – everyone's pulling out their phones and, you know, trying to – what the heck's going on?

00:23:42.900 And we're kind of hearing snippets.

00:23:45.820 And we hear, okay, there's a riot.

00:23:48.900 There's an attack on the Capitol.

00:23:52.180 But it's very much fog of war.

00:23:53.860 No one's really sure exactly what's happening.

00:23:56.740 We're there, I think, probably about 20 minutes it felt like on the Senate floor.

00:24:02.340 They're telling everyone, stay there.

00:24:03.880 And then the Capitol Police made the determination – I guess the rioters were starting to get close to the Senate floor.

00:24:10.520 And they determined that was no longer a secure location.

00:24:14.700 And so they gave an evacuation order.

00:24:16.560 They said, everyone, get out.

00:24:17.460 They said, you need to go get out and move now.

00:24:21.460 And so all the senators, the staff, the reporters, we all exit.

00:24:25.140 And are they directing you at this point?

00:24:27.140 They're saying, go out that door, go this way.

00:24:29.240 Yes, yes, they're telling us exactly where to go.

00:24:32.380 And look, the Senate, you know, there are a lot of folks that are not spring chickens.

00:24:36.280 And so there are some, you know, some senators in their 80s who are not the most mobile of folks.

00:24:42.320 And they're trying to evacuate.

00:24:43.740 And the Capitol Police are saying, move quickly.

00:24:46.920 They're not saying stroll.

00:24:48.800 They're saying – I mean, it was pretty tense.

00:24:51.060 Get out.

00:24:51.280 And so we exit and they move us to a secure third location, so away from the Senate chamber.

00:25:01.420 And so we're all together.

00:25:02.640 All the senators are together in a secure location.

00:25:06.020 And we're there for the next several hours.

00:25:09.320 And we're watching TV at this point.

00:25:11.580 We're all on our phones.

00:25:12.680 We're seeing what's going on.

00:25:14.060 And we're horrified.

00:25:15.440 Right.

00:25:15.960 As we see terrorists assaulting police officers, tragically murdering a police officer, we see a violent assault on the Capitol.

00:25:30.760 We see terrorists breaking onto the floor of the Senate chamber and the floor of the House.

00:25:36.780 And all of us are horrified by what we're watching.

00:25:41.260 Now, I will say in the secure location we were there, someone had put on CNN.

00:25:46.800 And so you could see Jake Tapper on CNN referring to everyone who had objected as the sedition caucus.

00:25:54.480 Right, right.

00:25:55.440 Which goes back to just the shameless propagandists that journalists are.

00:26:01.780 But that's – Trump has broken CNN.

00:26:05.080 Trump has broken journalism.

00:26:06.420 We're all watching.

00:26:08.120 We're all obviously deeply concerned.

00:26:14.100 Capitol Police is pressing back.

00:26:16.300 Capitol Police is trying to retake the Capitol.

00:26:18.820 Secret Service is engaged.

00:26:20.560 D.C. police is engaged.

00:26:23.040 And so there's a concerted law enforcement effort to retake the Capitol.

00:26:28.980 Over the next couple of hours, there are a lot of different discussions among senators.

00:26:32.700 I brought the group of 11 together, and we kind of huddled in the back.

00:26:37.320 And I just asked everyone, okay, what do you guys – what should we do now?

00:26:42.100 This was obviously – no one anticipated a terrorist attack on the United States Capitol.

00:26:48.220 What should we do?

00:26:49.680 And there was some disagreement in the group.

00:26:51.440 And I'm kind of – anytime you get a group of 11 senators, you just let everyone talk because they're going to anyway.

00:26:56.440 You're not going to stop them.

00:26:57.860 Right, right.

00:26:58.580 Maybe at the same time.

00:26:59.680 But, you know, I was trying to say, all right, what do you think?

00:27:02.160 What do you think?

00:27:02.820 My view is I said, listen, I think we need to continue what we're doing.

00:27:09.780 Yeah.

00:27:10.140 And I do not believe that we should let a violent mob of terrorists intimidate the United States Senate.

00:27:17.900 Right.

00:27:18.560 We should follow through what we're fighting for, election integrity and an independent election commission to protect the integrity of our election.

00:27:28.180 That is a good and principled and right outcome.

00:27:32.040 And there were several senators who said, well, maybe we should stop because of the riot.

00:27:35.720 And I said, look, why would you let the rioters win?

00:27:38.140 Why would you change your behavior because terrorists have attacked the Capitol?

00:27:45.180 Well, it would seem also to grant the premises of – well, certainly of CNN but also of the people breaking into the Capitol, which is – you know, when you hear this term sedition caucus, what is being told is that it is seditious, it is undermining of the American constitutional order to raise an objection and to call for an electoral commission.

00:28:06.140 And I think you've explained it very well.

00:28:08.520 There is not only precedent for this but the argument, whether or not people want to say it's wise to do this or it's unwise or I support this or I don't support this, surely it is the case that shoring up support for our electoral system and shoring up trust in that system is the opposite of sedition.

00:28:26.540 It is attempting to restore some faith in the American constitutional order.

00:28:31.220 Whatever you think about it practically, you have to at least say that.

00:28:34.800 If you then after the riot say, OK, well, now I'm going to pull my objections, isn't that granting the premise that the whole thing was seditious in the first place?

00:28:43.860 Yeah, look, I think you're right and that's one of the reasons that I think we thought it was a bad idea.

00:28:50.320 You know, the point you just made I think is really important, which is the forum that we were having this debate, the floor of the United States Senate is the exact right place under the constitution, under federal law to have this debate.

00:29:12.700 That's actually in our constitutional system how we resolve differences of opinion over legal issues, over policy issues, over differences between us as we debate.

00:29:25.660 The Senate is supposed to be the world's greatest deliberative body.

00:29:29.580 Standing and making an objection on the floor of the Senate is operating within the constitutional system and it is the antithesis.

00:29:36.700 It is the complete opposite of settling disagreements through violence and terrorism and rioting and assault.

00:29:47.740 And, you know, the Democrats write down.

00:29:50.760 So in the wake of this this terrorist attack.

00:29:56.440 We've seen the Democrats trying to go after everybody.

00:30:00.760 And I got to say, Michael, where we are right now, it reminds me of the end of every Godfather movie.

00:30:07.940 You know, you think of all three of the Godfather movies, the end of the movie, they settle all the debts.

00:30:13.080 You're right.

00:30:13.640 And they and they eliminate all their enemies.

00:30:16.880 That's what the Democrats are trying to do now.

00:30:18.880 So so are they trying to destroy Donald Trump?

00:30:21.680 Yes.

00:30:21.920 And they're trying with all their might to destroy him.

00:30:24.960 But but he's not the only target.

00:30:26.960 They're certainly they're trying to destroy me.

00:30:28.880 They're trying to destroy every conservative.

00:30:31.740 They're trying to destroy every Republican.

00:30:34.200 And they're really trying to say.

00:30:37.140 That the 75 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump. 1.00

00:30:42.820 Are all bigoted, racist, hateful, seditious, insurrectionist terrorists. 1.00

00:30:50.540 Yeah. 0.99

00:30:50.640 I mean, I mean, they they are trying to, you know, Rahm Emanuel famously said, you never let a good crisis go to waste.

00:30:58.280 Right.

00:30:58.800 And and and we're seeing both the Democrats and the media trying to operationalize that and trying to use this attack as an excuse to go after everyone. 0.94

00:31:10.760 You know, one of the most amazing hypocrisies.

00:31:15.040 We don't have to go very far back in history to find violent riots occurring with the active encouragement and celebration of Democratic politicians.

00:31:28.160 Not just, by the way, Senator, not just the active encouragement and celebration, which you saw from people like Maxine Waters, which you saw from people like Hillary Clinton, which you saw from media figures like Chris Cuomo, who said protests don't need to be peaceful.

00:31:41.040 But they also would provide material support.

00:31:44.480 So the vice president, Kamala Harris, posted a fundraising link to bail out the violent rioters in Minnesota.

00:31:51.920 Now, all of a sudden, I know that I'm not supposed to mention that sort of context.

00:31:56.880 It's called whataboutism or some nonsense.

00:31:59.280 I'm pleased to see Democrats are condemning political violence now.

00:32:02.720 Where were you when you were providing material support for violent riots across the country?

00:32:08.400 Michael, that is exactly right.

00:32:10.140 And listeners of Verdict will remember that we have spent the past year talking at great length about Antifa, about BLM riots, about police officers murdered by Antifa and BLM terrorists, about stores being looted and burned to the ground, about police cars being firebombed, and condemning unequivocally violence is always, always, always wrong.

00:32:38.140 And it doesn't matter if it's left-wing or right-wing or no wings at all.

00:32:43.300 And there's a consistency in what you've said and I've said, which is that every American has a right to peaceful protest.

00:32:51.200 You have a right to speak. 0.99

00:32:52.500 You have a right to stand out in the street and say whatever your views are, whether they're right or idiotic. 0.97

00:32:58.780 The First Amendment protects your right to speak, but nobody has a right to commit acts of violence. 0.97

00:33:06.160 And I've been unequivocal condemning violence.

00:33:10.380 All of the Democrats calling for my head right now spent an entire year apologizing for celebrating violent terrorists and rioters burning American cities because they happen to agree with their politics.

00:33:25.960 And as you noted, we're saying, and let's bail the criminals out afterwards.

00:33:31.420 I think we ought to be consistent and say violence and terrorism is wrong, period, the end.

00:33:37.220 And anyone who's attacked the Capitol ought to be fully prosecuted and they ought to go to jail for a long, long time.

00:33:42.860 Yeah, I think that's fair.

00:33:43.820 And I actually am pleased to see that some of the less right-wing Republicans are not really falling for this trick that I think the media are pulling here and the Democrats are pulling.

00:33:55.140 But I repeat myself, your colleague, Senator Mitt Romney, who is not the most right-wing member of the Republican caucus, he came out and said you were raising perfectly legitimate questions and objections.

00:34:05.460 So I was pleased to see that.

00:34:07.240 But I think the point you're making here on the end of The Godfather, everyone's settling scores.

00:34:11.620 I think it's really important and it gets to something even sort of beyond January 6th that we've been talking about for a couple of months on this show, which is Joe Biden might talk like a moderate, but the Democrats are going to go for broke here.

00:34:24.660 They now have a unified government.

00:34:25.980 We're now, what is it, the third day of the Biden administration, I suppose, that we're recording this, and we have not seen meek, mild, unifying Joe Biden.

00:34:36.220 We are seeing the Democrats putting their pedal to the floor of the car.

00:34:41.460 I think that's right.

00:34:43.620 We had the inauguration on January 20th, and I was there at the inauguration.

00:34:48.960 It's the third inauguration I've been to now as a senator.

00:34:51.960 I was at Obama's second inauguration.

00:34:55.380 I was at Trump's inauguration and now Biden's inauguration, and I was sitting up there on the platform, and I actually thought Biden gave a good speech.

00:35:06.000 I am glad that he made a very explicit call for unity.

00:35:12.680 I think that's beneficial.

00:35:15.240 I don't think his party is interested in listening to him.

00:35:17.920 I don't think they're interested in unity.

00:35:19.600 They don't want to heal.

00:35:21.420 They want everybody dead. 0.98

00:35:24.220 I mean, you know, to make another movie reference, it's like, you know, Al Capone at Untouchables saying, you know, him, I want dead. 1.00

00:35:32.140 Him, dead. 1.00

00:35:33.120 Want his family. 0.84

00:35:33.840 And we also saw, even though Biden's rhetoric, and look, the inaugural speech had some partisan jabs that were pretty nasty.

00:35:42.960 But it had some important appeals to let's come together, which I was glad to hear him say.

00:35:50.000 That was combined with, though, he then returned to the Oval Office and signed a stack of executive orders that were anything but uniting, anything but moderate.

00:36:01.900 They were radical.

00:36:03.080 They were extreme.

00:36:04.200 He shut down the Keystone Pipeline, destroyed 11,000 jobs, 8,000 union jobs, boom, with a stroke of a pen, gone.

00:36:11.780 Biden ordered that construction of the border wall be halted immediately, ordered executive amnesty and came out with a radical immigration plan, which, of course, the Democrats are supporting, to grant citizenship to tens of millions of people here illegally.

00:36:29.440 You know, the unifying theme behind all of these is they're just hammering American workers, that the working men and women, that first day in office, Joe Biden and his pen, were just destroying jobs.

00:36:45.700 And that's not a moderate.

00:36:47.980 It's not a unifying agenda.

00:36:50.380 It is instead the wish list of the far left.

00:36:54.140 And you and I have talked about for a year that I think that's where the Democratic Party is, is they're captive to the far left.

00:37:01.640 The first wave of executive orders certainly seem to suggest that.

00:37:05.560 Something that I found even more troubling than the Keystone Pipeline or these other kind of economic issues where you kind of knew Joe Biden was going to go there sooner, probably, rather than later.

00:37:16.640 But on day one, he didn't just get rid of 11,000 jobs with the stroke of a pen.

00:37:21.180 He seemed to get rid of the women's bathrooms. 1.00

00:37:23.300 He seemed to get rid of women's sports. 0.99

00:37:25.780 Now, I'm sure this will be litigated, you know, for years to come.

00:37:29.640 But he signed an executive order saying that boys have the right to go into the girls' room and boys have the right to play in girls' sports.

00:37:37.600 We know that the left is there.

00:37:39.920 But you would imagine that any kind of moderate Democrat would either put that issue to the side or push it well off into the future.

00:37:47.320 Does it seem to you, as it seems to me, that by addressing that kind of a radical idea on day one, he's signaling there ain't going to be no moderation?

00:37:57.660 I think that's right.

00:37:59.000 I think they've told the radicals you get your wish list.

00:38:01.700 And their view, by the way, is what you just said is no longer acceptable.

00:38:07.260 You will be silenced.

00:38:08.440 You will be canceled.

00:38:09.440 You will be censored.

00:38:10.980 Yeah.

00:38:11.080 That they want to – if you're – if you think that your girls' soccer team ought to have girls on it and not people who were born biologically male, the view of the radical left is that is verboten.

00:38:29.200 That is – you're not allowed to have that view.

00:38:31.540 You're not allowed to say it, and it's bigoted and discriminatory if you do.

00:38:36.500 Right, right.

00:38:37.620 But, you know, that's right now who's driving the train in the Biden administration.

00:38:41.340 I want to dig in.

00:38:42.460 I mean the executive orders were scary. 0.98

00:38:45.880 They were hypocritical. 0.66

00:38:47.260 There was one where Joe Biden signs a mask mandate for federal lands, and then he immediately goes and doesn't wear a mask on federal lands because there's one set of rules for thee and one set of rules for me if you're in that sort of liberal elite. 0.91

00:39:01.300 But I want to get beyond the EOs into some of the worries that we had before the election, issues like mass amnesty.

00:39:10.500 I guess we saw that in the executive orders, issues like getting rid of the filibuster, issues like possibly adding new states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.

00:39:18.560 I mean these are the kind of issues that could destroy the Republican Party at the national level forever from – and that will require some legislative work.

00:39:28.820 So that will take place in the Senate.

00:39:30.000 That will take place in the House.

00:39:31.160 What is your view on the likelihood and the timeline of those kind of worst-case scenario policies?

00:39:36.120 Well, the big first step is whether or not the Democrats end the filibuster.

00:39:43.840 To do that, they would have to exercise what's called the nuclear option.

00:39:49.420 The Senate is 50-50.

00:39:50.700 There are 50 Democrats, 50 Republicans.

00:39:53.300 Annie Tai, Kamala Harris, the vice president, breaks.

00:39:56.540 So it is the narrowest Democratic majority possible.

00:40:00.360 Right now at least, Joe Manchin, Democrat from West Virginia, is saying that he won't support ending the filibuster.

00:40:13.060 A huge step one question is does Joe actually hold that position?

00:40:21.380 Right.

00:40:21.860 As we've talked about on verdict before, I'm skeptical that he will.

00:40:26.520 I think when Chuck Schumer puts the thumbscrews to him – and with Schumer, I'm not sure thumbscrews are figurative.

00:40:33.820 They may actually be literal thumbscrews.

00:40:37.700 I'm not sure Manchin is going to hold the line, but it's a dramatically different world if he does because the most radical policy ideas from the left, if they end the filibuster, they can get them done.

00:40:50.880 If they don't end the filibuster, the most radical legislative ideas at least aren't going anywhere.

00:40:57.800 So, for example, making D.C. a state.

00:41:02.000 If they end the filibuster, they'll have the votes to make D.C. a state.

00:41:05.340 If they don't, they won't because Republicans are not going to go along with that.

00:41:10.400 Packing the U.S. Supreme Court.

00:41:11.920 If they end the filibuster, I believe they'll pack the court, that they'll add four new justices to the court.

00:41:19.560 If miraculously they don't end the filibuster, they won't have the votes.

00:41:23.820 Republicans won't go along with that.

00:41:27.680 If they don't end the filibuster, we're still going to see really, really bad policy over the next two years.

00:41:34.040 We're going to see horrible executive policy, regulatory policy, that they can do just within the executive branch.

00:41:42.220 We will see, I believe, a horrible tax bill.

00:41:47.980 They're going to raise taxes on everybody.

00:41:50.080 It's going to be massive.

00:41:51.320 It is going to be driven by the socialist left.

00:41:54.040 And even with the filibuster, if you remember the way Republicans cut taxes in 2017, there's a procedural vehicle called budget reconciliation, which you can pass a tax bill using reconciliation, and it can't be filibustered.

00:42:10.860 So with 51 Democrats, they can pass a massive tax increase.

00:42:15.420 I think that's going to happen.

00:42:16.920 I'm going to fight against it, but it's going to happen.

00:42:20.060 Immigration, I'm very, very worried. 1.00

00:42:21.800 They're going to do terrible things on the executive side, but they're going to push immigration legislation.

00:42:30.080 If we keep the filibuster, immigration is the one area where they could get 10 Republicans to join with them. 0.65

00:42:38.600 With the Gang of Eight in 2013, which I fought tooth and nail against, and we stopped, they got, I think, I think it was 68 senators voted for the Gang of Eight.

00:42:49.840 Right, right.

00:42:50.880 So there are definitely some members of the Republican Conference who are willing to go along with some terrible immigration policy.

00:42:58.960 I hope that doesn't happen.

00:43:00.760 I expect that to be a vigorous legislative battle, and I am all in stopping a massive amnesty plan that is contrary to the rule of law and grotesquely unfair to American workers.

00:43:14.420 The ancillary question to all of this is do they have 50 votes to end the filibuster?

00:43:19.740 And the only Democrat who has said anything suggesting he might not is Manchin.

00:43:25.780 So it literally, if you want to pray for something tonight, pray for spinal fortitude in Joe Manchin and for him being quick enough to avoid Schumer's thumbscrews.

00:43:36.880 Well, there is one thing that I think could hopefully derail some of this awful legislation, and it's funny that this would be the thing to do it.

00:43:47.900 But, Senator, it feels like Groundhog Day on this podcast.

00:43:52.740 This time last year, we launched the show.

00:43:55.180 We launched it during impeachment.

00:43:56.440 Now, you know, history repeats itself first as tragedy, then as farce.

00:44:02.480 We are once again in the impeachment of Donald Trump, who, for those of you who haven't been watching the news recently, is no longer the president.

00:44:13.400 But there is, I guess, going to be an impeachment trial to remove from office the president who is no longer in office.

00:44:21.240 Presumably, this, I guess the bright side is this could derail some of the Senate's time and focus.

00:44:28.940 I truly have no idea what this means.

00:44:32.960 I didn't know that you could impeach a president who is no longer in office.

00:44:36.840 I still don't know that you can.

00:44:38.960 You are a constitutional scholar and a practitioner of the legislation that's going on in the Senate right now.

00:44:45.540 What on earth is happening?

00:44:46.820 Well, the Democrats are hell-bent on going forward with impeachment.

00:44:51.240 And so we're doing yet another impeachment.

00:44:53.340 The House has already impeached Donald Trump.

00:44:56.480 The Senate, they decided today that the trial is going to happen the second week of February.

00:45:01.980 So there's going to be a couple of weeks for each side to get in their legal briefs.

00:45:06.060 And then the trial will commence the second week of February.

00:45:10.780 I think it's a mistake.

00:45:12.520 I think it is petty.

00:45:14.040 I think it's vindictive.

00:45:18.080 And, you know, look, Trump has left office.

00:45:20.580 He's no longer president.

00:45:22.320 At this point, they're simply exercising their primal rage.

00:45:26.240 They hate the man so much.

00:45:28.960 And, you know, you think of the challenges facing this country.

00:45:31.940 I mean, we've got a global pandemic.

00:45:33.540 We have tens of millions of people out of work.

00:45:35.680 We have a lot to be doing rather than looking backwards and fulfilling the Democrats' fury and hatred directed at Trump.

00:45:50.620 But that's where they're going to go.

00:45:52.620 I don't believe he's going to be convicted.

00:45:59.180 To convict him takes 67 votes.

00:46:01.460 I don't think that will happen.

00:46:02.360 And I imagine our next podcast, maybe our next couple, will be talking about different aspects of that.

00:46:10.820 But I think this is just – this is the Democrats with a giant middle finger, not just to Trump, but to everyone who voted for him.

00:46:20.080 But they're saying screw you to everyone on the other side.

00:46:26.780 You know, I'm trying to even figure out what the argument is here for impeachment because I guess they're going to charge him with inciting a riot or inciting an insurrection or kind of whatever language they want to use.

00:46:39.220 Now, of course, President Trump, whatever you think of his actions between the election and January 6th, on January 6th, he did say be peaceful, right?

00:46:47.600 Don't be violent.

00:46:48.780 And while this riot was going on, he said go home, be peaceful, don't do this.

00:46:51.560 So I don't see how they're going to get him on that count really unless they totally change the definition of insurrection.

00:47:00.120 But beyond that, I just have the constitutional question.

00:47:04.540 Can you impeach – can you convict a president who's no longer in office?

00:47:09.220 So that's actually – that turns out to be a complicated constitutional question, and the answer is not a slam dunk on either side.

00:47:18.420 It is an open question, and there are serious scholars on both sides of the issue.

00:47:25.620 If you look at the text of the Constitution, there's support both ways.

00:47:33.000 So, for example, the Constitution provides that the chief justice shall provide – shall preside for the impeachment of the president.

00:47:44.120 Well, Donald Trump today is not the president.

00:47:47.860 In the United States, there's only one the president at any point in time.

00:47:51.860 That's why he has the definite article the.

00:47:55.060 Right.

00:47:55.340 And the president today is Joe Biden.

00:47:59.620 So one of the consequences of that is when the trial happens in February, I expect and imagine John Roberts will not be presiding because Trump is not the president.

00:48:12.960 If you look at the president's – if you look at the president's – if you look at the history and the precedents actually in the U.S., whether you can impeach or whether you can try someone after they have left the office has been hotly debated for hundreds of years.

00:48:26.620 It has happened.

00:48:28.980 The Senate has – the House has impeached, and the Senate has considered proceedings for officials who have left office.

00:48:38.300 So there is historical precedent.

00:48:40.580 The term of art is late impeachments is what it's called.

00:48:44.560 If you look at British common law and the practice of impeachment in Great Britain, there were precedents there for late impeachment as well, for people who are out of office being impeached after the fact.

00:49:01.800 And so there is a – I think a reasonable argument that it is permissible.

00:49:08.240 The counter to that is the language in the Constitution.

00:49:15.520 It is focused principally that the objective of impeachment is to remove someone from office.

00:49:21.340 Right.

00:49:22.360 Is to get someone out of office if they can no longer carry out the role or the job consistent with the responsibilities.

00:49:33.180 And, of course, the predicate is high crimes or misdemeanors, which we've talked about a lot on verdict.

00:49:40.840 Someone who's already left office, getting them out of office has already happened.

00:49:44.840 So the central objective of impeachment is already satisfied.

00:49:51.520 I expect the question of whether you can impeach a president after he's left office to be vigorously debated.

00:50:00.560 I'm sure Trump's lawyers will argue at length that you cannot.

00:50:05.780 I'm sure the House's lawyers will argue at length that you can.

00:50:09.920 And none of that's going to dissuade Chuck Schumer.

00:50:13.160 He's going ahead.

00:50:14.000 The Democrats are all going ahead. 0.77

00:50:15.700 All of them will vote to convict.

00:50:17.260 And I think on the question of whether you can impeach a president after he's in office, there will be senators who arrive on both sides of that issue.

00:50:25.920 Well, I have a conspiracy theory of my own that CNN is putting all of these senators up to this trial because even though they wanted Trump out of office, they really like him for the TV ratings.

00:50:36.260 So they just – even though he's gone out of the white, they want to keep him in the national picture.

00:50:40.500 This all brings us to the question that is certainly on my mind.

00:50:44.000 I think it's on everybody's mind.

00:50:45.780 It was sent to us actually as a mailbag question from Margo.

00:50:49.140 The question is, so what now?

00:50:53.240 We are arrived at the worst case scenario, right?

00:50:57.720 Democrats have the House.

00:50:58.640 They have the Senate.

00:50:59.240 They have the White House.

00:51:00.400 Where do we go from here?

00:51:01.900 What practical steps can conservatives take to combat all the leftist policies already being enacted?

00:51:08.360 Yeah, it's a bad situation.

00:51:12.540 And one of the things that made it much, much worse was the outcome in Georgia.

00:51:17.120 So on January 5th, we had the two Senate runoffs.

00:51:20.780 You know, I went to Georgia three times in December and January, campaigning on the ground, campaigning to try to hold those seats.

00:51:27.360 You joined me for one of those rallies.

00:51:29.180 Yeah, I saw you. That's right.

00:51:29.760 Yeah.

00:51:30.760 Look, I said at the time the Georgia Senate races were the most consequential Senate races of our lifetimes.

00:51:36.900 I think that's right.

00:51:38.180 And if we look at what happened on January 5th, we now have the election results and we can see what happened, which is Republican turnout was down.

00:51:46.100 Democrats showed up.

00:51:47.680 They were unified.

00:51:49.500 They were pissed off. 0.64

00:51:51.100 They hate Donald Trump.

00:51:52.280 And they all showed up in mass.

00:51:53.720 And Republicans, and we tried to energize folks, but Republicans were demoralized.

00:52:00.280 They were dispirited.

00:52:01.600 They were frustrated at the results in the presidential election.

00:52:04.900 And Republicans stayed home.

00:52:06.040 And, you know, if one side shows up and the other side stays home, you know, it kind of reminds me of, you know, John Madden, his sports, sports analysis, where, you know, Madden will say things like, you know, if, if, if, if one team scores more points than the other team, they're going to win the game.

00:52:23.500 But, you know, it's, it's true.

00:52:27.640 Show me the flaw.

00:52:28.400 You know, with, with, with, with that same John Madden insight, if one side's voters show up and the other side's voters stay home.

00:52:38.260 Right.

00:52:38.960 They're going to win the election.

00:52:39.980 And so we're going to have two very difficult years.

00:52:45.400 What now is, is we keep fighting for principles that are right and true and just.

00:52:51.820 It means that we spend the next two years trying to stop policies that will hurt our country, try to stop policies that will destroy individual liberty, try to stop policies that will destroy the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

00:53:05.760 Because we're seeing, you know, for four years, the media wanted it to be all about personality.

00:53:12.680 Do you like Donald Trump or not?

00:53:14.220 Do you like his tweets or not?

00:53:15.580 It was just, it was, you know, it was a reality TV completely devoid from policy or substance or anything concerning our lives.

00:53:27.440 Now, with the radicals in charge, we're going to see their bad policy.

00:53:32.060 That is an opportunity to make the case to millions of Americans, to, to young people and Hispanics and African Americans and suburban moms, that, that these policies of the socialist left are really, really harmful.

00:53:49.760 And I think we need to make, use these two years to make that case.

00:53:54.680 And then we've got to win in 22 and we've got to win in 24.

00:53:57.800 We've got elections coming up.

00:53:59.040 We've got to make it through these two years.

00:54:01.380 And one thing to draw some good news from, some solace, is politics historically tends to be a pendulum.

00:54:11.100 Swings one way and then it swings the other.

00:54:13.160 And what causes it to swing the other is the party in power, particularly if they get unified power as the Democrats have, they almost invariably overreach.

00:54:23.200 They go too far, they go too extreme, and the American people don't like it.

00:54:28.140 They swing back the other way.

00:54:30.160 I think that's what the Democrats are going to do now.

00:54:33.240 That suggests that 2022 should be a very good election and 2024 should be a very good election.

00:54:40.060 Now, could Republicans screw it up?

00:54:43.260 Yes.

00:54:43.580 And the easiest way for us to screw it up is have a civil war within the Republican Party where Republicans spend the next four years trying to kill each other instead of trying to unify and win the elections.

00:54:58.100 I hope that doesn't happen.

00:54:59.360 I'm going to try to do everything I can to prevent it from happening.

00:55:02.960 But that is a risk, but the Democrats overreaching is a factor that should set up a very good election in 22 and a very good election in 24.

00:55:14.120 I think that's all great points, but in particular this idea about the civil war among Republicans because if the left is able to really divide the Republican Party, that's kind of their best hope.

00:55:24.860 I mean, I think they've frankly already overreached with the executive orders from day one, but it's also why I was very pleased to see your colleague Mitt Romney come out and be supportive of, I believe, the Constitution, but also supportive of you and others of your colleagues who maybe are a little more on the conservative side.

00:55:43.080 Yeah, and I appreciated Mitt saying that.

00:55:45.160 That was gracious and helpful of him to say.

00:55:48.640 Yeah, and, you know, if there can be some unity from Republicans, I agree that, you know, the map is looking good, the climate looks good, assuming we can ensure election integrity, which was obviously a topic we talked about a lot today.

00:56:01.980 You know, it could be a good year in 2022, but all of that, of course, begins now, and even 2024 begins now.

00:56:09.080 I have to move to a different topic, a disturbing topic, Senator.

00:56:13.960 This is from Dominic. 0.99

00:56:15.060 Senator, did you at least chuckle when Chuck Schumer had his Freudian slip on the Senate floor and said that Trump caused an erection? 0.99

00:56:26.560 I'll just say it. 0.97

00:56:27.220 I know this is a family show, but the Senate majority leader said it, so I'll say it too.

00:56:32.020 Well, look, I mean, Chuck is really, really excited about being a majority leader, and I think he showed his excitement to the world.

00:56:42.760 He did.

00:56:43.060 Yes, yes, I chuckled heartily, and, you know, there are times when the Senate is supposed to be this august, deliberative body, but there are other times where it's a junior high.

00:56:54.120 And, you know, I have to say this, that mental image, I could have gone my entire life without ever having it in my mind, and I really, my life was complete without ever once having that image.

00:57:13.320 Yes, for those listeners, by the way, who don't know, a Freudian slip is where you say one thing, but me and your mother.

00:57:20.380 So, just to give you some context for what happened there, I'll show myself out, by the way.

00:57:26.400 Galen wants to know, this will be the last question before we go, because I know we've gone a little longer today, but, Senator, I missed you so much.

00:57:32.380 There was a lot to catch up on over this past month, or even a little more than a month.

00:57:36.840 Galen wants to know, what are your priorities, top priorities for 2021, and do you think the GOP is going to keep it together, or do you think we're going to fracture?

00:57:46.660 Stop bad policy, and win hearts and minds.

00:57:51.900 So, I've sat down with my Senate team, and I've said, look, we're in a very different posture.

00:57:59.140 You know, if you look at my time in the Senate, so I've now been in the Senate just over eight years, and first four years I was in the Senate, Barack Obama was president.

00:58:08.900 We saw lots of bad policy coming from the White House, and I viewed my job as leading the loyal opposition, doing everything I could to stop policies that would hurt 29 million Texans and hurt the country.

00:58:23.620 Starting January 2017, we had a Republican president in office, Donald Trump.

00:58:28.200 I agreed with him on many things.

00:58:29.600 I disagreed with him on some things, but we spent the next four years.

00:58:34.280 I worked hand-in-hand with President Trump, trying to deliver big policy wins for the American people, and I think we did.

00:58:41.480 I think if you look at the policy record of the last four years, it's remarkable.

00:58:47.900 That was a very different posture because we weren't trying to fight to stop disastrous policies.

00:58:55.040 We were instead – I spent those four years a lot more time sitting in conference rooms with other senators hammering out legislation and trying to bring Republicans together to get 50 Republicans to yes, and we delivered some really big wins.

00:59:13.280 I've already sat my team down and said, you know what, we're back in the first four years.

00:59:20.060 We're back in the mode of stopping bad policy.

00:59:24.980 Now, we have less leverage than we did back then because then we had a Republican House.

00:59:31.240 We don't now.

00:59:32.300 So I'll use every lever I've got to try to stop bad policy, but we're going to see a lot of bad policy over the next two years, which means that winning hearts and minds explaining why these policies are so harmful, bringing them home and connecting with people.

00:59:53.080 And, you know, verdict listeners are educated and informed and engaged on the issues, and so a lot of what verdict is going to try to do is give you the tools when you're talking to your family around the dinner table, when you're at the water cooler at work or at school, give you the tools to understand what's going on and why these policies matter.

01:00:16.620 And I think that's how we bring the country back, and just look, as I travel around, a lot of people stop me really worried, really dismayed, you know, what are we going to do?

01:00:27.020 And I say, listen, it's going to be a rough two years, but we'll make it through it.

01:00:34.940 America is strong and resilient.

01:00:37.620 Our country is strong enough to make it through this, and it's going to take each of us fighting to make sure that happens.

01:00:44.740 It will, and it will take everyone listening to this show.

01:00:47.460 We really appreciate it.

01:00:48.260 If you wouldn't mind leaving us a five-star review, it would be very helpful.

01:00:51.960 If you would subscribe while we're still on podcast apps for now, hope they don't take us off.

01:00:57.640 We will be back much more quickly than we were over the past month or so.

01:01:01.720 Christmas is over.

01:01:02.700 New Year's is over.

01:01:03.940 We are in a whole new political universe.

01:01:07.120 And in some ways, though, as we look forward to impeachment, it seems like so much more of the same.

01:01:12.120 We will dig into what's going on and look forward to the future.

01:01:15.700 Senator, thank you very much.

01:01:17.060 I'm Michael Knowles.

01:01:17.900 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

01:01:19.640 This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom, and Security Pack,

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - January 23, 2021

Season Premiere： Biden’s America

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