00:05:29.700It was passed in 1877, and it lays out under what conditions objections can be made.
00:05:35.540And 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.
00:05:45.320So if there's not a senator, the objection is out of order and you don't have a debate or a vote.
00:05:53.180If 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.
00:06:01.500And so there were several days where it was unclear if any senators were going to raise an objection.
00:06:07.880Then Josh Hawley, the senator from Missouri, who's been much of the news lately as well, he announced he was going to object.
00:06:14.480He was going to object to the electors from Pennsylvania.
00:06:18.520That changed things because it meant we were definitely going to go and have to vote on that objection.
00:06:24.680We're going to have two hours of debate and all 100 senators were going to have to vote.
00:06:28.760And I got to tell you, there was enormous pressure within the Senate, within the Republican conference, for no senator to object.
00:06:35.740Leadership really didn't want to take this vote.
00:06:40.240Josh decided he was going to object anyway.
00:06:43.100I spent several weeks really wrestling with what's the right thing to do here.
00:06:49.320What 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?
00:07:01.500And as I looked at it, I thought all of the senators really faced a dilemma in that we had two terrible choices.
00:07:11.620We were going to have to vote on the objection.
00:07:14.500If we voted no, if we voted against the objection, that vote would be heard by tens of millions of Americans as saying,
00:07:24.620you don't believe voter fraud is real.
00:08:54.820And that election, likewise, there were serious allegations of voter fraud in three different states, in Florida, in Louisiana, and in South Carolina.
00:09:08.640And what Congress did in 1877, so right after the 1876 election, Congress appointed what it called an election commission.
00:10:10.920And 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.
00:10:31.640And as I was looking at that, what initially struck me was just the weirdness of five House members, five senators, five Supreme Court justices.
00:10:39.840I was like, well, gosh, that's an odd historical creature.
00:10:43.840But as I was looking at the two choices we were facing, I wanted a third option.
00:10:49.400I didn't like either one of the options.
00:10:51.260And so I sat down actually on a plane on Southwest Airlines.
00:10:56.680I pulled out my laptop and flying back and forth from Houston to D.C.
00:11:01.540And I wrote what turned into about a two-page statement.
00:11:05.760And what I did in the statement is I walked through the historical precedents.
00:11:11.900And I walked through the legal precedents that govern this decision.
00:11:16.460And 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.
00:11:32.000And just like in 1877, consider the evidence and make determinations on the disputed ballots.
00:11:38.920The 10-day period was important because 10 days it would have been a daunting task had Congress agreed to do it.
00:11:47.980But by doing it as a 10-day audit, it would be completed before January 20th.
00:11:56.580It wouldn't delay or impact the peaceful transfer of power.
00:12:00.220But it would have a credible, impartial tribunal consider these very serious claims of voter fraud.
00:12:10.280Now, after I wrote it, I thought about just putting the statement out as this is what I'm going to do.
00:12:16.160But 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.
00:12:27.260And so this was on January 1, New Year's Day.
00:13:39.180And 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?
00:13:48.900And everyone's like, yeah, I don't know what to do.
00:13:56.640What ended up happening is that a group of 11 senators came together.
00:14:03.060So 10 other senators joined me in this statement, and they agreed that it was a much better option than the other two votes.
00:14:12.460And so we put out that joint statement as a statement from 11 senators that we were going to object on January 6th.
00:14:21.260But this is really important, Michael.
00:14:22.480We weren't objecting, saying throw the results out.
00:14:25.520We want the candidate we favored to win.
00:14:29.680Instead, 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.
00:14:51.620Well, because, you know, we talked on this show.
00:14:53.960So 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.
00:15:03.440I mean, what happened, for instance, in Pennsylvania where the election officials violated the state constitution?
00:15:09.880That is the clearest example of irregularities, but you had other irregularities in Georgia and other places as well.
00:15:16.440So there is this problem, this fear in people's minds that they can't trust the integrity of the electoral system.
00:15:24.800And we've gotten mailbag questions saying, well, what are we going to do in the future if we can't trust the elections?
00:15:28.360So 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.
00:15:39.620Is it going to, you know, throw out the results of Pennsylvania?
00:16:02.860But 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,
00:16:13.000we have seen overheated rhetoric like crazy on both sides of the political aisle.
00:16:20.160The Democrats and the news media, and sadly the news media is now just part of the Democratic Party.
00:17:14.980That evidence, the campaign did not prove that in any court.
00:17:20.220And to make a determination about an election, it has to be based on the evidence.
00:17:25.760And so simply saying the result you want, that's not responsible, and you've never heard me use language like that.
00:17:32.880What I've said is voter fraud is real, and we need to examine the evidence and look at the actual facts.
00:17:38.180And 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?
00:17:48.900That would have been the mandate of the Election Commission to assess.
00:17:54.940And, 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.
00:18:06.440That's a terrifying statistic, and I tried to make the case to Democrats.
00:18:11.100I said, look, you should want this commission because that's not good for our nation.
00:18:16.580It's not good for our country to go forward with nearly half of the country believing that our democracy is fraudulent.
00:18:24.540We 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.
00:18:35.300Well, 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.
00:18:44.180On the one hand, you've got some people who are saying this election was completely stolen.
00:18:47.940Trump definitely got more votes than Biden, and I know this with 100 percent certainty.
00:18:52.600Even 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.
00:19:04.560And in some places, they did this brazenly in violation of the law, and therefore people have questions about the election.
00:19:20.080All right, so let's go back to January 6th.
00:19:22.100So the way this works, all the senators gather on the floor of the Senate, and then we walk over to the House together.
00:19:28.780We walk over in a procession across the Capitol to come to the House floor.
00:19:33.460And with COVID, we're kind of spread out.
00:19:35.320Normally, everyone's on the House floor, all the House members and senators.
00:19:38.560With COVID protocols, they had people really spread out.
00:19:41.300So there were House members up in the gallery where they wouldn't normally be.
00:19:46.280And 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.
00:19:58.180And 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?
00:20:14.780What we agreed to do was object on the first of the contested states.
00:20:20.200And so that was Arizona, just it's alphabetical.
00:20:22.500So Arizona, of the states where there were significant claims of voter fraud, Arizona was the first of those.
00:20:29.220And so we said, all right, we're going to vote.
00:20:31.040We're going to object on Arizona and use that as a vehicle to debate and lay out why we should appoint an election commission.
00:21:14.700And so six or so other senators joined my objection.
00:21:20.980We go back to the Senate for two hours of debate, and it is alternating back and forth Democrat-Republican.
00:21:28.700And so I get up and lay out the ā and you're only allowed five minutes.
00:21:34.900So 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.
00:27:18.560We should follow through what we're fighting for, election integrity and an independent election commission to protect the integrity of our election.
00:27:28.180That is a good and principled and right outcome.
00:27:32.040And there were several senators who said, well, maybe we should stop because of the riot.
00:27:35.720And I said, look, why would you let the rioters win?
00:27:38.140Why would you change your behavior because terrorists have attacked the Capitol?
00:27:45.180Well, it would seem also to grant the premises of ā well, certainly of CNN but also of the people breaking into the Capitol, which is ā 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.
00:28:06.140And I think you've explained it very well.
00:28:08.520There 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.
00:28:26.540It is attempting to restore some faith in the American constitutional order.
00:28:31.220Whatever you think about it practically, you have to at least say that.
00:28:34.800If 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?
00:28:43.860Yeah, look, I think you're right and that's one of the reasons that I think we thought it was a bad idea.
00:28:50.320You 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.
00:29:12.700That'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.
00:29:25.660The Senate is supposed to be the world's greatest deliberative body.
00:29:29.580Standing and making an objection on the floor of the Senate is operating within the constitutional system and it is the antithesis.
00:29:36.700It is the complete opposite of settling disagreements through violence and terrorism and rioting and assault.
00:29:47.740And, you know, the Democrats write down.
00:29:50.760So in the wake of this this terrorist attack.
00:29:56.440We've seen the Democrats trying to go after everybody.
00:30:00.760And I got to say, Michael, where we are right now, it reminds me of the end of every Godfather movie.
00:30:07.940You know, you think of all three of the Godfather movies, the end of the movie, they settle all the debts.
00:30:58.800And 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.
00:31:10.760You know, one of the most amazing hypocrisies.
00:31:15.040We don't have to go very far back in history to find violent riots occurring with the active encouragement and celebration of Democratic politicians.
00:31:28.160Not 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.
00:31:41.040But they also would provide material support.
00:31:44.480So the vice president, Kamala Harris, posted a fundraising link to bail out the violent rioters in Minnesota.
00:31:51.920Now, all of a sudden, I know that I'm not supposed to mention that sort of context.
00:31:56.880It's called whataboutism or some nonsense.
00:31:59.280I'm pleased to see Democrats are condemning political violence now.
00:32:02.720Where were you when you were providing material support for violent riots across the country?
00:32:10.140And 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.
00:32:38.140And it doesn't matter if it's left-wing or right-wing or no wings at all.
00:32:43.300And there's a consistency in what you've said and I've said, which is that every American has a right to peaceful protest.
00:32:52.500You have a right to stand out in the street and say whatever your views are, whether they're right or idiotic.
00:32:58.780The First Amendment protects your right to speak, but nobody has a right to commit acts of violence.
00:33:06.160And I've been unequivocal condemning violence.
00:33:10.380All 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.
00:33:25.960And as you noted, we're saying, and let's bail the criminals out afterwards.
00:33:31.420I think we ought to be consistent and say violence and terrorism is wrong, period, the end.
00:33:37.220And anyone who's attacked the Capitol ought to be fully prosecuted and they ought to go to jail for a long, long time.
00:33:43.820And 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.
00:33:55.140But 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.
00:34:07.240But I think the point you're making here on the end of The Godfather, everyone's settling scores.
00:34:11.620I 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.
00:34:25.980We'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.
00:34:36.220We are seeing the Democrats putting their pedal to the floor of the car.
00:34:55.380I 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.
00:35:06.000I am glad that he made a very explicit call for unity.
00:35:33.840And we also saw, even though Biden's rhetoric, and look, the inaugural speech had some partisan jabs that were pretty nasty.
00:35:42.960But it had some important appeals to let's come together, which I was glad to hear him say.
00:35:50.000That 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.
00:36:04.200He shut down the Keystone Pipeline, destroyed 11,000 jobs, 8,000 union jobs, boom, with a stroke of a pen, gone.
00:36:11.780Biden 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.
00:36:29.440You 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.
00:36:50.380It is instead the wish list of the far left.
00:36:54.140And 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.
00:37:01.640The first wave of executive orders certainly seem to suggest that.
00:37:05.560Something 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.
00:37:16.640But on day one, he didn't just get rid of 11,000 jobs with the stroke of a pen.
00:37:21.180He seemed to get rid of the women's bathrooms.
00:37:23.300He seemed to get rid of women's sports.
00:37:25.780Now, I'm sure this will be litigated, you know, for years to come.
00:37:29.640But 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.
00:37:39.920But 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.
00:37:47.320Does 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?
00:38:11.080That they want to ā if you're ā 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.
00:38:29.200That is ā you're not allowed to have that view.
00:38:31.540You're not allowed to say it, and it's bigoted and discriminatory if you do.
00:38:47.260There 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.
00:39:01.300But I want to get beyond the EOs into some of the worries that we had before the election, issues like mass amnesty.
00:39:10.500I 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.
00:39:18.560I mean these are the kind of issues that could destroy the Republican Party at the national level forever from ā and that will require some legislative work.
00:39:28.820So that will take place in the Senate.
00:40:21.860As we've talked about on verdict before, I'm skeptical that he will.
00:40:26.520I think when Chuck Schumer puts the thumbscrews to him ā and with Schumer, I'm not sure thumbscrews are figurative.
00:40:33.820They may actually be literal thumbscrews.
00:40:37.700I'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.
00:40:50.880If they don't end the filibuster, the most radical legislative ideas at least aren't going anywhere.
00:41:51.320It is going to be driven by the socialist left.
00:41:54.040And 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.
00:42:10.860So with 51 Democrats, they can pass a massive tax increase.
00:42:21.800They're going to do terrible things on the executive side, but they're going to push immigration legislation.
00:42:30.080If we keep the filibuster, immigration is the one area where they could get 10 Republicans to join with them.
00:42:38.600With 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.
00:43:00.760I 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.
00:43:14.420The ancillary question to all of this is do they have 50 votes to end the filibuster?
00:43:19.740And the only Democrat who has said anything suggesting he might not is Manchin.
00:43:25.780So 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.
00:43:36.880Well, 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.
00:43:47.900But, Senator, it feels like Groundhog Day on this podcast.
00:43:52.740This time last year, we launched the show.
00:43:56.440Now, you know, history repeats itself first as tragedy, then as farce.
00:44:02.480We 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.
00:44:13.400But there is, I guess, going to be an impeachment trial to remove from office the president who is no longer in office.
00:44:21.240Presumably, this, I guess the bright side is this could derail some of the Senate's time and focus.
00:46:02.360And I imagine our next podcast, maybe our next couple, will be talking about different aspects of that.
00:46:10.820But I think this is just ā this is the Democrats with a giant middle finger, not just to Trump, but to everyone who voted for him.
00:46:20.080But they're saying screw you to everyone on the other side.
00:46:26.780You 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.
00:46:39.220Now, 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?
00:47:59.620So 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.
00:48:12.960If you look at the president's ā if you look at the president's ā 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.
00:48:40.580The term of art is late impeachments is what it's called.
00:48:44.560If 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.
00:49:01.800And so there is a ā I think a reasonable argument that it is permissible.
00:49:08.240The counter to that is the language in the Constitution.
00:49:15.520It is focused principally that the objective of impeachment is to remove someone from office.
00:50:17.260And 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.
00:50:25.920Well, 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.
00:50:36.260So they just ā even though he's gone out of the white, they want to keep him in the national picture.
00:50:40.500This all brings us to the question that is certainly on my mind.
00:51:38.180And 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.
00:52:06.040And, 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.
00:52:39.980And so we're going to have two very difficult years.
00:52:45.400What now is, is we keep fighting for principles that are right and true and just.
00:52:51.820It 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.
00:53:05.760Because we're seeing, you know, for four years, the media wanted it to be all about personality.
00:53:15.580It was just, it was, you know, it was a reality TV completely devoid from policy or substance or anything concerning our lives.
00:53:27.440Now, with the radicals in charge, we're going to see their bad policy.
00:53:32.060That 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.
00:53:49.760And I think we need to make, use these two years to make that case.
00:53:54.680And then we've got to win in 22 and we've got to win in 24.
00:53:59.040We've got to make it through these two years.
00:54:01.380And one thing to draw some good news from, some solace, is politics historically tends to be a pendulum.
00:54:11.100Swings one way and then it swings the other.
00:54:13.160And 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.
00:54:23.200They go too far, they go too extreme, and the American people don't like it.
00:54:43.580And 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.
00:54:59.360I'm going to try to do everything I can to prevent it from happening.
00:55:02.960But 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.
00:55:14.120I 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.
00:55:24.860I 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.
00:55:43.080Yeah, and I appreciated Mitt saying that.
00:55:45.160That was gracious and helpful of him to say.
00:55:48.640Yeah, 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.
00:56:01.980You know, it could be a good year in 2022, but all of that, of course, begins now, and even 2024 begins now.
00:56:09.080I have to move to a different topic, a disturbing topic, Senator.
00:56:43.060Yes, 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.
00:56:54.120And, 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.
00:57:13.320Yes, for those listeners, by the way, who don't know, a Freudian slip is where you say one thing, but me and your mother.
00:57:20.380So, just to give you some context for what happened there, I'll show myself out, by the way.
00:57:26.400Galen 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.
00:57:32.380There was a lot to catch up on over this past month, or even a little more than a month.
00:57:36.840Galen 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?
00:57:46.660Stop bad policy, and win hearts and minds.
00:57:51.900So, I've sat down with my Senate team, and I've said, look, we're in a very different posture.
00:57:59.140You 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.
00:58:08.900We 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.
00:58:23.620Starting January 2017, we had a Republican president in office, Donald Trump.
00:58:29.600I disagreed with him on some things, but we spent the next four years.
00:58:34.280I worked hand-in-hand with President Trump, trying to deliver big policy wins for the American people, and I think we did.
00:58:41.480I think if you look at the policy record of the last four years, it's remarkable.
00:58:47.900That was a very different posture because we weren't trying to fight to stop disastrous policies.
00:58:55.040We were instead ā 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.
00:59:13.280I've already sat my team down and said, you know what, we're back in the first four years.
00:59:20.060We're back in the mode of stopping bad policy.
00:59:24.980Now, we have less leverage than we did back then because then we had a Republican House.
00:59:32.300So 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.
00:59:53.080And, 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.
01:00:16.620And 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?
01:00:27.020And I say, listen, it's going to be a rough two years, but we'll make it through it.