Verdict with Ted Cruz - Short‑Term Pain Long‑Term Results in Iran, Tucker & the WOKE Right plus No Cash for DHS even after 4 Terror Attacks Week In Review

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.560 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.440 Welcome. It is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:06.700 Weekend Review. Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:08.840 And here are the big stories that we talked about this week that you may have missed.

00:00:12.740 First up, Democrats are going all in on the idea of the attacks in Iran becoming an endless war.

00:00:20.340 We'll break down exactly why that's not true and it's not going to happen.

00:00:25.460 Also, Tucker Carlson and the woke right, well, they're isolationists.

00:00:30.300 And we explain why this undermines President Trump and also America First policies and helps our enemies.

00:00:37.600 And finally, what's next after the terrorist attacks that we've already had here in the U.S.?

00:00:42.420 So many Americans are so concerned right now as they should be and want to feel safe.

00:00:47.080 We break it down for you.

00:00:48.800 It's The Weeknd Review, and it starts right now.

00:00:52.460 The president's been pretty clear about this.

00:00:54.200 This is going to be short term increase. Democrats do seem to be latching onto this.

00:00:58.300 Like, remember when egg prices was like a big thing in the political world?

00:01:01.440 Yep. This is the new egg price thing. Right. Oh, my gosh.

00:01:04.500 Donald Trump says a lower price of the pump for you. Look at it now.

00:01:07.180 Look how bad it is now. It's going to be, you know, ten dollars a gallon in California.

00:01:10.880 It's going to be five, six dollars a gallon everywhere else.

00:01:13.200 The president's come out and says it's going to be short term. I believe him.

00:01:16.140 I think also seeing how hard we're hitting Iran right now is also showing the timeline here that they are wanting to do everything, 0.99

00:01:23.940 as fast as they can. Why drag this out? Go all in, do it quickly, get the pain over with and let

00:01:30.940 those people hopefully rise up and take over Iran and actually move forward. Are you that worried

00:01:36.920 about about the gas prices? I'm not yet. Like if it's three months from now or two months from now,

00:01:42.420 I'm going to be more worried. But right now I feel like this is exactly on schedule or ahead

00:01:46.920 of schedule as the White House has described it. Yeah. So look, there's been a short term

00:01:50.960 increase in gas prices and and anytime there's a military conflict in the middle east gas prices

00:01:56.660 go up because a lot of oil comes from the middle east and and so military conflict has an effect

00:02:03.020 on supply and demand i think this will be short term one of the things to remember

00:02:07.520 is so six months ago gas prices were about i don't have the exact number off the top of my head but

00:02:15.620 about two dollars and fifty cents a gallon yeah they've risen about a dollar they're about three

00:02:20.660 dollars and fifty cents a gallon this is national averages and so it is true that over the last six

00:02:26.900 months gasoline prices have risen where were they 18 months ago under joe biden they were nearly six

00:02:34.300 dollars a gallon so by any measure they're massively cheaper than joe biden yes they've

00:02:40.740 gone up from about 250 to about 350 but i think this is a short-term increase and i gotta say

00:02:47.680 if and when the iranian regime collapses and by the way we've utterly degraded their military

00:02:52.920 and and we've taken out the ayatollah and the senior military leadership if and when we have

00:02:58.180 a government in iran that is not a radical theocratic islamist government who wants to

00:03:04.520 murder america who is funding terrorists all across the world who is actively trying to murder 0.75

00:03:10.000 americans every single day if we have just a normal government i don't really care who we 0.89

00:03:14.500 have just as long as it's not a crazy person killing americans the effect on global gas prices

00:03:21.100 will be to lower them significantly so i actually think this conflict in the long term or even the

00:03:26.760 medium term will have a substantial downward pressure on gasoline prices there's a short

00:03:31.300 period where prices have spiked somewhat although to be clear they're much much lower than under

00:03:37.100 biden but they are higher than they were six months ago under trump i i look i think the

00:03:42.820 democrats are attacking gas prices because they hate trump and and they're just everything trump

00:03:47.100 does is wrong this is an incredibly important decision that trump has made for advancing u.s

00:03:57.140 national security and i will say part of the reason why when when like i was being questioned

00:04:01.180 on lindsey graham i like lindsey as i said i agree with him sometimes i disagree with him sometimes

00:04:06.400 But what the questioning really was about is, isn't the Iran war about Israel?

00:04:12.100 Isn't this all about Israel?

00:04:13.760 And the suggestion was Israel as a puppet master controlling Donald Trump. 0.67

00:04:18.680 That's just a blatant lie.

00:04:21.180 This military conflict has very little to do with Israel.

00:04:25.440 The reason President Trump decided to attack Iran is because Iran has been waging war with America for 47 years,

00:04:32.700 and they've killed nearly 1,000 Americans, and they're the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world. 0.54

00:04:38.360 And so the people trying to say, I don't want another war for Israel.

00:04:43.780 I don't want my children to die for the Jews. 1.00

00:04:47.600 That is not honest, because we're doing this because the regime in Iran is killing Americans. 0.98

00:04:57.460 And to be clear, if they had the capacity, if they had nuclear weapons, they would kill many, many more Americans. 0.99

00:05:05.560 If they could, they would kill you and me right now, Ben. 1.00

00:05:08.620 If they could, every listener of this podcast, they would kill. 0.99

00:05:11.900 If they had a nuclear weapon, I believe there is a real possibility they would detonate it in the skies of Tel Aviv or New York or Los Angeles. 0.85

00:05:19.580 And I'm not interested in seeing a day where hundreds of thousands of Americans are murdered by an Ayatollah chanting death to America. 0.98

00:05:29.040 That's why President Trump acted.

00:05:30.920 But it was not about Israel.

00:05:33.020 It was about America.

00:05:34.540 And I think we need to be very, very clear about that.

00:05:37.040 I also think one of the other things that I think is really frustrating is just seeing how many people act as if somehow Donald Trump was hoodwinked by Israel for us to get involved in this war.

00:05:46.380 And you were asked about that.

00:05:48.100 I was asked about it as well. 0.99

00:05:49.580 TV, and I said, that is the biggest load of crap I've heard in a long time. 0.99

00:05:53.520 President Trump isn't hoodwinked by anybody. 0.99

00:05:55.500 President Trump isn't walked around by anyone.

00:05:58.180 And if you've ever been around him, you know that.

00:06:00.380 I think it goes back to what you just said.

00:06:02.320 The president understood the national security risks, not to Israel.

00:06:06.560 This is America first. 0.74

00:06:08.780 Correct.

00:06:09.180 It's America and the national security threat to America, including the fact that they're 0.67

00:06:13.360 trying to kill and have sent people and trained people and paid people to try to kill the

00:06:17.620 president of the United States of America.

00:06:18.780 Also, people in the last administration, John Bolton, for example, was one of those.

00:06:22.740 There's several others on this list that have actually been they've had hits out on Brian Hook.

00:06:28.620 Yes, exactly. So you go with the list here.

00:06:31.700 The president was clear about this, that this is about America.

00:06:36.140 And I think that's another example.

00:06:37.940 When I said there's like four or five working theories, Democrats are on jail at a wall saying, does any of this fit with Americans?

00:06:43.420 I also think it's very interesting. And final thing to you.

00:06:46.760 I don't think the American people are buying this.

00:06:49.700 And part of it's because I think Democrats have just said some of those orlandish and crazy things on every issue trying to hurt Donald Trump.

00:06:56.740 Now it's becoming a little bit more of white noise.

00:06:59.080 And that's I'm thankful for that, to be honest with you.

00:07:02.180 Yeah, no, I think that's right.

00:07:03.440 And look, some of the reaction of the voters will depend on how this plays out.

00:07:08.040 But if this military conflict lasts many months or years, if we're sitting here a year from now and still mired in a military conflict, if we've got a massive troop presence on the ground, if we have hundreds of thousands of American soldiers being killed, this war will be very unpopular.

00:07:27.400 Yeah.

00:07:27.960 I think the chances of that happening are very, very close to zero percent.

00:07:33.240 Iran is not Iraq. 0.97

00:07:34.900 we're not going to see a massive troop presence on the ground we're not going to see an extended

00:07:41.680 military occupation actually i want you to listen to pete pete hegseth making this point and we're

00:07:46.920 going to wrap up on this listen listen to the secretary of war pete hegseth you see this is

00:07:52.940 not 2003 this is not endless nation building under those types of quagmires we saw under bush

00:08:01.440 or Obama. It's not even close. Our generation of soldier will not let that happen again and nor

00:08:08.480 will this president who very clearly ran against those kinds of never-ending nebulously scoped

00:08:16.420 missions. Those days are dead. Instead we're winning decisively with brutal efficiency

00:08:23.260 total air dominance and an unbreakable will to accomplish the president's objectives

00:08:29.100 on our timeline we stay locked on the target because here at the department of war that's our

00:08:36.340 job you listen to pete there this is one of the reasons why i actually think it was a blessing

00:08:40.500 that he was named and made it through confirmation he's a guy he's a combat veteran who's been in

00:08:46.440 harm's way yeah this is a guy that i think is genuinely in the room advocating to make sure

00:08:52.420 that what happened to a lot of his colleagues when he was serving in uniform and deployed

00:08:57.240 that doesn't happen to this group of soldiers now and it's clear that this is personal for him

00:09:03.480 that's why i'm so thankful that he's there in this position because he lived the other side

00:09:08.740 of it that he was just describing right look avoiding endless wars does not mean embracing

00:09:14.740 isolationism yeah peace through strength is what reagan called it donald trump just understands

00:09:22.120 it as being a strong commander-in-chief that when people are killing americans he is going to

00:09:26.860 respond vigorously to take them out. And by the way, our enemies are terrified. As I've said

00:09:32.720 before, at 3 a.m. on January 3rd, there was not a Latin American dictator who didn't have to 0.61

00:09:39.540 change his shorts, because that's when President Trump seized Nicolas Maduro. What is happening

00:09:45.880 in Iran, the top leadership has been taken out. Every bad guy, every person who hates America is

00:09:51.500 really, really worried right now, because this is a nation that defends itself. And by the way,

00:09:56.580 that makes clear if you kill Americans, there are going to be massive consequences to it. 0.99

00:10:03.120 Barack Obama and Joe Biden's weakness and appeasement that if you kill Americans, 0.91

00:10:07.360 oh, well, we're not going to do anything about it. That invites more people to target and kill 0.99

00:10:11.940 Americans. This is about avoiding war by being strong enough to take out the people that are 1.00

00:10:18.560 killing Americans, and that avoids protracted military conflict. I think that's what we're 0.85

00:10:24.640 seeing right now, and it makes America a whole lot safer. Now, if you want to hear the rest of

00:10:29.100 this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week.

00:10:34.540 Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, 1.00

00:10:38.700 their elected leaders, and the world around them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce

00:10:42.480 the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast,

00:10:47.800 we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians,

00:10:53.160 and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

00:10:56.500 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:10:59.740 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio

00:11:02.120 or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:11:05.540 Now on to story number two.

00:11:07.920 The Democrats and the press are trying to undermine President Trump.

00:11:13.160 They're trying to undermine the U.S. military,

00:11:14.840 and they're trying to bolster Iran and the Ayatollahs.

00:11:19.700 Do you know who else is doing that?

00:11:21.680 Who else?

00:11:22.060 Tucker Carlson and the rest of the so-called woke right. There's a group of isolationist

00:11:28.960 folks on the right. It is a small group, but they are loud and vocal. And Tucker Carlson has now

00:11:35.280 all but declared war on President Trump's foreign policy. I want you to listen to Tucker Carlson in

00:11:41.020 his latest show. I'm going to warn you, what he says here is shocking, and it is to the left of

00:11:47.000 chris murphy so it is more anti-donald trump than chris murphy and the democrats listen to tucker 0.97

00:11:53.260 carlson unconditional surrender means foreign troops get to rape your wife and daughter if

00:11:57.860 they want and everyone knows that and that has been if there's one consistent lesson of history 0.99

00:12:02.740 means unconditional surrender means foreign troops get to rape your wife and daughter everyone can 0.99

00:12:10.380 feel that that's like the most atavistic instinct there is and so to avoid that people will do 0.97

00:12:15.620 anything. And so that's why it requires that level of force to get a population subdued to the point

00:12:22.740 of unconditional surrender. That's why. And so in this case, of course, we don't have the ground

00:12:27.940 force necessary. I don't think Americans would voluntarily participate in it. I just don't think

00:12:32.700 we can do that. It would require weapons of mass destruction. It would require presumably nuclear

00:12:37.640 weapons in order to do that. And let's not lie to ourselves. We're moving toward that.

00:12:42.420 you hear tucker there and and i mean you want to talk about unhinged that is like some of the most

00:12:48.400 uh anti-american propaganda i've ever seen spewed by someone like tucker carlson it is a new low

00:12:55.440 even for him and that and the bar keeps dropping day after day look the phrase the words someone

00:13:01.520 like tucker carlson you don't even have to put that constraint that is more anti-american rhetoric

00:13:07.060 than anything i've ever heard bernie sanders say or even chris murphy what he said there listen

00:13:11.840 And Tucker continues to go to new lows and new lows.

00:13:14.320 And part of it is President Trump this week said that Tucker Carlson is, quote, not MAGA and not smart.

00:13:21.460 The more Tucker Carlson attacks Donald Trump, the more fringe he gets.

00:13:25.500 And so I think this was Tucker acting out when Trump said what was obviously true.

00:13:30.160 But Tucker just said, go back, rewind and listen to what he just said. 0.99

00:13:34.300 He said, number one, if Iran surrenders, that American soldiers are going to rape their wives and daughters. 0.99

00:13:42.500 And in fact, he said it twice. 1.00

00:13:44.360 What utter and complete garbage you America-hating Islamist fluffer. 1.00

00:13:51.000 I got to say, that makes me mad. 1.00

00:13:53.180 I think of the servicemen and women, but the men in particular who are risking their lives. 0.99

00:13:59.200 And Tucker Carlson standing there saying, if you surrender to America, American soldiers are going to rape your women. 0.91

00:14:06.460 We have never done that. That is not something America does. 0.96

00:14:10.400 No, Tucker, American soldiers are not going to rape Iranian women. 0.94

00:14:14.580 You know who rapes the people they conquer? Iranians do. Islamists do. 1.00

00:14:19.320 That is, in fact, part of what they do. Part of what they do is that they rape women as a means of subjugation. 1.00

00:14:26.560 But Tucker's not going to tell you that because Tucker is now one of the leading proponents of Sharia law in the United States. 0.95

00:14:32.800 He's literally an apologist for Islamists. 0.89

00:14:35.560 And so, now you might say, wow, that statement seems incredible.

00:14:39.340 It seems extreme.

00:14:40.520 Here are a couple of data points.

00:14:41.620 Number one, during this war, the Iranian national television is playing Tucker Carlson's show in Iran.

00:14:49.700 They view that as such valuable propaganda.

00:14:52.320 They want the Iranian people to hear Tucker. 0.77

00:14:54.260 Number two, the Muslim Brotherhood—by the way, Hamas is the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine, and they are terrorists—are tweeting out Tucker Carlson's show.

00:15:04.160 The Muslim Brotherhood is saying, this is our spokesman. Man, this guy is good. 0.70

00:15:08.660 I cannot recall another major political figure on left or right who has said, if you surrender to America, American soldiers will rape your women. 0.98

00:15:18.300 That's what Tucker Carlson just said. That is grotesque. 0.99

00:15:21.560 And by the way, any soldier who sees Tucker Carlson ought to say, how dare you say that, American soldiers?

00:15:27.300 No, we would not.

00:15:28.740 And impugning our troops is disgusting.

00:15:31.280 And the second thing that Tucker said in that clip is that Donald Trump is moving towards using a nuclear weapon in Iran.

00:15:40.280 No, he's not, Tucker.

00:15:41.480 That is a complete and utter lie.

00:15:43.260 That is false.

00:15:44.380 We are not going to nuke Iran.

00:15:46.220 It is only deranged.

00:15:47.840 That's the sort of thing the Ayatollah would say.

00:15:49.900 And you've got to ask yourself, look, some of you may think back to when Tucker was on Fox News and he was actually said a lot of things you and I love that made a lot of sense.

00:15:59.800 This guy today is just a kook. 1.00

00:16:02.720 And even worse than that, he is the most prominent purveyor of Islamist lies about America and about Donald Trump. 0.97

00:16:11.680 Tucker Carlson has gone full out to war with Donald Trump's national security and foreign policy.

00:16:17.940 And it is, he and Chris Murphy are now, they are comrades in arms.

00:16:24.080 He and Chris, Tucker Carlson and Chris Murphy and Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and Ilhan Omar and AOC,

00:16:30.720 they all have the exact same foreign policy, and it is anti-American, and it is pro-Islamist, and it's dangerous as hell. 0.80

00:16:38.900 We've got some breaking news as we are recording this on Sunday.

00:16:42.280 They have now named a new leader in Iran.

00:16:44.840 And it is the son of the former leader there.

00:16:47.700 That is someone that the president has said is unacceptable.

00:16:50.680 Your reaction to that as well?

00:16:52.940 Well, look, it's not surprising.

00:16:54.340 The mullahs are going to get together and they're going to want another mullah to be the Ayatollah.

00:16:58.540 And they want the country to continue to be run by Islamist clerics who embrace a death cult. 1.00

00:17:07.580 And it's interesting.

00:17:08.700 One of the things, I'm going back to Chris Murphy and what he said a minute ago.

00:17:11.880 So, you know, we rely on deterrence to stop the most egregious acts of harm.

00:17:20.880 Deterrence works with many countries because you have rational actors.

00:17:26.760 Let's take, for example, North Korea.

00:17:30.080 So North Korea is an exceptionally dangerous part of the world. 0.96

00:17:33.060 Why does North Korea have nukes?

00:17:34.440 Well, it goes back to a previous Democrat president, Bill Clinton.

00:17:39.760 Bill Clinton sent a State Department employee named Wendy Sherman to negotiate a nuclear agreement with Kim Jong-il, who was the father of the current dictator Kim Jong-un.

00:17:54.220 And the deal they cut is that Bill Clinton agreed to send billions of dollars to North Korea, and in exchange for that money, North Korea would promise not to develop nuclear weapons.

00:18:06.660 Well, what happened?

00:18:07.340 We now know what happened.

00:18:08.160 They took the billions of dollars.

00:18:09.900 They used it to develop nuclear weapons.

00:18:12.240 And today, North Korea has nuclear weapons.

00:18:13.920 So it was a spectacular failure.

00:18:16.700 Fast forward to Barack Obama.

00:18:17.980 Barack Obama comes into office, and he decides his signature foreign policy move is he wants

00:18:23.300 to negotiate an agreement with Iran on nuclear weapons.

00:18:26.580 So what does he do? 0.90

00:18:27.220 He actually goes and recruits the same damn person, Wendy Sherman, to negotiate his Iran 0.98

00:18:32.840 deal. 0.98

00:18:33.060 Literally, there are 8 billion people on planet Earth, Ben. There is one out of 8 billion who has screwed this up previously, has negotiated a deal to send billions of dollars to a foreign dictator, and it's resulted in that dictator using the billions of dollars to develop nuclear weapons.

00:18:48.620 That would be Wendy Sherman. That's who Obama brought in and said, hey, can you do the same for us? 1.00

00:18:52.940 now we live with the failures of the clinton administration and wendy sherman with north

00:18:58.700 korea and and kim jong-un is a dictator he's megalomaniacal he's dangerous as hell he is 0.66

00:19:05.800 he is testing icbms he is targeted explicitly target u.s citizens including austin texas

00:19:11.820 he is a city that he has said he's targeted before however our best protection is kim jong-un

00:19:18.520 knows if he ever used a nuclear weapon the result would be massive overwhelming retaliation and his

00:19:24.620 regime would lose power that day. It would be the end of his life if he did that. As dangerous as

00:19:31.600 Kim Jong-un is at least there's some possibility of rational self-deterrence. Here's what makes

00:19:38.880 Iran orders of magnitude more dangerous. When you're dealing with religious extremism, when 1.00

00:19:44.500 you're dealing with theocratic zealots who are in a death cult, who glorify death and suicide,

00:19:52.840 rational deterrence doesn't work the same way. So for example, if the Ayatollah 0.75

00:19:57.000 detonated a nuclear weapon, say in Tel Aviv or in New York or Los Angeles, and let me be clear,

00:20:03.780 I believe if the Ayatollah could do so, he would have done so already. The response would be 0.92

00:20:09.100 overwhelming and devastating, but the problem is when you celebrate death and suicide,

00:20:15.120 that normal cost-benefit analysis does not apply. And so, yes, they've named a new Ayatollah. The

00:20:21.240 Ayatollah is what? The son of the old Ayatollah. Okay, great. That is not acceptable because

00:20:27.940 President Trump has rightly made the decision we're not going to allow U.S. national security 1.00

00:20:33.020 to be vulnerable to religious zealots who are funding terrorism,

00:20:39.400 who are the number one funders of terrorism worldwide and have been for 47 years.

00:20:47.600 So Ayatollah number one, Skippy Jr., is not going to get to take over either 0.99

00:20:52.640 because allowing Iran to wage war and to murder Americans is not consistent with U.S. national security.

00:21:00.520 As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and download the podcast from early this week to hear the entire thing.

00:21:09.800 Canadian women are looking for more, more to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them. 0.95

00:21:16.120 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:21:19.880 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:21:21.060 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:21:22.280 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

00:21:25.660 entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their

00:21:31.160 journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk

00:21:35.860 podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I want to get back to the big

00:21:42.620 story number three of the week you may have missed. Senator, I want to go back to the overall

00:21:46.960 conversation here with these terrorist attacks. It is depressing. I think there's a lot of

00:21:52.080 americans that are very concerned about it and that is something that i think so many americans

00:21:57.080 they want to feel safe and secure the department of homeland security not being funded and these

00:22:03.540 four terrorist attacks in a normal world with a normal media would be front page news and they'd

00:22:08.300 be running up and they'd be sticking a microphone in front of the face of the people that voted

00:22:13.260 no to funding dhs i go back to the media when they were obsessed with the price of eggs remember and

00:22:19.960 They were trying to say that it was somehow Donald Trump's fault that the egg prices were high.

00:22:23.820 They went like 24-7 coverage on that over eggs. 0.64

00:22:28.020 But on this issue, they're completely gone from covering it and holding accountable the Democratic leadership.

00:22:36.020 Like, how are you guys holding this up?

00:22:37.460 There are dead Americans, and that's not sensationalizing.

00:22:40.860 That is a fact.

00:22:42.040 There are dead Americans and terrorist attacks,

00:22:44.060 And you guys have unfunded the department that is supposed to be doing this, in charge of it, helping with this, aiding with this.

00:22:51.480 And this is one of those times where there is a lot of uncertainty about what's next.

00:22:57.020 The Democrats, it is hard to overstate how little they're concerned.

00:23:01.260 Look, I think they could leave DHS defunded for the rest of the year.

00:23:05.900 I mean, that's really how bad it is.

00:23:07.860 They're not concerned at all.

00:23:09.760 They don't care about the people whose lives they're ruining.

00:23:12.280 They don't care about the people who can't pay their rent or can't feed their kids, and they don't care about leaving us exposed to a massive terrorist attack, and that seems harsh.

00:23:22.340 I don't like saying they don't care about it because – but give me an alternative explanation, and I think the media plays a huge part in it because they believe there is zero cost, so they're appeasing their radical base.

00:23:35.940 So look, the CNN tweet that I read just a minute ago describing the two ISIS-inspired terrorists as just two Pennsylvania teenagers that could have had a normal day enjoying the warm weather.

00:23:49.800 Yeah. 0.97

00:23:49.860 Like that was so ridiculous. They deleted that tweet. But I also want to play what Abby Phillips, who you know, you've been on her show with her, what she said about this because it shows just the mindset of CNN. Here, give a listen to how she described.

00:24:07.840 Two Republicans say Muslims don't belong here after an attempted terror attack against New York's Mayor Zoran Mamdani.

00:24:16.000 And the House Speaker, Mike Johnson, says nothing really to condemn those comments.

00:24:20.860 That is shocking that she said that.

00:24:23.320 And it did backfire, as you described it, because she had to come out and then apologize on this one or retract it. 0.98

00:24:32.000 And this is how her retraction, by the way, the next night. Take a listen.

00:24:35.840 This morning I issued a correction first thing in the morning on X for a mistake that I made in last night's show, but I also wanted to do so on air as well.

00:24:45.540 I incorrectly said that the bombs that were thrown by ISIS-inspired suspects in New York over the weekend were directed at Mayor Mamdani.

00:24:52.880 They were not. I failed to catch and correct that mistake in real time, and I take full responsibility for that.

00:24:59.120 And while we do make mistakes, it is important to acknowledge and correct those errors when they happen.

00:25:03.920 Senator, I appreciate when there's a correction, but there was a lot of people online that were actually frustrated with a correction because what Abby was doing was acting like she didn't correct somebody that said something on her show in real time.

00:25:18.640 And there was a lot of people going like, you're the one that said it.

00:25:21.620 Don't act like someone else said it.

00:25:23.340 You're the one that has to correct your own information you put out there that was incorrect.

00:25:28.040 It wasn't a guest on your show that you failed to correct what they said.

00:25:32.140 Yeah, and Ben, I don't care about her. She's a leftist quack. What I do care about is the failure of supposedly journalistic outlets to actually do journalism. They are propagandists. The mistake she made was not random. It was just not, oops, I said green, I meant red.

00:25:54.080 it is consistently skewing in a way that number one she's not identifying that the terrorists in

00:26:01.480 question were radical islamic terrorists number two she's claiming the target or what she claimed 0.94

00:26:07.580 the target was mandami the target was not mandami in fact there was a protest against mandami and

00:26:13.760 the radical islamic terrorist tried to throw the bombs at the protesters who were opposing mandami

00:26:18.160 and and and if you look at her whole story it wasn't even on the terror attack it was on and 0.96

00:26:24.800 and republicans criticized muslims and oddly enough there's not outrage that republicans

00:26:29.380 criticize muslims it reminds me of so there's a classic tweet that norm mcdonald the great

00:26:34.440 snl comedian said yeah uh and and and his tweet he said what terrifies me is if isis were to 0.99

00:26:42.700 detonate a nuclear device and kill 50 million americans imagine the backlash against peaceful 0.96

00:26:50.840 muslims like that was norm mcdonald's tweet years ago and that was cnn like isis terrorists try to 1.00

00:26:58.720 kill a lot of americans can you believe how upset people are with muslims like like cover the damn 1.00

00:27:05.140 news cover the facts by the way you look at mandami's statement after that terror attack 1.00

00:27:08.880 he didn't identify the two criminals. He didn't mention they were radical Islamic terrorists. He

00:27:13.400 didn't mention they were affiliated with ISIS. Instead, he blamed the guy who was protesting

00:27:18.640 against him, who was intended to be the target of the bombs. When the media is this wildly

00:27:28.440 dishonest, it has real consequences. And so, yes, those are two instances on this terror attack

00:27:35.480 where cnn had to correct themselves because they were so absurd but but i ask you i mean you

00:27:41.720 mentioned before i have not seen a single one of my democrat colleagues asked by any reporter

00:27:46.480 how can you justify not funding the department of homeland security when we've had four terror

00:27:53.660 attacks from radical islamic terrorists in 10 days and we have radical clerics calling for more 0.53

00:28:00.800 Yeah. 0.85

00:28:01.040 By the way, it's Journalism 101.

00:28:03.120 Every journalist out there knows that's the question you should ask senators on the way to the airport as they're walking out of their office, as they're at the airport waiting.

00:28:10.520 This is just basic journalism.

00:28:13.020 If you have terrorist attacks and you've voted to not fund the Department of Homeland Security, there should be, and traditionally there would have been, hell to pay on that one.

00:28:22.220 I also go back to the part you're talking about with this whole cleansing of, oh, let's not act like this is Muslim extremists.

00:28:28.240 i i put out a list of of just like the history in the past that we've dealt with with with radical 0.96

00:28:34.000 muslims the shoe bomber muslim orlando attack muslim the beltway snipers muslim the fort hood 0.56

00:28:39.500 shooter muslim the underwear bomber muslim the westminster attack muslim the 05 bali bombings 0.99

00:28:44.380 muslim the murder of lee ben and ben ben let me let me jump in look you were right but i want to 0.94

00:28:50.680 draw a distinction because there are more than a billion muslims across the globe and there are

00:28:56.900 hundreds of millions of Muslims who are in fact peaceful. And in fact, if you look at different

00:29:01.400 regions of the world, if you look at a country like India, India has millions and millions of

00:29:07.460 Muslims and it has very little problem with radical Islamic terrorism. It's not something

00:29:11.400 that plagues India, even though it has a huge population. There is a distinction between being

00:29:17.880 Muslim and being an Islamist. An Islamist is a particular ideology. There's a great book called

00:29:25.740 The Looming Tower. It was written by a journalist, a Texas journalist called Lawrence Wright,

00:29:29.920 that traces the history of Islamism. And Islamism is a political ideology that says we will use

00:29:36.640 force, we will use violence, we will use terrorism to forcibly attack the infidels and to force them 1.00

00:29:43.860 to either convert to Islam or to die. And Islamists, they have killed vast numbers of Muslims. By the 1.00

00:29:52.480 way, the Islamists target their fellow Muslims with great frequency. They target Christians, 0.99

00:29:57.340 they target Jews. Islamism, which is where we get radical Islamic terrorism, that's where on 9-11 0.98

00:30:03.920 Osama bin Laden was an Islamist. That is a particular ideology, and one of the real problems 1.00

00:30:10.660 is leftists refuse to acknowledge it. In fact, I'll tell you, during the Obama administration,

00:30:15.640 I chaired a hearing on the purge of radical Islamic terrorism from the Department of Homeland

00:30:23.740 Security. And the Obama White House sent an email to DHS instructing it to purge. And by the way,

00:30:30.920 purge was the word used by the Obama White House political operative. Purge from the DHS records,

00:30:38.100 any reference to jihad, any reference to Muslim Brotherhood, any reference to radical Islamic

00:30:44.920 terrorism and DHS under Obama either deleted or modified over 800 different records. And then

00:30:51.660 when you'd have another radical Islamic terror attack, they'd be like, we have no idea where

00:30:55.520 this came from. That same ideology is playing out in CNN's coverage. Like, gosh, we can't figure

00:31:02.960 out what's going on here. And by the way, it played on in their open borders when they allowed

00:31:08.280 people to come in who are coming from countries that are filled with terrorists, filled with 1.00

00:31:16.100 jihadists. They didn't do vetting, to be clear. Look, you look at the Afghan immigrants that Joe 1.00

00:31:22.420 Biden brought into this country. They did a terrible job vetting it. We saw one of those

00:31:26.700 Afghan immigrants murder one National Guardsman and severely wound another in D.C. If you cannot 1.00

00:31:34.260 acknowledge what it is you're fighting, if you can't even say the words, and sadly, CNN

00:31:38.740 has a really hard time saying the words radical Islamic terrorism, then you know what? You don't

00:31:43.460 hold anyone to account for doing nothing to stop it and doing nothing to keep Americans safe.

00:31:47.720 As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:31:52.940 Don't forget to download my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day you're not

00:31:56.840 listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards. I'd love to have you as a

00:32:01.180 listener to again the ben ferguson podcast and we will see you back here on monday morning

Verdict with Ted Cruz - March 14, 2026

Short‑Term Pain Long‑Term Results in Iran, Tucker & the WOKE Right plus No Cash for DHS even after 4 Terror Attacks Week In Review

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