Verdict with Ted Cruz - Something Is Rotten in the State of Cuba

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.520 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.660 An oppressed people is attempting to flee a tyrannical regime,

00:00:10.160 fleeing toward freedom,

00:00:11.800 but the Texas Democrats are being pulled back to their own state.

00:00:15.700 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:23.100 Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:25.460 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:00:26.740 I think something's going on in Cuba as well.

00:00:28.720 We'll get to that a little bit later.

00:00:30.200 But Senator, first, I've got to ask you about those poor Texas Democrats.

00:00:35.000 There's a voting rights bill going through Texas right now.

00:00:38.600 The Democrats didn't have the numbers to stop this Republican bill.

00:00:42.960 And so they just left the state.

00:00:44.740 You know, I got to say, it's striking.

00:00:46.240 And it really is typical of Cuban refugees 1.00

00:00:48.220 that they jump on a private jet with Miller Lite

00:00:52.040 and basking in national press coverage.

00:00:55.820 They truly are heroic.

00:00:58.040 Kamala Harris compared them to the civil rights protesters on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

00:01:05.000 If you take away the cops and the dogs and the billy clubs and the bleedings and the broken bones

00:01:10.080 and you replace it with a private jet and Miller Lite, they're exactly the same.

00:01:13.360 And there is a little bit of an irony here where the Texas Democrats are fleeing a bill

00:01:18.000 that would, in part, require you to show an ID to vote.

00:01:20.860 They needed the ID to buy the Miller Lite, which was famously photographed on their voyage.

00:01:25.320 And to get on the damn plane.

00:01:26.520 And to get on the—yes, even for private.

00:01:28.180 That's true.

00:01:28.760 They would still need to show their ID, but they didn't have their masks.

00:01:30.420 By the way, all these Democrats want to mandate masks on planes.

00:01:33.660 None of them had masks on planes.

00:01:34.940 So this was a ridiculous—I mean, a really—not great PR.

00:01:39.140 You see all these Texas Dems fleeing.

00:01:40.920 But what is the legal aspect here?

00:01:44.580 I mean, why do they need to flee the state to stop this bill?

00:01:48.520 Well, listen, this is a political stunt.

00:01:50.640 And they flew to Washington because they knew that they would get a bear hug from Joe Biden

00:01:57.060 and Kamala Harris and Schumer and Pelosi and all the Democrats and all the media.

00:02:01.180 And they would treat them, you know, what a chance to be.

00:02:04.280 I'm Martin Luther King.

00:02:05.440 I'm fleeing the state.

00:02:07.480 What nobody talks about is what actually the Texas Election Integrity Bill does.

00:02:12.000 So what's in the bill?

00:02:13.100 So it's a series of common sense steps.

00:02:15.160 For example, it requires signatures and signature verification on absentee ballots.

00:02:21.360 It requires an ID for absentee ballots.

00:02:25.200 It requires cameras in counting spaces so that when people are counting the ballots,

00:02:32.360 you'll have a recorded record of it.

00:02:35.360 There's a reason nobody talks about these because everyone hears them and goes,

00:02:38.920 well, OK, that makes a lot of sense.

00:02:41.740 Democrats have decided it's good politics.

00:02:43.820 Number one, I think they believe voter fraud helps them get elected.

00:02:49.440 But number two, screaming about voter suppression, I think they believe helps them get elected

00:02:54.360 as well.

00:02:54.900 And so they want to do everything they can to portray Republicans as a bunch of crazy

00:03:03.460 Klansmen.

00:03:04.520 Yeah, racist.

00:03:05.800 And so that's their narrative.

00:03:08.460 They're sticking with it.

00:03:09.060 So there are a lot of surveys out on this that show broad support for voter ID and basically

00:03:14.280 all of it.

00:03:14.580 And you know, it's gone up.

00:03:15.680 It used to be 70 percent of Americans supported voter ID.

00:03:18.100 It's now over 80 percent.

00:03:19.160 So it's so all of their histrionics have driven up support by 10 points.

00:03:23.560 And it's got broad support among all demographics.

00:03:25.840 It's not just white people.

00:03:27.000 It's not among black voters.

00:03:28.140 You know, but Kamala did explain that that, you know, minorities are not smart enough to 1.00

00:03:32.980 get an ID.

00:03:34.660 You know, Hispanics, you know, we Hispanics, we don't know how to do these fancy driver's

00:03:39.180 licenses.

00:03:40.180 And I love that she explained, you know, the country folk.

00:03:43.680 Yeah.

00:03:43.980 They don't have this fancy technology.

00:03:46.360 You know, if you're out there that there are no no copy machines, there's no electricity,

00:03:52.240 there's no smartphones, because, listen, country folk, they're making moonshine and they're

00:03:56.800 sliding on the hoods of their cars.

00:03:58.000 That's all they're doing, because Kamala really has her finger on the pulse of rural

00:04:02.880 America.

00:04:03.380 But this this is what what is so strange to me about about the whole episode is this is

00:04:08.740 an issue that is really popular.

00:04:11.380 Right.

00:04:11.640 Right.

00:04:12.000 He's very popular.

00:04:13.400 Majority of people, vast majority of people want it.

00:04:15.400 The Democrats have come out against it.

00:04:17.200 They've said a lot of things, wittingly or unwittingly, that is very insulting to the

00:04:21.440 base here.

00:04:22.200 And they seem to be undermining democracy in the sense that the voters of Texas send their

00:04:27.840 representatives to the legislature.

00:04:29.800 They the legislators are passing this bill.

00:04:32.360 The Democrats don't have any legal way to stop it.

00:04:35.200 So then, as far as I can tell, they violate the law by leaving the state.

00:04:39.820 So in order for the legislature to do business, you have to have a quorum.

00:04:42.720 And so the reason they they fled the state is to deny a quorum.

00:04:46.600 So there's not right now a quorum in the House of Representatives.

00:04:49.640 Now, interestingly enough, I have some history on this issue.

00:04:53.300 So I started as Solicitor General of Texas in 2003.

00:04:59.560 2003, the Republicans had just taken the House of Representatives and they began to do congressional

00:05:05.200 redistricting.

00:05:05.780 The Democrats didn't want them to do congressional redistricting.

00:05:08.960 Now, the reason was at the time, Texas had what what had been widely reported as and was,

00:05:15.620 in fact, the most partisan gerrymander in the country done by Democrats.

00:05:20.800 So even though Texas was voting by a big margin Republican, its congressional delegation was

00:05:29.000 had a large majority of Democrats because they had very creatively gerrymandered it.

00:05:34.200 So a Republican state elected a majority of Democrats.

00:05:36.820 It's strange because Republicans are always the ones accused of the gerrymandering.

00:05:40.740 But it's both parties do this sort of thing.

00:05:43.420 Oh, and it's shameless.

00:05:44.720 And actually, we had testimony in the trial over redistricting about there was a way Southern

00:05:51.060 Democrats would gerrymander, which is you draw a district that had just enough African-American 0.76

00:05:58.300 voters, but not too many, and just enough Hispanic voters, but not too many.

00:06:02.160 Why would they do this?

00:06:03.380 Because their objective was to elect a white Democrat.

00:06:06.720 And what the data showed is if you put too many African-American Democrats in a district,

00:06:11.320 they'd elect a black Democrat. 0.99

00:06:12.320 If you put too many Hispanic Democrats in a district, they'd elect an Hispanic Democrat. 0.98

00:06:17.360 The people drawing this didn't want a black Democrat or Hispanic Democrat.

00:06:20.620 They wanted a white Democrat.

00:06:21.900 So what they would do is they'd shrink those two numbers.

00:06:25.140 And in a primary, if you had, say, a black Democrat against a white Democrat,

00:06:30.760 the white Democrats and the Hispanic Democrats would both vote for the white guy.

00:06:34.140 And so the white guy would win.

00:06:36.020 If you had an Hispanic Democrat versus a white Democrat, 0.58

00:06:39.000 the white Democrats and the black Democrats would vote against the Hispanic Democrat.

00:06:43.320 And so you'd get the white Democrat win.

00:06:45.300 Yeah.

00:06:46.040 The primary.

00:06:46.840 And then in the general, the Hispanic Democrats and black Democrats would vote for whoever the

00:06:51.320 Democratic nominee was.

00:06:52.460 And so it was a and by the way, all of this came as testimony in the redistricting trial

00:06:57.460 from Eddie Bernice Johnson, who is an African-American woman, a congresswoman who was a state senator,

00:07:03.400 was fighting against the redistricting, saying black Democrats are getting screwed by these

00:07:08.020 white Democrats.

00:07:08.640 So that's that's the back story of why Texas was redistricting.

00:07:14.920 The Texas Democrats didn't want them to redistrict.

00:07:17.400 They liked a Republican state sending Democrats to Congress.

00:07:21.560 So they did the same thing.

00:07:22.660 I mean, fleeing the state is not new.

00:07:24.580 The House Democrats, they went up to Ardmore, Oklahoma.

00:07:28.700 The Senate Democrats later went to Albuquerque, New Mexico for the exact same purpose,

00:07:34.280 to deny a quorum, to shut down the legislature.

00:07:36.820 So I was, you know, just a few weeks into the job.

00:07:39.460 It just started.

00:07:40.260 And the Speaker of the House, a guy named Tom Craddock, who is a tough old West Texan knife

00:07:45.500 fighter.

00:07:46.440 Tom calls Greg Abbott, who was the attorney general.

00:07:49.060 He's now the governor, but he was my boss.

00:07:51.260 And he calls Abbott and says, can I arrest fleeing legislators?

00:07:57.480 And Abbott in turn calls me and says, Ted, can Craddock arrest fleeing legislators?

00:08:03.960 And I said, General, I don't know.

00:08:05.620 Let me go research it and I'll figure it out.

00:08:07.700 So I go research it.

00:08:09.540 Turns out there's a clear answer to this.

00:08:11.700 So the Texas Constitution has a provision that explicitly authorizes compelling the

00:08:17.880 attendance of absent legislators.

00:08:21.060 That provision in turn is copied word for word from the U.S. Constitution.

00:08:26.620 So the U.S. Constitution has the exact same provision.

00:08:29.140 And there's a long history, particularly in Congress, of using that to order the arrest

00:08:35.600 of fleeing legislators and to bring them in.

00:08:38.780 The authority is there literally to bring them in, if necessary, in handcuffs and leg irons.

00:08:45.700 Bob Packwood was brought in, physically carried onto the floor of the Senate because he was

00:08:50.440 trying to defeat a quorum.

00:08:51.440 And they, the sergeant at arms, physically carried him to produce him there.

00:08:55.860 All of which is to say, how does this Texas Democrat stunt end?

00:09:01.140 It's going to end eventually.

00:09:02.320 They're going to come back to Texas.

00:09:03.400 They're in D.C. right now, I assume, going to Georgetown cocktail parties.

00:09:07.520 Although three of them now have COVID, which is, proves God really does have a sense of him.

00:09:11.700 They should put their masks on.

00:09:13.300 But eventually they'll come back to Texas.

00:09:16.560 Abbott, the governor, has said he'll keep calling special sessions over and over again

00:09:20.200 until they pass voter integrity laws.

00:09:22.360 And they're going to arrest him when they come back.

00:09:24.880 And so whenever they come back, they will be arrested.

00:09:27.440 Now, look, it's important to know, it's not arrest to go to jail.

00:09:31.340 It's not a crime.

00:09:32.380 It's not sending them to Sing Sing.

00:09:34.880 It is physically, if necessary, seizing them and moving their bodies to the floor of the

00:09:42.440 House because that gives you a quorum.

00:09:44.860 And the reason the Texas Constitution and the U.S. Constitution give you this power is you

00:09:49.920 shouldn't have the right to shut down the operation of the legislature. 0.99

00:09:54.060 The legislature exists to do the will of the people.

00:09:57.600 And these Democrats are trying to pull a political stunt to stop them from doing the will of the

00:10:02.160 people.

00:10:02.760 It's just so ironic that the people who are always clamoring on about our democracy and

00:10:08.080 the threats to our democracy are, in this case, actively stopping the operation of the

00:10:14.800 legislature, of the lawmakers.

00:10:16.220 So you've got this scene playing out in Texas.

00:10:19.580 And by the way, they want to kill policies that the overwhelming majority of voters support.

00:10:24.360 So voter ID, we talked about 80 percent of Americans support them in Congress.

00:10:29.980 So these Texas Democrats are lobbying for S1, the Corrupt Politicians Act.

00:10:34.060 That bill would strike down every voter ID law in the country.

00:10:37.380 Eighty percent of Americans support it.

00:10:39.080 So when you see Democrats saying, you know, we want to protect the right to vote unless

00:10:43.360 these pesky people vote for things we don't like, like voter ID, then to heck with the

00:10:47.760 right to vote.

00:10:48.380 We're going to strike it down anyway.

00:10:49.720 I mean, that's that's the Democratic position.

00:10:51.460 Well, there is this strange fact.

00:10:53.280 And I think it actually ties down to our neighbors 90 miles south.

00:10:56.640 You've got policies like voter ID.

00:10:58.700 You've got policies like immigration reform, where the vast majority of Americans want to

00:11:04.460 have voter ID and want less immigration.

00:11:06.620 And the vast majority of people in the ruling class don't want voter ID and want more immigration,

00:11:12.600 legal and illegal, I guess, in many cases.

00:11:15.280 So how is that the case?

00:11:17.540 How does the ruling party, the uniparty, the regime, whatever you want to call it, why is

00:11:23.240 it that this elite group is able to and is even desirous of so undermining the will of

00:11:28.880 the people in our democracy?

00:11:30.320 So the two issues are a little bit different in that when it comes to illegal immigration,

00:11:35.140 you're right that every Democrat and about half the Republicans want unlimited illegal

00:11:39.520 immigration.

00:11:39.960 And it is it is the uniparty.

00:11:41.980 It is the elected members of Congress who are basically in bed with big business and want

00:11:46.640 cheap labor.

00:11:47.300 Yeah.

00:11:47.760 Voter ID, the politics are a little bit different because it is essentially every

00:11:52.880 Democrat who wants to get rid of voter ID and every Republican wants to keep it.

00:11:56.760 So there's not you don't have this big block of Republicans that are wobbly on voter ID.

00:12:02.500 You know, why do the Dems want to get rid of voter ID? 0.69

00:12:04.900 To be honest, I don't know.

00:12:06.760 It's to steal elections, right?

00:12:07.840 I mean, not to be too blunt about it.

00:12:09.800 Yes and no.

00:12:10.620 There are disputes about how widespread election fraud is.

00:12:15.880 It's now, you know, we now see Democrats in the media saying it never, ever, ever happens,

00:12:19.760 which is absurd.

00:12:21.760 There are real disputes about how widespread it is.

00:12:24.700 I don't know.

00:12:25.940 So the Democrats opposition to voter ID is one of two things.

00:12:30.440 Either one, they know it's really widespread.

00:12:32.800 Yeah.

00:12:32.980 And they have operations in to bring massive numbers of illegal aliens and get them to vote.

00:12:37.820 And that's why they don't want voter ID.

00:12:39.260 That's one hypothesis that is consistent with why do you go to the mat to try to defeat voter ID?

00:12:45.620 The other hypothesis is that there's some voter fraud concerning voter ID, but that it's a good 1.00

00:12:52.420 issue, they believe, to inflame African-American voters.

00:12:56.920 Because the idea is Republicans are only supporting voter ID because black voters are going to have 0.72

00:13:03.680 more trouble or it's maybe, yeah.

00:13:05.700 Because if you're a Democrat scaring black voters, that voter suppression is happening, that

00:13:12.840 Republicans are Klansmen, that they are Bull Connor.

00:13:16.780 Now, never mind Bull Connor was a Democrat.

00:13:19.020 Never mind that the people that wrote Jim Crow were Democrats.

00:13:21.880 Never mind that the people that founded the Ku Klux Klan were Democrats.

00:13:24.360 Never mind that all of these racists who committed horrific acts were almost without exception

00:13:30.980 Democrats.

00:13:32.400 Today's Democratic Party, they have one game plan.

00:13:36.800 You know, you remember when George W. Bush was running for president and you had James

00:13:44.080 Byrd, an African-American who had been dragged to his death in Jasper, Texas.

00:13:48.880 It was a horrific crime.

00:13:50.900 Now, the people who did that were sentenced to death.

00:13:53.520 I mean, like they were caught, they were prosecuted, they were sentenced to death.

00:13:57.580 The NAACP ran an ad, a TV ad, attacking George W. Bush with images of the chains dragging

00:14:04.700 behind the car, basically blaming him for this horrific racist murder.

00:14:09.980 And in fact, if you remember, you're too young to remember this debate, but I'll tell you.

00:14:13.820 So I was a policy staffer on the Bush campaign.

00:14:16.320 And I remember the debate that Bush has with Gore, where Gore hits him on it and basically

00:14:21.840 blames him for this horrible racist murder.

00:14:24.840 And Bush goes, well, we sentenced him to death.

00:14:28.220 What else do you want us to do besides put him to death?

00:14:30.740 But that is their game plan, election after election.

00:14:36.160 So part of this hysteria from Democrats over voter ID is, I think, they want to scream voter

00:14:45.840 suppression because they want critical to their winning elections is having African-American voters

00:14:53.400 terrified, energized, showing up in massive numbers and voting overwhelmingly Democrat.

00:14:59.420 And if black voters were voting their economic interests, the policies of Democrats are terrible

00:15:06.520 for the African-American community.

00:15:08.000 If black voters were voting for who's going to provide hope in education, school choice, 0.98

00:15:13.100 the policies of the Democrats are terrible for the black community.

00:15:16.460 Under Donald Trump, we had the lowest African-American unemployment, the lowest African-American

00:15:20.260 poverty in history.

00:15:21.680 Those are really inconvenient facts if you're Democrats trying to get monolithic support

00:15:27.000 for black voters.

00:15:27.800 So what do you do?

00:15:29.320 You paint this specter of voter suppression.

00:15:32.640 I think it's much of it, I think, is a really cynical political strategy.

00:15:36.680 And there's a strange circumstance.

00:15:37.980 So we're in Florida right now, 90 miles south.

00:15:41.040 There are massive protests going on, the government in Cuba, the communist dictatorship clamping down.

00:15:45.060 So you've got elite people, you know, people who are part of the media, people who are

00:15:49.780 part of the political establishment here, decrying the oppression of America, denigrating the

00:15:55.760 American flag, saying it's a symbol of hatred.

00:15:59.260 Meanwhile, the people in Cuba who are protesting their own government are waving the American

00:16:03.440 flag.

00:16:03.700 I visited Cuba a few years ago.

00:16:05.360 People wear the American flag as a symbol of protest.

00:16:07.800 I knew there was something shady about you, Michael.

00:16:10.180 You know, I was trying to stir up the revolution even then.

00:16:13.660 But this is a very strange circumstance.

00:16:15.680 Did you get any Che Guevara tattoos?

00:16:17.160 I was going to I was going to wear the there's a shirt of Che Guevara wearing a Che Guevara

00:16:22.740 shirt.

00:16:23.220 I think that's, you know, that was put out by the onion or something like that, because

00:16:26.500 it it's become so popular.

00:16:27.940 I mean, American students wear Cuban revolutionaries all the time.

00:16:31.120 Now, now the Biden administration refuses to call out any of this.

00:16:36.140 They're talking about the evil oppression of the Texas Republicans, but they won't mention

00:16:40.140 the word communism and Mayorkas, the the DHS secretary, is saying, do not if you're fleeing

00:16:46.960 Cuba, do not come to the United States, even as we're having the highest levels of illegal

00:16:51.560 immigration, often encouraged by Democrats from other countries.

00:16:55.060 Look, what what's happening in Cuba is an existential threat to the Biden administration.

00:16:59.440 And they're scared.

00:17:00.440 You know, I got to say my reaction, and we've talked a lot about my family story on this

00:17:06.240 pod, but my reaction watching it, it's powerful seeing people who are standing up and protesting,

00:17:13.000 taking to the streets and in Havana and Matanzas, which is where my dad was born, Santiago, across

00:17:18.640 across the country.

00:17:19.460 And the folks who are protesting are risking their lives and they're right now and they're

00:17:26.180 they're being killed, they're being beaten, they're being tortured.

00:17:29.580 I mean, I mean, it is it is an act of incredible courage to stand up against this regime.

00:17:35.600 Watching the reaction of Democrats is surreal.

00:17:40.060 So the Biden administration is rooting for the communist regime.

00:17:44.660 Yeah.

00:17:44.840 But by the way, I don't think that's hyperbole.

00:17:47.000 Yeah, they're they're now blaming it on a lack of covid vaccines or, quote unquote,

00:17:51.300 economic mismanagement.

00:17:52.400 They're not coming out and calling for a regime change in Cuba or talking about communism.

00:17:56.580 They seem to be on the side of the regime.

00:17:58.380 Well, and listen, one of their foreign policy objectives is to have an embrace of the Cuban

00:18:06.620 communist dictatorship.

00:18:07.880 That was Obama's Obama.

00:18:09.320 That is a big foreign policy objective.

00:18:10.880 So does Biden.

00:18:12.200 You know, when they're actively beating protesters in the street, it makes it hard for them to

00:18:16.600 carry out their foreign policy objective as saying, aren't they really nice communists?

00:18:20.580 So that's one factor.

00:18:22.500 That's just another factor that today's Democratic Party likes communists.

00:18:27.960 They glorify.

00:18:28.980 These are the kids who in college had Che Guevara T-shirts on.

00:18:32.260 Right.

00:18:32.340 I mean, that's their ethos.

00:18:36.340 And so you look at Biden administration put out their kind of first statement they put

00:18:42.720 out as a tweet said they're exercising their right to peaceful assembly.

00:18:47.260 It's like, no, they don't have a right to peaceful assembly.

00:18:51.240 And the stormtroopers who come beat them show they don't have that right.

00:18:55.320 They are standing up in the face of tyranny.

00:18:57.620 But the Biden admin doesn't say that.

00:18:59.780 And then the second thing they said that was particularly funny, they said it was all

00:19:03.240 about access to covid vaccines.

00:19:05.480 It's like, no, they are chanting libertad.

00:19:09.220 They're chanting freedom, liberty.

00:19:11.860 They're chanting down with the dictatorship.

00:19:15.080 Jen Psaki, her, you know, statement that they're upset about mismanagement.

00:19:21.340 The protesters aren't chanting manage better.

00:19:24.880 Yeah, like this is dumb.

00:19:27.780 And so you got to stop and ask, OK, why?

00:19:29.500 Why are they doing this?

00:19:30.760 It's not that that that Psaki or Biden or Blinken, it's not that these people are stupid.

00:19:36.180 It's that what they believe is in conflict with speaking the truth of what about what's

00:19:42.480 happening.

00:19:42.940 They don't want to condemn communists.

00:19:45.140 You're saying the existential threat posed by the Cuban protests to the Biden administration

00:19:49.860 is it that it undermines their own ideological.

00:19:53.300 So there are different aspects of it.

00:19:55.860 You take the Bernie Sanders of the world and Elizabeth Warren's and AOC's, the avowed

00:20:00.940 socialists.

00:20:02.460 Did did did space aliens like capture them and spirit them away like these guys have been

00:20:07.160 utterly silent.

00:20:08.200 Why is it?

00:20:09.600 Because they're socialists and the Cuban dictatorial government is socialist.

00:20:14.060 And they don't like admitting that every place on Earth that you've had socialist dictatorships

00:20:19.740 have been murdering, torturing, abusive, oppressive regimes.

00:20:24.940 It's it's inconvenient.

00:20:27.120 If you're an American socialist saying we want socialism here, watching how crappy socialism

00:20:32.240 is in Cuba makes that argument tough.

00:20:34.740 So the the hard left that's driving the Democratic Party, they hate this right now.

00:20:39.300 Biden can't denounce communism without pissing off the left in his party.

00:20:45.360 And he probably wouldn't anyway.

00:20:47.340 He can't stand strongly with the protesters because their foreign policy objective is to

00:20:53.020 get in bed with the stormtroopers that are beating them right now.

00:20:56.060 And they're also terrified of a massive wave of immigration from Cuba.

00:21:01.940 And it's twofold on that.

00:21:03.360 Number one, you know, Mayorka is saying no Cubans.

00:21:06.480 Yeah, right.

00:21:07.660 Mind you, across the southern border, we're on pace for over two million people to cross

00:21:11.920 illegally this year.

00:21:13.380 And they're like something like one hundred eighty thousand or one hundred eighty eight

00:21:16.680 thousand people in June alone.

00:21:18.260 I mean, that's a shocking, shocking.

00:21:19.680 It's over a 400 percent increase from last year.

00:21:22.280 The numbers are staggering and it's pure open borders on a southern border.

00:21:26.260 But Mayorka stands up and says, we don't want Cubans.

00:21:29.440 Look, do you think anyone told them that Cubans vote Republican?

00:21:31.800 I mean, it kind of makes you think that might be a factor there.

00:21:36.280 But they're also looking.

00:21:38.260 I've talked a lot about Biden as Jimmy Carter 2.0.

00:21:41.360 The Mario boat lift is very real in terms of, you know, there was this massive influx of

00:21:47.840 Cuban refugees on boats.

00:21:49.360 And by the way, what what Castro did.

00:21:51.920 So he said, you can bring your boats over to take people out of Cuba and tons of people

00:21:55.720 came from Miami, brought their family over.

00:21:57.840 What Castro did, he emptied the jails.

00:22:01.100 And the lunatic asylum.

00:22:02.980 So he put crazy people in criminals.

00:22:05.420 You see the movie Scarface?

00:22:06.560 Yeah.

00:22:07.320 Like Scarface is about, you know, one of those criminals that he stuck on a boat and sent

00:22:11.560 over.

00:22:12.060 You know, I mean, it's Scarface, by the way.

00:22:13.660 One of my top three all time favorite movies.

00:22:17.660 Ravenga! 0.91

00:22:18.140 And actually, Scarface, they're chanting Libertad, Libertad.

00:22:24.200 They're not chanting COVID vaccines.

00:22:26.000 COVID vaccines.

00:22:26.420 It's not.

00:22:26.860 It would be anachronistic and they wouldn't do it anyway.

00:22:29.260 By the way, there's also a great scene where Manolo is talking to this very pretty girl

00:22:37.200 in a bikini and Tony goes to this little kid and says, hey, look over there.

00:22:42.120 You see that guy?

00:22:42.940 He's going to stick his tongue out like that.

00:22:44.400 He's going to stick his tongue.

00:22:45.120 What is that?

00:22:45.980 Like a lizard or something.

00:22:47.780 There are lots of lines in that movie I can do.

00:22:50.080 Most of which would elevate the rating of this podcast and might make it no longer child

00:22:55.360 friendly.

00:22:55.940 Well, you know, they always say Republicans need to go more on the offensive.

00:22:58.700 They need to get more aggressive.

00:22:59.660 And I can imagine no better way than through our rhetoric and through the instruments of

00:23:05.420 politics to say, say hello to my little friend, which would be obviously the legislative

00:23:10.880 actions in Texas.

00:23:11.540 I knew I could prompt you into a Tony Montana impression.

00:23:13.920 Yes.

00:23:14.360 I mean, this, I, you know, I was wondering what the effect was in Cuba because look, I care

00:23:19.940 about Cuba.

00:23:20.520 I like Cuban culture.

00:23:21.460 I have Cuban friends, but I think a lot of Americans, they want to know, what does this

00:23:24.620 mean for us?

00:23:25.420 What does this mean for the United States?

00:23:26.780 I think Michael just did a, some of my best friends are Cuban.

00:23:28.840 Some of my best friends, but it, I mean, you, you are seeing the, the working out of

00:23:35.360 real ideological problems and hypocrisy on illegal immigration.

00:23:39.180 They're saying surge to the border.

00:23:40.600 If you're statistically likely to vote for Democrats and please do not come.

00:23:44.280 And by the way, one of the objections here is they'll say, well, the reason they're telling

00:23:47.280 the Cubans not to come is because the passage is very dangerous.

00:23:49.780 If you swim or take a raft from Cuba to Florida, as if crossing the Southern border

00:23:54.120 is a cakewalk.

00:23:55.040 You know, it seems to me the solution is to send a private jet with Miller Lite.

00:23:58.040 Yes, that's the only, that's the only way out of it to flee the, the oppression, oppression

00:24:02.140 real in some places and imagined in others.

00:24:04.960 We have to leave it there, Senator, but I'm sure there will be many more developments,

00:24:08.380 hopefully, hopefully on the side of Liberdade.

00:24:11.120 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:24:12.100 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:24:14.320 My little friend.

00:24:15.260 We are going to be taking Verdict on the road.

00:24:27.040 We are partnering with the Young America's Foundation.

00:24:29.420 We're going to multiple schools.

00:24:31.340 I think we're going to six schools and universities with YAF.

00:24:35.780 You can go to yaf.org slash verdict right now to request that we come to your school.

00:24:43.220 The deadline is August 18th.

00:24:45.340 Senator, should we go to the really nice, wonderful conservative schools with the Young

00:24:50.880 America's Foundation?

00:24:51.540 Or should we go to the crazy, leftist, insane schools that are going to run us out of town

00:24:56.000 on the rail?

00:24:56.780 Well, it seems to me that should be up to the listeners of Verdict to decide.

00:25:00.120 And so you tell us, if you're a student right now, you might be at one of the few havens

00:25:06.340 of sanity and you say, hey, come cheer us on and reach out to us.

00:25:13.180 On the other hand, you might be behind enemy lines, surrounded by Bolsheviks and Mensheviks 0.98

00:25:17.900 and looking for a Berlin airlift.

00:25:22.360 You know, my guess is we're open to do it a little of both.

00:25:25.520 But but it's really the incredible listeners of Verdict who are going to make that decision.

00:25:31.000 We want to free the students on campus.

00:25:32.980 We want to free all of us here in this country.

00:25:35.020 So make sure you get those names in yaf.org slash verdict.

00:25:39.000 August 18th is the deadline.

00:25:42.740 This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs Freedom and Security

00:25:48.140 Pack, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations

00:25:53.300 and candidates across the country.

00:25:55.520 In 2022, Jobs Freedom and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running

00:26:01.000 for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.

00:26:04.540 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:26:07.400 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - July 23, 2021

Something Is Rotten in the State of Cuba

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