Verdict with Ted Cruz - Supreme Court's Function in Colorado Case, Terror Threat in the US from Hezbollah, & Will SCOTUS Be Unanimous on Trump Ballot Decision Week In Review

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.580 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.400 Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, and it is the Week in Review.

00:00:09.320 Ben Ferguson with you, and these are the big stories that you may have missed that we talked about this past week.

00:00:15.180 First up, the Supreme Court is going to hear a serious case that deals with Donald Trump, Colorado, and his name being taken off the ballot.

00:00:24.780 They've decided to hear that.

00:00:26.000 So what does it mean for all the other lawsuits in other states that are trying to take him off the ballot?

00:00:31.520 The senator was going to give you all of that information, especially about how the Supreme Court will work.

00:00:36.980 That is something very important.

00:00:39.140 Plus, we have gotten now word that there is real concerns inside the United States of America of a coordinated terrorist attack at the hands of Hezbollah.

00:00:50.140 How would they get into this country? 0.56

00:00:52.000 More than likely, it would be across our open southern border.

00:00:55.780 And we'll explain those details.

00:00:57.900 And finally, when the Supreme Court hears this case with Colorado and Donald Trump,

00:01:04.900 is there a chance that the Supreme Court will stand up for democracy in a unanimous decision?

00:01:10.820 Senator Cruz gives you his prediction on exactly that.

00:01:14.440 It is the Week in Review, and it starts right now.

00:01:18.260 How long are they going to have to argue this?

00:01:20.720 I mean, when you talk about oral arguments, is it hours?

00:01:24.120 Is it 90 minutes?

00:01:25.200 What are we talking about here?

00:01:26.260 So normally, an argument is an hour.

00:01:28.040 So normally, each side has 30 minutes.

00:01:30.000 They can extend it.

00:01:31.140 They might extend it in this instance.

00:01:32.800 I don't know.

00:01:33.740 But normally, an argument is an hour.

00:01:36.140 And the bulk of the argument, by the way, is questioning from the justices.

00:01:39.540 So you get up, and the justices are asking you questions, and that – it's a back and forth.

00:01:45.560 It's not a monologue.

00:01:46.960 It's not a speech.

00:01:46.980 So is there even an opening statement?

00:01:49.160 There is.

00:01:50.100 There didn't used to be.

00:01:51.340 So the old way they did Supreme Court arguments was you would start off, you'd stand up,

00:01:57.360 and you'd say, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court.

00:01:59.500 And every argument begins with that.

00:02:00.760 And you would sometimes get less than a sentence into your argument, and a justice would jump

00:02:10.620 in and pepper you with questions.

00:02:12.640 And what made it invigorating is you'd have a question here, a question here, a question

00:02:16.120 here, and it was just nonstop, and you had to be quick and fast and anticipate justices

00:02:23.140 who disagreed with your position.

00:02:24.520 They're trying to ask you questions to expose the weakness of your case, and you had to anticipate

00:02:29.000 it.

00:02:29.400 But they have – post-COVID, they regimented it now, and I really don't like how they

00:02:36.060 do it now, but they now have a period of questioning from each justice, and so it's a little – it's

00:02:42.080 not the wild free-for-all.

00:02:43.540 It's almost like Congress where you have five minutes or you have three minutes, and then

00:02:46.920 you go in this order, whereas before, it could be a conservative justice asking you

00:02:50.440 a question, followed up by a liberal justice asking you a question, followed up by another

00:02:53.400 justice asking you a question.

00:02:54.920 It was –

00:02:55.740 It was controlled chaos.

00:02:57.020 It was – yes, but it is more regimented now, but I would say I would expect the chief

00:03:04.100 justice's questions to lay out in the questions what he thinks is the best theory to bring

00:03:10.640 the court together.

00:03:11.340 All right, let me give you the rest of Trump's arguments.

00:03:13.700 Fourth argument he makes is that Trump did not participate in an insurrection because an

00:03:18.680 insurrection, as understood at the time of passage of the 14th Amendment, means the taking

00:03:23.700 up of arms and waging war upon the United States.

00:03:27.160 Now, I think that's absolutely correct.

00:03:29.520 I think it's ludicrous to say that Trump engaged in an insurrection based on the facts.

00:03:34.780 I also do not believe the Supreme Court will conclude that because you can't get nine justices

00:03:39.920 for that.

00:03:40.820 And I think they will want unanimity.

00:03:42.820 And so they'll say, look, my guess is we might get a concurrence from one of the more conservative

00:03:48.880 justices saying this clearly was not an insurrection.

00:03:53.260 But we might not.

00:03:55.120 And by the way, look, I said that there's a 60 to 70 percent chance of it being unanimous.

00:04:00.280 That means there's a 40 to 30 percent – a 30 to 40 percent chance that the liberal justices

00:04:06.040 just hate Trump so much they can't bring themselves to do it.

00:04:09.020 And what would that decision look like?

00:04:10.340 I mean, would it be one or two that say, hey, just for the principle and said, no, no,

00:04:13.680 we're going to go 7-2 here or even go 6-3?

00:04:17.720 Look, 6-3 would be heartbreaking.

00:04:21.480 It would do real damage to the court.

00:04:23.500 To the court and to the country.

00:04:25.280 If it just broke on partisan lines, if the three liberal justices dissented and the six

00:04:31.640 more conservative justices were in the majority, I think that would be terrible for the court.

00:04:36.840 And it shows how partisan.

00:04:38.100 I really hope it's not.

00:04:41.400 So the fifth argument that Trump made is that the electors' clause requires states to appoint

00:04:50.500 presidential electors, quote, in such matter as the legislature thereof may direct.

00:04:56.160 In other words, the courts can't intervene in that.

00:04:58.800 The sixth argument is that Section 3 cannot be used to deny a candidate access to the ballot.

00:05:08.720 It can only be used instead to prevent someone from holding office.

00:05:13.240 So all of those are arguments, as I said, and it's worth, by the way, the argument that I think will

00:05:25.700 will fly is the argument that it was not adequately determined that Trump had participated in an insurrection.

00:05:38.480 Not that there wasn't an insurrection, but that the means of ascertaining that was...

00:05:45.000 And that goes back to Jack Smith and what you're talking about.

00:05:46.880 He was never charged, much less convicted, and it didn't work its way through the court system.

00:05:52.180 And so if you believe that Donald Trump, in fact, was a part of an insurrection, then charge him with it.

00:05:57.660 Get him convicted of it.

00:05:58.820 Then you have that different argument.

00:06:00.100 It goes back to what you were saying at the very beginning.

00:06:01.640 Yes, and I will say, look, one of the questions that will be front and center litigated is whether Section 3 is self-executing.

00:06:12.720 Self-executing means a provision of the Constitution that has force of law that doesn't need Congress to pass legislation to enforce it.

00:06:21.340 And that will be actively disputed.

00:06:25.580 And in the Colorado Supreme Court, one of the justices, Justice Carlos Samor, dissented on this point.

00:06:34.980 And what he said is that the majority opinion of Colorado stripped President Trump of due process, of the due process of law.

00:06:42.760 And he says Section 3 didn't specify the procedures that have to be followed to be determined whether someone is engaged in insurrection.

00:06:51.160 All the Democrats just absurd.

00:06:52.580 It's insurrection. 0.74

00:06:53.240 It's insurrection.

00:06:53.760 Yeah.

00:06:54.320 But that hasn't been determined as a legal matter.

00:06:58.140 And so Justice Samor concluded that Section 3 is not self-executing and requires legislation for enforcement.

00:07:07.520 And he argued that the lower courts proceeding in Colorado lacked basic discovery, lacked the ability to subpoena documents, lacked the ability to compel witnesses, lacked any time frame to investigate or develop defenses, and lacked the opportunity for a fair trial.

00:07:27.280 And he pointed out that in his view, Section 3 cannot be self-executing because it doesn't provide any procedural guidance.

00:07:40.780 For example, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is completely silent on whether a jury has to be impaneled or not.

00:07:46.840 Can a judge decide it or does it have to be a jury or your peers?

00:07:50.220 Well, Section 3 doesn't say it.

00:07:52.780 What's the burden of proof?

00:07:54.520 Is it beyond a reasonable doubt?

00:07:56.340 Is it clear and convincing evidence?

00:07:58.120 Is it simply a preponderance of the evidence?

00:07:59.960 Those are very different burdens of proof.

00:08:03.220 Constitution is silence on that.

00:08:04.600 What's the standard of review?

00:08:06.020 What's the standard of discovery?

00:08:07.220 What's the standard of evidence?

00:08:08.560 Is it a civil determination or criminal determination?

00:08:11.560 None of that is there.

00:08:12.960 And so what he argues is that Congress could pass legislation to adjudicate that.

00:08:22.280 I'm not entirely persuaded on that.

00:08:24.540 What I would say is Congress has passed legislation when it set up a criminal statute for insurrection, that there is a mechanism and it is a criminal trial.

00:08:34.600 And charge him.

00:08:35.540 And charge him.

00:08:36.140 And so you go back to the very beginning of what you said.

00:08:39.720 No one has had the cojones to charge him because they know they would lose.

00:08:43.680 You could not prove the case in court, which is why instead you have partisan judges or a partisan secretary of state just asserting it because they believe it is a political matter.

00:08:55.400 Now, on our next podcast, what I want to walk into and go into is there is some history and some Supreme Court history on the 14th Amendment in Section 3 right after the Civil War and Jefferson Davis in particular.

00:09:10.840 So I'm going to give a tease for our next podcast.

00:09:14.120 I'm going to walk through what happened with Jefferson Davis under under the 14th Amendment Section 3.

00:09:20.620 But let's be clear.

00:09:22.700 Jefferson Davis, by any measure, engaged in dramatically different conduct, leading the Confederacy and waging war with the United States for four years is very different from giving a speech telling people to be peaceful.

00:09:36.120 And so but there is complicated precedent post-Civil War in the next podcast.

00:09:44.500 We'll dive into that.

00:09:45.260 It's going to be very fun.

00:09:46.700 This is why I love doing this show.

00:09:48.620 I also will get your political predictions.

00:09:50.900 I do want to end with one last thing, just so people have that timeline you mentioned earlier.

00:09:55.980 Supreme Court's going to hear this when and when do you think we'll have a decision from the Supreme Court?

00:10:00.360 February 8th is when they hear the oral argument.

00:10:03.540 I think we will get a decision quickly.

00:10:05.480 I think it's possible it could be within days.

00:10:09.120 I think it will be at the very latest by March 5th, which is when the Colorado primary is.

00:10:16.000 And my guess is it'll be a week or two.

00:10:18.580 That's just it'll be as quick as they can write the opinions.

00:10:21.440 But I think they will feel an urge to to move quickly.

00:10:25.440 Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week.

00:10:31.480 Canadian women are looking for more. 1.00

00:10:34.000 More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.

00:10:38.440 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:10:41.540 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:10:43.360 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:10:44.580 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

00:10:48.360 Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers.

00:10:51.880 All at different stages of their journey.

00:10:54.080 So, if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:10:57.300 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:11:01.360 Now, on to story number two.

00:11:05.480 It's not shocking, but it certainly is a sobering moment.

00:11:09.060 We know we have an open southern border.

00:11:10.840 We know that more people on the terrorist watch list were caught last year coming across the southern border than the last five years before it combined.

00:11:18.980 And now there's a new report coming out from Politico that American intel officials are warning of a risk of a Hezbollah attack, not just on U.S. men and women around the world and service members and some of our bases, but also a real elevated risk at home.

00:11:37.380 Four officials familiar with the intelligence have confirmed this to Politico that they're worried about attacks here outside of what we've seen from ISIS and al-Qaeda, where it's lone wolf type attacks, where they could be coming into this country already in this country and planning a major attack.

00:11:55.400 Well, I think that's exactly right.

00:11:58.300 And I've said before, I think the risk of a major terrorist attack in 2024 is greater than it has been at any time since September 11th, 2001, that we have right now, number one, a war in the Middle East and Israel.

00:12:16.540 Hamas and Hezbollah have called upon their terrorists to wage jihad, not just against Israel, but against America.

00:12:25.880 And we have an open border on our southern border due to Joe Biden and the Democrats.

00:12:30.900 9.6 million people have crossed illegally into this country under Joe Biden.

00:12:37.420 When I was last down on the southern border, I'm down there a lot.

00:12:40.880 Multiple Border Patrol agents told me they were deeply concerned about the risk of Hamas terrorists and Hezbollah terrorists crossing the border because Joe Biden, it continues to be an open border to this day.

00:12:53.560 They could be crossing right now.

00:12:55.460 As we are speaking, Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists could be crossing in.

00:12:59.980 And what is so frustrating is if you were a Hamas commander, Ben, you would send terrorists in. 0.51

00:13:09.200 It's a glaring vulnerability that Joe Biden and the Democrats don't care to solve.

00:13:14.380 So this political article that just came out quoted a senior U.S. intelligence official as saying, and this is a quote, Hezbollah could draw on the capability they have to put people in places to do something.

00:13:28.360 It is something to be worried about, said the official, and this is consistent with we did a previous podcast where we read the memo that Customs and Border Patrol had sent to Border Patrol agents saying beyond particular guard for Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists and also Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists trying to cross the border.

00:13:51.980 And it is astonishing to me that even in the face of that risk, which suddenly the FBI is publicly acknowledging, where six months ago they were not acknowledging it, they are now.

00:14:03.560 And what that tells me is the classified intel is even worse than what we know in public.

00:14:10.720 You know, you don't have to leap very far to get from point A to point B on something as simplistic of, hey, if you are a terrorist organization, are you going to take the risk of putting people that could be on the terrorist watch list on airplanes and try to get them to the country that way?

00:14:26.360 Or are you just going to get them to come across the southern open border when there's millions of people that have already it's worked successfully for, you know, that if you are not on the watch list and they catch you, about 80 plus percent of you are being released into the interior of this country.

00:14:41.000 And if you want to be one of the gotaways, it's not that hard.

00:14:44.480 You've witnessed it firsthand at the southern border.

00:14:47.040 And yet this administration refuses to admit that's a national security risk.

00:14:51.300 And I think even now, if you ask them, they would refuse to acknowledge the existence of a real terrorist threat because of an open southern border.

00:15:00.880 And you've got to ask yourself at that point, like, what does it take for them to get their heads out of the rear end, Senator?

00:15:06.720 And understand, this isn't just about an open border or border policy.

00:15:11.440 This is about a national security policy as well.

00:15:16.400 Now, look, that's exactly right.

00:15:18.160 You know, Christy Abizade, who is the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said during a congressional hearing in October, here's what she said.

00:15:27.080 Quote, Iran, Hezbollah, and their linked proxies are trying to calibrate their activity, avoiding actions that would open up a concerted second front with the United States or Israel, while still exacting costs in the midst of the current conflict.

00:15:42.400 This is a very fine line to walk, and in the present regional context, their actions carry the potential for miscalculation.

00:15:51.580 This is what they're admitting.

00:15:55.280 Here's what Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, said, quote,

00:15:58.660 This is a moment of profound tension in the region.

00:16:01.940 This is a conflict that could easily metastasize.

00:16:05.820 And yet, even as they're admitting that, they're not willing to secure the border.

00:16:10.940 Here's what Chris Wray said in a congressional hearing on November 15th.

00:16:14.740 Quote,

00:16:15.380 The arrest of individuals in the United States, allegedly linked to Hezbollah's main overseas terrorist arm,

00:16:21.980 and their intelligence collection and procurement efforts,

00:16:25.320 demonstrate Hezbollah's interest in the long-term contingency planning activities here in the homeland.

00:16:32.760 And none of this is persuasive to Joe Biden or Kamala Harris or Alejandro Mayorkas or any of the congressional Democrats who are all willing to turn a blind eye and say,

00:16:46.320 right now, today, whenever you're listening to this podcast, if you're listening to this podcast at six in the morning,

00:16:52.900 if you're listening to this podcast at noon, if you're listening to this podcast at 6 p.m.,

00:16:57.300 or if you're listening to this podcast at midnight, whatever time you're listening to it right now,

00:17:03.700 there are people crossing illegally into this country,

00:17:06.040 and the Biden administration is doing nothing to stop them.

00:17:09.520 In the last three years, there have been over two million gotaways.

00:17:14.820 Those are people that have evaded capture.

00:17:17.200 We know about them, but they didn't turn themselves in,

00:17:20.260 whereas the bulk of the people who came did turn themselves in.

00:17:23.120 And the gotaways are the most dangerous.

00:17:25.000 You want to know where the terrorists are?

00:17:26.740 They're the gotaways.

00:17:27.700 You want to know where the criminals are?

00:17:29.340 They're the gotaways. 0.54

00:17:30.300 The murderers, the rapists, they're the gotaways.

00:17:32.240 You want to know where the gang members, the MS-13 are? 0.60

00:17:35.060 They're the gotaways.

00:17:36.360 And I don't know what it will take to get this administration to actually step up and say,

00:17:43.860 we're going to keep the American people safe from a terror attack.

00:17:47.340 Is it arrogance, last question on this, is it arrogance that, you know,

00:17:52.060 oh, we know better because there is a younger age that is serving in the House now

00:17:59.240 than we've seen that maybe doesn't understand or remember truly what happened on 9-11?

00:18:03.860 Is it an arrogance of the Democratic Party that they just don't care about history in the past?

00:18:08.640 I mean, I remember 9-11 like it was yesterday.

00:18:12.040 I know you do as well, and many Americans do.

00:18:15.700 And when you hear this type of threat, you can imagine it because you've lived through 9-11.

00:18:20.220 You can imagine what it looks like when you allow Hezbollah terrorists to come across the southern border 1.00

00:18:25.580 and what they can do if they are well-trained, which they are,

00:18:29.640 and if they can get their hands on what they need to carry out a significant terrorist attack.

00:18:34.040 And I sit here and go, how do you not remember 9-11?

00:18:37.640 Where is the disconnect here?

00:18:39.340 Well, look, for one thing, 9-11 was 22 years ago.

00:18:43.840 22 years ago is a long time.

00:18:46.540 You and I, although we think we're spring chickens, we're not anymore.

00:18:51.060 You're in your 40s, I'm in my 50s.

00:18:53.660 There are a lot of people, there is not a single college kid who remembers 9-11.

00:18:58.320 There are a lot of people in their 30s who 9-11 is a distant memory from their childhood.

00:19:05.720 And look, I get it.

00:19:07.000 You know, for me, I think about like Pearl Harbor.

00:19:09.180 I know about Pearl Harbor.

00:19:10.560 It's a horrible day in history.

00:19:12.360 It's a horrible day in U.S. history.

00:19:14.200 But do I have a personal emotional reaction to Pearl Harbor?

00:19:18.420 No.

00:19:19.000 It happened long before I was born.

00:19:21.100 So it's kind of, I've read about it, but I didn't live through it.

00:19:24.460 So there is a dynamic that many people in America were getting far enough beyond 9-11

00:19:29.940 that many people don't have a personal acute memory.

00:19:33.660 And then I think beyond that, what has happened is that we've seen the Democrat Party in Washington

00:19:41.140 radicalized.

00:19:43.120 And it's been happening for a while.

00:19:46.040 Barack Obama started this process of radicalizing it. 0.94

00:19:49.900 And then Trump becoming president broke their brains.

00:19:53.600 They hate Trump so much that I actually just think they've convinced themselves that anything 0.65

00:20:01.900 is justified fighting Trump.

00:20:04.460 Trump and the result of it is that they're embracing radical policies.

00:20:10.100 And because the press, Trump broke the press, the media doesn't report on this.

00:20:17.760 And so the Democrats are radicalized because they know they will never be asked back home

00:20:24.300 about the extreme policies they're supporting.

00:20:27.280 As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go

00:20:31.960 back and download the podcast from early this week to hear the entire thing.

00:20:36.840 Canadian women are looking for more. 1.00

00:20:38.960 More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.

00:20:43.120 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:20:46.460 I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed.

00:21:11.980 One other question I want to ask you about this case moving forward.

00:21:16.100 You predicted that this is going to be probably a very stern Supreme Court on this issue with

00:21:23.440 Colorado.

00:21:25.160 Has your mind changed at all since we did part one on that?

00:21:28.960 I mean, you're back in D.C.

00:21:30.160 You've seen, I guess, more of the press reaction.

00:21:33.040 You've seen more of the reaction in Washington.

00:21:35.720 Do you still think that the Supreme Court is eager to not only take this up, but also to

00:21:39.580 say, hey, you can't in America, in the United States of America right now, we let the people

00:21:45.320 decide.

00:21:46.000 We don't let people, you know, dictate who you can and can't vote for.

00:21:50.480 So let me say, I wouldn't say eager is the right adjective.

00:21:53.740 They're not eager.

00:21:55.180 The court would love to stay out of this.

00:21:58.000 They don't want to be involved in this presidential election.

00:22:00.180 They want to stay out of it.

00:22:02.680 But once Colorado ruled that they were pulling Trump off the ballot, the court had to get

00:22:08.320 in.

00:22:08.520 And I actually think every justice recognized, OK, we've got a responsibility.

00:22:14.260 We can't duck this.

00:22:16.160 We've got to resolve this.

00:22:17.640 Because this is the court exists to resolve the most important legal issues in the country,

00:22:23.700 particularly concerning the Constitution.

00:22:25.740 And whether you will allow the voters to vote for a candidate for president is right

00:22:33.420 at the top of it is difficult to imagine a more consequential constitutional issue than

00:22:38.480 that.

00:22:39.000 And so I think every justice recognized, even though they don't want to be in this, they

00:22:44.420 had a responsibility and they really had no choice.

00:22:46.980 Now, I also believe the odds are overwhelming, close to 100 percent, that the Supreme Court

00:22:54.140 will reverse the Colorado Supreme Court.

00:22:56.240 I just I do not believe they are going to allow one of the two major parties, candidates

00:23:03.580 for president to be removed from the ballot and to tell the voters, you don't get to decide

00:23:08.520 who the president is.

00:23:09.660 That is contrary to democracy.

00:23:12.920 It is an assault on democracy.

00:23:14.600 Ironically, while Joe Biden is is prancing around and and proclaiming his defense for

00:23:22.580 democracy, he and the Democrats and the media are trying to utterly frustrate democracy and

00:23:29.260 stop the voters from voting for their opponents.

00:23:31.340 I think the court is is going to easily reverse it.

00:23:34.560 And I really I desperately hope I got to say there are very few things I have hoped for more

00:23:40.580 passionately in that I can recall.

00:23:44.440 Then that I hope that this is unanimous if it's six three, if it's the conservatives voting

00:23:50.100 to reverse and the liberals voting to affirm that is bad for the Supreme Court is bad for

00:23:55.840 the country, it is bad for the rule of law, it will cement the perception that the court

00:24:02.820 is a political body.

00:24:03.820 And that is disastrous for the court.

00:24:06.120 I am certain that there is no human being on the planet that feels that urgency more intensely

00:24:13.780 than Chief Justice John Roberts.

00:24:15.340 I know John Roberts very, very well.

00:24:17.180 We've been friends for 30 years.

00:24:19.260 He cares.

00:24:22.040 Exquisitely about the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.

00:24:25.780 And so I think the chief justice is going to bend over backwards to find any theory.

00:24:30.680 That would produce a unanimous decision.

00:24:34.420 There are lots of theories he could do.

00:24:35.820 The one I find most persuasive, the one if if I had if Trump had offered me the Scalia

00:24:42.540 seat and I'd gotten the nomination in the place of Gorsuch and the Senate to confirm me

00:24:47.440 if I were a justice, the theory that I would be inclined to agree with is what I laid out

00:24:54.760 in the last podcast, which is, it is absolutely true and I think correct that if an individual

00:25:04.600 engages in insurrection, they are not eligible to be elected to federal office.

00:25:11.440 I'm convinced of that.

00:25:13.900 However, what is not clear is how you determine whether someone, quote, engaged in insurrection,

00:25:22.500 as I described in the last podcast, the Civil War was indisputably an insurrection.

00:25:27.780 No one can dispute that.

00:25:29.100 We had a four-year war with 600,000 dead Americans.

00:25:33.480 Like, it was, it is why the 14th Amendment, Section 3, was passed.

00:25:37.980 It was in response to the Civil War.

00:25:39.920 It is the embodiment of an insurrection.

00:25:42.020 There is a real and acute debate over whether what occurred on January 6th, 2021, constituted

00:25:51.180 an insurrection.

00:25:51.760 I think the answer is easy.

00:25:53.080 I think the answer is hell no.

00:25:54.320 I don't think it remotely reaches that level.

00:25:56.540 But there are those who disagree. 0.97

00:25:58.820 I will acknowledge there's disagreement with almost every damn Democrat and all the media. 0.94

00:26:03.360 They say routinely insurrection, insurrection, insurrection. 0.97

00:26:07.540 However, the constitutional question is how do you determine that someone has engaged in

00:26:15.760 an insurrection in the Civil War?

00:26:17.220 Since nobody disputed the Civil War was an insurrection, the only question is did you engage in it?

00:26:22.980 So if you put on a Confederate uniform, if you had stars on your shoulder, you were guilty.

00:26:29.340 Like that, it was easy to determine whether you fell into that disqualification.

00:26:34.520 Yeah, it was as simple as you could make it at that point.

00:26:37.240 Yeah, there was no one disputed the Civil War was an insurrection, and I'm not aware of anyone that disputed if someone was in fact a Confederate officer.

00:26:46.800 I don't know of anyone that said, no, no, I wasn't a Confederate officer.

00:26:48.900 Like the two pieces were admitted, and so there was no meaningful factual dispute.

00:26:55.920 Here, there is a reason that Jack Smith and every other prosecutor, left-wing prosecutor that hates Donald Trump,

00:27:05.420 that nobody has charged Trump with a crime of insurrection because you couldn't remotely prove that.

00:27:12.080 The facts don't demonstrate it, and so I think the theory of the Supreme Court will say,

00:27:18.600 and I predicted a sentence from, look, when this comes down, and I think it'll come down,

00:27:23.420 it'll be argued February 8th, I'm going to predict it comes down February 19th.

00:27:29.440 I'm just pulling a date out.

00:27:30.660 It will be sometime between February 8th and March 4th.

00:27:33.160 I'm pulling a date out of the air saying February 19th.

00:27:36.160 When it comes down, I'm predicting right now there will be a sentence.

00:27:39.260 It says, we express no opinion over whether the events of January 6th, 2021 constitute an insurrection or not.

00:27:49.820 However, in order for the 14th Amendment prohibition to apply,

00:27:55.360 there needs to be a conclusive determination that it was an insurrection.

00:28:00.620 And for those who urge Trump should be ineligible,

00:28:05.340 for the Biden Department of Justice, which has urged Trump should be ineligible,

00:28:10.100 they have a path to prove that case, which is to charge him with insurrection

00:28:14.460 and convict him and obtain a final judgment that he is guilty of insurrection.

00:28:19.020 If they do so, he will be ineligible for office, but they have not done so.

00:28:23.600 And accordingly, this decision should not be made by judges in Colorado

00:28:31.300 or a partisan, unelected Secretary of State in Maine,

00:28:36.060 but rather the decision of the next president should be made by the voters and the American people.

00:28:40.760 I think that that's what I would rule.

00:28:43.920 If I were a justice, that is the sort of opinion I would write.

00:28:47.280 And my hope is, I really hope the liberal justices are not infected by Trump derangement syndrome

00:28:56.800 like so many Democrats are, that they recognize the damage to the court

00:29:01.460 if they make this a partisan decision will be historic and irreparable.

00:29:06.480 So I pray they don't do that.

00:29:07.980 As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:29:13.340 Don't forget to download my podcast and you can listen to my podcast.

00:29:16.400 Every other day, you're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards.

00:29:20.380 I'd love to have you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson podcast.

00:29:24.100 And we will see you back here on Monday morning.

00:29:26.960 This is an iHeart podcast.

00:29:29.600 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - January 13, 2024

Supreme Court's Function in Colorado Case, Terror Threat in the US from Hezbollah, & Will SCOTUS Be Unanimous on Trump Ballot Decision Week In Review

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript