Verdict with Ted Cruz - Tariffs： Angels & Demons urging either a Massive-Free-Trade Victory or Perpetual Trade Barriers & Taxes

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.660 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.360 Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you as always.

00:00:09.420 And Senator, it's nice to be back in the studio with you.

00:00:11.860 You've been traveling like crazy.

00:00:13.780 You guys have been really busy in Washington and adding some days on to the work week as well.

00:00:18.060 We're finally back here together. We've got a big show.

00:00:21.180 So is something going on in Washington?

00:00:22.820 Right, exactly.

00:00:23.980 You know, there's an old Chinese curse. 1.00

00:00:25.980 May you live in interesting times.

00:00:27.580 We certainly live in those.

00:00:30.160 Donald Trump has hit the White House with speed and fury and velocity.

00:00:36.700 There's never been anything like it.

00:00:37.960 There's never been a president like this in the first hundred days.

00:00:41.120 Last week, obviously, the president announced on April 2nd, tariffs on just about every country on Earth.

00:00:47.280 The highest tariff level since 1933.

00:00:50.840 It is a big, big deal.

00:00:53.540 Every nation across the globe is reeling.

00:00:55.900 They're all trying to figure out what do we do about it.

00:00:58.480 The stock market, the stock market collapsed.

00:01:01.900 It went into freefall.

00:01:03.520 Six trillion dollars evaporated in 48 hours.

00:01:07.560 Now, Monday, everyone's wondering, how's the market going to open Monday morning?

00:01:12.080 But there's a lot of concern that the market isn't done going down.

00:01:15.600 And the question is, where do we go from here?

00:01:18.000 And I'll tell you, the reason President Trump is doing this is important.

00:01:24.180 The reason President Trump is doing this is that we've seen, over the last 50 years, a hollowing out of manufacturing in America.

00:01:32.160 We've seen what used to be the heart of the American middle class, the heart of blue collar jobs going away, being pulled abroad, going overseas and the industrial Midwest just just being utterly decimated by good paying jobs leaving America.

00:01:53.680 And President Trump was elected for many things, but heart and center to fight for bringing those jobs back.

00:02:00.160 That's right at the core of this, bringing those jobs back to America. 0.96

00:02:04.360 But there is now a very active debate within the White House.

00:02:08.560 Which direction do we go next?

00:02:10.820 Do we use this as leverage to lower other countries' tariffs and then lower our own tariffs to reflect that?

00:02:17.620 Or do we leave these tariffs up forever and ever and ever?

00:02:21.880 And I'll tell you, there are different advisors in the White House.

00:02:24.280 There are angels and demons on each of President Trump's shoulders, urging him, use them as leverage or keep them forever.

00:02:34.040 We're going to break down that debate and what the consequences are for you, what it means for you if these tariffs are used as leverage to lower the tariffs of our trading partners,

00:02:45.420 and what it means for you if these tariffs are simply a permanent economic feature of America.

00:02:51.740 We're also going to talk about nationwide injunctions, nationwide injunctions we have seen in the last three months.

00:02:57.360 It is the new incarnation of lawfare.

00:03:00.200 It is how the left is attacking Donald Trump.

00:03:02.560 They are filing lawsuits.

00:03:03.980 They are looking for left wing radical judges who are issuing nationwide injunctions to stop the president's agenda.

00:03:10.560 We had a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee this week on exactly this topic.

00:03:14.720 We're going to take you there and talk about what the problem is and what the solution should be.

00:03:19.900 Yeah, it's going to be very interesting.

00:03:21.080 I also want to talk to you real quick about the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.

00:03:25.660 Israel is still under attack.

00:03:27.540 Missile fire has resumed from the Houthis, from Hezbollah and Hamas.

00:03:31.880 Enemies seeking Israel's destruction. 0.89

00:03:34.160 Here in America, we cannot imagine living under constant threat of terrorism and rocket attacks.

00:03:39.860 This is the reality in Israel. 0.59

00:03:41.620 Parents taking their kids to school, falling to the ground to lay on top of their small children, trying to comfort them as sirens blare.

00:03:49.580 The next attack against Israel is happening now, with little time to prepare, and that's why your help is needed right now.

00:03:56.680 The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is helping provide life-saving aid and security essentials.

00:04:02.400 And your urgently needed gift today will help provide security essentials like bomb shelters, flag jackets, and bulletproof vests for first responders.

00:04:10.660 They're also providing armored security vehicles, armored ambulances, and so much more.

00:04:16.700 So if you're proud to stand with Israel, you can make your gift right now by calling 888-488-IFCJ.

00:04:25.620 That's 888-488-4325.

00:04:30.400 Or online, it's easy to give by going to supportifcj.org.

00:04:35.420 That's one word, supportifcj.org.

00:04:39.280 Now, Senator, I have a very important question, a big question before we get into all the politics.

00:04:44.620 There's a game that's happening on Monday, and your hometown team is in that game.

00:04:50.300 How excited are you to see Houston make it through the Final Four of the championship game?

00:04:55.360 Look, the Cougars, they played incredibly against Duke.

00:04:58.480 They were underdogs against Duke.

00:05:00.040 It was a great victory.

00:05:01.860 We're now in the finals tonight.

00:05:03.500 I've got to say, Houston is going to win tonight, is going to beat Florida.

00:05:06.540 Florida played well.

00:05:07.880 They had a tough game against Auburn and managed to just scrape it out.

00:05:12.580 Florida's a good team, but they don't have what it takes to beat Houston.

00:05:16.040 Houston's defense is too stifling.

00:05:18.420 I'm going to call it Houston by 6.

00:05:21.640 Houston by 6.

00:05:22.760 I like the bold prediction.

00:05:24.040 Well done.

00:05:25.140 All right, so let's talk about tariffs.

00:05:27.380 You and I, we did a show on Friday.

00:05:29.380 It was a show that a lot of people listened to.

00:05:31.700 It actually kind of went viral over the weekend as well.

00:05:35.320 People just want to know what is going to happen this week.

00:05:38.600 Next week, there's concern.

00:05:39.900 There's the stress, anxiety, watching the market.

00:05:42.460 But there's also something that's happening right now that's very interesting.

00:05:45.520 Countries are lining up to meet with the Trump administration.

00:05:48.880 Vietnam is apparently at the front of the line.

00:05:51.080 They sent an emergency delegation to the U.S.

00:05:53.180 They want to get a deal done as fast as they possibly can.

00:05:57.140 And now we're hearing there's dozens and dozens of other countries are saying, hey, we want to talk, too.

00:06:02.320 Now, there is an historic opportunity here.

00:06:04.900 And if the White House capitalizes on this opportunity, it could prove to be one of the most significant,

00:06:10.520 one of the most powerful moments for U.S. economic interest for American workers this country has ever seen.

00:06:17.340 Right now, every country that is on the receiving end of these tariffs, they're freaking out.

00:06:21.820 They're panicking.

00:06:23.280 This is a great opportunity to engage in let's make a deal.

00:06:27.900 Here, listen to Kevin Hassett, who is the head of the National Economic Council, describing how countries are coming to the White House right now.

00:06:33.660 I got a report from the USTR last night that more than 50 countries have reached out to the president to begin a negotiation.

00:06:39.860 But they're doing that because they understand that they bear a lot of the tariffs.

00:06:44.140 More than 50 countries, and that's just in a few days.

00:06:47.420 And listen, I've had a lot of countries that are reaching out, talking to my office, and my advice to them is go cut a deal.

00:06:53.380 Go cut a deal.

00:06:54.300 And the front half of your deal needs to be the tariffs that we've imposed against U.S. goods, against U.S. crops, against U.S. livestock, against U.S. cars, against U.S. manufacturing, against U.S. services.

00:07:06.820 All of those tariffs we are going to slash.

00:07:11.200 If we see Vietnam came in, Israel has come in, Israel and Vietnam were right at the front. 0.97

00:07:16.860 But, you know, it's interesting.

00:07:18.740 Vietnam is a country that is worth talking about a little bit because we have a very significant trade deficit with Vietnam.

00:07:26.640 Yeah.

00:07:27.180 Do you know why?

00:07:28.340 Why is that?

00:07:29.600 Because America is winning.

00:07:31.880 Why do we have a big trade deficit with Vietnam?

00:07:34.600 Because most of that manufacturing used to be in China.

00:07:38.480 And what happened is America, starting under President Trump, leaned on manufacturers and said, move your manufacturing out of China.

00:07:46.360 And so a whole bunch of them moved them out of China and went to Vietnam.

00:07:50.140 So Vietnam was doing what we asked them to. 1.00

00:07:52.500 Yeah.

00:07:52.620 We asked, hey, can you take on this manufacturing instead of China?

00:07:56.800 And there was a massive move of American companies that pulled manufacturing out of China and moved it to Vietnam.

00:08:03.640 Look, everything we do to de-link from China is a good thing. 1.00

00:08:07.860 So moving those jobs out of China was a terrific victory. 1.00

00:08:11.040 And it was a victory for President Trump.

00:08:12.920 It was the Trump administration that urged move those jobs to Vietnam.

00:08:18.180 Now, Vietnam suddenly has a big trade deficit because all those jobs came out of China to Vietnam.

00:08:25.060 And now Vietnam has a massive tariff that was levied on it by President Trump.

00:08:31.480 The question is, are they going to work a deal where they lower barriers on both sides?

00:08:38.060 I hope they will. But there's another path.

00:08:41.320 Listen, there are voices in the White House who simply believe in tariffs as a permanent feature of the U.S. economy.

00:08:48.820 There are voices in the White House that want these high tariffs to be in place in six months, in a year, in two years, in five years, in 10 years,

00:08:56.700 that they want tariffs to be the main source of economic revenue for the federal government.

00:09:03.300 That is a very different philosophy.

00:09:05.180 And this is one of the things I'll tell you within the Senate with my colleagues, a lot of us are debating, OK, how much of this is leverage to get great deals from other countries?

00:09:15.960 And how much of this is what you said, economic revenue for the government?

00:09:18.980 And by the way, you know, you get some people that talk about, well, we'll do tariffs instead of the income tax.

00:09:25.420 And I got to say, that sort of reminds me of the old cartoon Popeye.

00:09:30.100 Yeah.

00:09:30.780 And and, you know, I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.

00:09:34.160 I'm like, well, wait a second. The last I checked, we still have the income tax and we have these tariffs.

00:09:40.020 That's just a ton more taxes. If you want to get rid of the income tax, then we can talk.

00:09:44.780 But I don't see anyone proposing getting rid of the income tax.

00:09:48.120 And so at the end of the day, in my view, if the outcome from these tariffs is really high tariffs.

00:09:57.600 From every country on Earth against American goods and really high tariffs from America against goods from every other country on Earth,

00:10:05.740 that is going to be really bad for Texas and really bad for America.

00:10:11.260 Let's talk about momentum.

00:10:12.420 You mentioned the people coming to the table and you heard there in that comment, 50 nations are now lining up.

00:10:18.460 You and I both know that that one of the things Donald Trump does really well is the art of the deal and and loves when there's something to celebrate celebrating it.

00:10:26.840 Yes.

00:10:27.260 I see in our near future, Vietnam, America on stage, White House. 0.96

00:10:33.180 We got a historic deal done.

00:10:35.000 And that's where that move goes.

00:10:36.820 So what I'm urging is for the president to come and make major deals and make them quickly.

00:10:42.520 Look, to calm the stock market down, a few major deals quickly would really, really help.

00:10:49.680 I would love it if this week, this week we had an announcement from the president.

00:10:54.600 This major country came in.

00:10:56.220 They offered huge concessions.

00:10:57.920 They slashed their tariffs.

00:10:59.640 And we're slashing ours.

00:11:01.280 That would be a great outcome.

00:11:03.720 And that's momentum building as well.

00:11:05.460 Look, the stock market has a psychology to it.

00:11:07.960 People start saying it's a bear market.

00:11:09.960 People start saying we're going into a recession that feeds upon itself.

00:11:13.940 That means people are less willing to invest money.

00:11:16.820 They're less willing to take risks.

00:11:18.600 And so it is important for people to see the real tangible victories coming from this.

00:11:24.720 And those victories are not just cash.

00:11:26.520 One of the things you're hearing the White House say is, well, look at all the revenue we're getting from tariffs.

00:11:31.820 That's not actually bringing jobs back to America, getting those tariffs. 0.99

00:11:36.280 That's just raising prices.

00:11:37.920 And if the immediate effect for voters of these tariffs is serious inflation because the cost of what they're buying is going up.

00:11:47.740 I mentioned on Friday's podcast how one of the big three American auto manufacturers told me last week the effect of this tariffs is they would increase the cost of the cars they sell by $4,500 a car.

00:12:00.660 That's a lot of money to average Americans.

00:12:01.940 That is a lot of money.

00:12:03.340 That is a big hit.

00:12:04.720 And so we've got to see the upside.

00:12:06.440 We've got to see the benefit.

00:12:09.300 Look, one upside.

00:12:10.940 Right now, Europe has a 10 percent tariffs on American cars.

00:12:16.960 And prior to April 2nd, America had a 2 percent tariff on European cars.

00:12:21.520 Yeah.

00:12:21.960 Now, I can tell you the Europeans are already back channeling. 0.96

00:12:25.320 They are already putting on the table zero and zero.

00:12:29.020 They'll take their 10 percent to zero.

00:12:30.780 We take our 2 percent to zero.

00:12:32.340 And cars go back and forth from Europe and America without a tariff.

00:12:36.880 That deal is there.

00:12:38.560 The president could announce it this week.

00:12:41.900 That's a major victory.

00:12:43.220 Getting rid of those tariffs in Europe is a major victory.

00:12:47.060 But it is important.

00:12:48.520 So there are different voices.

00:12:49.520 So, for example, one of the voices speaking out is Elon Musk.

00:12:53.400 We had Elon on the podcast.

00:12:55.700 Elon said last week, here's what he told Reuters.

00:12:58.980 U.S. tech billionaire Elon Musk said on Saturday he hoped in the future to see complete freedom of trade between the United States and Europe.

00:13:06.120 Speaking days after President Donald Trump announced tariffs on trading partners.

00:13:10.960 Musk, a Trump advisor who's been working to eliminate wasteful U.S. public spending, spoke via video link at a congress in Florence of Italy's right-wing co-ruling party, co-ruling league party.

00:13:20.580 Quote, this is from Musk, quote, at the end of the day, I hope it's agreed that both Europe and the United States should move, ideally, in my view, to a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America.

00:13:37.960 So when I talked about angels and demons, Elon is one of the angels.

00:13:42.800 This is a good, good voice that is focused on U.S. jobs that I hope the president is listening to.

00:13:48.680 I hope the president is listening to Elon Musk.

00:13:51.700 President Trump has an historic opportunity.

00:13:54.520 The leverage right now is massive.

00:13:56.960 The question is, will the White House make the decision to use that leverage to try to lower foreign tariffs?

00:14:04.060 I'll mention something else.

00:14:06.260 Very good friend of mine, works in finance, very, very smart financier, suggested an idea for how to use this leverage and get even more of a win-win, which is he said, look, here's the problem.

00:14:20.220 Let's say you're an American company or you're a foreign company and you've got a factory somewhere, you've got a factory abroad, you've got a factory in Vietnam, you've got a factory anywhere other than the U.S.

00:14:31.160 And you're contemplating, do I move the factory to the United States?

00:14:35.640 The problem with that decision-making is that move takes years.

00:14:39.460 You can't do it instantaneously.

00:14:41.320 Even if you decide today, OK, let's build it in America, in a lot of places, just the permitting takes years to get a factory permitted, much less built.

00:14:51.200 By the way, that's why everyone should come to Texas.

00:14:53.140 If you're going to build a factory, come to Texas.

00:14:54.980 Amen to that.

00:14:55.480 Because we'll permit it fast.

00:14:56.720 We're not – if you go to California, you deserve what you get.

00:15:00.020 Come to Texas.

00:15:01.320 You should turn that into like a public service announcement, right?

00:15:04.460 Like you go there, you get what you deserve.

00:15:05.980 You want to get into business, Texas is a place to come.

00:15:07.820 I will tell you as an aside, several years ago, a CEO came and met with me in D.C.

00:15:13.860 and he was thinking of opening a new factory.

00:15:16.360 And he was looking at Texas.

00:15:18.100 He was looking at California.

00:15:19.960 And he said, all right, well, tell me in Texas, what do you give me to go to Texas? 0.98

00:15:23.840 And I said, not a damn thing. 0.96

00:15:26.400 I said, but we won't tax you to death. 0.99

00:15:28.420 We won't regulate you to death.

00:15:30.420 And we won't allow lawsuits just to tear you apart.

00:15:34.000 And I said, you know what?

00:15:34.980 If you go to California, you deserve what you get.

00:15:38.740 So that being said, let's say you're a big car company and you're trying to decide where do I put my next car factory.

00:15:46.980 Just the process of getting it permanent, getting it built, putting the equipment in, that takes a minimum of two, three, four, five years.

00:15:54.240 That's just how long it takes.

00:15:55.580 Wow.

00:15:55.660 So the problem for your decision making is if you're looking at this, if you're doing it based on the Trump tariffs, you don't know how long they'll be in place.

00:16:04.940 If you're trying to look at the math, you don't know, A, is Trump going to lift them in a deal where you may make a decision for the tariffs and then suddenly the tariffs aren't there anymore and the math changes pretty substantially.

00:16:17.720 Or B, at a minimum, in three and a half years, Trump is not going to be president.

00:16:22.740 So you don't know if the next president is going to keep the tariffs or eliminate the tariffs.

00:16:26.800 So the problem is by the time you opened your factory.

00:16:30.680 Completely different group could be in charge.

00:16:32.620 So the idea that my buddy from the finance world came up with is for the president to announce a fund, an InvestUSA fund, that individual CEOs could make it a commitment.

00:16:45.920 Let's say you're the CEO of Mercedes-Benz, that you could make a commitment we are going to open three new factories in America, all in Texas.

00:16:55.860 We're going to open three new factories in America, and we're going to invest $100 billion in building these factories.

00:17:03.280 Now, the piece that has some teeth to what my friend suggested, look, you can make that announcement.

00:17:10.760 You can put out a press release.

00:17:12.420 And by the way, if circumstances change, you never spend the $100 billion.

00:17:15.580 It doesn't actually arrive.

00:17:18.460 The idea is you're the CEO of Mercedes-Benz.

00:17:22.500 You announced three new factories, $100 billion.

00:17:24.260 You deposit the $100 billion in the fund, the Invest America fund.

00:17:32.660 You actually spend the money on the front end.

00:17:36.160 Now, two things happen when you invest it in the Invest America fund.

00:17:40.860 Number one, the United States earns interest on the money while it's sitting there.

00:17:44.820 So it's benefiting the U.S. just from the interest.

00:17:47.240 If you leave it there, we'll get interest while it's there.

00:17:49.700 But number two, as long as you have that money on the fund, you get a credit that you can use against your tariffs.

00:17:58.520 Maybe it's a one-to-one credit.

00:17:59.840 Maybe it's a two-to-one credit.

00:18:01.460 But it's economically, you create an incentive.

00:18:04.140 An incentive to put the money there.

00:18:05.280 For CEOs to invest in America, to create jobs in America, and to actually deploy the cash, because if you make the credit on the tariffs only dependent on the dollars actually being in the fund, let's say you give a two-to-one credit.

00:18:22.380 So $100 deposit in the funds gets you a $200 credit on your tariffs.

00:18:26.580 That's pretty economically compelling to lean in and invest.

00:18:31.380 And what we want to see is what President Trump talks about a lot, a golden age in manufacturing where companies are profoundly incentivized to invest in America.

00:18:42.520 Not only to grow, but to stay here so we don't have to worry about them leaving in the future.

00:18:46.460 Yes, yes, and if that has some real potency, an idea like that, but if the solution is simply let's go back to the world in 1900 when you had really high tariffs, when you had 1933, you had Smoot-Hawley.

00:19:07.740 That played a major role in the Great Depression.

00:19:10.520 When you put up walls, it hurts America.

00:19:13.960 We compete very well on the global level.

00:19:16.840 We just need to make sure we're competing fairly, and I think the president has real leverage to do that right now if he's listening to the angels and not the voices in his administration that are saying more tariffs, more tariffs, higher tariffs forever.

00:19:31.160 Canadian women are looking for more, more of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them. 0.64

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00:19:41.220 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

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00:20:00.420 Let me ask you a final question on this, and you talk about the two different viewpoints here.

00:20:06.660 There is a real debate.

00:20:08.320 I'm having it with friends.

00:20:10.180 I'm having it with colleagues.

00:20:11.320 I mean, I've witnessed this on TV.

00:20:13.800 There is, like you said, this core idea that there should always be tariffs.

00:20:17.580 I've heard people talking about Greg's example is China.

00:20:19.280 We should always be at 20% or 30% or 40%, whatever that number is.

00:20:22.460 And there's others saying, no, you use this as leverage, you get the better deal now, and then you have the market stabilized and people understand what the new norm is.

00:20:29.880 That seems to be what you're advocating for, which is let the market know, the CEOs know, the people that are deploying their dollars to decide what they're going to do next.

00:20:39.920 Give them whatever the new normal is going to be so that we can move forward.

00:20:43.540 Is that fair?

00:20:44.200 You've got to have some modicum of certainty, because if there's uncertainty, business doesn't invest.

00:20:49.560 No one invests if they don't know what the rules are going to be.

00:20:52.120 If it's chaos, they sit on their cash, and you don't have jobs.

00:20:56.780 We want people to feel confident.

00:20:59.140 And by the way, chaos under Biden came from regulatory chaos of new and job-killing regulations, one after the other after the other.

00:21:06.060 But if there is uncertainty, uncertainty is an enemy of investment, and that means it's an enemy of jobs.

00:21:12.260 So, some limited uncertainty can be helpful to incentivize a deal, but we need to get to a deal, a predictable outcome.

00:21:21.500 And I will say, listen, China is different.

00:21:24.740 I am actually quite fine with tariffs against China, because I think de-linking from China, their economy, 0.98

00:21:32.040 they have us in a position where they are a single greatest geopolitical threat.

00:21:36.260 They are utilizing that economic interconnection as leverage against America.

00:21:42.520 And so, I think everything we can do to move, moving those jobs from China to Vietnam is a good move, is an important move. 0.99

00:21:49.360 And moving them from China to Mexico, that's a good move. 0.99

00:21:51.960 Moving them from China to America is a good move. 0.99

00:21:54.380 But everything we can do to de-link from China makes sense. 0.99

00:21:58.880 It's not just trade.

00:21:59.400 It's also national security implications, right?

00:22:02.080 And I want a bonus question.

00:22:04.340 I think a lot of people, when you mention this is a different mentality with China and tariffs are good there, I agree with you. 0.82

00:22:10.800 My reason for it is a lot of national security reasons.

00:22:14.240 I think that's something that's not been talked about as much.

00:22:17.020 Give me your thoughts on that quickly so people understand the national security aspect of this.

00:22:20.140 So, look, we saw in the middle of COVID how much our critical supply chains were dominated by China.

00:22:26.180 China is fighting a thousand-year war against the United States.

00:22:30.140 When I arrived in the Senate 13 years ago, I said China is the single greatest geopolitical threat America is facing for the next hundred years. 0.74

00:22:39.040 When I started saying that, almost nobody in the Senate agreed with me.

00:22:43.360 All the Democrats disagreed and most of the Republicans disagreed.

00:22:46.740 Most of the Republicans looked at China and they just saw dollar signs as far as the eye can see.

00:22:53.560 A lot more people's eyes have opened up to the threat China poses today. 0.95

00:22:57.020 And I think COVID did an awful lot of that.

00:22:59.960 You know, in the middle of the COVID pandemic, there was one major Chinese state-owned newspaper that advocated cutting off life-saving pharmaceutical drugs manufactured in China from going to America.

00:23:12.620 Because we've allowed much of our pharmaceutical drug industry to be manufactured in China.

00:23:17.360 And they were literally threatening to take away heart medicine and cancer medicine and diabetes medicine from Americans who needed to live. 0.99

00:23:25.260 That underscored, this is stupid, to let a communist government who is our enemy... 1.00

00:23:32.000 Be in charge of our health in that way. 1.00

00:23:34.620 Likewise, critical minerals.

00:23:36.040 Critical minerals.

00:23:36.780 China has a stranglehold of the production of critical minerals, which are essential for semiconductors and electronics and for defense and for all sorts of...

00:23:45.120 We need to move all of that out of China. 0.99

00:23:47.880 We need to be able to stand on our own.

00:23:50.100 And I've got to say, President Trump has been really effective focusing on that threat.

00:23:54.260 We need to accelerate the delinking from China. 0.99

00:23:56.740 Another threat, and it's not been covered in the news the way that it should have because we've been dealing with this.

00:24:02.380 Obviously, we led with this issue because it's very important.

00:24:05.920 But it's judicial activism that's having a major impact on this administration.

00:24:10.640 And in a shocking way, I would even say historic way, when you look at the numbers, you're dealing with this now in the Senate with these judges that are basically going to be activists, but their injunctions are having a hold nationwide.

00:24:24.560 A lot of people didn't even know that was a possibility.

00:24:27.000 Is it an abuse of power?

00:24:28.420 Is there a check and balance that we need to have on that?

00:24:30.560 Let's dive into that as well.

00:24:31.700 So it's an absolute abuse of power.

00:24:33.460 It is worse than it has ever been.

00:24:35.040 We have seen against Donald Trump in the first two months of his administration, more nationwide injunctions issued against President Trump than in the entirety of the George W. Bush administration all eight years, the entirety of the Barack Obama administration all eight years, the entirety of the Joe Biden administration all four years.

00:24:54.720 More in two months than in those 20 years.

00:24:59.580 Two months and 20 years.

00:25:01.640 You say it.

00:25:02.320 You said it quickly.

00:25:03.620 I want people to just pause and think about how much of an abuse of power there has to be if they're doing it that much.

00:25:07.840 Like, this is deliberate.

00:25:09.360 Well, and listen to Attorney General Pam Bondi talk about this. 0.98

00:25:12.100 The president is going to comply with the law.

00:25:15.700 He was overwhelmingly elected by an overwhelming majority of the United States citizens to be our commander in chief.

00:25:23.700 And that's what he's been doing.

00:25:24.800 Shannon, just since January 20th, we've had over 170 lawsuits filed against us.

00:25:31.640 That should be the constitutional crisis right there.

00:25:34.280 50 injunctions.

00:25:36.080 They're popping up every single day trying to control his executive power, trying to control where he believes our tax dollars should be allocated.

00:25:45.560 And saying he won by an overwhelming majority is so important because that's what the American people want, what President Trump campaigned on and what he won on.

00:25:55.100 And he's implementing that agenda at a rapid speed.

00:25:58.980 None of us can keep up with him every single day.

00:26:01.640 And so it's just we're going after all of these lawsuits.

00:26:04.760 We're defending them all.

00:26:05.840 We just got a great win.

00:26:07.220 And we'll continue to fight.

00:26:08.720 I talked to a judge this week and he described it this way because I was wanting to understand this subject.

00:26:13.940 Obviously, we were going to talk about it's important and we haven't dealt with this a lot.

00:26:17.380 He said, in essence, what the court's doing, Ben, is they are doing a coup against Donald Trump by neutering him with his agenda.

00:26:25.300 And he said that is not how the Constitution was set up.

00:26:28.120 Like you should not be able to neuter a president this way saying we know you won.

00:26:31.860 We know the American people support you.

00:26:33.180 They voted for you, but we're not going to let you do what you're supposed to do as president anyway.

00:26:36.840 Well, and Barack Obama and Joe Biden put left wing radicals on the courts.

00:26:41.540 And then this is Democrat state attorneys general and left wing radical groups going and seeking out these radical judges, many of whom, by the way, used to work for the groups that are suing.

00:26:50.700 I mean, I mean, it is it is fundamentally corrupt and it is one judge.

00:26:54.920 Normally, a judge has the authority over the parties before him or her.

00:26:58.780 But these judges are issuing nationwide orders trying to stop everything President Trump is trying to do.

00:27:05.080 We had a hearing of the Judiciary Committee last week on this that was focusing on the threat to democracy and the rule of law from these nationwide injunctions.

00:27:14.640 Here's what I had to say at the hearing.

00:27:16.360 It's long been said that hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.

00:27:21.860 I have to admit, I'm enjoying listening to my Democrat colleagues suddenly discover the virtues of the rule of law after four years where they brazenly supported the most lawless Department of Justice and the most politically weaponized Department of Justice our nation has ever seen.

00:27:36.860 We just heard the senator from Rhode Island talk about the imperative of protecting judges.

00:27:43.440 And yet not not a single Democrat senator cared about the violent protesters that showed up outside Supreme Court justices homes, including, I might note, female justices like Justice Amy Coney Barrett, threatening their family.

00:27:55.960 And Joe Biden's attorney general didn't do a damn thing and refused to enforce the law to protect those judges.

00:28:01.540 Why? Because he agreed with the violent protesters and he wanted to intimidate and threaten those judges.

00:28:08.320 Professor Bray, under our Constitution, who should decide elections, the voters or unelected judges?

00:28:15.480 The voters are the ones who should vote in the election according to the laws, and the laws sometimes have to be applied by the judges if there are cases.

00:28:23.040 And under our Constitution, who is charged with making policy decisions, elected representatives, elected by the people, or unelected federal judges?

00:28:33.240 I think the question of policy, Senator, is a little broader than the particular case.

00:28:38.840 So the basic laws should be enacted by Congress.

00:28:42.460 That's where the fountain of law.

00:28:43.700 Policy decisions are the elected branches.

00:28:45.360 Right.

00:28:45.820 Law is the province of the court.

00:28:47.700 Policy is the province of the elected branches.

00:28:49.700 These are not complicated.

00:28:51.320 Professor Bray, let me ask you this.

00:28:53.540 Do the federal courts have power to issue remedies for people who are not parties to a case?

00:28:59.280 That's a question I agree is not complicated.

00:29:01.540 They do not have that power.

00:29:03.120 Is the phrase nationwide injunction or universal injunction found anywhere in the Constitution?

00:29:08.300 It is not.

00:29:09.640 First chart.

00:29:10.200 In the first 150 years of our republic, how many nationwide injunctions were issued?

00:29:15.260 My view is that there were not any until 1963.

00:29:18.500 Zero.

00:29:19.440 Now fast forward.

00:29:20.600 How many nationwide injunctions were issued in the entire 20th century?

00:29:26.580 It's a small number.

00:29:28.500 I would think it would be a dozen, give or take.

00:29:31.920 It's not large.

00:29:32.540 Twenty-seven, actually.

00:29:36.400 Excluding Trump's first term.

00:29:38.920 How many nationwide injunctions were issued in the last 20 years?

00:29:43.020 Far more than that.

00:29:44.620 Thirty-two.

00:29:46.120 From 2001 to 2024 against Biden, Obama, and Bush, 32.

00:29:51.360 And how many nationwide injunctions have been issued in the last two months alone?

00:29:56.640 There have been quite a few.

00:29:58.400 Thirty-seven.

00:29:59.680 Again, let that sink in.

00:30:02.500 There have been more nationwide injunctions in the past two months against President Trump than in the entire 20th century.

00:30:11.300 There have been more nationwide injunctions against President Trump in the last two months than both terms of George W. Bush,

00:30:19.440 both terms of Barack Obama and Joe Biden's term.

00:30:23.260 We saw during the Biden presidency lawfare.

00:30:27.260 Indicting President Trump four times.

00:30:30.420 Using the machinery of justice to attack him.

00:30:33.140 And that was an attack on democracy.

00:30:34.920 Because Democrats today hate democracy.

00:30:40.440 Democrats today are angry at the voters for re-electing Donald Trump and electing a Republican Senate and a Republican House.

00:30:47.520 And they engage in lawfare to stop democracy from operating.

00:30:51.840 Understand, this is the second phase of lawfare.

00:30:57.960 Second chart.

00:30:59.100 This is the second phase of lawfare.

00:31:01.860 Now that their efforts to indict President Trump and stop the voters from re-electing him have failed,

00:31:06.840 they're going and seeking out individual radical judges to try to shut down policies. 1.00

00:31:13.060 And they are forum shopping like crazy.

00:31:15.360 Give me any loon judge put on the bench by Obama or Biden who disagrees with a policy.

00:31:21.860 We just saw a judge flagrantly ignore U.S. immigration law concerning TPS being revoked.

00:31:30.000 U.S. law explicitly said there's no judicial review for that.

00:31:33.000 But, hey, they found a judge who says, you know what, we the Democrat Party, we are the party of illegal aliens. 0.98

00:31:39.000 We are the party of murderers and rapists and gang members. 0.98

00:31:42.740 And the Democrat Party exists here to fight to keep murderers and rapists and gang members in your communities. 0.74

00:31:51.300 There's a reason the Democrat Party is at 26% approval nationwide.

00:31:56.340 Because they put radical policies ahead of rule of law.

00:32:01.060 Nationwide injunctions are an abuse of power.

00:32:06.000 It is the judiciary acting as policy deciders.

00:32:10.200 And it is incumbent on this committee and this body to rein in the abuse of power from these unelected radical judges

00:32:17.400 who are trying to overturn the election because they disagree with what the voters decided.

00:32:24.120 So here's my question.

00:32:25.400 You just teased at the end.

00:32:27.640 And that is, it's our job to look at reining them in.

00:32:31.060 How long does that take?

00:32:32.580 Can it be done through legislation?

00:32:34.780 What are the options here and how quick can we get this under control?

00:32:38.820 Well, it could be done quickly.

00:32:40.000 There's legislation.

00:32:40.960 In fact, there's legislation we were talking about at that hearing that Chuck Grassley's introduced that I'm a co-sponsor of.

00:32:46.360 That would remove the power of a district judge to issue nationwide injunctions. 0.79

00:32:50.240 I think that makes an awful lot of sense.

00:32:52.520 Is that going to pass?

00:32:54.340 Probably not.

00:32:55.340 Because for it to pass in the Senate would take 60 votes, which would mean we would need seven Democrats to support it.

00:33:01.740 Every Democrat, they're enthusiastic about this lawfare.

00:33:05.540 They want to see more of it.

00:33:06.800 So they are dug in.

00:33:08.380 That remedy is not there.

00:33:09.960 The other remedy that you and I have talked about before is impeachment.

00:33:13.260 Impeachment, you can impeach a judge in the House with a majority vote, 218 votes.

00:33:19.660 It may well make sense that one or more of the most egregious district judges who are defying their oath of office should and perhaps will be impeached by the House.

00:33:33.120 However, if and when that happens, it will come over to the Senate for the trial and under the Constitution, it takes two-thirds to convict.

00:33:40.580 That means we need Democrats and the Democrats are not going to convict.

00:33:44.480 There may be value in impeaching one or more of these judges anyway to highlight the utter brazen lawlessness of it.

00:33:53.060 And doing so would mean we could have a trial on the floor of the Senate to lay out just how lawless their conduct was.

00:34:00.600 But the judge is not going to be removed because the Democrats are all in in support of illegal aliens and against the rule of law.

00:34:08.560 That means the remedy are, number one, the court of public opinion, making people understand.

00:34:13.900 Sure.

00:34:14.560 Just what an abuse of power this is.

00:34:16.520 And number two, the appellate process, the courts of appeals and ultimately the Supreme Court.

00:34:21.540 Now, I will say immediately after I finished my questioning, Amy Klobuchar spoke next.

00:34:27.640 Yeah.

00:34:27.980 And I think my comments rattled her because she she tried to respond.

00:34:32.820 And I got to say, I what she was saying made so little sense.

00:34:36.940 I couldn't resist jumping in.

00:34:38.980 And we had some real fireworks.

00:34:41.060 So here, give a listen.

00:34:42.160 And the only reason there's all these injunctions, Senator Cruz, is because he's violating the Constitution.

00:34:48.400 Why would Trump appointed judges?

00:34:50.560 Why don't you file them in red, red districts?

00:34:52.780 Senator Cruz.

00:34:53.740 Why?

00:34:54.620 What did you just say?

00:34:55.660 Why don't you file them in red districts?

00:34:57.380 Why are the Democrat attorney general seeking out?

00:35:00.300 Senator Cruz.

00:35:00.900 Left wing.

00:35:01.900 My esteemed colleague.

00:35:02.920 One second.

00:35:03.220 With Senator Cruz's activity in this bill.

00:35:05.720 Senator Whitehouse.

00:35:06.300 He's entitled to.

00:35:07.080 I'm just going to ask for a point of order, Madam Klobuchar, Senator Klobuchar.

00:35:11.680 Senator Moody, we have debates on this committee.

00:35:13.700 They occur regularly.

00:35:15.580 Let's let her have her time. 0.99

00:35:16.960 And then we'll get back to that.

00:35:18.060 If you want to wait, we'll get back to Senator Cruz.

00:35:19.420 She's welcome to answer the question or not.

00:35:21.060 Go ahead.

00:35:21.260 Go ahead.

00:35:22.200 And I would encourage you to answer.

00:35:23.540 I'm so excited to be following Senator Cruz once again.

00:35:25.760 Excuse me?

00:35:26.260 But I will say this.

00:35:27.260 Excuse me?

00:35:27.720 I didn't hear you.

00:35:28.440 What did you say?

00:35:29.800 To be following him.

00:35:30.920 He and I have a will.

00:35:31.660 I was permitting you your time to continue.

00:35:35.560 Oh, to be following him in order.

00:35:37.220 Excuse me.

00:35:37.880 Go ahead, Senator Klobuchar.

00:35:39.280 And I have a on-standing debate during hearing.

00:35:40.200 Go ahead, Senator Klobuchar.

00:35:40.820 That's what I'm referring to.

00:35:42.060 Go ahead.

00:35:42.700 And I will take more than my time, since he's taken more than his time, to yell at me.

00:35:47.320 Go ahead.

00:35:47.500 So what I will say is that the.

00:35:49.060 I'm not yelling.

00:35:49.780 I asked a question.

00:35:50.920 Senator Cruz, please.

00:35:52.140 I'll give you time.

00:35:53.460 I do have to say, I've seen you yell.

00:35:55.200 That was not yelling.

00:35:56.520 I didn't raise my voice at all.

00:35:58.080 And by the way, Amy Klobuchar had no answer.

00:36:01.540 None.

00:36:01.800 She's like, well, oh, these injunctions are issuing because everything he's doing is illegal.

00:36:05.240 It's like, great.

00:36:05.860 Why don't they file them in red districts?

00:36:07.820 Why are you seeking out the most left-wing judges in the country who used to be radical activists,

00:36:14.100 who were nominated because they're radical activists, who used to work for the left-wing groups that are now bringing the lawsuits?

00:36:19.840 Why are you only filing them in their courts?

00:36:22.320 If it was so clear, if it was such a slam dunk, you ought to be able to file them in red districts.

00:36:29.040 And nope, nope, they ain't going to do that.

00:36:30.820 She had no answer whatsoever because this is about power and abuse of power. 1.00

00:36:36.020 This is not about the rule of law.

00:36:37.760 Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - April 07, 2025

Tariffs： Angels & Demons urging either a Massive-Free-Trade Victory or Perpetual Trade Barriers & Taxes

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