Verdict with Ted Cruz - The Newsroom Revolution & Trump Breaks the Media, plus Breaking Down School Choice, and The Border, a Question of National Security the Week In Review

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.520 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.940 Welcome to this verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:07.380 Weekend review, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:09.700 And these are the stories you may have missed that we talked about this week.

00:00:13.740 First up, Senator Cruz's new book is out, Unwoke, How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America.

00:00:19.120 And there's a very interesting conversation in this book about how Donald Trump broke the media.

00:00:26.860 Up second, school choice, a major issue.

00:00:29.760 And how big of an issue should it be in this presidential election?

00:00:34.220 Senator Cruz and I break that down and why Republicans should double down on the issue of school choice.

00:00:40.380 And finally, the southern border.

00:00:42.180 It is a question of national security now.

00:00:44.740 We bring in Rick Grinnell, who is in the job of dealing with national security under the Trump administration.

00:00:51.440 So just how bad and how dangerous is our broken border?

00:00:54.980 We deal with that as well.

00:00:56.100 It's the Weekend Review, and it starts right now.

00:00:59.940 You mentioned what we're up against, and one of your chapters is about the newsroom revolution.

00:01:06.300 And you start with a great story of a former colleague of mine that is hard to deal with, Jake Tapper.

00:01:13.700 In a fight, he's in essence calling you a liar.

00:01:18.260 And this is the new thing that the media has done.

00:01:20.820 They've become so sanctimonious that they are always looking for a moment to tell you why you're wrong and why they're brilliant.

00:01:29.300 We've seen this in the last several days as they've been demanding a ceasefire to protect the terrorists in Gaza,

00:01:36.980 who the Israelis are trying to eradicate from the face of this earth with good reason after what they did just one month ago. 1.00

00:01:45.140 And we talked about this on Verdict.

00:01:46.740 Israel, we knew, was on an artificial clock the day the terrorist attack happened before the media, before the left,

00:01:55.100 started going to the aid of Hamas and the Palestinian people that were backing Hamas, many of them that were,

00:02:02.220 and saying, okay, all right, you had a few days now to go after these terrorists, now you've got to stop it.

00:02:07.220 Now it's your obligation to stop trying to protect yourself.

00:02:11.680 And this is our media now, and it goes back to this idea that they have, which is they're better than everyone else.

00:02:18.780 They're not here to report news anymore.

00:02:20.400 They're here to go after people like you and others that they don't like,

00:02:24.720 and indoctrinate a nation to believe in socialism and communism and Marxism.

00:02:29.120 Look, that is exactly right, and the media has fundamentally changed.

00:02:34.160 And so the chapter on journalism, I talk about how when I was first elected to the Senate 11 years ago,

00:02:40.120 and I actually focus on CNN as really a case lesson.

00:02:44.240 11 years ago, CNN, they aspired to be journalists.

00:02:48.780 If you asked them, they'd say, we want to be journalists.

00:02:50.960 We want to present both sides.

00:02:52.200 We want to be fair and objective and balanced.

00:02:54.680 And we want to focus on facts and not our opinion.

00:02:57.700 Now, they were terrible at it.

00:02:59.900 They leaned hard left, and they couldn't help themselves.

00:03:03.020 But that was the objective.

00:03:04.740 Number one, they would articulate to you they were trying to achieve.

00:03:07.820 But number two, I think they believed in their heart they were trying to do that.

00:03:11.360 And so when I was first elected to the Senate, you may find this hard to believe,

00:03:15.360 but I went on CNN just about every week.

00:03:17.780 I went on there over and over and over again,

00:03:19.820 and they would give you a chance to lay out a conservative argument.

00:03:23.440 Now, they'd attack you from the left, and they'd be unfair, and they'd play gotcha questions.

00:03:26.620 But they would give you a chance to present the other side.

00:03:31.380 And what happened is when Donald Trump became president, I think it fundamentally broke the media.

00:03:38.520 Their brains shattered.

00:03:40.320 They hated him so much that today the media no longer views its vision as being journalists,

00:03:47.940 as being fair and impartial and presenting both sides.

00:03:50.940 Instead, they have embraced a vision that they are advocates.

00:03:55.820 They are defenders of democracy.

00:03:57.860 And what they mean by democracy is left-wing radical policies.

00:04:02.560 And, you know, so the story I tell in the very beginning of the journalism chapter

00:04:09.580 is during the presidential race, I was out on the campaign trail.

00:04:14.900 I was actually in our campaign bus, and I was doing an interview with Jake Tapper.

00:04:18.900 And look, I'll confess, I like Jake.

00:04:20.700 I've known Jake for over 20 years.

00:04:22.820 I've known Jake since he was a cub reporter on the George W. Bush 2000 campaign,

00:04:28.940 and I was a baby staffer on it.

00:04:30.760 And so I've known him a long time.

00:04:32.020 And he was interviewing me for his Sunday show.

00:04:35.600 And we did an interview, and it was, I don't remember, probably 10 minutes or so.

00:04:40.480 And I had learned a lesson, and it's something that I do with every Sunday show,

00:04:44.360 which is that I insist that the Sunday show either be live or it be live to tape.

00:04:50.400 And the reason I learned that is I had done, just a few weeks earlier,

00:04:53.540 an interview with Bob Schieffer at CBS.

00:04:55.620 And Bob Schieffer, I hadn't insisted on that, and he'd done the interview.

00:04:59.920 And then afterwards, his show had edited it, and it basically cut out every good argument I made,

00:05:06.000 and just put this slash job where he decimated me because he excluded all my good answers

00:05:12.540 and just edited it in a way that was really deceptive.

00:05:16.300 And I said, okay, never again.

00:05:18.300 If we do one of these, they must air what I actually say.

00:05:22.100 And I said, look, if you want to give me five minutes or six or eight or 10 or 12 or whatever,

00:05:26.440 you can pick the time.

00:05:27.280 But when we film it, you air exactly what happens during that time.

00:05:31.160 So we had agreed with that with CNN.

00:05:33.760 And in the course of the interview, we were talking about the shooting at Fort Hood

00:05:38.300 and Nadal Hassan, who was the radical Islamist who had walked through

00:05:42.920 and murdered 14 innocent souls yelling, Aloha Akbar.

00:05:48.100 And I mentioned that the Obama administration knew that Hassan was a radical jihadist.

00:05:54.520 They knew that he had been in email communication with Anwar al-Awlaki,

00:05:59.460 who was the Islamist cleric, the radical,

00:06:02.580 that he'd asked al-Awlaki about the permissibility of waging jihad on his fellow soldiers.

00:06:09.960 And yet the Obama administration did nothing until he committed that act of mass murder.

00:06:14.800 And when I said all of that, Jake immediately interrupted and he said, that's not true.

00:06:19.140 No, that's not right.

00:06:20.460 And he said, what you're saying is fundamentally false.

00:06:22.880 That's a lie.

00:06:23.660 It's not true.

00:06:25.220 And, you know, I just kind of smiled and I said, well, you know, Jake, as John Adams said,

00:06:30.340 facts are stubborn things.

00:06:31.600 And what I'm saying is entirely accurate.

00:06:33.600 And, you know, when you research the issue, that's exactly what you're going to find out.

00:06:37.360 So we do the interview.

00:06:37.960 Jake and his production team leaves the bus.

00:06:41.740 And I don't know, five, ten minutes later, there's a knock on the door of the bus.

00:06:45.760 And we open it.

00:06:46.380 It's Jake.

00:06:46.880 And he's very sheepish.

00:06:47.900 And he says, hey, can you come in and talk for a second?

00:06:49.520 I said, yeah, sure.

00:06:50.060 Come on in.

00:06:51.460 And he said, look, after we did the interview, he said, I went and got on the Internet and I researched it.

00:06:56.520 And actually, you were right.

00:06:58.800 He said, I didn't know that.

00:06:59.860 I had missed.

00:07:00.600 I just had not seen the revelation that the Obama administration knew it.

00:07:05.760 I couldn't believe it.

00:07:07.380 But it turns out you were right.

00:07:08.720 I was wrong.

00:07:09.380 And Jake said, listen, I'll give you a choice.

00:07:12.280 We can do it one of two ways.

00:07:14.200 He said, I agreed we would do this live to tape.

00:07:16.800 And so if you want, I will air it exactly as it happened.

00:07:21.460 And then after I air it, I will come on live and I'll say, after the interview, I researched it.

00:07:29.220 And it turns out I was wrong and Cruz was right.

00:07:32.420 What he said was exactly right and I was in error when I said he was not telling the truth.

00:07:36.940 He said, that's option number one.

00:07:39.280 He said, option number two, which he said I'd really much prefer, is that we just edit out that segment.

00:07:45.980 We just remove it from the interview and we air everything else and just not include that segment.

00:07:50.340 And I describe in the book that, you know, I thought about it and it was obviously in my self-interest to pick option number one. 0.97

00:07:58.160 That like having CNN, having Tapper admit he was full of crap and I was right. 0.98

00:08:02.960 That was a big political victory. 0.97

00:08:06.140 But I also expected that I would be doing a whole lot more interviews with Tapper and with CNN.

00:08:13.480 And I frankly respected how he approached it, that he came to me and he admitted he was wrong and he gave me that option.

00:08:19.440 I thought it was an honorable way to handle it.

00:08:22.020 And so I made what I would say is a long-term play rather than a short-term play.

00:08:25.860 And I said, OK, you can go ahead and cut the segment out.

00:08:27.960 And so they did.

00:08:28.720 So the story I recount in the book, that segment never aired because CNN cut the segment out.

00:08:34.880 I focus on Tapper in particular because I think he's a smart guy and I think he wants to be a journalist. 0.90

00:08:42.580 And I think in his heart right now, he knows that he's not, that Trump broke Tapper, that now CNN will have a panel of five experts there to discuss, true or not, Donald Trump is the devil. 0.98

00:08:56.160 And all five of them agree, of course he's the devil. 0.99

00:08:58.780 No, he's worse than the devil. 0.91

00:08:59.840 That's the whole debate. 0.66

00:09:00.680 Right. And, you know, look, CNN used to be a place, if you go back to 2017, in 2017, I did three town hall debates on CNN with Bernie Sanders.

00:09:13.060 We did one on health care and two on tax policy.

00:09:16.700 And they were great debates.

00:09:18.360 I think they were among, if not the highest rated shows on CNN that whole year.

00:09:21.860 They were 90 minutes.

00:09:23.340 Bernie is an unapologetic defender of socialism.

00:09:26.320 I'm an unapologetic defender of capitalism.

00:09:29.280 And we had a real and substantive debate that CNN doesn't exist anymore.

00:09:34.920 And it's bad for America.

00:09:37.100 It's bad for the world that we don't have functioning journalism.

00:09:40.700 And I describe all of this in the book.

00:09:42.340 But I also describe how, because journalism, corporate media is broken, it's part of what makes the radical Democrats so extreme.

00:09:51.140 Why they vote for such ridiculous policy positions that are so out of the mainstream.

00:09:56.780 Because they know they will never, ever, ever get asked about it by reporters back home.

00:10:01.740 They will never have to defend it.

00:10:03.200 And so it's radicalized the Democrat Party in Washington.

00:10:06.780 Last question for you.

00:10:08.400 A little comedy.

00:10:09.620 And congratulations.

00:10:11.720 Jimmy Kimmel is promoting your book, Senator.

00:10:15.000 I'm very excited about this.

00:10:16.780 I also am waiting for the restraining order because he's absolutely obsessed with you.

00:10:21.060 Your new book that is out, Unwoke, How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America.

00:10:26.340 He gave it a primetime promotion on his show last night.

00:10:30.700 Here's what it sounded like.

00:10:31.880 Ted Cruz has a new book.

00:10:33.040 It's called Unwoke.

00:10:34.640 It's, uh, he's, you know what?

00:10:36.200 He's so cool.

00:10:37.200 He's, um, you can tell it's Ted's book because the dust jacket doesn't quite fit.

00:10:42.640 It won't, won't button in the front.

00:10:45.700 But this is Cruz's fifth book.

00:10:47.720 The last one was called Ted Cruz, A Time for Truth.

00:10:51.380 Seemed there without the beard.

00:10:52.600 He also wrote Ted Cruz, Head Ooze.

00:10:55.380 Um, he wrote Glued Pubes, The Guide for Guys Who Can't Grow a Beard.

00:10:59.620 Of course, the New York Times bestseller, A Partially Digested Rat, and other things I found

00:11:04.280 on my chin pouch.

00:11:05.920 There are many interesting musings and revelations in the books.

00:11:08.620 Uh, he says, The Princess Bride is his favorite movie, and he's seen it hundreds of times,

00:11:13.900 which is definitely not true.

00:11:15.400 No one's seen anything hundreds of times.

00:11:17.000 And apparently, he's not a big fan of late night television.

00:11:19.980 This is an excerpt, real excerpt.

00:11:21.600 He wrote, A late night TV is virtually unwatchable.

00:11:24.580 I love comedy, but watching angry leftists scream about how much they hate Donald Trump

00:11:28.620 isn't remotely funny.

00:11:30.320 It's pitiful.

00:11:31.120 Well, all I'll say is, it's an honor to be called pitiful by a man who abandoned his

00:11:37.000 dog in an ice storm to go to Mexico.

00:11:39.120 But congrats, Ted.

00:11:42.060 And seriously, I do want to say, you know, writing a book like this is a huge accomplishment,

00:11:48.560 especially for him.

00:11:49.420 You know, it's very difficult to type with hoops.

00:11:53.060 I mean, Senator, doesn't it prove your point that you just wrote in your book?

00:11:57.960 That was the part that made me laugh is as he's forcing this comedy on the audience and

00:12:02.940 there's some awkward laughter.

00:12:04.220 It's like, yeah, thanks for proving the point of what you just wrote about in your book.

00:12:08.280 Sure.

00:12:08.760 Look, I mean, it was when he did that last night.

00:12:11.740 I actually tweeted his monologue out this morning and I said, hey, thanks for pitching

00:12:17.000 my book.

00:12:17.700 You forgot the link to where you can buy it.

00:12:19.660 And I sent the link and I did something that is fairly obligatory also, which is Kimmel

00:12:26.840 regularly blasts me in his late night monologues.

00:12:29.600 And every time he does, I respond and I point out that ever since I whipped Jimmy Kimmel's 0.99

00:12:37.680 ass in one on one hoops, it seems that I'm living rent free in his head. 0.98

00:12:43.700 And so I sent a video of me scoring on him and blocking him just to remind him of that

00:12:50.820 moment that I think he probably still wakes up in tremors about.

00:12:54.580 But I thought it was hysterical.

00:12:56.400 What he read there was an actual excerpt from the book and he put put up the book book cover.

00:13:00.660 And I, I think that's fabulous.

00:13:02.780 But I do wish the substantive point that late night humor I wish was actually funny.

00:13:09.220 I love comedy.

00:13:10.380 I grew up watching SNL.

00:13:11.720 I like real comedians who are funny and they used to be funny.

00:13:15.440 And now it's one of the many examples that I discuss it at length in the book on woke how

00:13:21.780 how Trump broke the media, Trump broke the Democrat Party and Trump broke late night comedy because

00:13:28.620 they just it's a partisan primal scheme instead of good comedy makes fun of both sides.

00:13:37.180 I'm perfectly fine with making fun of me, but they never, ever make fun of the Democrats.

00:13:41.220 It's purely a I am leftist.

00:13:43.960 Hear me roar.

00:13:44.520 Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to

00:13:49.080 the full podcast from earlier this week.

00:13:51.360 Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, their elected 1.00

00:13:56.660 leaders and the world around them.

00:13:58.440 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:14:02.260 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:14:03.340 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:14:04.560 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists,

00:14:09.680 athletes, politicians and newsmakers all at different stages of their journey.

00:14:14.060 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:14:17.060 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcast.

00:14:21.360 Now on to story number two.

00:14:25.580 Before we get into Q&A, I want to ask you one other thing, and it's the issue, and I have

00:14:31.540 a feeling a lot of people are going to like this idea here.

00:14:34.740 School choice.

00:14:36.780 I am a huge proponent of school choice.

00:14:39.320 It's been something that you have been a champion of for years, but it's also become

00:14:45.460 in many circles.

00:14:46.420 They say a third rail, don't touch it, don't talk about it, don't deal with it in politics.

00:14:49.960 Do you believe in this next election cycle that conservatives can win on the issue of

00:14:56.720 school choice, and how would they best do that nationwide?

00:15:00.420 Look, I think absolutely yes.

00:15:02.300 I am.

00:15:03.620 There is no domestic issue I care about more than school choice.

00:15:07.700 I think school choice is the civil rights issue of the 21st century.

00:15:12.860 And listen, it is worth noting that school choice has been around from the dawn of time.

00:15:21.120 The rich and the middle class have always had school choice.

00:15:23.800 If you were a student at the Bethesda Public Schools in Maryland, Bethesda is this very

00:15:31.720 wealthy suburb of Washington, D.C., if that school had a 50% dropout rate, if among the

00:15:40.620 students that remained there, fewer than half of them graduated reading at grade level, if

00:15:47.560 drug dealers were walking in the hallways, if little girls were getting sexually assaulted 1.00

00:15:52.060 in the bathrooms, the Bethesda Public Schools would be empty immediately because the parents 1.00

00:16:00.180 there are rich.

00:16:01.500 So they would do one of two things.

00:16:03.020 They would either write checks and pay tuition at a private school, or they would move to

00:16:08.980 another neighborhood that had a better public school, and they would exercise choice through

00:16:13.480 choosing where to live.

00:16:15.360 That's what the rich have always been able to do.

00:16:17.340 That's what the upper middle class have always been able to do.

00:16:21.420 It is low-income Americans, it is single moms in inner cities who are trapped with failing 0.99

00:16:28.940 schools, and those numbers I've described are true in school after school after school in

00:16:33.760 this country, and it predominantly hurts low-income kids, it hurts African-American kids, it hurts

00:16:39.720 Hispanic kids, and the Democrat Party is bought and paid for by the teachers' unions.

00:16:49.980 If you look at African-American communities or Hispanic communities, systematically, 60, 70,

00:16:55.340 as much as 80% of African-American parents, as much as 60, 70, 80% of Hispanic parents support

00:17:03.900 school choice, I believe every child in America deserves a right to have access to an excellent

00:17:11.660 education, regardless of their race, of their ethnicity, of their wealth, of their zip code.

00:17:19.340 So how do we win?

00:17:20.560 I've got to say, we are sitting in actually an extraordinary place, because I want to say

00:17:25.260 to the men and women here, thank you for your leadership.

00:17:29.260 Arizona has led the nation in providing choice to your students.

00:17:35.760 It has been extraordinary, it has been inspirational, it has been powerful, and the Goldwater Institute

00:17:43.380 has been pivotal in making that happen.

00:17:45.900 And if you look nationally, the two states at the front of this fight have been Arizona and

00:17:50.980 Florida, and I will say something, you and I are both Texans, and look, Texans, we are known

00:17:57.060 for being quiet and for our humility.

00:18:01.340 Look, as Texans, I hate that there is anything Texans are not leaning on.

00:18:08.980 But when it comes to school choice, Texans have been lagging behind.

00:18:13.440 And I can tell you there's a major battle playing out in the Texas legislature right now.

00:18:17.920 We have the single best moment we have ever had in our lifetimes to pass real and meaningful

00:18:24.240 school choice in Texas.

00:18:25.760 The governor, Greg Abbott, has said he's going to keep calling special sessions until they

00:18:30.560 pass it.

00:18:31.080 And I'll tell you something that I do in Texas that is unusual, Ben.

00:18:36.320 So virtually every U.S. senator stays out of state primaries in their own state. 1.00

00:18:44.320 And the reason is, getting involved in a primary in your own state is just stupid. 1.00

00:18:49.640 It hurts you. 0.99

00:18:50.960 But if you make an endorsement in your own primary, in a primary in your state, the rule

00:18:56.000 of thumb is you get half of their friends and you get all of their enemies.

00:19:01.320 I don't do that.

00:19:02.240 I regularly endorse in primaries.

00:19:05.300 To the best of my knowledge, I don't know another U.S. senator that does.

00:19:08.920 To the best of my knowledge, 99 of my colleagues do not.

00:19:11.800 And I endorse in lots of primaries in Texas.

00:19:14.760 And here's how.

00:19:16.120 I have my staff prepare an Excel spreadsheet of every vote that a state legislator has cast

00:19:24.000 on school choice.

00:19:26.160 And my rule is, if you voted in favor of school choice and you're otherwise relatively conservative,

00:19:33.400 you're quite likely to get my support.

00:19:36.760 If you voted against choice, the chances of getting my support are essentially zero.

00:19:42.540 And it is very likely that I will endorse your primary opponent.

00:19:48.680 And when I do that, I don't do it gently.

00:19:51.040 I come in and I cut radio and TV ads and I come in.

00:19:55.240 You're accused of a lot of things.

00:19:57.360 You going gently in a political time is not one of them, sir.

00:20:00.500 Look, the stakes are too high.

00:20:02.760 And so we had last election cycle seven runoffs with the teachers unions on one side and me

00:20:09.160 on the other.

00:20:09.700 And we beat them in a majority of those races.

00:20:12.540 And the reason I do that, and listen, it hurts me politically to do that.

00:20:19.180 I am losing votes when I do that.

00:20:22.320 But the reason I'm doing that is that I want for the state legislators when they're thinking

00:20:27.240 about what do I do on this, for it to be a carrot and stick.

00:20:31.540 That if there is a Republican House member that's on the fence, do I support it?

00:20:38.100 Do I not?

00:20:39.720 I want them to say, you know, I really don't want Cruz to screw around in my primary.

00:20:45.960 So maybe I'll just do the right thing.

00:20:47.920 And I'll tell you something, and it's something why I'm so inspired by the men and women in

00:20:53.060 this room.

00:20:53.960 When I was first elected to the Senate in 2012, here's what I told Heidi.

00:20:58.960 I said, sweetheart, if when I die, if my tombstone says Ted played a meaningful role in bringing

00:21:07.520 about school choice to every child in Texas and every child in America, I will die a

00:21:13.600 very, very happy man.

00:21:15.620 As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go

00:21:20.520 back and download the podcast from early this week to hear the entire thing.

00:21:24.260 Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, their 1.00

00:21:29.520 elected leaders, and the world around them.

00:21:31.580 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:21:35.320 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:21:36.500 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:21:37.720 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

00:21:41.480 Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of

00:21:46.360 their journey.

00:21:47.220 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:21:50.200 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:21:56.080 I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed.

00:22:00.680 I want to ask you about another question that deals with the southern border.

00:22:04.960 And I want to go back to putting your, you know, taking the ambassador hat off, going back

00:22:08.660 to national intelligence.

00:22:10.320 You look at our southern border right now, and it doesn't take a very bright human being

00:22:16.680 to understand that an open border, the way it is now, is a national security threat.

00:22:22.080 There are more and more people that are saying this.

00:22:24.500 We saw the FBI director, Ray, saying that we're at the highest level, in his opinion,

00:22:30.060 since 9-11 for the prospect of an attack in this country.

00:22:34.800 We know that terrorists are coming across the border.

00:22:36.960 They're on the terrorist watch list that have been caught.

00:22:39.000 These terrorists are not trying to turn themselves into Border Patrol agents.

00:22:42.540 They're trying to become gotaways.

00:22:44.320 We have no idea how many terrorists have made it into this country undetected so far.

00:22:49.100 But when you look at the warnings now, and you look at what just happened, and you look

00:22:53.520 at the warnings of possibilities of the same type of style attack that we just saw in Israel,

00:22:59.160 and yet we still have an open border, and we still have Mayorkas before Congress, what

00:23:04.620 was that, yesterday, day before, saying that, no, he doesn't believe we need a border wall.

00:23:09.060 What is your reaction from an intelligence standpoint?

00:23:11.800 Yeah, Ben, it's a good question, because, you know, I've got to believe that all of the

00:23:18.540 intelligence officials who are collecting raw intelligence see it on a daily basis.

00:23:25.620 I mean, how else do we know that someone from the terrorist watch list is crossing the border?

00:23:30.700 It's because of raw intelligence.

00:23:31.940 We're figuring it out, but I think that it's being hidden.

00:23:38.580 When they report it, it's not being analyzed and talked about.

00:23:41.960 It's not being put into the president's daily briefing.

00:23:45.000 All of that information is completely being suppressed.

00:23:47.500 And once again, we should be asking these questions of Averill Haynes.

00:23:52.760 You know, what are you seeing at the border?

00:23:54.760 What are you hearing at the border?

00:23:57.340 And, you know, she's just not getting pushed on it.

00:24:00.280 But it's clearly extremely dangerous.

00:24:02.860 Everybody knows that.

00:24:04.280 You're not going to have a country if you have an open border.

00:24:07.420 We all know that.

00:24:08.380 But I find the most outrageous thing is that the media are complicit in this problem, because

00:24:17.360 Democrats would have to face the music if they were hearing from the media in their home

00:24:24.340 states, if they were being pushed and held to account like they used to.

00:24:29.020 When I would sit around and watch the news with my dad as a kid, the news was kind of holding

00:24:34.140 both sides to account.

00:24:35.840 Well, Rick, this is a point that we've made a lot on this podcast and that I make in my

00:24:40.900 brand new book, Unwoke, which is that the corruption of the media and Donald Trump, I believe, broke

00:24:49.720 the media.

00:24:50.320 He shattered their brains.

00:24:52.760 That has played a critical role in driving today's Democrat Party to such extremes.

00:25:00.440 You go so crazy left because they never, ever, ever get questioned on any of it.

00:25:05.140 So there's no downside to giving in to the radical extreme in their party.

00:25:11.380 They never fear that they will get a hard question at home.

00:25:14.260 They never fear they'll get a bad story at home.

00:25:16.840 And so I think the abandonment of any effort at journalism by the corporate media has been

00:25:26.800 one of the most destructive developments in recent years.

00:25:30.420 I totally agree because it's unleashed, right?

00:25:33.720 There's no consequences.

00:25:34.980 There's no downside.

00:25:35.880 So they get to do and say anything they want.

00:25:38.540 As I watch Avril Haines and, you know, she got into office and immediately in order to 0.99

00:25:46.940 please Iran, one of the first things she did was manipulate past intelligence to pretend like 0.89

00:25:53.620 it was real.

00:25:54.240 And they went after the Saudis and the Khashoggi issue all over again.

00:25:58.500 They literally, there was nothing new in that report.

00:26:01.580 It was repackaged to hit the Saudis hard after we had basically looked at them and tried to 0.99

00:26:09.920 make some changes and were trying to heal that relationship.

00:26:14.480 And the Saudis were on the verge of signing the Abraham Accords. 0.96

00:26:17.760 Yes.

00:26:18.560 And until Biden screwed that up.

00:26:21.280 100% true.

00:26:23.020 And they, I look back now and it makes sense to me.

00:26:27.460 The reason they did it is because they wanted to show the Iranians that somehow that they 0.99

00:26:32.520 were going to play more fair and that they were going to be nicer to the Iranians by beating 1.00

00:26:38.580 up on the Saudis, right? 0.75

00:26:39.860 And then why aren't we talking about the fact that they took the Houthis off the terrorist

00:26:44.780 watch list and the Houthis are the ones who just shot down the drone?

00:26:49.300 Why were they taken off that list?

00:26:50.780 I mean, explain the politics behind that.

00:26:52.860 Well, I think, again, it's a, it's a gift to the Iranians. 1.00

00:26:56.920 They're, they're trying to please them because they want to get back and, you know, they will

00:27:00.580 spin that somehow the international sanctions was, were pressuring the Iranians.

00:27:07.040 And therefore we, they were closer to a nuclear bomb because of the sanctions and the grip

00:27:13.440 that we had.

00:27:14.280 And again, this is the same strategy that they had with Russia.

00:27:18.420 When you go and you see Democrat senators making the case for dropping the sanctions on Nord Stream

00:27:25.480 2, it is, in summary, they keep saying, well, we don't want to stick it in the eye of the

00:27:32.000 Russians.

00:27:32.280 This pipeline and us sanctioning it, making it not come online, is creating problems.

00:27:42.280 So we must, therefore, let the pipeline flow through with gas because things are going

00:27:49.920 to be better if we don't stick it in the eye of Putin.

00:27:52.800 This is, this was their argument.

00:27:54.140 And appeasement always, always, always fails.

00:27:59.800 It invites bullies and tyrants to be aggressive, to invade.

00:28:05.420 It, it causes war. 0.98

00:28:07.500 Absolutely.

00:28:08.060 I mean, Joe Biden inherited peace and prosperity.

00:28:10.760 We now have the biggest land war in Europe since World War II and the biggest war in the

00:28:14.620 Middle East of our lifetimes. 0.99

00:28:16.160 I mean, I mean, that is, and, and, and, you know, you're talking about the Saudis.

00:28:20.360 Look, in my view, the dominant foreign policy objective of Joe Biden and his team has been

00:28:26.720 to reenter an even worse Iran nuclear deal and everything in the Middle East hinges on

00:28:33.400 why do they go after the Saudis so, so ferociously?

00:28:36.620 For the same reason that I am largely pro-Saudi, which is that the Saudis are the most important

00:28:43.720 regional counterweight, other than Israel, to Iran.

00:28:48.120 Now, look, the Saudis have lots of problems.

00:28:50.700 So I describe the Saudis as a problematic ally, but we want them to be an ally.

00:28:55.920 We want them to be strong as a counterbalance to Iran. 1.00

00:28:59.880 That's precisely why the Biden administration wants the Saudis to be weak, because everything 0.91

00:29:05.980 is subservient to getting in another deal with Iran, including in the middle of this

00:29:13.540 Ukraine war, after Biden's weakness causes the war in Ukraine, it has now become the

00:29:19.800 ultimate Democrat virtue signal to wear a Ukrainian flag and commit that we must be in the war until 0.80

00:29:25.600 the end of time.

00:29:26.560 And even while they say that, they continue to flow now roughly $100 billion into Iran, much of which goes

00:29:38.180 into Iranian drones, that Iran becomes the top weapons supplier to Russia.

00:29:42.740 And so Biden is funding both sides of the Ukraine war.

00:29:46.100 Well, there's no question about that.

00:29:47.420 And this goes back to what my original point on Iran was.

00:29:50.280 It sounds crazy, but they trust the Iranians. 0.99

00:29:55.180 There's some belief, Jake Sullivan, maybe it's just a white paper intellectual exercise that if

00:30:01.800 you're nicer to them, somehow they're going to give up a nuclear weapon.

00:30:05.620 And they really believe that.

00:30:07.180 And the NGO community totally supports that.

00:30:11.120 And we call it appeasement, but they're trying, once again, engagement.

00:30:16.360 And this is one of my problems with the foreign policy community, is that we should be able to

00:30:22.300 try engagement, try sanctions, try all sorts of things, but we should quickly evaluate whether

00:30:28.640 it's working or not.

00:30:30.000 We could talk all day about Venezuela, because I think that's a failure of a policy.

00:30:34.060 It is.

00:30:34.840 You know, it's worth also underscoring that the Biden administration's top Iran diplomat,

00:30:42.140 Rob Malley, who's been fired and had his security clearance pulled and is nonetheless in a cushy

00:30:48.480 job at my alma mater at Princeton, which is really disgraceful.

00:30:54.120 His inner circle included three individuals who were Iranian operatives recruited by the

00:31:01.660 Iranian government, reporting directly to the Iranian foreign minister and advancing Iranian

00:31:08.160 policy agendas within the United States government, within the Biden administration, one of whom,

00:31:13.800 as far as we know, is still a chief of staff in the Department of Defense to this day.

00:31:19.080 Yeah.

00:31:19.520 And they've been caught asking the Iranian diplomats for sign-off.

00:31:25.320 Yes.

00:31:26.040 For speaking engagements.

00:31:28.180 It's really so outrageous, so treasonous.

00:31:31.040 But once again, you don't see any of these national security reporters at the New York

00:31:37.500 Times or the Washington Post or Politico or anywhere else putting pressure, asking the

00:31:41.880 questions.

00:31:42.480 They get away with it.

00:31:43.640 So let me ask another question.

00:31:46.820 So you were the director of national intelligence under Trump.

00:31:52.720 You were acting DNI for how long?

00:31:55.920 It was a short period of time.

00:31:56.900 A short period of time.

00:31:58.740 Supposed to be three months, but it was about four and a half.

00:32:01.040 So it was four and a half months.

00:32:03.220 It was the most consequential tenure at DNI that I have seen.

00:32:08.300 And you really shook that place up in a very short time period.

00:32:11.760 And I guess what I would ask is, number one, how did you do that?

00:32:16.980 How did you take on the deep state, which is real throughout government, but especially

00:32:23.440 in the intelligence community, is a persistent problem?

00:32:26.560 And lots of conservatives sometimes feel frustrated and say, well, you can't take on the deep state.

00:32:33.280 And I think you managed to do it remarkably during that tenure.

00:32:37.820 And what I would say as a second part of the question is, what advice would you give to the next Republican

00:32:46.500 cabinet member coming into office and facing career bureaucrats that are ideologically and

00:32:54.120 passionately opposed to the next Republican president and the agenda of the next White House?

00:32:59.740 Well, let me take the second part first.

00:33:02.240 I think the reality is, is you can't hire someone whose livelihood is Washington, D.C.

00:33:07.820 If you're hiring somebody who needs a job later in the Washington system where reporters go to church

00:33:16.240 with politicians and lobbyists, they live in the same communities, they're never going to make big,

00:33:22.620 bold decisions because they'll have the ire of their friends and their church acquaintances.

00:33:27.740 What I believe that you have to do is, is hire people also who really don't care about their

00:33:36.120 New York Times profile piece, who somehow have the ability to make the right decisions.

00:33:42.900 The, I've told President Trump, we're going to fix the personnel problem when he's, when he's president.

00:33:48.680 And the first thing is, is to look at every resume.

00:33:51.260 And if the resume has a Washington, D.C. address on it, throw it away.

00:33:55.460 We can hire people from outside of Washington, D.C.

00:34:00.140 What, what happened with me at D&I is actually pretty simple.

00:34:04.500 When I came into D&I, one of the first things they did is they gave me four reports that had

00:34:12.680 been done over the last 10 years of how to fix the intelligence system.

00:34:17.120 I read the reports and I thought, well, a lot of this makes sense.

00:34:22.500 We, we've got duplicitous, uh, programs.

00:34:26.420 We've got people who, uh, it's supposed to be a, a coordinating body and yet it's no longer

00:34:34.180 a coordinating body.

00:34:34.980 It's actually a competitive body.

00:34:37.040 Uh, it ballooned to more than 2000 people.

00:34:39.960 It should be like 200 people.

00:34:41.880 And so I just started sending people back to their, their home agencies.

00:34:47.140 D&I, uh, the OD&I had become the, the, the wasteland.

00:34:52.340 If, uh, intelligence agency didn't like somebody rather than fire them, they sent them over to

00:34:57.760 OD&I.

00:34:58.580 And so I just started sending people back and getting rid of every possible person that we

00:35:03.640 could freezing hiring.

00:35:05.760 I did this in, in, uh, Germany as well and forcing people to rethink this.

00:35:11.540 You got to be able to play the system, but you got to know the system.

00:35:14.840 And I've worked at the state department and I knew how the federal government works to

00:35:20.560 where you can come in and manipulate it and start using its own rules against it.

00:35:26.040 I do think though, that in order for us to make big, bold decisions, Congress is going

00:35:31.120 to have to somehow change the way the labor force, uh, is, is legally allowed to, to, you

00:35:38.500 know, be cut as you know, and I'm preaching to the choir here, but when we come up with 0.53

00:35:44.380 new technologies and we decide to spend on a different program, by definition, other things

00:35:52.220 should fall.

00:35:53.440 Uh, people should be fired. 1.00

00:35:55.340 Uh, the program should be eliminated and that's not happening.

00:35:57.800 As always, thank you for listening to verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:36:03.640 Don't forget to download my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day.

00:36:07.280 You're not listening to verdict or each day when you listen to verdict afterwards, I'd love

00:36:11.100 to have you as a listener to again, the Ben Ferguson podcast, and we will see you back

00:36:15.420 here on Monday morning.

00:36:16.820 This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - November 11, 2023

The Newsroom Revolution & Trump Breaks the Media, plus Breaking Down School Choice, and The Border, a Question of National Security the Week In Review

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