Verdict with Ted Cruz - May 19, 2022


The Opinion of the Court


Episode Stats


Length

33 minutes

Words per minute

163.5268

Word count

5,454

Sentence count

441

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Toxicity

38

sentences flagged

Hate speech

20

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Ted Cruz is a conservative Supreme Court Justice who is fighting for the First Amendment right to free speech. This case has Senator Cruz s name all over it. Literally, his name is on the case. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This episode is brought to you by Genycell and American Hartford Gold.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.520 Guaranteed human.
00:00:04.420 A major win for conservatives at the Supreme Court, a major win for free speech, a major
00:00:09.320 win for the First Amendment.
00:00:11.340 And this case has Senator Cruz's name all over it.
00:00:15.700 Literally, his name is on the case.
00:00:18.260 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
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00:04:05.500 Welcome back to Verdicts with Ted Cruz.
00:04:08.100 I am Michael Knowles.
00:04:09.820 Senator, this has been a big couple of days for you and for the First Amendment and for conservatives,
00:04:15.700 especially heading into the midterms.
00:04:18.100 You had a major victory, not in the Capitol, but in another branch of government at the Supreme Court.
00:04:23.440 Well, that's right.
00:04:24.080 I filed a lawsuit against the federal government and won a 6-3 victory at the U.S. Supreme Court
00:04:30.220 based on the First Amendment.
00:04:32.220 And what I was challenging is a part of McCain-Feingold.
00:04:37.020 Remember, McCain-Feingold was the big so-called campaign finance reform bill that passed 20-some-odd years ago.
00:04:43.660 And it's a terrible bill.
00:04:45.200 It has all sorts of terrible provisions.
00:04:47.140 The Supreme Court has struck down a bunch of those provisions.
00:04:51.380 Many of the provisions were designed with one thing in mind, to protect incumbent politicians.
00:04:58.000 You know, you think about it.
00:04:58.740 Campaign finance laws are written by incumbent politicians.
00:05:02.040 And the one thing they can all agree on is they don't want anyone to beat them on Election Day.
00:05:06.720 And so campaign finance, many of these provisions, including the provision I challenge,
00:05:11.760 are designed to make it hard for challengers to win.
00:05:15.580 In particular, what this provision said is if you're a candidate for office,
00:05:19.640 let's say Michael Knowles decides to run for Senate in the state of Tennessee and you're a first-time candidate,
00:05:29.620 you don't have a lot of name ID, but you've saved some money and you decide, let's say you're a small business owner,
00:05:35.080 and you decide to put $500,000 into the campaign to loan your campaign $500,000 to jumpstart it,
00:05:42.120 to run your first ads to get started.
00:05:44.000 Well, what McCain-Feingold provided is if you loaned your campaign $500,000,
00:05:49.760 on campaign day, you were capped on what you could pay yourself back at $250,000.
00:05:57.800 And everything beyond that was essentially a gift to the taxpayers.
00:06:02.420 So if you loaned your campaign $500,000, you're out $250,000.
00:06:07.980 You can pay yourself back $250,000, but not a penny beyond that with money raised after Election Day.
00:06:15.040 The purpose of it was real simple.
00:06:17.600 They didn't want people loaning themselves money to run against incumbents.
00:06:22.580 And so I saw this as a practical matter when I first ran for Senate.
00:06:26.500 So I ran for Senate in 2012.
00:06:27.800 Well, my opponent, David Dewhurst, worth over $200 million, a gazillionaire.
00:06:33.580 He put over $30 million of his own money and just wrote a massive check.
00:06:37.940 I'm sitting there.
00:06:38.740 I don't have $30 million.
00:06:40.160 I've got no name ID.
00:06:41.780 No one's ever heard of me.
00:06:42.760 I'd never run, like I'd never been elected to office.
00:06:45.080 This was the last thing I was elected to was student council.
00:06:47.700 So I'm running this grassroots campaign.
00:06:52.420 And the week before the primary, my campaign manager comes to me and says, okay, the only
00:07:00.860 way you can survive is if you liquidate all of your liquid net worth and drop it into the
00:07:06.940 campaign and alone.
00:07:07.900 And so Heidi and I, we'd worked a number of years.
00:07:10.260 We had $1.2 million in savings.
00:07:12.840 And I went, by the way, I went to Heidi and said, sweetheart, what do you think about putting
00:07:18.940 our whole liquid net worth into the campaign?
00:07:22.020 I don't advise this conversation.
00:07:24.160 This is a dangerous conversation to have with your spouse.
00:07:27.880 Astonishingly, Heidi in second said, yes, do it.
00:07:31.680 We did.
00:07:33.040 That got us into the runoff, which ended up getting me into the Senate.
00:07:38.260 This law was designed to say you can't pay yourself back.
00:07:41.420 So I filed a lawsuit challenging this provision of McCain-Feingold, saying it's unconstitutional,
00:07:49.060 saying it restricts political speech.
00:07:51.560 We won in a three-judge district court, won unanimously.
00:07:56.160 And then it went to the U.S. Supreme Court, was argued earlier this year.
00:08:00.280 And just this week, we won 6-3.
00:08:02.800 Chief Justice Roberts wrote a terrific opinion, said this was clearly designed to stifle political
00:08:08.600 speech, to stop challengers from taking on incumbents, to benefit career politicians.
00:08:14.460 And so they struck the law down, the result of which is it's now easier for challengers
00:08:21.440 to run for office and for challengers to take on and beat career politicians.
00:08:26.960 Well, it's a great win.
00:08:28.120 I'm glad that given the amount of money you had donated to your own campaign to really just
00:08:33.360 to test this law, presumably you'll get back something like $10,000.
00:08:37.940 These days in the Biden economy, I think that'll pretty much just buy you a nice steak dinner.
00:08:42.220 But I hope you, you know, enjoy it to celebrate.
00:08:44.840 What I'm really interested in is, what does this mean practically for candidates who are
00:08:49.860 running right now in the 2022 midterms?
00:08:52.880 How do you think it's going to affect the landscape?
00:08:55.140 So it has a big impact.
00:08:56.380 I got to tell you, in the Senate and in the House, I cannot tell you how many current senators
00:09:01.580 and current House members have come up to me and said, thank you, thank you.
00:09:05.420 Like, like I have, I loaned my campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars or maybe even a million
00:09:10.380 dollars or more, and I've never been able to repay myself.
00:09:14.340 Like the level of gratitude among Republicans, but even among Democrats, they can't admit it
00:09:19.620 because their side is a big fan of stifling the free speech.
00:09:23.400 But they're grateful, and you know, it's amazing, the corrupt corporate media, the way they
00:09:29.680 cover this, like the headlines from all of the media is like, now it's legal to bribe
00:09:35.340 senators.
00:09:36.400 I saw that headline.
00:09:39.460 It's like, well, no, the contributions to pay back the loan are under the same contribution
00:09:46.560 limit.
00:09:47.220 So $2,900 a person, same limit applies.
00:09:49.800 Um, so the idea is 86 contributions at $2,900 a piece adds up to $250,000.
00:09:59.340 So 86 contributions were just fine to pay yourself back.
00:10:02.920 But the 87th was clearly corruption.
00:10:07.040 It was all a crock.
00:10:08.780 By the way, it's interesting.
00:10:09.680 If you look at the debate on the Senate floor, both Pete Domenici and Kay Bailey Hutchison,
00:10:15.880 my predecessor on the Senate floor, they were very candid why they wanted this provision.
00:10:19.340 They said, look, we don't want someone to run against us and loan their campaign a million
00:10:23.280 bucks or five million bucks.
00:10:24.460 They might beat us.
00:10:25.800 And it's interesting some of the coverage where they say, well, gosh, this is benefiting the
00:10:30.960 candidates because they can put the money in their own bank account.
00:10:33.880 The dissent says you can take the money and use it to buy a car or join a country club.
00:10:40.320 And this is the classic, classic leftist, like the ultimate definition of evil is joining a
00:10:46.280 country club.
00:10:46.800 I'm not a member of a country club, but it, but it's how the left defines it. 1.00
00:10:50.400 The one thing they seem to be omitting is it's your damn money. 0.99
00:10:53.960 Like this is not, that's the funny thing. 0.99
00:10:56.620 It's like, all right, you start out with in the hypothetical 500,000.
00:11:00.140 You had it to begin with, you loaned it to the campaign. 0.95
00:11:04.280 And if it pays you back, you got the same damn money you started with. 0.90
00:11:09.140 None of these leftists in the media acknowledge that at all. 0.95
00:11:12.740 Now, speaking of money flying around the Capitol, there is a vote that just occurred, I think,
00:11:18.380 that seems to have divided the right, the Republicans, the conservatives.
00:11:23.140 And it's this vote over funding for Ukraine and you voted for the funding in Ukraine.
00:11:30.660 There is a lot of confusion about what this funding is for, what's included in the bill.
00:11:35.420 So, so what do you have to say about that?
00:11:37.620 Yeah, look, so we just had a vote on $40 billion in additional funding for Ukraine.
00:11:42.280 And, and there are a lot of folks, a lot of grassroots activists, probably a lot of viewers
00:11:46.780 of this pod who, who are skeptical of that funding.
00:11:50.960 Um, I think the vote for the funding was the right thing to do.
00:11:54.900 I voted yes.
00:11:56.400 Um, I think there were a total of 11 no votes.
00:11:58.520 So it was a relatively small group of Republicans that voted no, but it was most of the conservatives.
00:12:03.400 And look, if you ask a grassroots activist, I was up in Pennsylvania campaigning on Thursday
00:12:09.340 and Friday and the activists there, they're like, all right, $40 billion sounds like a ton
00:12:12.980 of money.
00:12:14.800 Anything going to something in a foreign country sounds like a waste of money.
00:12:18.080 We got chaos on our Southern border and people are pissed off. 0.99
00:12:21.980 How come these, these jerks won't secure the Southern border and yet they want to send 1.00
00:12:26.340 money overseas. 0.99
00:12:28.300 And then people are frustrated at all the other things like inflation and the baby, the baby,
00:12:32.720 uh, formula shortage and everything else.
00:12:34.560 They're like, focus on at home, not abroad.
00:12:37.180 I understand all those sentiments.
00:12:39.340 Here's why I voted.
00:12:40.440 Yes.
00:12:40.740 The war in Ukraine, it is in America's national security interest for Vladimir Putin to lose.
00:12:49.000 If Russia wins, it's bad for America. 0.95
00:12:52.540 Now, as you know, we shouldn't have been in this war.
00:12:55.520 This war is unnecessary.
00:12:58.040 Biden's weakness caused it.
00:13:00.440 Biden's waiving the sanctions on Nord Stream 2 caused this war.
00:13:03.880 We've talked a lot on this podcast about Nord Stream 2, the sanctions legislation that I
00:13:09.260 wrote that stopped that pipeline that prevented the war until Joe Biden came in, waived the
00:13:15.740 sanctions, surrendered to Putin and caused the invasion.
00:13:19.240 That being said, if Putin succeeds, it hurts America.
00:13:25.740 It is bad for America.
00:13:27.660 Putin wants to reassemble the old Soviet Union.
00:13:31.220 We want our enemies to be weaker.
00:13:33.040 We don't want our enemies to be stronger.
00:13:35.440 If Putin conquers Ukraine, he will be stronger.
00:13:39.620 He will have more of a stranglehold over energy.
00:13:42.780 That's bad for America. 0.89
00:13:43.980 We've seen energy prices skyrocketing.
00:13:46.320 Putin controlling Ukraine gives him more of a stranglehold over our energy prices.
00:13:52.060 And that is, we will end up spending much more battling against Putin if he wins
00:14:01.480 than if we provide Ukraine the weapons to beat him.
00:14:07.320 Of the 40 billion, 9 billion of it is replenishing U.S. military stocks.
00:14:13.980 So in other words, it's replenishing stingers and javelins and weapons that the American military
00:14:19.400 has that have been given to Ukraine and our stocks are depleted.
00:14:23.400 Now, I don't know of anyone rational that can argue against those 9 trillion,
00:14:27.840 that we obviously should be, have the weapons necessary to defend ourselves.
00:14:34.060 A total of 24 billion of this amount is military aid to Ukraine.
00:14:41.320 So it's bullets, it's missiles, it's stingers, it's javelins.
00:14:45.340 It's the weapons that Ukraine is using to win victories and defeating Putin in battles ongoing.
00:14:53.360 That's good for America to have the Ukrainians defeating Russia. 0.98
00:14:58.600 There's an additional portion of this.
00:15:00.740 It's about four and a half billion dollars that is focused in particular on food aid.
00:15:05.960 And one of the consequences of this war, you know, Ukraine is called the breadbasket of Europe,
00:15:11.560 grows enormous quantities of grain.
00:15:14.000 This war has shut down that food production and that the projections are that we could be facing
00:15:21.220 massive famines throughout Africa, throughout Egypt, throughout the developing world.
00:15:28.480 As a consequence of this, I think providing some funding to prevent mass starvation and mass famine
00:15:34.920 makes sense.
00:15:36.780 Now, there's also in this bill about eight billion dollars that goes to the government of Ukraine
00:15:42.780 for economic assistance. 0.99
00:15:44.240 I think that's crap. 0.98
00:15:45.220 I would delete that. 0.99
00:15:47.780 I think it is almost certain a lot of that is almost certain to go to waste.
00:15:52.240 I think some of it will go to corruption.
00:15:55.580 You know, some of that, who knows, could end up in some oligarch's yacht on the Baltic Sea.
00:16:01.600 That's possible.
00:16:03.980 It's also the consequence of having a bill that is drafted by Democrats,
00:16:07.300 that's drafted by Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.
00:16:10.440 So I'm faced with a binary decision.
00:16:13.800 I don't like that eight billion.
00:16:15.020 I would cut that waste.
00:16:16.140 I would get rid of it.
00:16:18.540 But I think it would be a mistake.
00:16:21.420 I don't think it would be the responsible decision, particularly when Ukraine is beating Russia, 0.99
00:16:27.500 to say, OK, we're going to cut off your bullets and cut off your missiles and put you in a position 0.98
00:16:32.400 where the inevitable result is Putin wins. 1.00
00:16:34.980 That's bad for America if Putin wins, and I don't want our enemies getting stronger
00:16:39.640 because that ends up hurting us.
00:16:43.580 Well, I think this is the strongest argument for the bill.
00:16:47.500 I know a lot of conservatives roll their eyes when the arguments for funding the war in Ukraine
00:16:52.080 are that Ukraine is this thriving, wonderful democracy.
00:16:56.720 And, you know, in the abstract, we need to defend, you know, this flourishing republic
00:17:02.200 when, in fact, it's obviously got a lot of corruption.
00:17:05.340 Probably some of that money is going to go to that corruption.
00:17:07.780 But I like the way you're putting it.
00:17:09.000 You're saying, look, it's a simple question.
00:17:11.600 What is better for America?
00:17:12.960 Is it better for America to have Vladimir Putin run Ukraine
00:17:15.020 or for Zelensky and the rest of these guys to run Ukraine?
00:17:18.200 One of the frustrating things is I think a lot of the Republicans defending this,
00:17:22.580 you were pretty kind a second ago.
00:17:24.540 I think they're eye-bleedingly horrible in how they defend this.
00:17:29.700 And they get up and say things like, we must protect democracy.
00:17:33.140 We must protect international norms.
00:17:35.660 That's all hogwash. 1.00
00:17:37.500 That's the kind of garbage John Kerry says. 0.99
00:17:39.680 And so one of the problems is some of the people who voted with me 1.00
00:17:42.720 are saying things that I think are imbecilic. 0.99
00:17:46.140 And I hate their justifications. 0.98
00:17:48.700 It's not why I support the military aid.
00:17:51.840 You know, it used to be all Republicans were agreed.
00:17:54.480 We support a strong military.
00:17:56.020 We stand up to our enemies.
00:17:59.060 But let me give you what I think is the single best argument for this aid package.
00:18:03.640 Listen, Russia is a very real danger. 1.00
00:18:05.660 Putin is a very real danger.
00:18:06.920 But there's a bigger danger.
00:18:08.500 And that's China.
00:18:10.480 Communist China is watching this.
00:18:13.500 She is watching this.
00:18:14.760 As you remember, and I said this on the podcast, when Joe Biden surrendered to the Taliban
00:18:20.180 and had the disastrous failure in Afghanistan, I said at the time, the chances of Putin invading
00:18:27.180 Ukraine have just risen tenfold.
00:18:29.860 And I said, the chances of China invading Taiwan have risen tenfold because they've looked 0.89
00:18:35.860 at the man in the Oval Office.
00:18:38.380 They've taken the measure of the man.
00:18:39.540 Well, right now, she is watching what happens in Ukraine.
00:18:43.460 And if Putin wins, and even more importantly, if Putin wins because America lost the stomach
00:18:51.900 for supporting our allies, decided, you know what, even though the Ukrainians are heroically 0.99
00:18:57.240 defeating the Russians, even while outmanned, little old grandmothers throwing Molotov cocktails, 1.00
00:19:04.240 the Americans were so feckless, we said, sorry, we're cutting off your bullets and missiles. 1.00
00:19:08.740 Good luck winning a war, you know, with no bullets. 0.93
00:19:12.660 I think the chances of China invading Taiwan skyrocket dramatically.
00:19:19.020 And you want to talk about profoundly dangerous.
00:19:22.560 One of the reasons we don't want China to invade Taiwan, if they invade Taiwan, it gives communist 0.83
00:19:27.920 China a stranglehold on semiconductors produced worldwide.
00:19:33.400 Vast percentage of the semiconductors produced in the world are produced in Taiwan.
00:19:37.400 It literally puts us in a position where we're dependent on China for essential electronics.
00:19:44.960 And they're one of two outcomes in that.
00:19:46.960 Either one, they sell us chips that they put spyware on to monitor everyone.
00:19:54.240 Or and that's the best case scenario.
00:19:56.140 Best case scenario is China now has spyware everywhere. 0.99
00:19:59.680 Worst case scenario is they say, screw you. 0.52
00:20:02.000 No more chips for you. 0.99
00:20:03.020 Now, you know, it's like the soup Nazi in Seinfeld. 0.71
00:20:06.480 No soup for you.
00:20:07.200 No chips for you.
00:20:09.380 That is a terrible outcome.
00:20:11.780 And I believe.
00:20:13.600 Look, she is watching this.
00:20:16.080 At the outset of this Ukraine war, the Biden administration told Congress repeatedly, said
00:20:21.080 this war is going to be over in two, three days.
00:20:24.120 Russia is going to roll in, conquer Ukraine. 0.90
00:20:26.300 It's all going to be over.
00:20:27.340 Nothing, nothing to see here.
00:20:28.640 Turned out the entire Biden admin was spectacularly wrong.
00:20:34.380 Every day this war drags on.
00:20:37.160 Every Russian casualty. 0.85
00:20:39.880 Every dollar that the Russians pour down a rat hole in this war. 0.86
00:20:46.540 A, hurts Russia and Putin, which is good for America. 0.91
00:20:49.640 But B, I think.
00:20:53.220 Increases the deterrence on China of further military aggression.
00:20:57.060 So I don't want America to project so much weakness that we invite China to be aggressive 0.97
00:21:03.760 and invade our neighbors.
00:21:04.740 And by the way, invite Venezuela to do the same thing.
00:21:07.680 Invite North Korea to do the same thing. 0.79
00:21:09.720 Invite Iran to do the same thing. 0.96
00:21:11.840 There are a lot of bad guys in the world.
00:21:13.900 Yeah, that's a much stronger argument than than some of your colleagues.
00:21:17.380 And I think if you if you just view foreign policy, not just, but primarily view it through
00:21:23.380 what is in the national interest of the United States, that that's a reasonable way to approach
00:21:28.560 this question.
00:21:29.200 And people people's eyes won't glaze over in the way that they do when you hear the peons
00:21:33.100 to, you know, democracy in the abstract, which in reality often doesn't really exist.
00:21:38.240 Now, speaking of democracy, speaking of the will of the people, we get questions on this
00:21:43.440 show, Senator.
00:21:44.220 We get questions all the time from our listeners, and we never get to more than one or two of
00:21:48.620 them per show.
00:21:49.240 So I've got a lightning round of questions for you from the mailbag.
00:21:53.500 Fire away.
00:21:53.920 From our great listeners.
00:21:54.940 Our listeners, of course, can join the Verdict Plus community.
00:21:57.420 They can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, YouTube, MySpace.
00:22:02.360 I don't know.
00:22:02.820 You can subscribe wherever.
00:22:04.400 Leave a five star review.
00:22:05.580 Let's get to the first question.
00:22:06.700 I think probably the most pressing question is from Jonathan.
00:22:11.860 The Women's March was this weekend.
00:22:13.760 We are seeing women like Amber Heard, Jada Pinkett Smith, Meghan Markle, Kim Kardashian.
00:22:19.840 Is it time we start talking about toxic femininity? 0.65
00:22:27.580 So look, Jada Pinkett Smith, it seems unfair to blame her for the fact that Will Smith went
00:22:34.200 and took a swing at someone.
00:22:35.600 So I'm not sure.
00:22:36.700 You know, he has agency, so I'm not going to blame her for that.
00:22:42.160 Amber Heard, I'll confess, I haven't watched this trial.
00:22:44.900 I've seen like snippets of it, and it seems a little bit like watching a celebrity car
00:22:50.420 crash, but I haven't actually watched it.
00:22:53.240 I do not want to confess, Senator, that I've watched this trial.
00:22:55.700 Well, it's riveting.
00:22:57.840 It's riveting.
00:22:58.600 It's the best thing on television right now.
00:23:00.320 I believe you.
00:23:02.620 And Johnny Depp seems like a weird dude.
00:23:04.760 And I know like if Twitter's to believe Amber Heard is kind of really bizarre and more in the wrong than people thought.
00:23:12.000 But I don't know. 0.97
00:23:13.540 That is truly an ignorant statement. 0.86
00:23:16.960 Kim Kardashian, she hadn't done anything lately. 0.90
00:23:19.560 I mean, she seems, Kim seems fine.
00:23:22.060 The SNL guy, I don't, I can't, I don't know.
00:23:25.440 I'm team Kanye.
00:23:26.500 I don't know.
00:23:26.700 What can I say?
00:23:27.200 Oh, I mean, Pete Davidson.
00:23:29.220 All right.
00:23:29.760 How come that dude gets all of these like hot women? 1.00
00:23:36.320 Because of toxic femininity, Senator. 1.00
00:23:38.680 That is the evidence that something has gone wrong.
00:23:41.300 Pete Davidson was dating Kate Beckinsale.
00:23:44.320 I mean, you're talking underworld.
00:23:45.900 You're talking like super hot vampire in black leather trench coat.
00:23:51.740 And you're like, really?
00:23:53.300 The SNL dude?
00:23:54.500 Like, wow.
00:23:55.320 And who was the fourth one?
00:23:58.320 The fourth one was, oh, the former duchess and future president, Meghan Markle.
00:24:03.940 I am happily in a royal free zone.
00:24:08.800 I cannot stand their antics.
00:24:11.720 They're sort of, they seem left wing as a matter of social virtue.
00:24:20.800 Socialist because they've inherited hundreds of millions of dollars.
00:24:26.120 And as best I can tell, trivial and not focused on actually things that matter.
00:24:36.620 Although, again, I say that with a degree of ignorance.
00:24:39.660 Maybe they're doing wonderful things in charity that I don't know.
00:24:42.560 But everything I see in the headlines seems to be inane vanities and trying to prove to leftists that they're as woke as anyone wants them to be.
00:24:52.960 I've always been a great defender of Her Majesty the Queen, but I now have a conspiracy theory that actually the whole Mexit phenomenon was a plot by the royal family to send this woman and Prince Harry to America to rise through the political ranks, to become president, to undo the American Revolution and return the United States to the Commonwealth.
00:25:13.580 I don't, I can't prove it yet.
00:25:16.180 You'll be back.
00:25:18.220 You'll be back.
00:25:19.260 I've seen Hamilton and that's what her predecessor said.
00:25:23.240 That's true.
00:25:23.860 Okay, well, now that we've covered that important topic, next question.
00:25:27.640 This one's a bit more trivial from Galen.
00:25:29.680 I would like to know Senator Cruz's position on civil asset forfeiture, the legalized theft of personal property by the government with no crime alleged.
00:25:36.840 Very good question.
00:25:38.060 I've got real concerns about civil asset forfeiture.
00:25:40.760 I think it is abused with some frequency.
00:25:44.020 I think there is a role for civil asset forfeiture for an asset that was used in carrying out a crime.
00:25:53.840 That's where it's legitimately applied.
00:25:56.580 I think it can be abused.
00:25:59.040 The threshold is far less than convicting someone beyond a reasonable doubt.
00:26:04.100 And I think there's been lots of allegations of law enforcement abusing it because they want to seize a bunch of assets, even if someone hasn't done anything wrong.
00:26:14.540 Look, my basic view is if you commit a crime, if you're living on a, you know, in a fancy mansion and selling drugs out of the mansion, you can lose the mansion.
00:26:24.740 And that's part of the criminal law, and I think it is an appropriate ancillary to a criminal conviction.
00:26:34.300 But I have long been vocal about the abuse of civil asset forfeiture, and I think it needs to be reined in.
00:26:41.460 There's a question that we've heard a whole lot about with regard to this overruling of Roe v. Wade.
00:26:48.080 This has become one of the top Democrat talking points.
00:26:51.600 Questions from Pittsburgh, who says,
00:26:54.320 Do you believe that interracial marriage would be at risk if Roe v. Wade is overturned?
00:27:00.800 Absolutely not. It's utterly absurd.
00:27:03.860 We talked last podcast, I made fun of the New York Times, which suggested that if Roe is overturned, that there are several states that would in fact ban interracial marriage, which, what is it? 1.00
00:27:17.680 I think I had some sort of long that they were like crazy, moronic, full of crap. 0.99
00:27:24.740 I don't even remember. It was a whole string of adjectives making fun of the New York Times, because they have this view that only Manhattan could have of tripping contempt for the rest of the country. 0.99
00:27:38.060 No, no state wants to ban interracial marriage.
00:27:41.880 No, there's no risk of that.
00:27:43.900 No, there's no risk of the law allowing it.
00:27:47.220 That's all an absurd, slippery slope, and I can quantify precisely the chances of that happening,
00:27:53.040 and it's 0.001.
00:27:55.100 But what about 0.0001?
00:27:59.340 I mean, are you saying there's a chance? 0.99
00:28:01.040 No, no, no, not even the dumb and dumber standard. 0.98
00:28:04.880 I'm not even saying there's a chance. 0.99
00:28:06.960 There is zero chance.
00:28:08.800 Yep.
00:28:09.700 From Kim, this will be the last question.
00:28:12.060 Why isn't the Biden administration changing course?
00:28:15.280 This, I think, is a really good political question.
00:28:17.140 She says, the regime has dismal poll numbers, worsening economics, and are obviously completely incompetent.
00:28:24.760 So even just from a purely political perspective of self-preservation, why isn't the Biden administration changing on anything?
00:28:33.300 So I don't know for sure, but I do have a theory, which is that the kids are in charge.
00:28:37.480 I think Biden is truly checked out.
00:28:41.780 I think his mental capacity is so diminished that he's not running things.
00:28:48.660 And when I really became convinced of that, oddly enough, was it the State of the Union.
00:28:56.440 And the State of the Union, Biden was competent in reading what was on the teleprompter.
00:29:00.100 But any president looking at where things are now, it is not rocket science to recognize that the Democrats are headed to a bloodbath in November.
00:29:13.200 At this point, everyone knows this.
00:29:16.600 Republicans know this.
00:29:17.820 Democrats know this.
00:29:19.240 The State of the Union was Biden's best opportunity to try to change course.
00:29:22.900 And by the way, we saw Bill Clinton masterfully use State of the Union addresses to change course and pull the Democrats' path out of the gutter.
00:29:35.980 Biden didn't even try.
00:29:37.500 I mean, the question that was asked, that they're not trying to change course. 0.98
00:29:40.620 They're doubling down on crazy-ass left-wing radical. 0.66
00:29:44.540 Now, any principal would say, hold on a second, let's not accept that we're headed to a bloodbath and losing the House. 0.97
00:29:56.960 Let's not accept that we're probably losing the Senate.
00:29:59.580 Let's at least try to hold on to a majority somewhere.
00:30:03.980 They're not doing this.
00:30:05.280 And I think what is happening is you have people like Ron Klain, the chief of staff, that's running it, that they're like – have you ever seen the movie Dr. Strangelove?
00:30:13.960 They're like the guy with the cowboy hat riding the bomb down.
00:30:17.020 They're just going to take it all the way down and blow the hell out of it.
00:30:22.100 And if there were a responsible principal running things, they'd at least try to save it.
00:30:30.020 And for people who are unfamiliar with the term, when you say principal, you're talking about the guy, the elected guy, the person who's supposed to be in charge.
00:30:37.900 The elected official.
00:30:39.240 And it's just – it's fundamentally different.
00:30:42.160 I've been a staffer.
00:30:43.220 But it is fundamentally different when your name is on the ballot, when you are the elected official, when you've got the election certificate.
00:30:48.940 There's just an awareness of, okay, let's think through what the consequences are, what the next steps are.
00:30:59.240 Any president who was aware of his surroundings would at least try to save this.
00:31:07.500 The fact that they're not, I think the children, the staffers are running it, and they're just like, screw it.
00:31:13.400 Screw it all the way, let's go – like, we don't care, let's ram everything through, and oh well if we lose the House and Senate.
00:31:22.440 Cowboy hats on, ride the bomb all the way down. 0.82
00:31:26.140 That is very scary.
00:31:28.520 Well, really, I guess scary for them.
00:31:29.920 It's wonderful news for conservatives.
00:31:31.960 We don't always get wins, especially when conservatives are out of power, but there have been a lot of wins.
00:31:36.300 Congratulations on your court win, Senator.
00:31:38.680 Thank you.
00:31:39.120 All right, and before I go, you have more to talk about.
00:31:43.100 We've got our wonderful show, The Cloak Room, with Liz Wheeler.
00:31:46.760 Liz, what are you guys going to talk about?
00:31:48.760 Hi, Michael.
00:31:49.320 Hi, Senator.
00:31:49.880 Yes, we have a fascinating topic that we're discussing on Cloak Room today.
00:31:53.620 So in the wake of Nina Jankiewicz and the Disinformation Governance Board coming down from the Biden administration,
00:31:59.460 there's this idea on the left that there's limits on free speech, and they always use this phrase,
00:32:05.020 you're not allowed to yell fire in a crowded theater, as their justification, as the precedent that they point to for these limits on free speech.
00:32:12.940 And we are going to examine the actual history of that phrase and whether or not it actually does impose limits on free speech.
00:32:21.100 You can join us on Cloak Room if you go to verdictwithtedcruise.com slash plus.
00:32:26.480 It's for Verdict Plus subscribers only.
00:32:29.820 Verdictwithtedcruise.com slash plus.
00:32:31.300 If you use my access code, which, of course, is Cloak Room, you can get your first month free on your annual subscription.
00:32:37.100 Verdictwithtedcruise.com slash plus.
00:32:39.280 Make sure to go check out The Cloak Room.
00:32:41.940 It's going to be a lot of fun.
00:32:43.140 Until next time, I'm Michael Knowles.
00:32:44.520 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
00:32:55.020 This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs Freedom and Security Pack,
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