Verdict with Ted Cruz - April 15, 2026


The Path Forward： How to Fund DHS, Secure the Border, Pass Election Integrity & Win Historic Conservative Victories


Episode Stats


Length

33 minutes

Words per minute

189.68803

Word count

6,437

Sentence count

265

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
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00:00:04.740 A little too relaxed during yoga?
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00:00:19.880 Welcome.
00:00:20.560 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you,
00:00:23.760 and we've got a packed show for you,
00:00:25.660 including predictions that we made in the last show
00:00:28.340 that are spot on.
00:00:30.000 And if you could be king for a day, I've got something I want to make that we should just ban in politics.
00:00:35.460 We'll deal with that a little bit later.
00:00:36.860 But we have big news.
00:00:38.220 It looks like Republicans are actually going to stand up and win on a big issue in the Senate.
00:00:43.160 Senator, fill us in.
00:00:45.000 Well, let's say, first of all, Monday's pod, we made a prediction.
00:00:48.560 We made a prediction that, number one, Eric Swalwell would resign from Congress.
00:00:53.520 And number two, Tony Gonzalez, a Republican, would resign from Congress as well.
00:00:58.340 It is Tuesday night.
00:00:59.620 It is, what time is it, 12.22 in the morning, and both of them are gone.
00:01:05.240 Both of them have resigned.
00:01:06.600 Both are in scandals.
00:01:08.200 Look, Gonzalez's scandal was really ugly.
00:01:11.300 It was not pretty.
00:01:12.800 He had an affair with a staffer.
00:01:15.520 Tragically, the staffer took her own life.
00:01:18.140 She literally poured gasoline on herself and lit herself on fire.
00:01:22.740 She was the mom of an eight-year-old child.
00:01:24.920 It was horrific.
00:01:26.900 Tragic.
00:01:27.100 and so his stepping down it is not a surprise to anyone it needed to happen
00:01:32.940 uh and then swalwell swalwell almost like pushed gonzalez aside said hold my beer 0.99
00:01:39.520 i can be more slimy i could be more nasty than you uh at this point then the number of women
00:01:45.800 who have worked for him who've come out and accused him of sexually harassing them 0.70
00:01:49.720 sexually assaulting them raping them the the number keeps spiraling and so it is fairly
00:01:56.320 amazing. A few days ago, Eric Swalwell was the leading candidate to be the next governor of
00:02:00.380 California. He is now unemployed, and I think there's a good likelihood he'll be facing criminal
00:02:06.300 prosecution. So, wow, the world can change, and it turns out if you're a dirtbag, it can change
00:02:13.340 really, really fast. That prediction we told you about on Monday, we were accurate. And look,
00:02:19.500 part of what we laid out is the hesitancy. Democrats a day ago were calling on Swalwell
00:02:26.180 to suspend his gubernatorial campaign, but they were not calling on him to leave Congress. And
00:02:31.320 that's because the balance of power in Congress is exceptionally close. I think part of why this
00:02:37.960 happened today is Gonzalez stepped down as well. So you had one Republican, one Democrat, both
00:02:42.780 stepped down so it didn't alter the balance of power. And I believe every one of the members
00:02:49.640 of Congress is glad they did so. That was the right decision. Yeah, no doubt about it. We've
00:02:54.800 also got a big deal that's going to be happening, it looks like, with Republican leadership. And I
00:02:59.580 want to talk about what that looks like. But before we get to that, I want to tell you about
00:03:03.120 our dear friends at Compassion International. I want to be honest with you for a second about
00:03:09.220 how an act of compassion really feels a couple of years ago I made the choice to partner with an
00:03:15.520 amazing organization called compassion international why because I wanted to sponsor a child in need
00:03:22.480 it was a nice idea sure but I had no idea just how much that simple act would change my life as well
00:03:30.120 I sponsored Nadia and got to watch her life change right in front of my eyes going from starving 1.00
00:03:37.120 literally alone on the streets to getting the health care and education she needs to reach her 1.00
00:03:43.080 God-given full potential. I got to be a part of that change and the light of that compassion not
00:03:49.840 only illuminates in her, it illuminates now in me. That is the power of compassion. The light of
00:03:57.240 Christ shines on all of us. Feel it for yourself and change literally a child's life. Change the
00:04:04.540 world and you also change yourself you can sponsor child today visit compassion.com that's
00:04:12.160 compassion.com all right center so you're there in dc it's basically just let's round numbers here
00:04:19.500 about one in the morning uh john thune seemed to as i was it was described to me earlier got some
00:04:25.660 cojones and said he's had enough and and by golly we're going to fight now and we're going to get
00:04:30.360 funding that we needed it's going to be done through reconciliation is what it's looking like
00:04:34.860 can you explain what has been being said behind the scenes how we finally got to this point and
00:04:40.760 now what actually happens moving forward well ben i want to start by saying you said it's about one
00:04:46.100 in the morning i i said literally three minutes ago that it was 12 22 in the morning i said rounding
00:04:51.400 i said rounding okay that's not how you round you round down to 12 i i'm just saying that i always
00:04:56.760 Let's ground up here.
00:04:57.500 I was giving you more credit.
00:04:58.820 Your dedication to the show at 1 a.m. just sounds better.
00:05:01.520 And you're in Texas, so it's barely 11 o'clock in Texas.
00:05:05.500 Barely 1125 if we're going to get right at it, right?
00:05:08.860 So we're going to restamp the time for you.
00:05:11.480 This is a podcast that's going to insist on truth in advertising.
00:05:15.260 It's going to insist on accuracy.
00:05:17.280 So it is now.
00:05:18.720 What time is it now?
00:05:19.460 1225.
00:05:19.860 I love that he gets off the mic to get his phone to make sure that he knows what time it is.
00:05:24.140 My phone is down there.
00:05:25.060 I've got to see what time it is.
00:05:26.180 So those glasses and those hearing aids, we just got to get them for your next birthday.
00:05:30.820 But keep going.
00:05:31.440 I'm ready.
00:05:32.860 All right.
00:05:34.120 You know, Ben, I'm tempted to hold up a finger to you, and it's not the thumb.
00:05:39.560 It's not the thumb.
00:05:40.280 And we're going to save that for later in the show.
00:05:42.120 We're going to save that for later in the show.
00:05:44.000 I was trying to give you a segue there.
00:05:46.880 Make your damn point.
00:05:48.120 So I'll give the segue.
00:05:48.880 Before the show started today, we'll just pull back the curtain.
00:05:51.860 I said, I would like to see a poll that is done on how untrustworthy people think politicians are, both sides out, if in every picture you take, you're doing the thumbs up pose.
00:06:04.900 Like, maybe it's just me because I see more political pictures than average Americans, but I despise all of them.
00:06:11.820 Find a picture of me with a thumbs up.
00:06:14.140 Like, you will not find that on the internet anywhere.
00:06:16.860 I'm not going to do that pose.
00:06:18.220 I don't care who's standing next to me.
00:06:19.600 And I think you would trust Americans more, as you described it, with a middle finger than you would a politician with a thumbs-up picture.
00:06:26.500 So if I was king for a day, I would ban it.
00:06:28.880 So I will confess, Ben.
00:06:30.940 You've done the thumbs-up picture.
00:06:32.400 I Googled it.
00:06:33.360 It's out there.
00:06:34.260 I don't do a lot of it. 0.99
00:06:36.320 And the most common place I do a thumbs-up picture is if I'm taking a picture with Aggies.
00:06:40.660 So Aggies will do a gig'em.
00:06:42.660 And that's the symbol for Texas A&M.
00:06:45.680 And I'll do a hook'em for Longhorns as well.
00:06:48.260 so i will my guess is neither of those just for the record uh yeah you know that that that that's
00:06:54.840 okay you you came to texas but it took you a while it did that's true that's true and and so
00:07:00.860 i my guess is 80 percent of the pictures that are thumbs up that i've done have been with aggies and
00:07:07.380 then there have been a handful where someone really occasionally someone was like hey will
00:07:10.760 you do a thumbs up and i'm like all right fine like if you really want to but but that is not
00:07:14.680 But I will tell you an interesting story.
00:07:18.820 By the way, do you want to know how strong I feel about this?
00:07:22.080 Not really.
00:07:22.580 In the first Trump administration, when I was in the Oval,
00:07:26.460 somebody said, are you going to do the thumbs up?
00:07:28.720 I was like, I will not.
00:07:29.660 I will not do the thumbs up.
00:07:30.980 And if you look at the picture that they sent, I did not do a thumbs up.
00:07:33.780 I smiled.
00:07:34.540 I did not do this.
00:07:36.040 I do the thumbs up very rarely, but I will tell you a funny story about thumbs up.
00:07:40.160 So this is like six, seven years ago.
00:07:42.000 i was down at the border and i was at a border patrol checkpoint at our southern border where
00:07:47.360 there were a bunch of 18 wheelers crossing from mexico over to the united states over to texas
00:07:52.940 and i was just standing at the checkpoint and i gotta say if you're a truck driver
00:07:56.940 and you're driving across the border there are a lot of things you may be expecting to see at
00:08:01.580 the border patrol checkpoint but the u.s senator from texas is not one of them yeah it's not not
00:08:07.520 on the list yeah and and so the the looks of startled shock from every truck driver it was
00:08:14.820 really quite amusing because i i stood there probably an hour or so and and like greeted
00:08:18.240 every truck driver and i took an informal survey so a number of the truck drivers gave me a thumbs
00:08:24.820 up and the remaining one gave me a middle finger yeah and it was i gotta say i actually felt pretty
00:08:32.480 good about the truck driver survey because i think it was about 80 20 so about 80 got the thumbs up
00:08:38.000 and about 20 flipped me off and i was like all right i'll take those odds like truck drivers
00:08:42.720 are my peeps yeah the good number that's the republican party has become a blue collar party
00:08:50.040 like truck drivers steel workers construction workers cops firefighters waiters and waitresses
00:08:54.640 that's our base but it was still a fun because it literally was it's amazing almost every truck
00:09:01.400 driver it was one of two fingers and i got it uh you know i don't remember how much but it felt
00:09:07.260 like close to 100 that they would give me one finger or the other you know what that's good
00:09:11.980 odds there by the way on saturday i worked out i did get a middle finger in the gym from a liberal
00:09:16.760 um story and i mean i'm sitting there and i have my headphones in and i'm listening
00:09:22.340 to music and this guy just you just you could just tell he just was wanting to talk and
00:09:27.260 he just decided he'd had enough and he just he just put it right out there and i was like all
00:09:31.740 right well i'm gonna go back to lifting weights now okay but that was a random dude and it wasn't
00:09:35.720 like anna who was pissed at you no it was not that at all no it was just a random a random liberal
00:09:40.560 who if he's listening to the show like that was probably the highlight of his whole year and i'm
00:09:45.280 glad he had that moment i'm glad i could facilitate that for him all right i feel confident we don't
00:09:49.800 have a lot of random liberals listening to this podcast we have reporters because when i walk on
00:09:56.240 capitol hill and people ask me questions i'll say oh i just addressed that in the podcast why don't
00:10:00.280 you listen to the podcast and then they go listen to the podcast and they write stories and like
00:10:04.140 break news because we break news all right let's talk reconciliation because we're actually going
00:10:08.000 to talk about real and hard news so department of homeland security has been shut down for two
00:10:14.760 months yep the democrats do not care so understand for two months coast guardsmen have not been paid
00:10:23.020 secret service agents have not been paid fema has not been paid department of homeland security
00:10:30.720 the people that are fighting cyber terrorism the people that are fighting bioterrorism they have
00:10:35.040 not been paid about 200 000 federal employees have not been paid for two months and the sad
00:10:40.860 reality is not a democrat i believe cares and a big part of the reason they don't care is the
00:10:46.920 media is not holding them accountable so they're having no consequence so brian shots who is
00:10:52.300 democrat senator from hawaii he's widely viewed as the democrat leader in waiting after chuck
00:10:57.420 schumer he said about a month ago he said democrats are serene during this shutdown
00:11:03.000 longest shutdown in american history about six weeks ago i stood up to to to my colleagues in
00:11:11.680 in the senate and i said the republicans and i said look the democrats are wildly unreasonable
00:11:17.920 It is bizarre.
00:11:20.400 But I think where Democrats are right now is I think they will never, ever, ever vote again to fund ICE.
00:11:26.480 Their base just hates ICE.
00:11:28.620 And this is an open borders, pro-violent criminal party.
00:11:33.280 And I think from their perspective, they will vote against funding ICE forever.
00:11:38.800 And they're perfectly happy to shut down all of DHS to do it.
00:11:42.260 Now, the irony is, DHS is defunded.
00:11:45.860 You know what is funded?
00:11:47.920 ICE?
00:11:48.820 ICE.
00:11:49.800 And explain that quickly for people that may have missed those episodes.
00:11:53.460 When we passed the reconciliation bill last summer, the working families tax cut,
00:11:58.340 we funded ICE and we funded Customs and Border Patrol for the next three years
00:12:04.080 because we knew Democrats were getting unreasonable.
00:12:06.360 And so the rest of DHS is shut down, but ICE is alive,
00:12:11.140 and it is literally the case that Democrats are voting to cut off funding for Coast Guard and FEMA
00:12:15.420 and secret service and all the rest because they're mad at ice and ice is fully funded
00:12:19.680 that being said here's what i said six weeks ago to my colleagues i said listen
00:12:24.220 this is where democrats are it is wildly unreasonable it is indefensible but it's
00:12:29.380 where they are so here's the approach forward that there were some republican senators they're
00:12:34.760 saying oh let's do nothing the pressure will build on democrats and eventually they'll cave
00:12:39.060 and i said you know what they will never cave they will leave dhs shut down for the entire year
00:12:43.960 And part of it is if the media were functional and real, they wouldn't because they'd feel heat, but nobody in the media is blaming them.
00:12:50.640 And by the way, the standard media trick is they blame both parties.
00:12:53.900 Oh, Congress is broken.
00:12:55.640 That's how they give cover to the Democrats.
00:12:58.660 To be clear, I have voted 16 times in the last two months to fund DHS.
00:13:03.420 Democrats have voted 16 times to defund DHS.
00:13:07.800 It's not both parties.
00:13:09.200 The people who are voting to fund it are not responsible in the way that the people who are voting to defund it are.
00:13:15.660 The reason DHS is shut down is it takes 60 votes.
00:13:19.060 We only have 53 Republicans, which means the Democrats can shut it down, and they're doing so.
00:13:24.160 Now, what I urge is I said, you know what?
00:13:27.580 Let's pass a bill that funds DHS, and if the Democrats are so unreasonable they will not fund ICE and CBP, let's exclude them.
00:13:35.900 Let's fund everything else.
00:13:37.900 That's what the Senate did two weeks ago.
00:13:40.940 It then went to the House.
00:13:42.520 And I got to say, House Republicans, they kind of lost their minds and they began screaming, we're not going to defund ICE.
00:13:47.960 Now, that claim was always false because ICE is fully funded.
00:13:51.720 ICE is funded through the reconciliation bill.
00:13:54.200 But I understand the sort of shock because the position of the Democrats is so wildly unreasonable that House Republicans were pissed.
00:14:03.820 But the consequence, they voted down the Senate bill, and it meant DHS stayed shut down.
00:14:09.220 And I just think House Republicans had not gotten to the point where they have accepted, where they've internalized.
00:14:15.300 These are the crazy-ass Democrats in the Senate we're dealing with, and they're never, ever, ever going to fund ICE again.
00:14:22.460 So here's what I suggested.
00:14:24.560 Fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP, and then immediately take up a budget reconciliation.
00:14:30.800 Budget reconciliation cannot be filibustered.
00:14:33.200 The Democrats cannot block it.
00:14:34.520 We can pass it with just 50 Republicans in the Senate, and we should fully fund ICE.
00:14:39.960 And I will tell you today, so every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, when the Senate is in session, Senate Republicans have lunch together.
00:14:48.380 So today, Tuesday, we had lunch.
00:14:50.840 Let me ask you a question.
00:14:52.140 When you say you guys have lunch, is it working groups at tables, or is there like a big speaker?
00:14:57.680 How does the lunch actually work so people understand?
00:15:00.320 So, there are two rooms that you have lunch in in the Senate.
00:15:04.460 One is the LBJ room.
00:15:05.720 That's a smaller room.
00:15:06.760 It's just off the Senate floor.
00:15:08.220 The minority gets the LBJ room.
00:15:10.400 And then the bigger room is the Michael Mansfield room, named after Montana Senator, Senate Majority Leader Michael Mansfield.
00:15:16.980 And it's a larger room.
00:15:18.160 So, whoever's in the majority gets the Mansfield room.
00:15:21.080 I just want to know, for personal reasons, what do you eat there?
00:15:25.480 So, there's actually...
00:15:27.260 Are you catered in, or is it different senators that do it?
00:15:28.920 How is that, like, is there a host?
00:15:31.320 So Tuesday and Wednesday, there is Senate catering,
00:15:34.660 and there's, like, a catering office in the Senate that brings in food.
00:15:37.460 It varies.
00:15:38.160 Like, today we had some beef and some chicken and broccoli and green beans.
00:15:42.240 I mean, catering's actually pretty good.
00:15:43.740 I mean, one of the things that I'm surprised,
00:15:45.820 just like the food they provide at the Senate lunch is surprisingly decent.
00:15:51.220 And those are Senate employees that do the catering on the Capitol.
00:15:55.220 And so events there, they provide catering for any meal.
00:15:57.980 We have dinners and lunches and things that are on the Capitol.
00:16:01.700 So Tuesday and Wednesday, the Senate catering provides that.
00:16:05.700 And then Thursdays, the way it works among Republicans is it rotates among different senators who hosts.
00:16:11.960 So typically, like I host about once a year and when you host, you usually fly in food from your home state.
00:16:21.120 So, for example, when I host, I fly in food from Texas.
00:16:25.700 it's typically either barbecue or mexican are the two things that i've done i've done
00:16:29.820 i usually do barbecue i sometimes do mexican so i'll fly in either you know different barbecue
00:16:35.540 places in texas where where i'll fly the food in um and then what actually happens when you host is
00:16:43.040 you send a gift bag to your other senators and the gift bag is usually a collection of stuff
00:16:48.940 from your state so i'll usually pick pick up some stuff like some you know heb tortilla chips and
00:16:57.000 salsa and you know kind of different and you kind of put a gift bag together that i don't know is
00:17:02.180 about a hundred bucks worth of different stuff from the state that you collect and and you send
00:17:08.960 it oddly enough senators send a lot of booze to each other so i actually have i have a whole shelf
00:17:14.800 in my office filled with booze that senators
00:17:16.820 have sent me. And I don't drink the booze very
00:17:18.820 much, so it just sits there. It collects faster
00:17:20.740 than I drink it. But you
00:17:22.700 have varying senators that will send, like the
00:17:24.760 Kentucky senators will usually send
00:17:26.560 Burbin around. Yeah, I was just saying, Kentucky would have to win that ball game, right?
00:17:28.660 And then I'm assuming Texas, you're like, here's some
00:17:30.580 Tito's. I've done
00:17:32.580 Tito's. I've done Scheinerbach is what I usually
00:17:34.780 send. I'll often send a six-pack of Scheinerbach.
00:17:37.140 I have done Tito's in the past.
00:17:38.780 Those have been the two that are kind of
00:17:40.360 you pick a collection of
00:17:42.660 stuff that sort of reflects your state.
00:17:44.800 Um, and so today we had, and, and the Tuesday lunch is the leadership lunch. So leadership
00:17:51.880 runs it. The Wednesday lunch is the steering lunch. Steering are the more conservative senators.
00:17:58.440 Rick Scott is right now the chairman of steering. There's about a dozen of us that are on the
00:18:03.200 executive committee of steering. I'm on the executive committee. Uh, they are by design,
00:18:07.600 the most conservative senators. So the Wednesday lunch tends to be more policy driven,
00:18:11.940 but we typically meet from about 12 30 to two so it's anywhere from an hour an hour and a half a
00:18:20.000 lot of people get there about one so it's typically one to two sometimes it's 12 30 to two but you
00:18:24.700 have a good hour of robust discussion and it's not it's not a bunch of quiet room where someone
00:18:31.160 has a floor and is talking than someone else so at lunch it's not like you're sitting there
00:18:34.700 hanging out with your buddies and then for 15 minutes someone speaks it's the floor it's
00:18:38.820 it's actually a real working lunch. It is a working lunch and actually a lot of work gets
00:18:43.700 done. And so I try to make the lunch every day because you have real debates and discussions
00:18:48.760 with your colleagues. And so today we had, this was the leadership lunch today. And so you had
00:18:54.580 a presentation from John Thune and from Lindsey Graham about the plan. And the plan is to take
00:18:59.540 up a reconciliation bill, which is what I proposed six weeks ago. They are planning right now to fund
00:19:05.280 dhs and ice for three and a half years through fiscal year 2029 um and they want to keep the
00:19:13.480 bill very narrowly limited to just ice and and cbp and so i stood up i actually talked at length
00:19:21.320 today and i made a pretty vigorous argument i said listen this is a no-brainer we need to do it it's
00:19:26.520 the right thing to do absolutely all of us agree with this but i said i think we're making three
00:19:31.720 very serious mistakes number one i think the proposal to fund ice and cbp for three and a half
00:19:37.840 years is a mistake meaning not enough yes we should fund them for 10 years 10 years is the
00:19:44.860 limit under the statute for how long you can fund anything under budget reconciliation and i said
00:19:49.380 the democrats are going to vote against border security against ice and cbp for the foreseeable
00:19:54.220 future if that's the case let's fund it for a decade let's take the opportunity we have right
00:19:59.260 now to ensure that border security is funded for 10 years i said secondly if we simply respond to
00:20:07.640 the democrats legislative terrorism shutting down dhs by funding what we would have funded
00:20:14.160 ordinarily i think that's that's really dumb what i have argued is we ought to increase the funding
00:20:20.440 for ice by 10 so that the consequence and this is it's a policy decision but it's also a political
00:20:26.900 decision the consequence of elizabeth warren and bernie sanders shutting down the government for
00:20:31.720 two months and going nuts on border securities congratulations elizabeth you just increased
00:20:36.740 the funding for ice by 10 that that's just rather than be on defense let's go on offense and say
00:20:43.860 you know what we are the party of border security we're going to fund it and because you guys were
00:20:48.520 wildly unreasonable we had a bipartisan agreement on dhs funding until the democrats backed out of
00:20:53.700 it so the consequence of your stupidity is you increase the funding advice i think that's a
00:20:58.700 no-brainer i don't know if my colleagues will agree with either of those points the 10 years 0.71
00:21:03.300 or increasing by the way why would they not agree the 10 years and my cynical uh view is always i'm
00:21:08.740 going to go there first is it because they'd want it to be an election year issue within the next
00:21:13.400 10 years so therefore they're saying hey let's fight on this in a couple years again no it's
00:21:18.200 not that it's it's you like how cynical politics has made me sir i just want to be clear yeah like
00:21:22.940 immediately i'm like i could see somebody like i don't i don't want to i like this issue i want i
00:21:27.520 want it to come up every couple years so i can fight over it yeah look that there's a natural
00:21:32.120 instinct of essentially playing small ball and and this is the outcome of negotiations between
00:21:38.980 john thune lindsey graham and the white house and i think the white house is playing small ball too
00:21:44.260 and and so i am urging the white house let's go 10 years let's up the budget i've made this case
00:21:49.800 to the White House, they're not there yet. And so they're focused on the challenge right in front
00:21:54.220 of us rather than the challenge tomorrow. But here's the big case that I made, and I leaned
00:21:58.640 in really aggressively. I said, listen, we should do a reconciliation bill. We should fund ICE, do it
00:22:06.140 for 10 years. We should fund CBP, do it for 10 years. We should up the budgets. But we shouldn't
00:22:11.340 limit it to just those two. We should do a much broader reconciliation bill. In the case I made
00:22:18.120 to my colleagues i said this is the last meaningful chance we will have to pass republican priorities
00:22:25.480 and there's a very real chance right now it's substantially more likely than not
00:22:31.580 that we will lose at least the house in november we may lose the senate too
00:22:35.560 if that's right then we have just the remainder of 2026 to pass conservative victories because
00:22:43.640 starting next year the house will be nothing but all impeachment and all investigations
00:22:47.880 all the time and so we will not be able to pass conservative priorities so my case to my colleagues
00:22:53.020 was we ought to take this up and use reconciliation just like we did last year on the fourth of july
00:22:58.660 where we passed the working families tax cut and had a massive number of conservative victories we
00:23:03.500 ought to do it again and i suggested there are a lot of things we can do so for example i have a
00:23:07.120 bill called keep america flying that says the democrats will never again be able to shut down
00:23:13.840 uh civilian air traffic so they won't be able to defund air traffic controllers they won't be able
00:23:20.880 to defund the tsa they won't be able to defund the federal workers that are critical to keep
00:23:26.240 planes in the air by the way september 30th budget funding is going to expire again right now the
00:23:32.320 democrats are going to force another shutdown 100 i will wager right before the elections they will
00:23:39.280 force a shutdown i think we're idiots to do nothing to prevent them but the problem is a lot
00:23:45.540 of folks in congress just look an inch in front of their nose and they can't look 10 inches in
00:23:51.100 front of their nose so if we're headed to a shutdown in september we'd be morons not to do
00:23:56.140 something to forestall it so one of the things we can do is make sure that the the four-hour lines
00:24:02.100 at airports the people missing their flights for spring break that doesn't happen again
00:24:05.580 We could pass funding that says we're going to keep planes flying.
00:24:09.780 Democrats no longer get to destroy your vacation or destroy your work trip just because they're mad.
00:24:15.960 That, I think, makes a lot of sense.
00:24:18.380 What I've urged is we ought to do things that make sense for the economy.
00:24:22.100 So, for example, an idea that I have been pushing hard is indexing capital gains to inflation.
00:24:29.280 So the way it works, let's say 10 years ago, you bought a stock for $100.
00:24:36.220 And in the course of 10 years, inflation has driven the cost of that stock to $200.
00:24:42.500 Now, if that's all inflation, you don't have any meaningful gain.
00:24:46.540 But if you sell that stock at $200, you pay capital gains tax on the difference between $100 and $200.
00:24:53.240 And that's a phantom gain.
00:24:55.540 And so what I believe is you ought to index capital gains to inflation,
00:24:59.540 which means whatever the inflation is, you raise the basis,
00:25:03.580 You raise the cost of whatever it is you've invested.
00:25:07.060 That would have a massive positive stimulus effect for the economy.
00:25:12.040 And affordability is a huge issue for the voters.
00:25:15.140 It has an enormous impact on housing.
00:25:18.620 So here's what's interesting.
00:25:20.180 If you have a house, let's say you bought a house, and the house is appreciated massively in value.
00:25:26.060 Same principle is true.
00:25:27.160 If you sell it, if the appreciation is due to inflation, you pay taxes on that.
00:25:31.440 and so what happens is a lot of people don't sell their house when you die if you pass your
00:25:38.740 house on to your kids the basis steps up which means your kids take it not at the cost you paid
00:25:45.540 but whatever the the cost is when they inherit it so that capital gains tax disappears when you die
00:25:51.600 what it results in particularly in high-tax states is people holding on to houses a really
00:25:57.640 long time and not selling them reno mishap that's embarrassing you know what's not embarrassing
00:26:05.940 using fig for home improvement loan a quick simple and transparent offer in minutes
00:26:11.000 borrow better with fig visit fig.ca here's an amazing question ben california which has among
00:26:18.400 the highest taxes in the country yes what percent of hopes do you think are passed on at death in
00:26:26.260 other words are held on to so long because the the the capital gains tax would be so high i'm not
00:26:32.940 gonna i'm gonna totally guess i would say at least 40 now i may be wrong but i know people that they
00:26:39.280 get they that's how they got their parents house for the same reason you just described it so you
00:26:43.820 are wrong that's a little too aggressive it's about 25 but 25 which is still insane by the way
00:26:49.120 because like in texas what is it three percent four percent it's much lower i don't know the
00:26:54.180 texas number but it's much lower and and the consequence let's say you have a family that
00:26:59.060 has a bunch of kids they buy a big house and they raise their kids in it and then their kids
00:27:02.980 graduate go off into the world you've just got an older retired family now many like an older
00:27:10.240 retired couple doesn't need a big house with a bunch of bedrooms in a normal world they would
00:27:15.640 sell that house they'd put it on the market and they'd buy like they'd buy a smaller little town 0.98
00:27:20.000 home or a condo. They'd buy something that is more appropriate to their stage in life.
00:27:24.260 But especially in California and other high-tax states, they don't do that because their tax bill
00:27:29.060 would be huge. So the effect of this would be to lower the cost of housing for people that are
00:27:35.120 buying. What it means is a young married couple that wants to buy that first house, if there were
00:27:39.960 more houses on the market, it would drive the prices down and they could afford it more. So
00:27:43.680 that's an example of something we can do. I also suggested we could plus up the school choice
00:27:49.400 provisions. We could plus up the Trump account provisions. There are lots of things. Ron Johnson
00:27:55.660 has advocated for the Shutdown Fairness Act, which says that, number one, when there's a
00:28:01.780 shutdown, all essential workers will be paid. Number two, there's another bill that says we
00:28:05.700 won't have shutdowns. In the case that you don't have funding, you will continue at the prior
00:28:10.500 levels or maybe you'll ratchet down slightly. My point, look, what I stood up to my colleagues and
00:28:15.840 I said listen I am not today advocating for any one particular policy and I told them the story
00:28:24.420 so back in 2018 we had a Republican House a Republican Senate we had a Republican President
00:28:30.960 Donald Trump and in August of 2018 I gave a presentation to the Senate Republicans and it
00:28:36.600 was a PowerPoint about 50 pages long and I called it Carpe Diem seize the day and I went through in
00:28:43.840 the last hundred years what had happened every times the democrats had had the house the senate
00:28:49.840 and the white house and they passed fundamental transformations of this country they passed the
00:28:55.800 new deal they passed the great society they passed obamacare and dodd frank like when they have
00:29:00.960 control they push the pedal to the metal and they floor their socialist left-wing plans
00:29:06.000 republicans we are piddly we don't do nearly as much we did the working families tax cut that was
00:29:11.820 a big big victory but we haven't done a whole lot since then and the case i made in 2018 as i said
00:29:19.340 we ought to take up another reconciliation it was the vehicle for the biggest legislative victories
00:29:24.880 we have and i had a chart that i put together of like 50 bills that different republican senators
00:29:30.040 had introduced and i said listen i'm not being crazy i'm not saying we should pass all 50 of
00:29:34.740 these i'm saying let's pick five my case was not we should do something specific my my case was
00:29:42.480 simply we should do something and i turned to my colleagues i i said that when i said it in 2018 i
00:29:48.360 i talked in particular the class of 2014 there was a big class nine new senators republicans
00:29:54.640 were elected in 2014 and i said listen you guys if we don't take this opportunity we had 183 days
00:30:03.780 left in the Congress. This may be the last opportunity you ever get to pass meaningful
00:30:10.060 legislation. If we lose the House, you're done. No more legislation, forget about it.
00:30:15.460 If that's the case, don't we have an urgency to do something? And as I look back at my entire
00:30:24.280 tenure in the Senate, the most indefensible legislative decision was Mitch McConnell's
00:30:28.520 decision in 2018 not to take up another reconciliation. And I fear that we're repeating
00:30:34.800 the mistake. And by the way, so look, for the last couple of months, I have been searching around for
00:30:40.760 how do we do another reconciliation? I've been making this case for a while. But I've said what
00:30:45.160 we need is a tentpole. What do I mean by a tentpole? I mean an idea that is big enough, that is bold
00:30:52.600 enough, that is important enough, that it will unify 50 Republicans in the Senate and 218 Republicans
00:30:58.120 in the house because because we have really narrow majority so you've got to have something
00:31:01.520 big enough that everyone gets behind then you could have other provisions carry along if you
00:31:07.660 have a tentpole in my view ice and cbp are the tentpole there is not a republican i don't care
00:31:15.740 if you're the most rock rip conservative or completely squishy mod no republican wants to
00:31:22.240 vote against funding ICE and CBP. Yeah, that is a tentpole that can carry the rest of it. And so
00:31:27.960 that's the case I'm making to my colleagues. Right now, the White House is not on board. And my
00:31:32.820 intention is I'm going to make this case to President Trump directly. I have not done so yet.
00:31:37.860 Today was the beginning of it, making it to my colleagues in the Senate. But I think this is a
00:31:42.660 decision. Do we swing for the fences and get victories, economic victories that we can campaign
00:31:49.080 on and win elections in november or do we play small ball and by the way one of the things that
00:31:54.680 leadership is saying is no no we'll do another reconciliation after this well you know what
00:31:58.600 the next reconciliation will fail because without a tentpole without something like ice and cbp
00:32:04.880 you ain't getting 50 and you ain't getting 218 because the republicans will scatter on all sorts
00:32:10.520 of different grounds so you've got to have something big enough to bring them together
00:32:14.380 and then we can win real victories.
00:32:17.140 That's the case I'm trying to make to my colleagues.
00:32:20.200 Yeah, it's going to be really interesting how this plays out.
00:32:23.140 And you're right.
00:32:23.700 I think Americans are like, what are you doing for me right now?
00:32:26.300 I wish all the Republicans would understand that and be bold like you described it.
00:32:31.080 We'll see if that happens.
00:32:32.760 Otherwise, some of your colleagues may not be your colleagues after the election this
00:32:36.780 coming November.
00:32:38.000 And Ben, by the way, one of the things that I'm also urging my colleagues to include is
00:32:41.820 election integrity to include as much of the save america act as we can now now it is limited
00:32:47.500 because of reconciliation there are rules under statute as to what you can include in reconciliation
00:32:52.500 it has to be budgetary and not policy and so how you get you can't get the the full save america
00:32:59.660 act in reconciliation but you can get election integrity provisions you can for example condition
00:33:05.940 federal grants for example the help america vote act grants which are grants that go to help fund
00:33:11.560 elections, you can condition those on election integrity. You can condition those. You can take
00:33:16.320 those away from Sanctuary City. So I'm arguing we ought to be using, like, let's take this
00:33:22.280 opportunity to pass legislation that Republicans agree with. Let's win victories. Let's not give
00:33:28.400 up the chance to win victories. Yeah, great point. We're going to keep covering it, and we'll keep
00:33:32.520 you up to date on what's happening in Washington, D.C. Don't forget this show we do on YouTube as
00:33:37.320 well so you can watch on youtube you can also download it as a podcast wherever you get your
00:33:42.980 podcast we do the show monday wednesday friday and a weekend review on saturdays as well for
00:33:48.280 what you may have missed during the week and the center and i will see you back here on friday
00:33:51.440 morning this is an iheart podcast guaranteed human