The Republic Ain’t Over Yet
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Summary
Ted Cruz reacts to a major Republican win in the Virginia primary, and explains why he thinks it s the best thing to happen to the country in a long time. Plus, a look back at the Verdict Live Tour in Wisconsin, Texas, and Washington, D.C., where we were joined by our friend Liz Wheeler.
Transcript
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This week, Glenn Youngkin defeats Terry McAuliffe.
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The race came down not so much to personalities, but to a simple question.
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And the election victory gave Republicans something that we have not had in a very, very long time.
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Verdict with Ted Cruz is brought to you by Stamps.com.
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I was already feeling pretty good after that victory last night.
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And now I'm feeling even better and equally disoriented because we've been doing this show now for two years.
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And that is the first time that we've ever made any money on this show.
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That's the first time I've ever heard from a sponsor.
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This just coming off of our wonderful VERDICT live tour in Wisconsin and Texas and Washington, D.C.,
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where we were joined by our friend Liz Wheeler.
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Are you actually putting this show on sustainable financial footing?
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I like to think of myself as the breadwinner here in this situation.
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You may notice something different about the pod, which is we just finished our campus tour.
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And by popular demand, people really enjoyed Liz being part of the conversation.
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And so, Liz, thank you for being on the road with us with VERDICT, but thank you for being
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It's actually an honor to be here having these conversations with you and with Michael.
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And, you know, Liz, you picked a pretty good time to join the show because this is your first
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sort of official episode here, you know, not as part of one of these live events.
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And it happens to be the greatest day for Republicans in recent memory.
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And, Senator, I know that you were there last night.
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I remember you had been providing quite a bit of help to the Yunkin campaign very,
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very early on when people said there's no way that the Republicans are going to take
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It was a big damn deal for Virginia, but for the whole country.
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And Glenn Youngkin is someone I've known a long time.
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Heidi and I have stayed on their ranch in Texas and floated in the river on inner tubes
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And Glenn is someone I endorsed Glenn early in this race.
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It was a big contested primary and went out and campaigned for Glenn.
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In fact, the last two days of the primary, I was on the road barnstorming the state of
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Virginia with Glenn and we did rallies all over the state.
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Uh, there were in that primary, about 50,000 people voted in that primary.
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About 5,000 of those people came to our rallies those last two days.
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So about 10% of the actual voters in the primaries came and saw us at our rallies, uh, in person.
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And, and he ended up winning, winning the primary.
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Big part of the reason I backed him is, is that I believed he was by far the strongest
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Last night, Heidi and I were both at the election party.
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Uh, and, and it was fairly beautiful seeing the, uh, uh, kind of dazed stupor and rage from
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the Terry McAuliffe camp, uh, as they realized that, that, that, that the monarchy to which
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he wanted to resume, uh, ruling his subjects in the Commonwealth of Virginia, that, that,
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that, that somehow a funny thing happened on, on the way to, to, to, to the election booth,
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And Virginia now has a Republican governor, which is a powerful canary in the coal mine.
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And it re it really shows, I think what's to come November of next year in 2022.
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Liz, I know you like me were waiting up until after midnight last night, because I don't
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I had this fear that, uh, around three in the morning, there would be an undisclosed number
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of ballots that suddenly appeared in Fairfax County or something like that.
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But, but no, they, they called it by the end of the night and we finally got to go to bed.
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But I mean, I don't know about you, but make no mistake.
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It seemed like the Democrats were teeing something up in Fairfax County.
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Glenn Youngkin just, uh, pulled out such an enormous victory that they knew that they
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didn't stand a chance even with, uh, perhaps re-scanning ballots.
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I think the biggest takeaway about this election is the strength of parents.
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I mean, you had Barack Obama, you had Kamala Harris, you had Stacey Abrams, all campaigning
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And yet parents in the state of Virginia still defeated him.
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The strength of parents is stronger than the strength of the entire Democratic Party.
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And I know, I know that we're going to be hearing more from some of the, uh, Verdict
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So, uh, you're going to be fielding questions for them and then we'll have you back on to,
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uh, to, to hear from all the wonderful people who are, who are supporting this show.
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Yes, I've been looking around on Verdict Plus and there are some great questions.
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I'm looking forward to hearing both of your answers a little bit later on.
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Anybody who's listening to this or watching this who wants to participate in Verdict Plus,
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Michael, Senator, I will see you in a few minutes.
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Senator, Senator, you bring up an aspect of this race that I know a lot of, uh, conservatives
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sometimes they, they, they, they don't really seem to understand, which is, uh, call it the
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Buckley rule that, that you, you vote for the most right, viable candidate.
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And you said you felt not only is Glenn Youngkin a good guy, but that he was the kind of candidate
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Yeah, look, I mean, we need candidates who can win.
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And, and you look at Glenn, the campaign they ran, and, and by the way, Glenn's political
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It was my senior people that were running his campaign.
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He, he ran a conservative campaign and, and he ran on school choice.
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You know, Ralph Northam, the Democrat, who's, who's one of the most radically pro-abortion
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In fact, who, and we've talked about this on the pod before, you know, Ralph Northam
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has talked about post-birth abortion, which, which is horrifying at a whole different level
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Youngkin ran a disciplined campaign that number one, he didn't get drawn into, to personality
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So the whole attack of the Terry McAuliffe crew was that Glenn Youngkin is Donald Trump.
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That, that, that, that was sort of their one card and their other card was he's a racist
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And, and, and I think McAuliffe was shocked that the race was competitive.
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He assumed it would just be a cakewalk and a coronation and, and no Republican could win
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And, and I think what McAuliffe did, he really focused on issues that, that mattered to people
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And he got, you know, Biden won Virginia by double digits.
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And, and that means there were a whole bunch of voters who, uh, in 2020 pulled the lever
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for Joe Biden, who in 2021 pulled the lever for Glenn Youngkin.
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And I think there are lessons to be learned about, about how Youngkin did that.
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And, and he focused on issues, uh, that matter.
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It turns out that, that, that suburban moms, uh, don't like it when you abolish the police.
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They don't like it when you endanger their families, when you endanger their kids.
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And it turns out that suburban moms like it even less when you treat parents as, as domestic
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When, when you, uh, say as, as McAuliffe did that, that, that, that, that, that, that parents
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should have no role in deciding what their kids are taught in schools.
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And, and, and it, you know, the old joke that a gaffe is when a politician tells you what
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he actually thinks, look, McAuliffe said that in a debate and the Youngkin campaign did a
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great job of, of jumping on it and running with it.
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And, you know, at the victory party last night, I mean, it was rocking, but, but there were
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There were signs, women for Trump, uh, for, uh, women for Youngkin.
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And I, I think they did a very good job in particular of mobilizing moms who, who don't
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want critical race theory taught to their kids, who don't want school boards that cover
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up sexual assaults and rapes in the bathrooms and, and, and who don't want arrogant politicians
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that view the moms and dads as domestic terrorists.
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And, and that, that, uh, that I think decided the race and won the race last night.
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You know, people are, are going to be fighting now over what the big issue was.
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Some people are saying it's because Trump wasn't involved.
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Some people are saying it's because Trump was involved.
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Some people are saying it's because of critical race theory.
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Some people are saying it's because of the COVID lockdown.
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Some people are saying it's, you know, this, that, and the other thing, people with their
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own interests in politics and on the right are trying to claim the victory.
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Do you have a sense being so close as you were to the race, what, what the number one
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So I, I think it varied as the campaign moved forward.
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And so early on, I think the COVID lockdowns were a big issue.
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They didn't like small businesses being shut down.
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And so Glenn was campaigning on let's reopen businesses, reopen schools.
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Um, I, I, I think people didn't like Ralph Northam was dumbing down the schools, was dumbing
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down, uh, advanced education for students and, and, and was saying, we're not going to
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teach advanced education anymore in Virginia schools.
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Our kids deserve to have advanced courses and, and, and the ability to, to learn and achieve
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Glenn campaigned on school choice and he did so early on.
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And I think school choice is a winning issue for Republicans.
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If you look at Youngkin's numbers, he went up with African-Americans.
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Youngkin welcomed the Trump endorsement, was glad to have it.
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Uh, but didn't want to make the entire election about the personality.
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There, there are many people, you, you and I included who are supporters of the president,
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uh, who, who recognize that he did extraordinarily good things as president, but to win, Youngkin
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needed some voters in Virginia and in particular suburban women in Virginia who voted against
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Youngkin needed them to switch their votes to him.
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You know, the campaign did a very smart job of the first several months.
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They focused on Glenn's story, on who he was and, and defining him, telling his story.
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You know, he grew up in Virginia, grew up in modest circumstances.
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Um, he, he went to Rice and, and, and played, uh, played basketball, uh, four years at Rice, uh, and met
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Um, and then he had a career in business and an incredibly successful career in business
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And I think the campaign did a good job of defining who Glenn was so that when Terry McAuliffe
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came in at the back end and said, he's Donald Trump, he's Donald Trump.
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And, and, and that was, that was valuable to, to, to define his own life story, what he
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believes and, and to certainly welcome and embrace the support from Trump supporters,
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I then think the, the, the second phase of, of, of the election really shifted hard to
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And, and, and I think Loudoun County played a pivotal part in this victory had the horrific
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events that transpired in Loudoun County not happened.
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Terry, Terry McAuliffe would be the next governor of Virginia that, that, that Loudoun and McKinney,
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we've talked about it before on the, on the pod.
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We, we talked about it on our campus tour, but in terms of Virginia, I think a lot of
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parents were offended to be treated as domestic terrorists, to be dismissed, to be, to be
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ridiculed, to have their concerns just, just sidelines.
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And, and I think the arrogance of the far left, what was, was parents are, you guys don't
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And I think there were a lot of parents in particular moms in Virginia, uh, that didn't
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And, and last night's election that played a really pivotal part in it.
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You know, this, this actually brings up, uh, another aspect of the past few weeks.
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And I'd like to bring Liz in for this, cause I do, I do want to get to our mailbag, but
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I would ask Senator, we're talking about law and order and the supposed moderates out there.
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Uh, you grilled Merrick Garland, the supposedly moderate judge who's the, the attorney general
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And I think we would be very remiss if we didn't talk about it.
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Uh, last week Merrick Garland testified in front of the Senate judiciary committee and,
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and I, um, took the opportunity to question him very gently.
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Um, but, but, but, but to really hold him to account for, for what I think is the politicization
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of the department of justice, you know, at his confirmation hearing Garland said that,
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that, that he would not allow DOJ to become what had become under Barack Obama, which was
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a political weapon used to target the, the enemies, uh, of the white house.
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And, and in this instance in particular, I think, um, that's exactly what Garland allowed
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And, and so, you know, I began with this, this letter from the National Association of
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And I said, look, dude, you know, General Garland, do you know how many instances are cited in
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The letter was the basis of his direction to the FBI and his memo.
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And I said, well, I just did a quick count right here.
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Uh, do you know how many of them are violent or arguably violent on their face?
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I said, well, there's a reason you don't know that because you didn't give a damn to check.
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From my quick examination of the letter here, it appears five of them, uh, on their face
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Sometimes parents who were mad, who were expressing vigorous speech, but they were engaged in activity
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And, and I put it, I said, look, DOJ senators, we've sent letters to DOJ that, that for months
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you ignore, you don't care what we have to say.
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You just utterly ignore when we write the Department of Justice.
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And yet when, when these well-connected Democrats who are working with the White House demand that
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you go after parents and target them, five days later, you snap your fingers and you direct
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And, and the heat on the National Association of School Boards was so great.
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They're having, you know, local chapters resign from their organization.
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Um, and they said they were embarrassed by the letter.
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And I, I asked the attorney general, well, are you, are you embarrassed?
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Do you have any, uh, do you have the same integrity, the same sense of shame that the
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And he, and Garland was like, no, no, no, no, no.
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You think sending the FBI to go after parents that that's not intimidating, that doesn't chill
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That doesn't, uh, frustrate our democratic process.
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I think both the arrogance that Garland conveyed, but simultaneously the cluelessness and, and,
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and one component of that, look, Garland has been a judge for 24 years.
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He hasn't had anybody question him in 24 years.
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He's not had anyone scrutinize what he says or does to be honest.
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He probably hasn't had anyone say an unkind word to him in 24 years, federal judges, particularly
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judges on the DC circuit, the second highest court in the land, everybody who interacts
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with them kisses their behinds all day long.
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And I think Garland was willing to play the political hack and give the white house what
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they wanted, and it never even occurred to him that he would face scrutiny or oversight
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And, and he said, well, lawyers who would read this memo would understand the Supreme
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Court case law of this case and the other case.
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I'm like, I'm sorry, mom doesn't understand that.
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You don't think sending a memo to the FBI, to the men in black, the G-men to go target
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parents as intimidation, then you are being clueless.
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You're not doing your job as attorney general and you're allowing DOJ to be politicized.
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And I think that was, it was shameful, but it was also, it played a real role in, in the
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Now with that, Liz, you're, you're, you're back now.
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Do we, do we have any questions from the mailbag from Verdict Plus?
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And by the way, I think you're exactly correct on how serious Merrick Garland's behavior,
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So I know that our, our, our country appreciates that, especially parents of young children
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So anybody who's not part of Verdict Plus, I invite you to join us over there at
00:20:41.640
You'll get exclusive access to the Senator himself.
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A lot of your questions will be answered just like right now.
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While I tee these up, I do want to skip the line and ask you a question myself.
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And that is, there's a rumor in the United States Senate that you lost a wager on the
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Can you confirm, Senator, whether this is true or false?
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So, so tragically, my Astros lost the World Series and we lost last night.
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And, and, and, and I will say, you know, so Tuesday night, I, I truly was bittersweet
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It looked like a victory all night long, but on my phone, I was watching the live stream
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of game six of the World Series and the Braves were just whipping our asses.
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And so I'm miserable watching it, but really happy for Virginia and the country.
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Um, but it, it gets even worse because I had a, a, a wager, uh, with John Ossoff, the new
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Senator from Georgia, uh, over who would win the World Series and, and the stakes of the
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Now that I've lost, sadly, um, I'm going to have to deliver Texas barbecue and Scheinerbach
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And so we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll treat them to lunch and, and give them Texas barbecue
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Cause they don't really have barbecue in Georgia.
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Um, but even worse, I I'm going to have to wear a Braves Jersey, which, which, which it
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Um, this is my third World Series wager, uh, two years ago in 2019, I had a bet with, with
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And so I delivered to Tim the barbecue, the beer, and I wore a Nats, uh, Jersey.
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But two years before that in 2017, I had a wager with Kamala Harris and, and Kamala delivered,
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And she live streamed it as, as she was wearing, uh, Astros gear.
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And, and so I got to say, winning the bet is a lot more fun than losing the bet.
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And, and so I'm not looking forward to paying up to Ossoff.
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And I'll do so cheerfully, but, but be forewarned.
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I'm going to be bitching about it at the same time.
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Well, we look forward to seeing, you know, at least images, if not videos of this over on
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verdict plus, I know we're sorry that you lost the wager, but we do want a little
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peek into this, a little peek into, um, this tradition that you've set.
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And Liz, I do have to say there is something exquisite that the world series was between
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Texas and Georgia, two States that passed voter integrity laws after major league baseball
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yanked the all-star game out of Atlanta because Georgia passed, uh, Georgia, uh, voter integrity
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I love the fact that the world series trophy, that major league baseball had to present it
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They have, they had to, they had to go to the commissioner had to go to games in Houston
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And, and, and it is all I can say is karma is a bitch that it really is a beautiful, beautiful
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I mean, that's poetic justice if I ever heard it.
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And this, this, I think speaks a little bit to, um, the demographic that won the election
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Nancy asks, please explain the difference between suburban voters and working class voters.
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And, and, and it goes right to the heart of two demographic trends that are playing out
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in the country that have played out for the last several years.
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Uh, one is working class voters, the blue collar voters, uh, who have been moving right.
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And, and, and those are truck drivers, steel workers, construction workers, uh, cops, firefighters,
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the, the men and women with calluses on their hands, the people that work at factories, um,
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That's moved Midwestern states more Republican as a consequence.
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Simultaneously, you have suburban voters, voters who live not in the inner cities of, uh,
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but who live in the suburbs surrounding big cities.
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And in particular, suburban women, you have, you know, they used to be called soccer moms.
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Um, and, and, and women who live in the suburbs, historically, the suburbs have been Republican.
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Um, in Texas, for example, the suburbs around our cities, the way Texas has historically voted,
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Uh, the suburbs have been red donuts surrounding the big cities.
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And then the rural areas voted Republican as well.
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And that, that combination kept Texas reliably Republican.
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Well, in the last few years, the suburbs have turned purple.
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And a number of suburban voters, particularly suburban women, uh, had begun voting Democrat.
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And, and, and, and a number of suburban women, uh, were not fans of president Trump.
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And, and, and it was really a personality referendum, uh, with, with some suburban women voters.
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Uh, what we saw in Virginia is the working class voters stayed with Youngkin, but at the same
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time, he brought some of those suburban women who had shifted Democrat, he brought them back
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And if we bring both of those together, that that's really a winning coalition.
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And, uh, if only we could continue this, this sweet, sweet victory that we've been reveling
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in all day on the Republican side, I think that would be great.
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The next question is the username of this individual is software nugget, uh, who asks, I was just
00:26:30.880
watching some of clips of you, Senator Cruz on YouTube and wondering why you use the terms
00:26:35.240
biological male and biological female, as if there are other types instead of just male
00:26:43.660
And I guess I would say it is a nod towards modern discussion that, that you've got the,
00:26:49.540
the, the, the left who bizarrely insists that if I say I'm a woman, I am a woman.
00:26:55.160
And just the act of declaring, I am woman, hear me roar, transforms me into being a woman.
00:27:02.580
And there's so much language police today that when you refer to a male or female, given how
00:27:11.420
the media covers it, given the sort of bizarre language games that we play, there is arguably
00:27:18.220
And, and, and, and so when I use the phrase, a biological male, I mean, someone that's got
00:27:23.520
a Y chromosome and, and has, has got the, the, the equipment that makes a male, a biological
00:27:30.580
female, you got two X chromosomes, uh, you have the equipment that makes you female.
1.00
00:27:35.480
I, I'm just trying to describe the, the, the hardware and the genes.
00:27:39.560
I'm not speaking necessarily about what you believe, what you want to be, what gender,
00:27:46.180
whether male, female, or any of the, what, what is it?
00:27:50.980
I don't even understand all the different worlds of genders.
0.98
00:27:54.680
Um, I get the point, but it, but for me, at least it's the clearest way to convey, um, in
00:28:02.020
this bizarre language Orwellian world we live in, what it is I'm trying to convey.
00:28:08.200
I, I do not use the term biological male or biological female because I, I do fear that
00:28:14.400
it grants the premise that there are other kinds of males, you know, you're a spiritual
00:28:17.820
male or a psychological male or something like that.
00:28:20.100
But I, I do understand the, the prudential reason that people are doing it.
00:28:28.460
First of all, it is to meet people where they are.
00:28:31.380
It is to sometimes to avoid certain bans on big tech platforms that will forbid you from
00:28:37.060
referring to a man who thinks that he's a woman as a man.
00:28:40.360
I mean, there are all of these prudential and instrumental reasons to do that.
00:28:45.540
But yes, I do think ultimately the way we're going to win is, is by watching that language
00:28:50.180
very, very closely and, uh, recognizing that even when we appear to be opposing the new
00:28:57.740
politically correct jargon, sometimes we can, we can inadvertently be accepting some of
00:29:02.780
their premises. And so, you know, they say it's, it's good to be blunt and straight talking and
00:29:08.780
call a spade a spade. And yes, I think we ought to call a man, a man and a woman, a woman.
0.78
00:29:13.860
Well, there you go. And for anybody who wants to submit questions, um, for our next episode,
00:29:18.480
for the mailbag on that episode, please go over to verdict with tedcruz.com slash plus
00:29:23.640
supporters exclusively have the option to submit questions for Michael Knowles and Senator Ted Cruz.
00:29:29.020
All right. This next question is actually one of my favorite questions. I'm very excited to hear
00:29:32.840
your answer. This is what they ask Senator. What three government agencies would you most like to
00:29:40.080
Number one, the IRS. Um, I think the IRS is a tool of oppression. Um, I think it is a, a tool of intrusion
00:29:48.820
into privacy. You can see with, with the Bernie Sanders budget, the Democrats are, are trying to use
00:29:54.260
the IRS to monitor every financial transaction any American engages in, uh, over $600. I would shut
00:30:02.000
down the IRS. I would padlock it. Um, I think we ought to have a simple flat tax where you fill out
00:30:08.280
your taxes on a postcard. I've introduced, I've, I've laid out the details of a, of a flat tax and how
00:30:13.880
you could operate it. That would be incredibly simple that virtually the entirety of the IRS would
00:30:18.740
become irrelevant and unnecessary. So that would be number one, very close. Second would be the
00:30:24.060
federal department of education. I think the federal department of education, uh, has been used
00:30:29.480
to, uh, try to impose national curriculum standards to try to, to, uh, violate and trample upon the
00:30:40.040
authority of local jurisdictions to run their own schools. I don't think we need a, a, a federal
00:30:45.120
government trying to set local curricula. Um, as for the third ones, uh, there are a number of
00:30:52.080
different ones you can, you can point to. I'd probably point to the department of commerce as
00:30:56.140
third. Um, the department of commerce is, is, is a big grab bag of all sorts of different, whether it
00:31:02.920
is corporate welfare and cronyism or all sorts of different components. There's some elements of
00:31:07.940
the department of commerce that are necessary. For example, the census bureau constitution actually
00:31:13.060
requires the federal government to conduct a census every 10 years. We still need a census bureau. So
00:31:17.900
you could move the census bureau somewhere else. You don't need the whole commerce department to do
00:31:22.180
it. Um, there are other elements of the commerce department. There are some essential functions in
00:31:26.680
it. You know, I got to say, Liz, I think back to 1995. So 1995, I just graduated from law school
00:31:33.900
and I was a law clerk, uh, in Northern Virginia was clerking for judge, uh, Michael Ludig, who was at the
00:31:40.700
time, the strongest conservative, uh, federal appellate judge in the country. And it was at the
00:31:46.180
time of, of the Newt Gingrich, the Republican revolution had just happened. And then you remember
00:31:50.680
there was, there was a government shutdown at the time and only essential workers, uh, federal workers
00:31:56.420
were allowed to go to work. And I remember the department of commerce at the time put out a press
00:31:59.740
release that they said 70% of our workers did not come into work. Only 30% came in, but they said,
00:32:06.880
fear not all essential functions were carried out. And I remember laughing at the time and saying,
00:32:12.100
great, you've just put out a press release saying you only need 30% of your staff that 70% can be
00:32:17.180
dismissed tomorrow. If all the essential functions can be done with 30% of your staff, we can save some
00:32:23.360
real money. So that, so that's, that, that, that's an initial stab at three agencies.
00:32:28.720
And listen, I like any answer that essentially encompasses the idea of abolishing the administrative
00:32:32.940
state once and for all. And I think, uh, those answers are pretty good. All right, Michael,
00:32:37.240
now, same question to you. What three government agencies would you most like to abolish?
00:32:42.660
Well, these days I'd like to go after the occupational safety and health administration.
00:32:47.940
I don't really like that. This sort of little known agency that is now enforcing this, uh,
00:32:53.140
draconian vaccine mandate on everybody. That would be one that I think, uh, should go.
00:32:58.800
So people often will say, you know, the energy department and that's all well and good,
00:33:03.040
but I'd, I'd like to get rid of some of these more obscure offices. You know, I'd, I'd like to
00:33:09.020
get rid of the, uh, within each office. I would like to get rid of the, you know, deputy assistant,
00:33:15.400
deputy director, assistant of diversity and inclusion and equity. I'd like to get into that.
00:33:20.000
And then really even beyond abolishing these agencies and departments, I want to take them over.
00:33:27.120
Okay. We've been talking about cutting all these agencies for a long time, but I, I think that
00:33:33.220
assuming we're not going to be able to do that all that successfully, I want to go in, get our
00:33:38.360
own guys in there and then start wielding the government on the happy occasions that the people
00:33:43.720
give us political power to ends that are good and just and moral and right and more favorable to
00:33:49.880
conservatives. Well, that, that may be easier said than done, although I certainly agree with you.
00:33:54.400
All right. I'm looking on verdict plus now. Um, all of the great people over on verdict plus
00:33:58.540
have been submitting questions and here's a question, Michael, for you. This is the question
00:34:04.100
is the quote unquote common good branch of conservatism actually conservative. Is it
00:34:10.060
constitutional? This question comes from Nancy. Yes, of course it is by definition. You know, a,
00:34:15.620
a Republic comes from the res res publica, right? The things we have together, the things that are in
00:34:22.500
common. The, uh, constitution is pretty clear. It's, uh, to provide the blessings of liberty for
00:34:29.100
the American people to provide for the general welfare. And though the whole point of self
00:34:33.780
government is that we are going to exercise our judgment and our prudence, uh, to have a better
00:34:40.420
country for all of us. We don't just live as these individualized atoms floating in free space. We have a
00:34:45.860
country together. And so we need to have things in common and, and, you know, this didn't used to be
00:34:51.860
controversial. I mean, this, this was the understanding of not just the founding fathers,
00:34:57.260
but of statesmen from time immemorial. And I think one thing that we've made a mistake in,
00:35:02.940
in recent decades is we have put the cart before the horse. That phrase blessings of liberty here,
00:35:07.620
I think is pretty important. Liberty is wonderful. True liberty, especially as wonderful and individual
00:35:13.480
liberty and the liberty of localities is all wonderful, but it's an instrument. It's not an
00:35:18.980
end unto itself. It is an instrument towards something. When the, when the framers of the
00:35:23.080
constitution tell us that they are trying to give us the blessings of liberty, they are acknowledging
00:35:28.460
something that, that we all used to know, which is that our liberty is not just so that we can sit
00:35:33.880
at home and say, by golly, I'm free, but it's so that we can have a good country so that we ourselves
00:35:38.100
can flourish, our families can flourish, our communities can flourish, and ultimately our nation can flourish.
00:35:42.920
It's, it's deeply, deeply conservative. And the denial of the common good or of the good or this
00:35:50.340
hyper-focus on emancipation and liberation or whatever, that really historically comes from
00:35:55.720
the left much more than it comes from the right or from conservatives. This, this is almost part two,
00:36:00.820
I think, of the great conversation that we had at Catholic university that, that spoke to the
00:36:06.960
definition of liberty and, um, how that is inherently, I guess you, you posited that it,
00:36:12.220
it includes the common good. Um, it was a great debate. Okay. So one more question that we have
00:36:19.340
here is a very good question, very pertinent to the time that we are in right now. And this comes
00:36:25.620
also from Verdict Plus from the username Cracklin. He says, should government leaders be making decisions
00:36:31.300
about mandates that they or their family will heavily profit from. Is that a legal or ethical
00:36:36.520
conflict of interest? Certainly it would be. If, if a government official stands to reap a huge sum
00:36:44.040
of money because of some policy that he's foisting onto the public, that would be a major conflict of
00:36:50.360
interest. And it relates to another problem we have in Washington DC, which is people, legislators in
00:36:56.620
Washington DC, forcing mandates on their constituents that they do not abide by themselves. And as Senator
00:37:02.740
Cruz has alluded to this a number of times with the, some of his Democrat colleagues over there
00:37:07.780
and, and, and pro mask and pro mandate, uh, Democrats throughout our politics who demand one thing of
00:37:16.440
all of us. And then when you catch them at a party or catch them at a restaurant or catch them out on the
00:37:21.100
street or, or even when they think the cameras are off, uh, they, they will not be following that
00:37:25.500
themselves. And so I think there needs to be a lot of accountability. A lot of the debate that we've
00:37:30.160
had here on the lockdown mandates and, and the rest of it have focused on ideology, philosophy,
00:37:38.280
the science, and all of these ideas. But there is just a basic, basic level of corruption that you've
00:37:43.580
got to watch out for too. You do not want your politicians of any party being crooked, corrupt, and,
00:37:49.240
and, uh, uh, abusing the public trust for their own private gain. And so it's something we
00:37:54.900
absolutely need to watch out for, especially during this massive power grab of the, the last
00:38:00.340
592 some odd days of 15 days to slow the spread. Right. And I think maybe the last 20 months since
00:38:07.280
the beginning of COVID more Americans than ever before have understood, have firsthand tangible
00:38:12.660
knowledge of what it means when government officials are corrupt. All right. This question
00:38:16.020
is just for the Senator. Um, Andrew John asks after the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races,
00:38:22.880
just how tense is the air among Senate Democrats from your perspective?
00:38:27.880
You know, it's interesting. They ought to be freaking out. I think it varies. Um,
00:38:34.460
the hard left, their response to the elections is doubling down. Uh, their response, whether it's
00:38:41.640
Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or AOC, they say the reason they lost Virginia is they weren't
00:38:47.800
radical enough. They needed to be even more extreme. They needed to ram through Bernie Sanders'
00:38:52.240
socialist budget. Um, they needed to be more, spend more money, be more radical, be more crazy.
0.96
00:38:58.220
That's that, that that's why they didn't win. I've got to think there's some Democrats that realize
00:39:02.860
that's crazy talk. Uh, but if they do, they're not saying it. I will say this morning in the Senate
00:39:08.420
Foreign Relations Committee, um, I went round and round with, uh, Bob Menendez from New Jersey and
00:39:14.680
Tim Kaine from Virginia. And we were fighting, uh, on the State Department and foreign policy. And in
00:39:21.420
particular, the Biden administration is withholding $130 million of military aid to Egypt in order to try
00:39:30.360
to force Egypt to release, uh, 16 prisoners who are currently incarcerated. Um, and, and, and they
00:39:38.680
won't publicly identify who those 16 prisoners are. And so I'm trying to force the administration
00:39:44.120
to name the 16 prisoners to make it public. And I've asked them, uh, are they affiliated with the
00:39:49.740
Muslim Brotherhood? Are they terrorists? Are they anti-Semites? Are they, are they, uh, anti-American?
00:39:55.360
What's their history? And the Biden administration doesn't want to, because I think they can't defend,
00:40:00.560
uh, the radicals that they're trying to get released. And, and so we were going back and
00:40:05.640
forth and, and at the hearing, uh, you know, Tim Kaine made a reference to accountability. And I,
00:40:10.600
I laughed and said, you know, Senator from Virginia referenced accountability while I was in his state
00:40:15.740
last night. And, and we had some accountability because the voters of Virginia elected a Republican
00:40:20.840
governor. And I would note the chairman of the committee, uh, Senator Menendez,
00:40:24.440
his state right now is basically tied in the gubernatorial race. And they've, they've since
00:40:29.300
narrowly called it for the Democrat. Um, but that's some real accountability. It's accountability
00:40:34.840
for the extreme policies of this administration. And, uh, at least in that hearing, boy, they did not
00:40:41.580
like it. You could see the fury and rage and, and there's nothing Democrats like less than when the
00:40:48.960
voters hold them accountable. And, and, uh, I will be shocked if there are not some moderate Democrats
00:40:54.360
right now behind closed doors, just freaking out, but, but at least publicly, they're not expressing
00:41:01.380
it all that much. Well, I think we've all seen the video of Kamala Harris, vice president Harris,
00:41:06.520
uh, while she was on the campaign trail for Terry McAuliffe saying that the state of Virginia,
00:41:11.780
this gubernatorial race was going to be a bellwether, not just for 2022, but for 2024.
00:41:16.500
My question to you is, do you believe that this is accurate? Is the victory for Republicans
00:41:21.160
in Virginia, a bellwether of what's to come? Very much so. Um, I, I think that's why Virginia
00:41:26.860
matters so much. When I was barnstorming the state of Virginia, when I was campaigning with
00:41:31.000
Glenn Youngkin, that's something I said, uh, at, at every rally we did, I said, listen, Virginia
00:41:36.820
is a bellwether. And I pointed out the last time we had something like this was, was 2009,
00:41:43.780
Barack Obama became president. Uh, he, he was a radical leftist. He ran through Obamacare.
00:41:49.720
He ran through Dodd-Frank. Um, and, and, and it was, he went far too left. And the very next
00:41:57.560
election that occurred was 2000, uh, was, was, was 2010. And it was the, uh, Virginia gubernatorial,
00:42:04.220
or it was 2009, the Virginia gubernatorial election. It's the off cycle year and, uh, and
00:42:10.980
New Jersey. And in that year, Bob McDonnell won a Republican in Virginia and, and Chris Christie
00:42:17.140
won a Republican in New Jersey. Republicans won both of those elections and it presaged
00:42:22.440
the 2010 Republican title wave, uh, that was coming. And, and, and, and it really set that
00:42:30.200
up. I, I, I think last night was similar to the victory in Virginia shows 2022 is going
00:42:36.520
to be a very, very good election. And if Democrats keep doubling down on radical leftist policies,
00:42:42.340
I think it also presages 2024, which I believe is going to be a very, very good election again.
00:42:50.880
You know, it was a great relief last night when, when the Republicans won this election
00:42:56.300
and, and did very well elsewhere outside of Virginia as well, because I think so many
00:43:01.000
of us were so depressed. We thought the system is just rigged and there are going to be ballot
00:43:06.400
drops at three o'clock in the morning. A water pipe is going to burst and we're just not going
00:43:10.080
to win any elections again. And, and this has this reinforcing effect because if you think
00:43:15.600
that it's not possible for you to win elections, then you're less likely to turn out, you're
00:43:19.120
less likely to register, you're, you're less likely to do those things. And so it'll become
00:43:22.840
a self-fulfilling prophecy. So I, I do think it, it reminded us the Republic's not dead yet.
00:43:28.700
There is still a chance Republicans can still win. It's really, I totally agree. I don't think
00:43:34.300
this bodes well for Democrats in 2022 or 2024 either. Now we've got, we've got two things
00:43:41.240
ahead of us. One, we've got to make sure the Republicans we just elected actually do something
00:43:45.060
and have a record of accomplishment. And as Senator Cruz knows well, sometimes his squishier
00:43:51.960
colleagues out there are not, not so good at that. And it's really the stalwarts who, who
00:43:56.520
hold firm. So we got to do that. We got to keep up the focus. We've got to keep up the
00:43:59.900
excitement. And I think this is so strange for, for conservatives. We actually might have
00:44:06.220
a whole lot to look forward to in the coming elections. Liz, it is so wonderful for you to
00:44:11.620
join us, for you to join us obviously on the tour in person and digitally as well. Now we've
00:44:16.840
got to leave it there, but before we go, since we so enjoyed being on the road for a verdict
00:44:21.800
live and seeing all of you all around the country, we're doing it again. We are partnering
00:44:26.180
with YAF again next semester for the verdict live spring tour. If you want us to come to
00:44:32.980
your school, then apply at yaf.org slash verdict. You can submit an application there, whether
00:44:40.700
you are at some nice, wonderful conservative Christian school, or maybe you're among the
00:44:44.880
purple hairs at UC Berkeley, wherever you are applied today. We look forward to seeing
00:44:49.460
you next time. We look forward to seeing you in person, but until then I'm Michael Knowles.