Verdict with Ted Cruz - The Wuhan Coverup

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.560 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.260 We have some shocking news about the origins of the coronavirus,

00:00:08.080 all while 22 million Americans are thrown out of work.

00:00:12.620 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:20.660 Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:22.800 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:00:23.980 Senator, just in our prep call,

00:00:26.280 I feel like there's so much information

00:00:27.840 that there is no way we're going to be able to get to everything.

00:00:31.100 The topic on everybody's mind is restarting the economy

00:00:34.260 from Michigan to North Carolina, all around the country.

00:00:37.720 The president's talked about it.

00:00:38.980 Even the liberal governors have talked about it.

00:00:41.100 I know that you are on the Restart the Economy task force.

00:00:44.380 I know you spoke to the president yesterday.

00:00:46.720 What did you talk about and what is the plan?

00:00:50.100 Look, we got to get Americans back to work. 0.98

00:00:53.760 Americans are ready to go back to work. 0.98

00:00:55.320 Texans are ready to get back to work.

00:00:57.020 Yesterday, I spent over an hour on the phone with the president

00:01:00.180 as part of the Restarting the Economy task force,

00:01:03.780 talking about two things, really, that I emphasize to the president.

00:01:06.760 Number one, testing.

00:01:07.840 We need to continue to lean in and do even more on testing.

00:01:11.120 The Abbott Labs quick test.

00:01:13.400 You know, when I went up to meet with the president a couple of weeks ago

00:01:16.440 and the energy CEOs on energy,

00:01:19.740 they required, actually, that was the first day they required

00:01:22.640 everyone going in to meet with the president

00:01:24.660 and had to be tested for coronavirus.

00:01:27.080 And I got, they had just gotten one of those Abbott quick test situations.

00:01:35.040 You know, and it's interesting that the,

00:01:36.780 I know a number of people had been tested on the old test.

00:01:39.220 And the old test, they'd stick it up your nose

00:01:40.880 and like way, way, way up your nose.

00:01:43.100 They said, I mean, it was like going to the back of your brain.

00:01:45.540 It really hurt and was unpleasant.

00:01:47.320 It did not sound pleasant.

00:01:49.160 No.

00:01:50.040 Thankfully, with the Abbott thing, which is what they had just gotten,

00:01:53.160 just put a little swab in each nostril, ran it through a machine,

00:01:56.040 and 10 minutes later, you get a result.

00:01:57.440 So you don't have to wait four, five, six days.

00:02:00.880 They're producing about 50,000 of those a day.

00:02:03.580 I've spoken this week with Texas hospitals, Texas communities.

00:02:06.800 We're starting to get the Abbott Lab quick labs.

00:02:09.400 We need to get even more and more of them.

00:02:11.100 And we need to get even more of the antibody test.

00:02:15.240 One of the things the vice president said in the call yesterday

00:02:18.320 with the task force is by the end of the month,

00:02:21.080 they're expecting to be producing 20 million antibody tests a month.

00:02:25.220 So that'll start getting out in real numbers.

00:02:28.020 And so what I emphasized to the president was two things.

00:02:30.700 Lean in even harder on testing, getting it out more widely available.

00:02:34.140 But also, we have got to get people back to work.

00:02:38.340 It's got to vary geographically.

00:02:39.820 Obviously, New York City has been hammered.

00:02:42.700 It's been horrific.

00:02:43.640 It's been heartbreaking what's happened in New York.

00:02:46.140 No one in their right mind would suggest New Yorkers should go back to work tomorrow.

00:02:50.000 Right.

00:02:50.420 But for much of the rest of the country, the virus numbers are not nearly as bad.

00:02:55.520 We have flattened the curve.

00:02:56.800 We've seen the numbers moving in the right direction.

00:02:59.580 And we need to segment the population.

00:03:02.580 For those who are really vulnerable, the very elderly,

00:03:05.480 those with serious health issues, they ought to remain quarantined.

00:03:09.940 They ought to remain protected because those are the communities that are really vulnerable

00:03:13.600 to this virus.

00:03:15.080 But for everyone else, for young, healthy people, we need to get back to work using PPE where

00:03:20.440 appropriate, using masks, using gloves, practicing social distancing.

00:03:25.180 So, for example, restaurants, they may need to reconfigure their dining rooms

00:03:29.420 to spread the tables out a bit so that you can socially distance between tables.

00:03:33.740 But we're imposing massive harms on the economy.

00:03:37.720 22 million people out of work.

00:03:39.540 Millions of small businesses on the verge of bankruptcy.

00:03:43.380 And, Michael, this is something I emphasized to the president yesterday.

00:03:46.900 If we keep on this path, there is a real public health consequence

00:03:51.460 to killing the economy.

00:03:54.460 We're going to see mental health issues.

00:03:56.820 We're going to see depression.

00:03:58.120 We're going to see increased rates of suicide.

00:04:00.060 We're going to see increased rates of substance abuse and alcohol abuse.

00:04:04.140 And lives will be lost.

00:04:06.440 And we've got to protect lives.

00:04:08.120 The objective should be protect as many lives as possible and on both sides of the ledger.

00:04:13.340 So be smart.

00:04:14.480 Follow medical science and stop the pandemic.

00:04:16.760 But also don't kill the economy and destroy people's livelihoods

00:04:21.680 and cause suffering and death on the economic side either.

00:04:26.080 Well, we've already seen some of the consequences of this.

00:04:29.060 You know, for some reason, one of the responses to coronavirus in various states

00:04:33.200 was to let criminals out of jail.

00:04:35.080 I guess it was so that the virus wouldn't spread in the jails.

00:04:38.100 Guess what happens?

00:04:38.900 A criminal gets released.

00:04:40.120 The very next day, he committed murder and then he's rearrested.

00:04:43.920 And we've seen stories like this around the country.

00:04:45.980 It's very hard to quantify that.

00:04:47.660 You know, we can quantify the deaths from coronavirus.

00:04:50.580 Is there any way we're going to be able to measure the fallout

00:04:53.620 and end even up to the deaths caused by an overreaction?

00:04:59.160 Well, we certainly need to go back and assess that.

00:05:01.660 And you're right, we're seeing that all over the country.

00:05:03.540 In Travis County, Austin, in Texas, they're releasing violent criminals,

00:05:09.100 people charged with violent crimes, with assault, with sex trafficking.

00:05:13.720 And they're releasing them.

00:05:15.260 That's really dangerous.

00:05:16.300 When you release violent criminals, you're going to get more violent crime.

00:05:19.800 That's the wrong response.

00:05:21.620 And, you know, there's a weird backwards approach that violent criminals are being released from jail.

00:05:27.180 But at the same time, they're arresting people for driving in their car.

00:05:31.860 They tried to arrest a guy in Colorado for playing catch with his six-year-old daughter playing softball.

00:05:38.640 Look, Catherine, my nine-year-old, is a softball player.

00:05:41.620 As a softball dad, I'm offended that you'd go after a dad for simply playing catch with his daughter.

00:05:48.720 He wasn't endangering anyone.

00:05:50.160 He wasn't near anyone. 1.00

00:05:51.640 That's just stupid. 1.00

00:05:52.740 And, you know, crises bring out people's character. 1.00

00:05:58.640 And I've got to say there are some authoritarians, almost all it seems on the Democratic side of the ledger,

00:06:06.280 that are just abusing power. 0.92

00:06:08.920 You know, Tennessee and Mississippi, both places you saw people being ticketed for going to church,

00:06:16.340 even though they stayed in their cars and they were parked there listening to the sermon on the radio.

00:06:21.460 Look, in your car, you're not endangering anyone. 1.00

00:06:23.800 That's just stupid. 1.00

00:06:25.080 And to all of these little petty tyrants, stop it. 1.00

00:06:28.420 The governor of New Jersey was doing an interview.

00:06:31.880 He was asked, well, does your order comply with the Bill of Rights and the Constitution?

00:06:36.640 He said, well, that's above my pay grade.

00:06:38.120 That is, that's your job.

00:06:40.020 Well, no, no, it's actually not.

00:06:41.940 And in fact, I couldn't help but jump on Twitter and tweet out the actual oath that every governor of New Jersey takes.

00:06:50.860 And he takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

00:06:55.340 And we need to focus on defending people's liberties, letting them go back to work and earn a living and provide for their family.

00:07:04.360 And we can do all of that while being smart and mitigating the spread of this virus.

00:07:08.460 Of course.

00:07:09.000 And I've noticed this not even just from conservatives, not even just from people in certain cities, but all around the country, even liberal governors.

00:07:16.640 It seems like over the past few days, we've reached a turning point.

00:07:20.780 We're now at the pivotal moment where all of the energy is not just on shutdown, shutdown, stay in place.

00:07:26.080 But now it seems that there's a growing consensus that we have got to restart things, even as certain experts are telling us we can't leave our homes for two years.

00:07:34.700 Do you think do you think that moment has happened?

00:07:36.420 We're now on the other side of this.

00:07:38.100 We're at this turning point.

00:07:40.120 So I do.

00:07:41.160 Now, listen, I think it varies geographically.

00:07:43.420 It needs to be based on the medical science and where the virus is.

00:07:46.960 And if you've got an active outbreak that is spreading, you need to be more aggressive in your efforts to contain it.

00:07:51.920 But where we are containing it, look, I'll give you another example.

00:07:55.440 We have a lot of places that have shut down elective surgeries and elective medical procedures.

00:08:01.800 That's having a devastating impact on hospitals. 0.79

00:08:04.580 I've been talking to physicians, hospital CEOs who are seeing their revenue cut, you know, 80 percent.

00:08:11.620 And they're going broke.

00:08:13.000 They're laying people off and explain to me the reasoning of we're going into a pandemic where we desperately need our hospitals and doctors.

00:08:21.960 So let's slam them and stop them from performing the procedures that generate all their revenue.

00:08:28.200 And by the way, that, too, will have a public health harm.

00:08:30.840 Like even though something's elective, there are a lot of elective medical procedures that are nonetheless beneficial.

00:08:36.920 And if we keep delaying them and delaying them and delaying them, people don't go into the into the doctor for other health issues, a heart issue, what have you.

00:08:45.380 We're going to have more and more deaths the more we freeze and shut down our economy.

00:08:51.100 And we've got to weigh life on both sides of the ledger, maximize the protection of life.

00:08:57.020 Yeah. On the medical science front, I want to turn for a moment from the economy into the virus itself.

00:09:04.400 And I want to take just a slight victory lap because I remember on this very show, Senator, on March 10th, over a month ago,

00:09:12.600 you suggested that there was very likely a link between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and this virus that just so coincidentally happened to occur within a couple miles of that institute.

00:09:25.080 During that time, the mainstream media said this was crazy.

00:09:28.200 This was a conspiracy theory. There was no evidence of it.

00:09:31.020 Now we are getting multiple reports all saying that the virus came from the lab.

00:09:37.100 My question here is not my point is not just to take a victory lap.

00:09:40.900 My question is, did the U.S. government know that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting this sort of dangerous research?

00:09:48.760 And if we did know, why didn't we stop it?

00:09:51.060 Absolutely, yes. The U.S. government knew.

00:09:56.580 And in fact, when you and I brought this up on March 10th over a month ago, you're right.

00:10:01.080 It was treated as tinfoil hat conspiracy theory nutjobbery.

00:10:06.060 Well, it turns out there wasn't just one, there were two labs within miles of where this outbreak occurred that were studying coronaviruses from bats and that there were internal State Department wires before this pandemic raising concerns about the security in those labs and that an accidental virus could escape and cause a global pandemic.

00:10:31.160 But I'll tell you, it's worse than that. And let me give you some breaking news right now, which is the U.S. government was funding the Chinese research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, your taxpayer dollars and my taxpayer dollars.

00:10:48.760 And let me give you specifics that we just got today. Today, in inquiring of the National Institutes of Health, did any of your money go to the Wuhan Institute of Virology?

00:10:59.120 The answer is yes. And here's what here's what they told us in writing today.

00:11:03.760 They said in fiscal year 2019, the funding for the Wuhan Institute for Virology was $76,000 and the $301, $76,301.

00:11:16.640 Now, what did it go to? And I'm repeating what NIH has told me in writing it went to.

00:11:22.060 It was part of an overall $3.7 million funding program that went to six years in sites in China, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Myanmar.

00:11:38.380 And here's what they were studying. These are NIH's words.

00:11:41.200 The project included studying viral diversity in animal parentheses, bats reservoirs, surveying people that live in high-risk communities for evidence of bat coronavirus infection.

00:11:58.300 And conducting laboratory experiments to analyze and predict which newly discovered viruses pose the greatest threats to human health.

00:12:11.200 That's what the NIH funding was going to. And we followed up and said, OK, that's what you described as the project in all of these countries.

00:12:19.540 How about at the Wuhan Institute of Virology? What specifically did U.S. taxpayer dollars go to at the Wuhan Institute of Virology?

00:12:27.340 Here's what the NIH said in writing, said, said the project supported the following activities at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

00:12:36.180 Coronavirus screening and serology of non-human samples, viral pathogenesis, serological testing, host receptor binding, spike S protein sequencing, and in vitro and in viva virus characterization.

00:12:59.020 And it goes on to say that they had not supported the creation of recombinant viruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

00:13:07.080 I just want to make sure.

00:13:08.140 That's what your tax dollars and my tax dollars went to.

00:13:10.680 I want to make sure that I have got this right, because obviously, if there were State Department memos about this, a lot of people knew about this from the very beginning of this pandemic.

00:13:20.140 And what you're saying right now, according to the NIH, is for the past month and a half, two months, even even more, we've been told the Wuhan Institute of Virology had nothing to do with this coronavirus.

00:13:32.440 It's just a coincidence.

00:13:34.740 Get your tinfoil hat off.

00:13:36.360 No way that that happened.

00:13:37.560 Not only do we now hear serious reports that it came from the lab, now we are learning, whoopsie-daisy, I guess we forgot, actually, U.S. taxpayer money was being used to fund that very viral research at the laboratory.

00:13:55.500 Well, and let me make clear, we don't have confirmed evidence that it did come from the lab.

00:14:00.840 We still don't know that.

00:14:01.940 Just reports.

00:14:02.420 What we know is that U.S. taxpayer dollars were going to the Chinese government to fund this research on bat coronaviruses, on how they could be infectious to humans, how they could be transmitted to humans, how they could be dangerous to humans,

00:14:18.660 at the same time that the State Department was raising real concerns about the safety and security protocols at the lab that we're partially funding.

00:14:28.420 And that, I've got to say, that is nuts.

00:14:33.940 And given that they were studying these bat coronaviruses, the Chinese government needs to answer the question right now.

00:14:41.400 Were they studying the novel coronavirus, this virus?

00:14:44.940 Yeah.

00:14:45.120 The virus that has killed over 140,000 people worldwide.

00:14:49.720 Was that a virus that was studied at one or both of the Chinese government labs in Wuhan?

00:14:55.300 They won't answer that question.

00:14:56.560 They need to answer that question.

00:14:58.700 And over 100,000 lives have been lost while they refuse to answer that question.

00:15:03.120 You know, I wish the media would ask them that question.

00:15:05.140 I think if the mainstream media would tune in and watch our show, they might be able to get a little ahead of the curve here on these news stories.

00:15:10.820 I can't expect an honest answer.

00:15:12.820 Well, you know, it is beneficial.

00:15:14.100 You and I have an advantage that the mainstream media doesn't have.

00:15:17.200 Yeah.

00:15:17.800 Which is that our revenue stream doesn't depend on access to the Chinese market.

00:15:23.020 It helps that we don't have a revenue stream.

00:15:24.480 So that makes it even simpler.

00:15:26.600 But everyone, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, they make millions of dollars every single year from access to China.

00:15:38.700 They're terrified.

00:15:39.840 They're terrified of ticking off the Chinese.

00:15:44.200 Look, they edit out.

00:15:45.660 You know, I was reading something recently.

00:15:47.520 You remember the movie Bohemian Rhapsody?

00:15:48.980 Yeah, yeah.

00:15:50.700 Wonderful, wonderful movie about Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen, lead actor, won Best Actor Oscars.

00:15:56.900 Fantastic movie.

00:15:58.020 Do you know in China when they aired that, they edited out the fact that Freddie Mercury was gay?

00:16:03.180 That's just that minor detail.

00:16:04.420 Like, how do you watch a movie about Freddie Mercury and edit out that he's gay? 0.99

00:16:08.340 I mean, it's kind of a pretty central element of the guy's life.

00:16:12.300 And the Chinese censors demanded it be edited out.

00:16:15.720 And you know what our free speech defending Hollywood said?

00:16:19.900 Okay, thank you.

00:16:21.500 Anything you said.

00:16:22.080 They just happily edited it out.

00:16:24.140 And there was an article this week that I tweeted out about Bloomberg Media silencing a story about Chinese corruption.

00:16:34.560 Why?

00:16:34.860 Because they didn't want to piss off the Chinese government.

00:16:37.120 Our media needs to stop being, this week, CNN wrote a story.

00:16:42.680 You actually can't make this up, Michael.

00:16:44.180 They took the Chinese Communist Party's propaganda website that said the Chinese military is doing better than the American military in fighting coronavirus.

00:16:57.240 It's literally the propaganda website from the Communist Party.

00:17:01.160 CNN writes a story.

00:17:02.760 Chinese military doing much better than American military.

00:17:06.280 Thus saith Chinese propaganda.

00:17:08.200 They don't even say propaganda.

00:17:09.280 They treat it as news.

00:17:10.960 These guys are behaving like money-grubbing purveyors of lies.

00:17:17.980 And anyone in the media who gives a damn about integrity, who gives a damn about truth, ought to be investigating these labs and ought to be speaking the truth.

00:17:26.860 I'm sorry.

00:17:27.220 I'm getting pissed off.

00:17:28.340 But the media's complicity in this and China's responsibility in this is massive. 0.54

00:17:34.900 I think really CNN should just give the Chinese Communist Party the login credentials to the website.

00:17:39.420 And they can just write their own stories.

00:17:41.180 You'll be able to cut out all of the middlemen.

00:17:43.760 Obviously, we can't expect honesty.

00:17:45.540 Yeah, I actually think the Chinese would make them a little more balanced. 0.90

00:17:48.320 They'd feel they needed some credibility.

00:17:50.080 They wouldn't just shamelessly reproduce the Chinese website.

00:17:53.920 Right, right.

00:17:54.860 You know, at least sometimes the Chinese Communist Party is competent.

00:17:58.720 You know, we can't expect honesty out of them is the trouble.

00:18:01.760 They've just revised up their death numbers.

00:18:04.140 We know that China was lying about the death numbers from coronavirus. 0.91

00:18:06.820 They've now gotten a little bit more honest.

00:18:09.100 But we obviously still don't have the whole story.

00:18:12.020 Unfortunately, we can expect that from the Chinese Communist Party.

00:18:16.380 Even worse, the World Health Organization, which we should be able to trust, has been parroting that very same propaganda.

00:18:23.580 The president announced just this week that he is going to defund the WHO.

00:18:28.380 What do you make of that decision?

00:18:29.500 I think it makes an awful lot of sense.

00:18:33.320 The WHO sadly operated throughout this coronavirus epidemic as really a parrot, a shill for the Chinese Communist Party. 1.00

00:18:42.020 In January, the WHO sent out a tweet saying,

00:18:45.700 No evidence of human-to-human transmission.

00:18:47.860 And China's doing a lip-skippity-good job. 0.99

00:18:50.500 Lip-skippity may not have been in there, but it was implied. 1.00

00:18:52.660 This is the translation.

00:18:53.220 Look, you remember Baghdad Bob?

00:18:58.760 Yeah, that's right.

00:19:00.000 I don't know how many people do remember him, though.

00:19:02.940 So Baghdad Bob was the press secretary for Saddam Hussein, or Saddam Hussein, as 41 fabulously did as PSYOPs, 0.91

00:19:11.220 who just spread their propaganda, or would repeat their propaganda,

00:19:15.160 We're winning, right, as they were losing.

00:19:17.500 The WHO is like that.

00:19:20.040 There's no human-to-human transmission.

00:19:21.820 I've got to tell you, one of the things we're going to do in the next podcast,

00:19:24.320 we're going to walk through a timeline of what happened in China.

00:19:27.500 And Jim Garrity and National Review did a fabulous timeline that we're going to spend some time walking through carefully.

00:19:33.880 By the way, National Review, not a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chinese Communist Party.

00:19:38.080 So they actually can cover news.

00:19:40.360 Where's the New York Times?

00:19:41.400 Where's the Washington Post?

00:19:42.460 Where are actual people who pride themselves, who, by the way, give each other prizes for journalistic courage,

00:19:50.760 because they stand up and scream, orange man bad.

00:19:54.520 Oh, you're so courageous.

00:19:55.660 You're so courageous.

00:19:56.640 You don't like Trump?

00:19:57.740 I don't like Trump.

00:19:58.640 We all don't like Trump.

00:19:59.780 Yay! 0.99

00:20:00.100 How about show some real courage and stand up to the lying communists who have direct responsibilities for covering up this pandemic

00:20:08.740 and endangering the lives of millions across this planet.

00:20:12.440 That would be journalistic courage, even if it costs your employers a few bucks in market access.

00:20:18.420 You know, Senator, I was sort of thinking that now that you're outside of Washington for a few weeks,

00:20:22.600 you might be able to take some downtime.

00:20:24.240 But unfortunately, now you've got to work to restart the economy.

00:20:28.480 You've got to work to get real information out of China, which is basically an impossible task.

00:20:33.980 There's so much to do.

00:20:35.520 Have you had any downtime whatsoever?

00:20:39.360 You know, I'm having every day I have lunch and dinner with the girls. 1.00

00:20:42.820 Two days ago was Caroline's 12th birthday.

00:20:46.060 So April 14th, she turned 12, which is a bit a little traumatizing.

00:20:51.160 I'm not sure how she got to be 12 so quickly.

00:20:52.780 But we had planned a whole party.

00:20:55.080 We were going to go to a roller rink.

00:20:56.200 All the kids were going to go skating.

00:20:57.900 Well, obviously, you can't go to a roller rink right now.

00:20:59.880 So what do you do with a sixth grader where you have a birthday party and she's like, 0.96

00:21:03.680 all right, Dad, this sucks.

00:21:05.860 So what we ended up doing is we did this thing where we invited all the girls who were coming to drive by the house 0.84

00:21:13.340 and to wave.

00:21:15.380 And like they hung signs out the car windows that are with their parents

00:21:18.520 and they would wave and they yelled happy birthday.

00:21:20.320 And we put up three poster boards and the kids came and all wrote little signs.

00:21:25.540 We put them on our driveway and the kids came and wrote happy birthday.

00:21:28.100 We love you, Caroline.

00:21:29.280 And it was fun.

00:21:29.960 Caroline stood at the front door and waved and was like, hi, and jumped up and down. 1.00

00:21:33.400 So, I mean, it was a nice thing to do to have a birthday celebration.

00:21:38.440 Look, it's in the age of social distancing, but it was still, it was a nice and fun birthday.

00:21:46.380 I hope the kids dropped off the presents, too.

00:21:48.620 You know, I know the economy has taken a big hit, but they better not have taken those presents away from your daughter.

00:21:54.180 They did drop off the presents, including Heidi and I got Caroline an electric scooter, which both girls have been enjoying.

00:22:03.860 By the way, I will confess, although we're a capitalist household, we have a little bit of socialist policies with the girls 0.89

00:22:10.260 in that we told Caroline she has to share the scooter with her younger sister,

00:22:14.460 which she thinks is an outrage because it was her birthday present.

00:22:17.700 But both girls, they ride like crazy on that electric scooter, and it's, they're having fun with it. 1.00

00:22:23.720 Well, I fear that, you know, if we don't get this economy restarted soon, we're all going to be socialists.

00:22:28.200 Obviously, the Democrats in the House are trying to push to extend, you know, the relief coverage to now be $2,000 every single month

00:22:36.820 until we've got full, you know, employment again.

00:22:40.200 A lot of fears coming out of that.

00:22:42.140 So how long do you think, I want to get to mailbag, but just briefly,

00:22:46.120 how long do you think we have before we will have to restart the economy again

00:22:52.500 or else face really dangerous political consequences?

00:22:56.040 Look, we have got to get people back to work.

00:22:58.660 You know, the last two weeks, I've done a tele-tour all around Texas.

00:23:02.180 So I've had video conferences with people in East Texas, people in West Texas,

00:23:07.640 people down in the Rio Grande Valley, people all over the state.

00:23:11.020 It's interesting, city and government, city and county leaders, they're all going broke.

00:23:15.500 Their tax revenue is plummeting.

00:23:17.340 And a number of them are saying, well, could the feds send us more money?

00:23:21.960 And my response, and that, by the way, is what the Democrats keep saying,

00:23:24.920 is let's send more money to state and local governments.

00:23:27.320 I'll tell you what, I keep telling them, you know what?

00:23:29.720 The feds are broke too.

00:23:31.140 You know, we just spent $2.2 trillion.

00:23:33.940 It's not like there's some safe we pulled it out of.

00:23:36.700 We just borrowed it all.

00:23:38.100 We're borrowing it from our kids and grandkids.

00:23:40.040 And by the way, your city and county tax revenues are plummeting.

00:23:43.900 Guess what?

00:23:44.620 Federal tax revenues are plummeting, and they're going to plummet even more

00:23:48.260 because tax revenues are a function of the economy.

00:23:52.160 And right now, government policies are killing the economy.

00:23:55.980 You want your tax revenues to come back?

00:23:58.060 Let the economy come back.

00:23:59.240 Let people go back to work.

00:24:00.560 Let them drive economic growth.

00:24:03.260 And small businesses are chomping at the bit.

00:24:05.440 You know, we've seen in the time of this crisis, hundreds of federal regulations,

00:24:13.060 state regulations, local regulations suspended.

00:24:16.500 Every regulation that was suspended during the crisis should continue suspended during the recovery.

00:24:25.860 It's a great example of, you know, look, for example, in D.C.,

00:24:30.180 when I was up in D.C. when the Senate was in session,

00:24:32.760 you could order Mexican food and get a margarita.

00:24:36.420 That used to be illegal.

00:24:37.520 You weren't allowed to order a margarita. 1.00

00:24:39.100 And suddenly the idiotic law that prevented you from ordering a margarita, 1.00

00:24:42.120 now you could have fajitas and a margarita. 1.00

00:24:44.260 Like, why did we need that stupid rule in the first place? 0.99

00:24:47.900 All the rules against telemedicine. 0.99

00:24:50.200 Like, telemedicine is great.

00:24:51.980 Get a world-class physician to go into rural areas, underserved areas.

00:24:55.600 All of these barriers that hurt small businesses and economic growth,

00:25:01.780 we need to get them out of the way.

00:25:03.180 But all of the politicians that want more tax revenues,

00:25:07.280 I got an easy way for you to get more tax revenues.

00:25:10.760 Stop killing the economy.

00:25:12.880 Let people get back to work.

00:25:15.620 Liberate America.

00:25:16.860 Liberate small businesses.

00:25:18.580 Liberate American workers. 0.81

00:25:19.880 Do it in a way that is smart and keeps us safe.

00:25:22.380 And that's how the economy turns around.

00:25:25.200 And that's how the country turns around.

00:25:26.380 Right.

00:25:26.720 I mean, there's a meme that's been going around the Internet,

00:25:29.220 and it's of somebody at the Federal Reserve churning a machine,

00:25:32.440 and it says, money printer go burr.

00:25:34.320 You know, this idea that you can print money forever.

00:25:36.340 Now, the states, they don't have their own money printers.

00:25:38.780 Federal government, I suppose, does.

00:25:40.340 But the money printer can't go burr forever.

00:25:43.020 Eventually, you're going to have to pay a price.

00:25:46.020 And the Democrats' view, they just think it's sort of magic money tree.

00:25:50.280 Just keep spending.

00:25:51.620 Let's just give away trillions forever and ever and ever.

00:25:54.880 Look, it comes from small businesses and jobs.

00:25:59.020 If you want this to turn around, people want to work.

00:26:02.580 People want to get back to work.

00:26:04.240 They're frustrated.

00:26:06.320 Let them go back to work.

00:26:07.920 Let people drive the miracle of the American economy.

00:26:13.400 That's right.

00:26:13.940 You know, we reacted very seriously, of course.

00:26:16.820 We've been through the first phase of this coronavirus.

00:26:18.420 Now we have to get back to work.

00:26:20.500 Very quickly before we go, we're typically tight on time.

00:26:24.080 But we've got to get to a little bit in the mailbag.

00:26:25.760 From Catherine.

00:26:27.820 Actually, speaking of staying home with your children.

00:26:30.520 From Catherine.

00:26:30.980 Will I be able to enjoy my empty nest this fall?

00:26:34.320 Will my freshman daughter be able to go off to college?

00:26:37.680 I have no idea.

00:26:41.640 I hope so.

00:26:42.360 Right now, colleges and universities, pretty much all of them, or most of them, have said

00:26:47.340 that they're out through this semester.

00:26:49.460 So we'll get through the summer.

00:26:51.980 I think most colleges are planning to be back in the fall.

00:26:55.540 The big question is, A, do we defeat this virus?

00:26:58.840 And it may be, we see a lot of viruses that are seasonal, that as things get hot, that may

00:27:03.580 help kill it off.

00:27:04.520 But if it is seasonal, that raises the real prospect that we'll see a resurgence in the

00:27:09.380 fall.

00:27:10.260 That come September, October, we may see the numbers go back up again.

00:27:14.460 If there's a big resurgence, I think there becomes a likelihood that colleges and universities

00:27:19.560 shut down again.

00:27:20.360 I hope not.

00:27:21.160 I mean, I feel really bad for these college kids that are not able to be at school.

00:27:26.060 And they're going through something that I hope is limited in time and isolated.

00:27:31.600 But it's going to depend on the medical facts and what happens.

00:27:34.400 Right.

00:27:34.720 And as Dr. Fauci just said, the viruses don't just go away.

00:27:38.760 You know, we can start to deal with them.

00:27:41.020 We can develop drugs.

00:27:42.420 There are new drugs on the horizon that show promise.

00:27:44.560 We can develop vaccines.

00:27:45.860 But they don't just disappear forever.

00:27:47.640 And so we're going to be dealing with the fallout for this for years to come.

00:27:51.740 And I guess next time we will get into exactly the timeline here, because if we want to figure

00:27:56.280 out how to deal with this and prevent it in the future, we've got to find out how it

00:28:00.400 all began.

00:28:01.180 And there's been a lot of misinformation and disinformation around on that.

00:28:05.880 I did retweet retweet someone who had a custom face mask that had the don't tread on me flag,

00:28:11.820 except it said, don't sneeze on me.

00:28:15.720 Those are, you know, I guess that's really what I got a good chuckle from that.

00:28:18.940 We've got a balance in our response here.

00:28:21.100 The don't tread on me and the don't sneeze on me.

00:28:23.200 We will get into so much more of that next time.

00:28:25.060 And by the way, did you see the video in Philadelphia of this guy being dragged off the bus by several

00:28:31.940 officers because he wasn't wearing a mask and they're like physically manhandling him?

00:28:36.820 And I sent a tweet.

00:28:37.840 I said, well, wouldn't it have been easier just to give him a mask? 1.00

00:28:40.760 Like at some point, just don't be stupid. 1.00

00:28:43.140 Don't behave like jackbooted thugs. 1.00

00:28:45.260 Right. 0.86

00:28:45.440 And it's kind of funny.

00:28:46.960 All these Twitter lefties are going, I agree with Cruz.

00:28:51.160 It's like, well, good.

00:28:53.020 Then stop elected politicians from behaving like petty tyrants.

00:28:58.140 That's right.

00:28:58.740 You've seen these overreaches everywhere.

00:29:00.920 I mean, it's not just in Philly.

00:29:02.220 It's all over the country.

00:29:03.720 People seem to enjoy flexing their muscles in these power grabs.

00:29:08.380 And, you know, that that's gone on long enough.

00:29:10.700 Now it would appear that it's time to turn it around, retake our economy, retake our society

00:29:16.960 and retake our rights.

00:29:19.320 Senator, all of that for next time.

00:29:21.880 In the meantime, we have run out of time on this episode.

00:29:25.140 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:29:26.420 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:29:27.960 This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs Freedom and Security

00:29:41.140 PAC, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations

00:29:46.300 and candidates across the country.

00:29:48.680 In 2022, Jobs Freedom and Security PAC plans to donate to conservative candidates running

00:29:54.000 for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.

00:29:57.960 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:30:00.500 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - April 17, 2020

The Wuhan Coverup

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