Verdict with Ted Cruz - Trey's Law — Protecting the Victims of Child Sex Abuse

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

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00:00:20.840 Welcome.

00:00:21.660 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:24.920 And Senator, you're in Washington, D.C.

00:00:26.920 with a very special guest on a very important piece of legislation.

00:00:31.420 This is one of those shows that there is an extremely important piece of legislation

00:00:36.180 that you are working on in Washington, D.C.,

00:00:39.140 and there are countless people that listen to the show that may know victims.

00:00:43.240 And this is a show I hope you will hit pause,

00:00:46.140 you will share it on social media,

00:00:47.600 because it is an important law that we're talking about right now.

00:00:51.180 Well, that's exactly right, and this is a special show

00:00:54.940 because we're talking today about child sexual abuse and it is an epidemic across this country.

00:01:01.440 So many children are the victims of sexual abuse and we're going to talk about legislation that I

00:01:06.820 introduced today in the Senate to empower the victims of sexual abuse and a very special guest

00:01:14.960 that is joining us today and you're going to get a chance to hear about her journey and tragically

00:01:23.100 her brother's journey as as a victim of sexual abuse i gotta ask you a question can you buy real

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00:02:40.000 Senator, I want to be clear for everybody that's going to hear this show.

00:02:43.700 It's on YouTube.

00:02:45.480 It's on Facebook.

00:02:46.280 i hope you'll share it and just take the time because there are people that are out there that

00:02:51.220 need to hear this show that are victims and this is one of those important shows where you don't

00:02:56.300 know whose life you're going to be able to help and affect in a positive way whose life literally

00:03:00.180 um could be saved because of this show and the information that they're going to hear

00:03:06.480 and this legislation center that you introduced today in washington dc is incredible and and your

00:03:12.440 guest who's with UNDC as well. It's amazing the story that she is telling, but also just how

00:03:20.620 powerful it is to stand up for so many others that need help. Well, that's right. This week,

00:03:26.340 I introduced legislation in the Senate called Trey's Law, and it is designed to protect kids,

00:03:32.000 kids who tragically are the victims of sexual assault. And Trey's Law prohibits

00:03:39.000 non-disclosure agreements binding children who have been victims of sexual assault

00:03:44.180 and and this is a a problem we are seeing nationwide uh a a staggering statistic

00:03:52.040 a child in america is sexually abused every nine minutes yeah one in four girls in america 0.93

00:04:00.780 will be sexually abused before she turns 18.

00:04:05.880 One in six boys in America

00:04:07.800 will be sexually abused before he turns 18.

00:04:12.020 And we have been seeing over and over again 0.62

00:04:16.740 when their violators are held accountable,

00:04:21.500 when they're prosecuted,

00:04:23.300 and when there is civil litigation,

00:04:25.840 that it is becoming routine for the violators

00:04:29.560 to insist upon a nondisclosure agreement,

00:04:31.900 a nondisclosure agreement that binds the children

00:04:35.640 and forces them to be silent.

00:04:38.820 And Trey's law is named for a Texan, Trey Carlock,

00:04:42.960 who horrifically was abused at a summer camp in Missouri,

00:04:48.900 abused over a number of years,

00:04:51.760 and his abuser was prosecuted.

00:04:54.200 His abuser is serving three consecutive life terms in prison.

00:04:58.040 And in the course of civil litigation, Trey was convinced to sign a nondisclosure agreement.

00:05:08.540 And that secret haunted him.

00:05:14.120 So much so that at 28 years old, he took his own life.

00:05:18.700 and that is a tragedy in his life and his family's life but it's a tragedy nationally

00:05:28.360 and and we have a guest on the podcast tonight who's who's another texan elizabeth phillips

00:05:35.000 elizabeth is trey's sister and she has taken the the grief and agony of losing her brother

00:05:44.420 and of knowing what happened to him losing her brother it's one thing to lose a sibling

00:05:50.040 in a car accident um my sister died of a drug overdose it is always difficult to lose

00:05:59.660 a family member that you love but it is particularly

00:06:04.920 gut-wrenching yeah to lose a family member who you know was the victim of abuse

00:06:14.580 and was haunted by that and i will tell you elizabeth she lives in dallas and and she has

00:06:21.740 devoted thousands of hours to fighting for trey's law trey's law has been adopted a number of states

00:06:28.760 including texas texas has adopted trey's law and at the state level but today with with with a group

00:06:37.360 of of seven bipartisan co-sponsors uh i've introduced at the federal level and we're

00:06:44.600 gonna get passed at the federal level but i want to start elizabeth welcome to verdict we're glad

00:06:48.200 to have you thank you so much for not just the introduction of trey's law to u.s congress this

00:06:54.100 morning, but for offering this platform as well. And I agree. I hope it goes viral. Every parent

00:07:00.000 needs to understand how the system works, because I think there are a lot of assumptions that if

00:07:05.000 your child is sexually abused, whether it be at a summer camp, which was Trey's story, or a school

00:07:10.060 or a faith-based setting or sports setting, they're going to come forward immediately. But there's

00:07:15.020 something called delayed disclosure. Children that are victimized in this way don't come forward

00:07:19.460 oftentimes for decades, if ever at all.

00:07:23.080 And we need to be sure that we are protecting children

00:07:26.260 and their voices so that when they do come forward,

00:07:28.580 survivors are heard, believed,

00:07:31.320 and that we can respond with action

00:07:33.360 to hold the bad actors accountable.

00:07:35.380 So thank you for the conversation.

00:07:37.020 Well, thank you for being here.

00:07:38.720 Let me ask you, could you just tell your brother's story

00:07:41.240 to just share with our listeners and viewers,

00:07:45.200 tell folks who your brother was and what happened to him?

00:07:48.420 yeah and thank you for going into some of that in your introduction because it's honestly the

00:07:52.940 hardest part for me to talk about i can go over stats and data about child sexual abuse and

00:07:58.500 ways to prevent it all day long but it's really hard for me to talk about trey and i didn't know

00:08:05.480 that you also lost a sibling so um i'm sorry for your loss and i'm sorry we can relate on that

00:08:11.040 Yeah, that's not a club anyone wants to be a member of.

00:08:14.480 Exactly.

00:08:15.860 But I think also we understand that you can grieve it and move on,

00:08:24.120 or you can grieve it and turn that pain into purpose.

00:08:28.100 And I think what we saw at the press conference this morning

00:08:30.240 was pain turned into power

00:08:31.620 when there was a 19-year-old young woman who came forward

00:08:34.920 and named her abuser for the first time

00:08:36.420 because her voice was protected under trade law

00:08:38.460 since that was passed and put into effect in Missouri last August.

00:08:42.320 And so that's what we're wanting to expand nationally.

00:08:45.320 This journey for me began because my brother died by suicide when he was 28,

00:08:49.640 not only due to the child sexual abuse

00:08:53.340 and what we now believe to be trafficking

00:08:55.140 at the Hand of Canna Cut Camps based in southwest Missouri.

00:08:58.180 They had international mission trips.

00:08:59.700 They were moving kids across state lines.

00:09:01.820 It was never fully investigated.

00:09:04.140 The criminal case landed in Taney County, Missouri,

00:09:06.880 in the sheriff's department.

00:09:08.460 And at the time of my brother's perpetrator sentencing, there were 57 known victims.

00:09:14.700 But we now have had many victims come forward since I started a website called factsaboutcanacuck.com with other survivor families to get the facts out there to parents and warn the public that this is much more widespread than what had been reported upon massive cover up, which is not unusual in a lot of these situations because of NDAs.

00:09:35.400 So that's what we're addressing with Trey's law that's now been introduced to Congress.

00:09:39.240 Very bipartisan.

00:09:41.180 You said, you know, no one you've brought this to has said no to it.

00:09:45.000 I mean, it's something everyone should get behind and hopefully can get behind.

00:09:49.060 You know, in Trey's story, he was groomed and then abused by a camp director.

00:09:54.140 So 7 to 17, this was going on.

00:09:56.940 So he was 7 when he started going to the camp?

00:09:58.880 When he started going to the camp.

00:10:00.380 And that's when the grooming began.

00:10:02.560 and then the sexual abuse began

00:10:05.980 and then his perpetrator who, like you said,

00:10:09.440 is now in prison for three life terms,

00:10:11.420 confessed to his crimes and was sentenced in 2010.

00:10:15.720 But under the civil statute of limitations in Texas,

00:10:18.040 Trey was forced to file his civil lawsuit by the age of 23.

00:10:21.200 And just imagine, you know, go back to when you were 23.

00:10:24.240 Were you ready to go up against a system

00:10:27.120 and a quote-unquote ministry like Kanakuk

00:10:30.680 that has between $35 and $45 million in annual revenue.

00:10:34.500 I mean, at 23, you're still a kid.

00:10:36.300 We call them college kids, right?

00:10:37.440 You're just trying to get through college and start a job, build a life.

00:10:41.080 And if someone puts a settlement agreement in front of you

00:10:43.900 and says, sign on the dotted line, and this can all go away,

00:10:47.600 and you can have restitution and some money for your healing,

00:10:53.660 for therapy, or for lost income, you're probably going to do it.

00:10:59.840 And for closure.

00:11:00.680 And for healing and closure. Thank you.

00:11:03.640 I say that because I have friends that worked at CannaCuck during the time period you're talking about.

00:11:08.800 I also know people that were abused at CannaCuck.

00:11:13.660 And this story, when I saw we were doing it, it's I've lost friends who've committed suicide because of sexual abuse.

00:11:19.960 But CannaCuck is a place where I went to Ole Miss.

00:11:23.140 A lot of people I grew up with from Memphis, from Houston, they went to CannaCuck.

00:11:27.600 and the cover-up word that you use there is i think one of the most sad parts about all this

00:11:34.220 is there was so many of these ndas center i i didn't realize it like how much this was going

00:11:39.800 to just bring up in me but when you know people that were abused there and you've sat with them

00:11:45.340 and you hear how the system did not protect them but i actually think made them a victim a second

00:11:50.380 time over by the way that they use these ndas it is infuriating because you realize that like

00:11:56.620 everything in this situation worked against him for years yeah and that's what came in the texas

00:12:02.920 hearings i was calling this institutional abuse on top of child sexual abuse so you're exactly

00:12:09.180 right and yes memphis is a huge market for uh canicuck and kids across america which is another

00:12:15.960 ministry and brant outside of branson that joe white still runs to this day there's been no

00:12:21.420 change in leadership. No one's been held accountable because of these crimes. And

00:12:25.640 so you were asking about my story and how we got to this point. And

00:12:29.360 really, it was because I learned more about my brother's trauma and his death than I knew in

00:12:35.780 his life because of the NDA. So until Trey's law went into effect in Texas, September of 2025,

00:12:42.360 I never saw what he signed. He wouldn't talk about it. He was so terrified, even in therapeutic

00:12:47.540 settings, even trying to get sober in AA, for example. He was worried Kanakuk would come after

00:12:54.180 him if he mentioned all of the people involved that knew about what Pete was doing and didn't

00:12:59.600 report the crimes to the authorities or disciplined him internally. And that allowed this perpetrator

00:13:07.380 to go on and abuse what we now know as hundreds of more victims. And that's one perpetrator alone.

00:13:13.740 So victims of Kanakuk have asked for three things, admit to known failures, release NDAs, and commission an independent investigation.

00:13:22.140 Since, as I mentioned, the Taney County Sheriff's Department missed a few spots, we don't need to rabbit hole on that right now.

00:13:29.160 But that's the three asks of survivors, very common sense steps they could take.

00:13:33.220 So we've done Kanakuk's job for them, and we've found out that we now know of over 90 perpetrators with allegations against them,

00:13:40.840 affiliated with CannaCuck and its associated ministries and programs across the country and

00:13:45.240 world. 90. Over 90. So 90, how many have been held accountable? I've got to know that number

00:13:53.500 because as I was told about this several months ago, they said that not only are there still

00:13:59.140 people in the 90, as you're describing that are affiliated, there are some that are still in

00:14:03.860 major leadership roles. And around children. Yes. So we're calling it out again, doing

00:14:10.280 Kanakuk's job for them. I think as parents, we have an expectation that if a child molester or

00:14:16.640 sex offender is caught at an institution where your child was attending or enrolled,

00:14:22.340 that you will be informed if they are ever charged with anything criminal. That is not

00:14:28.540 what Kanakuk has done. So we've done that job for them. So factsaboutkanakuk.com, we have a known

00:14:33.820 abusers page where we name 13 and might even be more now uh that have convictions that are

00:14:41.500 yeah they have criminal indictments convictions or formal allegations in the media collaborated

00:14:47.100 by multiple victims and then the rest of the perpetrators in our database are just still out

00:14:54.180 there living their lives and a lot of them um have never been held accountable we know who they are

00:15:01.040 We've turned that database over to the authorities, and we are hoping that the FBI or some sort of law enforcement agency takes action.

00:15:09.240 But the normal thing to do when you're not covering up for pedophiles as an institution using NDAs and continuing to promote pedophiles within your organization or moving them around to associated ministries, which is another thing Kanakuk has done.

00:15:24.160 They have a year-round ministry called K-Life, similar to Young Life, which I think is better known.

00:15:28.380 they will move someone that has allegations at the camp to a chapter of k-life where they go on

00:15:34.120 to continue harming children so our known abusers page is supposed to be a public facing database

00:15:39.600 for when we know uh cana cuck affiliate has been convicted indicted or formally alleged of child

00:15:47.200 sexual abuse and the rest of it uh will come to light over time as more and more victims come

00:15:51.600 forward the list continues to grow and with exposure like this we expect even more america

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00:17:33.400 So one of the things you described, we did a press conference today announcing Trey's law

00:17:38.440 in the Senate. And you described the pressure that was on your brother, not just from the camp,

00:17:45.120 but also from his own lawyer. Share that story a little bit.

00:17:50.680 Yeah. So, you know, one of the questions as we were going state by state, you know,

00:17:54.080 starting in Texas, because that's my home state and that's where Trey grew up. We spent a few

00:17:59.200 years also in Atlanta, Georgia. Georgia's introduced Trey's Law along with eight other

00:18:03.800 jurisdictions, but then Missouri passed Trey's law last August. And, um, you know, my brother

00:18:10.680 was abused in so many jurisdictions that there were different options for the venue in his civil

00:18:16.700 case. He sued in Texas, as I mentioned, that ended with a settlement agreement that involved a

00:18:22.820 restrictive NDA. And he was an adult when he sued for the child sexual abuse that he suffered,

00:18:27.620 but he hadn't fully realized. And he was afraid even to talk to his therapist.

00:18:30.880 Exactly. And that therapist, after his death, I started doing my own investigation to understand what just happened to my brother. And that therapist said that he had made a comment just before he died that they would always control him and he would never be free.

00:18:48.980 and that's what it feels like

00:18:51.640 living under an NDA

00:18:52.940 and in America where we stand on freedom

00:18:55.600 and freedom of speech

00:18:57.500 and anyone who studied

00:18:59.500 constitutional law

00:19:00.700 that is a right

00:19:03.740 as an American citizen to have freedom

00:19:05.680 of speech and we protect it with veracity

00:19:07.800 but in this case

00:19:09.940 there's been a misuse of NDAs

00:19:11.480 which originally were created

00:19:13.700 to protect intellectual property

00:19:16.080 like the Coca-Cola recipe

00:19:18.100 or trade secrets and they've since been misused to silence victims of childhood sexual abuse

00:19:27.160 trafficking even adult sexual assault survivors that was addressed in the speak out act that

00:19:32.580 passed in 2022 with the co-sponsor of trades law senator jillbrand but kids are being put under

00:19:39.400 these ndas and kids they can't consent to contracts or clauses like this and so oftentimes it's a

00:19:46.120 guardian or a parent who is signing this nda on behalf of their child the child grows up becomes

00:19:52.440 a young man or woman realizes what their parents signed and that they can't own their own story

00:19:58.040 um and and it's just or even feel like they can't heal because they can't talk about it

00:20:04.240 because they're so afraid talking to one person that was a victim of this they described it to

00:20:09.200 me this way. They said, Canada Cuck basically had enough money to buy silence to protect the brand

00:20:16.340 because they knew if we were told our stories, the brand would die and all the money would stop

00:20:21.320 coming in. That's a simplistic way. But you mentioned their revenue. This was, you got to

00:20:27.460 spend money to save this brand and continue to grow in sports and all the other activities that

00:20:33.620 they do. I mean, is that a fair way of putting it? I think that's, yeah, that's definitely a

00:20:39.180 fair way of putting it and to add the other thing that's a a layer of trauma in this is that their

00:20:45.860 cover-up bought enough time for these victims to be out of statute so they can't now that they know

00:20:50.920 the extent of the cover-up unless under a certain discovery rule which you could speak to as a lawyer

00:20:56.100 senator but uh they can't even have access to the civil courts in the jurisdiction where they were 0.88

00:21:02.420 abused so in missouri the civil statute of limitations to sue an institution that's liable

00:21:07.460 for child sexual abuse or trafficking has been the age of 26 and that's been unchanged since 1939

00:21:13.300 and so we're doing a lot of advocacy work in Missouri to say survivors need more time as I

00:21:20.160 said when you asked the first question there is a lot of research on delayed disclosure

00:21:25.440 my brother was unfortunately forced into disclosure because he was named as a victim during the

00:21:32.060 criminal proceedings. And so he didn't have decades to process what happened to him and

00:21:37.020 then come forward. But victims that weren't named or who came forward closer to the time of

00:21:42.480 Pete Newman's arrest to name one of, again, over 90 perpetrators we're aware of to date.

00:21:48.540 How was he caught? How was his abuse discovered?

00:21:52.960 There are a few theories on that. Kanakuk hasn't really been transparent

00:21:55.860 about what led to his confession. So I would love to know the answer to that question. And

00:22:01.120 that's why an independent investigation or some sort of law enforcement agency stepping in is so

00:22:04.780 necessary in this he confessed allegedly in march 2009 to abusing seven boys and then he wasn't

00:22:14.400 arrested until september 2009 after summer camp season went uninterrupted and then uh upon arrest

00:22:23.040 they started investigating him criminally and then that led to his sentencing in february 2010

00:22:27.940 Here we are in 2026. And because of facts about Kanakuk, which was created by a coalition of survivor families and then recent publicity through USA Today published five articles on this. The Dispatch published it. The New York Times. I just went on the Sean Ryan show. And we're getting more and more disclosures, not just about Pete Newman, but other perpetrators associated with Kanakuk and other leadership who covered this up.

00:22:56.580 and they're calling attorneys who are saying,

00:22:59.460 I'm sorry, you're 15, 30, 45 years too late.

00:23:04.800 So victims don't know they're on the clock

00:23:06.940 when perpetrators know exactly when,

00:23:10.600 and institutions like Kanakuk know exactly

00:23:12.560 when the deadline is to file a civil lawsuit against them.

00:23:15.520 So they bought enough time at this point

00:23:17.320 for the cover-up to have worked.

00:23:19.860 Well, one of the things you talked about

00:23:21.500 at the press conference today

00:23:22.760 is how your brother's lawyer

00:23:26.160 was pressuring him to sign this NDA.

00:23:31.160 And the incentives of the current system,

00:23:33.760 look, an abuser has every incentive in the world

00:23:37.220 to try to cover it up, to try to hide it,

00:23:39.800 to want an NDA, to not have truth and transparency.

00:23:44.400 And so we are seeing NDAs demanded by abusers

00:23:48.820 in exchange for compensation.

00:23:52.100 And the way our legal system works

00:23:54.320 It's typically if a victim has a lawyer, that lawyer will usually be compensated on a contingency basis where they receive a portion of whatever financial recovery there is.

00:24:07.460 So the lawyer has every incentive in the world to try to reach a deal, to try to reach a settlement, to have a financial amount paid, and to discount the harm of silencing their client.

00:24:24.320 And so it's one of the real values of Trey's law is that when this passes, and I didn't say if, I said when, we will get this passed.

00:24:34.860 Thank you.

00:24:35.820 When this passes, that incentive will go away.

00:24:39.780 Look, if you're negotiating a settlement, I used an example earlier today.

00:24:45.920 There aren't settlement agreements that say as a condition of the settlement, you have to deal crack cocaine.

00:24:52.120 because dealing crack cocaine is illegal and so you can't agree in a settlement to do something

00:24:58.040 that is illegal by taking ndas off the table uh for forcing victims of child sex abuse

00:25:05.600 to not be able to disclose what happened to them that incentive for their lawyers to pressure them

00:25:12.480 to do this will go away likewise and and importantly we drafted trey's law so that a

00:25:19.020 victim can still insist on an NDA for the abuser. If a victim decides, I don't want my story told,

00:25:25.240 that's your right as well. We're not going to force a victim to tell his story or her story

00:25:29.800 against their will. You're protecting the victim in the way you're writing this, which I think is

00:25:33.940 such an important part of this conversation. I want people to understand that. It's a lot of

00:25:37.920 what we talked about with we want to protect victims, for example, when we're exposing

00:25:40.800 everything with the Epstein files. It's the same mentality here. If you don't want your name out

00:25:45.320 there. We want to protect it, right? That's the heart of Trey's Law, is giving survivors ownership

00:25:50.660 of their own stories so that they can decide what they want told about what happened to them.

00:25:56.700 The trauma alone is enough abuse. We don't need to pile that on. And you bring up a good point,

00:26:02.120 Senator, around the incentives and the incentives being misaligned because this type of

00:26:08.240 case falls under personal injury law and so you've been to law school and in that area of the law

00:26:15.740 it's typically your attorneys who are taking auto accident cases or slip and falls child sexual

00:26:23.380 abuse is a fear it's in it i like that it's a personal injury claim because it is an injury

00:26:28.300 to the brain to the soul and so it should be a personal injury claim but the way personal injury

00:26:34.200 law works is that you are looking to settle keep this from going i mean over 96 percent of cases i

00:26:41.720 think settle outside of trial when it comes to personal injury and um so you know the victim

00:26:47.700 doesn't want to have to go to trial and put themselves through more trauma they're incentivized

00:26:52.260 to settle and a lawyer says this can all be behind you if you sign on the dotted line

00:26:56.160 and then they can take 40 which is the typical commission on a case like this

00:27:00.320 move on to the next rinse and repeat and that doesn't work when we're talking about childhood

00:27:05.460 sexual abuse well and the u.s supreme court has described they've said other than murder

00:27:10.860 rape is the most grievous harm that could be inflicted to a person and and i've spent a lot

00:27:19.020 of my career fighting against child sexual abuse so when i was the solicitor general of texas

00:27:24.960 uh i argued in front of the u.s supreme court defending louisiana's law that provided for

00:27:33.080 capital punishment the death penalty for the most egregious child rapist unfortunately the supreme

00:27:38.440 court 5-4 struck that down so we did not prevail in that case uh texas's law was also struck down

00:27:44.380 when louisiana's law was struck down i also defended texas has a texas sexually violent

00:27:50.820 predator civil commitment law that gives the courts the ability to take a sexually violent

00:27:56.200 predator and put them in civil commitment, take them off the streets to protect people.

00:28:00.740 And a state court of appeals had struck that law down and concluded it was unconstitutional.

00:28:06.560 And I argued the case in front of the Texas Supreme Court defending that law. And we won

00:28:12.060 unanimously. The law was reinstated and it's now a tool that you have to go after sexual predators.

00:28:17.140 and you know we mentioned before so this bill my my lead co-sponsor is kirsten jillibrand

00:28:24.820 democrat from new york and then we have on this bill as well we have katie brit republican from

00:28:30.880 alabama is a dear friend uh we have eric schmidt republican from missouri another very good friend

00:28:36.040 and then we also have amy klobuchar democrat from minnesota we have peter welch democrat

00:28:42.060 from vermont and then gene shaheen a democrat from from new hampshire and i think we will get

00:28:48.300 very widespread bipartisan support to be honest those six are the the only six i asked i started

00:28:55.100 with them i've worked all of them i've worked with on on previous legislation but you know i'll tell

00:29:01.240 you jillibrand and i started working on this issue more than a decade ago because she was a leader in

00:29:09.480 in going after sexual assault in the military and there's been a real problem with sexual assault in

00:29:13.800 the military and the way it used to work is the decision about whether to prosecute a rapist

00:29:22.120 was made by the commander by and and the commander frequently knew the violator often was close to

00:29:30.040 the violator and victims of sexual assault in the military were afraid to report the rapes

00:29:35.800 because they didn't believe the commander would be fair.

00:29:40.020 They believed the commander would be biased in favor of the violator.

00:29:44.480 And so Gillibrand, and this is back 2013 when I was a brand new baby senator,

00:29:49.700 had just been elected, Kirsten was leading the charge saying this doesn't make any sense

00:29:55.080 and the decision of whether to prosecute should not be made by the commanding officer

00:30:00.460 but rather should be made by a career military prosecutor.

00:30:04.960 So in the military but not in the chain of command, so not connected to the alleged violator.

00:30:13.320 And I will tell you the Pentagon fought tooth and nail.

00:30:17.060 They hated that provision, and I was on the Senate Armed Services Committee with Kirsten at the time, and I heard her make the argument, make the argument passionately for changing the prosecuting decision to a career prosecutor.

00:30:31.160 and it was one of those instances where sometimes you say hearings don't, you know, are kind of

00:30:37.320 performance. They don't necessarily change anyone's mind. Well, I listened to her arguments and I was

00:30:41.420 persuaded. And I went up to her and I said, Kirsten, I want to team up with you and let's

00:30:45.140 get this done. And we did. It took nearly a decade to get it done because the Barack Obama

00:30:51.880 wouldn't do it, by the way. Obama was president. He could have done it unilaterally and he wouldn't

00:30:56.200 do it. And it took, we ultimately got the legislation passed, but it was a decade-long

00:31:01.580 battle. This is one I'm confident will be faster. I don't think this will take a decade to make

00:31:08.320 happen. You mentioned at the press conference also that we had another victim of sexual abuse

00:31:15.160 share her story. Her name is Jaden Harris. And I want to play what she said at the press

00:31:21.520 conference, because this was really powerful and moving. She was sharing about the sexual

00:31:29.360 violence she experienced, and give a listen, give a watch. Good morning. First, I want to thank

00:31:37.700 these co-sponsors for their leadership in filing Trey's law at the federal level.

00:31:44.720 my name is jayden harris i'm 19 years old and i'm here today not just as a child sexual abuse

00:31:54.160 survivor from branson missouri but as someone whose voice was protected by dre's law it's why

00:31:59.880 i can be here today when i came forward about the abuse i experienced i was prepared for it to be

00:32:08.860 difficult. What I wasn't prepared for was the intimidation not only from my abuser but from my

00:32:15.060 own lawyer to sign a non-disclosure agreement in exchange for restitution during a mediation

00:32:21.880 process. I was alone when it came to fighting for my voice. It was both my abuser and my lawyer

00:32:29.580 that tried to require me to sign an NDA,

00:32:35.740 a contractual clause that would have restricted my ability

00:32:39.780 to speak about the details of what happened to me for the rest of my life.

00:32:44.460 Imagine being told you can never tell your own truth.

00:32:48.480 Despite the bullying for my attorney and all those involved in the case,

00:32:53.020 in my heart I knew I had to stand for truth.

00:32:55.300 not just for myself but for others who feel they have been silenced

00:33:00.600 I'm standing here today with my voice because Trey's law protected it as a matter of public

00:33:08.560 policy and I was able to achieve settlement while preserving my ability to speak out in

00:33:13.580 hope of protecting others due to learning about Trey's law in Missouri I knew something important

00:33:20.540 I cannot be legally forced into silence.

00:33:24.600 No agreement could take away my right to speak about my own experience

00:33:29.120 and those responsible for the abuse.

00:33:31.720 That legal right changed everything.

00:33:34.360 It shifted the balance and power.

00:33:36.900 It meant that any resolution would not come at the cost of me owning my story.

00:33:43.100 Not only is having a voice essential to my healing journey,

00:33:46.720 but it is also how I can warn others.

00:33:48.680 my abuser is still out in public every day he goes by the name razer he is a well-known

00:33:55.840 entertainer in branson who still has a magic show and i'm concerned about ongoing victimization

00:34:02.560 the criminal justice system has done nothing to remove him from being around children

00:34:10.100 so i'm going to do something i'm speaking out today and i'm advocating the law that protected

00:34:18.440 me to protect victims everywhere. Federal action on Trey's law is critical. A survivor's freedom

00:34:27.860 of speech should not depend on geography. I am fortunate that Trey's law had passed in Missouri

00:34:33.340 and allowed me to keep my voice, but someone's zip code should not determine whether they can

00:34:38.160 tell the truth and warn the public about predators. This needs to be national.

00:34:43.480 trey's law is straightforward but powerful it makes non-disclosure agreements in cases of child

00:34:51.460 sexual abuse void and unenforceable it ensures that secrecy cannot be purchased when a child

00:34:58.340 has been harmed it affirms that survivors can be seen heard and believed and that's in the best

00:35:04.820 interest of public safety what almost happened to me signing away my voice should never be an

00:35:11.340 option in this country. I am grateful to be part of today's important milestone in making that

00:35:18.260 happen and setting truth free. Thank you. Senator, watching that, it's painful. It also

00:35:29.640 is incredible to see someone like that get their voice because of this law. And that was enacted

00:35:37.420 in her state and that's exactly what you uh and are trying to do nationwide and it's why i say

00:35:43.780 this for everyone watching please share this you there may be somebody that needs to know the

00:35:50.200 website uh that with a connection with canica there may be someone else that needs to know

00:35:54.520 this because they're in an nda this is why we do this show and and it's one of those episodes that

00:36:00.620 i hope you'll put it everywhere on social media well and and look there's something really powerful

00:36:06.500 about a survivor taking ownership of their own story of their own abuse and sharing their story

00:36:15.400 it can be healing it can be empowering uh look when when jayden told her story i did there was

00:36:22.620 not a dry eye in the room i mean it was you just heard it and for those of you watching

00:36:28.440 watching online you saw it and and this is a 19 year old young woman who was

00:36:33.800 baring her soul and and and there's something powerful a for the survivor to move past the

00:36:42.680 pain and grief but it's also powerful because for every survivor that tells her story or his story

00:36:50.320 there are dozens or hundreds or even thousands of other victims who never told anybody

00:36:58.080 and one of the horrific things about this crime in particular listen if you're walking home at

00:37:06.100 night and you get mugged and beaten up you're not typically embarrassed or ashamed to admit

00:37:11.560 i got mugged and beaten up someone stole my wallet um sexual assault and particularly sexual assault

00:37:18.880 for kids uh the the the guilt the the self-loathing the the the fear the the the

00:37:27.360 the shame the shame uh so many victims are

00:37:33.860 trapped in silence and never report their crimes uh and and so there is a power not just for the

00:37:43.100 survivor, but for everyone

00:37:47.060 else who's been a victim who has not been able

00:37:50.280 to own

00:37:55.260 their truth. I don't like language like that. Own their truth sounds

00:37:59.200 a little new agey for me. It's not the way I normally speak.

00:38:03.100 Survivors hold the truth. And here it is right.

00:38:07.900 I don't think someone has their truth on whether

00:38:10.820 two plus two is four right but but your life and your experience um no one should take away

00:38:20.640 particularly from a child the ability to tell your story and and and it's uh and i'll tell you look

00:38:29.880 trey's law would not have been a law in missouri elizabeth without your leadership um it would not

00:38:36.360 have been a law in texas it would not have been a law i mean you have devoted a lot of time to

00:38:40.760 fighting for this nationwide. Yeah. And I hope to get back to my day job eventually. I'm a mother

00:38:48.100 of three. I've got other things to do. This is not something I want to carry. It's always

00:38:53.660 encouraging when legislators like yourself step up and say, we're going to champion this on behalf

00:38:59.820 of survivors so that Trey's outcome doesn't happen again. And I just want to comment on Jaden and

00:39:07.600 what she did today because that was heroic it will inspire others to come forward and as she

00:39:14.980 stated in her testimony she just doesn't want other people to continue to be victimized by her

00:39:20.720 abuser today was the first time she named her abuser wow and i am so honored i didn't realize

00:39:29.240 that when she said that i i assumed she had said it previously i did not realize she had not that's

00:39:34.540 when a press conference becomes holy sacred space because she was sharing the truth about a predator

00:39:43.300 who's still out there and i am amazed by her courage because she achieved settlement last year

00:39:51.780 and asked she wanted this opportunity it was healing for her as hard as it was to be able

00:39:59.260 to stand on truth

00:40:00.460 and that's one of our slogans with the Trey's Law

00:40:03.180 campaign is every voice of truth

00:40:05.220 matters because I agree with you

00:40:07.340 I don't like this language around 1.00

00:40:08.920 their truth

00:40:10.740 there is absolute

00:40:13.460 truth and

00:40:15.240 Jaden stood on that today

00:40:17.160 in her remarks and we got to stand

00:40:19.480 beside her and that was

00:40:21.440 so powerful and like you said not a dry

00:40:23.460 eye in the room because if

00:40:25.320 you're not personally affected by child sexual

00:40:27.420 abuse, you sure know someone who is or will come forward eventually about that.

00:40:33.820 The numbers are staggering.

00:40:35.360 Yeah.

00:40:35.600 And we have studied this.

00:40:38.040 Only one in seven victims will ever come forward.

00:40:41.720 And the delay disclosure issue I was bringing up earlier, especially with male victims,

00:40:46.620 they often don't disclose until between the age of 50 and 70.

00:40:50.620 And so it's important parents understand that.

00:40:52.400 Because, again, I think they think if someone experiences this, that child's going to come home and tell mom and dad immediately.

00:41:01.140 But to your point, it's not like an injury you would endure on the streets or in some sort of other accident.

00:41:09.680 This does have an element of shame.

00:41:11.900 And what Jaden did today is she put the shame back where it belongs, on the person who abused her.

00:41:18.100 It was never her fault.

00:41:19.560 And let me say to anyone listening to this, if you've been a victim, it's not your fault.

00:41:23.980 And that's one of the lies these abusers try to convince children that it is your fault, that you invited this, that the blame is with you.

00:41:34.200 And that is a total and complete lie.

00:41:36.820 Yeah, and that's what grooming does and what grooming is, is it creates secrecy.

00:41:42.240 If you ever tell anyone, I'm going to hurt your loved one, or if you ever tell anyone, it's going to ruin everything.

00:41:48.960 that is a grooming tactic to keep the victim quiet and they often don't come out of that

00:41:53.700 brainwashing for many many years so that's why research shows all of this around delayed

00:41:58.640 disclosure jayden she was able to move from victimization to survivor and now survivor

00:42:05.640 advocate in a matter of months and that's what we got to witness today thanks to you introducing

00:42:11.460 trey's law federally along with senator jillibrain and other co-sponsors and i thought senator brit

00:42:15.460 It had some really poignant remarks as well.

00:42:17.400 She was fantastic. 0.66

00:42:18.180 Oh, and it was very clear that the group you mentioned earlier, the ones you've asked so far, they are behind survivors.

00:42:26.260 They want to protect survivors' voices, and that's what Trey's Law will do, and it does need to be national because going state by state creates an imbalance, protects the people in power, the predators, and the institutions that harbor these predators over a child having ownership of their story.

00:42:44.640 Right. And that's the core of our mission here. And thank you for taking time out of not a slow

00:42:51.380 news day to make this a priority to hear from people like Jaden and others who spoke.

00:42:55.920 This is important to happen. And to go to the really corrosive power of shame.

00:43:02.440 Last year, and we talked about this earlier today, a law that I authored and we passed into law was

00:43:08.520 the Take It Down Act. And the Take It Down Act makes it a crime to post non-consensual

00:43:14.960 intimate imagery, either real pictures and you see so-called revenge porn of explicit

00:43:22.080 photographs or videos that a couple breaks up and one decides, okay, I'm going to hurt

00:43:28.320 my former lover and publicist. And no one has the right to make that public and to do

00:43:34.780 that to someone else but we've also seen with ai the rise of deep fakes and and this problem

00:43:42.840 has increased more than 3 000 in the last year and and more than 90 of the victims are either

00:43:48.240 women or teenage girls and when we were pushing to pass it and building the coalition to pass it 0.99

00:43:54.780 one of the things we did uh the first lady became very actively involved in this legislation and i

00:44:00.080 appreciated she i hosted the first lady on capitol hill and she was at a round table where she met

00:44:06.340 with a number of the victims and to give you a sense there there was one person who testified

00:44:13.220 who is a a state legislator in south carolina whose son had received it was online and he was

00:44:24.640 a teenager and he thought he was talking with a cute teenage girl and the supposed cute teenage

00:44:33.260 girl was flirting with him and and teenage boys everyone can make foolish decisions but teenage

00:44:40.800 boys in particular uh this this cute girl convinced him to take uh revealing and naked 0.61

00:44:49.260 pictures of himself and to send those pictures uh it turned out that the cute girl was not a cute 0.87

00:44:56.480 girl but rather was a predator um a predator a foreign predator who then began blackmailing him 0.99

00:45:05.900 and saying i'm going to take this picture that you just took you just took a naked picture of 0.97

00:45:11.700 yourself and sent it to me i'm going to send this picture to your family i'm going to send it to

00:45:16.920 your parents i'm going to send it to your friends i'm going to send it to everyone unless you give

00:45:21.200 me money sextortion and tragically this teenage boy took his life the entire exchange from the

00:45:30.020 first interaction to when he took his own life was 90 minutes and his father shared that story

00:45:38.620 but that's the power of shame of the of this teenager who had taken a picture thinking he

00:45:43.500 was flirting and then the terror of if I get exposed for that, which look, compared to being

00:45:51.300 a victim of sexual assault, taking a picture of yourself is not nearly as severe. And yet that

00:45:58.320 shame was so powerful that that teenage boy took his own life. I mean, this is the pressures on

00:46:06.660 our kids. They're enormous, and they face things that technology amplifies all of this.

00:46:14.320 Yeah, it's really an epidemic. And as a mom of three, I know you have two girls,

00:46:22.840 the threats are different than they were in our childhoods.

00:46:26.400 Very different.

00:46:27.400 Very different. We were playing Super Mario Kart.

00:46:30.080 One in three kids will be propositioned sexually online. One in three.

00:46:33.780 And so, again, thank you for championing the Take It Down Act and your co-sponsors and the survivors and sadly the families victimized in that situation.

00:46:44.320 The National Center on Missing and Excelled Children just put out a very powerful video on that issue in particular.

00:46:49.860 And when I was the board chair of an anti-trafficking organization, the FBI put out their notice on sextortion.

00:46:55.260 We had something come through a case around girls being trafficked on Venmo.

00:46:59.340 So it's sometimes often these apps parents aren't even thinking about, but Roblox, especially atrocious, so many examples of abuse happening on Discord, and then what they do is they take it live.

00:47:14.760 So in my brother's story, it was an institution that covered up abuse.

00:47:19.900 Now it's these tech companies covering up abuse, and the bad actors are a step ahead of us.

00:47:26.520 and the legislation can't continue to be reactive.

00:47:30.840 What I think Trey's Law does is it removes that barrier

00:47:34.300 because the shame is already inherent in the crime itself.

00:47:38.160 And it removes that barrier so that victims come forward quicker,

00:47:41.520 we can catch the bad guys faster,

00:47:43.420 and the truth comes to light a lot sooner

00:47:46.060 than when the power imbalance is in such a way

00:47:50.240 that lawyers, even plaintiffs' attorneys, as we've discussed,

00:47:53.400 or others are keeping that victim from speaking out.

00:47:58.520 So NDAs are one barrier, but the shame is real.

00:48:02.180 And the gap in parental education is real.

00:48:05.340 And that's why conversations like this really matter.

00:48:07.380 Well, Elizabeth, thank you for taking your pain.

00:48:12.080 I know you miss your brother.

00:48:15.400 I know you feel the pain every day.

00:48:18.400 But thank you for taking that and saying,

00:48:21.540 I'm not just going to grieve, I'm not just going to weep, I'm going to use the pain to make a

00:48:27.960 difference and help others. Because your courage matters. It has already changed the law in a

00:48:33.820 number of states across the country, and it's going to change the law nationally. And your

00:48:37.920 leadership is why this is happening. And so I just want to say thank you. It's a sacred honor.

00:48:44.540 Final question I want to bring up real quick. One, will you give the website one more time

00:48:48.780 for people that may have been affected at Kanakuk, the place where your brother was.

00:48:53.360 And two, Senator, so this doesn't drag on for a decade to get it passed.

00:48:57.420 What can verdict listeners do to help advocate for this, no matter who their senator is?

00:49:05.460 So the whistleblower website on Kanakuk is factsaboutkanakuk.com.

00:49:11.120 And then our website for Trey's Law is treyslaw.org.

00:49:15.400 there's a community page for survivors who want to tell their story in a safe way until we get

00:49:19.740 this legislation passed and they don't feel safe coming out fully in their identity we had a

00:49:24.540 survivor testify in missouri just a couple weeks ago and he said for 25 years i've been a john doe

00:49:29.660 and today i'm coming forward in my full name because of trey's law passing in texas that's

00:49:33.820 the power of trey's law in texas and you know we heard about missouri today at the press conference

00:49:39.480 and just replay Jaden's remarks.

00:49:41.940 So this needs to be national.

00:49:44.080 The other way to support this effort

00:49:46.080 is through the No More Victims Alliance.

00:49:48.340 And that website is nmvalliance.org.

00:49:52.420 And we have a lot of advocates and allies

00:49:54.780 who want to help support this.

00:49:56.980 And Senator, I'm curious your thoughts

00:49:58.760 as far as what are the most effective calls to action

00:50:01.900 for people that want to jump in?

00:50:04.720 So let me say one thing.

00:50:06.380 The press conference we had,

00:50:07.720 we had probably about 50 people who came it was packed many of whom were were themselves victims

00:50:14.300 or they were the families of victims and the emotions the tears in the room it was

00:50:21.640 i actually think that the tv cameras did not pick up on on the folks that were there that were

00:50:27.580 supporting what we were doing but it was really powerful look what can you do uh one thing i would

00:50:32.380 encourage you to do, share this podcast. Send this podcast to your friends. Send them the YouTube

00:50:38.080 link. Send them the audio link. Encourage people to learn about Trey's Law. And then

00:50:45.600 pick up the phone and make a phone call. Call your senator. Call your House member.

00:50:53.100 And urge them pass Trey's Law. Look, those phone calls, people wonder, do those phone calls

00:50:58.120 matter do they make a difference and i'll tell you they do i i get a report every day

00:51:02.840 and i think this is true for for most members of congress i get a report of how many calls we got

00:51:08.260 uh and what the topics were what the people were urging and and you notice if there's a surge on a

00:51:13.980 topic um it it makes a difference and it and it focuses the mind and so speaking out urging your

00:51:21.760 elected representatives to support this law as i we've got broad bipartisan support i we're going

00:51:27.300 to get this done uh and also speak out you know speak out on social media put put up a post on

00:51:32.700 facebook put up a post on x or or true social or instagram or whatever whatever platform you use

00:51:39.800 but but speak out uh and advocate it uh because the more people hear about this i i think it is

00:51:47.880 basic common sense there is no reason a child lacks the emotional maturity to make a decision

00:51:57.220 to bind themselves by an NDA.

00:51:59.700 And Trey's Law is going to say

00:52:01.140 we're not going to allow children

00:52:02.600 to be taken advantage of first when they're abused,

00:52:05.160 but they're taken advantage of a second time

00:52:07.560 when they are pressured into signing an NDA

00:52:12.840 and muzzled for the rest of their life.

00:52:15.040 And look, we can't necessarily stop

00:52:19.940 every instance of abuse of kids in the first instance,

00:52:23.960 although obviously we want to.

00:52:25.640 But every predator we take off the street stops that predator from victimizing another child, another victim.

00:52:33.920 But we can stop the second victimization.

00:52:36.140 We can say we are not going to allow as a matter of law for children who have experienced this violence to be silenced.

00:52:44.580 And that's what we're trying to do.

00:52:46.080 And, Elizabeth, that's what your leadership is producing.

00:52:48.560 Well, and that's why we call this a public safety bill.

00:52:51.760 And, you know, nothing will bring my brother back.

00:52:54.140 And thank you for acknowledging that.

00:52:56.220 This is happening out of heartbreak.

00:52:58.820 And I see it as grief can be love in action.

00:53:04.960 So I'm taking action because of what my brother's life and death has taught me.

00:53:10.040 So bigger picture, encourage people to not let these hard-earned lessons die in vain.

00:53:17.980 We won't let this be in vain.

00:53:19.140 And thank you for taking action with me, with all the survivors in the room today who flew in from across the country.

00:53:25.600 They'd been advocating in Georgia and Alabama and Missouri and Texas.

00:53:30.060 And they showed up in that room and it was, yes, full of tears, but also full of hope.

00:53:34.740 And there are some other bills right now that need support, like the Renewed Hope Act and the Defiance Act, which is a complement to the Take It Down Act.

00:53:43.280 And so this Congress can achieve a lot to protect victims, and if people do call their elected legislators, then we can get this done.

00:53:54.660 And I love hearing you say that over and over, that it's not an if, it's a when.

00:53:59.580 And, you know, with this kind of thing, there's never a win.

00:54:03.660 It is a lose-lose in my family's case, but we can, like you said, we can prevent this from happening.

00:54:10.860 we can catch it sooner and this era can end amen don't forget we do this show three days a week

00:54:17.460 monday wednesday and friday i ask you if you get to see this please share the video uh youtube

00:54:23.900 video on facebook as well you can share it on x and share this podcast you can hit that little

00:54:29.620 forward button and share it wherever you are on social media hopefully you can help others

00:54:33.220 and victims come forward and understand what's happening with the laws and how they're changing

00:54:37.380 Also be an advocate. Talk to your senator and call their offices and let them know about this law.

00:54:42.440 They may not know what's going on with it. Let them know why you're in favor of it, why they should get behind it.

00:54:47.440 So it doesn't take 10 years to get this passed. And the senator and I will see you back here in a couple of days.

00:54:53.740 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - March 25, 2026

Trey's Law — Protecting the Victims of Child Sex Abuse

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