Verdict with Ted Cruz - Trump, Elon & DOGE-20 Incredible Days Cause Dems' Heads to Explode

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.580 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.060 Good Monday morning.

00:00:06.340 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:09.720 Senator, it was a sleeper of a Super Bowl, to just say the least.

00:00:13.880 It wasn't that great of a game, but all of America, I'm sure, was watching.

00:00:17.840 Well, it was a blowout, and congratulations to the Eagles for a dominating night.

00:00:23.620 All of the hopes of Kansas City having a three-peat.

00:00:26.720 Those were dashed almost from the kickoff.

00:00:30.360 The Eagles dominated the game.

00:00:32.340 It was impressive to watch, although I've got to say the guy on that field

00:00:36.400 sure didn't look like Patrick Mahomes, not the one we've come to expect.

00:00:42.660 And listen, the Eagles were expected to come in with a run game.

00:00:46.220 Their run game didn't materialize, but Kansas City spent so much time

00:00:49.580 trying to stop the run game that the kind of short and medium pass game

00:00:54.140 was there the entire night, and they owned the game from the beginning to the end.

00:01:00.280 It was truly incredible.

00:01:02.100 What was also crazy was the fact that we had the president of the United States of America

00:01:06.660 that was a center point of being at this game, and the media didn't like it.

00:01:10.340 They're having a meltdown about that, as they're also melting down about Doge.

00:01:14.160 Well, that's right, and we're going to talk about that.

00:01:16.320 So I had dinner with President Trump Friday night,

00:01:19.100 along with a number of other Republican senators.

00:01:21.220 We're going to talk about that, and we're also going to talk about Doge.

00:01:24.220 We are 20 days into the administration, less than three weeks,

00:01:29.000 and the media and the Democrats are losing their mind over Elon Musk's efforts

00:01:33.720 to cut government spending.

00:01:35.800 We're going to break that down.

00:01:36.900 We're going to talk about some of the egregious abuses that are being uncovered.

00:01:41.060 We're also going to walk you through what to expect,

00:01:43.300 how this is going to play out in the days and weeks ahead.

00:01:45.800 We're also going to talk to you about the CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,

00:01:51.720 which is being ordered to halt all of their efforts right now

00:01:57.460 and being ordered to halt that by their new acting head.

00:02:00.520 We're going to break that down for you as well.

00:02:02.040 Yeah, a really important story, and it's going to affect a lot of people's lives.

00:02:05.200 I want to tell you real quick about the IFCJ.

00:02:07.500 After more than a year of war, terror, and pain in Israel,

00:02:10.260 there is still a great demand for basic humanitarian aid.

00:02:14.320 That is where the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has supported

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00:02:23.200 and those who are in desperate need right now.

00:02:26.380 Your ongoing monthly gift of $45 will provide critically needed aid

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00:02:54.540 You can provide hope during a time of great uncertainty, and the need is real.

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00:03:06.520 That's one word, supportifcj.org.

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00:03:26.400 So let's just enjoy for a moment just how different this Super Bowl was

00:03:31.560 than a year ago from a political standpoint.

00:03:34.200 The president went, a lot of other conservatives showed up, other elected officials were there.

00:03:39.980 The media was covering Donald Trump.

00:03:42.300 He was talking before the Super Bowl and during the flight and tweeting out about the government

00:03:48.720 working for you and Doge.

00:03:50.800 And one of those at CNN, Brian Skelter, came out with an interesting tweet.

00:03:56.180 I think you saw it as well, where he said, I think, think about it.

00:04:00.800 A year ago, you could go days without seeing or thinking about Joe Biden.

00:04:05.260 Now you're lucky if you can go hours without thinking about President Trump.

00:04:10.800 His point is, he's controlling everything.

00:04:14.280 And now he says the Super Bowl is also the Trump Bowl.

00:04:18.000 I think it's amazing to watch this meltdown.

00:04:20.200 Well, listen, the media is melting down.

00:04:23.120 The Democrats are melting down.

00:04:24.840 I got to tell you, this past week, I enjoyed a number of times turning to my Democrat colleague

00:04:30.600 and colleagues in just dead padding.

00:04:32.920 Well, three years and 50 weeks to go.

00:04:38.240 What's the response?

00:04:39.520 Because, I mean, some of them you're friendly with.

00:04:41.560 They start twitching with no affect at all.

00:04:47.380 I just say those words, and I've yet to see a Democrat who doesn't start shaking at that thought.

00:04:53.640 I mean, listen, there has never been in the history of a country a two weeks like this.

00:04:59.880 And as I mentioned, I had dinner with President Trump on Friday.

00:05:03.480 We had a retreat of Republican senators down in Florida,

00:05:06.620 and we went to, 43 of us went and had dinner with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago Friday night.

00:05:12.420 I got to tell you, the president was in great mood.

00:05:15.360 He was happy.

00:05:17.260 He was energized.

00:05:19.920 And there's never been shock and awe.

00:05:24.360 You know, actually, I have a theory about this.

00:05:26.980 And I have a theory about the speed and volume of what's coming,

00:05:32.260 which is that the media, I believe, has a specific quantum of outrage.

00:05:37.780 And that quantum I call the arsenic quantum of outrage.

00:05:42.480 Now, what does that mean?

00:05:44.220 Ben, if you remember back to the first term of George W. Bush in 2001,

00:05:50.160 one of the first things Bush did is the EPA rescinded a rule concerning arsenic.

00:05:56.980 And it regulated how many parts per million of arsenic could be in water.

00:06:03.080 And the media for weeks lit their hair on fire about how evil Republicans want to poison all our children with arsenic.

00:06:11.600 And they just went on and on and on.

00:06:12.920 Arsenic, arsenic, arsenic.

00:06:14.180 It was on the 6 o'clock news night after night.

00:06:17.480 Well, my theory is that is the amount of outrage they have.

00:06:22.260 And when Trump does 100 things or 200 things or 300 things, they have that same quantum of outrage.

00:06:28.440 But but they have to divide it up among everything.

00:06:31.140 And so instead, they just just light their hair on fire and begin running in circles.

00:06:35.600 It is weird.

00:06:36.380 And I was talking to a colleague of mine who worked in the first Trump administration,

00:06:40.600 and he's now working the second.

00:06:43.320 And the way he described it to me on Friday, he said, Ben, in 2016, he goes,

00:06:47.880 go ask any senator, any congressman that met with the president.

00:06:50.000 The meetings revolved around around, OK, what are we going to do or what do we want to do?

00:06:54.660 He said this time it's all right.

00:06:56.720 This is what we are doing and this is how we're going to do it.

00:07:00.280 He said it's a completely different mindset.

00:07:02.500 Have you found that when you're having dinner?

00:07:04.240 It's more of like, hey, we're in charge.

00:07:06.200 Let's go down the field.

00:07:07.300 Let's use a Super Bowl now. 0.96

00:07:08.600 Does he throw the long ball and let's let's make the pass and let's get the points on the board?

00:07:12.620 Well, listen, in 2017, when President Trump came into the White House,

00:07:16.320 I don't think he was expecting to win.

00:07:20.000 I don't think his team was expecting him to win.

00:07:23.680 And they came in and he'd never worked in the federal government.

00:07:28.520 Virtually every senior official in the Trump White House had never worked in the federal government.

00:07:33.340 And so they came in and did not know how how the agencies operated.

00:07:38.160 They did.

00:07:38.620 They did not understand the machinery they were attempting to to to turn around.

00:07:44.740 And and and they didn't understand that the deep state.

00:07:48.420 They didn't understand the embedded career bureaucrats who were going to fight against them tooth and nail.

00:07:56.240 One of the results is is they made some real mistakes when it came to personnel.

00:08:00.280 Now, they appointed people to senior positions, to cabinet positions who ended up fighting against the president from day one.

00:08:08.240 This time around, I think they've done a much better job with cabinet nominees.

00:08:13.000 And they've hit the ground running, the level of preparation, the executive orders they've rolled out, one after the other, after the other.

00:08:20.720 It is clear that they have had teams working on these orders for months, if not years,

00:08:27.080 that that that they came in with a fundamentally different level of understanding and sophistication about how the government operates,

00:08:36.520 about what are the levers of power and authority within the government and and how you you turn the machine and and understand.

00:08:48.420 They're dealing with four years of Joe Biden, the Democrats, weaponizing every aspect of the federal government, not just DOJ and FBI.

00:08:58.980 We've talked a lot about that.

00:09:00.920 But but weapons, weaponizing every grant they give, weaponizing every program, weaponizing from agency to agency to agency,

00:09:09.920 that the holistic approach that the Biden administration did, that every dollar they had was there to reward their political allies or to punish their political enemies.

00:09:21.520 And sadly, it was all politics all the time.

00:09:24.040 And I think that's a big part of the reason why.

00:09:27.780 If you look at what Elon Musk is doing at DOJ, he's going in and he's working around the clock.

00:09:33.340 And I know Elon. Well, he does not he does not sleep much and he works and and and he is going at the federal government.

00:09:41.760 And it's it's a remarkable thing, man.

00:09:43.660 I got to say. So Trump derangement syndrome has been a thing for a long time that Democrats in the media going nuts.

00:09:52.420 Well, there's now a new phenomenon. A new disease has come to Washington and that's called Elon derangement syndrome.

00:09:59.360 Well, it's almost worse in some ways. I mean, they this man has become like more hated in some circles than even Trump.

00:10:05.740 And that's hard to do. So I'll tell you an exchange I had last week with with several reporters, but it was following.

00:10:13.420 So I had a closed door briefing from the FAA and the National Traffic Safety Board on on the horrific crash outside Reagan Airport.

00:10:24.600 And as I came out, the reporters, we were talking about the accident, where the investigation is going and and and reporters were asking, well, aren't you worried?

00:10:36.200 That Elon Musk is is is going to be involved in in updating the technology for air traffic control.

00:10:44.140 And I just started laughing. And and I said, look, our air traffic control system is desperately in need of modernization.

00:10:55.520 We are literally using 1950s technology. We use radar and little slips of paper.

00:11:01.520 That's how they do it. And you're telling me that one of the world's greatest technology CEOs who has ever lived.

00:11:10.260 Trump is willing to work for free to modernize the technology for air traffic control, to use GPS and current technology rather than 1950s technology to take us into the 21st century.

00:11:24.020 And you somehow think that is a bad thing. And I got to say, the reporters were just bewildered.

00:11:31.360 They're just like, no, no, Elon bad, Trump bad. That's the extent of analysis they're capable of.

00:11:38.000 You look at the access that he's also gained and and it is to 15 different government agencies.

00:11:45.260 The president has made it very clear now he believes this is part of his mandate, why the American people sent him to Washington.

00:11:55.260 And he said this in an interview on Sunday for Super Bowl Sunday with Brett Baer, where there's some people trying to undermine.

00:12:03.520 And I think this is the machine going after Elon Musk are trying to undermine and they're trying to to somehow get him kicked out of this or to have some sort of press conference where Elon Musk is no longer with us and working.

00:12:12.520 And, you know, in the government, we've we've dismissed him.

00:12:15.100 That's what they're clearly it's like a way of impeaching him, in essence.

00:12:18.040 And and and Brett asked the question, like, do you does he have your full faith?

00:12:22.340 Because this is where the media is going. Right.

00:12:24.520 And so he's like, does does he still have your full support?

00:12:26.500 And I want everybody here. This is what Trump said.

00:12:29.560 I don't know if it's kickbacks or what's going on, but the people look, I ran on this and the people want me to find it.

00:12:36.340 And I've had a great help with Elon Musk, who's been terrific.

00:12:40.080 Bottom line, you say you trust him.

00:12:42.660 Trust Elon. Oh, he's not gaining anything.

00:12:45.080 In fact, I wonder how he can devote the time to it. He's so into it.

00:12:48.340 But I told him do that. Then I'm going to tell him very soon, like maybe in 24 hours to go check the Department of Education.

00:12:56.740 He's going to find the same thing. Then I'm going to go go to the military.

00:13:00.100 Let's check the military. We're going to find billions, hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse.

00:13:06.460 And, you know, the people elected me on that.

00:13:09.680 People elected me. He's listening to the people.

00:13:11.740 And that's why it's populated right now. It's above 50 percent. It's at 53 percent in one of the polls today.

00:13:17.140 Well, and understand what Elon is doing.

00:13:19.340 So so Elon this weekend, he tweeted the following quote.

00:13:23.660 To be clear, what the Doge team and the U.S. Treasury team have jointly agreed makes sense is the following.

00:13:30.780 Require that all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits.

00:13:42.260 This is frequently left blank, making audits almost impossible.

00:13:47.620 All payments must also include a rationale for the payment in the comment field, which is currently left blank.

00:13:55.700 Importantly, we are not yet applying any judgment to this rationale, but simply requiring that some attempt be made to explain the payment more than nothing.

00:14:13.040 The.

00:14:14.920 OK, just just keep listening, because this is so simple that for government, it's shocking.

00:14:21.040 OK, the do not pay list of entities known to be fraudulent or people who are dead or are probable fronts for terrorist organizations or do not match congressional appropriations must actually be implemented and not ignored.

00:14:41.020 Also, it can currently take up to a year to get on this list, which is far too long.

00:14:48.020 This list should be updated at least weekly, if not daily.

00:14:53.420 The above super obvious and necessary changes are being implemented by existing longtime career government employees, not anyone from Doge.

00:15:01.860 It is ridiculous that these changes didn't exist already.

00:15:06.660 Yesterday, I was told that there are currently over a hundred billion dollars a year of entitlement payments to individuals with no Social Security numbers.

00:15:18.020 Or even a temporary ID number.

00:15:21.540 If accurate, this is extremely suspicious.

00:15:25.580 When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half.

00:15:38.180 So 50 billion a year or one billion dollars a week.

00:15:43.340 This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately.

00:15:48.600 Why would anyone be angry at that?

00:15:51.420 And I say that, look, is it is a rhetorical question?

00:15:55.620 The people that don't want you to find this out are clearly the ones that are abusing the system for whether it's their corruption, family, friends, terrorists.

00:16:04.540 The list goes on and on that has been mentioned there.

00:16:07.000 But if you are a taxpayer, I don't care if you're Republican or Democrat, you should want to know where your money's going and want to know if there's waste, fraud and abuse.

00:16:15.340 So we get rid of it because it could mean that we're all paying way more in taxes than we ever could have imagined we should be able to pay to get great services at a much lower rate because you get rid of all the fraud and abuse.

00:16:26.760 Well, I'll give you another interesting data.

00:16:31.720 Do you know what the median household income is in Washington, D.C.?

00:16:37.840 It's $121,000 a year.

00:16:40.540 That's the median.

00:16:42.060 The national median is $82,000 a year.

00:16:44.900 So Washington, D.C. is 50 percent greater.

00:16:48.420 And, by the way, compare that to the only place higher is California's Bay Area.

00:16:57.040 So Washington, D.C. has a higher median income than New York, $95,000.

00:17:01.460 Bridgeport, $111,000.

00:17:03.320 Chicago, $87,000.

00:17:05.220 Dallas, $86,000.

00:17:07.140 Baltimore, $94,000.

00:17:08.720 New Orleans, $61,000.

00:17:11.020 Boston, $110,000.

00:17:12.760 Raleigh, $96,000.

00:17:14.700 San Diego, $103,000.

00:17:16.620 Los Angeles, $91,000.

00:17:19.100 Honolulu, $103,000.

00:17:21.500 Washington, D.C., $121,000 right at the top.

00:17:25.360 The question you've got to ask yourself is I wonder why.

00:17:27.560 Could it be there's so many people there that are getting hookups with the government and jobs

00:17:31.340 and making sure money is spent and going to the right places that they get compensated very well for that?

00:17:37.520 Well, there are a ton of people, A, in senior government jobs that are making six-figure incomes.

00:17:43.200 And many of the government buildings are empty.

00:17:48.160 The average across the federal government right now for showing up to work is 5% to 8% of the employees.

00:17:54.940 And they're adamant that they have an entitlement to do this, that it is horrific to expect them to show up to work.

00:18:01.840 There are also armies of lobbyists and contractors and people getting rich off government.

00:18:08.520 And so those two together are operating powerfully.

00:18:12.760 And it's interesting that Elon has been able to affect such significant change simply by starting with saying,

00:18:19.760 where is the money going?

00:18:22.340 Show me the flow of cash going out the door.

00:18:26.040 I want to see it dollar by dollar.

00:18:28.280 That is a threat right to the heart of the deep state and the corruption machine the Democrats have had for a long time.

00:18:39.240 Well, let me ask you another question about dinner.

00:18:41.740 And you are one of those.

00:18:43.380 This is a compliment.

00:18:45.480 If you've ever had dinner with you, you're a working dinner guy.

00:18:48.740 You're one of those that just likes to get stuff done.

00:18:51.120 I think that's probably one of the reasons why you and Elon get along so well.

00:18:55.780 You're having these dinners now where you're getting stuff done.

00:19:00.460 And in government, that's not always the case.

00:19:02.980 How happy and how much fun is it for you personally to know now that when you're going into these meetings with Trump

00:19:09.920 and these other senators, like, you guys are actually getting to do your job.

00:19:13.780 Because I know that's driven you crazy over the years when you just feel like you're just spinning your wheels

00:19:18.680 because government's spinning their wheels and not getting stuff done. 0.65

00:19:21.440 Is this what made you want to get into politics and to serve?

00:19:25.800 Listen, it is fun and it is exciting because we have a unique opportunity right now.

00:19:36.880 You look at the mandate from November.

00:19:39.200 Obviously, the people reelected Donald Trump.

00:19:42.080 They elected a Republican Senate, not just a Republican Senate, with a relatively big majority.

00:19:48.000 Fifty-three Republicans is sizable in the Senate.

00:19:51.720 They gave us a majority in the House, albeit a very narrow one.

00:19:54.500 We have an opportunity to accomplish an enormous amount.

00:19:58.480 And I'll tell you, Ben, it's fun and exciting, but there's also a seriousness to this.

00:20:03.540 We can't screw it up.

00:20:04.800 I think failure is not an option.

00:20:08.260 And so I'm jumping out of bed every day.

00:20:10.980 I am excited to go.

00:20:13.640 And you look at the work.

00:20:15.500 All right.

00:20:16.580 You see everything Elon's doing.

00:20:18.560 Here's a story that broke that gives you the sense of why there's so much work to be done.

00:20:23.280 And a headline from the weekend, Biden admin filled terrorist coffers with over $1,300,000,000

00:20:33.420 before Trump took wrecking ball to foreign aid.

00:20:38.880 And I'm just going to just start with that article.

00:20:41.880 More than $1.3 billion in taxpayer funds from the Biden administration ended up helping groups

00:20:46.740 that sponsored or committed terrorism.

00:20:49.580 And the biggest part of that was to UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Work Agency.

00:20:57.200 The Biden administration gave $1,053,400,000 in U.S. taxpayer money to UNRWA.

00:21:07.780 And UNRWA, remember, but by the way, under Trump, initially, there was a ban on UNRWA funding

00:21:13.560 because they have been so intertwined with Hamas and Hamas terrorists.

00:21:18.060 We now know that in the wake of October 7th, you had Hamas terrorists on the UNRWA payroll.

00:21:24.580 And yet.

00:21:26.100 Yeah, that's a fact, by the way.

00:21:27.820 We need to make that clear.

00:21:29.060 That is 100 percent confirmed.

00:21:31.160 It is a fact.

00:21:31.920 Here is, this is also from the article, quote,

00:21:37.640 intelligence officials later revealed that more than 1,000 UNRWA employees,

00:21:42.020 or around 10 percent, were linked to the groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad,

00:21:50.180 according to documents found on the bodies of dead terrorists and other evidence.

00:21:55.220 10 percent of their employees were linked to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

00:22:05.140 And the Biden administration, right up to the last day, was shoveling cash.

00:22:10.360 And I got to say, it's one of the things that I think is most offensive about what Biden and the Democrats did,

00:22:17.560 is they didn't just spend four years pushing a radical agenda.

00:22:21.780 But after Election Day, when the voters made clear, we don't like this agenda, we want to change course,

00:22:28.320 right up until the moment Trump was sworn in, they did everything they could to frustrate the ability of the new administration to turn things around.

00:22:37.420 I've never seen a president do that.

00:22:40.100 To the best of my knowledge, we've never had one do that.

00:22:43.340 And it really demonstrates a contempt for the voters.

00:22:46.420 This goes back.

00:22:47.400 You just mentioned contempt of the voters.

00:22:48.860 Democrats now trying to figure out their footing.

00:22:52.580 They had Alam Omar, who went on TV today, saying that Trump has decided he will not abide by the Constitution,

00:23:00.860 just throwing it out there.

00:23:02.260 And then she says, by the way, every executive order that's been to court now has been shut down by the court.

00:23:07.360 That's a lie.

00:23:08.000 Not true.

00:23:08.660 But it even face the nation, try to softly correct her because they want this to be true, right?

00:23:16.780 And then there's this new threat of like, all right, we'll just shut down the government.

00:23:21.200 I kind of laugh because for many conservatives are like, great, let's shut it down and save some money for a while.

00:23:27.000 I wish it worked that way.

00:23:28.120 I wish it was that simple.

00:23:29.100 It's obviously not.

00:23:29.960 But this is the new temper tantrum of the left.

00:23:33.880 They're saying if we aren't in charge, then we want to destroy what the government does well.

00:23:39.340 We want to hurt people and we want to shut down the government to hurt people.

00:23:42.260 So you'll blame Donald Trump.

00:23:43.680 That's what this is really all about.

00:23:45.180 Am I wrong?

00:23:45.620 Well, look, understand there's a battle going back and forth.

00:23:50.540 And at some level, this battle is inherent in the structure of our government.

00:23:53.880 It's inherent in the Constitution.

00:23:56.200 Congress, under Article 1, all legislative power is vested in the Congress of the United States.

00:24:02.260 Congress passes the laws that the president signs into law and that are then binding federal law.

00:24:09.960 The executive, all executive power is vested in the president of the United States.

00:24:14.740 That's under Article 2 of the Constitution.

00:24:17.180 And the president is charged with, has given the authority to and also the responsibility to, quote,

00:24:24.240 take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

00:24:27.960 That's the Constitution's language.

00:24:30.180 And so a lot of, you know, it's interesting as I travel around and talk to people back home in Texas or around the country.

00:24:36.740 They ask, okay, so is what Elon's doing, is what Trump is doing, cutting off funding at USAID, pausing other funding, is that going to stick?

00:24:48.020 And this is a battle back and forth between the executive and legislature that has occurred since the very first days of the republic.

00:24:55.780 And one of the things right at the heart of this battle is about something called impoundment.

00:25:03.420 Now, what does impoundment mean?

00:25:05.760 Impoundment is when the president of the United States decides not to spend money that has been appropriated by the U.S. Congress.

00:25:13.760 Now, you might ask, okay, is impoundment some crazy theory that Donald Trump cooked up or Elon Musk cooked up?

00:25:21.100 Well, no.

00:25:22.200 No, impoundment has been around for more than 200 years.

00:25:25.200 The first president to exercise impoundment was Thomas Jefferson, and he did so in 1801.

00:25:30.860 And if you look at what Thomas Jefferson did, the first use of impoundment involved a refusal to spend $50,000, which $50,000 in 2023 dollars is about $1.24 million,

00:25:47.720 in funds that were appropriated for the acquisition of gunboats for the United States Navy.

00:25:53.060 And Thomas Jefferson said in 1803 that, quote, the sum of $50,000 appropriated by Congress for providing gunboats remains unexpended.

00:26:03.680 The favorable and peaceful turn of affairs on the Mississippi rendered an immediate execution of that law unnecessary.

00:26:11.540 Now, Jefferson did so, and in the years that went on, presidents did so for 200 years.

00:26:18.120 Now, what happened?

00:26:19.380 Well, in the 1970s, Richard Nixon had a battle with Congress, and Congress got angry with Richard Nixon and felt he was using impoundment too aggressively.

00:26:32.540 And Congress passed a law called the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 that purported to remove the power of impoundment,

00:26:45.560 or at least to severely curtail it.

00:26:47.960 And the Supreme Court heard a decision.

00:26:52.380 It was a decision called Train v. City of New York, where the Supreme Court upheld the Impoundment Control Act

00:27:01.600 and significantly reduced the president's power to exercise impoundment.

00:27:08.180 Now, by the way, there was a subsequent wrinkle in this, in that Congress came back afterwards and passed a bill called the Line Item Veto Act of 1996.

00:27:21.380 This happened after the Republican takeover of Congress.

00:27:25.780 Newt Gingrich came in, and the Line Item Veto Act gave the president the power of line item veto,

00:27:31.420 which Bill Clinton used on the federal budget 82 times.

00:27:37.000 However, that law was struck down in 1998 by the Supreme Court.

00:27:42.360 It was a 5-4 vote.

00:27:44.000 Actually, my former boss and very good friend, Chuck Cooper, the man who taught me how to be a lawyer, argued that case.

00:27:50.300 Unfortunately, he was on the losing side of that case and lost 5-4.

00:27:55.000 The point, what Elon is doing and what Trump is doing, there's a long history of presidents saying,

00:28:02.900 I don't want to spend money that is wasteful, and I'm not going to.

00:28:06.800 Now, there's also a history of Congress pushing back.

00:28:10.640 What's likely to happen?

00:28:12.680 There is already, and there will be more, a crap ton of litigation challenging these actions.

00:28:22.240 We're seeing Democrat attorneys general bringing lawsuits.

00:28:26.280 We're going to see Democrat interest groups bringing lawsuits.

00:28:30.000 We're going to see activist judges striking down actions, executive orders, and this is going to test the legal boundaries.

00:28:40.080 At the end of the day, part of what is going on is this is designed to go to the Supreme Court

00:28:47.020 and to restore the power of impoundment to the president.

00:28:51.220 I think that would be a very good thing.

00:28:52.960 I think it is consistent.

00:28:54.240 It is an inherent authority of the president to exercise the authority of impoundment,

00:29:00.100 but understand we're going to see a litigation battle royale, and it'll take, in all likelihood.

00:29:09.940 So you're saying this is a fight that we want to go to the Supreme Court,

00:29:13.660 and if it does go to the Supreme Court and it plays to our advantage the way that you're describing it with the law,

00:29:19.700 how long is it going to take us to get it there?

00:29:21.820 Probably a couple of years, two to three years.

00:29:23.500 So in the next two or three years, we're going to be just dealing with pure fights with the media, Democrats coming after

00:29:31.620 and trying to stop everything that they're trying to cut with waste, fraud, and abuse.

00:29:35.040 Yes, and understand, Elon and Doge, they're embodying right now the Silicon Valley mantra of move fast and break things.

00:29:44.500 I mean, that's what they're doing.

00:29:45.660 Not everything that they do is going to be upheld.

00:29:49.780 There will be injunctions issued, and I think they understand that,

00:29:53.640 and I think they're trying to implement the mandate that came from the voters as rapidly and effectively as possible.

00:30:03.720 Listen, I, for one, am excited about that,

00:30:06.260 and I think if you look at some of the egregious abuses that have been uncovered so far,

00:30:11.700 it gives an illustration of just how important this is.

00:30:15.600 Before we move on to the federal financial watchdog order to cease activity,

00:30:19.280 and that's important, we're going to deal with that in a second.

00:30:20.740 One final question on this.

00:30:23.480 We could go back, I think, whenever the sale was, a year and a half, whatever it was,

00:30:28.080 when Elon Musk took over Twitter, and we saw the Twitter files, and then we saw the corruption,

00:30:35.440 I actually think you can trace this all the way back to there,

00:30:38.520 when people really started paying attention to saying, I don't trust the government.

00:30:42.360 You add COVID in there, and the lies of the vaccine, and the two weeks stopped the spread,

00:30:46.920 and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and then the lies over the Hunter Biden laptop,

00:30:50.580 and there started to be these moments that were big where people were like,

00:30:54.580 okay, maybe I shouldn't be so trusting of the news.

00:30:58.260 Maybe I shouldn't be trusting of the government, the deep state, the president,

00:31:01.360 and then you have him take over X, right?

00:31:05.560 At Twitter, now X.

00:31:06.920 Part of the reason why I think Donald Trump's having so much success now

00:31:10.020 is because we're getting the word out about the waste and the fraud

00:31:14.080 and getting the line out of it, and people are seeing it.

00:31:17.300 Because before, you go back to 2016, Senator, big tree falls in the forest,

00:31:22.080 no one's around, does it make a sound, right?

00:31:24.260 The answer is no.

00:31:25.480 But now what we're getting, and the info that we're getting, and it's getting out

00:31:29.920 because big tech can't suppress it on X, how valuable is that to saving our democracy?

00:31:35.260 Look, I think it's incredibly valuable.

00:31:37.700 I believe Elon Musk buying Twitter was the most important development for free speech in modern times

00:31:45.060 because it turned around the rampant censorship from big tech.

00:31:50.640 It put positive pressure on the rest of big tech, and it created a vehicle for the truth to get out.

00:31:57.880 So, you know, we've gone through in previous podcasts all the examples, or not all the examples,

00:32:02.960 but a number of examples of abusive spending, $2 million for sex changes in Guatemala.

00:32:10.680 Now, who the hell can defend that?

00:32:12.860 Why U.S. taxpayers are paying for sex changes in Guatemala? 0.73

00:32:16.760 Money to the BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation.

00:32:21.060 By the way, why the hell are American taxpayers paying for the BBC?

00:32:26.300 The last I checked, the United Kingdom is a major developed country. 0.99

00:32:29.140 They can pay for their own damn television station. 0.99

00:32:31.680 What do we need to pay for that? 1.00

00:32:34.340 And what's amazing is the Democrats are just digging in.

00:32:37.140 Give a listen to Senator Chris Coons defending spending $20 million on American taxpayer money

00:32:44.320 for Sesame Street in Iraq.

00:32:46.600 Give a listen.

00:32:47.600 Is funding Sesame Street a judicious use of soft power?

00:32:52.420 Well, Michael, the way you put it is the way I hope folks considering your poll today will think about it.

00:32:58.860 This isn't just funding a kid show for children, millions of children, in countries like Iraq.

00:33:04.600 It's a show that helps teach values, helps teach public health, helps prevent kids from dying from dysentery and disease,

00:33:13.480 and helps push values like collaboration, peacefulness, cooperation in a society where the alternative is ISIS, extremism, and terrorism.

00:33:24.740 And to your point, it's pennies on the dollar.

00:33:27.280 The U.S. Department of Defense has an annual budget of about $850 billion.

00:33:34.920 USAID was spending about $30 billion.

00:33:38.300 It is a small proportion of our total federal spending.

00:33:42.180 And as Joe Nye would often say, it's not just soft power, it's smart power.

00:33:47.280 Let me leave you with one other quote, Michael, if I could.

00:33:49.700 Jim Mattis, who is a four-star Marine Corps general and Trump's secretary of defense in his first term, in a hearing back then, said,

00:33:58.700 if you slash development and aid spending, then I'm going to need more bullets for our troops.

00:34:05.440 I mean, you want to talk about stretching.

00:34:07.440 He's saying Sesame Street's going to save us from extremism.

00:34:09.960 Are we kidding ourselves?

00:34:10.800 Well, look, the Democrats are dug in to defending everything, to defending all of the money that was just flowing out with no checks whatsoever.

00:34:21.760 And I think these examples are having a real effect of pissing people off, saying, why is my money going to that?

00:34:28.820 By the way, if Democrats think that's such a good idea, let them give their own money for that.

00:34:33.860 But what right do they have to take your money that you're working hard to provide for your kids and your family to take it and spend it on on every radical agenda item they want to push?

00:34:44.320 That's what's been happening.

00:34:45.600 It happened at egregious levels under the Biden administration.

00:34:48.960 And I think that's what Trump's working very hard to turn around.

00:34:52.780 Yeah, great point.

00:34:54.020 Finally, I want to ask you about this because I think it should be on listeners radar screen.

00:34:58.020 It's an important issue.

00:34:59.420 The New York Times is coming out talking about this.

00:35:01.640 The federal financial watchdog has been ordered to cease activity known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

00:35:10.420 Why is this happening and what does this mean?

00:35:13.500 Well, the CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, was created by the Dodd-Frank law.

00:35:19.440 This is a creation of Elizabeth Warren.

00:35:21.940 And it has descended like locusts, putting all sorts of regulations and costs.

00:35:31.400 It brings abusive litigation.

00:35:33.720 It is an avenue for left-wing bureaucrats to try to control community banks, smaller financial institutions, and to drive up costs.

00:35:47.180 And the CFPB, I've introduced repeatedly legislation to eliminate the CFPB.

00:35:54.580 What happened this week is Russ Vogt was confirmed to leave the Office of Management and Budget.

00:36:00.960 And Russ is a good friend.

00:36:02.540 He's a good guy.

00:36:04.080 He ran OMB under Trump during the first term.

00:36:07.440 And Russ was just confirmed.

00:36:09.720 We just confirmed him this past week to run OMB again.

00:36:13.160 And on Friday, he was also named the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the CFPB.

00:36:22.780 And as a result, he issued an order for them to halt what they're doing.

00:36:28.860 So one chunk of it, so the way Elizabeth Warren structured it, Congress does not appropriate money to the CFPB, which is weird, by the way.

00:36:37.160 If you look at virtually every federal agency, Congress appropriates money for them.

00:36:41.320 That's part of the checks and balances of how the federal government is set up.

00:36:45.980 Well, Dodd-Frank instead has the CFPB funded with money from the Federal Reserve that flows automatically so Congress doesn't get to appropriate and engage in the oversight that comes with that.

00:37:00.520 So as a result, on Saturday, Russ Vogt wrote that he had notified the Federal Reserve that the CFPB, quote,

00:37:12.920 will not be taking its next draw of unappropriated funding because it is not reasonably necessary to carry out its duties.

00:37:22.340 The Bureau's current balance of $711.6 billion is, in fact, excessive in the current fiscal environment.

00:37:31.880 This spigot, long contributing to CFPB's unaccountability, is now being turned off.

00:37:38.120 That is fantastic.

00:37:39.780 And I'll tell you what, I've introduced legislation that will zero out the CFPB, that will shut it down permanently.

00:37:48.060 I believe we will get that done as part of budget reconciliation.

00:37:55.680 And so eliminating the CFPB would be a major victory for lowering inflation, for lowering burdensome regulation, for lowering the nanny state control of big government.

00:38:07.280 And if we get that done, that's a huge victory.

00:38:10.160 I'll tell you, Russ Vogt taking over as acting director in the past few days was a major step forward in that regard.

00:38:16.500 Yeah, incredible.

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - February 10, 2025

Trump, Elon & DOGE-20 Incredible Days Cause Dems' Heads to Explode

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