Verdict with Ted Cruz - Trump Federalizes DC Police & Dems' Heads Explode plus Admin Directs the Military to Take Out Terrorist Drug Cartels

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.620 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.300 Welcome.

00:00:05.960 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:09.280 We are a day late, but it's because when we tried to do the show last night,

00:00:13.560 we had major technical difficulties and couldn't get the connections right.

00:00:17.880 So that's why we're coming with you today on this show, putting out on Tuesday.

00:00:22.920 The good news is we've had some unbelievable news.

00:00:25.500 It's broken.

00:00:26.220 And so they could be a blessing in disguise.

00:00:28.300 And one of the big issues that is broken, Senator, is the president of the United States of America

00:00:33.520 has made every liberal lose their mind because he's actually trying to fight crime in Washington, D.C.

00:00:37.960 And they're saying he's a dictator and a tyrant for doing this.

00:00:41.400 Well, today on Monday, the president made a bold announcement that the federal government

00:00:46.560 is federalizing the D.C. police force, that they are going to fight violent crime in D.C.

00:00:52.840 They're going to tackle the out-of-control murder rates, the violent crimes, the carjackings

00:00:57.280 that have plagued that city, plagued that city because of left-wing policies

00:01:01.900 that have undermined the ability of the police to actually protect the residents there.

00:01:06.560 And you're right.

00:01:07.740 This has Democrats and this has the media losing their minds.

00:01:12.660 How dare a president of the United States actually stand up against violent criminals?

00:01:16.880 We're going to break that down.

00:01:17.940 We're going to explain to you exactly what he did.

00:01:19.720 We're going to explain to you the legal basis for why he can do so.

00:01:22.800 We're also going to explain why D.C. is different.

00:01:25.720 One of the talking points you're seeing on television right now is, well, he's going to

00:01:29.440 do this in every country, every city in the country.

00:01:33.080 He's just going to take over every city in America.

00:01:35.660 And I don't think that's right.

00:01:37.160 I don't think that's going to happen.

00:01:38.880 D.C. is qualitatively different constitutionally and legally.

00:01:43.380 We're going to explain to you why.

00:01:45.120 We're also going to talk about another order President Trump put out, again, targeting bad

00:01:49.560 guys, but in this case, drug cartels, where he has directed the military to use military

00:01:54.460 force to go after drug cartels as terrorists, terrorists who are endangering American lives.

00:02:01.520 Again, this is something that Democrats are deeply upset about.

00:02:04.940 It seems there's nothing that could upset a Democrat more than law enforcement actually

00:02:09.640 going after murderers or rapists or gang members.

00:02:14.360 And that's exactly what President Trump is doing.

00:02:16.480 And by the way, that's exactly what he promised the voters he would do if he was elected.

00:02:22.220 Yeah, no doubt about it.

00:02:23.360 We're going to get into all of that.

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00:04:24.620 All right.

00:04:25.040 So, Senator, you and I are doing this show.

00:04:26.700 And just a half hour ago, I got off of yelling at the commies over at CNN.

00:04:32.960 They're literally unhinged right now going insane over the fact that Donald Trump's trying

00:04:37.860 to fight crime.

00:04:39.140 That would be all of them.

00:04:40.300 Yes.

00:04:40.540 That would be all of them.

00:04:41.880 And it was hysterical because they're like, well, this is what dictators and tyrants do.

00:04:45.760 I was like, hold on a second.

00:04:46.860 Dictators and tyrants are trying to put criminals in jail and save people's lives.

00:04:51.680 That's your talking point?

00:04:52.800 They're like, well, where is he going to stop if he does this in D.C.?

00:04:55.720 I'm like, well, he did it in D.C. because there's special rules for D.C.

00:04:59.900 There's a reason why he did it there, and he's not done it anywhere else.

00:05:02.860 They're like, well, you know he's just going to do this and be a dictator and take over

00:05:05.940 L.A. or Baltimore. 0.99

00:05:07.600 I'm like, you guys are crazy. 0.97

00:05:09.020 And again, you're angry at Donald Trump for fighting crime, which is out of control in 0.97

00:05:13.400 D.C., a place you spend a large part of your week every week.

00:05:16.440 Well, look, D.C. has gotten seriously dangerous, and I'll tell you, people going to work in

00:05:24.480 D.C., people living in D.C. are concerned for their safety.

00:05:27.220 They're concerned for the safety of their families.

00:05:28.900 They're concerned for the safety of their spouses and their children.

00:05:33.360 You know, Rand Paul had a Capitol Hill staffer who was stabbed walking along the sidewalk

00:05:39.180 in the middle of the afternoon.

00:05:40.560 There was a man who served in the first Trump administration who was in his car at 5 p.m.

00:05:46.820 on the streets.

00:05:47.860 He was shot in the head and murdered.

00:05:50.380 This violence is the direct result of disastrous Democrat policies that have handcuffed the police,

00:05:58.500 that have limited the ability of the police to go after violent criminals.

00:06:03.840 And the result is D.C. has become a very dangerous place.

00:06:06.780 So what happened?

00:06:07.700 And President Trump, Monday morning, he announced at a press conference, quote,

00:06:12.280 this is Liberation Day in D.C., and we're going to take our Capitol back.

00:06:16.900 And he declared a public safety emergency, and he took two actions.

00:06:22.400 Number one, he invoked Section 740 of the D.C. Home Rule Act, placing the D.C. police directly under federal control.

00:06:30.920 And number two, he signed a memorandum to the Secretary of Defense to utilize the National Guard.

00:06:36.660 He placed DEA Administrator Terry Cole as the interim federal commissioner of D.C. police,

00:06:42.780 and he also announced plans to temporarily reassign 120 FBI agents in D.C. to nighttime patrol duties.

00:06:54.420 All of that was announced today, and the reason he did it is he walked out the statistics about D.C. crime.

00:07:01.640 D.C.'s murder rate is higher than that of many cities around the globe.

00:07:08.440 D.C.'s murder rate is higher than Bogota, Colombia.

00:07:12.660 D.C. has one of the highest murder rates among large U.S. cities nationwide.

00:07:17.100 The homicide rate is more than 27 murders per 100,000 residents.

00:07:22.280 That was in 2024. Vehicle theft in D.C. is more than three times the national average,

00:07:30.080 with 842.4 thefts per 100,000 residents.

00:07:35.500 It is among the most dangerous cities globally, and in recent years, the number of car thefts has doubled,

00:07:44.300 and the number of car jackings has tripled.

00:07:48.340 Look, I had actually, while I was recording Verdict, I don't know if you know this story,

00:07:52.720 but years ago when Verdict just started, while I was recording Verdict,

00:07:56.700 we had the truck that I was driving in parked on the D.C. streets,

00:08:02.260 and we went down to the TV studios in the basement.

00:08:04.640 I don't remember that.

00:08:05.900 And while the truck was on the streets, someone broke into the windows,

00:08:10.700 shattered them open, and stole my briefcase.

00:08:12.600 Took my briefcase with my computer and my iPad, and took the whole thing.

00:08:17.600 You didn't have classified documents in there, did you?

00:08:19.880 You know, like Joe Biden.

00:08:20.560 I did not.

00:08:21.020 You didn't just have them randomly there.

00:08:22.680 Okay, just making sure.

00:08:24.140 Otherwise, that would have been some big news here.

00:08:26.720 Unlike Joe Biden, I've never removed classified documents from a secure compartmentalized facility.

00:08:31.800 Unlike Sandy Berger, who was Bill Clinton's national security advisor,

00:08:35.560 I've never stuffed classified documents in my underwear or in my socks to try to smuggle them out.

00:08:40.980 So, no, it was just annoying.

00:08:43.080 And by the way, here's a stat about carjackings.

00:08:46.940 In recent years, the number of carjackings in D.C. has tripled.

00:08:54.020 And one of those victims of carjackings was Congressman Henry Cuellar, a Texas congressman.

00:08:59.900 Again, it was evening time.

00:09:02.460 He was just coming home with his dinner, and he was carjacked in front of his apartment,

00:09:08.900 where apparently numerous members of Congress live in this apartment building.

00:09:16.140 And a member of Congress was carjacked.

00:09:18.740 And so President Trump is acting directly.

00:09:22.040 And apparently one of the motivations from this is that a White House staffer named Edward Corristine, 0.89

00:09:32.500 he's a Doge staffer, and his nickname is Big Balls.

00:09:36.400 And I will say, by the way, one of the funniest things I've ever seen is because he was working in Doge,

00:09:40.860 it forced Dana Bash and CNN to say the words Big Balls like 19 different times on air,

00:09:46.220 which I have to admit, I couldn't watch the segment without doubling over laughing.

00:09:52.420 Well, apparently this young man, unfortunately, was assaulted over the weekend

00:09:56.680 by about 10 juveniles near DuPont Circle.

00:10:00.000 And so when a 19-year-old staffer in the White House can't be safe in D.C.,

00:10:04.620 the president, I think, should act.

00:10:06.560 And that's what President Trump has done so.

00:10:08.360 It's amazing how mad they are that he's actually trying to fight crime.

00:10:11.920 And it's actually pretty simple.

00:10:13.420 He's saying it's out of control.

00:10:15.200 The numbers are out of control.

00:10:17.140 The data shows it's out of control.

00:10:19.140 And, yes, the numbers have come down this year, thank goodness par.

00:10:21.800 That's because I think Law & Order and the president advocating for law enforcement all over the country

00:10:25.560 and allowing law enforcement to be empowered to do their job and ICE agents to do their job.

00:10:29.900 But they're actually angry at him because he's doing something that they say is out of his job description.

00:10:40.380 And they're like, this is what dictators and tyrants do.

00:10:43.400 And I go back to that line.

00:10:44.520 I'm like, wait, dictators and tyrants are fighting crime?

00:10:47.440 Like, that's a bad thing?

00:10:48.700 Really?

00:10:49.900 Well, and the federal government has authority over D.C. explicitly under the Constitution.

00:10:56.300 Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution gives Congress, quote,

00:11:02.000 exclusive legislation over D.C. 0.61

00:11:05.300 And Congress, through its delegee, the D.C. Council, designated that the president serves as the D.C. National Guard's commander-in-chief.

00:11:15.680 And that's in D.C. Code Section 49-409, which reads, quote,

00:11:20.500 The president of the United States shall be the commander-in-chief of the militia of the District of Columbia.

00:11:26.520 There's an executive order from 1969 that delegates the day-to-day authority over the D.C. Guard

00:11:31.640 from the president to the Secretary of Defense, who further delegates it to the Secretary of the Army.

00:11:36.760 So there's explicit authority to authorize the National Guard.

00:11:41.260 And also Congress, in 1973, passed a law called the Home Rule Act.

00:11:47.320 And what the Home Rule Act does is it gives the president explicitly the power to take control of the D.C. police, quote,

00:11:56.400 Whenever he determines that special conditions of an emergency nature exist,

00:12:02.040 which require the use of the Metropolitan Police Force for federal purposes.

00:12:06.540 And that statute, the Home Rule Act further says the mayor shall provide, shall, not may,

00:12:12.540 shall provide the police, quote, as the president may deem necessary and appropriate,

00:12:19.500 not as the mayor deems, not as the city council deems, as the president may deem.

00:12:24.360 And the authority is limited to 48 hours unless the president sends notice to the congressional committees on D.C.

00:12:32.680 justifying the action, at which point the authority is limited to 30 days.

00:12:36.000 Trump has said he sent that notice this morning.

00:12:39.660 This section's never been invoked before, but it is explicit, unequivocal statutory authority to do what he did.

00:12:46.480 And the fact that Democrats in the media are losing their mind is they don't like the fact that he's exercising clear legal authority

00:12:52.800 and clear legal authority that he's using precisely because the D.C. mayor and the D.C. city council have refused to do their jobs.

00:13:02.940 It's amazing that they refuse to do their job.

00:13:05.400 And even now, the police union coming out, this is part of that story I think is really important so people understand reality compared to how the media is covering this.

00:13:14.360 The police union has come out and said thank you to the president and said we need your help because we have so many officers down.

00:13:22.660 And they're like, we are asking and telling the president thank you.

00:13:25.760 And that's the police union who is saying this.

00:13:28.360 And yet the mayor's still like, well, I don't know about this.

00:13:31.540 I'm like, if your police union is telling you you need the help, why would you not just say, let's put politics aside here.

00:13:38.720 Let's work with the president.

00:13:40.560 Let's work with the National Guard.

00:13:42.540 Let's get things safe at the metro stations where we've seen a large uptick in crime.

00:13:47.420 Let me tell you where I could use this National Guard, where you could put it and do this in a bipartisan way.

00:13:53.500 But again, it goes back to this Trump derangement syndrome that white orange man is always bad, even if he's fighting crime. 0.77

00:13:59.300 Yeah, but it's not just that. 0.58

00:14:02.280 It's that today's Democrat Party can't stand the police.

00:14:07.140 It used to be there was a time when when police unions, many of them were Democrats.

00:14:12.900 I will tell you, as I travel the country everywhere I go, and especially blue cities, when I arrive in a city like New York and a city like Chicago, when I when I got off the plane on in Chicago, I'm often greeted by four or five, six, eight police officers, unified cops, uniformed cops who will come up to me.

00:14:31.460 And they just say thank you. They'll give me their patches and they feel so beleaguered.

00:14:37.580 And I tell them this is something I try to make a point.

00:14:40.380 And you've traveled with me, Ben. You've seen this.

00:14:42.460 When I see a police officer, I'm in Dallas today.

00:14:45.420 When I landed in Dallas Love Field, there were several officers there, I thanked shook the hands of every officer there, said, thank you.

00:14:54.120 Thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for fighting to defend us.

00:14:57.160 And I'll tell you what I tell the officers in Chicago and everywhere else, which is it's my job to have your back.

00:15:03.520 And why has D.C. undermined the police so systematically?

00:15:09.480 Because the Democrat Party has been taken over by the nut jobs. 1.00

00:15:14.860 It's been taken over by the abolish the police crazies, the defund the police crazies.

00:15:20.400 D.C. has in place no cash bail policy so that people commit violent crimes and get released on no cash bail.

00:15:28.180 That is madness. And one of the things President Trump asked Congress to do is abolish D.C.'s no cash bail.

00:15:36.760 I would certainly vote to do so. I think that's absolutely the right thing to do.

00:15:41.140 I will tell you I think the odds are very high that Senate Democrats will filibuster any effort to get rid of no cash bail in D.C.

00:15:51.840 because the Democrats today are the party of criminals. 0.90

00:15:56.260 They are. And look, when I say that, Ben, that sounds hyperbolic. 0.99

00:16:00.900 That sounds, oh, come on. How can they really be the party of criminals?

00:16:04.360 Well, they're the ones that tell you they are.

00:16:06.660 They're the ones that their dismay is how dare the president be committed to arresting murderers and rapists and gang members.

00:16:16.640 And I want to be clear about something. D.C. is qualitatively different.

00:16:20.660 So there's a statute, a longstanding statute, called Posse Comitatus.

00:16:25.040 Posse Comitatus bars the use of the U.S. military for civilian law enforcement,

00:16:30.880 except when authorized by the Constitution or another provision of federal law.

00:16:36.380 And so if the president were to do this in New York City or Chicago,

00:16:42.140 there would certainly be a challenge under Posse Comitatus that using the military for law enforcement violates that.

00:16:51.700 Importantly, however, the Department of Justice in 1989,

00:16:55.600 the Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion that found that President George Herbert Walker Bush

00:17:01.740 could use the D.C. Guard to carry out law enforcement missions in D.C.

00:17:07.360 as part of the so-called war on drugs.

00:17:10.240 And so you've got a Department of Justice opinion longstanding from decades ago

00:17:15.460 that says D.C. is different because it's not a state.

00:17:19.520 It is a federal enclave.

00:17:21.000 The federal government has blanket authority over D.C.

00:17:24.560 And so this is an instance where the president is acting pursuant to his authority.

00:17:29.500 And I expect that his actions are going to prove highly effective,

00:17:35.020 which I got to tell you, Ben, I think that scares Democrats even more.

00:17:38.560 Well, and that brings me to the second part of this,

00:17:40.560 which is you look at how big of a success this could be pretty quickly.

00:17:45.900 And if it is a success, it's just going to expose so many other sanctuary city leaders,

00:17:53.680 the Gavin Newsoms, the L.A. mayor, the Baltimore mayor, Chicago mayor,

00:17:57.540 the Memphis mayor, the Detroit mayor, the New Orleans mayor,

00:18:00.420 all of these top crime cities for exactly what they've done.

00:18:03.980 It's the policies.

00:18:05.180 You look at just D.C. and how soft they've been on crime with juveniles.

00:18:09.220 And juvenile crime exploded in D.C. during COVID and after COVID

00:18:15.720 because they refused to hold juveniles accountable for their actions.

00:18:19.720 We've seen this happen a lot of other places around the country.

00:18:21.940 So if this turns into a major success for the president

00:18:25.320 and people feel safe in D.C.,

00:18:28.260 how big of a political victory for law and order?

00:18:31.960 I'm not talking about Republican or Democrat.

00:18:33.140 I'm talking about for law and order.

00:18:35.360 Could this be in precedent moving forward?

00:18:37.680 The president say, hey, I'm willing to help you.

00:18:40.000 You just got to ask for the help

00:18:41.300 because we can do what we just did in Washington, D.C.

00:18:44.920 Yeah, look, that's exactly right.

00:18:47.100 And I think the obvious analog is border security.

00:18:51.360 We spent four years under Joe Biden and the Democrats

00:18:53.720 with the Democrats saying they were helpless to secure the border.

00:18:57.280 It was impossible to do.

00:18:58.420 I was there a year ago at the State of the Union address

00:19:01.440 when Joe Biden said he needed new legislation.

00:19:04.800 The only way to secure the border is if Congress passed new legislation.

00:19:08.620 Now, I was there this year when Trump gave his State of the Union address.

00:19:12.300 And it was after border crossings with Trump being sworn into office

00:19:15.660 had dropped more than 99 percent.

00:19:19.560 And Trump, my favorite line from his whole State of the Union address,

00:19:22.540 is he said, it turns out we didn't need new legislation.

00:19:26.040 We just needed a new president.

00:19:28.280 Well, the same thing is true here.

00:19:29.600 Look, President Trump has demonstrated conclusively

00:19:33.020 the border can be secured,

00:19:35.580 and it could have been secured four years ago,

00:19:37.700 except Joe Biden and the Democrats wanted open borders

00:19:41.160 because they saw a political benefit.

00:19:43.200 If we see the kind of successes that I know President Trump hopes we'll see,

00:19:47.500 that I think we are likely to see,

00:19:49.560 it will demonstrate, not just every resident of D.C.,

00:19:52.420 but every resident of every other high-crime city in the country,

00:19:55.640 wait a second.

00:19:57.340 This can be stopped.

00:19:58.880 My family can be protected.

00:20:01.660 And the fact that the murder rates in my city are so high,

00:20:05.300 that the rape and child molestations and the carjacking rates are so high,

00:20:09.240 that is a choice, a voluntary choice from Democrat politicians

00:20:14.300 who put partisan priorities above protecting their citizenry.

00:20:19.020 That, at the end of the day,

00:20:21.380 is, I think, one of the biggest reasons Democrats are freaking out.

00:20:24.200 And I want to make another point about this,

00:20:26.180 which is there used to be an implicit agreement about D.C. home rule,

00:20:30.540 which is that Republicans wouldn't interfere day to day,

00:20:33.300 and the Democrat officials in D.C. wouldn't run the city as a social experiment

00:20:38.600 driven by progressive self-indulgence, like in other blue cities.

00:20:43.320 And the D.C. mayor and city council broke that implicit agreement.

00:20:49.040 D.C. is fundamentally different from other major cities

00:20:52.360 because it's the nation's political capital,

00:20:54.860 and if you are serving in the federal government, you have to be in D.C.

00:20:58.660 If the residents of New York or San Francisco want to elect crazy Soros district attorneys,

00:21:07.420 if they want their officials to implement their combination of communism and anarchy

00:21:13.800 and woke policy shutting down schools and businesses,

00:21:20.480 you know what?

00:21:21.600 If you don't like it, you can leave.

00:21:24.240 And leaving that, you can get out of a blue city.

00:21:30.260 To the extent voters anywhere in America elect representatives to represent them.

00:21:34.920 Look, the people of Texas, 31 million Texans have sent me to represent them in the Senate.

00:21:40.220 I have to go to Washington, D.C. to do that.

00:21:42.840 That's where the Senate is. 0.94

00:21:44.140 My staff, many of whom are Texans,

00:21:46.580 they have to be in D.C. to do that job.

00:21:49.400 And so the lawlessness, the president is acting, look, fine,

00:21:53.460 if you've got San Francisco Democrats who want to go from one lawless hellhole to another,

00:21:58.180 that's their choice.

00:21:59.600 But the nation's capital, there is an obligation to keep it safe.

00:22:04.040 And I think the president is doing the exactly right thing by acting boldly.

00:22:08.360 I want to commend him.

00:22:09.800 This is a bold step, and I think it's a really important one.

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00:22:29.240 entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers,

00:22:32.960 all at different stages of their journey.

00:22:35.140 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:22:38.380 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:22:42.440 It also goes back to the second part of the show,

00:22:47.540 and it deals with the president making very big steps, bold steps here.

00:22:51.480 And look at what he has decided to now do when it comes to dealing with drug cartels.

00:22:58.320 He's made them, some of them have been named terrorist organizations,

00:23:02.780 and this was done deliberately on purpose by this president to be able to go after the drug cartels,

00:23:10.400 which these cartels are clearly killing Americans each and every day with the drugs coming across the border

00:23:18.040 and also the violence that comes across the border.

00:23:20.620 And the president now has enough.

00:23:22.600 He put out a tweet, and he's ordering now the U.S. military to destroy not only the drug cartels,

00:23:28.700 but the New York Post is reporting as well that the president has apparently authorized military force

00:23:33.900 against Latin American drug cartels classified as foreign terrorist organizations.

00:23:38.840 Pete Hedgeth went on Laura Ingraham's show tonight, was asked about it.

00:23:42.320 He's like, look, we know a lot more about these cartels than they realize.

00:23:46.300 We know a lot more about where they are, what they're doing, where they're moving.

00:23:49.080 And the president said this is a top priority, and I'm working on it.

00:23:53.340 And that was a pretty bold statement from the man in charge of the Pentagon.

00:23:58.100 Absolutely, yes.

00:23:59.100 Here's what the New York Post reported.

00:24:00.620 Quote, President Trump has secretly authorized the military to use force against Latin American drug cartels

00:24:06.120 classified as foreign terrorist organizations.

00:24:09.460 The move is the most aggressive action Trump has taken yet against gangs trafficking drugs like fentanyl

00:24:14.940 across the U.S.-Mexico border,

00:24:16.440 the activities of which were previously the purview of federal law enforcement.

00:24:20.860 The order, first reported Friday by the New York Times,

00:24:24.620 gives U.S. forces official permission to engage cartels on land and sea.

00:24:32.080 Quote,

00:24:32.440 The president is determined to not just dismantle, but completely destroy Maduro's Cartel de los Soles

00:24:41.720 and to obliterate their operations in the Western Hemisphere, a source close to the White House said.

00:24:48.180 The State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations involved in drug trafficking include Venezuela's Tren de Aragua

00:24:56.020 and Cartel de los Soles, as well as El Salvador's routed Mara Salvatrucha, known as MS-13.

00:25:04.220 And that is incredibly consequential because it now sets up the stage.

00:25:12.740 I would expect to see military action taking out the cartels that have been designated as terrorist organizations.

00:25:20.640 That takes this to a whole new level.

00:25:23.600 And just like what the president is doing in D.C., that has Democrats beside themselves,

00:25:29.140 because given a choice between siding with law-abiding American citizens or murderers and gang members,

00:25:35.480 today's Democrats side with the murderers and gang members,

00:25:38.220 and given a choice between siding with international gangs and drug cartels that are trafficking poison to our kids

00:25:46.340 and murdering Americans or standing with American families, 0.77

00:25:50.080 sadly the Democrats choose to get on a plane and go down to El Salvador 0.71

00:25:53.600 and have daiquiris with MS-13 human traffickers.

00:25:56.980 Well, let's talk about the narrative as well on this.

00:26:00.300 Today I was watching and they were saying,

00:26:03.120 well, this is the president sanctioning World War III.

00:26:06.560 This is the president sanctioning an attack on Mexico.

00:26:12.660 And that's going to start a war.

00:26:14.820 I think those might be two of the most egregious and just absurd statements.

00:26:19.260 The president, if we attack the cartels of terrorist organizations,

00:26:22.400 that's not an attack on Mexico.

00:26:24.360 That's not going to war with Mexico,

00:26:25.640 even though the Democrats and those in the media are trying to explain it that way.

00:26:29.780 I don't think the American people would see it that way either,

00:26:32.220 especially with Americans dying on a daily basis.

00:26:34.820 Look, I think that's right.

00:26:37.160 And I'll point out also that there is a clear precedent for this.

00:26:41.600 When George W. Bush was president, you had the nation of Colombia just racked by drug cartels,

00:26:47.520 the Medellin cartel, the Kali cartel.

00:26:50.060 And the result of these cartels is crime in Colombia was out of control.

00:26:54.740 The murder rate was out of control.

00:26:56.200 You had acts of terrorism that were attacking and the cartels were murdering, were blowing up,

00:27:05.420 were shooting police officers and judges and elected officials and mayors.

00:27:12.100 And it was really in bad shape.

00:27:14.120 And the people of Colombia elected President Uribe as the president of Colombia.

00:27:18.500 And he asked President George W. Bush, will you help us?

00:27:23.560 And Bush launched what was called Plan Colombia.

00:27:27.380 Plan Colombia sent the military in and just decimated the cartels. 0.88

00:27:33.180 Turns out our military is really good at killing the bad guys.

00:27:36.800 And we did so.

00:27:39.160 And it ended up turning Colombia around.

00:27:41.640 It made a massive difference in the nation of Colombia.

00:27:44.320 So our military knows how to do this.

00:27:46.620 There's clear precedent with some of these with some of these cartels.

00:27:54.340 We will be asked in by the governments with open arms with in other instances.

00:27:59.800 You may have elected officials and governments that resist America coming in. 0.82

00:28:04.620 That becomes more complicated.

00:28:06.560 The United States has acted against terrorists in foreign nations,

00:28:09.800 even when the sovereign government is less than thrilled about that.

00:28:13.760 But it's more complicated if the government is asking us not to.

00:28:17.480 But but but it is nonetheless how exactly the Trump administration navigates that.

00:28:22.120 That will be an open question over the next three years.

00:28:25.460 But I got to tell you this.

00:28:26.660 If you're a Mexican drug lord, if you're a drug lord anywhere, but particularly in one of these gangs that has been designated a terrorist organization by the president,

00:28:37.040 I would sleep with one eye open because, you know, a predator drone is really good at making things go boom in the night.

00:28:45.100 And I think the terrorists and the drug cartels are all sleeping a lot less comfortable right now.

00:28:52.820 Amen to that.

00:28:53.960 And they have not had to worry about this threat in my entire lifetime.

00:28:58.280 And I think that's another part of the story where they've never been treated the way that now the president's treating them.

00:29:04.540 And the American people are clearly behind this.

00:29:06.780 This is two major examples of the president promising law and order and national security and safety.

00:29:11.720 And he's definitely backing it up.

00:29:14.320 Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

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00:29:19.280 Please share this podcast wherever you can on social media.

00:29:23.000 And the senator and I will see you back here on Wednesday morning.

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - August 12, 2025

Trump Federalizes DC Police & Dems' Heads Explode plus Admin Directs the Military to Take Out Terrorist Drug Cartels

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