Verdict with Ted Cruz - July 11, 2026


Trump Gets Green Light to Clean House, Mamdani's 'Gloom and Doom' American Vision & Birthright Citizenship Hits a SCOTUS Wall Week In Review


Episode Stats


Length

36 minutes

Words per minute

162.64

Word count

5,942

Sentence count

319

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Ted Cruz and Ben Ferguson discuss the Supreme Court's week in review, and the 4th of July message from President Trump about hope and a grim outlook of America. They also discuss the birthright citizenship ruling and what it means for the future of the country.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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00:00:34.240 Why should you listen to Armstrong and Getty On Demand?
00:00:37.840 We're not boring.
00:00:38.920 A lot of news is boring.
00:00:39.920 And tedious.
00:00:40.800 And depressing.
00:00:41.380 And makes you angry.
00:00:42.760 You don't want to live your life like that.
00:00:45.040 Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong.
00:00:46.100 He's Joe Getty.
00:00:46.740 We're Armstrong and Getty.
00:00:47.860 We try to bring you the truth.
00:00:49.000 And help you figure out this crazy modern world.
00:00:51.400 How about something about a comedic tone?
00:00:55.880 We have a winner.
00:00:57.380 Yes.
00:00:58.400 Listen to Armstrong and Getty On Demand on the iHeartRadio app,
00:01:01.440 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:04.240 What God started in my life, He's going to finish.
00:01:07.360 The Joel Osteen Daily Podcast.
00:01:09.480 Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.
00:01:13.300 What was meant for my harm, Lord, I want to thank you right now.
00:01:16.540 You're turning to my advantage.
00:01:18.020 Your daily source of hope and encouragement.
00:01:20.940 Your second wind is on its way.
00:01:23.800 God is about to breathe on your life in a new way.
00:01:26.900 Listen to the Joel Osteen Daily Podcast on the iHeartRadio app,
00:01:30.740 Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
00:01:34.240 Welcome. It is Verdict with Ted Cruz, Week in Review. Ben Ferguson with you, and here are the stories that you may have missed that we talked about this week.
00:01:41.780 First up, the Supreme Court gives a major win to President Trump, that he actually has the authority to fire whoever he wants. We break that down.
00:01:50.380 Also, there was a 4th of July message from the president that was about hope, and then there was a grim outlook of America from Mondani.
00:01:58.080 Why did the Democrats choose him to be their mouthpiece? We explain it.
00:02:02.000 And finally, there's a big fight over birthright citizenship, and the Supreme Court gave their ruling.
00:02:07.960 So what did they decide, and what does it mean for the future going forward?
00:02:12.060 It's the Week in Review, and it starts right now.
00:02:14.820 All right, so Senator, let's talk about some of the victories, and one of them was a very interesting case.
00:02:20.820 It's about the president having the ability to fire people, and this was one of those that maybe wasn't on a lot of people's radar screen, but it's a really important case.
00:02:30.720 Well, let's start with two decisions, and this is a big victory, Trump versus Slaughter and Trump versus Cook.
00:02:37.140 And it dealt with the ability of the president to fire people in his administration.
00:02:43.440 So almost 100 years ago, the court decided a case called Humphrey's Executor.
00:02:49.820 Humphrey's Executor, actually 91 years ago, the court concluded that the president cannot fire a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission.
00:03:00.720 uh and the federal trade commission was set up as a so-called independent agency it was an agency
00:03:07.800 with three commissioners appointed by the president confirmed by the senate from the majority party
00:03:13.260 and two commissioners appointed by the president confirmed by the senate from that minority party
00:03:19.360 and and the so-called independent agencies arose uh coming out of the woodrow wilson era coming
00:03:27.040 out of the progressive era as a way to limit presidential power and humphrey's executor said
00:03:33.160 the president doesn't have the ability to fire an ftc commissioner without cause well in in my view
00:03:42.460 humphrey's executor was wrong the day it was decided 91 years ago and it has been wrong every
00:03:49.700 day for nine decades since then why because under the constitution the constitution the first three
00:03:56.680 articles of the Constitution. Article 1, vest all legislative power in the Congress of the United
00:04:02.300 States. Article 2, vest all executive power in the President of the United States. And Article 3,
00:04:11.360 vest all judicial power in the judiciary. What Humphrey's executor did is severely limit
00:04:18.380 the President's Article 2 authority over the executive branch. Anyone in government,
00:04:23.760 you are either in one of those three buckets. You're either a legislative official. I'm a
00:04:29.900 legislative official. I'm elected by the people of Texas to represent them in the Senate. I'm in
00:04:34.420 the legislature. I'm in Article I. You could be a judicial official. That is appointed by the
00:04:39.440 president, confirmed by the Senate. You're a judge with life tenure adjudicating cases. That's in
00:04:44.360 Article III. Everyone else is in Article II. Article II is the executive, and under the
00:04:50.900 constitution the president has authority over the executive humphrey's executor said no no you don't
00:04:57.200 there could be someone that works for the executive and yet somehow congress has taken over
00:05:02.340 the ability of the president to control that person well when president trump came in in the
00:05:08.700 second term he fired two fdc directors commissioners rather one of which was rebecca
00:05:17.600 slaughter rebecca slaughter is a democrat she was one of the five fdc commissioners and he fired
00:05:24.320 her he said you know what i just want republican commissioners i'm not appointing democrat
00:05:28.280 commissions now he did that knowing it would prompt a legal challenge and anticipating that
00:05:34.960 that it would be a legal challenge he would prevail in i will tell you i've said publicly
00:05:39.500 multiple times for for a long time trump was going to prevail and you know as i talked to
00:05:46.600 reporters, they'd say, well, what do you think about this case? I said, Trump's going to win,
00:05:50.220 and he's going to win because Humphrey's executor was wrong. The president has the
00:05:55.040 authority over the executive branch, and I believe the court is going to overrule Humphrey's
00:06:01.020 executor. Well, this week, that prediction came true. By the way, we talk on this podcast a lot
00:06:06.740 about the predictions we make, and the vast majority of the predictions we make come true,
00:06:12.320 and and we hold ourselves accountable when they come true we lay them out when they don't come
00:06:16.440 true we lay them out in this instance Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion
00:06:22.020 he was joined by Justice Alito Justice Gorsuch Justice Kavanaugh Justice Barrett and Justice
00:06:30.820 Thomas in part so it was a 6-3 decision and the court overturned Humphrey's executor said the
00:06:37.380 president can fire an FTC commission. That's a big victory. That's a big victory for presidential
00:06:44.900 authority. That's a big victory for the text of the Constitution. That's a big victory for the
00:06:49.940 original understanding of the Constitution. Now, here's kind of a weird wrinkle. There was another
00:06:57.560 case that was cook versus trump so lisa cook was a federal reserve uh governor yeah and trump also
00:07:10.160 fired lisa cook now interestingly enough look you would think the same principle should apply
00:07:16.920 that if trump can fire an ftc commissioner he ought to be able to fire uh a federal reserve
00:07:26.180 governor well you'd be wrong on that uh the court by a vote of five to four held that trump could
00:07:32.940 not fire lisa cook that the federal reserve was different and and it was a different majority
00:07:38.140 chief justice roberts wrote both opinions which did not surprise me trump versus cook was joined
00:07:44.640 roberts joined by justice sotomayor justice kagan justice kavanaugh and justice ketanji brown
00:07:52.680 jackson so it was five four now clarence thomas dissented he called the ruling incorrect uh he
00:07:59.340 pointed out that that it was inconsistent with the slaughter decision i gotta say this did not
00:08:05.240 surprise me at all and and and indeed i i had predicted humphrey's executors would be overturned
00:08:12.460 but at the same time the court would be reluctant to accord the president carte blanche over the
00:08:21.140 Federal Reserve. And in my view, look, Chief Justice Roberts had different distinctions about
00:08:26.620 the statute of the Federal Reserve. I actually think those distinctions did not matter. This
00:08:32.380 was, I believe, in significant respects, a results-driven outcome. I think at the end of
00:08:39.860 the day, you did not have five justices that were willing to accede the power to the president to
00:08:47.700 fire a Federal Reserve governor, because the role of the Federal Reserve with our currency,
00:08:53.140 with our economy, was significant enough that they were reluctant to do it. That doesn't surprise me.
00:08:58.400 The consequence of these two decisions, is Trump versus Cook pure and true to the Constitution?
00:09:07.340 Probably not. But it is a fairly narrow exception to the much broader precedent,
00:09:14.440 which is Trump versus Slaughter, which overrules Humphrey's executor and upholds the president's authority to fire executive branch employees at his discretion.
00:09:27.880 That's going to obviously have big impact moving forward, right, over the next couple of years for the president as well.
00:09:32.560 Would you agree?
00:09:34.060 Yeah, no, no, it's a big deal.
00:09:35.880 And it's going to mean as a practical matter going forward, I think there's a real possibility,
00:09:40.180 in fact, a likelihood that these so-called independent commissions will not have bipartisan
00:09:46.920 commissions. I think going forward, you're going to see commissions like the FTC, the FCC,
00:09:53.820 potentially the FEC, the various commissions that are bipartisan. What we've seen with Trump is that
00:10:02.360 he says, I'm not going to appoint Democrats to it. And he leaves those seats vacant. My guess is
00:10:08.040 if and when we have another democrat president and unfortunately we will likely have another
00:10:14.380 democrat president i'd rather not i think the democrats policies are really damaging but
00:10:18.340 if history is any guide we will see the democrats in charge of the white house at some point
00:10:22.640 and i think it is quite likely that when the democrats are in charge
00:10:26.340 they will appoint to the independent commissions three commissioners from the democrat party
00:10:32.120 and zero Republican commissioners.
00:10:34.920 And look, I'll say, what, 25 years ago,
00:10:38.980 when George W. Bush was elected president,
00:10:42.060 I came in, I was a young campaign staffer.
00:10:44.600 I'd been down in Austin, Texas,
00:10:46.600 on the campaign team with then-Governor Bush.
00:10:49.640 I met Heidi on the Bush campaign.
00:10:52.620 She and I came to join the Bush administration.
00:10:54.760 I spent about six months in the Department of Justice.
00:10:57.140 And then I went over to the Federal Trade Commission.
00:10:59.560 And the FTC is what was the subject of this litigation.
00:11:03.720 My boss at the time was the chairman, Tim Muris.
00:11:06.240 Tim is a brilliant conservative lawyer, economist.
00:11:11.200 And I was the head of policy at the FTC when I was 30 years old.
00:11:14.900 I was a young kid.
00:11:16.120 It was a fascinating job.
00:11:17.260 I did that for a little over two years.
00:11:19.500 Very much enjoyed the job.
00:11:21.440 At the time, we had three Republican commissioners, two Democrat commissioners.
00:11:24.800 And to be honest, to be a minority commissioner on the independent commission, it's kind of a weird job because you don't have the votes, but you can nonetheless express your views.
00:11:34.280 You can dissent, you write opinions, you press back within the executive branch.
00:11:40.700 I think the consequence of this decision is you're not going to see minority commissioners from the party out of power.
00:11:47.260 You will see the independent agencies operate much like the rest of the executives.
00:11:52.380 So just like in the Department of Labor, you don't have a Republican secretary of labor and then a Democrat secretary of labor who argues against it.
00:12:02.260 Instead, you just have appointees of the president.
00:12:04.740 I think you will see in the independent agencies the same sort of thing.
00:12:08.780 They will just be appointees of the majority party.
00:12:11.940 Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week.
00:12:18.620 Tap, send, go.
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00:12:29.580 your money is delivered quickly and reliably straight to their Gcash wallet.
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00:12:40.560 Send it their way, the quick way.
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00:12:44.220 Download the app or visit westernunion.com and send money today.
00:12:48.400 Why should you listen to Armstrong and Getty On Demand?
00:12:52.020 We're not boring.
00:12:53.100 A lot of news is boring.
00:12:54.100 And tedious.
00:12:54.960 And depressing.
00:12:55.540 And makes you angry.
00:12:56.920 You don't want to live your life like that.
00:12:59.220 Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong.
00:13:00.260 He's Joe Getty.
00:13:00.920 We're Armstrong and Getty.
00:13:02.020 We try to bring you the truth.
00:13:03.180 And help you figure out this crazy modern world.
00:13:05.560 How about something about a comedic tone?
00:13:10.060 We have a winner.
00:13:11.560 Yes.
00:13:12.580 Listen to Armstrong and Getty On Demand on the iHeartRadio app,
00:13:15.600 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:13:18.400 What God started in my life, he's going to finish.
00:13:21.600 The Joel Osteen Daily Podcast.
00:13:23.660 Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.
00:13:27.480 What was meant for my harm, Lord, I want to thank you right now.
00:13:30.720 You're turning to my advantage.
00:13:32.200 Your daily source of hope and encouragement.
00:13:35.120 Your second wind is on its way.
00:13:37.980 God is about to breathe on your life in a new way.
00:13:41.060 Listen to the Joel Osteen Daily Podcast on the iHeartRadio app,
00:13:44.920 Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
00:13:49.320 Now on to story number two.
00:13:51.620 Very dark, dark 4th of July speech from Mandani,
00:13:55.860 where, by the way, his desk was backwards.
00:13:57.980 If you didn't see that, it's hilarious.
00:13:59.660 But here's Mandani in his own words.
00:14:01.660 Yes, we see America in a health insurance industry that exploits the sick.
00:14:05.600 But that is not all we see when we look for America.
00:14:08.840 We see it, too, in the nurse who works a double shift
00:14:11.560 and then stops on our way home to check on an ailing neighbor.
00:14:14.260 yes we see america in corporate landlords for whom negligence is a business model
00:14:18.680 we see it too in the father who tucks his children into bed beneath a ceiling stained
00:14:24.000 with leaks who wakes before dawn to go to work and still believes his country can do better
00:14:29.020 by his family yes we see america when we spend our tax dollars on bombs and bailouts when we
00:14:35.860 sell our elections to the highest bidder i mean that you hear that and it's like wow you really
00:14:42.160 genuinely hate this country and it's scary what you want to do with it well and and he's contrasting
00:14:48.560 he every everything about america is bad but then he says you know we care for the nurse we care for
00:14:54.360 the individual person this is the classic lie of the communists that the the the communist comes
00:15:00.480 and says we're for the little guy we're for the poor we're for the down truck and yet what you
00:15:06.400 have every time you have communism you get poverty and misery and suffering and death you get more
00:15:14.780 poor people you get equality but you get a quality of misery and in fact the only people that are not
00:15:22.100 equal are the rulers ironically uh you know mandami put out a a decree it told uh told new
00:15:30.320 yorkers turn your air conditioning up to 78 degrees because it's going to be hot this fourth
00:15:35.780 of july and and a watchdog group came and checked on mondani's offices and of course they were not
00:15:41.460 up in 78 degrees that they were turned down to 72 because what the communist decrees for you
00:15:47.820 he never lived by his own rules you know i by the way i was laughing at you were on vacation i didn't
00:15:53.920 send you the clip but it it exploded i was on at cnn on abby phillips show on uh thursday night
00:16:01.260 when they were celebrating Mondani saying to turn your AC up to 78.
00:16:06.980 And I just asked, are you in favor of this?
00:16:11.360 And they tried to, you know, like, yeah, well, yeah.
00:16:13.780 I was like, well, it's not 78 right now in this studio.
00:16:17.620 So let's crank up.
00:16:19.620 I looked at everybody on set, all the liberals.
00:16:21.720 Like, all right, let's crank it up in solidarity with Mondani.
00:16:24.320 Like, let's go to 78 and sweat.
00:16:26.200 Let's go.
00:16:26.720 If you guys are going to be all in favor of this,
00:16:28.340 why is it 67 in here right now?
00:16:30.400 instead of 78 and it goes to the point you're making they'll go on national tv and and say
00:16:35.920 that he's a hero for saying this but they wouldn't even in new york city we were in new york city
00:16:40.700 they would not put the studio at 78 degrees because they would never do that and have a sweaty show
00:16:45.100 look fidel castro was a billionaire putin is a billionaire communist leaders aggregate all the
00:16:54.140 money for themselves they live like kings and they use the military with guns as enforcers i
00:17:00.500 want you to listen to another another segment from comment mandami's speech american exceptionalism
00:17:06.100 american exceptionalism the conventional wisdom tells us makes our freedom a little more free
00:17:11.480 is how we dug the erie canal and irrigated the west is why children in faraway lands grow up
00:17:16.380 dreaming of one day moving here and yet the irony is that the story of america has so often been
00:17:21.940 written by those who were told by others with power and influence and wealth that they were
00:17:26.340 anything but exceptional. For generation after generation, we have been told that when the world
00:17:31.580 has sent its people to our shores, it has not sent its best. It sent Puritans and Sikhs and Quakers 1.00
00:17:38.240 and Muslims and Jewish people who were banished for praying the wrong way, worshiping the wrong 0.60
00:17:42.840 gods, angering the wrong people. It sent peasants and serfs from slums and shtetls who were treated 0.53
00:17:49.160 less because they hardly owned clothes, let alone land. It sent immigrants from whom power was 1.00
00:17:54.620 something someone else had. We are told that America is exceptional because we are richer, 0.97
00:18:01.060 stronger, more powerful than everyone else. The truth, my friends, is that America is exceptional
00:18:06.720 because here nothing is fixed into place. The frontier may be closed. We may have walked on
00:18:13.380 the moon. But the work of fulfilling the values first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence,
00:18:18.280 that work endures and it belongs to us all it belongs to to our newest americans those standing
00:18:25.420 here with me today all of whom were recently naturalized nearly a decade ago i too felt what
00:18:31.360 you feel the joy of no longer being just a new yorker but an american too you each hold a special
00:18:38.260 power the power to determine what america means the powerful have always known their answer
00:18:44.960 America, in their view, is an arena of supremacy,
00:18:47.980 where only a select few are allowed freedom,
00:18:50.480 where not all are created equal.
00:18:52.580 America, if you ask them, becomes less the more people it welcomes. 0.94
00:18:57.120 America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin.
00:19:01.900 The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit.
00:19:06.120 How small they are.
00:19:07.680 How weak.
00:19:08.960 How unoriginal.
00:19:09.660 at every moment in our past those who led through exclusion and isolation have tried to win power
00:19:17.080 and enrich themselves by turning us against one another division is the oldest trick in politics
00:19:22.620 and the cheapest but time and again including 250 years ago those those forces of division
00:19:30.120 have been vanquished by the forces of progress you you listen again this is a manifesto of why
00:19:38.220 america is bad why america should not apparently i guess be celebrated on the fourth of july why
00:19:45.500 you should tamper down your excitement for the fireworks and and i do believe this is not a
00:19:51.760 one-off as we mentioned earlier this is the new manifesto of the democratic party heading into
00:19:59.360 the midterms as i listen to him talk i think what a small and petty man filled with hate
00:20:06.240 filled with ideology, filled with contempt, not just for you and me and this fellow Americans,
00:20:14.520 but for the very idea of America. You know, his remarks there are profoundly dishonest. One thing
00:20:22.320 he says is we are told that America is exceptional because we are richer or stronger or more powerful.
00:20:28.960 Baloney. Who has ever said that? I've never heard any human being articulate that sentence. That's
00:20:35.060 what's known as a straw man it's erecting a fake argument to then demolish it he is in fact
00:20:41.520 inverting the causality we are not richer and stronger and more powerful that is not why we
00:20:49.560 are exceptional rather because we are exceptional that is why we have become richer and stronger and
00:20:56.280 more powerful he's completely misunderstanding the cause and effect what is acceptable about
00:21:02.060 america number one is that our rights come from god and you know nowhere in that speech could
00:21:07.180 mandami bring himself to say that that god has given the rights he says we're told people are
00:21:12.380 not created equal well really gosh comrade what is this holiday we are celebrating on the fourth
00:21:19.480 of july what was the document that john hancock put his signature on what did thomas jefferson
00:21:26.680 right we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal that they are endowed by
00:21:33.900 their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of
00:21:39.220 happiness he claims that america was built on the notion that we're not equal and he is spitting in
00:21:46.980 the face of the declaration of the constitution of course he probably doesn't know that he is
00:21:53.040 counting on the people listening to it definitely not to know that and and and his notion about
00:21:59.260 the the people that that came here because we are built by immigrants we must let everyone in with
00:22:05.020 no limits listen my father was an immigrant who came from cuba america was a beacon of freedom
00:22:10.660 for my family but there's a right way to come you come legally and and the argument that the leftists
00:22:17.920 and the Marxists say, is because we were built by immigrants, we have to open up our borders
00:22:23.600 to every criminal, to every rapist, to every terrorist, that we can have no laws whatsoever.
00:22:29.440 And why, and I'm going to answer this question, but I want to ask it first, why in the speech
00:22:35.040 does Comrade Mandami not reflect on what is it that makes people from every country on earth
00:22:42.720 want to be in America? What do we have here that is different? You don't have other countries
00:22:47.900 people coming coming to and it is because of the opportunity the opportunity to to
00:22:55.420 a have your rights protected life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and notably
00:23:00.500 we don't have a right to happiness we have a right to the pursuit to the journey that none
00:23:08.280 of us are guaranteed happiness but but the american dream is real and alive and it comes
00:23:15.280 from do you know what gives us the american green capitalism not communism if you want communism
00:23:21.760 comrade mandami go to russia comrade mandami go to cuba comrade mandami go to north korea
00:23:29.720 why do all the communist countries have such misery and suffering and you know what they all 0.81
00:23:35.300 also have zero human rights because those petty little despots and mandami is so eager to use
00:23:43.140 that power when they get power if you disagree if you dare speak to the contrary they will lock
00:23:50.200 you up that is the history that is the legacy of communism you know ben it's been a while since
00:24:00.080 since i told the story uh that my grandmother told me of what happened in cuba when fidel
00:24:06.820 castro and the communists took over so my grandmother was was a sixth grade teacher in
00:24:12.360 cuba and then she taught sixth grade for many many years and she told me the story that that
00:24:18.000 when the communists took over soldiers came into the classrooms and she described to me in
00:24:24.520 particular what they did in a first grade classroom they came in with machine guns
00:24:28.980 and they told all of the kids in the classroom they said close your eyes close your eyes and
00:24:34.880 pray to jesus for candy and all the kids closed their eyes they prayed and there was no candy
00:24:42.540 they then told the kids close your eyes and pray to fidel castro for candy they closed their eyes
00:24:52.340 and the soldiers quietly set a piece of candy on the desk of every child that is communism
00:24:58.500 It is based on lies. It is based on power. It is based on subjugation.
00:25:04.520 As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic,
00:25:08.860 you can go back and download the podcast from early this week to hear the entire thing.
00:25:13.640 Tap, send, go.
00:25:16.320 It's that easy to send money to Gcash Mobile wallets back in the Philippines.
00:25:21.440 Open the Western Union app, and with just a few taps,
00:25:24.320 Your money is delivered quickly and reliably straight to their Gcash wallet.
00:25:29.760 Oh, and you always get a $0 transfer fee on your first online send.
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00:25:43.800 Why should you listen to Armstrong and Getty On Demand?
00:25:47.200 We're not boring.
00:25:48.180 A lot of news is boring.
00:25:49.160 And tedious.
00:25:50.040 And depressing.
00:25:50.640 And makes you angry.
00:25:51.800 You don't want to live your life like that.
00:25:54.320 Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong. He's Joe Getty.
00:25:55.980 We're Armstrong and Getty.
00:25:57.100 We try to bring you the truth.
00:25:58.260 And help you figure out this crazy modern world.
00:26:00.660 How about something about a comedic tone?
00:26:05.140 We have a winner.
00:26:06.640 Yes.
00:26:07.660 Listen to Armstrong and Getty on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
00:26:10.740 Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:26:13.440 The Joel Osteen Daily Podcast.
00:26:16.240 God's plans for you are for good.
00:26:18.480 Be inspired.
00:26:19.700 Get ready. God is about to exceed your expectations.
00:26:23.020 Joel Osteen Daily Podcast.
00:26:25.420 You are coming out of that dry place into more than enough.
00:26:28.640 Daily encouragement right when you need it.
00:26:30.820 There are opportunities in your future bigger than you can imagine.
00:26:35.300 Listen to the Joel Osteen Daily Podcast on the iHeartRadio app,
00:26:39.460 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
00:26:44.180 I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed.
00:26:48.820 All right, Senator, let's get to the bad cases.
00:26:51.800 There's two of them that I think we need to highlight. 0.95
00:26:54.260 One of them, and it's one that there's been a lot of discussion over, and that's birthright citizenship case.
00:27:00.020 My take on this was, look, the president wanted there to be a grand debate nationwide on birthright citizenship.
00:27:06.900 I think a lot of people around him knew that if this went to the Supreme Court and this was a fight they were willing to have,
00:27:12.780 that there was a good chance it was not going to be a victory.
00:27:15.260 but it did open up a big conversation nationwide on immigration,
00:27:20.660 immigration status, and birthright citizenship, people coming in.
00:27:24.340 Birthright tourism is a simple way of putting it.
00:27:26.900 And it certainly did, I think, educate people on what's happening in this country.
00:27:32.240 That, for me, is a victory.
00:27:34.420 But the reality is, in the Supreme Court, this was a loss.
00:27:39.160 So it was.
00:27:40.580 The question is, what does birthright citizenship protect?
00:27:44.640 and in particular are children of illegal aliens entitled to become U.S. citizens because they
00:27:50.880 were born on U.S. soil. Now, as a policy matter, birthright citizenship, I think, is a very
00:27:56.880 foolish policy. It is a policy that encourages illegal immigration. It rewards people for 0.86
00:28:04.120 breaking our laws. Most other countries on earth don't have that policy. If you break in illegally
00:28:09.900 to another country, most other countries, if you have a kid there, that kid is not a citizen of
00:28:13.780 that country. It also encourages things, as you noted, like birth tourism, where pregnant women
00:28:21.560 will get on a plane and fly to America on a tourist visa simply to have a baby in America
00:28:27.160 so that baby can become a U.S. citizen. That's a foolish policy. Now, there's a legal question 0.84
00:28:34.780 of how can you change birthright citizenship? And I talked a minute ago about the 14th Amendment.
00:28:43.780 And the 14th Amendment says all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.
00:29:01.740 This case turned on the phrase and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.
00:29:06.400 what happened there have long been understood as really two potential ways to change current law
00:29:15.960 and birthright citizenship the one way that is unquestionably permissible and valid would be a
00:29:21.880 constitutional amendment that changes the constitution and makes clear that the child
00:29:27.020 of an illegal immigrant born in america is not a u.s citizen i strongly support that i would vote for
00:29:32.080 that that's good policy the second way and there's dispute among legal scholars is could
00:29:38.280 congress pass a law saying the children of illegal immigrants born in america are not u.s citizens
00:29:44.940 that is still a somewhat murky question donald trump explored a third avenue which is he signed
00:29:52.980 an executive order that said i am ordering the children of of illegal immigrants are not u.s
00:30:00.120 citizens if they're born in the United States. Now, to be honest, prior to Trump coming into
00:30:05.140 office, I'd never heard anyone articulate a legal theory that that could be done by executive order.
00:30:11.320 The Trump administration knew it was pushing the bounds of what's permissible. You are right
00:30:16.420 that we've now had a robust debate on birthright citizenship and what a bad policy it is.
00:30:22.860 Now, the court, unfortunately, ruled 5-4 that the executive order is invalid and that the children of illegal immigrants born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens.
00:30:36.940 That is unfortunate.
00:30:38.260 Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion.
00:30:42.020 I will say that that did not surprise me.
00:30:47.380 It was clear from the oral argument this was the likely outcome.
00:30:51.400 This was where the votes were headed.
00:30:54.860 I wrote an amicus brief, actually two different amicus briefs in the court joined by multiple members of Congress, in which I asked the Supreme Court to restore the original meaning of the birthright citizenship clause.
00:31:09.540 And I would encourage anyone interested in this issue, go read the brief that I wrote that laid out the original understanding of what the phrase subject to the jurisdiction thereof meant and that someone who was unlawfully present in the country, it did not fall within those parameters.
00:31:24.660 I think that's the right conclusion.
00:31:27.360 I wish the court – I think the dissenters have the better argument.
00:31:30.700 I wish the dissenters, instead of having four votes, it had five.
00:31:34.560 I wish we had one more.
00:31:35.560 that being said i i was not surprised just now i will say this justice thomas wrote a spectacular
00:31:44.460 dissent 91 pages uh it is incredibly effective and i will say justice thomas's dissent cited my brief
00:31:52.280 twice in that dissent uh i'm glad that that that the dissent commanded four votes i wish it had
00:31:59.580 commanded five where does that leave us well there's still some ambiguity on whether congress
00:32:06.520 could pass legislation defining subject to the jurisdiction thereof to exclude the children born
00:32:14.040 by parents here illegally the court did not resolve that question because it wasn't presented
00:32:18.960 with that question uh but let me be clear from my perspective this is a terrible policy outcome
00:32:27.200 and it's also the wrong legal outcome and i would support number one a constitutional amendment
00:32:35.280 to end birthright citizenship i would support number two legislation just to end birthright
00:32:41.500 citizenship i hope we go down the road of both of those yeah yeah i agree with you there and
00:32:46.380 finally we got to deal with a case that deals with mail-in ballots that's right this is another case
00:32:51.780 that is Watson v. RNC, and Watson v. RNC deals with the laws in Mississippi
00:33:02.020 concerning governing absentee ballots.
00:33:05.700 So the laws in Mississippi say that absentee ballots have to be postmarked by Election Day,
00:33:11.960 and they can be received up to five days after Election Day.
00:33:17.240 And in this case, the RNC filed a lawsuit challenging that and saying that under the terms of federal election law, election day is understood to be the actual day of the election.
00:33:32.560 And so the argument the RNC made is that you could not count ballots received up to five days after the election.
00:33:40.020 Unfortunately, by a vote of five to four, the Supreme Court rejected that argument.
00:33:44.000 And Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and the three liberals, concluded that Election Day is understood to mean the day when, quote, voting is complete, not when ballots are received.
00:33:58.560 In other words, they upheld Mississippi's law, allowing ballots to be received up to five days after Election Day.
00:34:08.180 There were vigorous dissents.
00:34:10.280 It was 5-4.
00:34:11.080 but at the end of the day what it means is that the court has concluded federal law does not
00:34:19.840 limit late received mail-in ballots the consequence of this is it's going to remain
00:34:26.340 state by state red states can put real and meaningful limits can limit uh balloting can
00:34:32.880 limit late received ballots mississippi can change their law but it also means that that blue states
00:34:39.140 States like California can have the atrocity they had in their most recent election, their mayor's election in L.A., where they had votes coming in days, weeks, as much as a month later.
00:34:51.800 Look, this decision is unfortunate, but I'll tell you what it really underscores.
00:34:56.820 It underscores the need to pass the Save America Act.
00:34:59.880 The Save America Act would protect against illegal voting.
00:35:05.000 I'm an original sponsor of the Save America Act.
00:35:07.240 I'm fighting for it in the Senate.
00:35:09.140 This decision, unfortunately, was a real loss of the Supreme Court.
00:35:13.680 As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:35:18.940 Don't forget to download my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day.
00:35:22.620 You're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards.
00:35:25.820 I'd love to have you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson podcast.
00:35:29.480 And we will see you back here on Monday morning.
00:35:32.500 Why should you listen to Armstrong and Getty on Demand?
00:35:35.960 We're not boring.
00:35:36.960 A lot of news is boring.
00:35:37.960 And tedious.
00:35:38.560 And depressing.
00:35:39.420 And makes you angry.
00:35:40.800 You don't want to live your life like that.
00:35:43.060 Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong.
00:35:44.120 He's Joe Getty.
00:35:44.760 We're Armstrong and Getty.
00:35:45.880 We try to bring you the truth.
00:35:47.040 And help you figure out this crazy modern world.
00:35:49.420 How about something about a comedic tone?
00:35:53.880 We have a winner.
00:35:55.420 Yes.
00:35:56.440 Listen to Armstrong and Getty on demand on the iHeartRadio app,
00:35:59.520 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:36:02.600 The Joel Osteen Daily Podcast.
00:36:05.020 God's plans for you are for good.
00:36:07.080 Be inspired.
00:36:08.240 Get ready. God is about to exceed your expectations.
00:36:11.860 Joel Osteen Daily Podcast.
00:36:14.180 You are coming out of that dry place into more than enough.
00:36:17.400 Daily encouragement right when you need it.
00:36:19.720 There are opportunities in your future bigger than you can imagine.
00:36:24.060 Listen to the Joel Osteen Daily Podcast on the iHeartRadio app,
00:36:28.240 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.