Verdict with Ted Cruz - August 28, 2024


Trump Indicted AGAIN, Facebook ADMITS Censorship & Now Kamala Supports the Wall？


Episode Stats

Length

49 minutes

Words per Minute

171.33038

Word Count

8,525

Sentence Count

680

Misogynist Sentences

28

Hate Speech Sentences

5


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.660 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.580 Welcome.
00:00:06.340 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:10.660 Senator, it's a very big day because I'm just going to go ahead and throw it out there.
00:00:15.640 It's my birthday.
00:00:16.540 And why not throw in a Donald Trump getting reindicted all at the same time?
00:00:20.600 It's the best birthday present you can ask for.
00:00:22.860 Well, happy birthday, big guy.
00:00:24.600 I'm really proud to see you enter age 60.
00:00:27.300 You know, you don't look a day over 55.
00:00:31.180 And so that's really great, man.
00:00:33.220 You know, 43, I'm never going to catch up to you, sir.
00:00:36.400 You're just older than I am.
00:00:37.840 You know, older, you can throw in the wiser thing, but I'm still coming for you.
00:00:42.260 Look, you're 43, so you're George W. Bush today.
00:00:45.340 That's right. I like it.
00:00:46.280 So you'll remember it this year.
00:00:47.640 There you go.
00:00:48.720 So let's talk about this indictment for a second.
00:00:51.500 This is crazy.
00:00:53.280 All right.
00:00:54.080 So it's a big day.
00:00:55.200 Number one, as Yogi Berra said, it's deja vu all over again.
00:01:01.020 Donald Trump has been indicted.
00:01:04.300 I got to say, I wish that were new.
00:01:06.720 I wish that were different.
00:01:07.900 I wish that were unusual.
00:01:09.280 At this point, it feels like any day that ends with a why, the Democrats are indicted on Donald Trump again.
00:01:14.660 Every time they're scared that he's going to win, they indict him again.
00:01:17.560 So, yes, that has happened again.
00:01:19.420 We're going to explain exactly what Jack Smith did and what it means.
00:01:22.200 Beyond that, this is actually a big bombshell.
00:01:25.820 Facebook admits it is actively censoring social media and that they was doing so at the behest of the Biden administration.
00:01:33.960 The government asked it and Facebook saluted and actively censored.
00:01:38.080 We're going to talk about that.
00:01:39.040 And then finally, Kamala Harris wants to build the wall.
00:01:43.580 Truly a stunning admission.
00:01:46.100 This is a bizarre chapter we live in.
00:01:48.920 We're going to lay that out as well.
00:01:49.900 Yeah, it certainly is.
00:01:51.840 I want to tell you real quick about our friends of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
00:01:56.400 We are quickly approaching the one-year anniversary of the horrific Hamas attacks on Israel.
00:02:02.500 And the Holy Land is under attack day after day.
00:02:06.080 This time on multiple fronts.
00:02:07.900 From deadly threats that are increasing in northern Israel.
00:02:10.880 Constant rocket attacks from Hezbollah that have been fired at Israel.
00:02:15.400 And then the threats from Iran as well.
00:02:18.020 It is a major problem to be safe in Israel right now.
00:02:23.840 Now, since the war started, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has been on the forefront in Israel addressing the needs of those that are the most vulnerable.
00:02:32.720 And that's why I am proud to partner with IFCJ.
00:02:35.020 And many of you, I say thank you because you've already given donations.
00:02:40.620 And these life-saving donations are helping provide emergency food as well as critical security needs such as flat jackets, firefighting equipment, armored vehicles, including armored ambulances that have been used countless times since the attacks.
00:02:56.800 Temporary bomb shelters that are being installed as we speak and much more.
00:03:02.320 Right now, we're asking for 500 of you to join the fellowship and me by donating $150 to meet these urgent security needs.
00:03:12.320 And thanks to an incredible IFCJ supporter, your gift will be matched, doubling your impact in the Holy Land.
00:03:21.600 So, all you have to do is call to make your gift right now.
00:03:24.740 888-488-IFCJ.
00:03:28.200 That's 888-488-IFCJ or 4325.
00:03:33.760 You can go online as well to support them at supportifcj.org.
00:03:41.040 That's one word, supportifcj.org.
00:03:45.480 Israel needs our support now more than ever.
00:03:47.940 So, go to supportifcj.org.
00:03:50.700 And I'll say it in advance.
00:03:51.640 Thank you to all of you that are getting involved and all of you that already have.
00:03:55.200 Senator, this was one of those headlines.
00:03:57.460 And I'm not shocked anymore, as you almost described in the intro there, that the left is afraid Trump's going to win.
00:04:05.500 So, okay, let's try to throw him in jail.
00:04:07.280 Let's indict him again.
00:04:08.720 But there is some confusion.
00:04:11.060 How is it that this guy who was told you did it wrong from the Supreme Court can then go back to the federal grand jury in D.C.
00:04:19.800 and re-indict Donald Trump on these four felony charges, in essence, going around with the Supreme Court?
00:04:27.000 That's what it seems like is that reality.
00:04:30.280 Yeah, look, I understand that.
00:04:32.060 Let me say, first of all, put this in a broader context.
00:04:35.560 A year ago, no president of the United States has ever been indicted.
00:04:39.960 No major party candidate for the president had ever been indicted.
00:04:43.560 In the past year, Donald Trump has been indicted not once, not twice, not three times, four separate times.
00:04:50.980 By rabid Democrat partisans who are very concerned that the voters are going to elect him.
00:04:58.260 Every one of these indictments, they're not about the criminal law.
00:05:01.480 They're not about the rule of law.
00:05:02.680 They're not about actual conduct of Donald Trump.
00:05:05.560 They are about trying to stop the voters from voting for him in November.
00:05:10.120 We are 69 days away from Election Day, and Democrats are terrified he's going to win.
00:05:15.980 And so I've got to say, after four different indictments, to wake up and see yesterday a fifth indictment,
00:05:24.200 it almost feels like that classic Saturday Night Live skit with Christopher Walken,
00:05:28.940 where he's a record producer and his solution to everything is more cowbell, more cowbell.
00:05:34.880 The Democrats' answer to everything is more indictments, more indictments.
00:05:38.040 They just want to indict Trump.
00:05:39.780 So Jack Smith.
00:05:40.740 Jack Smith is like, to use another analogy, I don't know, I feel a little bit like Dennis Miller.
00:05:45.200 Stop me before I sub-reference again.
00:05:47.680 Jack Smith is like Javert from Les Mis.
00:05:51.540 He is going after Jean Valjean.
00:05:54.680 And Jean Valjean, for him, is Donald Trump, and he must get him.
00:05:58.220 And so he filed a brand-new indictment, 36 pages, and he indicted Trump again.
00:06:05.980 Now, it is – you asked, is this permissible after the Supreme Court decision?
00:06:11.880 And the answer is yes, it is.
00:06:13.420 So the Supreme Court did not conclude that Jack Smith had no authority to do charges.
00:06:20.040 The Supreme Court did not rule on whether Jack Smith was properly appointed.
00:06:24.860 That was a basis for a ruling from the judge down in Florida concerning the documents case, but that was not in front of the Supreme Court.
00:06:32.160 What the Supreme Court ruled is that presidents of the United States enjoy significant immunity from prosecution.
00:06:39.800 And the line the Supreme Court laid out is that the immunity presidents enjoy is an immunity for actions carried out that are official actions, that are carrying out, that are exercising their power as president.
00:06:52.900 And significant parts of the first indictment were in the direct exercise of Trump's authority as president.
00:07:00.600 The Supreme Court said you can indict a president for that.
00:07:03.700 Look, presidents do all sorts of things that, frankly, you and I can't do.
00:07:07.200 Presidents send the military into combat and kill people.
00:07:11.760 If you and I sent someone out to kill someone, we would, in all likelihood, be charged with potentially murder or attempted murder.
00:07:20.320 Presidents have authority under the Constitution that ordinary citizens do not.
00:07:24.740 What Jack Smith did here is he refiled the indictment, and you can do that.
00:07:28.900 So one question, and you and I were talking beforehand, and a question was, well, does this violate double jeopardy?
00:07:36.900 And it does not.
00:07:38.000 So double jeopardy is the protection in the Constitution against trying someone multiple times for the same crime.
00:07:44.180 And the general rule is that jeopardy attaches when a jury is impaneled.
00:07:51.320 In other words, when the trial, you get a jury together, you bring the jury, you start the trial.
00:07:55.520 That's the point at which, okay, if the guy gets off, if the guy is acquitted, you can't prosecute him again because jeopardy is attached.
00:08:05.380 At this point, jeopardy has not attached legally because an indictment has come down, but a jury has not been impaneled.
00:08:12.120 So the prosecutor can indict Trump as many times as he wants to.
00:08:16.580 That is part of being a prosecutor.
00:08:18.560 Now, indicting is simply bringing a charge against him.
00:08:21.700 And so what Jack Smith tried to do here was narrow the indictment.
00:08:25.960 He has many of the same claims he had before, but he tried to carve out, to excise, the bases that were most connected to Trump's official exercise of presidential authority.
00:08:40.040 Now, I think this is going to fail.
00:08:41.180 I think this is not going to go anywhere.
00:08:43.980 But as I said, Jack Smith is like Javert.
00:08:47.660 He is on a crusade, and so he did it yet again.
00:08:50.860 When I look at the timing of this, and this is the next question, is you mentioned the Facebook story, right?
00:08:58.840 Mark Zuckerberg has now admitted that he played a major part in election interference, along with, by the way, the FBI and the Biden regime.
00:09:07.960 So this story comes out naturally like, all right, let's indict Donald Trump again today.
00:09:12.200 Is there any threat that this could also be straight-up election interference from the standpoint that Donald Trump's going to actually have to go back to court, be in court, be in a trial between now and November?
00:09:24.700 No, I don't think there's any risk of that.
00:09:27.140 Look, we're 69 days out from the election.
00:09:30.160 This new indictment, a new indictment takes time.
00:09:32.780 You're not going to see a criminal trial between now and Election Day.
00:09:35.340 We're just too close.
00:09:36.800 There's no prospect of that happening that quickly in D.C.
00:09:40.860 There might be some pretrial hearing or something.
00:09:43.780 It could conceivably take one day.
00:09:45.920 But it's not going to consume significant time between now and Election Day.
00:09:51.100 And what this means, listen, if Trump wins and he gets inaugurated as the president on January 20th of next year, this case will be dismissed on January 20th.
00:10:01.380 Because as president, he has the authority to order the case to be dismissed, and he will.
00:10:06.760 So this is, number one, it's another political shot at Trump for them to say, oh, he's been indicted again.
00:10:14.200 He's a felon.
00:10:14.780 He's a felon.
00:10:15.260 He's a felon.
00:10:15.900 At this point, they already say he's a felon nonstop.
00:10:19.500 When we have a debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, and by the way, when we do have the debate, this podcast is going to analyze before the debate in great detail what to expect.
00:10:28.160 And then after the debate, we're going to break it down in great detail.
00:10:30.920 I'll point out, on this pod, you and I did a special pod the night of the debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
00:10:38.080 And I think it was a really consequential pod, because that night, real time, we predicted and we said, in my judgment, the odds were 100% that Joe Biden would not be the nominee of the Democrat Party,
00:10:52.780 that this would prove to be the most consequential presidential debate in U.S. history.
00:10:57.140 That prediction proved right, because just after a month later, they removed Biden from the ballot.
00:11:03.300 So we'll do the same thing on this debate.
00:11:05.860 But I got to say, I actually am not terribly excited about this Jack Smith indictment one way or the other.
00:11:12.980 Yeah, he hates Trump.
00:11:13.980 Yes, he's willing to abuse power.
00:11:15.620 We know that.
00:11:16.260 This is nothing new.
00:11:18.920 I don't think there are a whole lot of political consequences to another indictment after there have been four.
00:11:24.520 I don't really see how a fifth indictment has any more political bite to it.
00:11:28.740 And I don't think there are real legal consequences.
00:11:30.600 Now, if, God forbid, Kamala wins, then this legal case will proceed, and Trump may be dragged into ongoing proceedings for years as a consequence of this.
00:11:41.540 But in terms of the election, I don't see any significant consequences.
00:11:45.980 So let's talk about this other massive story that broke.
00:11:50.440 And this is dealing with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram.
00:11:55.340 And the House Judiciary Committee came out and said, hey, Mark Zuckerberg, who's the founder, owner of Facebook,
00:12:03.400 has sent a letter to Congress admitting some pretty major things.
00:12:08.400 One, that the Biden-Harris administration pressured Facebook to censor Americans.
00:12:13.160 Two, they did it.
00:12:15.820 Facebook said, sure, we're all in.
00:12:17.660 We will censor Americans.
00:12:19.420 And three, Facebook then throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story as well.
00:12:24.860 And we have to, I think, connect the dots here, Senator.
00:12:28.600 Zuckerberg was all in for the Democrats and Biden.
00:12:31.840 There was a saying called Zuck Bucks.
00:12:33.660 We're talking about tens of millions of hundreds of millions of dollars that were going to leftist candidates.
00:12:41.520 It's Mark Zuckerberg is a hardcore lefty.
00:12:44.360 It's very clear.
00:12:45.300 Follow the money.
00:12:46.140 But in this letter, it was like he tried to wash his hands of any of that.
00:12:50.000 It's like, oh, I was just trusting the government.
00:12:52.340 I probably shouldn't have my bad.
00:12:54.620 So there's a lot to say here.
00:12:57.140 Let me say, first of all, that Mark Zuckerberg sent a letter to Jim Jordan, sent it on August 26th, so this week.
00:13:04.180 And this letter is a big deal.
00:13:07.600 And I want to read what's in this letter.
00:13:09.380 It's not very long.
00:13:10.020 It's just over a page.
00:13:11.100 But our listeners need to know exactly what Zuckerberg said because there's a lot of substance.
00:13:15.920 And then I want to break down what it means.
00:13:17.220 So here's what Zuckerberg said.
00:13:19.380 Chairman Jordan, I appreciate the committee's interest in content moderation on online platforms.
00:13:23.840 As you are aware, Meta has produced thousands of documents as part of your investigation and made a dozen employees available for transcribed interviews.
00:13:30.580 Further to our cooperation with your investigation, I welcome the opportunity to share what I've taken away from this process.
00:13:36.760 There's a lot of talk right now about how the U.S. government interacts with companies like Meta.
00:13:40.900 And I want to be clear about our position.
00:13:43.540 Our platforms are for everyone.
00:13:44.920 We're about promoting speech and helping people connect in a safe and secure way.
00:13:49.600 As part of this, we regularly hear from governments around the world and others with various concerns about public discourse and public safety.
00:13:57.300 In 2021, and I will note that's when Biden was in office, senior officials from the Biden administration, including the White House,
00:14:05.260 repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content,
00:14:11.640 including humor and satire and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn't agree.
00:14:20.340 Ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to take content down.
00:14:23.760 And we own our decisions, including COVID-19 related changes we made to our enforcement in the wake of this pressure.
00:14:31.660 I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it.
00:14:39.280 I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn't make today.
00:14:46.540 Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to the pressure from any administration in either direction.
00:14:57.940 And we're ready to push back if something like this happens again.
00:15:00.900 In a separate situation, the FBI warned us about a potential Russian disinformation operation about the Biden family in Burisma in the lead-up to the 2020 election.
00:15:12.780 That fall, when we saw a New York Post story reporting on corruption allegations involving then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's family,
00:15:22.060 we sent the story to fact-checkers for review and temporarily demoted it while waiting for a reply.
00:15:27.940 It's since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn't have demoted the story.
00:15:38.500 We've changed our policies and processes to make sure this doesn't happen again.
00:15:44.060 For example, we no longer temporarily demote things in the U.S. while waiting for fact-checkers.
00:15:50.920 Apart from content moderation, I want to assess the contributions I made during the last presidential cycle to support electoral infrastructure.
00:16:01.400 The idea here was to make sure local election jurisdictions across the country had the resources they needed to help people vote safely during the global pandemic.
00:16:11.960 I made these contributions through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
00:16:16.060 They were designed to be nonpartisan, spread across urban, rural, and suburban communities.
00:16:21.400 Still, despite the analyses I've seen showing otherwise, I know that some people believe this work benefited one party over the other.
00:16:31.060 My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or the other, or even appear to be playing a role.
00:16:38.640 So I don't plan on making a similar contribution this cycle.
00:16:42.400 Respectfully, Mark Zuckerberg.
00:16:43.560 Now, I'm sorry, but I laugh because I just don't believe any of this crap from him.
00:16:50.280 Maybe I'm cynical, Senator, but this to me seems like he's hedging his bets.
00:16:54.820 Maybe Donald Trump wins.
00:16:56.140 Maybe Republicans are in control of stuff.
00:16:58.560 And so now I'm hedging my bets that don't come down hard on me.
00:17:02.200 You know, yes and no.
00:17:03.160 I actually have a little bit different take on it than you do, Ben.
00:17:05.800 So let me say, first of all, the admission he made publicly that the Biden White House repeatedly pressure him to censor speech.
00:17:14.820 That's a big deal.
00:17:16.660 That is enormously consequential.
00:17:18.920 The predicate of legislation that different states have passed, including Texas, including Florida, is that government cannot use private industry to censor for them.
00:17:27.780 His admission there has real legal consequences because there's a whole doctrine where when government uses private industry to violate the Constitution, that the courts can step in and stop that.
00:17:42.300 Now, the Supreme Court this past term basically concluded, gosh, we don't know that government was pressuring big tech to censor people.
00:17:51.500 Well, you know what?
00:17:52.620 The Supreme Court's entire assumption was just disproven by Mark Zuckerberg's admission.
00:17:57.260 That has real consequences and consequences that will appear in litigation going forward.
00:18:02.860 So his saying that and even his saying we should have stood up to that pressure more.
00:18:09.480 That's meaningful.
00:18:11.080 Now, the second point he made, which was that the Biden or that the FBI pressured Facebook to censor information about the Hunter Biden laptop.
00:18:24.740 Look, you and I have talked about this at length on this podcast.
00:18:28.100 That was blatant election interference.
00:18:30.240 It may well have changed the outcome of the 2020 election.
00:18:35.420 I am angry, as you are, that saying sorry four years later is too little too late.
00:18:42.120 But I'm glad for the I'm sorry as compared to denying it ever happened, that there is at least some tiny kernel of accountability in that.
00:18:51.520 And finally, the point about the Zuck Bucks.
00:18:54.560 Look, the single largest Democrat donor in 2020 was named Mark Zuckerberg.
00:18:59.400 He invested four hundred million dollars in election infrastructure in big blue cities.
00:19:05.960 And that easily could have changed the outcome of the election.
00:19:08.960 By the way, by contrast, the biggest Republican donor in 2020 was Sheldon Adelson.
00:19:13.240 He put about a hundred million.
00:19:14.360 So it was a four to one differential.
00:19:17.700 Wow.
00:19:19.260 Zuckerberg is saying, well, gosh, I didn't mean to influence the outcome of the election.
00:19:23.480 Now, I call BS on that.
00:19:25.100 I don't believe that at all.
00:19:26.460 He's he's a very bright man.
00:19:28.840 He knew damn well what he was doing.
00:19:31.540 But I do think it's meaningful.
00:19:33.360 The closing line of the letter, I will not be making a similar contribution going forward.
00:19:39.120 I'll tell you something I've heard from multiple people in the tech world, which is that Zuckerberg is souring on the leftists and the Democrats, that he's souring on that he had been.
00:19:53.980 Look, in the last cycle, he was the single biggest Democrat donor in the country.
00:19:58.600 The fact that he's saying, I'm not doing that again.
00:20:01.100 I'm really glad not to have four hundred million dollars coming in on behalf of Kamala Harris in the last two months.
00:20:06.480 If he doesn't do that, that's a big deal that that dramatically enhances the chance of Trump's victory.
00:20:13.580 That's good for democracy.
00:20:14.780 That's good for America.
00:20:16.500 And I do think it's a broader sense where, look, I know Zuckerberg a little bit.
00:20:21.200 I don't know him well, but I spent he and I had about a three and a half hour dinner together.
00:20:25.700 It was a very interesting dinner.
00:20:26.800 Look, he's a crazy smart guy.
00:20:31.220 We did it, by the way, off the grid.
00:20:33.440 We did it in D.C.
00:20:34.380 We didn't do it at a restaurant because, frankly, Ben, people would lose their crap if they saw me and Mark Zuckerberg sitting at a restaurant having dinner together.
00:20:41.840 So we didn't do that.
00:20:44.540 Yeah, but it was an interesting he reached out and said, hey, I'd like to have dinner with you.
00:20:47.920 I said, sure.
00:20:48.340 And we had I would characterize a vigorous intellectual debate where I was very aggressively saying to him, stop censoring people.
00:20:58.500 Who the hell are you to decide what is and what isn't permissible to say?
00:21:03.180 Just allow free speech.
00:21:04.260 Basically, I was urging Zuckerberg to do to Facebook what Elon Musk has done to Twitter.
00:21:10.640 Now, X.
00:21:11.800 What was his reaction to that?
00:21:13.200 I mean, because I've been I've had the privilege of having quite a few meals with you and having those types of spirited conversations are very fun because you're honest.
00:21:24.620 You're blunt.
00:21:25.200 But it's also a genuine conversation was what was the demeanor towards that?
00:21:31.280 Listen, he's very smart and he's he's he's a geek.
00:21:36.200 And I don't mean that pejoratively.
00:21:38.100 I mean, heck, I'm a geek like like like that.
00:21:39.700 I actually can talk to geeks quite well.
00:21:42.600 I mean, my parents are both mathematicians and computer programmers.
00:21:45.620 So if you really want to walk out.
00:21:48.280 But by the way, when I hang out with you, Ben, you like enhance my cool factor dramatically.
00:21:53.000 Like you were like a college jock at Ole Miss playing Division One tennis.
00:21:58.040 I was a debater at Princeton.
00:21:59.700 I mean, everybody's got to bring something to the table.
00:22:01.800 You know, I bring that.
00:22:02.740 You bring the smarts.
00:22:03.680 Everybody wins.
00:22:05.140 Look, I just appreciate the entire course of our friendship.
00:22:08.140 You've never once given me a wedgie.
00:22:09.640 You haven't given me a noogie and you haven't stuffed me in the locker.
00:22:11.800 So I'm glad of that.
00:22:12.860 But but look, I promise Zuckerberg has gotten all three of those.
00:22:18.160 And so I can talk to people who who are geeks because that's that's the world I come from.
00:22:25.540 You know, I will say this when we had this dinner and this was years ago.
00:22:29.840 I do think he was intellectually trying to struggle through and think through this issues.
00:22:36.000 I don't think Zuckerberg is a hard lefty.
00:22:39.400 Someone like Jack Dorsey.
00:22:40.520 I've never met Jack Dorsey, but the old CEO of Twitter.
00:22:42.860 Yeah, you knew he was.
00:22:45.200 I've had him testify and I've questioned him in hearings.
00:22:48.900 Everything about Jack Dorsey screamed hard lefty.
00:22:51.820 I don't think that's what Zuckerberg is.
00:22:54.180 Does he lean left of center?
00:22:56.160 Yes.
00:22:57.640 But it was interesting on the free speech issue.
00:23:01.680 So so he's actually in the world of free speech.
00:23:05.160 He's given some speeches saying, gosh, tech should protect free speech.
00:23:09.940 Now, Facebook has been terrible on this.
00:23:11.700 They suppressed the Hunter laptop, the Hunter Biden laptop.
00:23:15.460 They suppressed speech about covid.
00:23:19.800 They aggressively suppressed any discussion about the covid virus origin coming from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which I will note this podcast covered before just about any other place in the world.
00:23:33.880 Yeah, multiple times we laid out the facts for it on verdict.
00:23:37.760 But it was interesting in talking with Zuckerberg.
00:23:41.800 I don't know him well, but but, you know, three, three and a half hour dinner.
00:23:44.380 He was someone intellectually trying to figure out what the right answer is.
00:23:49.420 And in his general approach, he would point to number one, Twitter, and he'd be like, oh, they're worse than we are.
00:23:56.340 And by the way, when Dorsey was CEO, he was right.
00:23:59.280 And he would point to number two, Google, and they're bigger and more powerful and more dangerous than they are.
00:24:04.260 And he was number two, right on that.
00:24:06.740 And then number three, point to tick tock and they're Chinese commies.
00:24:10.380 And he was right in that.
00:24:11.640 And so it was the sort of thing Facebook kind of benefited me.
00:24:16.060 Look at everybody else.
00:24:17.160 But so then that brings up this question.
00:24:20.000 How much of do you think this letter could have been connected to the fact that we've seen the pendulum swing so much with a sell of Twitter and Dorsey losing that to Elon Musk, who is all about free speech?
00:24:34.380 I think significantly.
00:24:35.820 And you and I have talked about, I think, the fact that Elon Musk bought Twitter was the single most important development for free speech in decades.
00:24:43.460 Change the terrain of media.
00:24:45.240 So Facebook is feeling pressure to be a greater free speech forum because Twitter is, I think, the most important free speech forum in the world right now.
00:24:57.780 But I also think, and I can't overstate this.
00:25:01.360 Look, I talk to a lot of people in the tech world.
00:25:04.280 I think Zuckerberg is pissed at the totalitarian lefties who he's sort of tried to cozy up to.
00:25:12.580 And they've taken his money and kind of crapped all over him.
00:25:19.900 That's an interesting moment.
00:25:22.040 It's just an interesting inflection moment.
00:25:24.620 So I am angry about what Facebook did in 2020.
00:25:29.860 And I'm going to continue to lay that out at length.
00:25:32.700 That being said, I'm a big believer in redemption.
00:25:36.460 So I will welcome Zuckerberg.
00:25:39.020 Mark, if you want to defend free speech, if you want to be a champion of free speech, I want to give an invitation to Mark Zuckerberg.
00:25:46.940 Be an even bigger defender of free speech than Elon Musk.
00:25:50.500 Because, by the way, competition would be awesome.
00:25:52.800 If Facebook steps forward and says, we will be a forum for free speech, X, can you match?
00:25:59.380 That's even better.
00:26:00.580 Because competition will make both better.
00:26:03.300 And so I don't want some conservatives are responding to this letter by just beating Zuckerberg over the head with a stick.
00:26:09.760 I think that's a mistake.
00:26:11.040 If you want to come into the light, come into the light.
00:26:13.740 We welcome you.
00:26:14.840 If you will embrace free speech, that's good for America and good for the world.
00:26:18.620 Yeah, it's an interesting perspective, certainly, because mine was more cynical, like, okay, he's just hedging his bets, as I mentioned with the election coming up.
00:26:27.020 And if it is different than that, you're right.
00:26:30.240 Welcome him in and say, welcome to the club where we may disagree on issues, but let everyone have a voice and don't pick winners and losers when it comes to free speech.
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00:29:16.280 There is also another story you mentioned earlier, and this one, I'm sorry, Senator, I just laughed when I saw this happen in real time.
00:29:24.600 Kamala Harris has come out and now flip-flopped on the border wall issue.
00:29:31.340 She is one that said she would never, okay, never, ever support building a wall.
00:29:39.980 And I'm going to play it because I think people should hear this is her in her own words in Des Moines, Iowa.
00:29:46.120 Let me be very clear.
00:29:47.360 I'm not going to vote for a wall under any circumstances, and I do support border security.
00:29:51.520 And if we want to talk about that, let's do that.
00:29:54.080 But I will never support a wall under any circumstances.
00:29:58.480 Now, the polling data is not looking good for her on security at the border.
00:30:02.580 And she's like, okay, I guess I might be in favor of wall.
00:30:05.660 Even putting out an ad that shows Donald Trump's wall in her ad.
00:30:09.140 Well, the single greatest vulnerability to Kamala Harris and Democrats nationally is the open borders they've had for four years.
00:30:16.960 It is the number one issue voters are concerned about.
00:30:19.240 We're seeing an invasion at our southern border, 11.5 million illegal immigrants.
00:30:23.920 People are seeing the death, the suffering, the children being brutalized, the women being sexually assaulted.
00:30:29.760 People are seeing the criminals being released who are murdering Americans, who are raping women, who are assaulting kids.
00:30:34.980 People are seeing the risk of terrorism coming across the southern border, and they're very unhappy.
00:30:40.000 So the Democrats are looking at the same poll numbers we are.
00:30:43.020 They realize, gosh, this is a vulnerability.
00:30:45.300 Now, mind you, they're not willing to change their policies.
00:30:47.800 They still want another 11 million, another 20 million, another 30 million illegal immigrants to come into this country because they view them all as future Democrat voters.
00:30:56.240 They want to stay in power.
00:30:57.440 But we've got 69 days to Election Day.
00:30:59.560 And so in the 69 days to Election Day, they will say whatever, whatever they feel they can to convince the voters to elect Kamala Harris and after which she will go hard left and continue to destroy this country.
00:31:12.080 Now, we saw at the outset of her campaign, by the way, she's been the presumptive Democrat nominee for over a month.
00:31:19.760 She's done zero interviews, no press conferences, no questions.
00:31:23.200 They put her in front of a teleprompter.
00:31:26.520 She reads the teleprompter.
00:31:28.000 They tackle her.
00:31:29.240 They throw her back in Joe Biden's basement.
00:31:31.140 They say, shut up and please don't say anything.
00:31:33.280 The first major policy provision she came out for was no taxes on tips.
00:31:39.520 That was literally a proposal Donald Trump rolled out in Nevada.
00:31:42.660 It was a proposal, by the way, that I introduced in the Senate.
00:31:45.280 I introduced the no taxes on tips legislation.
00:31:47.480 When I introduced it, both Democrat senators from Nevada co-sponsored my legislation.
00:31:53.300 And there's a reason for that, which is 25 percent of the workers in Nevada are tipped workers.
00:31:57.400 And so both Democrats immediately sponsored my legislation.
00:32:01.080 Kamala came out and suddenly had this crazy idea.
00:32:03.620 Hey, no taxes on tips.
00:32:04.700 So that was where she started.
00:32:06.640 She is now gone.
00:32:08.180 So she also said this week she is not for an EV mandate.
00:32:12.500 Suddenly she loves her some internal combustion engine.
00:32:15.620 No electric vehicle mandate.
00:32:18.140 Just keep your car.
00:32:19.480 Never mind for the last four years of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
00:32:22.700 They have been pushing an EV mandate on every front.
00:32:25.500 They've been trying to ban the internal combustion engine.
00:32:27.460 They've been using regulatory assaults on every front.
00:32:30.160 None of that exists.
00:32:31.260 This as Obi-Wan Kenobi said, these are not the drones you're looking for.
00:32:35.380 Do not pay attention to anything Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have done.
00:32:39.420 Listen instead to the nonsense they're spewing 69 days before the election.
00:32:43.640 But this truly is the one that is the cherry on the top of the banana sundae.
00:32:49.400 Let me read the headline from Axios.
00:32:52.300 Quote, Harris flip-flops on building the border wall.
00:32:56.860 If she's elected president, Kamala Harris pledges to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a wall along the southern border.
00:33:04.660 A project she once opposed and called un-American during the Trump administration.
00:33:10.400 By the way, I'm going to break news right now, and this may not be news, you know.
00:33:15.480 But next week, I'm reliably told from leaks within the White House that Kamala Harris plans to dye her hair blonde, dye her skin orange, and buy enormously long red ties and wear only those in public appearances.
00:33:29.220 And you've got to add, Beyonce's going to be in there with her doing the same thing, right?
00:33:33.500 Because if we're going to start rumors, we might as well go back to that one to get people excited.
00:33:37.600 But by the way, Beyonce's going to be blonde and also with orange skin.
00:33:43.560 I love it.
00:33:45.820 Listen, I want to go back.
00:33:47.060 I want you to listen to a montage that Martha McCallum put together on Fox of Kamala's prior positions on the wall.
00:33:54.980 Because this is, look, there's a Yiddish word, chutzpah.
00:33:58.580 That doesn't even begin to capture what Kamala Harris' claim that she's going to build the wall is now.
00:34:03.920 Listen to this.
00:34:06.020 Axios News calling out Vice President Harris' quote, flip-flop on the border wall.
00:34:11.380 Here is some of what she has said in the past.
00:34:13.800 Watch.
00:34:14.140 I'm all for increased border security where we need it.
00:34:17.960 I am not for a wall.
00:34:19.300 I specialize on transnational criminal organizations.
00:34:22.460 That wall ain't going to stop them.
00:34:24.560 No.
00:34:25.840 No.
00:34:27.080 No.
00:34:30.140 I'm going to actually be honest about that.
00:34:32.800 But it's because I'm saying it.
00:34:35.800 Okay.
00:34:36.380 But last week, Harris said that she supports the bipartisan border bill,
00:34:41.400 which includes requiring the Trump border wall, according to its negotiators.
00:34:47.760 Axios reporting that Team Harris says that the bill doesn't include new wall funding.
00:34:53.120 It just extends the timeline to spend funds appropriated during the Trump administration.
00:34:59.540 So we hope we'll hear directly from the candidate to clear that up in an interview,
00:35:04.980 which we would love to see over the next several days.
00:35:07.620 By the way, the interview is now going to be a joint interview, apparently, on CNN,
00:35:11.680 where she doesn't have to worry about babbling so much because the VP will be there with her candidate,
00:35:17.740 which still makes me laugh.
00:35:19.440 That's her first interview.
00:35:20.400 But we have no policies decisions.
00:35:23.020 It just seems to be—
00:35:23.980 So hold on, Ben.
00:35:24.100 Let me ask you something.
00:35:25.820 So, Ben, you have been following politics closely since you were, like, in the womb.
00:35:30.940 Yeah.
00:35:32.500 And it's your birthday.
00:35:33.640 So, like, in the womb was 43 years ago.
00:35:37.700 You're going numbers, sir.
00:35:39.080 I'm digging this.
00:35:40.120 In 43 years, do you know of a single instance, ever, and I'm asking this comprehensively, in 43 years,
00:35:50.040 where a presidential candidate was so terrified to do an interview on their own
00:35:56.260 that they demanded their VP candidate be there with them?
00:35:59.500 Yeah, bring a buddy with you, right?
00:36:01.040 No, I've never seen that.
00:36:02.880 But what's even more shocking—
00:36:04.160 It's weird.
00:36:04.820 It's weird, but it's even more shocking than that is we had a convention,
00:36:08.460 and if you go to her website right now, because I check it every day when I'm doing my show—
00:36:13.460 No policies.
00:36:13.960 There is still no policy tabs on her damn website.
00:36:17.700 No, no, no.
00:36:18.100 There's no taxes on tips and building a wall.
00:36:20.940 And protect the internal combustion engine.
00:36:23.400 Yeah.
00:36:23.820 And the same wall that you would—
00:36:25.880 That's not actually on the website for the fact-checkers there.
00:36:28.220 That's just the policy she's rolling out.
00:36:30.660 But she has no policies on her website.
00:36:32.680 Well, and that's the part, I think, that Axios was trying to get at.
00:36:35.540 It's like, give me a break.
00:36:36.720 I mean, Kamala Harris, if you go back—
00:36:39.900 And by the way, Axios is not a right-wing website.
00:36:42.100 It is a center-left media organization.
00:36:46.360 It's not one of the most left-wing organizations.
00:36:48.600 But it's not conservative.
00:36:51.020 No.
00:36:51.380 And they're pointing out, are you friggin' kidding me?
00:36:53.980 Like, this is what she's saying?
00:36:56.240 Yeah.
00:36:56.600 And let's go back to what she called the wall,
00:36:59.500 which she's now using parts of the wall visually in her ads.
00:37:03.120 Listen.
00:37:03.660 We don't need to build a wall.
00:37:05.000 This is a crisis of his own making.
00:37:07.540 And by definition, just plain speak, basic English-language definition,
00:37:12.600 it is not an emergency.
00:37:14.760 What's going to end up happening is that he will end up,
00:37:19.440 without any question, if he proceeds,
00:37:21.180 we're going to be looking at a situation where, in particular, homeowners and landowners in places like New Mexico and Texas
00:37:28.200 are probably going to look at government taking their land.
00:37:31.940 We're looking at military resources being focused, again, on the president's vanity project
00:37:38.300 instead of focused on real national security issues.
00:37:41.240 I mean, she says it's a vanity project and it's not a crisis and we don't need it.
00:37:46.640 And everybody, this Donald Trump is the idiot.
00:37:49.800 I'm the brilliant one.
00:37:51.140 She said this for years and now she's using Trump's wall as like a, as a prop for her own campaign.
00:37:58.400 Listen, I served for years on the Senate Judiciary Committee with Kamala Harris.
00:38:04.300 100% of the time, without exception, she was hard left.
00:38:09.700 As the nonpartisan bill tracking organization, GovTrack, raided her,
00:38:13.620 she was the single most liberal senator in the entire U.S. Senate.
00:38:17.240 She voted to the left of Bernie Sanders, to the left of Elizabeth Warren.
00:38:20.120 She has never once, in any hearing I've been in, expressed any concern with securing the border.
00:38:28.240 She has always, always, always sided on the side of illegal aliens, of the cartels,
00:38:33.620 of the human traffickers, of the drug smugglers.
00:38:36.080 In fact, in one hearing with the head of ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
00:38:41.580 she analogized ICE agents to the Ku Klux Klan, which is grotesque.
00:38:46.480 It is offensive, and so now, when she's pretending, she will secure the border.
00:38:53.160 She has been in charge of the border for the last four years.
00:38:56.720 She has been the border czar, as much as the media is trying to erase that.
00:39:01.760 Those are the facts.
00:39:03.260 She wanted this outcome.
00:39:05.020 This invasion is her desired outcome, and if, God forbid, she gets elected president,
00:39:10.700 11.5 million is going to become 20 million or even 30 million illegal immigrants.
00:39:14.900 Yeah, it's truly astounding.
00:39:18.380 And Kamala Harris on the border over the years, it's 2017, I go back.
00:39:22.620 She was asking taxpayers to pay for a border wall.
00:39:26.200 She said it was, quote, a terrible idea.
00:39:29.200 She said Trump's border wall was stupid in 18.
00:39:32.620 In 19, she said funding Trump's unrealistic border wall would be a gross misuse of taxpayer dollars.
00:39:39.360 And that is where she's always been.
00:39:42.600 But now it's election season.
00:39:44.080 Let's rewrite history of the past.
00:39:46.220 And I don't know.
00:39:47.200 Now she's tough on the border.
00:39:48.600 I hope this doesn't play out the way she thinks it is that the media is going to cover for.
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00:41:56.000 Senator, finally, I want to ask you, it finally came out that she's going to do an interview,
00:42:01.960 we mentioned a moment ago on CNN, but she's going to do it with someone holding her hand.
00:42:07.120 And that is the VP, that's going to change the dynamic of the interview.
00:42:12.620 It's going to be more, I think, like propaganda.
00:42:15.440 That's why they're agreeing to this, because it's like, let's talk about how amazing you two are
00:42:20.600 and your relationship and how excited you are.
00:42:23.800 It's not going to get into the policy stuff.
00:42:26.520 That's what drives me nuts about the fact that they're even calling this an interview.
00:42:30.780 It's not.
00:42:31.480 It's propaganda.
00:42:32.320 Well, let me say several points on this.
00:42:35.720 Number one, the Kamala Harris campaign spent weeks, I mean, it's been, I think, 37 days
00:42:41.620 since she was the presumptive nominee.
00:42:43.740 They've done zero interviews.
00:42:45.200 They've done zero press conferences.
00:42:46.880 The last couple of weeks, they've been feeling out different media outlets saying, hey, who
00:42:51.500 wants to do the first interview?
00:42:52.880 Because I guess we can't go all the way to election day without doing interviews.
00:42:56.800 So we're going to do one.
00:42:58.300 Who's willing to throw us the most softballs?
00:43:00.620 Who's willing to give us the most gentle format imaginable?
00:43:03.660 And it turns out, ding, ding, ding, winner, chicken dinner, CNN stepped forward.
00:43:10.240 So there are several questions.
00:43:12.080 Number one, it is astonishing that the interview is not Kamala Harris, but it's Kamala Harris
00:43:17.940 and Tim Walz.
00:43:18.580 And presumably, Tim Walz is sitting there.
00:43:20.380 So if that Kamala is screwing up, Tim Walz can step in and try to bail her out.
00:43:24.960 I have never seen in my life, I'm 10 years older than you are, I'm 53, I have never once
00:43:31.900 seen a presidential candidate who was so weak that he or she needed their vice presidential
00:43:39.000 candidate as a safety blanket.
00:43:41.200 That is bizarre.
00:43:42.900 Can you imagine?
00:43:43.720 I mean, just think back a little bit.
00:43:45.900 Can you imagine Donald Trump saying, I need Mike Pence there?
00:43:50.920 Yeah, hell no.
00:43:51.820 Like, it's unimaginable.
00:43:53.780 Can you imagine Hillary Clinton saying, I need Tim Kaine there?
00:43:56.940 Can you imagine Barack Obama saying, I need Joe Biden there?
00:44:00.540 Can you imagine Ronald Reagan saying, I need George Bush there?
00:44:04.220 Like, it is, you can go back.
00:44:07.100 Can you imagine George Washington saying, I need John Adams there?
00:44:11.600 Like, it is a bizarre thing for a presidential candidate to be so weak that they need someone
00:44:19.200 to hold their hand.
00:44:19.960 But secondly, this is a pre-taped interview.
00:44:24.860 They're going to pre-tape it.
00:44:26.460 Hold on, say that again, because I think people don't understand that.
00:44:29.840 Say that again.
00:44:30.780 That's a very important data point here.
00:44:33.960 This is a pre-taped interview.
00:44:36.960 They're going to pre-tape it.
00:44:38.480 And then CNN is going to edit it.
00:44:41.200 And I believe, and I think many Americans believe, CNN is going to edit it.
00:44:45.100 So if and when Kamala says things that are dumb, if and when she says some word salad,
00:44:50.800 if and when there's a moment that's bad, they'll cut it right out.
00:44:55.060 That, like, I have to ask, does CNN, and you worked, what, seven years as CNN employee?
00:45:01.200 Seven years in hell, yes.
00:45:03.200 Do they have anywhere in that institution a tiny shred of journalistic integrity?
00:45:09.880 If CNN did, here's what CNN should do.
00:45:13.880 Say, we will release the entirety of the interview.
00:45:16.920 We're going to put out every word of it.
00:45:18.580 We're not going to edit it.
00:45:20.180 We're going to put it all out.
00:45:21.860 That's actually what a real journalistic outlet would do.
00:45:26.040 We're not going to do a package that is a promo piece for the Harris campaign.
00:45:31.800 We're going to release, we're going to ask questions, and release what she actually says.
00:45:38.040 Not editing out the bad stuff and only including the good stuff.
00:45:41.980 And this goes back to CNN's, I think, desperation to get the interview.
00:45:47.920 They were willing to basically do whatever it took.
00:45:53.380 And so I think the deal was, and again, knowing how this works behind the scenes,
00:45:58.160 hey, we want this thing to be not live.
00:46:01.480 We want it to be taped.
00:46:02.460 Yeah, they were begging, they were groveling, they were conceding.
00:46:05.440 We'll give you whatever you want.
00:46:06.600 We'll give you whatever you want.
00:46:07.560 Just give us the interview, give us the interview.
00:46:09.300 Okay, well now we also want the VP to be with her.
00:46:11.440 Okay, great.
00:46:12.040 What else do you need from us?
00:46:13.800 Because if you look at just data, live interviews that you can promote as live.
00:46:19.940 By the way, the last big interview Kamala did,
00:46:22.400 the last big interview Kamala did was with Lester Holt.
00:46:26.240 Yeah.
00:46:26.460 And Lester Holt actually asked her some real questions,
00:46:30.940 and she looked like an imbecile.
00:46:32.500 He pointed out that she had not been to the southern border,
00:46:36.040 she'd not been to the Rio Grande Valley, and she, like, it was a disaster.
00:46:40.380 It's striking that even as biased as the big networks are, they wanted more.
00:46:45.620 They wanted make sure you will protect her.
00:46:49.100 But here's the question I want to close this podcast on.
00:46:52.800 You know Dana Bash.
00:46:54.060 I know Dana well.
00:46:54.780 I've probably done a dozen interviews with Dana.
00:46:58.320 She has now what is the biggest interview of her career.
00:47:04.100 What does Dana Bash do to not be a laughingstock,
00:47:09.720 to not be a patsy,
00:47:12.160 and simply a spokesperson for the Kamala Harris campaign?
00:47:18.040 Dana recently, she's been on air saying,
00:47:20.600 Kamala was never the border czar.
00:47:21.820 She was never the border czar, so Dana has not been helping herself by giving those talking points.
00:47:28.020 But I got to say, look, Dana, there's got to be a part of her somewhere that desires to be a real journalist.
00:47:35.440 What does she do to not go down in history as a total stooge?
00:47:39.180 Yeah, and it's a great question.
00:47:41.960 I don't know if it's just pure sellout no matter what.
00:47:45.000 You got the interview, you play by the rules, and you act like you accomplished something when the interview's over,
00:47:49.500 and you're all glad at each other and go, that was so great.
00:47:51.520 That was amazing.
00:47:52.380 Great interview.
00:47:54.260 And how do you sleep at night?
00:47:55.640 I guess you just cast that CNN check, and you say, oh, it'll be fine.
00:47:58.900 And, look, I don't think any of her colleagues—
00:48:01.540 Is that your prediction, then, that she totally rolls over?
00:48:04.140 Or does she ask any difficult question?
00:48:06.380 I mean, you know her.
00:48:07.320 I'm asking as a very—I don't know the answer.
00:48:10.420 I'm not trying to feed you the answer.
00:48:11.640 I'm asking you legitimately.
00:48:12.520 No, look, I've watched her when—I've watched her.
00:48:16.280 We were on set together when Bernie Sanders was running, for example, and she was tough on Bernie.
00:48:20.680 But that was because they wanted Bernie out.
00:48:22.760 And so if she's all in for Harris, which I believe that she absolutely is, and I don't think there's anybody that judges her selling out in this interview
00:48:33.260 because all the members of the media, the mainstream media, the liberal media, they're all in this together.
00:48:39.740 So you're not judged by your peers.
00:48:42.440 I do think back in the day, whether it was Cronkite or Brokaw or Jennings, like if you did a crappy interview—
00:48:50.380 Or Tim Russer.
00:48:51.040 If you did a crappy interview, there were people around you that judged you, and you were walking around,
00:48:58.020 and people were whispering about, like, what a sellout.
00:49:00.260 Did you see how pathetic that was?
00:49:02.460 There's not a theory more of that.
00:49:03.140 I'm going to make a tiny and maybe naively hopeful statement.
00:49:06.920 Dana, prove the naysayers wrong.
00:49:10.840 Do a real interview, and then don't edit the damn thing.
00:49:14.180 Show the real answers.
00:49:15.500 I hope that happens.
00:49:17.020 I really do.
00:49:17.740 And the sad part is, you shouldn't have to encourage a real journalist to do their damn job.
00:49:23.280 But here we are.
00:49:24.540 Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
00:49:27.200 Make sure you hit that subscribe or auto-download button wherever you're listening.
00:49:31.300 And on those in-between days, I'll keep you updated on my podcast, the Ben Ferguson Podcast.
00:49:36.020 So make sure you download that one as well.
00:49:38.000 And the senator and I will see you back here on Friday morning.
00:49:41.440 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:49:44.400 Guaranteed human.