Verdict with Ted Cruz - July 01, 2026


Understanding the Historic Supreme Court Victories & Losses this Week


Episode Stats


Length

46 minutes

Words per minute

159.89

Word count

7,474

Sentence count

362

Harmful content

Misogyny

11

sentences flagged

Toxicity

5

sentences flagged

Hate speech

15

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Ted Cruz and Ben Fergus Ferguson join host Jack Armstrong and Getty to discuss some of the most important Supreme Court rulings of the week, including the ruling allowing abortion access to the mail and the decision allowing the president to fire a trade commissioner.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
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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00:00:36.180 On Newt World Podcast, we're celebrating America's 250th birthday.
00:00:40.680 And I ask my guests how they're spending their 4th of July.
00:00:44.540 Brett Baer.
00:00:45.520 I will be working. I'll be in Washington because it's a big, big day.
00:00:50.300 Jared Isaacman.
00:00:51.200 I plan to be flying in an F-5 fighter jet painted in Freedom 250 colors along with four other fighter jets flying over the nation's capital.
00:00:59.200 Listen to Newt's World on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:06.380 Why should you listen to Armstrong and Getty on demand?
00:01:10.060 We're not boring.
00:01:11.020 A lot of news is boring.
00:01:12.020 And tedious.
00:01:12.900 And depressing.
00:01:13.480 And makes you angry.
00:01:14.860 You don't want to live your life like that.
00:01:17.140 Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong.
00:01:18.200 He's Joe Getty.
00:01:18.840 We're Armstrong and Getty.
00:01:19.960 We try to bring you the truth.
00:01:21.100 And help you figure out this crazy modern world.
00:01:23.500 How about something about a comedic tone?
00:01:28.000 We have a winner.
00:01:29.200 Yes. Listen to Armstrong and Getty on demand on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:37.140 Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you as well. It's nice to have you with us.
00:01:42.280 And Senator, we are going to have a really interesting show today because we have so many extremely important rulings that have come down from the Supreme Court.
00:01:50.180 We're going to break them into the wins and into the losses category here and let people know exactly what many of these rulings mean going forward.
00:01:58.740 Well, this was a landmark week in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
00:02:02.740 Huge decisions came down this week.
00:02:04.720 We're going to break them down for you, try to explain them, make them understandable.
00:02:08.580 We had major, major victories that are enormously consequential.
00:02:12.500 We also had a couple of big, big losses.
00:02:15.440 We're going to break all of them down for you today.
00:02:17.460 Yeah, it's a lot of them, and we're going to talk about that in a moment.
00:02:20.480 But first, I want to talk to you about Americans United for Life.
00:02:24.020 The Supreme Court ruled that abortion drugs can keep being sent through the mail.
00:02:29.840 No doctor visit, no in-person exam, no one checking whether a woman is being pressured,
00:02:36.840 whether she's too far along, whether she's safe.
00:02:40.440 These are powerful drugs.
00:02:42.500 And right now, there is almost nothing standing between these drugs and your mailbox.
00:02:47.900 And that's why I want you to know about Americans United for Life, AUL.
00:02:52.740 For more than 50 years, they've been the legal backbone of pro-life movement.
00:02:58.080 They fight in the courts.
00:02:59.620 They hold the abortion industry accountable.
00:03:02.780 And right now, they are leading the efforts to restore basic safety protections for these drugs.
00:03:09.120 If anyone can fix this, it's AUL.
00:03:12.460 Now, here is how you can help and why it matters now.
00:03:16.220 A donor has put up $250,000 to match every gift to Americans United for Life, dollar
00:03:24.880 for dollar, but only through June 13th, $25 becomes 50, 50 becomes 100, but that window
00:03:34.720 closes in days. 1.00
00:03:36.980 There are women right now who need someone in their corner, and AUL is that someone. 1.00
00:03:43.040 And be a part of it. 0.99
00:03:44.660 Go right now to aul.org forward slash verdict.
00:03:51.360 That's aul.org forward slash verdict.
00:03:57.180 Give before June 13th and your gift will be doubled.
00:04:01.820 Again, that's aul.org forward slash verdict.
00:04:07.080 All right, so Senator, let's talk about some of the victories.
00:04:10.140 And one of them was a very interesting case.
00:04:12.900 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.
00:04:24.480 Well, let's start with two decisions, and this is a big victory, Trump versus Slaughter and Trump versus Cook.
00:04:30.560 And it dealt with the ability of the president to fire people in his administration.
00:04:37.100 So almost 100 years ago, the court decided a case called Humphrey's Executor.
00:04:42.900 Humphrey's executor, actually 91 years ago, the court concluded that the president cannot fire a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission.
00:04:54.800 And the Federal Trade Commission was set up as a so-called independent agency.
00:04:59.460 It was an agency with three commissioners appointed by the president, confirmed by the Senate from the majority party, and two commissioners appointed by the president, confirmed by the Senate from the minority party.
00:05:12.900 And the so-called independent agencies arose coming out of the Woodrow Wilson era, coming out of the progressive era as a way to limit presidential power.
00:05:25.120 And Humphrey's executor said the president doesn't have the ability to fire an FTC commissioner without cause.
00:05:34.260 Well, in my view, Humphrey's executor was wrong the day it was decided 91 years ago.
00:05:40.180 and it has been wrong every day for nine decades since then why because under the constitution the
00:05:48.960 constitution the first three articles of the constitution article one vests all legislative
00:05:54.300 power in the congress of the united states article two vests all executive power in the
00:06:01.480 president of the united states and article three vests all judicial power in the judiciary
00:06:06.920 What Humphrey's executor did is severely limit the president's Article II authority over the executive branch.
00:06:16.160 Anyone in government, you are either in one of those three buckets.
00:06:20.440 You're either a legislative official.
00:06:23.080 I'm a legislative official.
00:06:24.220 I'm elected by the people of Texas to represent them in the Senate.
00:06:27.620 I'm in the legislature.
00:06:28.600 I'm in Article I.
00:06:30.100 You could be a judicial official.
00:06:31.860 That is appointed by the president, confirmed by the Senate.
00:06:34.300 you're a judge with life tenure adjudicating cases that's an article three everyone else
00:06:40.400 is an article two article two is the executive and under the constitution the president has
00:06:46.660 authority over the executive humphrey's executor said no no you don't there could be someone that
00:06:52.120 works for the executive and yet somehow congress has taken over the ability of the president to
00:06:58.220 control that person well when president trump came in in the second term he fired two fdc directors
00:07:07.000 commissioners rather one of which was rebecca slaughter rebecca slaughter is a democrat
00:07:12.720 she was one of the five fdc commissioners and he fired her he said you know what i just want
00:07:19.100 republican commissioners i'm not appointing democrat commissions now he did that knowing
00:07:24.400 it would prompt a legal challenge and anticipating that that it would be a legal challenge he would
00:07:30.100 prevail in i will tell you i've said publicly multiple times for for a long time trump was
00:07:36.400 going to prevail and you know as i talked to reporters they said well what do you think about
00:07:41.500 this case i said trump's going to win and he's going to win because humphrey's executor was wrong
00:07:46.100 the president has the authority over the executive branch and i believe the court is going to overrule
00:07:53.440 humphreys executive well this week that prediction came true by the way we talk on on this podcast a
00:08:00.000 lot about the predictions we make and the vast majority of the predictions we make come true
00:08:05.720 and and we hold ourselves accountable when they come true we lay them out when they don't come
00:08:09.860 true we lay them out in this instance chief justice roberts wrote the majority opinion
00:08:15.420 He was joined by Justice Alito, Justice Gorsuch, Justice Kavanaugh, Justice Barrett, and Justice Thomas in part.
00:08:25.180 So it was a 6-3 decision.
00:08:27.600 And the court overturned Humphrey's executor, said the president can fire an FTC commission.
00:08:34.960 That's a big victory.
00:08:36.120 That's a big victory for presidential authority.
00:08:39.040 That's a big victory for the text of the Constitution.
00:08:41.680 That's a big victory for the original understanding of the Constitution.
00:08:45.420 Now, here's kind of a weird wrinkle.
00:08:49.880 There was another case that was Cook versus Trump.
00:08:54.440 So Lisa Cook was a Federal Reserve governor.
00:09:01.220 Yeah. 1.00
00:09:01.480 And Trump also fired Lisa Cook.
00:09:05.520 Now, interestingly enough, look, you would think the same principle should apply,
00:09:10.340 that if Trump can fire an FTC commissioner,
00:09:15.360 he ought to be able to fire a Federal Reserve governor.
00:09:20.140 Well, you'd be wrong on that.
00:09:22.260 The court, by a vote of five to four,
00:09:25.180 held that Trump could not fire Lisa Cook,
00:09:27.700 that the Federal Reserve was different.
00:09:29.900 And it was a different majority.
00:09:31.680 Chief Justice Roberts wrote both opinions,
00:09:33.540 which did not surprise me.
00:09:35.540 Trump versus Cook was joined.
00:09:38.020 roberts joined by justice sotomayor justice kagan justice kavanaugh and justice ketanji brown jackson
00:09:46.500 so it was five four now clarence thomas dissented he called the ruling incorrect uh he he pointed
00:09:53.540 out that that it was inconsistent with the slaughter decision i gotta say this did not
00:09:58.660 surprise me at all and and and indeed i i had predicted humphrey's executors would be overturned
00:10:05.880 But at the same time, the court would be reluctant to accord the president carte blanche over the Federal Reserve.
00:10:15.180 And in my view, look, Chief Justice Roberts had different distinctions about the statute of the Federal Reserve.
00:10:21.900 I actually think those distinctions did not matter.
00:10:25.240 This was, I believe, in significant respects, a results-driven outcome.
00:10:32.020 I think at the end of the day, you did not have five justices.
00:10:35.880 that were willing to accede the power to the president to fire a Federal Reserve governor
00:10:43.160 because the role of the Federal Reserve with our currency, with our economy,
00:10:47.580 was significant enough that they were reluctant to do it.
00:10:50.460 That doesn't surprise me.
00:10:51.820 The consequence of these two decisions, is Trump versus Cook pure and true to the Constitution?
00:11:02.040 Probably not.
00:11:02.760 But it is a fairly narrow exception to the much broader precedent, which is Trump versus Slaughter, which overrules Humphrey's executor and upholds the president's authority to fire executive branch employees at his discretion.
00:11:23.060 That's going to obviously have big impact moving forward, right, over the next couple of years for the president as well.
00:11:27.820 Would you agree?
00:11:29.020 Yeah, no, no, it's a big deal, and it's going to mean as a practical matter going forward,
00:11:33.940 I think there's a real possibility, in fact, a likelihood that these so-called independent commissions will not have bipartisan commissions.
00:11:42.860 I think going forward, you're going to see commissions like the FTC, the FCC, potentially the FEC, the various commissions that are bipartisan.
00:11:54.060 Anderson, what we've seen with Trump is that he says, I'm not going to appoint Democrats to it.
00:11:59.980 And he leaves those seats vacant. My guess is if and when we have another Democrat president,
00:12:06.500 and unfortunately, we will likely have another Democrat president. I'd rather not. I think the 0.67
00:12:11.700 Democrats' policies are really damaging. But if history is any guide, we will see the Democrats
00:12:16.240 in charge of the White House at some point. And I think it is quite likely that when the Democrats
00:12:20.840 are in charge they will appoint to the independent commissions three commissioners from the democrat
00:12:26.900 party and zero republican commissioners and and look i'll say what 25 years ago when when george
00:12:35.060 w bush was elected president uh i came in i was a young campaign staffer i'd been down in in austin
00:12:41.420 texas on the campaign team with within governor bush i met heidi on the bush campaign she and i
00:12:48.300 came to join the bush administration i spent about six months in the department of justice
00:12:51.900 and then i went over to the federal trade commission and and the fdc is is what was
00:12:57.320 the subject of this litigation my boss at the time was the chairman tim muris tim is a brilliant
00:13:03.160 conservative lawyer economist uh and i was the head of policy at the fdc when i was 30 years old
00:13:10.140 i was a young kid it was a fascinating job i did that for a little over two years uh very much
00:13:15.460 enjoyed the job. At the time, we had three Republican commissioners, two Democrat commissioners,
00:13:20.180 and to be honest, to be a minority commissioner in the Pettit Commission, it's kind of a weird
00:13:24.360 job because you don't have the votes, but you can nonetheless express your views, you can dissent,
00:13:30.360 you write opinions, you press back within the executive branch. I think the consequence of
00:13:37.280 this decision is you're not going to see minority commissioners from the party out of power. You
00:13:42.620 will see the independent agencies operate much like the rest of the executives so just like
00:13:48.560 in the department of labor you don't have a republican secretary of labor and then a democrat
00:13:55.660 secretary of labor who argues against it instead you just have appointees of the president i think
00:14:00.280 you will see in the independent agencies the same sort of thing they will just be appointees of the
00:14:06.100 majority party it's going to be very very interesting to see like you said how this moves
00:14:09.720 forward, but certainly that is a victory for President Donald Trump. All right, I want to
00:14:14.000 move on to another one of the victories, and this was a big case. It's one that I was actually
00:14:18.440 involved with more than any other case that's ever been before the Supreme Court. My old roommate
00:14:22.820 is the West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCuskey, and they were a part of bringing this
00:14:28.780 case. They knew that when they made their decision in West Virginia, it was probably going to reach
00:14:33.180 the Supreme Court. Sure enough, it did. I actually went into the Supreme Court for those oral
00:14:37.900 arguments that were being made that day with uh getting men uh out of women's sports uh this was
00:14:44.340 a massive victory it's a fight the president wanted it's a fight center that you've been
00:14:48.560 heavily involved with protecting uh women's sports and it was a huge victory that is going
00:14:54.720 to have real repercussions across sports at every level in this country well this is a big big deal
00:15:01.540 The Supreme Court has now made absolutely clear that we can protect women from men competing against them in sports.
00:15:09.500 We can protect girls from boys competing against them in sports.
00:15:13.420 This has been one of the things.
00:15:15.160 Look, you look at how the world has gone crazy.
00:15:18.840 Ten years ago, even five years ago, I don't think people really could have imagined this would be a thing.
00:15:23.880 And we're seeing it be more and more often a thing where boys are competing against girls, men are competing against women.
00:15:31.320 it is grotesquely unfair and and the good news is 27 states have now passed laws saying this
00:15:38.920 is not acceptable we are going to protect girls we're going to protect women in our states uh
00:15:45.300 this case west virginia versus bpj concerned the laws in west virginia and idaho two states that
00:15:54.400 have passed common sense state laws saying we're going to protect girls and women
00:15:58.260 plaintiffs brought lawsuits challenging that and saying the constitution and federal law
00:16:04.180 prohibits states protecting women's sports and protecting girls sports and the supreme court
00:16:11.200 unequivocally rejected that argument and so the majority opinion justice brett kavanaugh wrote
00:16:16.920 the majority opinion uh kavanaugh was joined by chief justice roberts justice thomas justice
00:16:22.140 alito justice gorsuch and justice barrett so it was a six three decision and and the court
00:16:28.060 concluded that that the laws in west virginia and idaho are constitutional that the equal
00:16:36.340 protection clause of the constitution so so the equal protection clause of the constitution is
00:16:41.180 part of the 14th amendment if you look at in the wake of the civil war we fought the civil war
00:16:46.840 bloody bloody war and then we adopted three amendments to the constitutions the 13th 14th
00:16:54.080 and 15th Amendment. The 13th Amendment prohibited slavery. The 14th Amendment, I'm going to come
00:17:00.280 back to in a second, the 15th Amendment protected the right to vote and prohibited discrimination
00:17:08.000 and the right to vote based on race. What did the 14th Amendment do? The 14th Amendment
00:17:12.880 protected the rights of citizens from discrimination by government, and there are
00:17:20.040 three key clauses of the 14th amendment there's the privileges or immunities clause which prohibits
00:17:26.480 the states from violating the privileges or immunities of citizens of the united states
00:17:31.440 there is equal protection clause that prohibits the states and also the local governments
00:17:36.740 from from denying americans the equal protections of the law and there's the due process clause that
00:17:43.620 prohibits the states and the local governments from denying Americans life, liberty, or property
00:17:51.740 without due process of law. The Equal Protection Clause is essentially a provision of the 14th
00:17:58.060 Amendment that says government cannot treat similarly situated people differently, cannot
00:18:04.140 unfairly discriminate against you. And so it was initially interpreted to protect against racial
00:18:11.300 discrimination by the way the equal protection clause is the basis on which the supreme court
00:18:16.980 has struck down racial discrimination in college admissions and it's made clear you can't
00:18:22.440 discriminate based on race in college admission that was the right decision well in this instance
00:18:28.580 the plaintiffs were arguing that stopping a biological male from competing in in women's
00:18:34.440 sports violated the equal protection clause the supreme court 6-3 rejected that argument said 0.96
00:18:41.280 that is wrong secondly there are federal civil rights laws that that protect civil rights these
00:18:49.340 are passed by congress uh and signed by the president and in particular there's a decision
00:18:55.080 called bostock that is an employment discrimination case uh where justice gorsuch had written the
00:19:01.440 majority opinion and had bizarrely i think bostock was wrongly decided but but the court
00:19:08.280 in bostock had concluded that the prohibition on discrimination based on sex also covered people
00:19:17.880 who are transgendered which which i don't think is remotely within the statutory language i think
00:19:23.440 bostock was wrongly decided the court here concluded nothing in bostock requires biological
00:19:32.140 males to compete in girls sports. That is a big, big victory. Now, I want to be clear what this
00:19:40.600 means. There are 27 states that have protected girls sports and women's sports. Those laws are
00:19:47.660 now constitutionally sound, and they are extremely unlikely to be struck down in litigation.
00:19:53.840 Now, doing the math, if 27 states have protected that, that means 23 states have not. The Californias,
00:20:01.080 the new yorks the illinois the blue states in this case now look the court was not deciding
00:20:07.620 uh whether there is a problem with california and new york allowing boys to compete in girls
00:20:13.940 sports i think there is a massive fairness problem there's a massive public policy problem
00:20:19.700 i would like to see congress i voted repeatedly in favor of congress passing legislation
00:20:24.820 prohibiting boys from competing in girls sports prohibiting men from competing in women's sports 1.00
00:20:29.920 I think that's the right policy. The outcome of this this case is those 23 states can continue to let boys compete in girls sports. 0.95
00:20:39.420 But thankfully, that means the voters can say enough is enough and get their states to pass laws protecting girls sports, protecting women's sports.
00:20:48.140 Yeah, it is going to be huge. And like you said, there's still going to be battles going forward, but they're going to be fought in a very different way than what we've witnessed so far.
00:20:58.560 And this is, again, this is about protecting women's sports, and now you're going to see a lot of people that have been pushed around who are going to say, hey, I don't have to be anymore.
00:21:07.460 I don't have to play in these two worlds.
00:21:09.920 I can do what now the Supreme Court says I can do, and that is huge.
00:21:14.060 I want to also move on to another—
00:21:15.420 And by the way, hold on a second.
00:21:16.660 I want to say something also.
00:21:18.240 It's worth noting that in this case, it was 6-3.
00:21:22.620 That means three justices dissented.
00:21:25.400 Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson.
00:21:28.080 dissented um and and in particular uh they argue that the case should have been remanded to the 0.96
00:21:36.280 lower court to figure out if the transgender athlete who wanted to compete uh whether
00:21:41.780 that transgender athlete had specific medical treatments that eliminated any athletic advantage
00:21:50.020 so they wanted to be able to say okay if you're a biological man but you're taking so much estrogen
00:21:55.860 that all of the advantages of being male in terms of physically competing in sports
00:22:01.600 have been eliminated, then you have a legal claim and you can strike down the law.
00:22:07.200 Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson wrote separately, and mind you,
00:22:11.920 Ketanji Brown-Jackson, you'll recall, during her confirmation hearing,
00:22:15.520 famously was asked, what is a woman?
00:22:18.380 And she couldn't answer the question. 0.90
00:22:20.640 Do you remember what she said?
00:22:22.180 Yeah, she didn't know how to answer it.
00:22:25.860 She said, I'm not a biologist.
00:22:27.920 Yeah.
00:22:28.540 Well, it turns out she's still not a biologist because she dissented here.
00:22:32.740 And she said the court did not need to define sex as biological for the purposes of Title IX. 0.99
00:22:41.080 Title IX is the law that protects girls' sports.
00:22:44.360 She would have left the question open for future cases and refused to deny it.
00:22:49.420 Look, you've got three liberal judges who, and to be clear, 0.82
00:22:55.180 If the Democrats win, if they take the Senate, they want three to become five, to become more, who would strike down every law in the country protecting girls' sports and protecting women's sports.
00:23:07.320 So we ought to celebrate, celebrate this victory, a 6-3 victory that's important, but it also ought to scare us.
00:23:13.800 Not a single one of the liberals, they didn't admit even a moment's hesitation.
00:23:19.880 That's how extreme things have got.
00:23:21.540 Yeah, it's a great point. And it's exactly why presidential elections are so important, because whoever's elected, they get to appoint people.
00:23:31.140 And when they do, they stay for a very long time. And it has major consequences on America.
00:23:33.940 And by the way, Ben, it's not just presidential elections. The midterms in November, if the Democrats take the Senate, my prediction is they will block every single judicial nomination for the next two years.
00:23:46.040 it used to be the case
00:23:48.480 had a president of one party
00:23:50.560 a senator of the other
00:23:51.360 that you'd move forward
00:23:52.440 with judicial nominations
00:23:53.600 there'd be some moderation
00:23:54.760 but judicial nominations
00:23:56.460 would proceed
00:23:57.180 I think the Democrats
00:23:58.340 have gotten so radicalized
00:23:59.800 judges shut down
00:24:01.560 if they take the Senate
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00:24:34.860 This is Newt Ginglish, former Speaker of the House
00:24:37.740 and a proud American citizen.
00:24:40.080 I'm celebrating America's 250th birthday on my podcast,
00:24:43.280 new twirl with 15 special episodes and i've got some great guests walter isaacson jonathan turley
00:24:52.120 brett bear i will be working because it's a big big day i'll be in washington and have all kinds
00:24:59.160 of coverage through the day of america 250 rachel compass duffy there's nothing like american music
00:25:05.040 we're the home of rock and roll we're the home of rap we're the home of pop music eric metaxas
00:25:09.740 Jared Isaacman. I plan to be flying in an F-5 fighter jet painted in Freedom 250 colors along
00:25:15.880 with four other fighter jets flying over the nation's capital. The story of the national
00:25:21.000 anthem and the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. Join me and let's celebrate
00:25:26.500 America's 250. Listen to Newt's World on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
00:25:33.200 Did your podcast
00:25:34.440 Why should you listen to Armstrong and Getty
00:25:37.560 On Demand
00:25:38.180 We're not boring, a lot of news is boring
00:25:40.580 And tedious, and depressing, and makes you angry
00:25:43.320 You don't want to live your life like that
00:25:45.420 Hey I'm Jack Armstrong, he's Joe Getty
00:25:47.460 We're Armstrong and Getty
00:25:48.560 We try to bring you the truth
00:25:49.680 And help you figure out this crazy modern world
00:25:52.040 How about something about a comedic tone
00:25:53.780 We have a winner
00:25:57.740 Yes
00:25:58.560 Listen to Armstrong and Getty On Demand
00:26:00.920 On the iHeartRadio app
00:26:02.200 apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts i want to move to another big case it was a victory
00:26:08.300 uh it's a little inside baseball but it's a very important one it deals the fcc and
00:26:12.420 coordination expenditures explain this ruling as well this is a case called nrsc versus fec and
00:26:18.620 it's about free speech and it's a 6-3 decision that that there were strict rules on how much
00:26:25.640 a political party can spend in coordination with its own candidates. And the court struck down
00:26:32.380 those limits and said, the RNC can spend as much money as it wants to support Republicans in
00:26:38.120 elections. The DNC can spend as much money as it wants to support Democrats in elections.
00:26:44.360 And they can coordinate, they can talk with the candidate. The existing rules were really stupid, 1.00
00:26:49.760 where the parties could spend money, but they couldn't actually talk to the candidate they 0.99
00:26:54.620 were spending money to support and and that i believe is contrary to the first amendment to
00:27:01.580 the constitution you know one of the strange things about how democrats think about free speech
00:27:06.460 uh the first amendment says congress will make no law abridging the freedom of speech
00:27:12.060 for many democrats they are robust they are aggressive on the free speech when it concerns
00:27:21.800 pornography obscenity kiddie porn they're like oh yeah first amendment covers all of that you
00:27:27.060 you should be able to have uh any sort of grotesque obscenity in any context whatsoever
00:27:32.380 you should have explicit pornography in the library or kindergartens that's what the first
00:27:37.120 amendment is all about i understand the argument that the first amendment is so robust it even
00:27:43.400 includes things that that we would find distasteful but the bizarre thing about democrats is they say
00:27:50.280 somehow skips over political speech look if the first amendment is designed to protect anything
00:27:58.140 it is political speech it is speech about our democratic process it is speech saying 0.64
00:28:04.440 vote for my candidate throw this bum out of office here's the rules we should adopt here's 0.88
00:28:10.880 the laws we should adopt uh i'm for gay marriage i'm against gay marriage i'm for abortion i'm 0.96
00:28:17.020 against abortion i'm for protecting gun rights i'm against protecting gun rights i mean that's
00:28:21.700 the essence of our democracy and for many on the left they believe government can regulate the
00:28:28.960 living daylights out of political speech make it incredibly difficult to urge your fellow citizens
00:28:34.660 here's who you should elect here you here's who you should not elect and yet at the same time
00:28:40.020 they want it to protect uh speech at the outer edges of the first amendment i don't get that
00:28:46.700 the supreme court here this decision is really important in terms of ensuring robust democracy
00:28:56.480 and robust free speech and by the way do you know what one of the key precedents was that this
00:29:03.080 decision built on what was that the case decided in 2022 that was entitled fec versus ted cruz for
00:29:13.580 senate so it's kind of cool i i have over the course of of my life i i had been a a law clerk
00:29:22.760 at the supreme court so i have briefed and advised the chief justice on how to decide cases i had
00:29:28.980 prepared the first drafts of supreme court opinions as a law clerk i had been an advocate
00:29:34.560 and argued nine cases in front of the court and so stood in front of the court answered their
00:29:38.120 questions written briefs and won multiple big landmark cases but i've also been a litigant i've
00:29:44.700 been a party uh and so i filed a lawsuit that that culminated in fec versus ted cruz for senate
00:29:51.420 that was challenging a portion of mccain feingold mccain feingold was the big campaign finance law
00:29:57.660 uh that john mccain and russ feingold champion that put major constraints on political spending
00:30:03.560 in political speech.
00:30:05.000 I think McCain-Feingold was an absolute abomination.
00:30:08.680 One element of McCain-Feingold
00:30:10.460 is it limited the ability of a candidate
00:30:13.760 to loan money to his or her own campaign
00:30:17.060 and then pay yourself back.
00:30:19.620 And so when I first ran for Senate in 2012,
00:30:24.740 Heidi and I, in fact, right before the primary,
00:30:29.020 I went to Heidi and I had a pretty surreal conversation.
00:30:32.980 I went to my wife and I said, okay, we need to liquidate 100% of our liquid net worth and put it in the campaign.
00:30:43.520 Because if we don't, we can't win.
00:30:46.140 And listen, neither Heidi nor I come from money.
00:30:49.320 My parents, when I was in high school, went bankrupt. 0.97
00:30:51.560 My dad was an immigrant. 1.00
00:30:52.500 He came from Cuba with nothing. 1.00
00:30:54.060 It's a curious thing, Ben.
00:30:55.320 People assume if you're in the Senate, you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth.
00:30:59.320 Yes.
00:31:00.480 Some people in the Senate, that's true for.
00:31:02.440 it wasn't for me. I mean, I've been financially on my own since I was 17. My parents went bankrupt.
00:31:08.140 We lost our home. We lost our business. When I went to college, I got two jobs. I took student
00:31:15.040 loans. I've been supporting myself ever since then. But I will say over the years, I mean,
00:31:20.540 I got a good education. I got a good job. And Heidi and I made some money. And so we had
00:31:25.020 done well by working. And so by the time I ran for Senate, our liquid net worth,
00:31:30.920 what we had that we could liquidate was 1.2 million dollars which is a lot of money look
00:31:34.720 i've had spent a whole life trying to earn that i was really grateful to have that i gotta tell
00:31:39.700 you ben you've been married a long time not as long as i have but a long time i'm getting stressed
00:31:45.180 at the idea of having that conversation much else actually doing it it's an interesting conversation
00:31:50.960 and i will say when i went to heidi i felt very confident she would say yes but i sort of thought
00:31:57.860 we would have a long extended conversation we might talk an hour or two about well that was
00:32:02.820 campaign look can you win what are the prospects and it was one of the moments i was most incredibly
00:32:08.820 proud to be married to my best friend in the world because 20 seconds into the conversation
00:32:14.080 heidi said yes do it and and and we we put 1.2 million in and by the way the last week of the
00:32:20.960 campaign that was all the ads we ran like if i hadn't written that check we would have been dark
00:32:27.220 on tv that last week because we were broke we'd spent everything we'd raised and so that was the
00:32:32.040 only money we had and we ended up winning the race but mccain feingold limited the ability to pay
00:32:39.500 yourself back so when the whole campaign was over i could pay myself back some of it
00:32:43.160 but 550 000 of that i couldn't pay myself back so for more than a decade i had written a 550
00:32:50.960 000 check as a loan to my campaign and mccain feingold said i had to give that as a gift
00:32:56.400 uh i guess to the voters and just just sacrifice that money and it wasn't fair it wasn't right
00:33:02.640 and so this lawsuit challenged that and said listen you ought to be able to uh invest in
00:33:08.920 and invest your resources in political speech and six three i won in fec versus ted cruz for senate
00:33:16.600 uh big victory and it meant now and by the way those rules they didn't hurt candidates who were
00:33:25.260 really poor. If you had no money, then it didn't matter if you could loan money to your campaign
00:33:29.460 and pay it back. And they didn't really hurt candidates who were super rich, the gazillionaires
00:33:35.580 of the world. If you're so rich, it doesn't matter. You can write a check and you don't
00:33:40.960 miss it. What it really hurt was kind of folks in the middle, folks who say were professionals like
00:33:46.460 me. I was a practicing lawyer who had some resources. But, you know, most people aren't
00:33:51.460 willing to put 100% of their net worth in a campaign.
00:33:54.160 I mean, that's a big investment.
00:33:57.460 That's literally putting your money where your mouth is.
00:33:59.540 When you go sit down with a donor and you're like, hey, I'm all in,
00:34:02.100 they're like, well, really, how much are you?
00:34:03.360 You're like, no, like literally everything.
00:34:05.060 That's a testimony to how much you believe in your campaign and what you're doing.
00:34:10.420 Well, it is, and it's a question of being all in.
00:34:14.920 And that decision protected basic First Amendment rights.
00:34:20.000 Look, McCain-Feingold was passed by a bunch of incumbent politicians.
00:34:25.200 If you're an incumbent, you've got massive advantages.
00:34:28.460 You can drive media like crazy.
00:34:30.540 You have a fundraising apparatus.
00:34:32.820 There are huge benefits to being an incumbent.
00:34:35.720 Part of why Congress passed McCain-Feingold is that incumbents didn't want to be challenged.
00:34:42.200 They didn't want some upstart candidate to be able to run against them and beat them.
00:34:47.600 And so by cutting off the money for an upstart candidate, if a candidate has no name ID and a candidate can't raise money and a candidate can't invest their own money, you know what it means?
00:34:57.060 You can't beat an incumbent politician.
00:34:59.260 And so the decision in in FEC versus Ted Cruz for Senate, we won that 6-3.
00:35:07.920 That was a major precedent that in turn underlay NRSC versus FEC, and what that means now is that the parties will be able to spend and use – look, there are some people who say money isn't speech.
00:35:26.120 That view is objectively wrong.
00:35:30.120 Virtually all speech requires the expenditure of money.
00:35:33.420 You go back to the founding era.
00:35:35.260 um look the the federalist papers the federalist papers were op-eds printed in the newspaper in
00:35:43.060 in new york and they were advocating for ratification of the constitution that took
00:35:47.860 money printing newspapers take money uh you look at thomas payne's common sense that that that was
00:35:53.660 printed that took money you you look at benjamin franklin who spent a lot of money putting out
00:35:58.940 political pamphlets you you go forward to today if a little old lady goes to home depot and buys 1.00
00:36:06.860 a a stake of wood and a poster board a marker and writes throw the bums out that takes money 1.00
00:36:14.680 and and virtually all communication by the way the new york times every week spends millions of 0.96
00:36:22.260 dollars running printing printing presses uh printing newspapers distributing newspapers
00:36:27.320 NBC spends millions of dollars communicating about politics.
00:36:31.800 CNN spends millions of dollars communicating about politics.
00:36:35.860 Money is how you communicate to a nation of 330 million people.
00:36:40.120 And so this victory says, look, all of us have a right to participate in the political process and express our views.
00:36:46.680 That's a big victory for free speech.
00:36:48.980 All right, Senator, let's get to the bad cases.
00:36:52.480 There's two of them that I think we need to highlight. 0.95
00:36:54.620 One of them, and it's one that there's been a lot of discussion over, and that's birthright citizenship case.
00:37:00.580 My take on this was, look, the president wanted there to be a grand debate nationwide on birthright citizenship.
00:37:07.200 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,
00:37:13.340 that there was a good chance it was not going to be a victory, but it did open up a big conversation nationwide on immigration,
00:37:21.040 immigration status, and birthright citizenship, people coming in.
00:37:24.880 Birthright tourism is a simple way of putting it.
00:37:27.460 And it certainly did, I think, educate people on what's happening in this country.
00:37:32.780 That, for me, is a victory.
00:37:35.000 But the reality is, in the Supreme Court, this was a loss.
00:37:39.740 So it was.
00:37:41.140 The question is, what does birthright citizenship protect?
00:37:45.200 and in particular are children of illegal aliens entitled to become U.S. citizens because they
00:37:51.440 were born on U.S. soil. Now, as a policy matter, birthright citizenship, I think, is a very
00:37:57.460 foolish policy. It is a policy that encourages illegal immigration. It rewards people for 0.86
00:38:04.680 breaking our laws. Most other countries on earth don't have that policy. If you break in illegally
00:38:10.480 to another country, most other countries, if you have a kid there, that kid is not a citizen of
00:38:14.340 that country. It also encourages things, as you noted, like birth tourism, where pregnant women
00:38:22.120 will get on a plane and fly to America on tourist visa simply to have a baby in America so that
00:38:28.120 baby can become a U.S. citizen. That's a foolish policy. Now, there's a legal question of how can 0.86
00:38:37.780 you change birthright citizenship? And I talked a minute ago about the 14th Amendment.
00:38:44.340 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.
00:39:02.320 This case turned on the phrase and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.
00:39:06.960 what happened there have long been understood as really two potential ways to change current law
00:39:16.520 and birthright citizenship the one way that is unquestionably permissible and valid would be a
00:39:22.440 constitutional amendment that changes the constitution and makes clear that the child
00:39:27.580 of an illegal immigrant born in america is not a u.s citizen i strongly support that i would vote 0.58
00:39:32.480 for that, that's good policy. The second way, and there's dispute among legal scholars,
00:39:38.460 is could Congress pass a law saying the children of illegal immigrants born in America are not U.S.
00:39:45.160 citizens? That is still a somewhat murky question. Donald Trump explored a third avenue, which is he
00:39:53.020 signed an executive order that said, I am ordering the children of illegal immigrants are not U.S.
00:40:00.680 citizens if they're born in the United States. Now, to be honest, prior to Trump coming into
00:40:05.700 office, I'd never heard anyone articulate a legal theory that that could be done by executive order.
00:40:11.880 The Trump administration knew it was pushing the bounds of what's permissible. You are right
00:40:17.000 that we've now had a robust debate on birthright citizenship and what a bad policy it is.
00:40:23.420 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.
00:40:40.220 That is unfortunate.
00:40:41.560 Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion.
00:40:45.460 I will say that that did not surprise me.
00:40:50.500 It was clear from the oral argument this was the likely outcome.
00:40:55.380 This was where the votes were headed.
00:40:58.820 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.
00:41:13.520 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.
00:41:28.640 I think that's the right conclusion.
00:41:31.340 I wish the court – I think the dissenters have the better argument.
00:41:34.660 I wish the dissenters, instead of having four votes that had five, I wish we had one more.
00:41:39.520 that being said i i was not surprised just now i will say this justice thomas wrote a spectacular
00:41:48.440 dissent 91 pages uh it is incredibly effective and i will say justice thomas's dissent cited my brief
00:41:56.240 twice in that dissent uh i'm glad that that that the dissent commanded four votes i wish it had
00:42:03.560 commanded five where does that leave us well there's still some ambiguity on whether congress
00:42:10.500 could pass legislation defining subject to the jurisdiction thereof to exclude the children born
00:42:18.000 by parents here illegally the court did not resolve that question because it wasn't presented
00:42:22.940 with that question uh but let me be clear from my perspective this is a terrible policy outcome
00:42:31.180 and it's also the wrong legal outcome and i would support number one a constitutional amendment
00:42:39.240 to end birthright citizenship i would support number two legislation just to end birthright
00:42:45.480 citizenship i hope we go down the road of both of those yeah yeah i agree with you there and
00:42:50.340 finally we got to deal with a case that deals with mail-in ballots that's right this is another case
00:42:55.740 that is Watson versus RNC, and Watson versus RNC deals with the laws in Mississippi
00:43:06.000 concerning governing absentee ballots.
00:43:09.680 So the laws in Mississippi say that absentee ballots have to be postmarked by Election Day,
00:43:15.940 and they can be received up to five days after Election Day.
00:43:20.540 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.
00:43:38.060 And so the argument the RNC made is that you could not count ballots received up to five days after the election.
00:43:44.880 unfortunately by a vote of five to four the supreme court rejected that argument and and
00:43:51.260 justice amy coney barrett joined by chief justice roberts and the three liberals
00:43:55.840 concluded that election day is understood to mean the day when quote voting is complete
00:44:02.060 not when ballots are received in other words they upheld mississippi's law allowing ballots to
00:44:09.680 received be received up to five days after election day uh there were vigorous dissents it was five
00:44:16.800 four uh but at the end of the day what it means is is that the court has concluded federal law
00:44:25.040 does not limit late received mail-in ballots the consequence of this is it's going to remain
00:44:32.340 state by state red states can put real and meaningful limits can limit uh balloting can
00:44:38.880 limit late received ballots. Mississippi can change their law. But it also means that blue
00:44:44.780 states, states like California, can have the atrocity they had in their most recent election,
00:44:50.040 their mayor's election in L.A., where they have votes coming in days, weeks, as much as a month
00:44:56.360 later. Look, this decision is unfortunate, but I'll tell you what it really underscores.
00:45:02.300 it underscores the need to pass the Save America Act.
00:45:05.880 The Save America Act would protect against illegal voting.
00:45:11.180 I'm an original sponsor of the Save America Act.
00:45:13.320 I'm fighting for it in the Senate.
00:45:15.140 This decision, unfortunately, was a real loss of the Supreme Court.
00:45:19.560 Yeah, it really was.
00:45:21.220 Well, it certainly is a lot, as you mentioned, coming down from the Supreme Court.
00:45:24.880 I'm glad we got to cover a lot of it.
00:45:26.280 You know the wins, you know the losses, and what it means moving forward.
00:45:29.700 This is why we do this show.
00:45:30.640 So don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
00:45:33.460 Hit that subscribe or auto-download button wherever you get your podcasts
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00:45:40.880 And we'll see you back here on Friday morning.
00:45:44.540 On Newt World Podcast, we're celebrating America's 250th birthday.
00:45:49.020 And I ask my guests how they're spending their 4th of July.
00:45:52.860 Brett Baer.
00:45:53.780 I will be working. I'll be in Washington because it's a big, big day.
00:45:58.620 Jared Isaacman.
00:45:59.520 I plan to be flying in an F-5 fighter jet painted in Freedom 250 colors along with four other fighter jets flying over the nation's capital.
00:46:07.560 Listen to Newt's World on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:46:14.880 Why should you listen to Armstrong and Getty On Demand?
00:46:18.360 We're not boring.
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00:46:25.440 Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong.
00:46:26.520 He's Joe Getty.
00:46:27.160 We're Armstrong and Getty.
00:46:28.240 We try to bring you the truth.
00:46:29.360 and help you figure out this crazy modern world.
00:46:31.840 How about something about a comedic tone?
00:46:36.240 We have a winner.
00:46:37.840 Yes.
00:46:38.840 Listen to Armstrong and Getty On Demand on the iHeartRadio app,
00:46:41.940 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.