Verdict with Ted Cruz - January 19, 2024


Uniting 179 Members of Congress to Defend Trump before SCOTUS plus Biden Targeting MAGA & DOJ Admits Hunter Laptop is Real


Episode Stats


Length

39 minutes

Words per minute

170.44469

Word count

6,682

Sentence count

474

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

6

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Ted Cruz files an amicus brief on behalf of Donald Trump in the case of Colorado v. Trump v. Secretary of State for the United States Department of Justice, and more than 170 members of Congress join him in his brief.

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 .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.600 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.460 Welcome.
00:00:06.160 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:09.460 Senator, we've got a lot to chat about, including words like MAGA and buying a Bible or going
00:00:14.280 shopping at Dick's Sporting Goods could actually get you on a watch list with financial institutions
00:00:20.520 and the U.S. government.
00:00:21.420 We're going to deal with that.
00:00:22.700 Also, they're admitting now, four years late, that the Hunter Biden laptop is actually real.
00:00:28.020 Yes, the DOJ doing that.
00:00:29.720 We're going to deal with that.
00:00:30.820 But before we get to that, I want to break some news.
00:00:33.220 And that is this.
00:00:34.420 Senator, you decided that it was time to lead on an amicus brief on behalf of Donald Trump
00:00:41.960 with the case that involves Colorado and that Supreme Court removing him from the state's
00:00:48.760 2024 ballot.
00:00:50.340 Not only did you file this amicus brief, but you were able to get more than 170 lawmakers
00:00:58.200 to sign on.
00:00:59.840 This is significant.
00:01:01.300 And yet a lot of the media are acting like this didn't actually happen.
00:01:04.720 Walk us through how important this amicus brief is and exactly the basis, legal basis for why
00:01:10.320 you decided to do this.
00:01:11.520 Well, we've talked at length about the Colorado Supreme Court decision throwing Donald Trump
00:01:16.400 off the ballot and the combination of Colorado and the main secretary of state, I think, without
00:01:23.500 hyperbole, is the greatest assault on democracy we've seen in our lifetimes.
00:01:29.840 These are partisan leftist Democrats who are issuing rulings saying the voters should not be
00:01:36.760 allowed to vote for Donald Trump.
00:01:38.960 Mind you, these are Democrats who posture all day long about how much they believe in
00:01:43.280 democracy, how they're defending democracy.
00:01:45.400 And nothing says defending democracy better than stopping the voters from voting for your
00:01:51.040 opponent.
00:01:51.500 I mean, it is an absolute assault.
00:01:54.240 So yesterday I filed an amicus brief on behalf of 179 members of Congress.
00:02:01.760 So I led the brief in the Senate.
00:02:03.880 Steve Scalise, the majority leader in the House, led it in the House.
00:02:07.580 And and our brief is supporting Donald Trump and it's urging the Supreme Court to reverse
00:02:13.800 the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court, as we've talked about at length.
00:02:17.180 And by the way, if you did not listen to our podcast a couple of weeks, weeks ago, doing
00:02:23.020 a deep dive on the Colorado Supreme Court case, you should because it is substantive analysis
00:02:29.220 that you will not get on CNN.
00:02:30.960 You will not get an MSNBC.
00:02:32.300 You will not get anywhere else.
00:02:33.600 But this brief lays out the legal arguments.
00:02:36.400 And we filed it yesterday with with 46 senators and a total of 179 members of Congress.
00:02:44.620 And and and it is the main arguments we make.
00:02:48.200 We make number one that under the language of the 14th Amendment and Section three, that
00:02:53.800 it does not prohibit Donald Trump from being a candidate.
00:02:56.740 And we argue that federal legislation is required under the 14th Amendment to enforce Section
00:03:04.340 three.
00:03:04.840 And that has not been enacted.
00:03:06.500 We argue that that removing a candidate from the ballot denies Congress the power to remove
00:03:14.100 a Section three disability.
00:03:15.580 So under the text of the 14th Amendment, it says someone who participates in an insurrection,
00:03:20.300 engages in an insurrection, is ineligible from serving in office.
00:03:24.720 But then it says Congress may vote to remove that disability.
00:03:28.740 And we pointed out, look, if the Colorado Supreme Court removes Trump from the ballot, that takes
00:03:34.060 away Congress's ability to vote on the issue and decide it.
00:03:37.340 And we argue beyond that, that the question of whether Section three applies is what's called
00:03:42.820 a political question.
00:03:44.500 A political question is something that the courts cannot and will not decide.
00:03:48.940 But that is instead left to the elected and political bodies in our country, that it's
00:03:54.200 left to Congress.
00:03:55.740 Beyond that, we argue that under the text in terms of the 14th Amendment, Section three does
00:04:01.840 not apply to former President Trump, that it applies to other members of the federal government,
00:04:06.660 to lesser officers, but not to the president, not to the vice president.
00:04:10.680 And finally, and this is a really important argument that we make, we argue that that the Colorado
00:04:16.840 Supreme Court's decision lacks neutral principles, and if it's upheld, it would lead to widespread
00:04:25.200 deballoting of political opponents.
00:04:27.640 In other words, if the Colorado decision is upheld, you will see Democrats all across the
00:04:33.580 country removing Republicans from the ballot.
00:04:36.320 And you will see in a tit for tat Republicans moving Democrats from the ballot.
00:04:41.680 And that is bad for this country.
00:04:44.200 It's bad for democracy.
00:04:45.140 It's not the rule of law.
00:04:46.660 It is a terrible outcome.
00:04:48.220 And so what 179 of us came together yesterday to say is the Supreme Court should reverse this.
00:04:54.440 And as you and I have talked about, I believe it is incredibly important.
00:04:59.680 I think it's a very real chance that the Supreme Court will reverse this unanimously.
00:05:04.460 I hope and pray that they do, because I don't want to see a partisan divide, a 6-3 decision
00:05:11.880 where the press can say, oh, all the Republicans voted one way, all the Democrats voted the
00:05:16.420 other way.
00:05:17.060 I think a unanimous decision saying the voters are going to decide the next president.
00:05:21.740 It's not going to be partisan Democrats.
00:05:23.680 It's not going to be judges.
00:05:25.000 It's going to be the voters of the people of America.
00:05:27.340 I think a unanimous decision saying that would be incredibly important for the country, incredibly
00:05:34.140 important for the rule of law, and incredibly important for the Supreme Court.
00:05:37.740 I got to go back to a question about this amicus brief and just talking about the 170
00:05:42.920 plus lawmakers that you're able to sign on to that.
00:05:46.180 That is not something you hear very often for anything.
00:05:49.560 How willing were others, and I'm assuming very willing, to jump on board so quickly with
00:05:55.040 this amicus brief, and how significant will that be for those at the Supreme Court who
00:06:00.460 will be reading this?
00:06:02.240 Well, look, remember, this case was set for a very expedited schedule.
00:06:08.420 So the argument is February 8th, which is just a couple of weeks from now.
00:06:12.520 And we had just about a week to draft this brief.
00:06:15.260 And so I directed, as soon as the court took the case, I directed my team, let's draft a
00:06:20.180 brief.
00:06:20.380 This is the most important opportunity to defend democracy we've had in our country.
00:06:26.760 And I wanted us to lead.
00:06:28.280 So I got our team drafting the brief.
00:06:30.080 We drafted it.
00:06:31.320 We had it prepared two days ago.
00:06:33.580 And so two days ago, we circulated it to other members of Congress.
00:06:37.440 What I did yesterday is I went to the Republican Study Committee, which is the largest conservative
00:06:43.540 group in the House.
00:06:44.480 And I went there and I talked about the amicus brief and Steve Scalise has circulated it.
00:06:48.880 But I talked to about 150 House members and I said, look, this is incredibly important.
00:06:54.120 This is a defense of democracy.
00:06:55.540 We all ought to stand together.
00:06:56.940 And that, I think, helped produce a lot of the House members who joined us.
00:07:01.900 And then at our Senate lunch, you know, we've talked about before when the Senate is in
00:07:07.700 session, all the Senate Republicans, we have lunch together every Tuesday, every Wednesday,
00:07:12.780 every Thursday.
00:07:13.720 And so I stood up at Wednesday's lunch and I told everyone, I said, look, we've circulated
00:07:18.840 this brief.
00:07:19.940 It is incredibly important.
00:07:21.780 I'd like for all of us to be united.
00:07:24.520 And it's a very quick time frame.
00:07:26.600 I said, look, we circulated on Tuesday.
00:07:28.940 We needed an answer by Wednesday night.
00:07:31.040 And so people had to decide very quickly.
00:07:33.140 Usually you have more time because the Supreme Court, when it schedules an argument, you have
00:07:37.240 much more time.
00:07:38.020 But this is an incredibly accelerated appeal.
00:07:40.820 And we ended up getting out of 49 Republicans.
00:07:43.480 We got 46 Republican senators.
00:07:46.240 So all but three joined the brief in a day and a half.
00:07:50.360 And so I was very glad to see a total of 179 members of Congress come together.
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00:10:08.920 Senator, last question on this brief.
00:10:11.680 Explain a little bit of what the court is going to be looking at with these amicus briefs.
00:10:16.860 There are a lot of them that are obviously being written because this is such a big issue.
00:10:21.640 How do they prioritize them?
00:10:23.780 And if an amicus brief is read by one justice, is it read by all of them?
00:10:28.400 How does that work?
00:10:30.060 So amicus briefs are read by all nine justices.
00:10:33.020 And what will happen is all of the briefs in the case are sent to all nine justices.
00:10:37.240 They will get briefs from the petitioner, who is the person who's appealing.
00:10:41.960 They will get a merits brief from the respondent, who is the person who prevailed below.
00:10:46.580 And they will get a reply brief from the petitioner.
00:10:49.240 And then beyond that, you will have amicus briefs supporting one party, supporting the other party.
00:10:54.780 And you'll have some amicus briefs supporting neither party.
00:10:57.460 And in a case, in a given case, you could have a lot of amicus briefs.
00:11:01.760 When I was clerking at the court, I had cases where we had as many as like 50, 60, 70 amicus briefs.
00:11:08.200 So lots of people. Amicus is short for amicus curiae, which is Latin for friend of the court.
00:11:16.000 And so an amicus brief is a brief that is filed by someone who's not a party,
00:11:20.140 but that wants to share their views and believe they're relevant to the issues before the court.
00:11:26.040 I don't know how many amicus briefs were filed before the court.
00:11:29.340 In this case, we'll know shortly from the docket sheet.
00:11:32.420 But to get a brief from 179 members of Congress is a big deal.
00:11:36.760 That is unusual.
00:11:37.540 That happens very rarely.
00:11:40.560 When you say rarely, I'm trying to go back in history and remember any time where I've heard something like this when it comes to the Supreme Court.
00:11:48.040 I can't think of one.
00:11:49.100 And I think that's one of the reasons why I am so excited that you did this.
00:11:53.080 And also excited that that many people also understood the urgency of this.
00:11:57.940 And as you described it, having a 9-0 decision is good for America.
00:12:02.100 It's not a political decision.
00:12:03.600 It's good for this country on so many different levels that you can't just take political opponents off the ballot.
00:12:10.120 And that's clearly your goal here.
00:12:11.880 That's exactly right.
00:12:14.180 And look, I filed a lot of amicus briefs before the Supreme Court in the Senate, particularly on religious liberty.
00:12:20.600 And typically when I file an amicus brief, I get, oh, 10 to 15 senators.
00:12:25.520 And by the way, those briefs get read.
00:12:28.080 They get considered.
00:12:29.060 We've tried to write serious briefs.
00:12:30.860 Actually, I've written several amicus briefs along with Mike Johnson, who is now the Speaker of the House.
00:12:36.800 But before he was, he was just a member of the House who had been a religious liberty constitutional lawyer.
00:12:44.660 And so he and I teamed up multiple times.
00:12:47.720 Mike Johnson joined this brief.
00:12:50.080 And but he and I teamed up multiple times.
00:12:53.040 But typically, you know, I'd get, like I said, 10, 15, 20 senators on board a brief.
00:12:58.860 And that was significant to get 46 senators, to get a total of 179 members of Congress.
00:13:04.900 That is unusual.
00:13:06.420 I've had moments.
00:13:07.740 So back two decades ago, when I was the Solicitor General of Texas, we had a case concerning the Pledge of Allegiance,
00:13:17.820 where an atheist living out in California, a guy named Michael Newdow,
00:13:22.940 filed a lawsuit arguing that it violated the Constitution for the words one one nation under God to be in the in the Pledge of Allegiance.
00:13:34.300 And amazingly enough, this atheist won in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
00:13:38.440 The Ninth Circuit has consistently been the most liberal court of appeals in the country.
00:13:42.420 And the Ninth Circuit ruled it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to have the words one nation under God, the Pledge of Allegiance.
00:13:50.120 That went up on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and I was Solicitor General of Texas at the time.
00:13:55.540 I drafted an amicus brief that ended up being joined by all 50 states.
00:14:00.380 It's the only one I know of that every single state joined.
00:14:04.700 And we defended the Pledge of Allegiance.
00:14:06.600 And I'll tell you, at the very end, when we had about 48, I got on the phone with the SGs in the states that were holdouts.
00:14:13.660 And they were kind of arguing back and forth.
00:14:15.940 And I said, look, you know, if your attorney general wants to be the only attorney general in the country that doesn't support the Pledge of Allegiance, all right.
00:14:23.000 I mean, that's I commend you for your courage.
00:14:25.820 I'm not sure it's wisdom, but it but it is certainly brave.
00:14:28.580 And so, you know, stand up and tell your voters to go jump in a lake.
00:14:32.200 That that that's really bold.
00:14:33.580 And and the last couple said, you know what, we'll join this brief, too.
00:14:39.520 And so we had 50 there.
00:14:42.640 Anytime you get this many on board, it takes personal advocacy.
00:14:46.080 And and I don't think it would have happened in this brief had I not gone to the House and made the case directly to House members.
00:14:53.680 And had I not stood up at the Senate lunch and made the case directly to to my Senate colleagues, Canadian women are looking for more, more of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders and the world around them. 0.77
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00:15:30.660 I want to move, Senator, also to this other really shocking story.
00:15:35.380 And it just shows you how bad our government has become.
00:15:40.660 And I'm talking about the deep state here with the feds targeting conservatives with alarming new surveillance.
00:15:47.700 The feds asked banking institutions to search private transactions without any type of warrants for terms like MAGA, Trump or other words that dealt with things that were biblical purchases that can include a Bible.
00:16:07.080 Also, keywords that they said that they suggested that banks look for in transactions would be things like sporting goods stores like Dick's Sporting Goods, Cabela's, Bass Pro Shop and more.
00:16:20.020 This is such an abuse of power and a weaponization of the federal government on the American people.
00:16:27.660 When I hear this, I want to know, how is this not breaking the law to be able to do this without there being any probable cause or search warrants where they can just go to my bank and say, hey, if any of these things are there, we want to know about it.
00:16:40.980 Look, this is an enormous abuse of power.
00:16:43.620 It is an enormous violation of the privacy of Americans.
00:16:46.400 This happened.
00:16:47.980 The House Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, released the documents that they got from the Treasury Department.
00:16:53.400 And this all happened after January 6th, 2021.
00:16:57.420 So after January 6th, you had Joe Biden in power.
00:17:00.520 And these zealots said, we are going to target our political enemies.
00:17:05.220 We have the entire federal government as a weapon.
00:17:08.160 We are going to go after them.
00:17:09.660 And this was driven by the Treasury Department's Office of Stakeholder Integration and Engagement in the Strategic Operations of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
00:17:22.780 And it's called FINCEN is the acronym.
00:17:25.200 And it distributed materials to financial institutions that outlined, quote, typologies of, quote, various persons of interest.
00:17:36.100 Now, those typologies included anyone using the term Trump, anyone using the term MAGA.
00:17:46.460 And they said these are people more likely to be, quote, lone actor, homegrown, violent extremists.
00:17:54.760 And according to the Judiciary Committee's analysis, FINCEN wanted, this is a quote, FINCEN wanted financial institutions of extremism indicators that include transportation charges, such as bus tickets, rental cars, plane tickets, for travel areas with no apparent purpose,
00:18:18.540 or the purchase of books, including religious texts, or the purchase of books, including religious texts, and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views.
00:18:28.540 Now, what kind of religious books?
00:18:30.640 Well, among them was the Bible.
00:18:32.900 If you went and bought the Bible, the Biden Treasury Department was reporting that, okay, we think you're in danger of being a terrorist because you purchased the Bible.
00:18:44.500 So, if you had any financial transaction that included the word Trump or MAGA, they thought you were in danger of being a terrorist.
00:18:51.940 If you bought the Bible, you were in danger of being the terrorist.
00:18:55.020 And they also instructed financial institutions to query for transactions using certain codes like small arms, and that is an MCC code of 3484,
00:19:10.740 or sporting and recreational goods and supply, that's an MCC code of 5091, and the keywords, and this is what Treasury specified, Cabela's, Dick's Sporting's Goods, and Bass Pro Shop.
00:19:26.540 And I'll point out, Dick's Sporting's Goods, in the middle of all the Democrat efforts to engage in gun control, came out rather loudly against the Second Amendment.
00:19:35.780 So, as for me, I don't go to Dick's Sporting's Goods, but Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's are both fantastic institutions,
00:19:42.820 and if you shop there, the Biden administration wanted to know, because if you go to Bass Pro Shops, they think you're a likely terrorist.
00:19:52.760 It's outrageous.
00:19:53.800 It's also, I think, shocking how easily people were giving up this information.
00:20:01.180 Why is it that we now find out that so many businesses are willing to just say, here's everything, when they're asked,
00:20:07.620 not say, hey, we'd get a warrant for this, or show me some actual paperwork?
00:20:13.200 It seems that almost all of these companies are complicit, saying we're more than happy to help you invade on the privacy of our customers,
00:20:21.240 from a standpoint you just mentioned of Dick's Sporting Goods.
00:20:25.660 When I look at companies that do this, I say, I'm never wanting to go there again, certainly not with a credit card.
00:20:30.900 Yeah. So, it's not clear that the retailers were engaged in this process.
00:20:36.740 So, it's not clear that Cabela's or Dick's Sporting Goods or Bass Pro Shops were participating.
00:20:41.800 This was directed at banks.
00:20:43.860 And listen, banks are massively regulated by the federal government.
00:20:49.720 They are dealing literally every day with their federal regulators.
00:20:52.820 The federal government has enormous power over banks.
00:20:56.000 And so, I understand from a bank's perspective, if Treasury is leaning on them and saying, we want this information,
00:21:02.740 the federal government has the ability to shut down a bank, to destroy a bank's business if they disagree with you.
00:21:08.880 And so, it is an area where, for big state leftists that want to know everything about your personal life,
00:21:19.380 banks are a real vulnerability.
00:21:21.160 Because every one of us, if you're dealing with modern life, if you're depositing a paycheck in your bank account,
00:21:27.020 if you're paying your bills with a bank account, if you have a credit card,
00:21:30.620 your financial records detail what you're spending money on.
00:21:34.340 And, by the way, the left, just like communist China, wants to know every single thing you spend money on.
00:21:43.280 You know, one of the very first versions of the Build Back Broke bill.
00:21:46.860 They called it Build Back Better, but I think Build Back Broke defined it more accurately.
00:21:51.400 One of the earliest versions required banks to report to the federal government.
00:21:56.680 So, if you're making a car payment, if you're making a rent payment, you know, we're not quite there,
00:22:02.120 but we're not far away from if you're filling up your tank with gas, you had to report to the federal government.
00:22:07.640 And for leftists, Elizabeth Warren and President Xi in China both want to know every single thing you spend a penny on.
00:22:17.980 And this is an example of the Treasury Department, Janet Yellen.
00:22:22.000 You know, George Orwell's 1984 talked about Big Brother.
00:22:25.880 Janet Yellen is perfectly happy to be big sister and try to gather as much information about your personal financial transactions as humanly possible. 0.99
00:22:38.080 What will the outcome be of this, I guess you could say, new investigation?
00:22:42.420 And is there any way to stop this from happening in the future?
00:22:45.820 Or as long as the Biden administration is in power, can they continue to get away with this abuse of power?
00:22:50.940 Well, look, we can have congressional oversight, and we will, and the House will engage in it because the House has a majority,
00:22:59.560 and so they can hold hearings in the Senate.
00:23:01.480 No Democrat cares.
00:23:03.080 So, in the Senate, we will not have a single hearing on this.
00:23:05.500 Why?
00:23:06.280 Because the consequence of having a majority in the Senate is whoever has the majority has the committee chairman.
00:23:12.220 So, I am the ranking member on the Senate Commerce Committee.
00:23:15.460 That means I'm the senior Republican on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
00:23:20.940 That's a committee that has jurisdiction over 40% of the U.S. economy.
00:23:24.960 It's an enormously consequential committee.
00:23:27.480 As the ranking member, I have the ability to fight hard for jobs and economic growth in the state of Texas,
00:23:34.600 and I do that across the country, and I do that every day.
00:23:38.180 But what I don't have the ability to do is I can't convene a hearing.
00:23:41.140 Only the chairman can convene a hearing.
00:23:42.820 So, in the Senate, there is literally not a single Democrat that gives a damn
00:23:48.300 that the Biden administration is violating your privacy by engaging in the searches
00:23:53.080 because all of them, they hate Donald Trump so much that they've been radicalized,
00:24:00.200 and they believe it's perfectly justifiable to weaponize the federal government.
00:24:04.000 So, you ask, what can Congress do?
00:24:05.880 Look, if we had control of both bodies, we could pass legislation to stop this.
00:24:10.180 Because under a Chuck Schumer Democrat Senate, they're not going to pass legislation to stop it.
00:24:15.560 No Democrat will support it.
00:24:17.240 So, that means we can do oversight.
00:24:19.080 I can write letters.
00:24:20.560 I can give speeches.
00:24:21.560 I can shine a light on it.
00:24:22.880 I can do this podcast.
00:24:24.660 But I can't convene a hearing of the Judiciary Committee because Dick Durbin, the chairman, won't do it.
00:24:31.040 I can't pass legislation because no Democrat will support it.
00:24:35.520 And so, at this point, elections have consequences.
00:24:40.320 And as long as we're in the minority, what I'm limited to be able to do on something like this,
00:24:45.200 an abuse of power of the Biden administration, is shine a light and do everything I can to encourage the American people to be outraged at this
00:24:53.820 and hold their elected officials accountable for violating their privacy.
00:24:58.160 And clearly, it should become an election year issue, especially for conservatives this time around.
00:25:05.340 Because I think this is the type of issue that will really connect with conservative voters who say,
00:25:10.880 enough is enough and stop treating us like we are terrorists just because we are conservatives.
00:25:17.140 I go back and remind people what they did to parents that showed up at school board meetings,
00:25:21.620 putting out those FBI memos, treating them like they're domestic terrorists.
00:25:24.760 This is the Democratic Party and their DOJ and what they will do to conservatives.
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00:26:44.840 Senator, lastly, I want to move to another story that is broken.
00:26:48.720 It's one that is Captain Obvious.
00:26:51.200 Yeah, we already knew this.
00:26:52.440 And yet, somehow, we've finally gotten the admission of something we all knew from the very beginning.
00:27:00.380 Biden's Department of Justice is admitting now that Hunter Biden's laptop is, in fact, real.
00:27:07.340 Four years after Biden's laptop from hell was falsely labeled misinformation, the DOJ is admitting it's real.
00:27:15.900 We also knew at the time they knew it was real, and the FBI knew it was real.
00:27:19.320 And we also now know that those 50-plus leaders in the intelligence community,
00:27:25.360 they knew that it was real when they lied to the American people to influence the election in the last presidential cycle.
00:27:32.580 Your reaction to this?
00:27:34.240 Look, this is a stunning admission.
00:27:36.040 It means Joe Biden lied to the American people.
00:27:41.060 Hunter Biden lied to the American people.
00:27:44.020 Just about every single elected Democrat in America lied to the American people.
00:27:49.080 Just about every single corporate media outlet that repeated the Democrat talking points lied to the American people.
00:27:56.400 I want to read you what the Biden Department of Justice just filed in a federal court.
00:28:00.300 This is from a brief.
00:28:01.480 And the heading is, while investigating the defendant for tax violations.
00:28:06.040 Investigators obtained evidence showing his prior gun purchase was illegal because he was addicted to controlled substances.
00:28:13.420 And here's the paragraph.
00:28:15.140 In August 2019, IRS and FBI investigators obtained a search warrant for tax violation for defendant's Apple iCloud account.
00:28:25.400 In response to that warrant in September of 2019, Apple produced backups of data from various of the defendant's electronic devices that he had backed up to his iCloud account.
00:28:38.040 Investigators also later came into possession of the defendant's Apple MacBook Pro, which he had left at a computer store.
00:28:49.160 A search warrant was also obtained for a search warrant.
00:28:50.160 A search warrant was also obtained for his laptop and the results of the search were largely duplicative of information investigators had already obtained from Apple.
00:29:03.000 That means the Biden Department of Justice is admitting the Hunter laptop is real.
00:29:07.660 It was his laptop.
00:29:09.120 He left it at the repair station.
00:29:10.800 The information on it is accurate.
00:29:12.880 They knew it was accurate.
00:29:14.060 They knew it was accurate in 2019.
00:29:17.280 They knew it was accurate because they had the information from Hunter Biden's Apple iCloud account, and it was the same thing.
00:29:24.280 So they knew it was real.
00:29:26.460 And yet they did not make that public.
00:29:29.680 And Joe Biden and Hunter Biden and just about every elected Democrat lied to the American people and said, this is not real.
00:29:36.640 This is not his laptop.
00:29:38.060 This is Russian misinformation.
00:29:39.320 This is planted by Vladimir Putin and the media, the corporate media, was utterly complicit.
00:29:45.480 They repeated it over and over and over again.
00:29:48.080 And by the way, to the best of my knowledge, so we now have the Biden DOJ saying every word they said was a lie.
00:29:53.880 I'm not aware of a single corporate media outlet that has apologized, that has retracted what they've said.
00:29:59.540 The New York Times, to the best of my knowledge, has not.
00:30:01.820 The Washington Post has not.
00:30:03.940 ABC, NBC, CBS has not.
00:30:06.020 MSNBC has not.
00:30:07.280 CNN has not.
00:30:08.200 They are perfectly happy to have lied to the American people.
00:30:13.960 And by the way, lied to the American people in October of 2020, right before the presidential election.
00:30:22.180 Yeah.
00:30:22.380 They all lied to the American people.
00:30:24.640 And now the Biden DOJ has admitted it was a lie.
00:30:27.600 And DOJ knew it was a lie then.
00:30:30.820 And they were perfectly happy with that lie being told to the American people. 0.68
00:30:34.560 Well, and let's play the liar in chief.
00:30:36.320 This is the then candidate Joe Biden at a presidential debate standing next to Donald Trump. 0.62
00:30:42.880 And I'll start with this lie.
00:30:44.680 And then you can hear him throughout that entire campaign cycle.
00:30:47.680 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what this he's accusing me of is a Russian plant. 0.99
00:30:55.980 They have said that this is has all the four, five former heads of the CIA, both parties say what he's saying is a bunch of garbage. 0.99
00:31:04.680 This is classic Trump. 0.98
00:31:06.680 We have four days left and all of a sudden there's a laptop.
00:31:09.480 There's overwhelming evidence that from the intelligence community that the Russians are engaged.
00:31:14.980 I still think that the stories from the fall about your son, Hunter, were right in disengagement as a smear campaign, like you said.
00:31:24.040 Yes, yes, yes.
00:31:25.600 I know you'd ask it.
00:31:26.820 I have no response.
00:31:27.900 It's another smear campaign.
00:31:29.140 It's a last ditch effort in this desperate campaign to smear me and my family.
00:31:33.260 The vast majority of the intelligence people have come out and said there's no basis at all.
00:31:39.140 No basis at all.
00:31:40.380 Turns out he was lying the entire time.
00:31:43.280 By the way, he knew it was the laptop of his son.
00:31:45.560 He knew it wasn't Russian disinformation.
00:31:47.700 And Hunter did too.
00:31:48.540 And Hunter did too.
00:31:49.560 And the DOJ knew it as well.
00:31:51.020 And the FBI knew it as well.
00:31:52.440 At this point, Senator, how do you trust anything coming out of this FBI and this DOJ if this is what they're doing in the process?
00:32:02.100 You can't.
00:32:03.160 They've demonstrated that they're willing to be partisans.
00:32:05.540 They're willing to lie to the American people.
00:32:07.340 And they don't feel they have any obligation to the truth.
00:32:10.440 I mean, this does enormous damage to the Department of Justice, the FBI, because they knew as a fact that what Biden was saying, that what was being said public was a total lie.
00:32:21.880 And by the way, the 50, quote, intelligence professionals, you know who organized that group?
00:32:28.280 Who was that?
00:32:29.740 Tony Blinken.
00:32:31.040 And that's what Tony Blinken's job was then.
00:32:33.480 He was working for the Biden campaign.
00:32:36.040 He was working for the Biden campaign, and he got rewarded.
00:32:39.340 I've got to say, as a president, about the biggest plum you have to offer is Secretary of State is the most prestigious cabinet position.
00:32:47.960 And for the job of organizing all these intelligence officials to lie.
00:32:52.700 Every one of these 50, by the way, a reporter, if there's any honest reporter in America, they ought to ask every one of these 50.
00:32:59.380 You lied to the American people weeks before a presidential election.
00:33:03.060 Are you embarrassed?
00:33:04.480 Do you apologize to the American people?
00:33:06.620 What did you do wrong to cause you to lie to the American people?
00:33:11.140 Did you abuse their trust?
00:33:12.900 Are you ashamed of your role?
00:33:14.820 Now, I don't think there'll be a single reporter that asks them that because the corporate media participated in the lies as well.
00:33:21.460 They're not embarrassed.
00:33:22.460 They're not ashamed.
00:33:23.440 And they're certainly not going to ask the liars who participated in what is.
00:33:28.040 You want to talk about election interference?
00:33:30.160 This is blatant election interference.
00:33:32.420 Not only that, but it brings up a new lie.
00:33:35.340 It's one that Representative James Comer was talking about on Hannity.
00:33:39.240 He had this to say about the new lie from Joe Biden and the Biden crime family about the art that his son was selling.
00:33:47.020 Take a listen.
00:33:48.120 Let me ask you about the other two issues, the stories that John Solomon was reporting on.
00:33:52.640 One is the art dealer and the testimony that was given.
00:33:55.600 Were we not told that they had an ethics agreement, that Hunter would not know the people that purchased his art?
00:34:03.120 Now we know that Joe Biden, the big guy himself, was speaking to the art dealer directly.
00:34:09.440 That was testimony, apparently, that you received.
00:34:12.200 And, you know, what do you have to say about the cocaine that the FBI knew about in 2018 as it relates to his gun holster?
00:34:19.720 We have only about a minute left.
00:34:21.080 This is another major lie that Joe Biden's told the American people.
00:34:26.360 The White House said they had an agreement in place to provide maximum ethics.
00:34:31.900 We really thought they probably had something in place.
00:34:34.340 It probably wasn't worth the paper that it was written on.
00:34:36.960 But we were shocked to learn from George Burgess in the transcribed interview that he's never even heard from anyone from the White House.
00:34:43.480 He didn't know anything about an ethics agreement.
00:34:45.580 He had never even seen in the news where there was an ethics agreement.
00:34:48.620 So, you know, again, another lie by Joe Biden, another lie by the White House.
00:34:53.420 Nothing is panning out that Joe Biden said with respect to his family's shady business schemes.
00:34:58.440 We're going to bring Hunter Biden in.
00:34:59.920 We're going to get answers from all of these people.
00:35:02.580 They're going to get answers from all these people.
00:35:05.020 These are just some of the questions they're going to get to ask.
00:35:08.180 In theory, if he shows up, Hunter Biden.
00:35:11.180 And I got to imagine that if you're, you know, any one of these Republican congressmen are women that may get to ask him questions or James Comer, Jim Jordan.
00:35:21.480 You've got to be chomping at the bit to get answers.
00:35:24.100 Well, I got to say, we're really in an unusual moment of time.
00:35:29.060 Listen, politicians are not known for tremendous honesty, to put it mildly.
00:35:35.080 But as a general matter, presidents of the United States do not routinely lie to the American people.
00:35:42.020 And I'm not suggesting that's because all of our presidents have been paragons of integrity.
00:35:47.120 I think there have been presidents that would certainly have been willing to lie.
00:35:51.500 But the reason presidents typically don't commit direct lies to the American people is they get caught.
00:35:58.040 And when they get caught, it undermines their credibility and it hurts you.
00:36:01.460 And most politicians, even if they're venal and self-serving, they don't want to get caught in a lie because it hurts their credibility.
00:36:09.320 The Biden presidency has been unique in the history of our country.
00:36:14.000 With the willingness of Joe Biden and every person who works for him to lie on a daily basis over and over and over again and not not spin.
00:36:26.640 Look, everyone spins.
00:36:27.660 I don't fault a White House Democrat or Republican for spinning, for trying to put a good twist on the facts.
00:36:35.200 But straight out lies, things that are demonstrably absolutely false.
00:36:39.100 What you just played, Joe Biden saying this laptop is Russian disinformation.
00:36:42.780 He knew it was his son's laptop.
00:36:44.880 His son knew it was his son's laptop.
00:36:46.420 It was his son's laptop.
00:36:47.940 It was a flat out lie.
00:36:49.020 There's not that that's not a matter of perspective.
00:36:51.820 That's just blatantly false.
00:36:55.080 Why is it that Joe Biden, unique among presidents, lies on on seemingly a daily basis to the American people?
00:37:03.400 And the reason is because the American corporate media is broken.
00:37:09.200 You want to know who's responsible for Biden's lying?
00:37:12.560 Jake Tapper.
00:37:13.600 And you and I have talked about in my last book that just came out a couple of months ago, Unwoke, How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America.
00:37:22.360 I have an entire chapter.
00:37:23.860 I talk about the leftist takeover of major institutions.
00:37:26.520 I have an entire chapter on journalism.
00:37:28.620 And I talk about how Jake Tapper used to be a journalist.
00:37:32.100 He used to care about truth.
00:37:33.780 And then Trump broke him.
00:37:35.640 And he is now a propagandist. 0.86
00:37:38.200 He is a shell of his former self.
00:37:40.420 You know Jake Tapper.
00:37:41.400 You worked for years for CNN.
00:37:43.820 Jake Tapper knows that Biden is lying on a daily basis.
00:37:47.380 And you know what Jake Tapper doesn't do?
00:37:48.780 He doesn't call him out.
00:37:49.780 And the fact that Jake Tapper behaves like a cheerleader and and and Praetorian guard for the White House, like a propagandist for the White House, like Pravda for the White House.
00:38:05.880 It makes the White House more and more likely to lie because they know they will not get caught anywhere other than Fox News and right wing media.
00:38:14.620 And they don't care what they say.
00:38:15.720 Yeah, no doubt about it.
00:38:17.360 It's going to be very interesting to see also how much of an election year issue this is.
00:38:21.600 An Achilles heel for the president, specifically because they're now admitting, yeah, they lied about all of it.
00:38:28.460 And if that's what you're admitting, how is that going to change things moving forward?
00:38:32.980 We're going to keep you updated on that.
00:38:34.520 Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday and Fridays.
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00:38:52.920 And lastly, I don't forget that you can listen to my show, the Ben Ferguson podcast on those in between days.
00:38:58.800 I will keep you up to date on the latest breaking news on those in between days.
00:39:03.620 And we'll see you back here for the week in review on Saturday as well.
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