Verdict with Ted Cruz - Virginia is for Loving Liberal Policy, Tariffs on Trial at SCOTUS & Save America Act heads to the Senate Week In Review

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.560 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.120 First up, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger ran as being a moderate.

00:00:10.520 Well, guess what's happened?

00:00:11.620 She's now putting in a radical left agenda, and we're going to expose it for you. 1.00

00:00:16.700 Also, we break down the tariffs argument that was at the Supreme Court and what it means

00:00:22.320 moving forward.

00:00:23.520 This is very important for the president to be able to use tariffs to, well, get better

00:00:28.080 deals for the American people.

00:00:29.520 So how will it all end?

00:00:31.020 We've got that for you.

00:00:32.480 And finally, the Save America Act.

00:00:35.600 It has passed the House and headed for the Senate.

00:00:38.820 So do we have the votes to get it to become law?

00:00:42.300 It's the Weekend Review, and it starts right now.

00:00:45.560 I want to move to Virginia real quick as well, and this is another big story that is happening

00:00:50.160 very quickly post-election day.

00:00:53.400 And it's an important story because I do think this could be a real moment of clarity of,

00:00:59.220 hey, the midterms are coming up.

00:01:01.640 Pay attention.

00:01:02.560 Democrats are ready and inspired.

00:01:04.620 But they are working at light speed to enact their radical agenda.

00:01:08.920 You could also argue that they've learned this from Donald Trump.

00:01:11.640 Donald Trump came in rocking and rolling day one into this second term.

00:01:15.600 He learned a lot from his first term.

00:01:17.520 He learned about how fast you can get things done if you're prepared.

00:01:20.120 And now Democrats seem to be doing that with their radical agenda.

00:01:23.660 And Virginia, what they're already doing there, it is a warning for the midterms.

00:01:28.400 What can happen if Democrats get power?

00:01:31.200 Well, and look, understand that there is no such thing as a moderate Democrat anymore.

00:01:36.480 No, they're dead.

00:01:37.540 Abigail Spanberger, like, ran claiming to be a moderate.

00:01:41.320 And only the most gullible believed her.

00:01:43.960 All of the Democrats, they've been radicalized.

00:01:46.320 This is a party that is driven by the open border, abolish police, transgender zealots. 1.00

00:01:55.700 So what has she done in her first few days?

00:01:57.780 Well, one of the very first things she did is she cut ties with ICE in federal immigration

00:02:02.700 enforcement, which means if Virginia has a criminal illegal alien, if Virginia has an

00:02:08.420 illegal alien who's a murderer. 1.00

00:02:10.040 Or a rapist.

00:02:11.400 Or a child molester.

00:02:12.320 Or a child molester.

00:02:12.680 They will let them go, and even though they're an illegal alien, Virginia is now going to 0.97

00:02:17.560 refuse to cooperate with ICE, refuse to hand murderers over to ICE.

00:02:24.240 And instead, what Abigail Spanberger is saying is the people of Virginia would rather that

00:02:29.100 the murderers be released into their communities and prey on their children.

00:02:33.180 Um, she's also, quite dramatically, this week signed a redistricting bill that is nothing

00:02:43.300 short of radical.

00:02:45.980 And unfortunately, so let's do the math.

00:02:51.500 Uh, Virginia has 11 congressional seats.

00:02:53.960 Right now, the current delegation is six Democrats, five Republicans.

00:02:58.000 Virginia just had a takeover of Democrats, of the state legislature, of the governor's

00:03:03.140 mansion.

00:03:03.720 They redrew the map, and they went from six Democrats and five Republicans to a map that

00:03:08.800 is designed to produce 10 Democrats and one Republican.

00:03:13.800 Now, what does the math mean?

00:03:15.460 So Virginia is a pretty, it's a blue to purple state.

00:03:18.800 In, in 2024, 47% of the state voted for Donald Trump.

00:03:25.740 So Kamala won Virginia, but, but 53, 47.

00:03:28.960 It was a very close, close race.

00:03:31.220 The 47% of Virginians who voted for Trump, they are now going to get 9% of the congressional

00:03:37.740 representation in the state.

00:03:39.840 Wow.

00:03:40.480 How about the 52% of Virginia who voted for, for Harris?

00:03:44.320 You know how much they get?

00:03:46.080 How much?

00:03:46.600 91%.

00:03:49.560 There you go.

00:03:50.840 52% of the state, the Democrats get 91% of, of, of the congressional representation.

00:03:57.460 Now, on Twitter, you can hear the, the, the lefties saying, ah, but Texas did it.

00:04:03.740 I, this is all about Texas.

00:04:05.180 Okay.

00:04:05.460 Let's look at the math.

00:04:07.540 Texas.

00:04:10.540 56% of Texans voted for Donald Trump.

00:04:13.940 In the new map that Texas drew, that 56% will get 79% of the seat.

00:04:21.780 So look, it is drawn to favor the party in power, but it is not remotely as brazen.

00:04:27.380 By the way, California, their new map also is designed to give the Democrats more than

00:04:33.160 90% of the congressional delegation.

00:04:35.600 And you know what?

00:04:37.680 The Northeast is even worse.

00:04:39.720 You, you look at, at, at, at states like Maine, states like New Hampshire, states like

00:04:44.840 Vermont, states like Rhode Island, states like Connecticut, where, where, where states

00:04:49.400 like Massachusetts, Massachusetts.

00:04:51.700 Do you know how many Republican members of Congress are elected in Massachusetts?

00:04:54.560 I want to say it's one or zero, zero, all of new England, all of new England.

00:05:00.340 They're just like, Republicans don't exist.

00:05:02.620 We will erase you.

00:05:04.680 Yeah.

00:05:05.500 And, and, uh, by the way, what happens with this?

00:05:08.700 Is this going to be a back and forth tit for tat when you see this type of egregious?

00:05:12.220 So then other states are going to have to counter it.

00:05:13.960 Is that just how we're going to go?

00:05:15.620 So there was a left-wing Democrat.

00:05:17.300 I, I, I responded to this and I tweeted out a brazen abuse of power and an insult to democracy.

00:05:22.800 And I, I, I went through the numbers you just talked about and, and this, this left-wing

00:05:27.580 Democrat state Senator came back, who I'd never heard of and, and actually didn't even know

00:05:32.000 about this until someone on my staff told me, told me about it.

00:05:35.100 But she responded by saying, you all started it and we effing finished it.

00:05:40.140 And by the way, she did not abbreviate effing. 0.87

00:05:42.320 No.

00:05:42.600 So, so she's a charming and lovely person, clearly.

00:05:45.440 Yes.

00:05:45.800 Um, and, and, you know, there, there, there's something richly ironic about it because every

00:05:51.380 Democrat loves to preen about how much they love democracy.

00:05:56.640 And, and yet it's quite evident that, that they don't care at all about democracy.

00:06:02.040 What they care about is keeping Democrats in power.

00:06:04.380 That's that, that, that is, is practically the only thing they care about.

00:06:07.660 I want you to listen to Abigail Spanberger talking about gerrymandering, what she thinks

00:06:13.920 about it.

00:06:14.260 Give a listen.

00:06:14.680 Because Republicans have to depend on redistricting and stealing votes and taking seats like they

00:06:20.300 did in North Carolina in order to actually be able to win elections.

00:06:25.240 So we'll, we're just going to steal them right back.

00:06:27.540 By golly, right?

00:06:28.400 There's your liberal logic one-on-one.

00:06:29.900 But, but, but, but, but it is also the, the, the degree it is far more brazen.

00:06:34.560 As I mentioned, Texas, 56% of the state voted for Donald Trump.

00:06:39.520 The new map, if, if Republicans win in the seats that were, that were drawn, the new map

00:06:44.180 will produce 79% of the congressional delegation to be Republican.

00:06:47.720 That is a, a, a, a difference of, of 23%.

00:06:52.660 So that's an additional 23%.

00:06:54.540 What, what did Virginia do? 1.00

00:06:56.340 They went from 52% voting for Kamala Harris to, to getting 91%.

00:07:02.880 That is 39 points higher.

00:07:06.180 That is a massive, and it's a grotesque gerrymander.

00:07:08.880 And by the way, I'm quite confident if they could have drawn it 11-0, they would have, you

00:07:14.600 know, that there are, are five districts that slice through Northern Virginia to get all

00:07:20.900 the liberals that work in the federal government.

00:07:22.740 And they basically like take a slice of liberals from Northern Virginia and then stick it with,

00:07:27.960 with, with rural Virginias to rob the votes of, of the rest of the state that, that, that,

00:07:32.780 that is redder.

00:07:33.960 Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full

00:07:38.520 podcast from earlier this week.

00:07:41.140 Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, their 1.00

00:07:45.420 elected leaders, and the world around them.

00:07:47.480 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:07:51.280 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:07:52.380 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:07:53.600 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists,

00:07:58.720 athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

00:08:03.120 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:08:06.340 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeart Radio.

00:08:08.520 Or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:08:12.220 Now on to story number two.

00:08:14.560 There's also an added benefit that we've seen.

00:08:17.700 And there was a lot of people that were skeptical, that were nervous.

00:08:20.240 And that is how much money we've collected through these tariffs.

00:08:24.140 That has been also, I think, one of those like X factors of this as well, because as

00:08:28.860 the president was playing this high stakes game of chicken, in essence, and we keep winning,

00:08:33.900 we were also collecting an awful lot of money.

00:08:36.800 That was one of the upsides of this as well.

00:08:40.160 Unquestionably, $133 billion has come in already.

00:08:43.180 And let's do a little bit of a breakdown of the oral argument.

00:08:46.500 So at the oral argument, John Sauer, who is the U.S. Solicitor General,

00:08:50.280 he argued for the United States.

00:08:52.060 Neil Kachal argued for the plaintiffs, the small businesses.

00:08:55.540 Now, I know Neil very well.

00:08:57.780 Neil was Solicitor General under Obama.

00:09:02.400 Neil clerked at the Supreme Court at the same time I did.

00:09:05.060 So when I was clerking for Chief Justice Rehnquist, Neil was clerking for Stephen Breyer.

00:09:09.660 So we're friends.

00:09:10.680 We've known each other a long time.

00:09:12.020 In fact, in 2000, during the 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore,

00:09:20.780 I was part of the litigation team representing Bush and Bush versus Gore.

00:09:25.840 Neil was part of the litigation team representing Al Gore.

00:09:28.940 And we're buddies.

00:09:30.100 We're friends.

00:09:30.600 So we would call each other late at night and be like,

00:09:32.920 what kind of ridiculous argument are you making?

00:09:35.860 This is stupid.

00:09:37.020 I can't believe you're saying this.

00:09:38.720 And it's a little bit just friends giving each other a hard time.

00:09:41.940 And we actually had a wager, Neil and I did, on the outcome.

00:09:46.040 I said, look, Bush is going to prevail.

00:09:48.080 We're going to win.

00:09:48.840 He said, no, Gore is going to prevail.

00:09:51.180 Well, obviously, I won that wager.

00:09:54.260 And the wager was dinner.

00:09:57.280 And so Neil had to take me out to dinner.

00:09:59.780 But you're going to like this, Ben.

00:10:01.420 Do you know what Neil did to sort of exact his revenge as he was paying off the wager?

00:10:05.980 I cannot wait to hear this.

00:10:07.780 He took me to a vegetarian restaurant.

00:10:11.800 Yeah, if you've ever had dinner with you, that's like taking me to a vegetarian restaurant.

00:10:16.540 That's like the worst decision ever.

00:10:18.740 So what did you even order?

00:10:20.720 I don't remember.

00:10:22.000 Vegetables, because they didn't have any meat.

00:10:23.800 And I'm a carnivore.

00:10:25.580 But I kind of laughed.

00:10:26.780 I was like, all right, Neil, well played.

00:10:28.560 OK, so Neil is a very experienced, very capable Supreme Court lawyer.

00:10:33.380 So is John Sauer.

00:10:34.360 So you had two excellent advocates going at it.

00:10:36.440 But let's take Chief Justice Roberts.

00:10:39.420 Chief Justice Roberts repeatedly tried to reframe the case away from foreign affairs and towards taxation of Americans.

00:10:48.580 So, for example, Chief Justice Roberts asked, he said, tariffs and dealings with foreign powers, yes.

00:10:56.100 But the vehicle is the imposition of taxes on Americans.

00:10:58.900 And that has always been the core power of Congress.

00:11:02.560 And John Sauer tried to press back on behalf of the Trump administration.

00:11:08.360 And Roberts responded, well, who pays the tariff?

00:11:12.720 If a tariff is imposed on automobiles, who pays them?

00:11:16.840 And the answer, as I said before, is consumers pay some of them and the foreign producer pays some of them.

00:11:22.500 Roberts went on and he highlighted the structural collision between the executive foreign affairs power and Congress's taxing authority.

00:11:32.560 Roberts said, quote, to have the president's foreign affairs power, Trump, that basic power of Congress, seems to me at least to neutralize between the two powers, the executive power and the legislative power.

00:11:48.280 And then he said, yes, of course, tariffs and dealings with foreign powers.

00:11:52.880 But the vehicle is the imposition of taxes on Americans.

00:11:58.580 Justice Kagan.

00:11:59.620 So Justice Kagan is the smartest of the liberal justices on the court by far.

00:12:03.760 I know Justice Kagan well.

00:12:05.400 She was the dean of the Harvard Law School.

00:12:07.160 She was the U.S. Solicitor General also.

00:12:10.280 And she's a very, very smart liberal lawyer and judge. 0.99

00:12:15.720 What Justice Kagan tried to do is frame this all within the non-delegation doctrine.

00:12:21.680 So Justice Kagan said about the taxing power, she said, quote, but not with respect to tariffs, not with respect to quintessential taxing powers, which are given by the Constitution to Congress.

00:12:34.740 And she framed the case through the delegation doctrine, saying, quote, in consumers research just last year, which is a case the Supreme Court just decided, we had a tax before us.

00:12:47.200 If there's no ceiling on this tax, we sort of assumed if there was no ceiling, it would raise a delegation power problem.

00:12:55.660 And then she applied that logic to AIPA.

00:13:00.020 She said, how does your argument fit with the idea that a tax with no ceiling, a tax that can be anything the president wants, would raise a pretty deep delegation problem?

00:13:12.580 And she rejected the government's argument to relabel tariffs.

00:13:16.800 She said, no, not with respect to tariffs, not with respect to quintessential taxing powers.

00:13:22.040 Now, understand what Justice Kagan is doing.

00:13:23.820 The non-delegation doctrine is a very important constitutional limitation on Congress giving too much power to the executive.

00:13:33.580 It is also something conservatives care a great deal about.

00:13:36.660 I think Justice Kagan, Justice Kagan, the three liberals are going to vote against Trump, no matter what, in any circumstance.

00:13:43.360 So Kagan is a no.

00:13:44.640 But she's trying, in a very savvy way, to argue it in a way that will appeal to Justice Gorsuch, Chief Justice Roberts, or Justice Barrett.

00:13:55.580 She's trying to frame it in terms of conservative principles.

00:13:58.780 Now, Justice Gorsuch, if you look at his questions, his questions showed a significant degree of skepticism to the administration's position,

00:14:10.280 and in particular focusing on the major questions doctrine.

00:14:13.320 Again, the major questions doctrine is a big conservative principle that limits the power of the executive branch.

00:14:21.200 It's really important.

00:14:22.780 So Gorsuch asked, what is the limiting principle here?

00:14:26.840 And he asked further, if regulate importation includes tariffs,

00:14:31.860 what stops the president from imposing them for any asserted foreign threat?

00:14:38.400 He asked some hypotheticals.

00:14:40.380 He said, could the president impose massive tariffs to address something like climate change,

00:14:46.620 if that's deemed a foreign threat?

00:14:48.660 It's actually a good question.

00:14:50.080 And he pressed further.

00:14:51.700 He said, once you accept that premise, it's hard to see what's left of the limitation.

00:14:57.520 Justice Barrett, she went on to say, Congress knows how to grant tariff authority explicitly.

00:15:08.380 Why isn't clearer language required if Congress meant to confer that power?

00:15:14.060 And she pressed the U.S. Solicitor General.

00:15:16.720 She said, if regulate imports includes tariffs of any size, what work is left for the rest of the statute to do?

00:15:24.260 Where do we find the limiting principle in the statute itself?

00:15:31.500 So, look, in terms of the questioning, Roberts appeared skeptical, Gorsuch appeared skeptical, and Barrett appeared skeptical.

00:15:42.280 So, on the conservative side, the justice that seemed most receptive was Brett Kavanaugh.

00:15:47.880 Well, and Brett Kavanaugh said, the court has historically been very comfortable with very broad delegations in the foreign affairs context.

00:15:56.780 So, he framed it in terms of, look, the president has enormous flexibility when it comes to foreign affairs.

00:16:04.120 Justice Kavanaugh said in one of his opinions that the non-delegation concerns have less force where Congress is empowering the president in foreign affairs.

00:16:14.780 And Justice Kavanaugh focused on the historical practice, said there's a long tradition of broad delegations over foreign commerce going back to the founding.

00:16:27.000 And he engaged the Solicitor General seriously.

00:16:31.340 He said, that's consistent with cases like Chicago and Southern Airlines and Curtis Wright.

00:16:35.820 I think Kavanaugh is going to be a likely vote to uphold the tariff authority.

00:16:43.040 And so, that argument was significant.

00:16:47.160 Now, Justice Thomas.

00:16:49.220 Justice Thomas historically asked very few questions.

00:16:52.680 That was true here.

00:16:54.040 But his questions were focused on history and the original understanding of the Constitution.

00:16:59.460 So, Justice Thomas asked, historically, weren't tariffs one of the primary ways Congress regulated foreign commerce?

00:17:09.060 And he went back to that.

00:17:10.380 He said at the founding, there was a sharp distinction.

00:17:14.020 Was there a sharp distinction between regulating imports and imposing duties on them?

00:17:20.420 So, he was very much focused on what the practice of the country has been from the founding.

00:17:24.480 He also asked, if tariffs were understood as tools of trade regulation, why wouldn't the power to regulate foreign commerce include them?

00:17:35.700 Very good question.

00:17:37.640 And when it came to the non-delegation doctrine, he said the following, quote,

00:17:43.040 Non-delegation is a modern doctrine.

00:17:47.980 What evidence do we have that Congress historically could not confer this kind of authority in matters of foreign commerce?

00:17:57.900 Justice Thomas' question suggests he is very likely to vote in favor of the president's tariff authority.

00:18:06.160 And then let's focus on Justice Alito.

00:18:08.200 Justice Alito was really focused on workability, remedies, and consequences.

00:18:17.940 So, he said, he was asking about practicality.

00:18:22.160 He said, if we accept your position, what happens to all the tariffs that have already been collected?

00:18:29.580 He also highlighted, and I think this is critical, this may be the most important question asked.

00:18:34.920 There are enormous reliance interests here, both for the government and for private actors who have ordered their affairs around these tariffs.

00:18:44.800 And he questions the plaintiffs.

00:18:46.600 He said, is your position that Congress must always use the word tariff expressly, even in statutes dealing with foreign emergencies?

00:18:55.560 That doesn't sound very plausible.

00:18:56.840 And he pressed whether the case could be resolved narrowly.

00:19:00.540 He said, why isn't this something that can be handled through a limiting construction, rather than a broad holding that calls into question a lot of past practice?

00:19:10.400 I actually think Justice Alito's questioning is going to frame what the court does.

00:19:16.700 Now, we have, in a lot of big cases, a 6-3 divide.

00:19:22.000 You have the three liberals who vote against Trump on everything.

00:19:25.160 And you have six justices that are on the conservative side of the aisle, although they vary.

00:19:31.960 I'm going to predict we're going to lose one.

00:19:33.860 I don't know which, but I think we will lose, in all likelihood, either Gorsuch or Barrett.

00:19:40.440 But, even though Chief Justice Roberts was skeptical at oral argument, I'm going to predict that Chief Justice Roberts votes to uphold the tariffs, and I'm going to predict that he writes the majority opinion.

00:19:55.400 Wow.

00:19:56.700 I like these bold predictions, by the way.

00:19:59.000 This makes it fun.

00:20:00.440 And, look, I have no inside information.

00:20:02.400 I could be totally wrong.

00:20:04.700 But I do know the court quite well.

00:20:06.820 I did spend my entire career, before I was in the Senate, was arguing before the court.

00:20:11.840 And, look, Roberts, in particular, is an institutionalist.

00:20:16.500 And I actually think this case is quite similar to the Obamacare case.

00:20:22.160 The Obamacare case, during the Obama presidency, was a challenge to Obamacare, and ultimately, Chief Justice Roberts upheld Obamacare.

00:20:31.700 And I think he did so, because he thought to strike it down would be a massive change, would wreak chaos, and it would question the legitimacy of the court.

00:20:43.760 It would question the authority of the court.

00:20:45.520 So, I think he made an institutionalist decision.

00:20:48.700 Let's not disrupt the status quo.

00:20:50.580 I think that same instinct here is going to lead him to say, these tariffs have been imposed, they've been the heart of the president's foreign policy and economic policy, and so we're not going to set them aside.

00:21:06.240 That is my prediction, and you will end up with a majority that consists of Chief Justice Roberts writing the majority opinion, Thomas, and Alito, and Kavanaugh, and either Barrett or Gorsuch.

00:21:21.600 And the dissenters will be the three liberals, and either Barrett or Gorsuch.

00:21:24.860 That's my prediction.

00:21:26.040 We'll see what happens.

00:21:26.820 As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and download the podcast from early this week to hear the entire thing.

00:21:36.120 Canadian women are looking for more. 1.00

00:21:38.340 More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.

00:21:42.480 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:21:46.200 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:21:47.380 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:21:48.600 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

00:21:51.980 entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

00:21:58.100 So, if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:22:01.320 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:22:07.200 I want to get back to the big story, number three of the week you may have missed.

00:22:11.400 Senator, let's talk about a big piece of legislation that a lot of people are very focused on this country.

00:22:18.580 A lot of voters voted on this issue specifically, and it deals with the Save America Act.

00:22:25.680 And what has happened this week?

00:22:26.980 Let's give an update to that.

00:22:28.900 Well, the House of Representatives passed the Save America Act, passed it with only one Democrat vote.

00:22:34.600 Every Democrat but one voted against it.

00:22:37.340 The Save America Act requires proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote, and it requires a photo ID to vote.

00:22:42.660 It's a very simple, straightforward, common-sense bill.

00:22:45.740 It's now gone over to the Senate.

00:22:47.240 I am leading the charge, pressing hard to get the Senate to take it up, to use every procedural tool we have,

00:22:54.520 to force the Senate to vote on it and pass it.

00:22:57.800 This week, I put out a video explaining the issues concisely, and the video went viral.

00:23:03.480 It has over a million views.

00:23:05.640 Give a listen.

00:23:06.260 Give a watch.

00:23:07.200 The House just passed the Save America Act.

00:23:10.220 The Senate needs to take it up and pass it. 1.00

00:23:13.560 I'm an original sponsor of the Save America Act.

00:23:16.040 This is common-sense legislation.

00:23:17.660 This is legislation that requires proof that you're an American citizen in order to register to vote,

00:23:24.260 and it requires a photo ID to go in and vote.

00:23:28.320 Texas already requires a photo ID.

00:23:30.880 It's an easy, common-sense step to avoid voter fraud.

00:23:34.120 The vast majority of Americans support photo ID, and yet Senate Democrats are doing everything they can to block it,

00:23:42.340 because they want more voter fraud.

00:23:46.340 How do we take it up and pass it in the Senate?

00:23:48.240 What I am urging my colleagues is that we should use every procedural tool we have to defeat a Democrat filibuster.

00:23:56.900 And in particular, we should nuke what's called the zombie filibuster. 0.93

00:24:02.300 Under the Senate rules, everyone has a right to filibuster, to talk as long as they want.

00:24:07.800 We should require them to talk as long as they can.

00:24:11.520 Go back to an old-style talking filibuster, like Jimmy Stewart did, and Mr. Smith goes to Washington,

00:24:19.200 like I did in 2013 for 21 hours on the floor of the Senate.

00:24:24.140 We should use the procedural rules to force the Democrats to do a talking filibuster, 0.99

00:24:30.040 and force them to keep talking, and talking, and talking.

00:24:33.120 And when they can't talk anymore, then we should pass the Save America Act.

00:24:38.000 That's what I'm urging my colleagues to do.

00:24:40.160 It's what President Trump wants us to do, and it's what I hope and pray we accomplish.

00:24:45.920 Senator, you said it, I think, perfectly there.

00:24:48.840 And explain a little bit more about what it would mean to nuke the zombie filibuster,

00:24:53.760 so that we get more context for that, so people understand, in essence, what they would be advocating for.

00:24:58.800 Well, for most of the history of the Senate, the filibuster involved talking, involved standing up and talking and talking and talking.

00:25:07.080 And in recent decades, the Senate has allowed simply whoever is filibustering to say,

00:25:13.380 we're going to filibuster, you cast a procedural vote, and then you're done, and it's treated as blocked.

00:25:17.980 But we don't have to do that.

00:25:19.680 We can force them that there is what's called a two-speech rule in the Senate 0.57

00:25:24.100 that limits every member of the Senate to two speeches on any legislative topic.

00:25:29.880 And what I've been advocating, and Mike Lee has been advocating, and Rick Scott has been advocating,

00:25:35.000 and Ron Johnson has been advocating, is that we force them to give the speeches, force them to talk.

00:25:41.760 And when they're done talking, then you can vote on it.

00:25:44.680 But the thing is, there's a price to that.

00:25:48.040 Because they can fight back, and in particular, they can do what's called suggest the absence of a quorum.

00:25:54.420 That means we have to be able to produce 50 senators on the floor.

00:25:58.800 There are 53 of us.

00:25:59.880 That means we need 50 bodies.

00:26:02.220 It would entail very long hours.

00:26:03.940 It would entail all-nighters.

00:26:05.260 It would entail 50 of us being willing to stand together.

00:26:08.560 It's not clear right now that we have 50 Republicans willing to do that.

00:26:12.060 I'm trying to make the case, this is a fight worth fighting.

00:26:15.860 But it would be a massive and extended, this could extend days or even weeks.

00:26:22.020 But I think we should be fighting with everything we got.

00:26:24.680 I think this issue is important enough.

00:26:26.280 It merits fighting.

00:26:27.100 And so I'm trying to make that case to my colleagues.

00:26:30.080 All right, let me ask you a question.

00:26:31.200 If you nuke it the way that you described it, is it just for this one issue,

00:26:35.460 and then things go back to the regular order of business, how it works normal now?

00:26:39.320 Or would that change it moving forward?

00:26:43.340 Explain that.

00:26:45.160 So this is different from nuking the filibuster.

00:26:49.020 So nuking the filibuster, that phrase involves breaking the Senate rules to change the Senate rules.

00:26:56.960 So what happens, and we saw, for example, the Democrats nuked the filibuster for cabinet appointees and judicial appointees.

00:27:07.340 And the way they did it, the Senate rules made it clear in the terms of the Senate rules that a nomination required 60 votes to go forward to proceed to it.

00:27:20.540 However, what happened was Harry Reid, when he was majority leader, any ruling of the chair can be challenged on the floor of the Senate,

00:27:29.400 and 51 senators can overrule the ruling of the chair.

00:27:34.200 And so Harry Reid inquired of the chair, what is the rule, and was told the rule is 60 senators.

00:27:40.060 And then he said, I appeal the ruling of the chair, and the Democrats all voted party line.

00:27:44.780 And when they did that, that becomes a binding precedent.

00:27:48.740 So they broke the rules of the Senate to change the rules of the Senate.

00:27:51.940 It is still in the Senate rules that a filibuster can be used to stop legislation.

00:27:58.800 And I will say, we have used that, Republicans have used that, to stop terrible legislation from the Democrats.

00:28:05.180 I think that's an important safeguard.

00:28:06.380 So it is valuable, is the point that people need to also understand.

00:28:09.740 It's very valuable.

00:28:10.700 If the Democrats had succeeded in nuking the filibuster when Joe Biden was president and when they had the House and Senate,

00:28:18.760 they would have passed legislation, number one, striking down every photo ID law in the country

00:28:23.600 and striking down every election integrity law in the country,

00:28:26.300 number two, making D.C. and Puerto Rico both states and electing four new Democrat senators,

00:28:31.140 number three, making every illegal alien in America a U.S. citizen and giving them immediate voting rights,

00:28:36.420 which would have, among other things, turned Texas bright blue instantaneously.

00:28:41.700 And number four, they would have packed the U.S. Supreme Court and added four left-wing justices immediately to it. 0.80

00:28:47.760 I think that would have been, I don't want to be hyperbolic,

00:28:51.720 but I think that would have been essentially the end of the republic.

00:28:54.140 There's no way to turn that around if they do that.

00:28:56.400 Yeah, how do you put that back in Pandora's, like once that box is opened, it's game over?

00:29:01.600 It's that agenda.

00:29:03.480 And notice the Democrats' top policy agenda is all to rig the game and make it impossible to ever defeat Democrats again.

00:29:10.880 There's nothing they value more than staying in power.

00:29:14.440 That's what they wanted to do.

00:29:16.020 This is not nuking the filibuster in terms of changing the Senate rules.

00:29:20.640 This is using the existing Senate rules and just enforcing them, making them stand up and speak.

00:29:26.420 And one of the advantages of it is, if they're standing up and speaking for hours and hours on end,

00:29:31.680 trying to stop requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote, trying to stop photo ID,

00:29:38.300 look, both of those popular policies are incredibly popular.

00:29:43.140 70, 80 percent of Americans agree with photo ID for voting.

00:29:46.560 More than 70 percent of African Americans agree with it.

00:29:49.000 More than 70 percent of Hispanics agree with it.

00:29:52.100 More than 70 percent of Democrat voters agree with it.

00:29:56.720 And so this is a fight we should be having.

00:29:58.780 And I'm urging my colleagues, let's stand and fight for voter integrity.

00:30:02.240 As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:30:07.740 Don't forget to download my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day.

00:30:11.400 You're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards.

00:30:14.660 I'd love to have you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson podcast.

00:30:18.500 And we will see you back here on Monday morning.

00:30:22.240 This is an iHeart podcast.

00:30:24.880 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - February 14, 2026

Virginia is for Loving Liberal Policy, Tariffs on Trial at SCOTUS & Save America Act heads to the Senate Week In Review

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