Verdict with Ted Cruz - February 12, 2022


We Are All at Risk


Episode Stats

Length

52 minutes

Words per Minute

177.46817

Word Count

9,324

Sentence Count

699

Misogynist Sentences

15

Hate Speech Sentences

9


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.400 Guaranteed human.
00:00:04.040 Government is using big tech to shut down dissent.
00:00:09.180 They're doing it on the biggest podcast platform in the world.
00:00:13.660 They're doing it up in America's hat with Canadian truckers.
00:00:18.460 We are all at risk here.
00:00:21.680 And what happens now will have a lot to say
00:00:24.740 about the future of free speech in our society.
00:00:29.000 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
00:00:37.480 Today's episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is brought to you by IPVanish.
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00:04:19.860 Welcome back to VERDICT with Ted Cruz.
00:04:22.020 I'm Michael Knowles.
00:04:23.500 Senator, they seem like very different issues, Canadian truckers and the most popular podcaster
00:04:30.040 on the planet, except for the week that VERDICT launched.
00:04:32.540 But we'll digress.
00:04:33.920 We leave that for a couple of years ago.
00:04:37.160 They're deeply connected stories.
00:04:39.460 And actually, you seem to have played a role in all of this.
00:04:42.200 You caused a little bit of an international incident, Senator, when you got into a Twitter
00:04:46.380 spat with the mayor of Vancouver over this trucker protest going on up in Canada.
00:04:52.880 Well, that's true enough.
00:04:54.100 The mayor of Vancouver said, you know, we Canadians don't want you truckers.
00:04:57.720 You guys go home.
00:04:58.660 And I had to point out, I said, gosh, you know, the Canucks might have a different view if
00:05:03.580 the truckers actually did go home and suddenly your shelves were empty.
00:05:06.840 I mean, it seems to me two years ago, people were waxing eloquent about the great heroes
00:05:12.560 that truckers were.
00:05:13.580 And I agree.
00:05:14.020 They make our entire system, our economy move forward.
00:05:19.160 But now these leftist politicians are saying, to hell with you truckers.
00:05:24.200 We don't like what you have to say.
00:05:26.160 So it's not just the little guy.
00:05:27.880 It's not just the working class that is being put upon here.
00:05:30.440 It's even one of the most elite, influential, popular voices in the world.
00:05:37.440 That would be Joe Rogan, this podcaster who's got a massive, massive audience.
00:05:41.540 He's politically independent and a big tech is shutting him down.
00:05:46.020 We touched on it a little bit.
00:05:47.600 Some aging hippies were trying to boot him off of Spotify, but it appears to be sort of
00:05:53.400 working.
00:05:54.560 Well, these two stories are deeply interconnected and they represent together the most dire threat
00:06:02.160 to free speech we have.
00:06:04.360 Joe Rogan, you have petty government authoritarians enlisting their buddies in big tech.
00:06:11.540 to silence the voice of dissent.
00:06:14.160 Canadian truckers, you have petty government authoritarians enlisting the voice of big tech
00:06:19.780 and the power of big tech to silence the voice of dissent.
00:06:23.520 And both, look, this would never have happened even a year or two or three ago.
00:06:29.140 This is a new phenomenon.
00:06:30.600 Let's take Joe Rogan.
00:06:32.540 So Jen Psaki publicly called from the White House podium for Spotify to take down his episodes,
00:06:39.540 for Spotify to silence him.
00:06:41.780 I will say, let me start off by saying I'm pissed off.
00:06:44.400 Look, our last podcast, we talked about how this pod was the first podcast to be mentioned
00:06:49.460 from the White House podium.
00:06:50.800 And in comes Joe Rogan and Bigfoots us.
00:06:54.620 That's true.
00:06:55.480 Senator, we were the first two.
00:06:57.080 We can at least hang our hat on that.
00:06:58.800 But yes, Joe Rogan has come in.
00:07:00.620 He is now the third podcast to be referenced at a White House briefing.
00:07:03.500 I will say in between the two, Jen Psaki was asked about this podcast and her comment was
00:07:10.600 she said she is blissfully not a spokesperson for Ted Cruz, which I have to admit, Michael,
00:07:18.280 I retweeted and just said the bliss is mutual.
00:07:21.300 The feeling is reciprocated, right?
00:07:23.160 But I will say what we did talk about actually setting up margaritas and kickboxing and see
00:07:27.700 if we could recruit her over because she, thankfully, we're not going to do that.
00:07:32.240 Look, stop for a second and think about the White House, the executive office of the
00:07:40.240 leader of the free world, the most powerful man on planet Earth, calling for a voice of
00:07:47.960 dissent to be silenced and calling very specifically, calling out big tech, calling out the oligarchs
00:07:55.440 in Silicon Valley.
00:07:57.640 Jen Psaki was very specific.
00:07:59.260 Spotify, take down this post.
00:08:01.380 Now, normally when you have suppression of free speech, there's a big power imbalance
00:08:05.680 and it's powerful people trying to silence weak people.
00:08:09.380 Well, here, the person they're trying to silence is Joe Rogan.
00:08:11.980 Joe Rogan is many things, but not weak.
00:08:14.300 He's got 100 million listeners and viewers.
00:08:16.920 That is a crap ton of listeners and viewers.
00:08:20.480 And, you know, he gets more viewers.
00:08:24.620 He's.
00:08:26.760 For many episodes, he's he's 10x or 100x what CNN is.
00:08:32.980 And the White House is terrified of him.
00:08:37.080 CNN is terrified of him.
00:08:38.900 The blue check marks on Twitter are terrified of him.
00:08:41.120 And it's worth worth pausing.
00:08:43.460 Look, you and I are unlikely advocates for Joe Rogan.
00:08:48.100 I don't know Joe Rogan.
00:08:48.940 I've never met the guy.
00:08:50.780 Me neither.
00:08:51.220 As far as I know, he's not a conservative.
00:08:53.880 He endorsed Bernie friggin Sanders.
00:08:56.260 Generally, conservatives don't endorse wild eyed socialists.
00:08:59.240 But Rogan, look, I've really grown to admire Rogan because he's demonstrated backbone.
00:09:08.140 He's willing to speak out on COVID.
00:09:10.100 He's called bullshit to the continued propaganda and the contradictions and the lies coming out
00:09:19.020 of Fauci, coming out of the Biden White House, coming out of the press.
00:09:22.480 And for those in power, having someone willing to dissent with a really big megaphone scares them.
00:09:31.840 And so they want to destroy them.
00:09:33.460 And the important thing to know about Joe Rogan, this is not spontaneous.
00:09:36.560 This is not organic.
00:09:38.440 This is an organized assassination of speech.
00:09:42.480 It started off kind of comical.
00:09:45.380 But then the White House chimed in.
00:09:47.300 And then you noticed it started off with COVID misinformation because he brought in scientists
00:09:52.340 and doctors who had views that differed from the enlightened view of Dr. Fauci, which changes
00:09:58.820 every week.
00:09:59.420 But whatever it is that week is holy scripture and cannot be challenged.
00:10:03.880 Yeah.
00:10:04.340 But then, you know, this kind of hack writer Don Winslow, who I'd never heard of other than
00:10:10.720 he's loud and obnoxious on Twitter, puts out this video, an old video of Rogan using the
00:10:17.960 N-word.
00:10:18.640 And look, using the N-word is wrong.
00:10:20.740 Neither you nor I support it.
00:10:22.880 And suddenly all of the blue check marks gathered up together and Rogan is a racist for having
00:10:29.620 used it.
00:10:30.140 Look, that's not a word that should be used in polite society.
00:10:34.280 But I will tell you who else has used the N-word repeatedly, Joe Biden, rappers like crazy,
00:10:41.960 Howard Stern.
00:10:42.840 They're not canceling Howard Stern.
00:10:44.120 Why?
00:10:44.460 Because Howard Stern is is serviling, kissing the behinds of those in power.
00:10:53.040 It's really a shame.
00:10:53.740 Howard Stern started out a rebel and now he echoes the the words of the petty tyrants.
00:10:59.060 If you shut up and echo what they say, you're OK.
00:11:02.080 If you're Jimmy Kimmel, you can dress in blackface.
00:11:04.680 You can do whatever you want because you're a mouthpiece for the regime.
00:11:09.340 This has followed a familiar script.
00:11:12.040 And I guess this also ties it to the Canadian trucker protest, which is the actual substantive
00:11:17.020 issue that this is about is COVID.
00:11:19.740 And so Joe Rogan questioned the COVID narrative.
00:11:22.500 He brought on very respected, very well-known scientists.
00:11:25.140 They questioned the government's COVID narrative, the narrative du jour, because as you say,
00:11:29.880 it changes all the time.
00:11:31.840 And and so what happens then?
00:11:33.360 They try to attack him.
00:11:34.400 It doesn't work.
00:11:35.120 Then the left calls him a racist.
00:11:37.340 That is always the next card that they play.
00:11:39.220 They pull it out of nowhere.
00:11:40.640 They take clips out of context.
00:11:42.020 They do whatever they can.
00:11:42.960 They apply a standard unevenly.
00:11:44.380 And they're trying to do that.
00:11:45.820 That seems to have weakened him a little bit.
00:11:48.100 He's made some concessions.
00:11:49.320 We'll see where it goes.
00:11:50.560 But I guess my question on it is, what is it about this COVID issue?
00:11:54.340 Because I guess what the left would say is, Michael, Senator, this is about health.
00:12:00.880 People are going to die if this information gets out there.
00:12:03.320 And that's why we've got to suppress the truckers.
00:12:05.460 It's why we've got to shut up, Rogan.
00:12:07.220 Is this a unique issue where people are not not allowed to dissent?
00:12:11.740 It is unique in the following way.
00:12:14.020 It has revealed the authoritarianism of these government leaders.
00:12:18.620 They believe they have the power to force you to comply, to force you to take a vaccine.
00:12:22.960 My body, my choice doesn't matter to them anymore.
00:12:25.640 Nope, not your body, not your choice.
00:12:27.260 We're going to force you to take a vaccine, to force you to wear a mask, to force you to obey.
00:12:32.040 And if you don't, they will use the coercive force of government to shut your business down.
00:12:37.160 You know, there's a restaurant here in D.C. that was shut down because they refused to enforce the vaccine mandate.
00:12:43.820 So local restaurants said, look, I don't want to like have my customers come in, demand their papers, you know, intrude on their medical business.
00:12:50.440 And so what did D.C. do?
00:12:51.680 D.C. District of Columbia came in and shut them down.
00:12:54.740 I mean, it is arbitrary power.
00:12:56.260 They will shut your business down.
00:12:57.740 They will shut your restaurant down.
00:12:59.440 They'll shut your bar down.
00:13:00.320 They'll shut your store down.
00:13:01.960 They will fire you.
00:13:03.200 If you're active duty military, a soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, a Navy SEAL, they will fire you.
00:13:08.440 If you're a doctor, a nurse, they will fire you.
00:13:11.100 If you're a government employee, if you're an FBI agent, if you're a Border Patrol agent, they will fire you.
00:13:15.840 It is force.
00:13:18.520 And these are the same guys that during the height of COVID when it started, we're shutting down playgrounds.
00:13:24.900 We're shutting down churches.
00:13:26.440 We're suing to say, if you sing Amazing Grace, everyone's going to die.
00:13:31.340 And what COVID has done has revealed the arbitrariness, the power.
00:13:39.680 And by the way, you know, some might say, all right, you're exaggerating.
00:13:44.780 Listen, all these Democratic politicians know it's crap.
00:13:47.780 We all saw this week Stacey Abrams sitting in a classroom full of little kids.
00:13:51.880 The kids are all masked and she's sitting there grinning ear to ear with no mask right in front.
00:13:56.620 Why? Because she's a Democratic overlord and the rules don't apply to her.
00:14:01.640 They just apply to the little people.
00:14:03.200 In this case, it really was little people.
00:14:05.160 It was children.
00:14:07.700 And it's all the Democratic politicians, every one of them.
00:14:10.500 Gavin Newsom, you know, palling around with Magic Johnson.
00:14:15.260 That's pretty cool.
00:14:15.860 He gets to hang out with Magic Johnson.
00:14:17.040 I'm jealous about that.
00:14:18.900 You know, Eric Garcetti saying, oh, I held my breath.
00:14:22.760 I had my mask off, but I held my breath.
00:14:25.360 Baloney.
00:14:25.800 But it's the lie is so absurd.
00:14:30.420 The person saying it doesn't believe it.
00:14:32.460 The person hearing it doesn't believe it.
00:14:34.720 But what it's really about.
00:14:36.180 And by the way, Barack Obama this week, he's having this massive house built in Hawaii.
00:14:41.340 Never mind global warming.
00:14:42.460 Never mind the environment.
00:14:43.420 And he's standing there with the workers, little working people.
00:14:47.720 The workers are all masks.
00:14:48.920 And there's Obama, no masks, supervising the servants.
00:14:52.800 That's the same as Nancy Pelosi when she does her fundraisers, where the serving people must
00:14:57.920 be masked.
00:14:58.860 It's garbage.
00:15:00.320 It is contempt of elitists.
00:15:03.000 But the fact that they take their mask off.
00:15:05.240 I've talked in this pod all the time.
00:15:07.220 Democratic senators remove their masks all the time behind closed doors.
00:15:12.880 When the TV cameras aren't there, boom, the mask comes off.
00:15:16.280 But as soon as they come out, they put the mask on.
00:15:19.100 This is about power.
00:15:20.800 And Rogan and the truckers are threats to it.
00:15:25.740 And I got to say, look, Rogan in the world of speech has a damn powerful megaphone.
00:15:34.860 Spotify is paying him $100 million.
00:15:37.580 $100 million is a lot of money.
00:15:39.000 Michael, if Spotify offered it to you tomorrow, $100 million, shave your head and become an
00:15:43.680 M&A wrestler.
00:15:44.740 I got to say, I think we'd see Michael Knowles, you know, you know, dressed in in a red tights
00:15:51.360 going to wrestle.
00:15:53.060 I don't want to undercut my negotiation.
00:15:55.100 I would do it for 95.
00:15:57.020 I would.
00:15:57.520 I believe you.
00:15:59.080 And I'd buy tickets to it.
00:16:01.880 Well, I guess this this is what's so scary here is Joe Rogan.
00:16:06.200 He's got this huge megaphone.
00:16:07.560 And yet they can at least to some degree make him concede.
00:16:11.620 We were always told that, yes, the government is bad and they do lots of bad things, but
00:16:16.340 we've got private enterprise.
00:16:18.000 We've got our own private organizations.
00:16:19.560 We can do our own work in the culture, fight back, build your own Google, all that kind
00:16:23.960 of stuff.
00:16:24.460 And yet what we've seen here in the States and with the Canadian truckers is you're seeing
00:16:28.620 the government using these private these private entities.
00:16:32.540 So you've got Spotify is being pressured by the White House to boot Rogan or at least to
00:16:36.640 censor him.
00:16:37.280 You've got GoFundMe.
00:16:38.500 There was a GoFundMe set up for these Canadian truckers.
00:16:41.040 A lot of people were donating to them.
00:16:42.440 And then GoFundMe under a lot of political pressure says, whoops, never mind.
00:16:47.160 We're going to take that money away from the truckers.
00:16:49.900 Well, so now we don't have the government.
00:16:51.700 We don't have the private enterprise.
00:16:52.940 What are we supposed to do?
00:16:54.300 So you look at Spotify.
00:16:55.720 They haven't kicked Rogan off yet, but the goal is to kick him off entirely.
00:16:59.360 That's what the White House called for.
00:17:01.220 They have taken down about 100 episodes of his show.
00:17:04.140 So they've decided that you and I, we don't get to see what he said those episodes were
00:17:08.200 too dumb or too ignorant.
00:17:10.000 We can't listen.
00:17:11.280 That speech is dangerous.
00:17:12.820 And so they're going to ban it.
00:17:14.680 I got to say, Rogan responded by apologizing.
00:17:17.960 And listen, if there's one lesson Donald Trump has taught us is don't apologize to the woke
00:17:23.640 left-wing mob because they're not interested in apology.
00:17:26.920 They're not interested in truth.
00:17:28.140 They're not interested in facts.
00:17:29.960 Nobody cares in the mob about the substance of what was on those 100 episodes.
00:17:34.860 They don't care at all.
00:17:35.960 They want to destroy him.
00:17:37.700 And you look at the truckers, listen, in Canada, the Canadian politicians, you know,
00:17:43.180 the mayor of Ottawa was reveling in calling for GoFundMe to pull down the site and was bragging
00:17:55.360 about it.
00:17:56.400 And GoFundMe, people had given $10 million to support this.
00:18:00.740 I mean, it was, you know, a spontaneous movement.
00:18:04.440 And when the government officials called on GoFundMe, just like the White House did, the
00:18:09.540 government officials in Canada called on GoFundMe, stopped this.
00:18:14.160 You know, GoFundMe didn't have $100 million tied up with the truckers.
00:18:18.040 If they did, they might have behaved differently.
00:18:19.760 Spotify's been a little bit trying to have their cake and eat it too.
00:18:23.100 Yeah.
00:18:24.180 So GoFundMe just said, nope, we're taking the money.
00:18:27.140 And first they said, we're going to give it to a bunch of left-wing causes that we support.
00:18:31.920 Then there was so much outrage, they backed off and said, oh, no, no, we'll just refund
00:18:35.520 the money.
00:18:36.160 Look, this weekend, I sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission asking the FTC to
00:18:42.060 investigate GoFundMe for deceptive trade practices.
00:18:45.340 Because if you take $10 million, if you steal it from people and divert it to a place that
00:18:51.740 the consumers who gave it didn't intend it to go, that is deception.
00:18:57.180 That is consumer fraud.
00:18:58.760 And it is indicative of the arrogance of big tech and the willingness for them to act as
00:19:05.540 enforcers for government officials.
00:19:08.600 Now, there was a second part of this GoFundMe story.
00:19:11.580 So I'm very glad that you are bringing legitimate government power against GoFundMe here.
00:19:17.780 I will never use GoFundMe again.
00:19:20.120 Obviously, we can't trust it if they're going to take the money away from the causes we think
00:19:24.020 we're giving to.
00:19:24.780 Now, Michael, that's not fair.
00:19:26.320 If you want to support Black Lives Matter or Antifa, if you want to support rioters and
00:19:30.180 people that are firebombing police cars, if you want to support people that are taking
00:19:33.440 over police stations and declaring CHAZ autonomous zones, GoFundMe is the site for you.
00:19:38.600 So if you want to support Marxists, that's the place to go.
00:19:42.480 And you don't even need to donate directly to – you can donate to whoever you want.
00:19:46.040 Don't worry.
00:19:46.960 GoFundMe will redirect your money.
00:19:48.980 You don't even need to think about it.
00:19:50.400 So I'm really glad that you are leading on this issue and getting the government to look
00:19:54.500 into this obvious fraud.
00:19:56.720 But there was a second part to the story here, which is that after GoFundMe took all the
00:20:00.800 money, a bunch of people then got together and started to fund the truckers, not through
00:20:07.060 the government, obviously, not even through some private enterprise, some organization
00:20:11.840 like GoFundMe.
00:20:13.140 They did it through Bitcoin.
00:20:14.560 Bitcoin is a powerfully revolutionary technology.
00:20:18.920 Cryptocurrency, I am very bullish on Bitcoin and on crypto generally.
00:20:24.600 And I got to tell you, the same petty authoritarians who hate Joe Rogan, who hate the Canadian
00:20:32.260 truckers, they hate Bitcoin, and they hate crypto.
00:20:36.100 And there's some irony.
00:20:37.580 So I've become a very vocal defender of crypto, probably the leading defender or certainly
00:20:42.440 one of the leading defenders in the U.S. Senate.
00:20:44.960 And it's interesting.
00:20:45.920 A lot of the Bitcoin and crypto folks were Bernie bros, just like Rogan, you know, the kind
00:20:52.240 of cool socialists that seem hip.
00:20:55.340 And yet these authoritarians hate Bitcoin and they hate crypto.
00:21:00.740 And it's for the same reason.
00:21:02.500 Why do they hate Joe Rogan?
00:21:03.940 Because they can't control him.
00:21:05.800 He's not subject to their authoritarian power.
00:21:09.900 Why do they hate Bitcoin?
00:21:11.300 Because they can't control it.
00:21:13.600 It is a system of currency outside of the monopoly control of the U.S. government.
00:21:17.960 And I got to say, as I've addressed, you know, I spoke at a big crypto conference in Austin
00:21:24.040 several months ago and I said, listen, you need to understand this administration, I believe,
00:21:29.140 is going to go after you and is going to try to destroy you.
00:21:33.060 And by the way, that's a pattern of authoritarians.
00:21:37.480 China, communist China, outlawed Bitcoin for the exact same reason.
00:21:43.180 Why does Elizabeth Warren hate Bitcoin?
00:21:45.320 For the same reason that she and China hates Bitcoin, because neither one of them can control
00:21:50.320 it.
00:21:51.160 And the theme through all of this is the power of freedom to be not subject to the arbitrary
00:22:00.260 whims of those in government power.
00:22:02.900 Now, you have convinced me on this.
00:22:04.700 I don't know anything about crypto.
00:22:06.820 I'm a terrible investor.
00:22:08.200 My investment strategy generally is buy high, sell low.
00:22:11.020 That's whenever I'm involved.
00:22:12.260 But what a lot of listeners probably don't know is that you are much hipper than I am.
00:22:18.280 You have been on this crypto thing for a while.
00:22:21.080 It's true.
00:22:21.680 And you did make headlines because, well, while crypto was collapsing and I was panicked and
00:22:27.180 selling all my crypto, you were apparently buying the dip.
00:22:31.640 That is true.
00:22:32.700 So I bought Bitcoin.
00:22:34.280 I own Bitcoin.
00:22:35.180 I think according to the public reports, there are three senators that own Bitcoin, me, Cynthia
00:22:40.180 Lummis and Pat Toomey, you know, I'll say, I don't know, six, eight months ago, I didn't
00:22:46.020 know a whole lot about Bitcoin and crypto.
00:22:48.500 And I saw that it was growing and developing.
00:22:51.940 And I said, look, I need to educate myself.
00:22:53.940 And so I started setting up dinners with people involved in the crypto world and just
00:23:00.520 sitting down and listening to them.
00:23:01.860 And I started off with, you know, all sorts of dumb questions.
00:23:05.080 You know, what is it?
00:23:05.660 How does it work in learning?
00:23:06.820 And it's complicated stuff.
00:23:08.060 And I certainly I would not hold myself out as an expert today.
00:23:11.960 But I started learning and listening to it and being fascinated by it, by the development
00:23:16.480 of it, by the ability that there's a book actually that Cynthia Lummis recommended to
00:23:20.980 me called Layered Money, which I read that talks about some of the history of the development
00:23:26.140 of money from the beginning.
00:23:27.140 But but crypto is the next evolution of it.
00:23:30.080 And I've gotten very bullish on on crypto, especially Bitcoin.
00:23:35.000 And and really horrified at the efforts of Elizabeth Warren and big government Democrats
00:23:45.140 to crush this growing industry.
00:23:47.600 You know, Texas is becoming an oasis for Bitcoin.
00:23:51.560 We're seeing more and more crypto moving to Texas, particularly Austin.
00:23:56.140 And so I started several months ago.
00:23:58.040 I actually have a weekly buy order in for Bitcoin that every week I just have an automatic
00:24:02.560 buy.
00:24:03.080 You know, look, given that there's volatility, I'm a fan of dollar cost averaging, which
00:24:07.800 is just having a buy that occurs weekly automatically so that high or low it averages out.
00:24:14.740 And then what I ended up doing, I guess, a couple of weeks ago is when Bitcoin dropped about
00:24:22.600 in half, I said, all right, I, I don't believe this drop.
00:24:26.300 And so and so I made a bigger purchase.
00:24:28.280 I bought twenty five thousand worth of worth of Bitcoin under the Senate.
00:24:32.580 You have to file a financial disclosure for a purchase over a thousand dollars.
00:24:36.460 So I filed that financial disclosure.
00:24:38.860 And, you know, usually those financial disclosures don't you know, maybe they get a little
00:24:44.020 bit, but they don't they don't get a whole lot of attention.
00:24:46.600 Actually, it was fascinating, Michael, when I filed the financial disclosure, it generated
00:24:50.700 a ton of press.
00:24:52.340 And and listen, I am bullish on Bitcoin.
00:24:54.820 So I'm proud to say I got skin in the game.
00:24:57.180 I believe in it.
00:24:57.940 And that's that's what that's why I invested in it.
00:25:00.020 But but I think we ought to be encouraging.
00:25:02.420 I want cryptocurrency.
00:25:04.600 I want America to be the hub of cryptocurrency globally.
00:25:08.680 And frankly, I want Texas to be the hub of cryptocurrency in America.
00:25:13.180 So I I have been convinced by you and by other.
00:25:17.080 I mean, Ronald Reagan's favorite economist, George Gilder, was really bullish on blockchain
00:25:21.640 technology years ago even and said this is kind of the future of the Internet.
00:25:25.820 Yeah.
00:25:25.940 And so what I'm convinced on here now is that this would be a way to avoid government control.
00:25:32.480 This would be a way to avoid even the control of private businesses that are often working
00:25:36.300 at the behest of the government anyway.
00:25:38.360 But then my final question to you is this.
00:25:40.880 If the government was able to clamp down on all these private businesses and build your
00:25:46.920 own Google and all of that and that hasn't worked, we saw it with the truckers.
00:25:49.960 We're seeing it with Rogan, too.
00:25:52.200 What is to stop them from clamping down on Bitcoin?
00:25:55.600 You've already heard rumblings out of the government.
00:25:57.320 What is the likelihood that Biden does that?
00:25:59.920 So, look, they may well and I am quite concerned about it.
00:26:03.880 This administration could kill crypto.
00:26:05.780 When I talk to the conference in Austin, you know, there are a lot of folks in the crypto
00:26:10.000 world who are a little bit utopian, that they have a view that we are inevitable, that Bitcoin
00:26:18.100 is inherently superior to all other forms of money.
00:26:20.800 I will say one of the things I like about it is it's a potential hedge against inflation.
00:26:25.080 And given this administration spending trillions and driving up trillions in debt, I'm interested
00:26:30.140 in the hedge and inflation as they're devaluing the dollar.
00:26:32.480 And so I like Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation.
00:26:35.860 But the point I made at this conference is y'all need to understand, government can destroy
00:26:41.580 you.
00:26:41.880 I asked, how many of y'all have heard of Napster?
00:26:45.600 You know, and they all did.
00:26:48.060 And I said, listen, it's easy to think we're happily in our sort of Austin peaceful place.
00:26:54.460 And I think Bitcoin is actually where Silicon Valley was maybe 15 or 20 years ago, which
00:27:02.800 is at a fork in the road where Silicon Valley could have chosen to go towards a libertarian
00:27:08.340 utopia.
00:27:09.540 Leave us alone.
00:27:10.420 Let's be entrepreneurs.
00:27:11.620 Let's have freedom.
00:27:13.240 Or they could have done what they did, which is to go down the socialist woke path of we
00:27:17.840 exercise power.
00:27:18.940 We are totalitarian and we're hard leftist woke.
00:27:22.580 And unfortunately, Silicon Valley took the wrong choice.
00:27:25.980 I think Bitcoin and crypto more generally is at that same fork in the road.
00:27:29.900 I hope that they go the libertarian way.
00:27:33.100 I hope they go the small business.
00:27:35.740 Leave us alone.
00:27:37.320 Let us be entrepreneurs.
00:27:39.620 You know, that is really potent.
00:27:41.600 So I'm trying to encourage it.
00:27:43.120 But absolutely, there is a very real and potent threat from the Biden administration that they
00:27:49.300 will go after it, that they will try to destroy it.
00:27:52.020 And I'm going to fight against that because I think it is a huge, huge industry going forward.
00:27:58.360 And I don't want to see the idiot politicians in Washington drive it out of America and send
00:28:03.800 it overseas.
00:28:04.460 It won't disappear.
00:28:06.120 But Washington is perfectly capable of sending the jobs overseas and sending sending that business
00:28:12.160 overseas.
00:28:12.680 I think that would be catastrophic.
00:28:14.440 Right.
00:28:14.620 And especially at a moment where we're dissent against the ruling class, the liberal establishment,
00:28:20.400 the regime, whatever you want to call it, where that is so difficult and where people
00:28:24.260 are genuinely persecuted for it.
00:28:26.900 Yes, we have to wield what political power we can.
00:28:29.000 Yes, we need to wield what market power we can.
00:28:30.460 But if there were an instrument, a technology really to be able to exercise our rights and
00:28:35.660 our way of life, that's something very hopeful.
00:28:37.840 And so I hope that we can maintain it.
00:28:40.200 Uh, we unfortunately so far are not accepting Bitcoin in the verdict store, but I think we
00:28:46.420 really should.
00:28:47.200 I think that would be a great way to do it.
00:28:48.600 So Michael, I've actually introduced legislation in Congress to have the congressional store
00:28:54.220 accept Bitcoin.
00:28:55.200 Really?
00:28:55.400 So that's one of the pieces of legislation I've introduced as, as a way of, of, of spreading
00:29:00.840 its, its, its acceptance.
00:29:02.380 By the way, in El Salvador, I spoke with the president of El Salvador last week.
00:29:06.280 El Salvador, it's, it's legal currency, it's legal tender in, in, in El Salvador.
00:29:10.780 And it is, Bitcoin has all sorts of potential, particularly in a developing economy, for people to have
00:29:16.760 secure savings.
00:29:17.600 You may not have access to a bank account, but if you have a cell phone, if you have
00:29:20.780 any technology, you can have secure savings that can't be stolen from you.
00:29:24.840 It can also is secure instantaneous transactions.
00:29:28.560 You can transfer it, buy and sell, you know, there are massive inefficiencies right now in
00:29:33.620 the transfers of cash that crypto and Bitcoin go all around.
00:29:36.840 And so it is a generation skipping technology, uh, which is potent.
00:29:42.180 And that, that's one of the reasons.
00:29:44.060 So I've introduced legislation to repeal what the Democrats did, putting additional burdens
00:29:49.440 on crypto.
00:29:49.980 And I've also, as I said, I, I think the congressional store ought to accept it because it, it helps,
00:29:55.980 uh, it helps expand the ability of this industry to grow.
00:30:01.780 And I think there's enormous benefit to Texas and the country as this, uh, industry grows.
00:30:08.140 Well, it's great to know that Bitcoin is good for developing economies because if, uh, Joe
00:30:12.980 Biden's policies continue to destroy our dollar and our, and our jobs, we may soon be a developing
00:30:18.120 economy, uh, ourselves.
00:30:19.720 Now we have more you just, when you think it's over, there is still more, uh, some of
00:30:24.700 you who have gone over and gone to verdict with Ted Cruz.com slash shop and headed over
00:30:29.240 and subscribe to the verdict plus community.
00:30:31.020 Some of you know about this, but some of you might not, uh, know this quite yet, but our
00:30:35.820 friend Liz Wheeler is hosting a new series with Senator Cruz, the hardest working man in
00:30:41.140 show business and in politics.
00:30:43.080 And that is called cloak room.
00:30:44.940 Uh, Liz, what are you talking about?
00:30:47.000 Hi, Michael.
00:30:47.480 Hi, Senator.
00:30:48.240 Yes.
00:30:48.520 And Michael, you and I joke one series is simply not enough for Senator Cruz.
00:30:52.420 So there must be two.
00:30:53.940 I, I, I'm so excited.
00:30:55.300 This will be our second, our second episode in the series.
00:30:57.420 I'm excited to introduce it.
00:30:58.480 It's called the cloak room.
00:30:59.520 It's on verdict plus it is only for verdict plus subscribers.
00:31:03.280 You can of course, join us at verdict with Ted Cruz.com slash plus it's a, it's a brand
00:31:08.200 new series with Senator Ted Cruz.
00:31:09.760 It's co-hosted by me, Liz Wheeler.
00:31:11.580 Basically how it's going to work is I'm going to pick his brain.
00:31:14.140 Like I would in a strategy session, it's a behind the scenes peek into the details of
00:31:18.540 what goes on in DC, just like the real cloak room of the Senate today.
00:31:22.280 We're going to talk about Stacey Abrams and that infamous maskless photo of her with kids
00:31:27.220 who were wearing masks next to her.
00:31:29.000 Plus the proper role, this is the nerdy part, the proper role of public health and the administrative
00:31:33.360 state and the separation of powers doctrine.
00:31:36.220 Now, like I said, you can join us at verdict with Ted Cruz.com slash plus.
00:31:39.440 I also have a promo code cloak room for you.
00:31:42.500 If you use this promo code cloak room, you'll get one month free, a one month free trial on
00:31:46.680 your annual subscription.
00:31:48.240 It's, it's going to be a good time.
00:31:49.800 Then as I have mentioned before, soon after that, we're going to have a series where it
00:31:54.700 is just me and Liz and no Senator, then a series of Liz and the cactus.
00:31:59.260 And we're, we're just building out a whole universe here because as, as the left tries
00:32:04.180 to clamp down on us, it's more important than ever to speak out.
00:32:06.820 And Liz, in our beneficence, in our charity, which is a theological virtue, we are not going
00:32:13.120 to keep this episode behind the paywall.
00:32:15.100 In the future, the episodes are going to be behind the paywall, but right now we have a
00:32:17.800 sneak peek.
00:32:18.420 So I'm going to get out of here.
00:32:19.880 Liz, you take it away with the cloak room.
00:32:21.740 Thank you, Michael.
00:32:22.400 I'm Liz Wheeler.
00:32:23.200 This is cloak room on verdict plus Senator.
00:32:26.000 We have a great episode planned today.
00:32:29.100 So let's start with this photograph.
00:32:30.400 This is the photograph heard around the country.
00:32:32.360 If you will, it is of course, Stacey Abrams, gubernatorial candidate for the state of Georgia.
00:32:36.760 She is not wearing a mask in this photograph, but she is surrounded by school children,
00:32:40.740 very small children with wearing masks on their face.
00:32:43.740 And not only is this a terrible look, she actually is defending this in the wake of all
00:32:48.340 the outrage.
00:32:48.900 So my question to you, like I said, is purely political.
00:32:50.740 Is this photograph going to be the reason that she loses her election?
00:32:54.300 Is this going to disqualify her in the eyes of her voters?
00:32:57.040 Look, I think this photograph has the potential to be something like Terry McAuliffe's comment
00:33:01.680 at the end of the Virginia governor's race, where he said in the debate, he said, parents
00:33:06.220 have no right to say what's taught to their kids in school.
00:33:09.560 And I think if there was one sentence that defeated McAuliffe and elected Glenn Youngkin,
00:33:14.660 it was that sentence.
00:33:15.540 It was the arrogance that was revealed.
00:33:18.300 It was, you know, there's an old line that a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth,
00:33:22.580 tells you what they really think.
00:33:24.460 This picture shows you what Stacey Abrams really thinks.
00:33:27.440 And it is, I think this picture will play a central role in the election.
00:33:33.540 You know, several things are striking.
00:33:35.200 Number one, they put the picture out.
00:33:39.540 They were proud of this picture.
00:33:40.900 They saw nothing wrong with it.
00:33:42.300 And then suddenly the reaction was so intense, they deleted it.
00:33:46.700 And they got the school to delete it, too.
00:33:48.520 They, like, tried to ban it, tried to erase it, just delete the, in fact, the school person
00:33:53.520 deleted her entire account.
00:33:54.980 But then, when everyone naturally criticized the self-evident hypocrisy, the Abrams campaign
00:34:05.900 put out this statement just snarling with attacks that, of course, people are attacking
00:34:12.100 me because they're racists.
00:34:13.800 And it's all about, you know, undermining Black History Month because they're all just horrible
00:34:19.300 racists who hate me.
00:34:20.520 And completely ignoring the substance, also, her campaign put out a statement that, well,
00:34:26.220 Stacey requested that everyone wear a mask, and she just took hers off briefly.
00:34:31.760 Well, OK, so that doesn't make it better.
00:34:34.540 Maybe she held her breath like Garcetti did.
00:34:38.100 Indeed.
00:34:38.920 And by the way, I think it's much better.
00:34:41.600 The world would be better if Democratic politicians held their breath because it would mean they
00:34:45.040 couldn't talk.
00:34:45.740 So that would be an improvement.
00:34:46.960 Um, look, this picture, I was reading something today that was comparing this, saying, this
00:34:53.900 is the most consequential image of a politician in a room full of kids since George W. Bush
00:35:00.520 was reading a children's story to a room full of kids when they came in and told him the
00:35:05.520 news about 9-11, about the plane flying into the Twin Towers.
00:35:08.940 And, you know, we all remember that image and know that image.
00:35:14.180 And I think this one, likewise, people will remember years from now.
00:35:18.320 This is an image that will define the double standards, the arrogance, the hypocrisy.
00:35:25.780 Um, and it speaks volumes.
00:35:29.960 I also thought it was notable, like the Washington Post wrote a story, um, uh, about, uh, you
00:35:37.720 know, Republican outrage over Abrams in the picture.
00:35:42.920 And, and what's interesting is they didn't show the picture.
00:35:46.020 They had a picture of Stacey Abrams, like out on the campaign trail, smiling.
00:35:49.380 The Washington Post very deliberately wouldn't show the picture because you actually don't
00:35:53.180 need any commentary.
00:35:54.040 You just need to see the image and it tells you everything you need to know, including
00:36:00.160 the fact that of everyone in the picture, the person at greatest risk from a serious illness
00:36:06.580 of COVID was clearly Stacey Abrams.
00:36:08.440 Yeah.
00:36:08.640 She's the one not wearing a mask.
00:36:10.580 The little children, the odds are overwhelming if one of those kids got COVID that, that there
00:36:17.240 would be few, if any symptoms, and it would not be life threatening.
00:36:20.460 Uh, but what it reveals is, is that neither she nor the other democratic politicians that
00:36:29.900 are insisting the kids be masked, they don't believe in this stuff.
00:36:34.040 No, they don't.
00:36:34.540 It's worse than hypocrisy, isn't it?
00:36:36.300 It's, it's, it's elitism.
00:36:37.620 They actually aren't just violating rules that they think apply to themselves.
00:36:40.940 They actually don't believe that their own rules apply to themselves.
00:36:43.620 And this has been, this is the reason the Washington Post isn't picturing or showing this
00:36:48.320 photograph is because they know it's not a Republican or a Democrat issue anymore among
00:36:51.640 voters, especially parents, that parents across the aisle are outraged at how the public
00:36:55.880 health establishment has treated their children and continue to treat their children in school.
00:37:00.180 And that's where I want to dive into this, uh, a little more nerdy, a little more philosophical
00:37:04.620 aspect of this.
00:37:05.440 We've seen, uh, up close and personal the last two years, how the public health establishment,
00:37:10.460 um, holds so much power over the American public.
00:37:14.340 Like how much they influence politicians who issued dictates and mandates and lockdowns
00:37:20.120 and masks and vaccines and all of these, all of these fairly invasive measures in the
00:37:26.600 name of health, in the name of public health.
00:37:28.360 And so I want to talk to you tonight.
00:37:29.860 I want to ask you from a philosophical perspective, what is the role or what should be the role of
00:37:37.360 the public health establishment in our country?
00:37:39.820 Well, it depends what qualifies for public health establishment in, in many ways that
00:37:45.980 is functionally Dr. Anthony Fauci.
00:37:48.460 And, and, and he has become the face of it so much so that, that on TV he has said, I represent
00:37:54.620 science.
00:37:56.300 You know, it reminds me of scripture in the beginning was the word.
00:37:59.200 I mean, it, it, it, it, it is this, this hubris to embody science with which Fauci, look, two
00:38:08.460 years ago, Fauci had a pretty good reputation.
00:38:10.840 He was well-respected.
00:38:12.680 Um, the arbitrariness, the arrogance, the attitude of infallibility and the obvious contradictions
00:38:22.120 that have come from Fauci, um, I think you've done massive and long-term damage to the credibility
00:38:30.240 of the CDC, of the NIH, of, of the public health establishment.
00:38:35.840 Listen, you want to minimize the spread of disease, lock every person on planet earth
00:38:40.100 in a, in a dungeon and never let them out.
00:38:42.200 You, you will reduce the spread of disease.
00:38:44.260 There just are other negative consequences.
00:38:47.720 Right.
00:38:48.200 Well, that, that kind of gets, that kind of gets to my question.
00:38:50.940 That's, that's why I think that we as a nation, especially the Republican party and the conservative
00:38:54.440 movement need to analyze.
00:38:56.540 We need to be thoughtful about what the proper role of public health is when public health
00:39:00.440 is defined as you, I mean, as the premise that you laid out as, as Fauci, as these government
00:39:06.780 bureaucrats who weren't elected, they were appointed, who have the highest salary of all
00:39:10.920 federal employees, including the president of the United States.
00:39:13.440 And it, to me, it speaks to the administrative state because we could get, we could get rid
00:39:18.040 of Fauci, meaning president Biden could fire him.
00:39:20.200 He could resign.
00:39:21.040 I mean, he's old.
00:39:21.620 He's not going to be in this position forever.
00:39:22.860 You can replace one bureaucrat with another bureaucrat, but as long as you have this system, as we
00:39:27.980 do of these executive agencies that Congress defers rulemaking to, I don't see this problem,
00:39:34.840 particularly now that they have cemented how they want to handle pandemics or public health.
00:39:39.320 They know that they can wage this power the way that they have.
00:39:42.080 I don't see this going away unless we address the administrative state specifically.
00:39:46.640 Yeah, look, I think it's a very good point.
00:39:48.980 I think the Trump administration made serious mistakes as COVID broke out.
00:39:53.220 And one of the mistakes was elevating Fauci and deferring to him for far too long.
00:39:59.140 The Trump administration should have fired Fauci.
00:40:01.240 The way Fauci and the declared overlords of public health treated us is that they were infallible.
00:40:08.560 And they did it while being cynically political at the same time.
00:40:14.160 That combination is a really toxic brew.
00:40:18.500 It is.
00:40:18.960 And especially because if there's a doctor in the private sector who has a terrible opinion
00:40:22.880 or gives you terrible medical advice, you just, you go somewhere else.
00:40:25.700 You go to a different practice.
00:40:26.780 You go to a different provider.
00:40:27.920 Sure.
00:40:28.180 And that doctor, I mean, it's a meritocracy or it's supposed to be.
00:40:30.760 And that's not the case when it's a government bureaucrat.
00:40:32.840 Again, that's why I think that when we're looking at the power of these bureaucrats and
00:40:39.360 federal agencies, we have to understand the history a little bit, that this idea of the
00:40:43.440 administrative state was introduced, you know, at least theoretically by Woodrow Wilson.
00:40:48.180 He thought that there should be this class of neutral bureaucrats that ran our federal
00:40:52.420 government.
00:40:52.840 I personally don't believe that there can be someone who is politically neutral.
00:40:55.740 I think everyone has an opinion.
00:40:57.360 Then LBJ and FDR expanded this administrative state.
00:41:00.400 So now we have this bloated, this bloated apparatus, which a lot of people called the
00:41:05.000 deep state because of all these, these politicos that work there that aren't accountable to
00:41:09.380 the voter, in my opinion, and I want your take as a constitutional lawyer on this, in my
00:41:14.320 opinion, the advent of this or what really caused this to grow out of control was when
00:41:20.220 the Supreme court stopped applying the separation of powers doctrine.
00:41:23.480 That of course was when Congress would delegate their legislative authority to the executive
00:41:31.120 agency.
00:41:31.880 The judicial branch used to not allow that, but then they stopped and they did allow Congress
00:41:36.500 and now look what we have.
00:41:37.860 So I'd love to hear your take on that and how we reverse that.
00:41:41.340 So you're exactly right.
00:41:42.960 It got exacerbated by a decision from the Supreme court that was called the Chevron decision,
00:41:47.180 where they created something that's called Chevron deference, which the courts now will
00:41:52.880 defer to the judgment of an agency.
00:41:56.040 Even if the statute, even if the law doesn't require that outcome, if the expert agency has
00:42:01.680 an outcome, they will defer to it if there's any ambiguity in the statute.
00:42:05.920 I think there are a lot of folks, and I would count myself among them, who think Chevron was
00:42:09.680 a mistake, that it contributed to the growth of the regulatory state.
00:42:12.980 And you've got a couple of things at play here.
00:42:15.180 Number one, elected politicians like to shift power to the executive branch because they
00:42:22.720 can avoid responsibility.
00:42:24.100 They can pass a vague and general law, and then when the agency does something bad, they
00:42:28.980 can say to their voters, hey, it's not me that did it.
00:42:31.100 It's the EPA that did it.
00:42:33.200 It's the agency.
00:42:34.600 It's OSHA that did it.
00:42:36.260 But secondly, there's a problem that we've seen that's called regulatory capture.
00:42:40.780 And this is a notion from economics, where you have regulators that are regulating a
00:42:45.640 particular industry who become captured by it.
00:42:48.200 They have a revolving door where people come from the agency to the private sector that
00:42:53.880 they're regulating and back again.
00:42:55.620 And they end up following the interests of the giant companies in that industry.
00:43:01.860 So you see it in the aviation world with the FAA and a company like Boeing.
00:43:06.580 And you look at the 737 MAX, where there was an instance, the FAA was not remotely effective
00:43:13.020 enough in ensuring the safety of the 737 MAX.
00:43:16.080 With respect to COVID, you look at the FDA and just how in bed the FDA is with big pharma.
00:43:22.720 I've seen some data with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine that have suggested good results, particularly
00:43:28.260 in the developing world.
00:43:29.320 But both of those drugs are incredibly cheap.
00:43:33.180 Both of those drugs are you can get for pennies, whereas big pharma, if you look at at the
00:43:39.920 treatments they're pushing, they're thousands of dollars.
00:43:42.640 And I do think there is a real question of agency capture.
00:43:46.800 Why is it?
00:43:48.540 That the agency favors treatments that cost thousands of dollars versus treatments that
00:43:53.080 cost pennies, and particularly in the weird politicized world where the fact that Trump
00:44:02.760 said hydroxychloroquine good caused half the country to say it must be bad if Trump likes
00:44:08.540 it, which is a really weird way to make medical or scientific decisions.
00:44:12.680 Yes, that's well, that's science.
00:44:14.140 If you're defining science as Dr. Fauci here.
00:44:16.340 So get a little bit nerdier, if you can, on the Chevron deference here.
00:44:23.420 I don't understand, Senator, why so many in the judiciary, and this is not just the Supreme
00:44:28.360 Court, this is all levels, why there's such deference to precedent for the sake of precedent
00:44:33.620 when precedent is so clearly unconstitutional.
00:44:36.900 Now, you know, you and I have talked about Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health.
00:44:39.960 We talked about Roe v. Wade.
00:44:41.480 We talked about decisions that are obviously unconstitutional, that the left, there are judicial
00:44:45.740 activists who actually don't want to overturn a demonstrably wrong and unconstitutional decision
00:44:51.280 just because it's been, quote unquote, settled for decades.
00:44:54.780 So I don't understand that jurisprudence, if you want to call it a jurisprudence, but how
00:45:00.120 do we undo the Chevron deference because it is incorrect?
00:45:04.180 And you're right, Congress is never going to do anything about it because it makes their
00:45:07.940 jobs easier not to be responsible for what they legislate.
00:45:11.180 So there's a doctrine courts follow that's called stare decisis, that is respect for precedent.
00:45:17.020 It's following precedent.
00:45:18.380 And look, stare decisis makes sense in that you want predictability in a legal system.
00:45:25.820 You know, if you look at how laws are structured, there's a tension between rules and standards.
00:45:32.960 Rules are clear, bright lines where you know which side you fall on them.
00:45:37.220 Now, they have the advantage of predictability.
00:45:39.300 They have the advantage that ex ante beforehand, you can know where you will be afterwards.
00:45:47.420 The downside of clear, bright line rules is sometimes that are unfair.
00:45:51.080 Sometimes a line will result in a particular case where you say, well, gosh, that rule resulted in
00:45:56.260 unfairness for this particular person because of some weird circumstances.
00:45:59.840 On the other hand, standards where things are flexible, they can respond to, oh, if it's
00:46:05.500 unfair to do this here, let's not do it here.
00:46:07.360 If it's fair to do it there, let's do it there.
00:46:08.880 So you can respond to the exigencies of the circumstance.
00:46:13.520 But the problem with standards is they're unpredictable.
00:46:15.600 It's hard to predict on the front end what the answer will be.
00:46:20.560 Stare decisis is a structural rule that you want players in our society, whether individuals,
00:46:28.180 whether people looking at the civil law, whether people looking at the criminal law, whether
00:46:31.760 companies to be able to predict the outcome.
00:46:35.060 And so if you know, all right, there is this precedent, so the courts will follow this precedent,
00:46:40.020 then you could order your behavior accordingly and say, OK, here's what the law is.
00:46:44.200 You can go to your lawyers, ask what the law is, and you can know what it is.
00:46:47.540 That that has an advantage.
00:46:48.800 You want stability.
00:46:49.780 You don't want the law changing willy nilly.
00:46:53.100 Um, but stare decisis is not absolute.
00:46:58.460 Um, there are times when precedents are wrong and precedents are overturned and the courts
00:47:04.300 have laid out rules for when precedents should be, should be overturned.
00:47:09.000 And the rules look to things like, uh, have, have there been, uh, has the law been settled?
00:47:16.140 Have people had reliance interest on it?
00:47:18.260 Has, has the, has the law proven administrable as, as it proven sometimes there's a bad decision
00:47:23.640 that just produces chaos and the courts say, OK, this didn't work.
00:47:27.680 The courts also are more willing to follow stare decisis for a statutory question than they
00:47:36.720 are for a constitutional question.
00:47:38.260 Now, why is that?
00:47:39.520 Because a statutory question, which is the interpretation of a federal law passed by Congress, signed
00:47:43.720 a law by the president, if the courts get it wrong, Congress can change the statute.
00:47:48.620 And it does that sometimes.
00:47:49.540 So, so if there's a statutory question, the courts get it wrong.
00:47:53.560 Congress has the ability to fix it.
00:47:55.340 So there's a higher protection for stare decisis in that instance, because you want the predictability,
00:48:01.060 even if the court got it wrong with respect to the constitution.
00:48:04.700 Um, there's more of a view that, that a constitutional decision, if it is wrong, uh, can be revisited.
00:48:14.140 So for example, the, the most famous, uh, overturning of, of, of precedent was Plessy versus Ferguson,
00:48:21.420 which upheld, uh, separate but equal and upheld the discrimination in schools and Brown versus
00:48:28.240 board of education overturned Plessy.
00:48:30.280 That was the right thing to do, um, that, that, uh, Brown was the right decision.
00:48:35.780 Plessy was wrong.
00:48:37.360 Um, during the argument in Dobbs, you had the Supreme Court justices asking the, the council,
00:48:43.240 well, okay, look, here are all the decisions we've overruled.
00:48:45.480 And they listed some big ones.
00:48:47.300 Um, why doesn't Roe meet that standard?
00:48:50.400 But how willing a justice is to overrule precedent that varies justice by justice.
00:48:56.580 I will say, by the way, as a final point on this, the liberals, it's not that they're
00:49:02.180 devoted to stare decisis.
00:49:03.420 They don't believe in stare decisis at all.
00:49:05.980 They're devoted to left-wing outcomes.
00:49:08.000 Yeah.
00:49:08.280 So they want stare decisis to be followed for left-wing decisions.
00:49:11.600 So Roe versus Wade for them.
00:49:13.680 Stare decisis is critically important because they support Roe.
00:49:16.940 They don't want stare decisis when it comes to Heller, which is the court's decision
00:49:20.860 upholding the second amendment right to keep and bear arms.
00:49:23.640 The liberals would immediately overrule Heller.
00:49:25.740 They don't want stare decisis when it comes to Citizens United, which protects our political
00:49:30.600 speech and the right to engage and, and, and, and criticize politicians.
00:49:34.660 They disagree with Citizens United, they would overturn it.
00:49:37.340 So particularly for the left, when it comes to stare decisis, that is usually an excuse for
00:49:46.800 whatever policy outcome they want, because the left views the courts as, as really very little
00:49:52.620 different from a super legislature enacting the policy they agree with.
00:49:57.780 Right.
00:49:58.380 And so we have to get to, we, we don't have to, we want to get to a really funny question
00:50:03.060 from the Verdict Plus subscriber pool here in just a second.
00:50:07.080 But let me ask you a very quick yes or no question.
00:50:09.500 Is there a possibility that Chevron deference, that Chevron could be overturned at the Supreme
00:50:13.900 Court level?
00:50:14.980 So, yes, I think there's a good possibility.
00:50:16.880 The, uh, especially Neil Gorsuch has been quite critical of Chevron deference and it's, it's
00:50:21.300 a doctrine that has come under more and more criticism.
00:50:23.440 I think, I think there's a real possibility Chevron's overturned.
00:50:26.240 Because the left, as they have the past decade has overshot, they've overshot on their abuse
00:50:31.680 and the American people want to reject it.
00:50:33.620 Okay.
00:50:33.880 This is a really funny question.
00:50:35.300 I saw this one.
00:50:35.940 It's not a, it's not a policy question at all.
00:50:37.880 This is from Paul on the Verdict Plus community.
00:50:40.980 Paul says, is Ted short for Theodore?
00:50:43.060 Or is Liz short for Elizabeth and is Michael short for Michelangelo?
00:50:48.260 Ooh, I like that.
00:50:50.320 Um, so I'll address my piece of it at least.
00:50:52.920 So Ted is actually not short for Theodore.
00:50:56.020 Uh, my, my full name is Raphael Edward Cruz.
00:50:59.020 Raphael is after my father, Raphael Bienvenido Cruz, who's Cuban.
00:51:02.920 Uh, my middle name, Edward, is after my grandfather, my mother's father, who was Edward Dara.
00:51:08.720 Um, so sometimes people refer to me as Eduardo.
00:51:11.420 No, he was Irish and Italian.
00:51:13.440 He was not, or actually he was Irish.
00:51:15.660 Um, my grandmother was Irish and Italian.
00:51:17.560 Um, it was Edward and Ted is a nickname for Edward.
00:51:20.520 And so that's, that's where Ted comes from.
00:51:22.100 And Liz is short for Elizabeth.
00:51:23.580 I will answer on behalf of Michael and say that it's not short for Michelangelo.
00:51:26.960 It's short for St. Michael.
00:51:29.140 Kidding.
00:51:29.820 Obviously kidding.
00:51:31.060 This actually will be a test to see if Michael does watch this series, because if he does,
00:51:34.780 you know, he'll comment on it.
00:51:35.960 If you are not already a subscriber over on Verdict Plus, please join us at verdictwithtedcruise.com
00:51:41.900 slash plus.
00:51:42.400 I have a promo code for you.
00:51:43.700 The promo code is, of course, Cloakroom.
00:51:45.860 If you use this promo code, you will get one month free on your annual subscription.
00:51:49.460 So go to verdictwithtedcruise.com slash plus and use promo code Cloakroom.
00:51:55.260 I'm Liz Wheeler.
00:51:55.980 This is the Cloakroom on Verdict Plus.
00:52:05.920 This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom, and Security
00:52:11.640 Pack, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations,
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00:52:19.160 In 2022, Jobs, Freedom, and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running
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