Verdict with Ted Cruz - February 24, 2025


What Did You Accomplish Last Week？ With those Simple Words, Elon Musk Drove Dems & the Media Nuts!


Episode Stats

Length

29 minutes

Words per Minute

169.57951

Word Count

5,052

Sentence Count

401


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.580 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.220 Welcome.
00:00:05.940 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:09.980 And Senator, I got to say, this is an email I feel like should be sent out every single
00:00:14.860 week.
00:00:15.380 What did you do at work last week?
00:00:17.140 That is an actual email sent out from Doge to government employees.
00:00:21.600 You even responded to it.
00:00:23.980 Well, it's amazing.
00:00:25.740 Every day, it seems, we see the same story playing out.
00:00:30.220 We see Elon Musk holding the federal government to account.
00:00:33.720 We see Donald Trump standing up to the swamp in Washington.
00:00:37.580 And we see the media and the Democrats losing their mind.
00:00:42.740 Elon Musk, with the most basic question any boss asks, what did you accomplish this week?
00:00:47.720 And somehow that is deemed shocking and unbelievable.
00:00:51.700 And it really is a sign of what needs to happen.
00:00:56.120 We're going to break that down and break down the response to it as well.
00:00:59.460 We're also going to talk about a back and forth between President Trump and the governor of
00:01:03.840 Maine, where the governor of Maine, a Democrat, is continuing what a lot of the Democrats are
00:01:09.040 doing, which is massive resistance.
00:01:11.060 And in this case, boys and girls sports.
00:01:13.640 It turns out the Democrats, they want them some boys and girls sports.
00:01:16.920 And they're willing to stand and fight and do anything.
00:01:19.940 And Trump made clear Maine is at risk of losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal
00:01:25.840 funds if they continue to defy the executive orders on boys and girls sports.
00:01:31.540 And the Democrat governor is eager for that fight because that is apparently what today's
00:01:36.760 Democrat Party is all about.
00:01:38.520 Yeah, that's a really important one.
00:01:39.920 And we're going to talk about that in a moment.
00:01:41.360 I want to tell you real quick about our friends over at the IFCJ.
00:01:44.020 After more than a year of war, terror and pain in Israel, there is still a great demand for
00:01:49.820 basic humanitarian aid.
00:01:51.980 The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has supported and continues to support
00:01:56.500 those in the Holy Land still facing the lingering horrors of war and those who are in desperate
00:02:01.360 need right now.
00:02:02.560 Your ongoing monthly gift of $45 will provide critically needed aid to communities in the
00:02:08.800 North and the South that have been devastated by this ongoing war.
00:02:12.260 Your generous donation each month will help deliver to those in need, including evacuees
00:02:17.380 and refugees from the war torn areas, first responders and volunteers, wounded soldiers,
00:02:23.840 even elderly Holocaust survivors and families who have lost everything with so many more
00:02:29.240 that are in need.
00:02:30.380 And you can provide hope during this time of great uncertainty.
00:02:34.000 I want to say thank you because so many of you have been helping.
00:02:36.660 And that's why we keep telling you about the IFCJ, because you're having a real impact
00:02:41.420 on the people in Israel.
00:02:42.840 So give a gift to bless Israel and her people by visiting supportifcj.org.
00:02:50.140 That's one word, supportifcj.org.
00:02:54.320 You can also call to give 888-488-IFCJ.
00:03:00.320 That's 888-488-IFCJ.
00:03:04.740 888-488-4325 or supportifcj.org.
00:03:10.940 And thank you for checking out their incredible work they're doing.
00:03:14.080 All right.
00:03:14.500 Before we get into the big story, Senator, I got to say two things.
00:03:18.500 One, to this audience, you guys are incredible.
00:03:22.000 And thank you for hitting that subscribe and auto download button and making sure you save
00:03:27.760 the show.
00:03:28.240 They have changed the algorithms to actually hurt podcasts like this one.
00:03:33.040 So we want to remind you, make sure you hit that subscribe or auto download button and
00:03:36.960 save each episode so that we can continue to grow the audience and find other people
00:03:42.800 out there and help give them the important news we give you every single day.
00:03:45.980 But we also got to say thank you because this podcast, they put out a list of the best
00:03:52.460 100 election podcasts.
00:03:55.140 And I got to say, because of the audience, Senator, you and I, this podcast, Vertical Ted
00:04:01.120 Cruz, was ranked number one political podcast in America for the election.
00:04:06.760 And that's amazing.
00:04:08.680 Well, that's right.
00:04:09.280 This is a list that is done by millionpodcast.com, millionpodcast.com.
00:04:14.380 And they rank podcasts.
00:04:16.220 They rank them based on their content.
00:04:17.540 And they put out a ranking of the best 100 election podcasts.
00:04:22.200 And I got to say, it was pretty fantastic.
00:04:24.580 But Verdict was number one in the entire country, the single best election podcast in the country,
00:04:30.260 according to millionpodcast.com.
00:04:32.280 And so that I want to say thank you, as Ben did, to all of our listeners, because the content
00:04:38.120 we're putting out day after day is very hard to get there.
00:04:42.920 There is not another place you can get it.
00:04:44.940 And so thank you.
00:04:46.680 And that's a big win.
00:04:48.500 Yeah, huge win there.
00:04:50.440 And you want to talk about another big win.
00:04:52.940 You mentioned it a moment ago.
00:04:54.440 I got to say, there's certain emails that happen in headlines right now with this administration
00:05:00.160 that, Senator, I find great joy in.
00:05:03.400 I smile.
00:05:04.320 I think a lot of people listening to this show are going to smile at this story we're about
00:05:08.900 to tell you about, which is there was an email that went out to all government employees saying,
00:05:12.480 what'd you do last week?
00:05:14.080 Tell me the top five things you did in your job.
00:05:16.720 And the left and the unions and the woke people in the government are just like crying and losing
00:05:23.060 their minds.
00:05:24.440 Well, Elon Musk tweeted out this week, quote, consistent with President Trump's instructions,
00:05:30.480 all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they
00:05:35.740 got done last week.
00:05:37.740 Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.
00:05:42.260 Very simple.
00:05:43.560 Five bullet points.
00:05:45.300 Tell me what you got done the past week.
00:05:47.480 Now, the media and the Democrats, they are freaking out.
00:05:51.400 A classic example is Senator Tina Smith, senator from Minnesota, very liberal Democrat.
00:05:58.860 She tweeted out the following, quote, this is the ultimate dick boss move from Musk, except
00:06:06.420 he isn't even the boss.
00:06:08.000 He's just a dick.
00:06:08.940 So that's the Democrats response.
00:06:11.940 Asking someone, what did you get accomplished this week at work is is unacceptable because
00:06:18.520 they live in a world where apparently meritocracy doesn't doesn't exist, where government workers
00:06:24.040 aren't expected to do anything positive for for for the voters, for the taxpayers.
00:06:29.360 And Elon responded to Tina Smith, a very simple question.
00:06:33.560 What did you get done last week?
00:06:36.400 Now, I got to say, I read that and my reaction immediately was, OK, this is something, frankly,
00:06:45.820 bosses do all the time.
00:06:47.220 It's a very reasonable thing.
00:06:48.640 I've been in a lot of jobs where my bosses have asked for a weekly report at the end of
00:06:53.200 the week.
00:06:53.520 What did you get accomplished?
00:06:54.360 I've submitted hundreds or thousands of weekly reports over the year of what's been accomplished
00:07:00.040 during the past week.
00:07:01.000 That's something a lot of very productive workplaces do.
00:07:04.100 So I responded on Twitter.
00:07:05.840 Here's what I tweeted out in response to Elon.
00:07:09.660 A fair question, Elon Musk.
00:07:12.080 Here's mine.
00:07:13.640 One passed out of the Senate.
00:07:16.060 The take it down act to protect kids from deep fake porn.
00:07:20.520 Two confirm cash Patel at FBI.
00:07:24.360 And Lutnick at Commerce.
00:07:27.040 Three, pass the budget resolution to secure the border, rebuild our military and unleash
00:07:34.620 energy.
00:07:36.180 Four, chaired a hearing on freeing up 600 megahertz of spectrum for commercial development.
00:07:43.040 So the U.S. will beat China to 6G.
00:07:47.080 And five, met with 20 African ambassadors on strategies to combat China in Africa.
00:07:57.740 So that's what I did last week.
00:07:59.100 And I got to say, you know, it's an interesting thing.
00:08:03.380 Why don't doesn't all hundred senators report back on what they accomplished last week?
00:08:08.860 I think it's a perfectly fine thing for.
00:08:12.400 For federal employees to do it.
00:08:14.160 But at the end of the day, I've got 31 million bosses.
00:08:17.080 I work for for for every man, woman and child in the great state of Texas.
00:08:21.680 And and I try on a regular basis.
00:08:24.080 In fact, this podcast is an aspect of that accountability.
00:08:26.520 It's an aspect of of sharing with the men and women I work for what it is that I'm doing,
00:08:32.900 what I'm fighting for and what we're able to get accomplished.
00:08:34.980 And and it really does say something about the current surreal expectations of Democrats and federal government workers that asking,
00:08:48.580 what did you do last week?
00:08:49.460 You know, when you know, when the woke left was like, oh, we got to have like safe spaces for people and colleges and kids.
00:08:55.820 That's in essence what their response is here.
00:08:58.400 They came out hardcore and they're like, how dare you?
00:09:01.580 This is harassment to ask what we did last week.
00:09:04.560 You're you're making us stressed out.
00:09:07.740 This is making people worry and fearful for their jobs.
00:09:12.400 Yeah, if you're not doing your job, you should be fearful.
00:09:15.840 If your job is is something that you can't even explain, you should be fearful.
00:09:19.980 You're going to lose your job.
00:09:21.120 But this idea that this is, quote, harassment, we had unions that came out saying you can't harass our union members this way.
00:09:29.080 All by asking a simple question.
00:09:31.980 What did you do last week?
00:09:33.460 Let me ask you, Ben.
00:09:34.280 You've worked in a White House in comms.
00:09:36.940 Is this a strange question to get?
00:09:38.880 What did you accomplish last week?
00:09:40.700 No.
00:09:41.240 And especially when you work, for example, on campaigns, you know, there's accountability every 10, 12, 15, 24 hours.
00:09:48.060 What did you do to respond to this?
00:09:49.740 What are you doing this?
00:09:50.600 Here's the next project.
00:09:51.760 What have you done with this?
00:09:53.100 Like that is a very normal way of doing things.
00:09:57.000 And I can tell you, whether it was on the campaign or we were working on social security reform, you had deadlines and you had you had meetings every day.
00:10:04.920 And if you came in unprepared, it could cost your job.
00:10:07.580 No doubt about it.
00:10:08.400 Yeah, look, it's the basic idea of having deliverables.
00:10:12.160 But there's a very strange dynamic in Washington right now.
00:10:17.240 The average federal office building up until a few weeks ago was empty.
00:10:24.000 The attendance is five to eight percent.
00:10:29.340 More than 90 percent of federal workers are not going to the office.
00:10:34.780 Now, that is bizarre.
00:10:36.200 Look, I get in the height of covid, there was a period where everyone stayed home.
00:10:40.100 But you know what happened?
00:10:41.260 The rest of the world went back to work like everyone's gone back to work.
00:10:44.880 And in the private sector, I don't know a place where people don't go into the office anymore except the federal government.
00:10:51.680 And I got to say to Democrats, this is treated as as an entitlement that they are owed this.
00:10:58.700 And to see people freaking out.
00:11:00.440 Well, if we have to go to work, that that makes it very hard to figure out child care.
00:11:04.720 Well, guess what?
00:11:06.460 That that's called work.
00:11:08.440 Yeah, it is hard to figure out child care.
00:11:10.760 I mean, that's real.
00:11:12.680 Look, every parent who has a job has to figure out child care.
00:11:16.260 Why do federal employees get to stay at home in their pajamas and bunny slippers when everyone else has to go to work?
00:11:23.800 And I think these two are intertwined.
00:11:27.700 This this expectation.
00:11:30.120 I am entitled to a federal paycheck for the rest of my life.
00:11:33.360 I don't have to produce anything.
00:11:36.480 I don't have to ever go to the office and I can do my job simply by diverting funds to radical left wing groups.
00:11:46.400 All of this is intertwined.
00:11:48.040 It is the politicization of government.
00:11:51.860 It is the lack of respect for the taxpayers, the lack of respect.
00:11:58.820 Look, this is intertwined.
00:11:59.940 We've talked about this as well with how Joe Biden behaved the last three months of his presidency after the election.
00:12:06.040 I have never in my life seen a president behave like Joe Biden did because he behaved with absolute contempt.
00:12:13.820 He spent three months trying to do everything he could to stop Donald Trump from delivering on the promises that he made to the American people that the voters said overwhelmingly.
00:12:23.280 We want most presidents when they leave, when they lose, they're like, OK, fine.
00:12:28.040 All right.
00:12:28.300 The next guys are coming in.
00:12:29.420 We're going to transition over.
00:12:30.540 The voters have spoken.
00:12:32.020 You know, I may not like what the voters say.
00:12:33.900 I was on the other side.
00:12:34.960 You know, if your side loses.
00:12:36.180 But but but but the absolute arrogance, the the lack of regard for the voters and the taxpayers, it is also intertwined.
00:12:49.280 Name a Democrat, an elected Democrat.
00:12:52.520 Who has said once, thank God, Doge is pointing out all of this waste, fraud and abuse.
00:12:58.260 Thank God we have stopped sending millions of dollars for transgender surgeries in Guatemala.
00:13:03.820 No, I haven't heard a single Democrat, not one of them.
00:13:07.520 And it's because they don't think they owe anything to the taxpayers or the voters.
00:13:13.840 For them, it's about power.
00:13:15.640 It's not about honoring the commitment you made to the men and women who elected you.
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00:13:49.620 You know, the other part about this is there was a lot of people that were trying to spin this email as like this was a national security risk because it went out to all employees.
00:14:01.140 And there was guidance that came back very quickly from certain departments going, hey, like you can't necessarily say what you did this week.
00:14:08.560 So hold on before you respond back.
00:14:10.400 And yet the media tried to spin this into, oh, my gosh, all these rules were about to be broken and you were putting people's lives at risk, Elon Musk, by sending out this email.
00:14:19.400 I think it's important that we clarify.
00:14:21.700 Look, there were some positions that it was totally fine to say, hold on, we can't do this.
00:14:26.480 Yeah, look, of course, and so there were natural places where employees were told, don't respond to this email.
00:14:40.160 For example, Kash Patel told FBI agents, don't respond to this email, run through your management to respond to this email.
00:14:48.560 Why? Because when you're dealing with classified and confidential law enforcement, there are national security and intelligence operations where you can't have this kind of report going and going through non-classified channels.
00:15:02.880 So, of course, that's the case.
00:15:04.840 But but if you're a run of the mill employee in the federal in a federal agency, those constraints are not there.
00:15:10.820 And those employees are obligated to respond.
00:15:15.160 No doubt about it.
00:15:16.380 Also, let's talk a little bit about CPAC.
00:15:19.000 You had a meeting with Elon Musk right after he was given this chainsaw.
00:15:24.040 You even got a picture.
00:15:25.440 I was there with the chainsaw that we tweeted out.
00:15:28.140 It was actually really fun.
00:15:29.840 And Elon Musk is loving this new opportunity to make a difference in this country.
00:15:35.180 Yeah, I will say, in addition to the five things that I tweeted that I accomplished last week, I did did follow up with one more tweet and said, oh, yeah.
00:15:44.160 Yeah. And six. I got to hold a really badass chainsaw.
00:15:47.980 And this is always amazing.
00:15:50.420 OK, you got to understand.
00:15:51.760 So Javier Malay, the president of Argentina, showed up with a gold and silver chainsaw for Elon Musk.
00:15:59.820 And this is not a run of the mill chainsaw.
00:16:02.140 This is a gold plated chainsaw.
00:16:04.320 It had Elon Musk's musk on it.
00:16:06.720 It had Viva La Libertad on the blade.
00:16:09.180 The blade was long.
00:16:10.720 It was it was a massive chainsaw.
00:16:13.080 It had brass spikes coming coming out of the the the main body of the chainsaw, like something out of Mad Max and Thunderdome.
00:16:24.340 And and and and the pull cord where you start it was a set of brass knuckles.
00:16:29.620 I mean, that was just that was just so cool.
00:16:31.820 It was seriously badass and and and it was I told Elon so so you and I spent the afternoon at CPAC last week and we did Friday's podcast.
00:16:43.740 We did from CPAC on Thursday and we interviewed Pam Bondi.
00:16:48.400 We interviewed Pam Bondi live on the stage.
00:16:50.480 We've done done verdict live on the stage of CPAC several times.
00:16:54.160 Let me encourage folks, by the way, if you didn't listen to Friday's podcast interviewing Pam Bondi, it was one of the very first major interviews of the new attorney general that has happened.
00:17:05.140 Pam and I have been friends, friends a long time.
00:17:07.200 And so we had a really good and candid conversation about what she's doing, what she's accomplishing, what her objectives are.
00:17:13.820 So if you didn't listen to Friday's podcast, go back and listen to it, because it was an interview that that I think was really worthwhile.
00:17:20.360 But afterwards, you and I hung out after afterwards, I spent about 20 minutes with Elon and Javier Malay delivered this chainsaw to Elon.
00:17:30.640 By the way, Malay brought it up on stage while you and I were doing the podcast.
00:17:36.120 I got to say, my security guys were freaked out.
00:17:39.580 They're like, yeah, I is running on stage with a chainsaw.
00:17:43.360 And never mind that it was a head of state running on stage with a chainsaw.
00:17:47.440 That that's just a little surreal.
00:17:48.900 Like you have guards that whose job it is to keep you safe.
00:17:53.140 It is, despite the movie Texas Chainsaw Massacre, we rarely deal with people running at us with chainsaws.
00:18:00.100 And yet that happened at CPAC.
00:18:01.760 And yet somehow it was OK.
00:18:03.860 Yeah, it really was.
00:18:05.000 There was also another bad A moment, since we're talking about bad A moments at the White House that happened while we were at CPAC.
00:18:11.840 Come on, Benjamin.
00:18:12.900 Benjamin, if you're going to do it, do the full HL.
00:18:15.100 There was a badass moment.
00:18:16.320 There we go.
00:18:16.820 There was a badass moment at the White House.
00:18:18.440 I'm trying to rescue your dignity.
00:18:22.760 Because a bad A moment is just a weenie way of putting it.
00:18:26.720 All right.
00:18:27.060 We'll go with badass.
00:18:28.040 There was a badass moment at the White House where the president straight up called out a governor who was in attendance for the governors.
00:18:37.320 A bunch of governors come to the White House.
00:18:38.780 They had their big governors meeting.
00:18:39.840 They invited these governors to come to the White House.
00:18:42.520 And the president just straight out called out one of the governors for the plan that had leaked, in essence, that he was going to defy the directive from the federal government about protecting women from men playing in their sports.
00:18:58.480 There was transgender, you know, individuals claiming that they're a chick.
00:19:01.800 And the president just said, like, I don't care.
00:19:04.920 You're here.
00:19:05.520 Glad you're here.
00:19:06.300 Are you going to not go along with what I told you to do?
00:19:08.540 And it was one of those flashpoint moments just showing you, I think, the difference is time and the mentality of this president.
00:19:14.800 Yeah, no, that's exactly right.
00:19:16.340 Trump is not backing down.
00:19:17.740 And I got to say, the Democrats, it seems they've learned nothing from the election.
00:19:21.460 Here, give a listen to the exchange between the governor of Maine and President Trump.
00:19:25.820 The NCAA has complied immediately, by the way.
00:19:29.340 That's good.
00:19:29.940 But I understand Maine.
00:19:32.020 Is Maine here?
00:19:32.880 The governor of Maine?
00:19:34.880 Are you not going to comply with it?
00:19:37.800 I'm complying with the state and federal law.
00:19:40.080 Well, we are the federal law.
00:19:42.400 Well, you better do it.
00:19:43.580 You better do it because you're not going to get any federal funding at all if you don't.
00:19:46.840 And by the way, your population, even though it's somewhat liberal, although I did very well there, your population doesn't want men playing in women's sports.
00:19:54.880 So you better comply because otherwise you're not getting any federal funding.
00:20:00.780 Every state.
00:20:01.900 Good.
00:20:02.120 I'll see you in court.
00:20:02.800 I look forward to that.
00:20:03.700 That should be a real easy one.
00:20:06.620 And enjoy your life after governor because I don't think you'll be in elected politics.
00:20:11.080 I mean, the trash talking.
00:20:12.900 I just got to say, looking at the female governor Maine saying like, hey, the people there want this, too.
00:20:18.840 You should listen to the people.
00:20:19.940 I'll see you in court.
00:20:21.020 All right.
00:20:21.320 Great.
00:20:21.740 Look forward to it.
00:20:22.640 I don't think you're going to be in politics much longer either if you keep this up.
00:20:26.180 This is just a different Donald Trump this time around.
00:20:30.100 Well, it is.
00:20:31.620 And by the way, there's also real teeth to it.
00:20:34.960 So simultaneously with this exchange, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it initiated a compliance review of the University of Maine and the state could be in jeopardy of losing $100 million in federal USDA funding over noncompliance with the executive order on keeping males out of female sports.
00:20:54.660 And at the end of the day, and by the way, this is not hypothetical.
00:21:00.120 This is happening in Maine.
00:21:02.980 In Maine, there was a transgender boy who identifies as a girl who took first place in the girls pole vaulting at Maine's Class B state championship.
00:21:16.360 And it's a win that helped help the high school take first place overall.
00:21:21.420 And so, you know, how would you feel if it's your daughter who's in second and she's the best pole vaulter in the state who's a girl, but there's a dude who says, no, I'm a girl who beats her and dominates.
00:21:38.680 It's just fundamentally unfair.
00:21:41.200 And I got to say, overwhelmingly, 80, 90 percent of Americans agree with that proposition.
00:21:48.060 And what's striking is this is not Democrats fighting on some issue where the voters are with them.
00:21:56.640 I promise you, even in Maine, the voters don't want this.
00:22:00.840 They're not happy about this.
00:22:02.380 And today's Democrat Party, this election, if there is an elected Democrat who learned anything from this election, I don't know who it is.
00:22:13.540 Because not only are they doubling down.
00:22:15.680 This has become like the new litmus test, though, of the extreme left, right?
00:22:19.060 Yeah, but they're also doubling down on open borders.
00:22:21.600 They're also doubling down on anti-Israel.
00:22:23.940 Look, the Democrats in the Senate voted against sanctioning the ICC, the International Criminal Court, which has gone after Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel.
00:22:33.680 Every Democrat but one, every Democrat but John Fetterman voted against Israel.
00:22:38.340 And they did that after the election.
00:22:39.640 They did that just a few weeks ago.
00:22:41.540 I mean, that's where the Democrats are right now is they're still open border.
00:22:46.160 They're still anti-Israel.
00:22:47.680 They're still pro boys and girls sports.
00:22:50.200 And it's look, look, this is the same issue we started with.
00:22:55.840 Fundamentally, I think, you know, the Democrats love to prattle on about democracy.
00:23:00.680 But when they prattle on about what democracy, what they really mean is they want power.
00:23:07.060 And they don't care what the voters want.
00:23:10.580 They don't care about respecting the will of the voters.
00:23:13.880 Instead, they want to fight against the will of the voters.
00:23:17.460 It's why they indicted Trump not once, not twice, not three times, but four times.
00:23:21.560 It was designed to stop democracy.
00:23:24.600 It's why you had multiple Democrats, judges and state officials trying to remove Donald Trump from the presidential ballot because nothing says defending democracy like stopping the damn voters for voting for your opponent and making it impossible.
00:23:39.100 This is all intertwined, which is it is a lack of of humility, a lack of understanding that.
00:23:50.340 You have a boss and the boss.
00:23:53.780 Is the men and women who elected you.
00:23:56.360 Yeah, it's a great point.
00:23:57.780 And it's it goes back, I think, to the core issue of he's listening to the people, as you mentioned, and he's doing what the people said with a mandate.
00:24:08.820 And that is that is what this election was about.
00:24:11.860 And it's also I think it's clear the reason why he's doing things, which moves me to the FBI.
00:24:18.120 You got to go to the swearing in of Kash Patel at the FBI.
00:24:22.020 But it's clear that the president's not just like checking a box at the top and saying, OK, now business as usual.
00:24:28.340 We also found out today that he has decided to name Dan Bongino, who many that listen to the show, probably listen to his show, his podcast as well.
00:24:39.900 And know him from Fox News Channel, former Secret Service agent, former police officer in New York City, a very outspoken critic of the deep state.
00:24:47.700 He's now the deputy director of the FBI.
00:24:50.720 I mean, he is he is truly draining the swamp and bringing in people that are all about reform.
00:24:57.040 Yeah, on Friday, I was at Kash Patel swearing in and it was a terrific moment.
00:25:02.060 I think Kash is going to bring fundamental reform to the FBI.
00:25:05.240 And I think it is desperately needed.
00:25:06.780 The FBI is an institution.
00:25:08.620 It is an institution with a long and storied history.
00:25:12.400 And I don't think there is any institution in America that has lost more respect, that has had its integrity compromised more than the FBI has.
00:25:21.820 Actually, the CDC may be rivaling it.
00:25:23.720 Fauci may have done as much damage to the credibility and respect of government health sciences as James Comey and Christopher Wray did to the FBI.
00:25:36.340 But both institutions are sorely in need of reform.
00:25:40.100 I think Kash Patel is going to come in and do that.
00:25:41.780 And I got to say, Dan Bongino, he's a good friend of mine.
00:25:44.540 He's a good friend of yours.
00:25:46.120 He is a strong conservative.
00:25:47.760 He is a reformer.
00:25:48.720 And that combination of Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, I think, is going to be really potent to bring the FBI back to its core mission.
00:26:00.200 And its core mission is stopping bad guys.
00:26:02.860 It's stopping violent crime.
00:26:04.160 It's catching the very worst criminals.
00:26:05.980 It's stopping terrorism.
00:26:07.780 It's putting terrorists in jail.
00:26:09.540 It's keeping America safe.
00:26:11.520 It's not being a politically woke enforcer for left-wing ideology or, for that matter, for right-wing ideology.
00:26:20.520 I don't expect the FBI to suddenly be a right-wing enforcer.
00:26:24.300 I want the FBI to lock up murderers.
00:26:26.960 And to be clear, I want them to lock up murderers, whether they're Republicans or Democrats.
00:26:31.060 I don't care.
00:26:31.760 If you're killing people, if you're raping women, if you're hurting kids, if you're human trafficking, if you're drug trafficking, if you're a terrorist, I want the FBI to go after you and lock you up.
00:26:43.420 And that's what their core mission is.
00:26:45.940 And I'm very confident that Cash Patel and Dan Bongino with Pam Bondi as attorney general, that they're going to bring the FBI right back to that.
00:26:54.620 Let's give a quick update about where we are with all these cabinet positions.
00:26:58.700 You guessed that you thought all the big ones were going to get through.
00:27:02.000 So far, that has been exactly the case.
00:27:05.960 And look, they didn't want Pam.
00:27:08.080 They didn't want Patel.
00:27:09.080 They didn't want several of these others.
00:27:11.220 They went after Kristi Noem.
00:27:12.660 We saw a lot of them at CPAC this weekend.
00:27:14.720 And the big, big positions are getting filled with the people that Donald Trump promised the American voter.
00:27:22.600 How encouraged are you by, I would also say, the Republicans that are in Congress right now seeming to stick together pretty well?
00:27:31.580 Yeah, look, I think the Republicans in the Senate and the Republicans in the House are aware that we've got an historic mandate from the election in November.
00:27:41.380 And we've got an obligation to deliver on our promises.
00:27:43.700 We can't screw around.
00:27:44.980 Failure is not an option.
00:27:46.560 And I do think that is something in both the House and Senate that Republicans get.
00:27:53.840 I'll tell you, when it comes to confirmations, we are moving at the fastest pace in 25 years.
00:28:00.820 We're moving at a much faster pace than cabinet nominees were confirmed under Biden or in the first Trump term.
00:28:07.500 I predicted on this podcast that all of President Trump's cabinet nominees would be confirmed.
00:28:13.640 And that's been the path.
00:28:14.680 That's been the ones they went after.
00:28:16.520 They went after Pete Hegseth.
00:28:17.980 Hegseth was confirmed.
00:28:19.100 They went after Tulsi Gabbard.
00:28:20.640 Tulsi was confirmed.
00:28:21.660 They went after Bobby Kennedy.
00:28:22.860 Bobby was confirmed.
00:28:23.720 And so, other than Matt Gaetz, who withdrew very early, and Gaetz would have faced a very rocky path.
00:28:31.460 But other than that, once Gaetz withdrew, and I made the prediction after Gaetz withdrew, that's exactly what happened, which is every cabinet nominee has been confirmed.
00:28:42.680 Yeah, it's incredible.
00:28:45.300 What do we have on the horizon when it comes to what's next when it comes to confirmations?
00:28:50.900 Well, next week, the confirmations that are coming up, we're going to do the Secretary of the Army, Daniel Driscoll.
00:28:56.840 And then we'll be voting on Jameson Greer to be the United States Trade Representative.
00:29:00.980 Both of those are expected next week.
00:29:02.740 And then we're going to go after some of Biden's failed energy policies in the Senate.
00:29:08.620 We're going to go after rules and regulations that drive up the cost of energy and make it harder to heat your home, harder to drive inflation.
00:29:19.900 And so, that's going to be the priority in the Senate this coming week.
00:29:23.200 It's going to be awesome.
00:29:24.200 We're going to have it all here for you.
00:29:25.320 Don't forget, hit that subscribe or auto-download button, and make sure you save the podcast.
00:29:30.860 That helps us tremendously reach a new audience.
00:29:33.580 Also, grab my podcast, the Ben Ferguson podcast on those in-between days.
00:29:37.640 I'll keep you updated on the latest breaking news as well.
00:29:39.980 And the Senate and I will see you back here on Wednesday morning.
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