Verdict with Ted Cruz - What Happens in Wuhan, Stays in Wuhan

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.660 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.280 There is a whole lot going on.

00:00:06.160 You know what?

00:00:07.300 You know what?

00:00:07.840 Enough.

00:00:08.700 Enough from me.

00:00:09.860 I've talked enough on this show.

00:00:11.720 This episode, I only want to hear from you.

00:00:14.360 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:21.880 Senator, I say this with no false modesty.

00:00:25.560 I've been asking too many questions of late.

00:00:27.720 We have not been taking nearly enough questions from the mailbag of our wonderful Verdict

00:00:32.440 subscribers who regularly leave us five-star reviews on Apple Podcasts, which we greatly

00:00:36.920 appreciate if you wouldn't mind doing that right now, who subscribe to us on YouTube,

00:00:41.460 who listen to us on all of the podcasting apps that they have.

00:00:44.980 So what do you say?

00:00:45.580 Should we just make this all about the mailbag?

00:00:48.020 I think that's a great idea.

00:00:49.060 But I will say when you talk about YouTube subscribers, as of this week, we're at 194,000,

00:00:54.180 which means we're just 6,000 short of 200,000.

00:00:56.620 It'd be nice to break that mark.

00:00:58.180 I'm not saying you have to.

00:00:59.460 Just throwing that out there, folks.

00:01:00.880 We would love it if you would go and subscribe, particularly now when big tech is trying to

00:01:05.780 suppress all of the conservative voices.

00:01:07.980 Without further ado, Senator, first question from Mark.

00:01:11.760 This is a little bit of a flattering question for us, so that's obviously why I wanted to

00:01:15.960 choose it first.

00:01:17.440 Mark writes,

00:01:18.160 I just watched that hearing with Dr. Fauci.

00:01:22.580 I've just been seeing the Wuhan Institute in the news.

00:01:26.660 I've just been seeing reports about U.S. funding of Wuhan Institute research.

00:01:34.100 Where did I hear about all of that?

00:01:36.420 Oh, that's right.

00:01:37.540 Last year on Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:01:40.440 Keep up the great work.

00:01:41.600 Love the show.

00:01:42.520 I guess that's not really a comment.

00:01:44.020 I suppose that's just applaud it, but I'll take it.

00:01:47.080 You're right.

00:01:47.720 A year ago on Verdict, we talked about the Wuhan Institute for Virology.

00:01:52.140 We don't know for sure if that's the source of the virus.

00:01:56.140 Why?

00:01:57.020 Because the Chinese government destroyed all the records and prevents anyone from actually

00:02:00.860 determining what happened in the Wuhan Institute for Virology.

00:02:04.440 But today, my colleague, Senator Rand Paul, had a very effective series of questions with

00:02:09.980 Anthony Fauci, where he asked him about, you know, do you regret the NIH giving a bunch

00:02:15.260 of money for the Wuhan Institute for Virology?

00:02:17.520 And Fauci, you want to talk about someone who's just unrepentant?

00:02:22.400 He almost said to Rand, screw you, because everything about Fauci's demeanor and temperament

00:02:28.860 was, you know, you know, it reminded me of like a guy in Goodfellas, you know, hurling 0.98

00:02:39.280 Italian curse words at Rand.

00:02:41.700 And Michael, I don't mean to upset you by suggesting that Italians can curse.

00:02:46.420 Yeah, I've never heard it.

00:02:47.680 The defiance of it.

00:02:49.080 I mean, Fauci, like, doesn't apologize for sending a bunch of money to Wuhan, doesn't

00:02:55.340 express any responsibility.

00:02:57.280 I think it is more likely than not that the virus escaped from one of those two labs.

00:03:03.140 It's not proven, it's circumstantial, but the odds are exceptionally daunting that you

00:03:11.180 would have labs studying this exact kind of virus exactly where the outbreak occurs and

00:03:16.480 there not be a connection.

00:03:17.700 And I think we need to have a serious, credible investigation to figure it out.

00:03:21.740 And Fauci doesn't seem remotely concerned.

00:03:24.980 He changes what he says seemingly every week.

00:03:28.880 And every time he says it, he is confident as hell until next week he says something different.

00:03:33.380 Of course.

00:03:34.040 And he'll have the same confidence that following week.

00:03:36.480 You know, this observation, this strange coincidence of the presence of the Wuhan Institute

00:03:41.900 of Virology, right where the virus was found, right near this supposedly awful wet market.

00:03:48.540 400 bloody yards.

00:03:50.120 400 yards. 0.89

00:03:51.900 That ain't far.

00:03:52.860 Yes.

00:03:53.420 This is being called a conspiracy theory.

00:03:55.580 It was being called a conspiracy theory last year, more than a year ago now, I guess,

00:03:59.360 when we were speaking about it.

00:04:00.400 And you know how much I hate to say we told you so, but I am pleased that we talked about

00:04:05.600 it on the show.

00:04:06.460 Well, and you remember, Michael, we talked about how the Washington Post and other reporters

00:04:11.640 tried to refute the, quote, conspiracy theory.

00:04:14.820 And their refutation was that if you looked at the genetic markers, and this is where it's

00:04:19.440 dangerous to have a lawyer pretending to talk about science because I'm not a medical

00:04:23.100 doctor or virologist, but the Washington Post reported that if you looked at the genetic

00:04:27.520 markers, they didn't believe it was a virus that was constructed in a lab, but rather one

00:04:33.100 that occurred naturally in nature.

00:04:36.120 And so they said, oh, the theory that the escape from the lab is bogus.

00:04:40.220 Look, I find that plausible.

00:04:41.940 Could it have been constructed in the lab?

00:04:43.420 Sure.

00:04:43.620 And I think that needs to be investigated.

00:04:45.900 But I find it an entirely plausible hypothesis that this was a naturally occurring virus

00:04:52.420 that they discovered in a cave in China.

00:04:55.300 And by the way, the bats in question have caves 900 miles away from the wet market.

00:04:59.640 Right, right.

00:05:00.440 So it last I checked, most bats don't fly 900 miles to hang out in a wet market and spread

00:05:07.660 a pandemic.

00:05:08.840 But I think the most likely hypothesis is they were studying a naturally occurring virus in

00:05:16.020 the lab and somebody was sloppy.

00:05:18.100 Do I believe the Chinese government deliberately released this?

00:05:21.460 Probably not.

00:05:22.240 I don't think the chances are zero.

00:05:24.080 But I think the most likely thing is someone was sloppy and either an animal or person got

00:05:28.120 it.

00:05:28.280 But it spread outside the lab.

00:05:30.940 And then what the Chinese government did do is cover it up, hide it, arrest the whistleblowers,

00:05:36.120 do everything they could to suppress it, which allowed it to become a pandemic and spread

00:05:40.580 across the globe.

00:05:41.740 Next question from Thomas.

00:05:42.980 I would like to hear the senator's prediction on the Hyde Amendment.

00:05:46.180 The Hyde Amendment theoretically stops taxpayer dollars from going to fund abortion.

00:05:50.760 Obviously, money is fungible.

00:05:52.040 So if money is going to an abortion organization, then obviously they're going to spend the money.

00:05:59.000 But this is now coming under threat by Democrats, including Joe Biden, who for years said they

00:06:04.300 support the Hyde Amendment.

00:06:05.360 Now they're against it.

00:06:06.020 Yeah.

00:06:06.520 Look, I'm very concerned about the Hyde Amendment.

00:06:08.480 If you look at today's Democrats, they're radicalized.

00:06:12.200 They're radicalized on virtually every issue.

00:06:14.920 You know, we've talked in this podcast about the book I wrote a few months ago called One

00:06:19.240 Vote Away, How a Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History. 0.91

00:06:22.640 There's a chapter in that book on abortion, on life.

00:06:25.560 And it talks about how today's Democrats, their position is they support unlimited abortion

00:06:32.980 on demand up until the moment of birth, partial birth abortion, with no parental notification,

00:06:39.180 with no parental consent, and with full taxpayer funding, with the taxpayers paying for the

00:06:44.020 abortion.

00:06:44.900 And that view is so extreme, 9% of Americans agree with it.

00:06:50.420 So 91% of Americans disagree with the unlimited radical abortion view that right now is the

00:06:57.820 view of just about every Democratic politician in Washington.

00:07:00.560 When it comes to the Hyde Amendment, Democrats want your tax dollars to pay for abortions across

00:07:07.560 the country.

00:07:08.440 We're seeing Joe Biden through executive orders and through regulatory action trying to expand

00:07:13.220 that.

00:07:13.960 And we're also seeing the Democrats, and they're using the vehicle of budget reconciliation to

00:07:19.260 try to get around the filibuster and to ram through funding that ignores the Hyde Amendment.

00:07:23.780 The Hyde Amendment has been the consensus for decades in Washington.

00:07:27.940 Although people can disagree on the question of abortion and protecting life, and you and

00:07:34.080 I are both strongly pro-life, there used to be a wide consensus that it wasn't fair to

00:07:40.080 use taxpayer funds to pay for abortion, to force people who are pro-life to pay for taking

00:07:45.240 the lives of unborn children.

00:07:46.760 Today's Democrats, they don't care about that consensus because they've been radicalized.

00:07:52.820 So I think that question is a very real and active threat.

00:07:57.540 Right.

00:07:58.240 Yeah.

00:07:58.520 This was always the fear of the safe, legal, and rare line from Democrats, which never

00:08:03.640 made a lot of sense.

00:08:04.740 If abortion is morally comparable to murder, then it shouldn't be legal.

00:08:08.780 If it's not, if it's just a choice and has no effect on anyone else, then it shouldn't

00:08:13.360 be rare.

00:08:13.900 But that at least was the consensus for a long time.

00:08:16.920 But it would appear that we've ditched the rare part of that argument.

00:08:22.240 Yeah.

00:08:22.420 I mean, that's no longer, Bill Clinton said that in the State of the Union address.

00:08:25.980 There's, I don't know of a Democrat in the Senate who believes that.

00:08:30.680 Yeah.

00:08:30.880 That's no longer their position.

00:08:32.680 Yeah.

00:08:33.420 It is unlimited abortion on demand.

00:08:36.320 And by the way, when we have votes on things, and I talk about this in One Vote Away, when

00:08:40.460 we have votes on things like the pain-capable legislation, which is legislation that says

00:08:45.840 unborn children after 20 weeks of development, the science shows that that unborn child can

00:08:53.300 feel pain, that he or she writhes in pain during abortion, writhes in agony.

00:08:59.340 And it's a limitation on late-term abortions when the unborn child can feel pain.

00:09:05.940 The Democrats vote party-line against that restriction.

00:09:09.300 They're perfectly happy with partial birth abortion, late-term abortion. 0.96

00:09:14.140 Most Americans are not.

00:09:16.320 But today's congressional Democrats listen to the radical activists and not actual voters back home.

00:09:23.380 Very practical question from Real Truth Cactus, who I suppose is our colleague on the show.

00:09:28.400 I can't believe that the cactus would write into the show this way.

00:09:31.920 The cactus asks, what are some practical things everyday Americans can do to protect their

00:09:37.180 financial well-being in economically chaotic times such as these?

00:09:42.160 I think inflation is a real risk.

00:09:45.660 That means to the extent you can limit your exposure to variable interest rates, that's a good thing.

00:09:54.320 I think we are likely to see interest rates rising significantly.

00:09:57.920 We're likely to see mortgage rates rising significantly.

00:10:01.780 We're likely to see the cost of goods rising significantly.

00:10:05.160 When you have Joe Biden and the Democrats proposing $6 trillion in new spending, I think there's a good chance

00:10:13.000 that's going to prove significantly inflationary.

00:10:15.700 So to the extent you can hedge yourself against that, that is a good thing.

00:10:21.120 You know, I think we've got cross-cutting economic factors right now.

00:10:25.080 On the plus side, we just went through a year where the entire economy was shut down and we artificially

00:10:32.740 basically froze our GDP and we had a double-digit decrease in GDP.

00:10:38.740 The fact that we've got vaccines now and the economy is opening up means we're seeing economic growth.

00:10:44.760 We're seeing the economy come back significantly.

00:10:48.480 The countervailing factors on that are, number one,

00:10:51.680 I'm hearing over and over again from small businesses and employers that the federal government

00:10:57.260 is paying people more not to work than to work and they're having a very hard time getting

00:11:01.940 employees to come back because, you know, if you pay people not to work, wonder of wonders,

00:11:06.400 they actually don't work.

00:11:08.220 I also think the massive taxes and regulations coming from the Biden administration are going

00:11:12.600 to hammer the economy and see you've got kind of two vectors.

00:11:18.240 One, the economy taking off because it's reopening, two, the taxes and regulations pushing it down.

00:11:24.260 How that plays out exactly, I don't know.

00:11:27.540 I'm not smart enough to have a crystal ball on the economy, but I think I would expect some

00:11:36.140 real volatility.

00:11:37.780 And so, you know, to the extent you can save, to the extent you can invest in investments

00:11:43.960 that are guarded against inflation, and that often includes things like real estate, includes things

00:11:51.100 like commodities, like gold and silver, where if there's inflation, real estate or gold and silver

00:11:55.860 are likely to go up to go along with inflation.

00:12:00.400 I think those are all sensible.

00:12:02.480 But with the caveat that I ain't your fiduciary, and if you're taking financial advice from a lawyer

00:12:10.320 and Supreme Court litigator who's a senator, you might want to rethink your financial priorities

00:12:15.840 to begin with.

00:12:16.640 Well, I'll tell you, Senator, I just assumed you would tell people to invest everything

00:12:19.740 in Dogecoin or something.

00:12:20.940 You know, that was always my really stable investment strategy.

00:12:23.960 And depending on the hour of the day, I'm either bankrupt or a trillionaire.

00:12:27.580 Yeah, I got to admit, Michael, so the whole Bitcoin, Dogecoin, I have some friends who've

00:12:34.120 invested in it who've actually done quite well, and they've encouraged me.

00:12:37.140 I have not invested anything in it, and maybe I'm a fool.

00:12:39.280 No, nor have I.

00:12:40.480 I don't really understand it.

00:12:42.400 I don't really understand it.

00:12:44.100 And I'm, you know, worried.

00:12:45.120 You know, you look at like Holland and the tulip bulb mania, where tulip bulbs got bid

00:12:49.980 up and up and up and up, and it became a bubble, and then it all cratered, and everyone lost

00:12:54.640 everything.

00:12:55.320 And maybe I'm just a Luddite, and I don't understand that Bitcoin is the future.

00:13:00.640 I think it's fine if people want to do it.

00:13:02.300 I'm quite libertarian about it.

00:13:04.040 But in terms of my assets to invest, I don't like to invest in things that I don't fully

00:13:10.000 understand.

00:13:10.420 And I will readily admit, I don't fully understand the Bitcoin world.

00:13:14.160 Well, I don't know about you.

00:13:14.880 I think the bulbs are coming back.

00:13:16.260 I'm very long, tulip.

00:13:17.720 But I guess only time will tell.

00:13:20.100 Before we go, this question actually is incendiary, but I find it difficult to answer.

00:13:26.880 This is from Chelsea, who says, hey, Michael, big fan of the show, which president is worse,

00:13:33.080 Joe Biden or Woodrow Wilson?

00:13:36.400 All right.

00:13:36.600 So as you know, Woodrow Wilson, I have a slight bias towards because he was president of Princeton

00:13:41.120 University, and I am a Princeton alum.

00:13:43.080 It's true.

00:13:43.440 Although I'll tell you, you want to talk about something irritating?

00:13:46.240 So when I was in college, I was a college debater.

00:13:51.440 As you know, I was one of the cool kids.

00:13:54.680 Going to all those cool debate parties every weekend.

00:13:56.880 Oh, yeah.

00:13:57.640 Yeah.

00:13:57.980 Very, very impressive.

00:13:59.200 Red Solo cups, kegs of stale beer, but, you know, really cutting edge stuff.

00:14:04.740 So the debating society at Princeton is called the American Whig Cliosophic Society, and it

00:14:11.720 was actually two different societies.

00:14:14.280 One was the American Whigs. 0.95

00:14:15.740 The other was the Cliosophic Society.

00:14:17.360 They're all they're both over 200 years old.

00:14:19.980 One, the American Whigs was founded by James Madison, the father of the Constitution. 0.92

00:14:24.380 Cliosophic Society was founded by William Patterson.

00:14:27.600 The two merged.

00:14:28.980 And today, the Cliosophic Society are the conservatives and the Whigs are the liberals. 0.83

00:14:34.160 I actually find it ironic because James Madison, the founder of the Whigs, I agree with on practically

00:14:39.380 everything.

00:14:39.900 But when I was in college, I was chairman of the Cliosophic Society, so the conservative

00:14:45.500 part of the debating society.

00:14:47.020 And in 2016, Whig Clio awarded me their James Madison medal for public service while following

00:14:59.560 the whole January 6th thing and the left and the academic world going into a fit and screaming

00:15:08.580 insurrection and doing it completely disconnected to actual facts of what I did as a senator giving

00:15:16.860 a speech on the Senate floor and urging for a commission to examine electoral claims of

00:15:21.640 election fraud.

00:15:22.340 The students voted to rescind my James Madison award, which frankly kind of irritated me that

00:15:29.900 you have a bunch of lefty students who decided we want to rescind the award.

00:15:33.500 The trustees of Whig Clio actually vetoed the students' decision.

00:15:38.340 So they didn't, in fact, rescind my award, but the students voted.

00:15:41.720 And it was apparently a pretty close vote.

00:15:43.280 It was something like 36 to 37 to 35 or something like that.

00:15:46.320 So all of which is a digression to say Woodrow Wilson, before he was president, was governor

00:15:52.460 of New Jersey.

00:15:53.060 Before he was governor of New Jersey, he was president of Princeton University.

00:15:55.800 So I have some mild predilection towards Wilson.

00:16:00.680 That being said, Wilson was an avowed racist, which is consistent with a lot of Democrats.

00:16:07.580 He aired a film about the Ku Klux Klan in the White House.

00:16:12.280 He was a massive progressive.

00:16:13.780 He pushed the League of Nations.

00:16:16.640 He pushed the Federal Reserve.

00:16:18.920 He pushed the income tax.

00:16:20.320 He did a lot of damage.

00:16:22.220 So Wilson set up the disaster that has befallen us.

00:16:28.140 That being said, what Joe Biden is doing, he has handed the government over to Schumer and

00:16:35.480 Pelosi and to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and AOC.

00:16:39.460 And they're pushing the most radical agenda.

00:16:41.900 We're 100 days in, there's never been a president with a more radical agenda than we've seen

00:16:46.820 these first 100 days.

00:16:47.680 So as problematic as Wilson is, and Wilson did a lot of damage, I am not a Woodrow Wilson

00:16:54.460 fan.

00:16:56.060 I think Biden, if he succeeds with a radical agenda that's coming from Bernie and AOC and

00:17:01.460 Elizabeth Warren, would do even more damage to the country than Wilson did. 1.00

00:17:05.160 And you're seeing in some ways Woodrow Wilson is this progressive genius who sets up progressivism

00:17:11.280 in the federal government.

00:17:12.700 But now you're seeing the flowering of that.

00:17:14.480 So Joe Biden, you know, I don't think he's a deeply red man.

00:17:18.920 I don't think he's particularly scholarly.

00:17:21.800 I'm not telling tales out of school here.

00:17:23.680 He's had some issues with his academic claims over the years.

00:17:26.540 But he is, as you say, boring but radical.

00:17:29.660 He's kind of the flowering of that.

00:17:30.980 So I would have to agree.

00:17:32.440 And Senator, before we go, just to give you one more book club, it occurred to me when

00:17:35.840 you mentioned the very tense vote between the trustees of the society that that vote

00:17:41.160 was very nearly one vote away.

00:17:43.120 If only they had read your book, perhaps they would have understood the law better, the matters

00:17:47.000 at stake.

00:17:47.700 We have to hold it there.

00:17:48.820 We look forward to taking more mailbag questions from our wonderful subscribers very soon.

00:17:53.840 Please send those in.

00:17:55.420 If you happen to leave a five-star review on Apple while you do that, if you happen to get

00:17:59.980 us over that hurdle on YouTube by subscribing, that would be terrific.

00:18:02.700 In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles.

00:18:04.480 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:18:29.980 plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party

00:18:34.980 across the nation.

00:18:36.820 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:18:39.260 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - May 17, 2021

What Happens in Wuhan, Stays in Wuhan

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