What’s Three Trillion Between Friends？
Episode Stats
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Summary
Ted Cruz is back in Washington, D.C., and he's got a lot to talk about, including the coronavirus bill, the stimulus package, and the fact that most of the other senators are still in Washington.
Transcript
00:00:06.920
A coronavirus relief bill is back on the table.
00:00:13.940
I'm sure by the time this is all over, we'll be up $10, $11, however many trillion.
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We will get into the specifics of each bill being proposed.
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And I got to tell you, Senator, we're going to be talking about a lot of big numbers today.
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But beyond legislation, there's a really big number on this show.
00:00:47.440
And beyond that, we have 4.7 out of five star reviews.
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And I got to tell you, usually for political shows, the lefties come in and they spam you
00:00:59.300
So do you think the folks watching this one could up that to 4.8?
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If you could just go leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, wherever
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You can also obviously find us on YouTube, all over the place.
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We'll send you an audio cassette on a carrier pigeon if you like.
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Thank you so much to everybody who's brought the number.
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Well, we are writing it with a quill pen, though.
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Do you know, by the way, that every time you argue a Supreme Court case, the U.S. Supreme
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That seems like wasteful government speaking, but it's very cool.
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On my desk in the Senate office is a cup holder filled with quill pens from arguments I've
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I've got to go and see these quills at some point.
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And by the way, you know what you can do with a quill pen?
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We don't want any liability here for damage to your computer screen, but we do want you
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So go on and ring that bell and hopefully we'll bring that number north of 15 million or 16
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million or maybe north of three trillion as we talk about this coronavirus spending.
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I would like to pivot a moment to something that I know is on everybody else's mind as
00:02:22.860
well, the fact that you are still in D.C. is, I think, not something that senators are
00:02:30.040
very happy about because the senators are supposed to be home on vacation right now, but you're
00:02:37.860
So this week was scheduled to be the last week of session.
00:02:43.400
So actually, vacation's not the right phrase for it.
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So to be fair, look, nobody accuses politicians of working too much, but I will say that the
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usual schedule of the Senate, like in any given week, any given month is typically you
00:02:57.160
have three weeks in session and one week that it's called like the state work period where
00:03:05.080
But if you're doing your job, you're on the road, you're traveling.
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A state like Texas, you're traveling all over the place.
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So when you're not in session, you're still working.
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It's not exactly relaxing to be going all over the state.
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So for the month of August, typically there are five weeks where you're not in session and
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you plan all sorts of different, you plan trips, you plan events, you plan all sorts
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Now in COVID, it's a little weird because scheduling anything is difficult.
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One of the strange things about the Senate, so we don't know if there's going to be a
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This is specifically on a COVID stimulus relief package.
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And so at this point, I think probably what will happen is most senators will go back
00:03:49.700
And what leadership has said is, well, if there's a deal cut, we'll give you 24 hours
00:03:58.260
Because I know there have been a lot of deals on the table.
00:04:04.260
Then some Senate Republicans have disagreed with the Republican plan.
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What is, I mean, even before we get into the merits of it, just what is in those different
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So Nancy Pelosi's is the biggest, and it's a bill that the House passed a couple of months
00:04:26.100
ago, and it's over $3 trillion, about $3.4 trillion.
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Look, even in federal government terms, that is a crap ton of money.
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That was a bill, frankly, that she didn't negotiate with senators.
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She just passed it on a party line vote, and it's basically every gift she can give to
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I mean, I saw one story that she had a handout to the marijuana industry to help cure COVID.
00:05:02.700
So the word marijuana appears more frequently in the Nancy Pelosi bill than does the word
00:05:08.700
And I guess if you're high enough, you don't notice that you're unemployed and broke.
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I mean, there is a certain kind of Nancy Pelosi sense to it.
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The Senate version that was drafted by Senate Republican leadership is only a trillion.
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I mean, it and unfortunately, it has many of the same elements.
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It doesn't have all of the I mean, look, they threw into the Nancy Pelosi bill voting by mail.
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They threw all these priorities have nothing to do with coronavirus.
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But they figured, all right, let's make all our special interests happy.
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So it sends everyone a twelve hundred dollar check again.
00:06:01.900
It re-ups the PPP, the Paycheck Protection Program.
00:06:06.680
This is basically for businesses to keep people employed.
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It sends about a hundred billion dollars to schools.
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Now, mind you, many of the schools that are saying they're not going to open.
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A hundred billion dollars to not teach our kids.
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Well, but the teachers unions still need money.
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I it's and so there's all these different pockets of money.
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The difference between one trillion and three point four trillion.
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I've joked they're going to compromise and spend five.
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Well, as it so happens, I I rolled one out today and and and at the Senate lunch today,
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I addressed my Republican colleagues and I said, look, my principal criticism with both
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the Pelosi bill and the McConnell bill is not just the price tag.
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I think the price takes too much, but but but it's a more fundamental concern, which is
00:07:07.460
We've seen 51 million Americans lose their jobs in the last four months.
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I mean, I mean, you and I in our lifetimes, that's never happened.
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Last time we've had numbers like that with the Great Depression.
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And you've you know, every week it's ticked up from 20 to 30 to 51 million American workers.
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And so the most problematic aspect of the CARES Act and I look, I voted for the CARES Act.
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So every Republican, every Democrat supported it.
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There were a couple of smaller ones, but the CARES Act was a big bill.
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It had lots of elements, some that some that were pretty good, some that were not.
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But the worst element was concerning unemployment compensation.
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There is a federal plus up of six hundred dollars a week.
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So we've had an unemployment compensation system for a long time where if you lose your job,
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you can file for unemployment and you get a percentage of your wages typically.
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So it's designed to help you like make ends meet, but not be comfortable.
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But, you know, it's not designed to be a permanent situation.
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In the CARES Act, federal government plus that up six hundred bucks a week here in the state
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Used to be the maximum under unemployment was five hundred and twenty one dollars a week.
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Add six hundred new federal dollars that takes it from five twenty one to eleven twenty one a
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Now, eleven twenty one a week that works out to about fifty eight thousand dollars a year.
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Now, look, if you're if you're a doctor, if you're making a hundred bucks an hour, twenty
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eight dollars an hour is not deeply attractive.
00:09:02.340
But if you're working in an hourly job, if you're working at a movie theater, if you work
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at a bowling alley, if you're a waiter or a waitress and you're making nine, ten, eleven
00:09:11.320
bucks an hour, suddenly the government is paying you more.
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And in a lot of instances, a lot more not to work than to work.
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So why do they put that in the it seems to me they put that in the bill.
00:09:25.420
So I don't think it's a coincidence that it's an election year.
00:09:29.220
So look, shoveling money out of Washington is something the Democrats are good at.
00:09:34.880
And in this instance, I think it's the most cynical portion.
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So in the in the Nancy Pelosi version, it just continues that six hundred dollar plus
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I think Pelosi and Schumer have decided that the way they win in November is if 51 million
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people are still unemployed, that their objective is shut the entire country down, shut every
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business down, shut every school down and have everyone sitting at home alone and broke
00:10:03.500
and unemployed and pissed off and depressed and pessimistic about the future.
00:10:09.020
And I think they think, bingo, Joe Biden wins if that happens.
00:10:13.200
And so every bit of the of the Democratic bill is designed to make sure nobody goes back
00:10:21.240
Now, the stupid thing about the Republican bill is it has the same ideas.
00:10:27.520
I mean, we basically take Pelosi's agenda and say, well, we're going to be cheaper.
00:10:35.980
But and I urged Republican senators today, I said, look, in a battle to be Santa Claus, the
00:10:43.580
There's there's no limit to how much money they will borrow.
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Is we ought to bring jobs back, which means we ought to be cutting taxes, cutting regulations
00:11:01.700
Millions of small businesses shut down during this crisis.
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A lot of them are just starting to open, but they don't know if they're going to survive.
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We ought to be cutting taxes, cutting regulations so that those small businesses can open and
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they can rehire their employees and they can survive.
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So I introduced a bill called the Recovery Act, and it is focused instead of just spending
00:11:25.620
It's focused on reducing taxes and reducing regulations to get people back at work.
00:11:29.600
So what are some of the elements of the Recovery Act?
00:11:33.660
Eliminating the payroll tax for the rest of the year.
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That has an immediate effect of giving every worker in America a raise right now in your
00:11:43.500
And it makes it doesn't it's not that it only gives the workers a raise.
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It also incentivizes the employers who pay part of that to rehire their workers.
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So half the payroll tax is paid by the employer, half is paid by the employer.
00:11:54.780
So it makes it less expensive for employers to have employees.
00:12:01.340
And that is an incentive then for people to go work.
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It's an incentive for small businesses to hire employees.
00:12:09.420
But not only that, the Recovery Act also says for the next $10,000 you earn this year,
00:12:17.840
Again, that's that's it's about a marginal incentive.
00:12:20.980
If you look at economics, you look at basic principles of economics.
00:12:23.960
What matters are the marginal incentives, the incentives on if you do X, what is your reward
00:12:32.360
OK, it's funny because that that's a it's a technical point you're making.
00:12:36.920
So I want to make sure we're getting it right because it seems so simple, you know, in the
00:12:40.380
Democrat bill or I guess even in the Republican leadership bill, it's just about tossing money
00:12:45.380
Whereas here it's very simple just on the margins.
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If you want to see an action, you need to incentivize that action.
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If you want more work, you want more jobs, you want to incentivize more work and more
00:12:58.220
jobs, make it more profitable for employees and for employers to have more work and more
00:13:03.080
And look, I've said a bunch of times, you know, the little book, Everything We Need
00:13:08.980
We know that we know that our homeowner with our family, if you want if you want your kids
00:13:16.700
to to do the dishes, you say, I'll give you five bucks to do the dishes like that.
00:13:22.300
We understand that candy or whatever, I mean, it's whether it's carrot or stick.
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What the Democrats are doing is incentivizing not working to give you.
00:13:34.200
68 percent of the people receiving these unemployment benefits are making more from unemployment
00:13:46.620
And, you know, when we when we passed the CARES Act, we actually had a Republican amendment
00:13:49.800
at the time, very reasonable, common sense amendment that said simply capped unemployment
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benefits at whatever you're whatever you're making.
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Just said you shouldn't make more on unemployment.
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Even that has significant disincentives to work.
00:14:04.680
But we said, OK, look, at a basic minimum, let's not pay people more not to sit at home.
00:14:12.140
So Dick Durbin, who's really one of the smartest and most capable Democrats.
00:14:16.980
He he is a worthy adversary and he and I have debated many issues many times.
00:14:23.580
He's on Senate Judiciary with me and we go around and around a lot.
00:14:26.180
You know, it's interesting because I pay attention to the Republican senators much more than to the
00:14:32.020
There there are some who seem not particularly impressive.
00:14:35.580
You're saying Dick Durbin is is one of the more Durbin's a smart guy.
00:14:39.900
And one of the things that's that he's good at is he sounds quite reasonable.
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He doesn't sound as shrill as some of his colleagues.
00:14:50.920
So he was down there and I was making this argument on the Senate floor and he came back
00:14:55.440
and he said, you know, that just shows the problem with Cruz.
00:14:59.460
Cruz thinks that the people who've lost their jobs are lazy jerks that just want to sit on
00:15:06.960
And he's insulting every person who's lost their job in this crisis.
00:15:12.040
Well, and it actually was a great illustration of the argument back and forth of a lot of
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the differences between Democrats and Republicans, because Durbin was doing what demagogues do
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often, which is which is turning it into a morality play where you're saying that these
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I said, no, I'm actually saying exactly the opposite, which is people are rational.
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And we need to think about what those incentives are.
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If you're a single mom and you, let's say you're waiting tables and suddenly the government
00:15:48.260
pays you twice as much money to stay home, you love your kids.
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And it's not that you're, it's not that you're lazy.
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It's like, if you tell anyone I'm going to pay you twice as much to do X than Y, most
00:16:09.900
But I think Pelosi and Schumer are fine with that because they don't want anyone to work
00:16:17.300
I want to mention a couple of other elements in the Recovery Act that are important.
00:16:24.040
So really important part of health care reform, tax advantaged account that you could save
00:16:31.480
Federal law makes it illegal for anyone to have a health savings account unless they have
00:16:40.340
So the overwhelming majority of Americans are not allowed to have health savings accounts.
00:16:43.920
So one of the things I have in the Recovery Act, every American can have a health savings
00:16:48.580
And that lets you, look, it's a time of pandemic.
00:16:52.220
People are worried about health care for their family.
00:16:54.000
It lets them have, save for health care in a way that is tax advantaged to meet their needs.
00:17:09.420
I have legislation that, that, that provides that, that you get a federal tax credit for
00:17:15.540
contributions to scholarship granting organizations in K through 12 education.
00:17:20.960
That massively expands choice for parents, particularly for parents.
00:17:24.700
Like if you're sitting there and your school is not teaching, you ought to be, have the choices
00:17:31.220
Um, these are policies that are pro growth, pro jobs that, that are consistent with conservative
00:17:37.520
And actually to be fair, the school choice proposal that I have is right now in Mitch McConnell's
00:17:50.740
So I'm quite worried that the Democrats, if there is a deal, we'll say hell no.
00:17:55.320
And that leadership will negotiate it away that it's basically trade bait.
00:17:58.540
So they're including it, but they aren't going to fight it, fight for it.
00:18:08.900
There are provisions of these bills that are just there to use as leverage when you're
00:18:16.560
So you'll, you'll be, you'll either go home or you'll stick around here, but eventually
00:18:21.840
the Senate will have to come in and vote on this and we'll see what's in the final package.
00:18:36.260
They may have made the decision, do no deal insists on give us everything.
00:18:43.760
Even as bad as Republicans are like surrendering a hundred percent is too big an ask.
00:18:50.380
And I think the Democrats may have made the political judgment.
00:18:55.200
We'll make it really tough until the election for the country.
00:18:58.120
And then they think they're going to win if that's the case.
00:19:06.680
And, and what I'm urging the president when I'm urging Republicans is look, I get when
00:19:15.900
It's, it's, it hurts millions of Americans, but I understand why she's doing it.
00:19:20.100
Why would Republicans be complicit in that though?
00:19:30.580
Well, unfortunately, I think certainly for some people that that's exactly what they're
00:19:34.980
But by the way, did you ever read, uh, Douglas Adams, uh, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?
00:19:43.580
Just for the record, that makes me far geekier than you.
00:19:50.360
The second one is Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
00:19:53.440
And, uh, there is a scene when, when, if I'm remembering right, although I haven't read
00:19:56.960
this in 30 years, but if I'm remembering right, there's a scene where,
00:20:00.560
they're sitting at the restaurant and, and up to the table walks a creature that identifies
00:20:05.560
this creature has been bred, uh, with a, something that talks and a cow and a lemming.
00:20:15.860
And it walks up and says, so I'm for dinner tonight.
00:20:18.540
And let me tell you, my, so my hindquarters are very, very tender and I've been, and like
00:20:22.660
your dinner discusses with you, which portion of the, of the dinner to be served.
00:20:26.740
And so it just with the lemming example, it, uh, that's an image of the Republican party,
00:20:30.940
perhaps sometimes a little bit, we're walking up going, uh, okay, so which, you know, here's
00:20:37.380
Here's a, yeah, that's sad, but unfortunately I think it's true.
00:20:44.820
Especially because the left has destroyed comedy.
00:20:54.500
There are, there are some great eras of that show.
00:20:58.060
Have you watched young Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live when he's like 19 years old and
00:21:04.980
And, and by the way, SNL on comedy has been spectacular, but it's not funny anymore.
00:21:11.380
Because their only script is we hate Donald Trump.
00:21:15.180
It's just a, it's a screed and it's like, okay, fine.
00:21:18.500
Look, are there jokes to tell about Donald Trump?
00:21:27.160
Or, you know, after, after Hillary lost, they had that nauseating sketch where they, they're
00:21:32.560
playing Hallelujah on the piano and just crying and it was, oh, it was.
00:21:41.680
I mean, I love listening to, you know, Johnny Carson and Leno and, and, and actually I like
00:21:51.380
I mean, the late night hosts are not, the one exception I would say is, is Jimmy Fallon.
00:21:58.780
He's a little, little more old school about the job.
00:22:11.320
And so what that means though, is there's a huge space for humor.
00:22:21.340
You know, on the topic of humor, we got a compliment from R.D. who says, first of all, both of
00:22:26.280
your timely humor has gotten me through the insanity of 2020.
00:22:40.440
Do you see absolute chaos in the big cities occurring again?
00:22:51.820
You know, there's, there's a Freudian concept of projection that, that what you're doing,
00:23:00.380
Have you noticed all the Dems and all the media saying, what if Trump doesn't accept the
00:23:11.840
They haven't admitted who won 2000 for that matter.
00:23:15.120
And, and, and by the way, Stacey Abrams is a damn fine governor of Georgia.
00:23:19.120
Like they're literally in just this alternative reality where, where, where it, did you see,
00:23:24.880
There was a, so I only read the headlines, so I may get the details wrong, but yeah, it's
00:23:32.580
I guess they were doing political war games where they had John Podesta, who was the chairman
00:23:41.880
Who was playing Joe Biden and in the war game refused to accept the outcome of the election.
00:23:50.480
California, Oregon, and Washington seceding from the union.
00:23:55.580
Well, you know, the, when they introduced this scenario, which, you know, who am I to
00:24:01.200
They said, John Podesta, they expected in this war game for him to concede on election
00:24:06.380
night, just as he did in 2016 on behalf of Hillary, but he didn't.
00:24:12.100
He didn't concede on election night on behalf of Hillary.
00:24:14.180
He came out and he said, we'll wait to see what the results are.
00:24:19.180
And by the way, why didn't Hillary speak that night?
00:24:21.120
She, I think she was probably a little upset in whatever hotel room she was waiting in.
00:24:26.680
Do you know of any other campaign where the, the candidate doesn't speak?
00:24:34.560
John Podesta's exact words were, you know, Hillary, you know, Hillary's here.
00:24:38.980
She thanks you so much for being here for her because she's always here for you.
00:24:42.780
And my thought at the time, I said, except right now, when it's most important for her
00:24:50.180
Listen, I, I have been in campaigns where I won.
00:24:53.560
I've been campaigns where I lost, by the way, winning is much better.
00:24:58.100
But, you know, in every instance, an election night, you come out and talk to the people
00:25:01.420
like, like, that's a pretty basic, like social compact.
00:25:04.640
But, so if Trump wins re-election, which I hope he will, I think he will, but I think
00:25:16.640
If Trump wins re-election, I think the left will go in paroxysms of part of how they've
00:25:24.780
rationalized the last three and a half years is they view it as a crazy fluke.
00:25:31.420
But, but their rage, I, I think they lose their minds if he wins.
00:25:38.940
And I, look, I, do you see more violence from them?
00:25:43.480
I, it, I see, I see it as an implicit threat when, when you have very prominent democratic
00:25:49.040
politicians, including Joe Biden, who've said, we can't take four more years of this.
00:25:52.960
They're referring to the left-wing violence in the streets.
00:26:01.780
I was hoping you'd make us feel so much better about, but, but, you know, the reality of
00:26:11.560
Look, I am an optimist through and through, and I believe that, you know, you and I, a
00:26:16.640
couple of weeks ago, we were out in LA and we did a bunch of pods and radio shows.
00:26:20.180
One of the most interesting is you and I together did Dennis Prager's show.
00:26:27.920
Um, I got to say, by the way, as an interesting observation, doing the podcast has spoiled
00:26:36.780
Because the radio format, you had just these little snippets of four or five minutes and
00:26:48.160
I've done a ton of radio before and I had never really noticed it until we've done podcasts
00:26:53.200
where if you don't talk about an issue, you talk about an issue.
00:26:55.680
But Dennis and I, and I think the world of Dennis, but we had actually a substantive disagreement
00:27:03.800
I said, um, I agree with, with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
00:27:09.620
That, that, that the, the arc of history bends towards justice.
00:27:13.860
And Dennis said, well, I don't think that at all.
00:27:15.940
Actually, hold on, Michael does a great Dennis Prager impression.
00:27:24.420
I do not believe the arc of history bends toward justice.
00:27:30.840
I need a little more size, a little more height.
00:27:33.220
So he said, and he came back and he said, well, where was the arc of history in 1939, Germany?
00:27:41.680
And he said, where was the arc of history in, in the Soviet gulags?
00:27:46.420
And I actually came back, he had said earlier in the interview, he said, well, well, you
00:27:49.820
know, Ted, disagree with me if, if, if you want to.
00:27:51.900
And I said, well, actually, Dennis, I'm going to come disagree with you on that.
00:27:55.180
Um, you asked, where was the arc of history in 1939, Germany?
00:28:04.400
When our boys scaled the impossible heights and led the world in defeating the Nazi menace
00:28:15.520
Where was the arc of history in, in Solzhenitsyn's gulag in the hell hole that was there?
00:28:21.800
It was standing before the Brandenburg gate when Ronald Reagan said, Mr. Gorbachev, tear
00:28:27.240
And, and, and I believe, look, truth doesn't win every skirmish.
00:28:34.460
It doesn't guarantee the result in this election.
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And if Biden and Schumer and Pelosi win this election, we will go through a dark couple
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And there is just in a very basic Christian sense, you know, there is a happy ending to
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Trouble is things can get very dark before you arrive at that happy ending, but I suppose
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we'll just have to wait and see in the meantime, Senator, that's all the time we have.
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This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom, and Security
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