Verdict with Ted Cruz - July 16, 2025


Why We Should Designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a Terrorist Organization, plus IRS Concludes Churches Can Endorse Candidates & NYT Reports Biden Unaware of Many Autopen Pardons

Topics
Muslim Brotherhood designation as terror designating Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist pastors defending religious liberty
Hosted by
Ted Cruz
Mentioned
Hunter Biden Obama Mohammed Morsi Ann Patterson Anthony Fauci Ben Ferguson Cam Barker Joe Biden Mario Diaz-Balart Jared Moskowitz Louis LaRogue Buck Sexton Clay Travis Quads Force Allo Nissan John Thune Billy Long Pam Bondi Verdict Al-Sisi and 3 more
BONUS POD： Rand Paul goes after Fauci on GoF Research & Pardon plus SCOTUS Greenlights Trump’s Plan to Dismantle DoE BONUS： Daily Review with Clay and Buck - Jul 17 2025

Episode Stats


Length

33 minutes

Words per minute

157.5

Word count

5,341

Sentence count

372

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

10

sentences flagged

Hate speech

10

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Ted Cruz introduces legislation that would designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. And the IRS has now said explicitly that churches and pastors can endorse political candidates, which is a big deal. Plus, an expose about Joe Biden's auto-penning of pardons.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.580 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.460 Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:09.180 It's nice to have you.
00:00:10.420 And Senator, we've got some very interesting legislation that you are heading up that is making waves.
00:00:17.580 Fill people in on what you're wanting to do.
00:00:20.000 Well, this week I introduced legislation to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.
00:00:26.480 This is a fight I've been fighting for over a decade. 0.92
00:00:29.020 I think the Muslim Brotherhood clearly is a terrorist organization. 0.93
00:00:32.460 It is profoundly dangerous. 0.95
00:00:34.620 And I think we are closer right now to victory on this issue than we ever have been.
00:00:39.100 We're going to do a deep dive, explain the background, what the issues are, why we're close to victory, and what that would mean.
00:00:46.460 We're also going to talk about an amazing development, a really important development,
00:00:50.320 which is the IRS has now said explicitly that churches and pastors can endorse political candidates.
00:00:59.920 That is a big, big deal.
00:01:01.960 For a long time, there was legislation known as the Johnson Amendment that was interpreted as stripping the ability of pastors and churches
00:01:09.800 to express their views on politics, the IRS entered into a consent agreement that now makes clear churches and pastors can tell their congregations exactly what they think about politics.
00:01:22.540 That's a big, big deal.
00:01:24.360 And finally, the New York Times, in a shocking expose, looked at the Biden auto-pen scandal.
00:01:34.120 And they reported that for a significant portion of the auto-penned pardons that Joe Biden signed,
00:01:41.800 that he was not individually aware of who it was that was getting pardoned.
00:01:47.080 That is incredibly consequential.
00:01:49.160 It means as a legal matter, those pardons are null and void.
00:01:54.100 We're going to explain all of that right now.
00:01:56.160 Yeah, it's a really interesting story.
00:01:57.580 We're going to have all those details for you in just a moment.
00:01:59.980 Let me also just say that many of you may be listening to the show for the first time,
00:02:03.780 fighting this podcast on another feed.
00:02:06.100 And if you are, don't forget to hit that subscribe or auto-download button
00:02:10.080 as we actually do this show three days a week.
00:02:13.260 So make sure you do that.
00:02:14.220 All right, I love when I get to take a moment and tell you about something that I genuinely think you're going to love.
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00:04:00.020 All right, Senator, you said that 20—this has been something I should say for, well, over a decade.
00:04:05.360 You have been working on, and I am shocked why there is so much pushback.
00:04:11.680 Give a little background on the Muslim Brotherhood.
00:04:14.560 Let's start there for people that may not realize what this global organization is, what they do,
00:04:20.840 and why you think that they need to be included and designated as a terrorist organization.
00:04:27.160 Sure. 0.93
00:04:27.960 The Muslim Brotherhood is a global, Islamist, violent organization.
00:04:33.420 It was founded in 1928 in Egypt.
00:04:37.180 It was a fringe group for the first few decades, and then it grew dramatically inside of Egypt, and then it spread beyond.
00:04:45.260 The Muslim Brotherhood has branches and countries and territories all over the world,
00:04:49.620 and they are openly committed to seizing control of those countries and seizing control of those territories.
00:04:57.020 They explicitly intend to use violent jihad to overthrow non-Islamist governments. 0.82
00:05:08.300 During the Obama administration, they did.
00:05:11.740 They seized control of Egypt.
00:05:15.020 Muhammad Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood seized control until they were ultimately overthrown by the Egyptian army.
00:05:21.180 By the way, when the Muslim Brotherhood took over Egypt, the Obama administration cheered them on. 0.98
00:05:29.120 And how do we know that the Muslim Brotherhood supports terrorism?
00:05:32.720 Because several of their branches are explicit terrorist organizations.
00:05:39.080 Among those is Hamas, which everyone listening to this podcast knows about Hamas.
00:05:46.500 Yeah.
00:05:47.000 Hamas is one of the wings of the Muslim Brotherhood. 1.00
00:05:50.720 They also include other groups that folks may not have heard about, like Hassem and Liwa al-Thawra,
00:06:02.380 both of which, the State Department says, have been associated with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood,
00:06:08.120 and they are branches that have already been formally designated as terrorist groups.
00:06:14.180 Other Brotherhood branches are committing terrorism right now, but they haven't yet been formally designated.
00:06:20.720 Just a few weeks ago, the Jordanian government disrupted attacks being planned by Brotherhood members,
00:06:27.980 and police raided the Islamic Action Front, which is the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood branch.
00:06:36.240 You hear that, and then the question that I think some of you are listening, and I'm thinking in my head right now, is,
00:06:42.280 okay, if there is such a long history, why did it take so long for us to even get to the point that we're at right now,
00:06:49.340 if it's been this clear that they're a terrorist organization?
00:06:53.180 And then the second part is, then why in the past, even after, whether it was 9-11 or other attacks that we've seen around the world,
00:07:00.720 why haven't they already been listed as a terrorist organization?
00:07:03.920 Well, it's a complicated story, and it basically comes down to the messed up politics inside the American Democrat Party.
00:07:11.180 A bunch of our allies have already designated the entire Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.
00:07:19.420 In the Middle East, Bahrain has done so.
00:07:23.100 Egypt has done so.
00:07:25.120 Jordan has done so.
00:07:26.640 Saudi Arabia has done so.
00:07:28.140 The UAE has done so. 0.66
00:07:29.880 In Europe, Austria has designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.
00:07:34.420 There's a bill right now in Germany to designate it, and French intelligence has described the Muslim Brotherhood as, quote,
00:07:41.640 a threat to national cohesion.
00:07:44.560 British officials say the Brotherhood is right now under surveillance under their anti-extremism laws.
00:07:53.700 So the question is, why is America lagging behind?
00:07:57.320 Yeah, why haven't we done it?
00:07:59.140 I've been pushing to do this for over a decade.
00:08:02.920 We're in the 119th Congress right now.
00:08:06.740 I introduced versions of this bill in the 114th Congress in 2015,
00:08:12.060 in the 115th Congress in 2017,
00:08:14.980 in the 116th Congress in 2020,
00:08:18.560 and in the 117th Congress in 2021.
00:08:23.220 And the reason that it hasn't gone anywhere is that Democrats oppose it.
00:08:30.000 Now, it seems weird.
00:08:32.520 Why would progressives embrace a fundamentalist, Islamist, jihadist organization,
00:08:40.360 which is openly and brazenly against rights for women,
00:08:44.500 openly and brazenly against rights for homosexuals, 0.99
00:08:47.000 but to the left they do it because the Muslim Brotherhood is also anti-American and it wants to see Israel destroyed. 0.70
00:08:56.940 And there is a significant chunk of today's left that celebrates with the anti-Israel hatred,
00:09:04.880 that celebrates with Hamas, and that celebrates attacks on America. 0.58
00:09:09.640 If I remember correctly, the Muslim Brotherhood was also, if we go back to Obama's years,
00:09:15.800 somewhat normalized as well, right?
00:09:18.820 Yeah, look, when the Muslim Brotherhood was running Egypt, 0.99
00:09:22.960 when they took it over and Mohammed Morsi was there,
00:09:26.660 you may remember there were a million people that showed up in the streets of Cairo
00:09:30.080 protesting against the Muslim Brotherhood
00:09:31.640 because the people of Egypt did not want to live under jihadists.
00:09:36.260 They did not want to live under enforced Sharia law.
00:09:40.260 And at the time, it was amazing.
00:09:42.440 There were signs that you could see in this crowd of a million Egyptians protesting,
00:09:48.720 signs that said Obama supports the Muslim Brotherhood.
00:09:52.880 The ambassador, Obama's ambassador at the time to Egypt was a woman named Ann Patterson.
00:09:57.240 There were signs, pictures of her, saying Ann Patterson supports Mohammed Morsi.
00:10:02.260 The Obama administration leaned in aggressively, supporting the Brotherhood.
00:10:08.360 And in fact, when al-Sisi, who is the current leader of Egypt, took over,
00:10:13.540 when the army took over, the Obama administration was vocally against that.
00:10:18.180 Now, al-Sisi is an ally of America. 0.98
00:10:20.640 Al-Sisi is locking up jihadists and radical Islamic terrorists who want to murder us. 0.84
00:10:25.080 And bizarrely, the Obama administration got very angry with them,
00:10:30.000 withhold weapons from them, put pressure on them,
00:10:33.260 because they didn't like that the current Egyptian government
00:10:37.940 was standing up to the Muslim Brotherhood.
00:10:40.620 And if you fast forward to the Biden administration,
00:10:42.940 the Biden administration basically restored the old Obama policies
00:10:47.960 of embracing the Muslim Brotherhood.
00:10:50.580 And not only that, they sent hundreds of millions of dollars,
00:10:54.040 maybe even billions of dollars to Gaza,
00:10:58.140 knowing that Gaza was controlled by Hamas
00:11:00.460 and knowing that it would go directly into the hands of Hamas.
00:11:03.560 Yeah, and that is when I look at this and then you go back and you say,
00:11:07.300 OK, all this is happening.
00:11:09.320 You announced that you're doing this bill several weeks ago, in fact.
00:11:12.760 You announced it on X.
00:11:13.920 And I remember in that post that you said you were introducing
00:11:17.100 a modernized version of your bill.
00:11:20.180 Explain exactly what that means.
00:11:22.520 How is this one different?
00:11:24.020 And what changes were made?
00:11:26.520 And why they're so important?
00:11:28.380 And could this help this possibly become something that is bipartisan?
00:11:32.020 Or is there no way that's going to happen?
00:11:33.860 Well, it might.
00:11:35.260 And actually, it is bipartisan right now in the House.
00:11:39.340 So I've introduced the bill in the Senate,
00:11:43.300 and I have a total of five senators on my bill.
00:11:47.000 Right now, they're all Republican.
00:11:48.920 I am trying to convince a Democrat senator to support it.
00:11:52.500 In the House, the same bill is being led by two representatives from Florida.
00:11:57.580 Mario Diaz-Ballard, a Republican, a fellow Cuban-American, a good friend.
00:12:01.840 And Jared Moskovitz.
00:12:03.120 And Jared is a Democrat.
00:12:04.520 So in the House, we have Democrat supporters,
00:12:06.620 bipartisan support.
00:12:09.100 That is encouraging.
00:12:11.820 But you asked how we modernize the bill.
00:12:16.220 In the past, both in Congress and in the Trump 45 White House,
00:12:21.660 we took a top-down approach to listing the entire brotherhood.
00:12:26.220 And the idea was to designate the Global Muslim Brotherhood
00:12:29.480 and then all of its branches.
00:12:31.940 Now, the challenge and some of the pushback we got
00:12:34.300 is that not every one of the brotherhood branches
00:12:37.920 is currently violent.
00:12:40.520 And so each of the branches doesn't necessarily meet the criteria for designation.
00:12:44.480 And that was an argument critics used to try to block the designation.
00:12:48.920 This new bill instead uses a bottoms-up approach.
00:12:53.700 We start by identifying all the branches
00:12:56.640 that the Muslim Brotherhood supports
00:12:59.940 that are terrorist groups or that commit terrorism.
00:13:03.680 And then we designate the entire brotherhood for that support.
00:13:08.060 In other words, we build up with what is explicitly
00:13:10.940 and indisputably terrorist.
00:13:12.480 And then we designate the brotherhood as a whole
00:13:14.760 for supporting those terrorist groups.
00:13:18.420 So do you think this approach will actually work moving forward?
00:13:23.020 Is this something that you say is going to be more palatable
00:13:26.080 for people and also an easier sale?
00:13:28.460 Well, look, I think it could work.
00:13:31.440 We used the exact same approach during the Trump 45 administration
00:13:35.660 to list Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,
00:13:40.540 the IRGC, in 2017.
00:13:43.400 And Congress mandated that action through legislation.
00:13:48.040 And then the Treasury Department implemented our mandate
00:13:50.980 by listing the IRGC for supporting one of its branches,
00:13:54.940 the IRGC, Quads Force,
00:13:58.320 which is undoubtedly a terrorist organization.
00:14:01.060 So it worked.
00:14:02.660 And to get technical for a second,
00:14:05.140 there are three different ways to list terrorist groups.
00:14:09.860 Congress can do it through the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987,
00:14:13.360 which is how the PLO is listed.
00:14:15.520 The State Department can do it by labeling a group
00:14:18.340 as a foreign terrorist organization.
00:14:20.340 Or the Treasury Department can do it by labeling a group
00:14:24.280 what is called a specially designated global terrorist.
00:14:28.720 My bill does all three.
00:14:31.200 And so it's belts and suspenders on the Global Muslim Brotherhood. 0.90
00:14:35.620 And that results in immediate and devastating sanctions.
00:14:41.740 And it gives law enforcement greater tools to go after
00:14:45.520 not just the Muslim Brotherhood,
00:14:46.940 but those who are financially supporting it.
00:14:48.820 Now, you asked, can it happen?
00:14:52.380 It can.
00:14:53.900 We have one Democrat in the House.
00:14:55.980 I'm hoping we will get one or more Democrats in the Senate.
00:14:58.920 We don't right now.
00:15:00.420 I've had conversations today with Democrats trying to get them on board.
00:15:05.780 There are two paths for this to go forward.
00:15:08.040 One, I think it would make a very good sense for us to vote on it
00:15:12.200 on the Senate floor, for John Thune to bring it up
00:15:15.300 and make senators vote. 1.00
00:15:17.060 Most of the Democrats are going to vote no.
00:15:19.900 Because for whatever reason, the Democrat ideology,
00:15:23.160 these are the same Democrats that are terrified
00:15:25.840 to denounce the anti-Israel, anti-Semitic protests on campuses.
00:15:30.000 These are the same Democrats that are really frightened
00:15:32.700 of the pro-Hamas wing of their party.
00:15:34.600 And the pro-Hamas wing, as we talked about,
00:15:36.300 Hamas is explicitly an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood.
00:15:40.520 So most of the Democrats would be a no.
00:15:42.740 I think it would be valuable to get them on record,
00:15:45.700 force them to vote.
00:15:47.880 But I'll tell you what I think the real path to success will be
00:15:50.840 is that we're going to lead the fight in the Senate.
00:15:53.520 I hope we tee this up for a vote.
00:15:56.280 And if the Democrats block it,
00:15:59.200 which in all likelihood they will,
00:16:01.260 they have for a decade,
00:16:02.600 what I think is going to happen is I think the president
00:16:05.320 is going to do this through an executive order.
00:16:07.320 And I'm certainly urging President Trump
00:16:10.000 to designate the Muslim Brotherhood
00:16:11.720 as a terrorist organization through an executive order.
00:16:15.120 And I think the fight that I'm leading in the Senate
00:16:18.580 helps build momentum for the president to step in
00:16:22.320 and make this designation.
00:16:24.380 I think it's going to happen.
00:16:25.460 I think we're going to see it happen this term.
00:16:26.740 Final question on this for people that are listening.
00:16:29.840 That's why I love doing the show.
00:16:31.500 People want to get involved.
00:16:32.760 What can they do?
00:16:34.520 Should they be calling their Congress and their senators?
00:16:36.920 And should they be reaching out to the White House as well?
00:16:39.940 Yes, yes, yes.
00:16:41.100 Absolutely speak out.
00:16:42.460 Call your senator.
00:16:43.420 Call your House member.
00:16:45.040 Tell them to support my legislation
00:16:47.040 designating the Muslim Brotherhood 0.81
00:16:49.260 as a terrorist organization. 0.90
00:16:51.340 Get on social media.
00:16:52.500 Speak out.
00:16:53.180 Use your voice.
00:16:54.000 And by the way, share this podcast.
00:16:55.960 This podcast lays out all the facts.
00:16:58.220 And so if you want people to know about this,
00:17:00.680 share this podcast with others
00:17:02.260 so that they can know the facts and build momentum.
00:17:05.900 Because really what we're trying to do through this fight
00:17:08.080 is build momentum that will encourage the White House
00:17:11.060 to designate the Muslim Brotherhood,
00:17:13.400 which would be a big, big deal
00:17:15.480 if and when we get this done.
00:17:17.200 Yeah, we're going to keep you updated on this
00:17:18.620 because, I mean, this could be something
00:17:19.940 that could take, obviously, weeks or months, right?
00:17:21.980 I mean, that's a realistic timeline.
00:17:23.860 Absolutely.
00:17:24.260 So we'll keep you updated on it.
00:17:26.380 But I love that we got to start with this.
00:17:28.140 This is something you may hear nowhere else.
00:17:30.100 Make sure you share the podcast.
00:17:31.760 All right.
00:17:31.920 I want to move on to this other issue, Senator,
00:17:33.660 and that is the IRS is now saying
00:17:35.640 churches can endorse candidates.
00:17:39.000 I want to be clear.
00:17:40.280 When I first saw this headline, I'm like, hold on.
00:17:44.000 Many on the Democrat side have been doing this for years.
00:17:48.200 Yeah, no, it's a complete double standard.
00:17:50.140 You see Democrats, they go and campaign in frequently African-American churches
00:17:56.740 and pastors and endorse Democrats openly and brazenly.
00:18:01.540 They have for a long time.
00:18:03.360 Nevertheless, there is a provision of the United States Code.
00:18:07.520 It's known as the Johnson Amendment.
00:18:08.720 And it is part of 26 U.S.C.
00:18:12.500 Section 501c3 that threatens to strip nonprofits of their tax-exempt status
00:18:18.760 should they, quote, participate in or intervene in any political campaign.
00:18:25.640 And for many years, pastors and churches, particularly those right of center,
00:18:32.380 have been afraid to be explicit about politics
00:18:36.000 because the consequence they feared was that their tax-exempt status would be stripped away.
00:18:43.900 Now, from the day the Johnson Amendment was passed,
00:18:47.320 no church has ever had its tax-exempt status stripped for speaking out about politics.
00:18:54.060 But nonetheless, a lot of pastors self-censor
00:18:58.960 and are afraid to say their own views about what they think the Bible teaches
00:19:05.260 about issues of public policy, about issues of politics.
00:19:09.640 And just last week, on July 7th, the IRS agreed in a court filing
00:19:15.740 that churches can now endorse political candidates at the pulpit.
00:19:20.200 And the IRS created an exception to the Johnson Amendment.
00:19:26.100 The IRS reasoned that churches endorsing political candidates
00:19:30.820 resembles a family discussion concerning candidates
00:19:35.500 and therefore communications from houses of worship to its congregation
00:19:39.960 on matters of faith involving electoral politics
00:19:43.300 do not run afoul of the Johnson Amendment.
00:19:46.120 This is one of those moments where I actually think this is going to just be massive
00:19:50.880 to level the playing field, as you mentioned a moment ago,
00:19:53.900 because it's been happening on the left for so long.
00:19:57.120 And there have been a lot of, like you said, pastors.
00:19:59.480 Pastors that I know personally that were afraid to talk about politics
00:20:02.460 or even the election day outside of like,
00:20:04.440 hey, remember to vote or register to vote,
00:20:07.100 but like not getting into the issues, not getting into the candidates.
00:20:10.140 And this is, I think, great that many Christians and many churches,
00:20:15.520 many pastors are now going to be freed up to actually preach
00:20:18.120 what they believe the Bible says about biblical issues
00:20:21.600 that are in the political realm.
00:20:23.440 Abortion is a great example of that. 1.00
00:20:25.880 Yeah, and this was teed up.
00:20:28.080 This came through litigation.
00:20:29.900 And it was a lawsuit, National Religious Broadcasters versus Long.
00:20:34.440 Billy Long is the commissioner of the IRS.
00:20:37.640 And National Religious Broadcasters sued the IRS.
00:20:41.920 And they argued that the Johnson Amendment violated the church's First Amendment rights.
00:20:46.900 And they filed the case in the Eastern District of Texas.
00:20:50.120 They were before a judge, Cam Barker, who I helped select to be on the bench.
00:20:56.220 He's a strong, principled conservative and a constitutionalist.
00:20:59.940 And they were litigating before Judge Barker in Texas.
00:21:06.180 And the IRS decided to settle this matter.
00:21:09.100 And the IRS settled this matter.
00:21:10.800 And this is one of the advantages of winning elections.
00:21:13.060 When you win elections, you control the executive branch.
00:21:16.200 And when you control the executive branch, you can decide to settle litigation.
00:21:20.380 And so the IRS signed a joint consent judgment
00:21:23.680 that expressly stipulates churches may endorse candidates
00:21:28.820 or promote political issues without risking their tax-exempt status.
00:21:33.520 And here's what the IRS said.
00:21:35.560 When churches address political matters, quote,
00:21:38.720 through the lens of religious faith,
00:21:41.920 it neither participates nor intervenes in a political campaign.
00:21:47.240 Remember, those are the words of the Johnson Amendment.
00:21:48.920 Participate or intervene in a political campaign.
00:21:50.880 Within the ordinary meaning of those words.
00:21:55.180 Rather than take part or interfere with the course of a campaign,
00:21:59.560 churches that endorse political candidates simply engage in a family discussion.
00:22:05.140 Therefore, when properly interpreted,
00:22:07.640 communications from a house of worship to its congregation
00:22:10.580 on matters of faith involving electoral politics, quote,
00:22:15.480 do not run afoul of the Johnson Amendment.
00:22:18.480 That is a big deal, and it will free up the ability for religious leaders,
00:22:24.820 for pastors to speak their heart and to speak the truth
00:22:28.340 to the congregation about what they believe the Bible teaches
00:22:32.660 and how that impacts issues in public policy.
00:22:36.280 This is a major, major change.
00:22:38.780 Yeah, it also could have a huge impact on local elections,
00:22:41.480 and I think that's one of the biggest outcomes that could be positive from this,
00:22:45.680 is that pastors really are able to talk about who they believe is best for their cities
00:22:49.960 and for their community and bring it back to the local aspect of it.
00:22:54.160 And it'll be interesting to see how this plays out as well.
00:22:57.440 Yeah, Ben, and let me tell you a story from a number of years ago.
00:23:01.300 A number of years ago, the Houston mayor,
00:23:06.220 who was a left-wing Democrat,
00:23:10.000 and the Houston city attorney,
00:23:13.700 subpoenaed the sermon notes for five pastors in Houston.
00:23:18.700 And these were pastors in Houston who were preaching on marriage
00:23:22.620 and preaching on same-sex marriage.
00:23:25.180 And the left-wing Democrat mayor did not like what these pastors were preaching
00:23:29.480 about marriage and biblical marriage.
00:23:31.120 And so the city decided,
00:23:33.480 we're going to subpoena your sermon notes and go after you.
00:23:37.000 And when that happened,
00:23:39.420 I was very dismayed about that.
00:23:41.180 I've spent most of my adult life fighting to defend religious liberty,
00:23:45.380 and the idea of the city going after pastors was horrific.
00:23:49.140 And so I picked up the phone,
00:23:50.760 and I called my pastor.
00:23:52.460 And I called him.
00:23:53.520 I said,
00:23:53.780 Pastor, have you seen what's happened
00:23:55.760 with the subpoena to the five pastors in Houston?
00:23:58.640 And he said,
00:24:00.280 oh yeah,
00:24:00.560 I've definitely seen it.
00:24:02.000 He said,
00:24:02.540 I've been praying about it all morning.
00:24:04.660 And I said,
00:24:05.520 well,
00:24:06.320 look,
00:24:06.640 I'm praying about it as well,
00:24:08.060 and I'm very dismayed.
00:24:09.460 I want us to stand up and fight it.
00:24:12.500 And I told him,
00:24:14.600 I said,
00:24:14.880 listen,
00:24:15.140 I want to organize a rally.
00:24:16.460 I want to bring pastors together to speak out against this,
00:24:19.220 to defend the religious liberty of pastors in our hometown.
00:24:23.300 And I said,
00:24:24.120 I'd like to have a rally of pastors
00:24:26.580 tomorrow,
00:24:29.980 Thursday,
00:24:31.220 at 11 a.m.
00:24:32.240 And I was calling to see,
00:24:33.780 would you be willing to host that rally at the church?
00:24:37.640 And Ben,
00:24:38.540 my pastor,
00:24:39.040 begins laughing.
00:24:40.740 And he says,
00:24:41.660 Ted,
00:24:42.860 you know,
00:24:44.100 the Bible tells us that God has ordered our steps
00:24:46.700 long before we have any awareness of it.
00:24:50.160 My pastor said,
00:24:51.360 a month ago,
00:24:52.260 God laid on my heart to pray for our city.
00:24:56.760 He said,
00:24:57.440 a month ago,
00:24:58.040 I reached out to pastors across the city
00:25:00.080 and invited them to come to my office to pray for the city of Houston.
00:25:05.340 He said,
00:25:06.000 I've got 50 pastors coming to my office
00:25:08.400 tomorrow,
00:25:10.580 Thursday,
00:25:11.100 at 10 a.m.
00:25:13.500 That's incredible.
00:25:14.980 And we,
00:25:15.480 we both just kind of stopped.
00:25:17.220 And like,
00:25:17.500 I don't know if you ever heard the phrase,
00:25:18.640 a God wink,
00:25:19.960 but it kind of,
00:25:20.760 kind of felt like,
00:25:21.720 you know,
00:25:21.980 God was winking at us then.
00:25:23.880 And,
00:25:24.340 and so the next day,
00:25:25.380 I arrived at his office at 10 a.m.
00:25:28.060 I joined the pastors.
00:25:29.160 We spent an hour on our knees praying for our city.
00:25:32.080 And,
00:25:32.560 and,
00:25:32.700 and then we went out in a rally and,
00:25:34.480 and it was fantastic.
00:25:35.440 If you look at,
00:25:36.720 at,
00:25:37.220 you had pastors across denominations.
00:25:40.100 You had pastors across racial lines of,
00:25:43.100 of,
00:25:43.340 of white pastors,
00:25:45.060 black pastors,
00:25:45.840 Hispanic pastors,
00:25:46.840 Asian pastors.
00:25:48.720 Heck,
00:25:49.260 you even had first Baptist and second Baptist.
00:25:51.700 And,
00:25:52.040 and you know,
00:25:52.620 well,
00:25:52.940 that that is not easy,
00:25:54.100 but,
00:25:55.380 but they were there and we had complete unity.
00:25:58.800 And,
00:25:59.780 and one of the things I said at that rally,
00:26:01.820 I said,
00:26:03.620 Caesar has no jurisdiction over the pulpit.
00:26:08.980 And when you subpoena one pastor,
00:26:12.260 you subpoena every pastor.
00:26:14.980 And I'll tell you,
00:26:16.060 Ben,
00:26:16.220 it was amazing.
00:26:17.080 There was so much light and heat that came from that press conference.
00:26:22.020 It drove enormous attention.
00:26:23.660 It drove enormous coverage in the news and in the media that within 24 hours,
00:26:29.560 the city of Houston withdrew its subpoenas and just surrendered.
00:26:33.040 That was the power of pastors standing up saying,
00:26:36.800 we will not submit.
00:26:38.940 And,
00:26:39.220 and it made a real difference in the city of Houston.
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00:27:12.160 Finally,
00:27:13.220 I want to move to another issue and it is really exploded over the last 24 hours and that is new information that we now have.
00:27:23.180 on Biden's use of the auto pen on Biden's use of the auto pen is a scandal that I don't think people understand just how big it is and what is now been admitted to when it comes to the auto pen usage and Joe Biden maybe not knowing it was being used at all.
00:27:39.740 Well, so the New York Times on July 13th wrote a major story that says Biden says he made the clemency decisions that were recorded with auto pen.
00:27:49.580 And you and I talked about an earlier podcast that the Department of Justice has an opinion that it issued a number of years ago, the Office of Legal Counsel about whether you can use an auto pen for presidential signatures, whether that's a presidential signature on an executive order, a presidential signature on a law that is being signed into law or a presidential signature on a pardon.
00:28:13.460 And what the Department of Justice has concluded is that you can use an auto pen for any of those.
00:28:20.340 But the test is the authority is the president's and the president's alone.
00:28:24.400 So the president cannot delegate that authority to anyone else.
00:28:31.080 The president has to make the decision.
00:28:33.440 And what the Department of Justice explained, and this was years ago, is that the operative legal test is did the president make the individual determination to sign the executive order, to sign the specific piece of legislation, to grant the pardon?
00:28:50.620 And if the president made that individualized determination, then you can use an auto pen to reflect that.
00:28:59.460 But the president has to be the decider.
00:29:02.740 And so that's the legal standard.
00:29:05.720 But what the New York Times reported was, quote, Mr. Biden did not individually approve each name for the categorical pardons that applied to large numbers of people.
00:29:20.320 Even after Mr. Biden made that decision, one former aide said, the Bureau of Prisons kept providing additional information about specific inmates, resulting in small changes to the list.
00:29:50.900 Rather than ask Mr. Biden to keep signing revised versions, his staff waited and then ran the final version through the auto pen, which they saw as a routine procedure, the aide said.
00:30:03.420 That is stunning because under the Department of Justice guidance, those pardons aren't valid.
00:30:09.200 If the president didn't decide I am going to pardon Ben Ferguson, you know, if he didn't know that that would not be sufficient.
00:30:19.800 And the New York Times, the consequence of this, listen, I think the Trump White House needs to go through the records.
00:30:28.220 And look, they have the records because they're now in charge of the White House and examine what specifically has a paper trail that shows Biden signed off on the specific action.
00:30:37.820 And those that that that there is no paper trail, that there is no evidence in the New York Times is reporting, they're admitting, oh, yeah, they're broad categories.
00:30:46.300 He didn't know about at all. He didn't know the specific people. Those are null and void.
00:30:50.100 Those have no legal force. And my recommendation to Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice is they should look specifically at the most vulnerable and devise and implement a legal challenge to to challenge these.
00:31:06.400 And to make clear that that that an unelected aide running an auto pen does not have the power to grant a pardon under the United States Constitution.
00:31:16.120 So now that we have this information, the big question is, when do these pardons, what happens next?
00:31:24.040 How do you go about undoing this and how big of a legal fight is that going to be?
00:31:28.560 Well, look, it's going to be a termination, number one, of the White House and the White House Council assessing what are the records show?
00:31:35.840 What records did they keep of Biden signing off? We know that he personally signed the pardon for Hunter Biden.
00:31:42.100 So that one he knew about and he did. So so that one is is that also very telling?
00:31:48.480 Yes. And is that going to be used in many ways as an example of like, dude, he had no idea what was going on over here.
00:31:54.540 The ones he did know about, he knew he damned it well, better sign them himself.
00:31:59.000 His son is a great example of that. Does that actually hurt the argument for Biden that all the others are valid?
00:32:05.360 Potentially, although they are arguing that they discussed it with him and he approved.
00:32:09.700 And so some of the high profile ones, like you look at Anthony Fauci, who was pardoned, they're maintaining they discussed it with Biden and Biden said he wanted to he wanted to pardon him.
00:32:23.380 If that's true, if he made the decision and directed them to sign a pardon, then under the Department of Justice's OLC memorandum, that is valid.
00:32:33.280 The question is, are there ones? And according to The New York Times, there are a lot that Biden did not know.
00:32:42.280 And did not approve the specific individual receiving the pardon.
00:32:46.760 And if he didn't know and didn't approve, then it's not a valid part.
00:32:49.880 So when you look at the timeline of this moving forward, and some of these could be very significant, one that comes to mind is Dr. Anthony Fauci, for example.
00:32:58.340 This could this could, I mean, open up a whole lot of can of worms on a lot of different issues.
00:33:05.200 It could. It depends what. So what I believe, I believe the White House should go through systematically through the records and see what the records demonstrate.
00:33:13.380 And the Department of Justice should pick, starting with a test case to go challenge this, the look for a fact pattern in which there is the clearest absence of any approval from from the actual president and go challenge those in particular.
00:33:32.400 It's going to be interesting. We're going to cover all of it. Don't forget, we do the show Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
00:33:39.080 Hit that subscribe or auto download button and make sure you don't miss as we continue to keep you updated on these exact issues moving forward.
00:33:47.120 The center and I will see you back here on Friday morning.
00:33:51.400 This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.