Verdict with Ted Cruz - Will Schumer REFUSE to Try Mayorkas, plus the Media Turns on Biden

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.660 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.680 Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:09.100 And Senator, we have got a lot to talk about, especially with the border,

00:00:12.880 as you're hearing from many Texans that are frustrated with what's going on.

00:00:16.660 Well, that's exactly right. I'm in South Texas right now.

00:00:19.360 Next week, the Senate will receive articles of impeachment for Alejandro Mayorkas,

00:00:24.600 and the Senate will have to act on it.

00:00:26.300 We're going to do a deep dive tonight on what to expect in the impeachment trial of Alejandro Mayorkas,

00:00:32.020 how the Democrats are going to try to avoid this, cover it up, hide it,

00:00:36.460 how Chuck Schumer plans to ignore the constitutional responsibility of the Senate,

00:00:42.380 and everything to know about what to expect next week.

00:00:45.580 We're also going to examine how the media is turning on Joe Biden.

00:00:50.840 It's really quite remarkable. The New York Times, The Washington Post,

00:00:53.580 they've all suddenly discovered the guy's old. Apparently, he wasn't old a few weeks ago,

00:00:58.920 but it just struck him out of nowhere, and it sure seems like rats are fleeing a sinking ship

00:01:06.180 in a way that makes you wonder what's next.

00:01:10.100 Yeah, wait till you hear these headlines that they're actually printing.

00:01:12.740 They've never done this before, the Bidens.

00:01:14.420 Before we get into the border issue in Mayorkas,

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00:02:46.100 Senator, you and several other senators signed a letter asking for the Senate Minority Leader,

00:02:54.780 Mitch McConnell, to move forward quickly with impeachment hearings for Mayorkas.

00:03:00.840 And there are a lot of Republican establishment people that don't want this to move forward to a trial.

00:03:05.960 Explain why this letter was so important.

00:03:08.840 And not a lot of Republicans signed this letter.

00:03:11.640 You guys are truly leading the way on this.

00:03:13.660 Well, next week, the Senate will receive the articles of impeachment, and the Senate will return from recess on February 26th.

00:03:26.400 And under the Senate rules, when the Senate receives articles of impeachment, the next thing that happens is that senators are sworn in as jurors the next day.

00:03:36.060 And a trial is supposed to proceed.

00:03:40.220 However, Chuck Schumer has made clear he doesn't want to have a trial.

00:03:45.040 He doesn't want anyone in America to know about the absolute disaster that is unfolding on our southern border.

00:03:50.100 And so what Schumer has indicated he intends to do is use a procedural mechanism called tabling the articles of impeachment.

00:04:00.100 What does it mean to table the articles of impeachment?

00:04:02.160 It means he wants the Senate to vote.

00:04:04.560 No, we're not going to take these up.

00:04:06.440 In other words, he wants the Senate not to adjudicate the articles of impeachment at all, not to conclude guilty or not guilty, simply to table it on a party line vote and move on.

00:04:17.780 And the purpose of this, look, we've talked a lot on this podcast about how the disaster on the southern border, you cannot defend it on the merits.

00:04:26.540 You cannot defend it on the substance.

00:04:28.700 The Democrats have one strategy and one strategy only, and that is hide it from the American people.

00:04:34.140 In order to hide it from the American people, they need to make sure that the average person doesn't know the human suffering that the Democrats open borders are causing.

00:04:44.820 That's why Schumer wants to table the articles of impeachment at the outset, never have a trial, never hear the evidence, never consider anything, and never put any senator on record adjudicating the claims.

00:04:58.220 And so in response to that, Mike Lee and I together led a letter to Mitch McConnell, and it's a letter that was signed by 13 senators.

00:05:08.340 And it calls on Mitch McConnell to stand up and fight for the Senate to fulfill our constitutional obligation under the terms of the Constitution.

00:05:20.400 When the House impeaches, we have an obligation to conduct a trial and to adjudicate the guilt or innocence of the individual who's impeached.

00:05:30.240 And Chuck Schumer is trying to, for the first time in our country's history in over 200 years, refuse to adjudicate an article of impeachment.

00:05:39.500 Simply table it, make it go away, say, never mind, nothing to see here, and give every Democrat senator a get-out-of-jail-free pass by avoiding the need for them to give an answer on guilt or innocence.

00:05:52.280 Well, let's talk about what this trial would look like and explain, because this is not saying it's happened in my lifetime.

00:05:59.540 It's something that's very rare when it's a cabinet member, obviously, throughout history.

00:06:04.320 But let's talk about what a trial would actually look like.

00:06:07.400 Does it look very much like what we've seen before when it comes to an impeachment trial for a president?

00:06:13.500 Well, it potentially does, but there are differences.

00:06:16.080 So, for example, the Constitution specifies that when the president of the United States is impeached, the chief justice of the United States will preside.

00:06:25.260 By the way, interesting trivia.

00:06:27.520 Do you know what the title of John Roberts is?

00:06:31.000 What is it?

00:06:32.320 John Roberts is the chief justice of the United States.

00:06:35.140 He is not the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court.

00:06:38.720 Just like Joe Biden is the president of the United States, John Roberts is the chief justice of the United States.

00:06:44.940 That is the formal and technical title.

00:06:48.740 The Constitution provides the chief justice will preside over the impeachment trial of a president, because obviously Mayorkas is not a president.

00:06:58.340 The chief justice will not preside.

00:07:00.280 Instead, the trial is typically presided over by the president pro tem, which right now is Patty Murray, Democrat senator from Washington state.

00:07:10.740 Now, when it comes to cabinet members, impeaching cabinet members is exceptionally rare.

00:07:17.240 In fact, Mayorkas, this is only the second time in history the House has impeached a cabinet member.

00:07:23.960 And even that is overstating it, because the last cabinet secretary to be impeached was Secretary of War William Belknap, and that was in 1876.

00:07:35.700 Now, what's interesting about Belknap is right before the House voted to impeach him, Belknap resigned.

00:07:45.280 So Mayorkas is actually the first sitting cabinet member ever to be impeached.

00:07:51.160 And in terms of how the trial will proceed, the Senate is not obligated to hold a full trial on the floor of the Senate as as the Senate does for the impeachment of a president.

00:08:05.440 And so, for example, in past impeachments, a number of judges have been impeached.

00:08:09.740 Yeah. And what the Senate has done in the past is appointed a impeachment committee to conduct the trial.

00:08:19.360 And typically that committee consists of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, members of both parties.

00:08:25.180 And so it can be a smaller group of the Senate that that conducts the trial.

00:08:29.560 But what has always happened is is that the House managers get to present their evidence, they get to prosecute the case, they get to put on the trial.

00:08:38.520 And and what has also always happened is the senators adjudicate all 100 senators ultimately adjudicate guilt or innocence.

00:08:48.440 So if the Senate appoints an impeachment committee, that committee makes a recommendation to the Senate.

00:08:55.140 But then every senator goes on record voting, what Schumer is trying to do, he knows that if there is a trial, even of a smaller committee than the full Senate,

00:09:04.100 that that will force press coverage of the absolute disaster.

00:09:10.700 Mayorkas has been the disaster. Biden has been the open border chaos they have produced.

00:09:16.280 And Schumer doesn't want anyone to know that.

00:09:18.340 And so, as I said, what he wants to do is instead just right at the outset, before anything starts, say, we're not going to hear any evidence.

00:09:26.820 We're not going to have a trial. The House managers are not going to present the evidence.

00:09:30.760 They don't get to prosecute the case. No senator is going to vote guilty or not guilty.

00:09:35.500 We're simply going to vote to table it and make it go away.

00:09:37.740 Now, there's been a lot of media Republican establishment rhinotypes have been out there saying this is a terrible decision by conservatives to do this,

00:09:47.980 that this is we already know what the outcome of the vote's going to be.

00:09:51.620 This is going to be an embarrassing moment slash failure.

00:09:55.840 And so why the hell are they doing this?

00:09:58.220 If that was the case, then Democrats wouldn't be fighting this.

00:10:01.820 I don't think this is a mistake. Do you at all?

00:10:04.720 I mean, this is about national security as well, and that's something that the media and these Republican talking heads,

00:10:12.600 I think they're forgetting that.

00:10:14.280 This is about someone that is not enforcing the laws of land, not protecting a country,

00:10:20.620 having an open border policy deliberately, not getting rid of people that come into the country and break our laws who are here illegally. 1.00

00:10:28.220 And on top of all that, it's a national security issue from the from the terrorists on the terrorist watch list that are coming across the border.

00:10:35.700 It's staggering numbers.

00:10:37.140 Yeah. So so I don't know who's been going on TV saying that.

00:10:40.820 So I can say this with with complete free conscience because I don't know who I'm talking about. 0.97

00:10:45.800 But anyone who says that is a blithering idiot with an IQ below room temperature to say it is a mistake to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas for aiding and abetting a criminal invasion of the United States of America 0.99

00:11:01.300 by global cartels that have sent 10 million people illegally into this country that are bringing murderers and rapists and gang members into this country that that are abusing children that are raping women that that are potentially smuggling in Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists 0.99

00:11:17.420 to say that it is a mistake for Republicans to fight for the House to impeach Mayorkas.

00:11:22.820 They should have done this two years ago.

00:11:24.900 You and I have both been calling for this for two years.

00:11:27.540 And in the Senate, look, is the Chuck Schumer Democrat Senate going to vote to convict?

00:11:33.440 No, obviously not.

00:11:35.400 Why? Because the Democrats are partisan hacks.

00:11:37.740 They don't care about the facts. 0.67

00:11:38.820 They don't care about the truth.

00:11:40.200 They are going to vote with the Democrats because that's what Democrats do.

00:11:43.640 When Schumer cracks the whip, every Democrat obeys.

00:11:46.600 That's what's going to happen.

00:11:49.000 But why is it that Biden has been able to get away with this?

00:11:53.560 Well, the biggest reason is the media is utterly corrupt and they don't cover this.

00:11:58.180 If you watch Fox News, if you watch Newsmax or OAN, if you listen to Verdict, you know about what's happening at the border.

00:12:05.400 But if you watch CNN or MSNBC or ABC, NBC, CBS, if you read The Washington Post or The New York Times, there is no border crisis.

00:12:14.740 Nothing is happening.

00:12:15.520 The corrupt corporate media covers it up.

00:12:18.060 The reason this impeachment is important is to put the evidence before the American people.

00:12:23.380 And I got to say, and it's why, you know, the amazing thing is the Democrats get this.

00:12:29.960 Why do you think Schumer wants to table this at the outset?

00:12:32.760 Because he knows a trial would be terrible.

00:12:36.280 Why?

00:12:36.880 Because the facts are terrible.

00:12:39.080 What they are doing, the Democrats are doing, is grossly inhumane.

00:12:43.780 It is cruel.

00:12:44.820 It is evil.

00:12:45.780 Schumer and Biden do not want the American people to know that, so they want the issue to go away.

00:12:52.600 But I got to say, any Republican that like a docile little sheep rolls over and starts buying, the hell is wrong with them.

00:13:01.160 And there's a reason 13 of us wrote a letter to our leadership because Republican leadership, when they see a fight, typically turn around and charge the opposite direction.

00:13:11.700 And so we ought to stand united and say, listen, we have a constitutional obligation.

00:13:18.920 Listen, I'm going to read you the letter we sent because it's not a long letter.

00:13:22.580 Dear Leader McConnell, our Republican colleagues in the House have recently passed two articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law, as well as the breach of public trust.

00:13:37.840 These articles will soon be transmitted to the Senate.

00:13:41.660 It is imperative that the Senate Republican conference prepare to fully engage our constitutional duty and hold a trial.

00:13:50.500 According to multiple briefings by your staff, Majority Leader Schumer and Senate Democrats intend to dispose with the articles of impeachment simply by tabling both individually.

00:14:01.380 This is an action rarely contemplated and never taken by the U.S. Senate in the history of our republic.

00:14:09.340 It remains to be seen if the Senate rules will even allow us to brush aside our duty in this manner.

00:14:14.840 But one thing is sure, if a similar strategy was contemplated by Senate Republicans when we were in the majority with a Republican occupying the White House,

00:14:25.200 the opposition would be fierce and the volume from Democrats would be deafening.

00:14:31.380 We call on you to join us in our efforts to jettison this approach by Democrats to shirk their constitutional duty, ensure that the Senate conducts a proper trial and that every senator, Republican and Democrat, adjudicates this matter when the Senate returns.

00:14:49.200 And Mike Lee and I led it at signed by a total of 13 senators.

00:14:52.740 I want to ask you about strategy here of laying this out to the American people, because that's going to be obviously something we got to get right at the very beginning.

00:15:02.600 As you know, Republicans sometimes are accused of screwing up the basics.

00:15:06.480 So I want to get your perspective on what the strategy should be laying this out to the American people that maybe haven't been listening to this podcast or watching, as you mentioned, Fox or Newsmax or OAN.

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00:17:01.220 Senator, laying all this out and the threat from Mayorkas and not doing his job, which is what this is basically about,

00:17:10.160 how do the Republicans do this the right way?

00:17:13.400 Do you break it up into, hey, the fentanyl coming across the southern border because it's open is the number one killer of people under the age of 49 and you go through that?

00:17:24.000 Do you then go through the sex trafficking and the human smuggling?

00:17:27.260 Do you then go to the terrorist on the terrorist watch list?

00:17:31.800 Do you then go to the financial aspects?

00:17:33.700 I mean, is that how we need to break this down so the American people understand just how catastrophic this is?

00:17:39.880 Well, listen, what you say makes a lot of sense and what you're doing there is telling a story.

00:17:44.020 And I will say that's one thing Republicans are typically horrible at doing is telling a story.

00:17:48.960 And that's what we desperately need to do.

00:17:51.480 At the end of the day, the choice of how to present the evidence is not going to be one for the Senate to make.

00:17:57.660 The way an impeachment trial works, the House managers are the prosecutors.

00:18:01.960 So they will present their case.

00:18:03.800 And so it will be ultimately the managers selected by the Speaker of the House who will present the evidence and lay it out.

00:18:11.560 And they could very well follow the pattern you laid out.

00:18:14.380 It should be a systematic presentation of the evidence.

00:18:17.380 I think it should focus on the harms.

00:18:19.900 It should focus on who is hurt.

00:18:21.340 It should focus on the dead bodies, the Biden body bags that have piled up one after the other after the other.

00:18:27.160 It should focus on the children who've been physically and sexually abused over and over and over again. 0.83

00:18:33.160 It should focus on the women who've been violently raped. 0.84

00:18:35.600 It should focus on the disease that has come in over our open border.

00:18:40.080 It should focus on the more than 100,000 drug overdoses last year, the highest in recorded history, 70 percent of which came from Chinese fentanyl coming across our southern border.

00:18:51.340 It should focus on the terror threat, Hamas, Hezbollah, the open borders we have and the exposure we have to a major terrorist attack higher, I believe, right now than any time since September 11th.

00:19:04.320 All of that they should do.

00:19:06.240 But what Chuck Schumer is trying to do is prevent all of that.

00:19:09.940 He wants to table the articles before any evidence is presented, before the Senate considers anything, and he wants to spare Democrat senators.

00:19:20.120 Understand, there are a bunch of Democrat senators running in red and purple states that Schumer doesn't want to have them vote not guilty because Mayorkas is obviously guilty.

00:19:30.980 And so he doesn't want to get them on record, and tabling it is a much simpler and less painful way to do it.

00:19:37.360 Now, I can tell you, a week ago, Mike Lee and I together went to the Senate parliamentarian's office, and we presented an argument, the two of us.

00:19:45.560 It's quite rare for senators to go directly to the parliamentarian.

00:19:49.540 Typically, staff, lawyers on our staff make those arguments.

00:19:53.420 Mike and I made these arguments ourselves, and he and I have both done this a couple of different times over the last decade.

00:19:59.420 But the argument we presented is we wanted to walk through the parliamentarian, the history and the precedent in this case.

00:20:07.560 And in particular, because Schumer wants to table the articles, we wanted to underscore that in over two centuries, the Senate has never once tabled articles of impeachment.

00:20:20.560 There was a previous impeachment in which the Senate tabled the procedural rules, but that's different than tabling the actual articles of impeachment, refusing to adjudicate.

00:20:30.080 And the point we made, which the parliamentarian agreed with, is every single time when an impeachment came over, the Senate adjudicated the merits.

00:20:40.940 It reached the merits.

00:20:41.960 The one exception was a case where the individual resigned, and in that case, the House basically withdrew the articles of impeachment.

00:20:49.360 So every time there was an impeachment and the House was pressing the impeachment, the end of it was every senator saying guilty or not guilty.

00:20:59.120 And what Chuck Schumer is trying to do is throw away 200 years of our nation's history, all in an effort to give political protection to vulnerable Democrats and to avoid any media coverage of the disaster at our southern border.

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00:21:45.780 One other question on this, and that is, who is going to run this?

00:21:49.940 I mean, will this be you and Senator Lee and others heavily involved?

00:21:55.560 Or is this going to be lawyers representing the Republicans that will be asking the questions?

00:22:00.680 How does that play out?

00:22:01.860 Well, actually, when it comes to questions, unfortunately, the Senate doesn't get to ask questions.

00:22:07.520 And so if you remember back, look, when verdict launched, the very first episode of this podcast was the first night of the first Trump impeachment.

00:22:17.760 And if you remember what happened in impeachment number one and impeachment number two, when we sat there as jurors, we couldn't speak.

00:22:25.060 Yeah, I'll admit that was frustrating.

00:22:27.620 You know, among things I like to do, I do kind of enjoy talking.

00:22:31.580 I do it a lot.

00:22:34.780 And we were not allowed to say a word.

00:22:37.860 We were to sit there and listen.

00:22:41.380 And we listened to the presentation of the House impeachment managers.

00:22:44.920 We listened to the presentation of the president's defense team.

00:22:49.300 Now, as as I discussed at great length in those opening verdict episodes, I spoke frequently with President Trump's defense team.

00:23:00.480 And by the way, some observers said at the time, oh, that's terrible.

00:23:04.900 You're supposed to be jurors.

00:23:06.000 You're supposed to be impartial.

00:23:07.260 And that's not actually right.

00:23:09.120 It is true that we are jurors in one sense and that we adjudicate guilt or innocence.

00:23:14.120 But but senators are not designed to be impartial frequently in impeachment.

00:23:20.320 You have senators who are very close to the individual being impeached or very antagonistic to the individual being impeached.

00:23:29.400 The impeachments occur in a partisan context and senators are elected in partisan elections.

00:23:35.080 The framers knew that that was the world in which impeachments would occur.

00:23:39.620 And they placed it in a political body to have an exercise of judgment and and importantly, actually, during the Bill Clinton impeachment, Tom Harkin, the senator from Iowa at the time, stood up and raised a point of order and asked for a clarification from the presiding chief justice.

00:23:59.360 That was William Rehnquist, my my former boss, the previous chief justice.

00:24:03.700 And and Harkin raised a point of order and said, to clarify, we are not jurors in the sense of a jury in a criminal case where we simply have to review the evidence and make a determination.

00:24:17.540 And the chief justice ruled that is correct.

00:24:21.040 The Constitution empowers you to adjudicate this matter and to consider issues of fact and law and policy and politics and everything else.

00:24:31.100 But during that trial, I spoke frequently with President Trump's lawyers more than once.

00:24:37.640 I told them I thought a strategy they were pursuing was boneheaded a number of times.

00:24:43.420 I told them there were strategies they were pursuing that were quite good and they should do more of it.

00:24:47.540 And I was trying to give my judgment in terms.

00:24:49.660 I thought both Trump impeachments were completely bogus.

00:24:52.980 They were not supported by either the facts or the law.

00:24:55.420 And and I wanted that to be the outcome.

00:24:57.940 And so I was actively involved in giving my my thoughts and counsel to to the Trump impeachment defense.

00:25:06.220 Now, you'll recall the questions we asked in the full trial were asked.

00:25:12.160 We wrote them on note cards and then submitted them to the bench.

00:25:16.860 And actually, the chief justice read the questions.

00:25:20.300 And so that's how it proceeded on on the floor of the Senate.

00:25:23.980 But in this instance, if we have a trial, if the Senate follows the procedure, I think it is more likely than not that a trial would be conducted by a smaller committee, not the full Senate.

00:25:34.860 I don't think we're likely to spend weeks on the Senate floor.

00:25:37.960 If we had a Republican majority, I would be arguing vociferously for us to spend weeks on the Senate floor trying this.

00:25:45.280 But with Schumer as majority leader, that argument is going to fail.

00:25:48.860 So I think it is likely instead to go to a smaller committee appointed to to to hear the trial.

00:25:56.900 But then the trial will be driven by the presentation of evidence by the House managers.

00:26:02.340 If if if the Senate actually does its job and Republicans don't roll over quietly while Schumer tables the whole matter to make it go away.

00:26:10.620 One last question, because this is incredibly complicated, but also unbelievably interesting.

00:26:16.540 There are going to be a ton of people that say this is a frivolous waste of taxpayers, money and time because you can count the votes and, you know, the Democrats are going to be able to defeat this.

00:26:30.700 Therefore, Republicans shouldn't do this.

00:26:33.520 What is your counter to that?

00:26:35.420 That it's obviously false.

00:26:37.780 And by the way, that was true of the Trump impeachment, the Trump impeachment, the Clinton impeachment before that.

00:26:43.200 That's been true of a lot of impeachments.

00:26:45.320 But but there is a value.

00:26:47.820 You know, look, Schumer gets the value of it.

00:26:51.160 It's why he's scared of this.

00:26:53.220 The problem is Republican leadership doesn't get the value of it.

00:26:56.840 Our leadership is is from a prior generation where they do not understand that what we do in the Senate actually influences public opinion.

00:27:05.440 A lot of our leadership comes from an era where they say, look, we make decisions in smoke filled rooms in Washington.

00:27:14.180 And then we go back to our home states and we tell the silly constituents there, whatever it is they want to hear.

00:27:20.720 And there's no connection between the two that that they think public opinion is exogenous.

00:27:26.400 It is it is separate and not impacted by what we're doing.

00:27:31.280 I think that is a fundamental mistake, that that that a major part of our job is to present facts and argument in a way that move public opinion.

00:27:42.100 Our leadership fundamentally doesn't think that way.

00:27:44.980 Ironically, the Democrats do.

00:27:47.140 Everything they do is is designed to move public opinion.

00:27:50.600 Virtually nothing Republican leadership does is designed to move public opinion because they don't view that as our job.

00:27:57.060 I think it is critical to our job and and and all right, let's just go through some facts.

00:28:04.420 So since 1789, the Senate has completed 17 impeachment trials of those 17 trials completed.

00:28:15.080 The Senate, seven of them were conducted in the last 80 years and four of them were federal judges.

00:28:22.240 In those four cases, the Senate appointed a trial committee composed of an equal number of senators from each party to hear and consider evidence and report to the Senate.

00:28:31.760 The trial committees were not used for presidential impeachments.

00:28:35.820 And the three trials since 1836 conducted without a committee were Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Donald Trump.

00:28:42.580 Every single instance in over 200 years of our nation's history, the Senate has never once, not even a single time, tabled articles of impeachment.

00:28:54.900 Every single time the Senate has voted on either guilt or innocence or the House has withdrawn the impeachment.

00:29:01.880 And so this is an opportunity for Senate Republican leadership just to stand and fight.

00:29:10.400 And I hope that they do. I don't know if they will, but I hope that they do.

00:29:15.000 Senator, you said something that was very interesting.

00:29:17.020 You got to really pay attention to the words. And you said there were 17 completed impeachment.

00:29:22.180 So the question I have to ask is, well, then how many others weren't completed and what what's the difference between the two?

00:29:29.020 Is it meaning that the Senate decides guilt or innocence and that is completed?

00:29:34.000 That's a very good question.

00:29:36.140 In total, there have been 21 impeachments sent to the Senate.

00:29:40.980 And look, we're well over 200 years old.

00:29:43.540 So it averages a little less frequently than once every 10 years of the 21 impeachments, 21 individuals who were impeached by the House of Representatives and transmitted to the Senate.

00:29:55.160 17 of them were completed, had a trial, and they ended in an adjudication of guilty or not guilty.

00:30:01.540 One of the 21 never got started and the Senate didn't take action because the person resigned.

00:30:08.460 And so it became mooted.

00:30:09.920 And then three of them were dismissed.

00:30:12.080 One of them was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, and two of them were dismissed because the people resigned and the House asked for the proceedings to be halted.

00:30:23.440 The one that was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds was the first ever impeachment, and it was the impeachment of a senator.

00:30:30.160 And the Senate concluded they had no jurisdiction over the impeachment of a senator, that impeachment applies to executive officers or judicial officers, but not to members of the legislature.

00:30:42.340 And so it was dismissed on the basis of jurisdiction.

00:30:44.400 The other two that were dismissed were judges who resigned, and so the House asked the Senate to end the proceedings.

00:30:52.320 And the ones that were dismissed, the most recent one was Samuel Kent, who was a district judge in Texas, who was impeached, and then he resigned, right?

00:31:03.660 And so the House asked the Senate to dismiss the matter.

00:31:08.920 Before that was George W. English, who was a district judge from Illinois, who was impeached by the House in 1926.

00:31:16.000 And likewise, the judge resigned, and so the House asked the Senate not to proceed.

00:31:26.640 And then the very first one that I mentioned was Senator William Blount.

00:31:30.300 And Blount was a senator from Tennessee, and he was charged with conspiring with British forces and Indian tribes to seize Spanish-held lands in the lower Mississippi Valley in order to open the area to more settlers and to increase his personal land holdings.

00:31:49.580 So, I mean, you want to talk about salacious charges.

00:31:52.360 It was literally treason with our enemies to enrich themselves.

00:31:56.120 And what happened there was that the House impeached him, and the Senate, and this was in 1797, so it was very early in our country's history, and over the next several months, the Senate spent a lot of time preparing for the trial.

00:32:14.240 And the Senate trial began on December 17, 1798, and the House managers and Blount's defense counsel presented arguments,

00:32:22.980 But ultimately, the question came down to whether Congress could impeach a former member.

00:32:29.540 And on January 14, 1799, the Senate dismissed the case, doing so on jurisdictional grounds, holding that impeachment did not lie against a member of the legislature.

00:32:42.240 What that means is unless there's a jurisdictional claim, and there's not, and unless Mayorkas resigns, and he hasn't, that in every single instance for more than 200 years, when the House has impeached someone, the Senate has adjudicated the matter and has come to a conclusion, guilty or not guilty.

00:33:05.740 That's the argument I presented, and Mike Lee presented to the parliamentarian.

00:33:09.500 I think that's consistent with the Constitution and our rules, and I very much hope that we see Republicans united in holding Democrats to follow the Constitution and follow the rules of the Senate.

00:33:20.740 Last question for you, and that is, there are people that are going to be listening, and they're going to be saying to themselves,

00:33:27.580 How do I get involved to make sure Republican leadership does the right thing?

00:33:32.120 Is this that moment of call to arms, where you say, hey, call your senator, regardless if they're Republican or Democrat, call the Senate Minority Leader's office as well?

00:33:44.000 What should people do now?

00:33:45.580 Well, that is always effective, picking up the phone and calling your senator and saying, follow the law, convict Mayorkas, remove him from office.

00:33:56.560 The invasion at our southern border is threatening the safety and security of my family.

00:34:03.140 It is threatening this country.

00:34:04.800 It is inhumane.

00:34:05.920 It is cruel.

00:34:06.820 It is a grotesque violation of the obligations of a cabinet member.

00:34:12.140 And, look, every senator, it makes a difference when their constituent calls.

00:34:18.360 That can be very effective and speak out and make the case to your friends and family and on social media and to anyone else who will listen that the right thing to do here was to impeach him, and now it's to convict him.

00:34:32.040 I want to tell you about something that is really cool.

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00:34:54.100 I, back then, thought, man, I wish there was a way that you could just get ammo and store it.

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00:35:27.540 Set it and forget it.

00:35:28.780 Ammo purchasing.

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00:36:26.000 Senator, I want to move lastly to this other issue, and that is, it is weird.

00:36:30.820 The media seems to be turning on Joe Biden.

00:36:35.420 Headlines now coming from major news organizations.

00:36:39.200 The Washington Post, for example, had this headline.

00:36:42.280 What happens if Trump or Biden can no longer run for president?

00:36:46.880 Obviously, they're trying to act like Donald Trump is in cognitive decline.

00:36:50.520 It's not happening, and we know it's different with Joe Biden.

00:36:53.920 The New York Times even said this.

00:36:56.320 How old is too old to be president?

00:36:58.600 An uncomfortable question arises again.

00:37:01.900 And now the New York Times taking heat for that headline.

00:37:05.580 I want to get your reaction to this moment on Fox News Channel as they describe this turning on the president.

00:37:13.380 On the story.

00:37:14.180 Thanks for being here this afternoon with us, everybody.

00:37:16.000 It's really interesting.

00:37:18.180 When you take a look at a theme that seems to be emerging in the coverage of this campaign, this presidential race, right?

00:37:27.620 Check out some of these recent headlines.

00:37:30.160 Quote, what we know about cognitive decline.

00:37:34.320 Quote, what happens if Trump or Biden can no longer run for president?

00:37:39.140 How old is too old to be president?

00:37:41.640 These are not your typical election year headlines, but this is clearly not a typical election year matchup if it turns out to be these two presumed nominees.

00:37:52.020 So the publisher of The New York Times is standing by his papers reporting on the president's quote on popularity and his age, but says that the White House is not happy.

00:38:02.920 In fact, he says they're extremely upset about the coverage that they're getting at The New York Times.

00:38:07.640 And take a listen to this exchange just a short time ago as President Biden left for a fundraising trip to California.

00:38:14.940 Watch.

00:38:15.240 I mean, he didn't even know what they were talking about, Senator.

00:38:32.640 And you can see the media flipping on him.

00:38:35.800 Is this the beginning of the end of his presidency with the Democratic Party figuring out how to offload him?

00:38:40.820 Yeah, look, that was weird, that exchange at the end being asked, are you going to California for a plan B to talk to Gavin Newsom?

00:38:50.240 Look, that was a nasty little question, but his answer was bizarre.

00:38:54.480 It was a non sequitur.

00:38:55.640 It made no sense.

00:38:57.120 And, you know, those three headlines that the Fox story just read, the first one was from The Wall Street Journal.

00:39:03.680 The second one was from The Washington Post.

00:39:05.380 The third one was from The New York Times.

00:39:07.280 And I do think we are seeing the corporate media starting to turn on Joe Biden.

00:39:13.420 And we've talked at length.

00:39:15.120 Listen, it was this podcast that drove news and drove news across the country when we said months ago that I believe there was a very significant chance the Democrat Party would pull the cord on Joe Biden, yank him out, and replace him with Michelle Obama.

00:39:31.720 And I think if they do that, they're likely to do it either at the Democrat convention this summer or shortly thereafter.

00:39:37.540 And we're seeing the corporate media, which is one in the same with the Democrat Party, but in many ways, they're the left wing of the Democrat Party.

00:39:48.800 They're starting to get nervous. 0.83

00:39:50.440 They're starting to realize, crap, if it's Biden against Trump, we think Trump's going to win. 0.96

00:39:55.220 And so they're hitting the panic button. 0.94

00:39:57.840 And I think we're going to see more of these stories as the media turns on them.

00:40:01.900 I do think you're seeing both Democrats in the media getting very, very worried about Joe Biden's ability to win in November.

00:40:08.820 When you are running for president, you've done this before and you see something this significant of a change in the news cycle.

00:40:17.780 Joe Biden has had three years of basically a media that's been covering for him.

00:40:22.720 I think that's why he was so shocked when he had that the report that came out about his cognitive decline and couldn't answer basic questions.

00:40:30.380 And then he came out with a very angry, really dysfunctional press conference at night and the media didn't get back in line since then.

00:40:39.620 So when you see this, who is moving the needle?

00:40:42.720 Is it donors who are saying we're not going to give money anymore?

00:40:46.200 Or is it the leadership of the Democratic Party saying we got to figure something out?

00:40:50.620 We got to figure it out fast.

00:40:51.680 Or could it even be both?

00:40:53.240 So I don't think it's donors and I don't think it's anyone cutting off money.

00:40:56.700 And understand, the Democrats and the media would be perfectly happy if they could wave a wand and put Joe Biden there four years more.

00:41:04.780 They're not worried that he's incompetent to be president.

00:41:07.460 They're not worried that the Department of Justice says he's not competent to stand trial.

00:41:11.620 They're not worried that he's such a weak commander in chief that our enemies are attacking our allies and threatening America.

00:41:18.740 They're not worried that he lacks the competence to do the job.

00:41:24.200 There's only one thing they're worried about.

00:41:26.700 That he would lose.

00:41:28.220 If they believed he would win, they'd be perfectly fine to weaken at Bernie's him, to stand him up as a corpse and say, Joe Biden's there and let's keep pulling the puppet strings.

00:41:40.400 Their concern is they're worried he's going to lose.

00:41:44.320 And that is a very real and acute concern on their part.

00:41:49.820 It's also worth noting, you were talking about the press turning on him.

00:41:54.180 You know, there's a real difference between Republicans and Democrats.

00:41:57.580 Look, on my end, the press has always turned on me.

00:42:00.780 They're always hostile.

00:42:01.820 Every question they're asking, they're looking to screw me nine ways to Sunday.

00:42:05.340 That that's just when you're and by the way, and you've been in the Capitol with me, Ben, as you know, when I walk from my office to the Senate floor and I do so repeatedly, whether it is to vote or to go to meetings or to go to committee hearings.

00:42:18.140 I'm walking back and forth through the Capitol and there's a cluster of reporters that surround you and they ask you a hostile question after hostile question on every topic under the sun.

00:42:27.100 And if you're a Republican, especially conservative Republican, you're used to just getting constant barrages of attacks.

00:42:35.740 The Democrats don't get that.

00:42:37.500 They get the kind of questions.

00:42:38.700 Remember Joe Biden in his first year in the White House, the reporters would ask him things like, Mr. President, what's your favorite flavor of ice cream?

00:42:45.920 I mean, I mean, that was right.

00:42:48.080 What are you eating, Mr. President?

00:42:49.440 I mean, it's it's embarrassing.

00:42:52.460 It's it's they're like groupies chasing the Beatles, throwing their panties at him.

00:42:57.160 And that's just the guys.

00:42:58.220 I mean, I mean, it is it's pitiful.

00:43:01.080 And and and so he is really startled because he's not used to any scrutiny.

00:43:07.100 He's not used to journalists actually being journalists.

00:43:10.080 By the way, there is this phenomenon for Republicans as well.

00:43:13.120 If you remember John McCain, John McCain used to get lots of adoring press coverage because when he was a Republican senator, he would often attack other Republicans and the press.

00:43:24.800 And he would attack him from the left.

00:43:26.200 And the press loves it when a Republican attacks other Republicans from the left.

00:43:31.220 It's the best way to get good press.

00:43:33.260 You get called a bipartisan statesman when you agree with the Democrats and attack your fellow Republicans.

00:43:38.960 Well, when John McCain got the Republican nomination and you and I both supported John McCain once he was our nominee.

00:43:47.240 Yeah.

00:43:47.520 But the press turned on him and turned viciously on him.

00:43:51.340 Remember, McCain made a comment, something like, I don't understand.

00:43:54.480 I thought you guys were my base.

00:43:56.740 And he was completely startled because it's the same sentiment Biden's having.

00:44:02.900 When you're used to just getting your your hindquarters kissed by the media, when they start biting, you don't know how to handle it.

00:44:13.320 And one of two things is going to happen when it comes to this center.

00:44:16.420 They're either going to get back in line after trying to, you know, step out and see.

00:44:20.400 Well, others follow us.

00:44:22.040 Right.

00:44:22.400 And test the waters or they're going to keep going.

00:44:25.860 What's your prediction?

00:44:26.740 Well, if he stays the nominee, they'll get back in line and they'll immediately begin saying it's ageist and racist and horrible to even ask these questions.

00:44:35.220 And they have no shame.

00:44:37.040 So this is the moment where they're trying to see if they can push him out and replace him with Michelle Obama.

00:44:43.060 If they can't, if he doesn't go, if we get to September and Biden's the nominee, the media will suddenly be completely silent on this front and will attack anyone who dares raise the same questions they're raising right now.

00:44:58.240 Don't forget, we do the show Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

00:45:01.440 We have a week in review on Saturdays.

00:45:05.240 Make sure you grab that wherever you get your podcast.

00:45:08.360 Hit that subscribe, auto download or follow button as well.

00:45:13.000 And the center and I will be back with you on Friday morning.

00:45:17.040 This is an iHeart podcast.

00:45:19.920 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - February 21, 2024

Will Schumer REFUSE to Try Mayorkas, plus the Media Turns on Biden

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