Verdict with Ted Cruz - April 08, 2024


With Iran Threatening Terror Attacks, Biden's Open Borders Get even WORSE, plus IRS Targeting the Middle Class

Topics
eclipse known gotaways Iran threats and US response oil sanctions and Iranian economy
Hosted by
Ted Cruz
Mentioned
Joe Biden Donald Trump Ben Ferguson John Kerry Ayatollah Obama Mohammad Reza Zahedi Mohammed Jamshidi Jennifer Stewart Blackout Coffee Caitlin Clark Ibrahim Raisi Janet Yellen Greg Gabbitt Bob Menendez Mike Pompeo Ivan Duque Netanyahu Bolsonaro Abbott and 2 more
Dems Speak for Hamas more than Hostages, RFK Baffles CNN, & Whining Hosts at NBC Oust Ronna McDaniel Week In Review Schumer's Plan to Nuke the Constitution to Avoid Mayorkas Impeachment & Hide Dem's Open Borders Catastrophe

Episode Stats


Length

36 minutes

Words per minute

168.9

Word count

6,190

Sentence count

452

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

8

sentences flagged

Hate speech

16

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Ted Cruz and Ben Fergusons talk about the eclipse, the latest on the border, and the new IRS audit of the White House, and much, much more. Ted Cruz is a conservative senator from Texas and is one of the most respected conservative voices in the Senate. He has been a long time member of the Armed Forces and served as a presidential candidate in both the 2000 and 2004 presidential election.

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.
00:00:02.660 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.720 Welcome. It is the verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:09.700 Senator, we have got a lot on this Monday to talk about, and it's more than just the eclipse.
00:00:14.580 There are new warnings at the southern border about possible terrorists coming across as well.
00:00:19.840 Well, that's right. We should start with the fact that the eclipse is going to be happening today,
00:00:24.120 that it is, by all accounts, going to be spectacular. It's right over the middle of Texas.
00:00:30.160 And so if you are anywhere in the path of the eclipse, I'd encourage you to go outside, take a few minutes.
00:00:35.620 Obviously, don't look directly in the sun, but you can do the pinhole effort with a piece of paper
00:00:43.640 and then take your kids out there and see.
00:00:45.880 We should get, for a good chunk of Texas, about four minutes of darkness right in the middle of the day.
00:00:50.860 And so that should be worthwhile to go see.
00:00:54.520 And actually, Ben, you're right now in Kerrville, Texas, at a ranch right in the prime viewing spot.
00:01:02.580 So I will say today, as verdict is coming out, the sun will be blotted out.
00:01:09.160 It will be.
00:01:10.120 I said, rarely in my life can I say that I went to the perfect spot.
00:01:14.480 If it's good enough for NASA, it's got to be good enough for me.
00:01:17.440 So it's going to be four plus minutes of total darkness, they say.
00:01:20.620 And my kids are here.
00:01:21.960 It's going to be fun in Kerrville.
00:01:23.620 They say the town of Kerrville is going to swell by over 500,000 people just to see this moment.
00:01:29.640 Wow.
00:01:29.960 It's a lifetime experience.
00:01:31.540 Well, that is phenomenal.
00:01:32.660 And I will say we've got a lot to talk about on the pod today.
00:01:35.600 We've got, first of all, the border continues to get worse and worse and worse.
00:01:38.940 We're seeing gotaways increasing.
00:01:40.400 We're seeing people on the no-terror list increasing.
00:01:44.640 That is combining with the growing news of the threats of a direct terror attack because of the war in the Middle East, because of Iran, because of Hamas, because of Hezbollah, because of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
00:02:00.000 The risk of a terror attack here in the United States keeps going up, and Joe Biden's open border is making it worse and worse.
00:02:06.400 We're also going to talk about the new audit done at the IRS when it turns out that, well, you know, all of Joe Biden and Janet Yellen's promises not to audit the middle class.
00:02:16.780 Turns out they were lying.
00:02:17.860 They are, in fact, going after the middle class, which would be exactly what we told you on this podcast they were going to do. 0.97
00:02:24.160 And finally, we're going to talk about the impact the economy is having on Americans across the country, on prices, on day-to-day living,
00:02:32.580 and how, despite the White House trying to spin baby spin, Bidenomics is proving to be a disaster for most Americans.
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00:04:38.700 Let's talk about the warning at the southern border.
00:04:41.740 The number of gotaways has skyrocketed, Senator.
00:04:44.480 And this is as there's been so much attention on the border,
00:04:48.420 which again goes back to the point that you've said over and over again.
00:04:51.960 This administration created this.
00:04:53.680 They don't believe it's a problem.
00:04:55.240 They believe it's a way to change this country.
00:04:57.060 It's an opportunity for them to bring in new voters and change things.
00:05:00.080 With the map in Congress, with the census, the list of their perks is skyrocketing as more and more illegals coming across the border.
00:05:08.400 The problem now is the number of people that are on the terrorist watch list is also skyrocketing.
00:05:15.100 They're coming across the border as there's been concerns and warnings from the FBI.
00:05:19.080 You've been warning about this for quite some time.
00:05:21.620 Yeah, if you look at the number of suspects on the terror watch list apprehended at the southern border,
00:05:28.520 for the entire four years of the Trump administration, fiscal year 2017 to fiscal year 2021,
00:05:35.240 the total people on the terror watch list apprehended was 26 over a total of four years.
00:05:42.620 Joe Biden came in, opened up the border, and those numbers have skyrocketed.
00:05:47.080 In the last six months, in the first half of fiscal year 2024, 69 suspects on the terror watch list have been apprehended.
00:05:58.180 That's in six months.
00:06:00.020 That is more than 10 a month.
00:06:03.240 We had 26 in four years, and under Joe Biden, we have more than 10 known terrorists or people on the terror watch list apprehended every single month of this fiscal year.
00:06:16.240 You put that on top of the really concerning number, which is the known gotaways.
00:06:22.260 Known gotaways are people we've observed at the border.
00:06:24.940 We know are there, but they got away, and they got away.
00:06:28.120 Typically, the gotaways are much more likely to be serious problems.
00:06:31.680 They're more likely to be criminals.
00:06:33.280 They're more likely to be murderers or rapists or child molesters. 0.99
00:06:36.040 They're more likely to be gang members, and they're more likely to be terrorists.
00:06:39.220 If you're a terrorist, you're not likely going to go turn yourself in to the Border Patrol agents, which is what millions of the illegal immigrants Joe Biden has let in are doing.
00:06:48.180 Just in the month of March, there were over 20,000 known gotaways.
00:06:54.460 Just on Sunday, there were 919 known gotaways.
00:07:00.220 Those are people among those 919.
00:07:02.220 We don't know how many terrorists are there, but we do know that if the terrorists are coming, that's what they're going to be as a gotaway.
00:07:09.400 And those numbers are coming from Customs and Border Patrol.
00:07:11.840 So this is the own Biden administration's numbers.
00:07:14.860 They're telling you this.
00:07:16.280 There was also something else that Governor Abbott, a good friend of yours, said on Fox News Channel.
00:07:20.260 He was asked about the Biden administration.
00:07:22.580 Are they changing?
00:07:23.920 Are they doing anything different?
00:07:24.860 In reality, we know the Biden administration sues Texas so that Texas can't protect and defend itself and tries to rip down the razor wire and the border security measures they put up.
00:07:35.400 But what he said about this is the issue of the terrorists coming across.
00:07:38.980 He also said something else that's very interesting.
00:07:41.380 Those on the terrorist watch list, they make more money for the smugglers and the cartel members that are bringing them across.
00:07:47.740 They're willing to pay more to get across our southern border.
00:07:51.460 Take a listen to this from Fox News.
00:07:53.020 The chief of the Border Patrol is saying, of 140,000 gotaways, if we don't know who is coming into our country and we don't know what their intent is, that is a threat.
00:08:04.320 Does President Biden agree?
00:08:05.700 The president absolutely believes that along that border, we do have significant national security concerns that have to be met.
00:08:13.300 He also said that they're doing everything that they possibly can.
00:08:15.960 But are you worried that we're in a September 10th mentality on this issue?
00:08:20.260 Let's be clear.
00:08:21.100 The Biden administration is doing nothing to stop terrorists from coming across the border.
00:08:27.040 They are knowingly allowing them in.
00:08:30.220 And there's two categories here.
00:08:31.880 There are the terrorists who are actually apprehended.
00:08:34.820 The terrorists apprehended are an all-time record, many multiples of those who came across the border under the Trump administration.
00:08:42.760 But second, you talked about the gotaways.
00:08:45.580 The terrorists will pay extra not to be caught.
00:08:49.320 What that means is the number that we've caught, which is extraordinary, there's far more than that who've gotten across the border.
00:08:56.000 Remember this also.
00:08:57.220 Last month, the FBI director talked about a potential 9-11 type terrorist attack because of the terrorists who are coming across our border.
00:09:06.160 The chief job of the president of the United States is national security.
00:09:09.960 The president Biden is failing at national security.
00:09:13.560 We are extraordinarily concerned about a terrorist attack occurring in Texas or elsewhere in the United States because of the terrorists who are crossing our border at will, unstopped by the Biden administration.
00:09:25.500 Do you think ISIS is here today?
00:09:27.740 So I have no information that they are.
00:09:29.640 However, again, the FBI director was talking last month about the possibility that ISIS could be coming here.
00:09:37.520 Think about this concept.
00:09:38.600 It's ridiculous that anybody has their shoes inspected at an airport these days when terrorists can come right across the border and sneak in and come here.
00:09:48.360 Let me foreshadow also another concern we're going to have really soon.
00:09:52.880 It's our kind of beginning right now, and that's going to be drone wars.
00:09:56.940 The capability of the cartels about getting things across the border through drones already is extraordinary, and they're going to be more aggressive, more sophisticated in the drone attacks.
00:10:06.700 We can sustain a drone attack anytime.
00:10:09.920 Senator, you've talked about this, the number of drones that are coming across.
00:10:13.900 We played this audio on verdict just a few weeks ago where they were before Congress.
00:10:20.040 They were talking about tens of thousands of drones that are coming across into American airspace, some of them dropping drugs and fentanyl, some of them spying on Americans.
00:10:28.580 They can also be used to target and to kill people as well.
00:10:31.660 We are seeing that in the Middle East right now.
00:10:33.600 We're seeing that in the war between Russia and Ukraine.
00:10:36.300 And yet all of this is happening, and we go back to one of the things you said there.
00:10:39.560 I mean, Senator, are we in a September 10th mentality, which is what you heard her say there on Fox?
00:10:45.160 Because I am terrified that the Biden administration is absolutely in a September 10th mindset.
00:10:51.560 I think there's no question about it.
00:10:53.080 And the risk of a major terrorist attack in the United States is higher today than it has been any time since September 11th, 2001.
00:11:02.860 And on top of that, we have the news breaking this weekend.
00:11:07.140 USA Today reported, quote,
00:11:09.100 The U.S. is on high alert for a potential attack on Israel or on American facilities in the Middle East in retaliation for an Israeli strike in Syria that killed Iranian commanders, two U.S. officials told USA Today.
00:11:22.740 Iran vowed revenge after suspected Israeli warplanes bombed its embassy in Damascus on Monday, killing a top Iranian military commander, a major escalation in Israel's war with its regional adversaries.
00:11:38.380 The Biden administration is concerned about the possibility Iranians might attack U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria, sources said, and American forces were in a heightened state of vigilance.
00:11:49.200 Iran's Revolutionary guards announced the death of seven military advisors in the Damascus strike, including Mohammad Reza Zahidi, a senior commander at its Quds Force, an elite foreign espionage and paramilitary arm.
00:12:06.920 Iran promised, quote, to take a decisive response.
00:12:12.580 So we have Iran, the leading state sponsor of terrorism, promising a decisive response, funding millions and millions of dollars to fund Hamas terrorists, to fund Hezbollah terrorists, to fund Palestinian Islamic Jihad, to attack directly American forces in the Middle East.
00:12:34.180 And we have on top of that, Joe Biden and the Democrats.
00:12:37.480 And by the way, it's not just Joe Biden.
00:12:39.140 It's every congressional Democrat who has rubber stamped these open border policies, who have given the Iranians and Hamas and Hezbollah a red carpet invitation to come into this country. 0.98
00:12:50.740 And by the way, you heard Greg Gabbitt talking about the drones.
00:12:54.780 Our drone vulnerability is enormous.
00:12:56.940 I mean, we had testimony of upwards of 25,000 drone incursions from the cartels across our southern border at a time when Americans are directly threatened with terror.
00:13:11.280 Joe Biden has given an invitation to the for the terrorists to come to America.
00:13:18.360 Yeah, great point.
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00:14:44.000 Let's talk about what's also happening and those warnings coming in the Middle East right now.
00:14:48.200 We did a show, and I've got to say to all the VERDICT listeners, you guys were amazing in spreading that show on social media.
00:14:54.700 If you missed it, we did an entire episode on Israel and what's going on in Israel.
00:14:58.440 You can grab it and share that wherever you are on social media.
00:15:01.020 But there was a lot of people that I think learned a lot from the discussion that we had here.
00:15:05.880 And look, you now look at what's going on in the Middle East, and this threat from Iran, I think we should all take it, obviously, very seriously. 0.99
00:15:12.040 I don't think they're lying.
00:15:13.220 I don't think they're basically trying to bluff on this one.
00:15:17.260 And the concerns are significant.
00:15:19.320 But the real concern is, is America's lack of response or saying to Iran, you better not screw with us.
00:15:27.720 And we've allowed them for months and months to attack U.S. interests in the Middle East without us really retaliating.
00:15:36.300 And that's part of the reason why they're so bold right now.
00:15:38.460 Am I wrong?
00:15:39.640 You're not, and it's worse than that. 0.72
00:15:41.200 Look, I mean, we just, a couple of weeks ago, I forced a vote on the Senate floor to block the Biden administration from sending billions of dollars to Iran.
00:15:50.640 And every single Senate Democrat but one, everyone but Bob Menendez, voted no.
00:15:56.500 And Menendez did it right at the end.
00:15:58.040 I think he was mostly pissed at the other Democrats who have demanded that he resign.
00:16:01.480 And so he voted with me.
00:16:03.960 But every other Democrat was happy to vote to send billions to Iran.
00:16:09.480 And Iran has launched over 100 attacks on U.S. servicemen and women in the last six months.
00:16:16.340 Not only that, you know, we just talked about the threat from Iran and the escalation in the threat.
00:16:26.440 What did the Biden administration do?
00:16:28.480 Well, a U.S., and this is from NBC News now, a U.S. intelligence assessment warns that Iran could carry out an attack using a swarm of drones or land attack cruise missiles.
00:16:41.260 And that Iran could target an Israeli diplomatic or consular facility in the region in retaliation for the strike on Damascus, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the assessment.
00:16:52.800 Iran is likely to respond before the end of Ramadan next week.
00:16:56.780 So there's a particularly heightened alert right now.
00:17:00.180 On Friday, a top aide to Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi said Tehran sent a message warning the United States not to get involved in the fight between Israel and Iran.
00:17:11.840 Quote,
00:17:12.140 In a written message, the Islamic Republic of Iran warns U.S. leadership not to get dragged in Netanyahu's trap for the U.S.
00:17:20.000 Stay away so you won't get hurt, is what Mohammed Jamshidi, that's what his name is, posted on X.
00:17:28.120 He wrote that, in response, the U.S. asked Iran not to target American facilities.
00:17:35.300 A spokesperson for the National Security Council said reports that the U.S. had asked Iran not to target American facilities were simply wrong and an Iranian spin.
00:17:46.000 And here's a little bit more.
00:17:47.900 Quote,
00:17:48.120 In the hours after the strike in Damascus, that is, the Biden administration reached out to Iran directly to assure Tehran that the U.S. was not involved and did not have advanced knowledge of the strike.
00:18:15.860 So, in other words, this is what the Biden administration does.
00:18:18.500 In the middle of the war, what do they do?
00:18:19.620 They call Iran and they're like, oh, we're sorry, we're sorry, we're sorry.
00:18:22.620 Mind you, Iran is funding Hamas, is effectively waging war with Israel.
00:18:26.360 And what is Biden doing?
00:18:27.860 Calling Iran and apologizing and also allowing an open border with an invitation for anyone with ill intent to come into this country. 0.95
00:18:37.040 We also know that Iran, through their proxies, has been targeting American interests in the Middle East.
00:18:42.120 And yet we still call and say, hey, don't worry, we weren't involved in this.
00:18:45.100 What message has that said to them?
00:18:47.240 They can do whatever they want in the Middle East and America won't respond now?
00:18:50.500 Sadly, that's exactly the message that Joe Biden is sending every day.
00:18:54.800 Iran is discovering they can attack Americans. 1.00
00:18:57.660 They can murder Americans. 0.99
00:18:58.700 They can attack over and over and over again.
00:19:02.040 And the Biden administration, not only no response, the Biden administration's response will be, here, have billions of dollars.
00:19:08.500 It is bizarre.
00:19:09.740 It ought to be an incredibly simple principle.
00:19:13.920 Don't give money to people who want to kill you.
00:19:17.020 And I'll add an addendum to that, who are actively trying to kill you.
00:19:21.680 And yet Biden and the Democrats keep shoveling cash more and more to Iran.
00:19:27.140 And by the way, Iran is still selling two million barrels a day of oil because Joe Biden refuses to enforce the oil sanctions.
00:19:35.880 And that's funding the regime.
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00:20:09.300 I want you to explain this even more because this is something I think many in the media have refused to cover and tell the truth about this.
00:20:17.440 We have sanctions right now that are in place on Iranian oil that have been in place for quite some time.
00:20:25.720 And the only difference is this administration, they have not officially lifted the sanctions.
00:20:30.840 The sanctions are technically still there in name only, but we're allowing them to export their oil.
00:20:36.380 Is that is that the easiest way to explain it to everyone listening?
00:20:40.080 No, that's exactly right.
00:20:41.280 And let's review the bidding.
00:20:43.140 Let's do a little bit of history on Iranian oil sales.
00:20:46.080 So if you go back to the Trump administration, there was a big battle in the Trump administration within the administration about whether to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, the Obama deal, which was a terrible deal.
00:20:58.220 Both the State Department and the Defense Department said, no, do not pull out of the deal.
00:21:02.740 I strongly disagreed.
00:21:05.720 I went to President Trump repeatedly over and over and over again and argued this deal was catastrophic.
00:21:11.340 It was endangering America.
00:21:12.720 It was bad.
00:21:14.140 And and the president agreed with me.
00:21:16.000 President Trump overruled his own secretary of state, overruled his own secretary of defense.
00:21:21.260 He pulled out of the Iran deal.
00:21:22.620 Now, once he pulled out of the deal, there were still significant components of the deal that remained in a place.
00:21:31.200 And the most significant was what was called the oil waivers.
00:21:35.120 The oil waivers allowed Iran to sell oil.
00:21:39.200 And that's really that was the major source of funding for the regime.
00:21:43.420 I began then arguing to President Trump we needed to end the oil waiver.
00:21:48.320 There was, again, a fight within the Trump administration on this question.
00:21:52.340 At this time, the lines were a little bit different.
00:21:55.100 You had state arguing, no, do not end the oil waivers.
00:21:59.440 You had energy, the Department of Energy, saying, yes, end the oil waivers.
00:22:04.160 This was Mike Pompeo had just started as secretary of state.
00:22:07.500 And the State Department was arguing, if we end the oil waiver on Iran, the effect will be that the price of oil will skyrocket.
00:22:15.580 The price of gasoline will skyrocket.
00:22:17.800 The Department of Energy chimed in.
00:22:20.220 And you would think the Department of Energy has some expertise in energy. 0.91
00:22:24.920 They said, no, that's ridiculous.
00:22:27.120 There's plenty of global supply of oil.
00:22:28.880 We can end the oil waiver and it's not going to cause prices to skyrocket.
00:22:32.880 Again, I leaned in vigorously.
00:22:35.240 I urged President Trump, end the oil waivers.
00:22:40.360 State's wrong.
00:22:41.380 Energy's right.
00:22:42.260 Well, President Trump, again, agreed with me, overruled his own secretary of state.
00:22:48.900 He ended the oil waivers.
00:22:50.200 At the time he did that, Iran was selling roughly one million barrels a day of oil.
00:22:56.300 So that was their major revenue source.
00:22:57.940 We ended the oil waivers and we now know who was right.
00:23:02.940 Energy was right and state was wrong because we ended the oil waivers and the global price barely moved.
00:23:08.700 It had negligible impact on price.
00:23:10.960 There was plenty of supply.
00:23:11.920 What it did have an impact on is it devastated the Iranian economy and their oil sales dropped from one million barrels a day to about 300,000 barrels a day.
00:23:25.920 And so when Joe Biden came into office, the Iranian economy was in shambles.
00:23:31.000 The effect of those oil sanctions were crushing.
00:23:34.840 And all Joe Biden had to do was not screw it up, but understand that Biden and the Democrats, their number one foreign policy objective, is getting a new nuclear deal with Iran.
00:23:48.980 And bizarrely, they prioritize this over everything.
00:23:52.840 So Biden almost immediately stopped enforcing the oil sanctions.
00:23:59.040 Just kind of look the other way.
00:24:01.080 And so what happens is Iran has a ghost fleet of tankers that they send oil mostly to communist China.
00:24:09.200 China buys it and it funds Iran.
00:24:11.300 Biden came in.
00:24:12.960 Iran is selling 300,000 barrels a day.
00:24:16.120 Today, Iran is selling 2 million barrels of oil a day.
00:24:23.320 Wow.
00:24:24.040 More than double what they were doing before we ended the oil waiver.
00:24:27.060 And they're using that.
00:24:29.660 That has been upwards of 80 billion dollars that Joe Biden has given a theocratic, homicidal, genocidal maniac that is the Ayatollah who pledges death to America. 0.76
00:24:42.220 And right now he's pledging to retaliate directly.
00:24:46.280 And yet Joe Biden continues to this day not to enforce the oil sanctions.
00:24:53.280 Last question for you on this.
00:24:54.880 Why do you believe he refuses to enforce them?
00:24:57.840 Is it just political ideology?
00:24:59.820 Is it he's compromised in some way or is it he's just completely ignorant to the threat that Iran is to the world's stability, including to Israel as well as America? 0.90
00:25:10.040 I think the ideology of the Biden White House and the Biden State Department, in many ways, this White House doesn't have a foreign policy.
00:25:20.600 They have a domestic policy writ large.
00:25:25.160 So they broadcast out to the world.
00:25:27.460 They divide the world into blue countries and red countries. 0.71
00:25:31.900 And red countries are those countries that wanted to be friends with America when Donald Trump was president.
00:25:39.760 And blue countries are those countries that hated America when Donald Trump was president.
00:25:44.840 And the entirety of the Biden foreign policy is to undermine, to alienate, to weaken the red countries and to acquiesce, to appease, to and send billions of dollars to the blue countries.
00:26:03.400 So the reddest country of all is Israel. 0.76
00:26:05.460 It's why Biden systematically undermines Israel.
00:26:08.320 Other red countries include the United Kingdom.
00:26:12.060 They include nations like Brazil.
00:26:14.820 When you had Bolsonaro, it was very pro-America.
00:26:17.960 What happened?
00:26:18.740 The Biden administration undermined him, and they got Lula, a radical leftist who hate America.
00:26:23.420 Colombia was another red country.
00:26:25.040 We had a very strong pro-American ally in Ivan Duque.
00:26:28.860 The Biden White House undermined Duque.
00:26:31.560 We ended up with now an anti-American leftist, Petro, who, again, hates America.
00:26:37.760 Guatemala.
00:26:38.520 Guatemala, we had the president of Guatemala, was strongly allied with the United States.
00:26:43.840 As soon as he left, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on the outgoing president of Guatemala.
00:26:49.560 Who are the blue countries?
00:26:50.600 Well, there are lots of blue countries.
00:26:52.540 You've got China as a blue country. 0.92
00:26:54.280 Russia is a blue country.
00:26:56.760 North Korea is a blue country.
00:26:58.680 Venezuela is a blue country.
00:26:59.960 But the bluest of all blue countries is Iran.
00:27:03.960 The Biden administration, they view this, it's almost like religious, their obsession with a new nuclear deal with Iran.
00:27:15.060 And they're willing to bend over backwards no matter what.
00:27:18.480 You know, I'm reminded there was a political cartoon when John Kerry was secretary of state and Obama was president.
00:27:25.940 And it had the Ayatollah saying, death to America.
00:27:29.360 And it had John Kerry saying, can we meet you halfway?
00:27:33.040 That's the view of this White House. 0.99
00:27:34.820 They're naive, they're ignorant, and they want to shove billions of dollars to Iran, even while they're actively trying to murder Americans and funding the war in Israel. 0.97
00:27:45.880 I want to talk to you about what you can do to help people in Israel right now. 0.98
00:27:50.840 We all know about the atrocities that were committed by Hamas last October the 7th, which kicked off a vicious war as Israel is defending herself from terrorists now on every side.
00:28:01.920 The toll on the Israeli people is real.
00:28:05.120 It is staggering and it's massive.
00:28:07.400 Hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been forced from their homes.
00:28:10.800 Entire communities torn apart.
00:28:12.880 Lives have been devastated by death and destruction and war.
00:28:16.920 The International Fellowship of Christian and Jews, known as IFCJ, is right there in the middle of it each and every day.
00:28:24.620 They are distributing right now critical essentials like food, medicine, and emergency supplies for hundreds of thousands of suffering Jews that have been displaced.
00:28:35.020 The need is great and that's why I am partnering with IFCJ today and I want you to get involved and help.
00:28:42.440 I want you to visit support ifcj.org to help.
00:28:48.800 Every donation is urgently needed to help the people of Israel.
00:28:52.380 A lot of people have said, how can I help? This is how you can help.
00:28:55.700 To give the International Fellowship of Christian and Jews, all you have to do is go to support ifcj.org
00:29:02.460 and give as generously as you can because your gift will be matched to double in impact and help provide twice the support right now.
00:29:11.440 Again, that's support ifcj.org.
00:29:14.480 Support ifcj.org.
00:29:17.120 Thank you and God bless.
00:29:18.620 Senator, let's talk about this shocking new data that's come out.
00:29:23.240 A warning that came from you on this show, and I want to play that in a moment, but I want to get to the headline here.
00:29:30.360 There are two things right now that are worrying many Americans.
00:29:33.420 Number one, it's Bidenomics.
00:29:35.320 It is a disaster right now.
00:29:37.020 We are seeing even top Biden economic advisor bragged about gas prices, which are up 50% since Biden took office, saying, quote,
00:29:47.760 we are pleased that gas prices have come down.
00:29:50.300 Now, the media is allowing them to lie, and the American people are not going to fall for this, I don't believe.
00:29:55.780 But take a listen to this.
00:29:56.780 This is coming from the White House, from the Biden team, trying to convince Americans that, hey,
00:30:01.640 you're paying less of the pump right now than ever.
00:30:04.460 You should be excited.
00:30:05.900 So important for American families and a big focus of President Biden.
00:30:11.700 We are pleased that gas prices have come down by $1.40 relative to that peak that was caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
00:30:21.880 But as you say, we are watching carefully to make sure that those gas prices at the pump don't go up.
00:30:29.900 Now, Senator, that's just a lie.
00:30:32.720 The gas prices are not down.
00:30:35.160 Anyone that goes to the pump knows this.
00:30:37.140 We also know now that grocery prices are nearing 40% higher than they were in 2019.
00:30:42.980 And to add insult to injury, we're now being told on top of all of that that's hurting the middle class,
00:30:49.680 there's now going to be more than ever IRS agents that are targeting specifically middle class Americans with more audits than ever before.
00:30:59.900 Well, that's exactly right.
00:31:01.900 First of all, in terms of prices, you know, they're crowing about that they say gasoline prices are lower than the worst they were under Biden,
00:31:10.740 but they're still up 51% from where they were under Trump.
00:31:14.620 By the way, overall prices are up 18.6%.
00:31:17.860 Real average weekly earnings are down 4.2%.
00:31:22.220 Real average weekly earnings were up 8.2% under Trump.
00:31:27.000 And in the month of March, zero new manufacturing jobs were added.
00:31:31.100 And so, look, the economy is hurting mightily.
00:31:34.380 And then you put on top of that, the IRS is doing actually what we predicted on this podcast, is targeting the middle class.
00:31:43.060 The Wall Street Journal wrote just a few days ago, quote,
00:31:48.400 The Internal Revenue Service got an audit of its own in time for tax day, and two irregularities jump out.
00:31:54.340 President Biden's plan to hire a new army of tax collectors is falling flat,
00:31:58.500 and the agents already at work are targeting the middle class.
00:32:04.120 Those are the two findings of the IRS's watchdog, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
00:32:09.300 The most recent data suggests the IRS is still focused on the middle class.
00:32:15.600 As of last summer, 63% of new audits targeted taxpayers with incomes of less than $200,000.
00:32:27.500 Only a small overall share reached the very highest earners,
00:32:31.860 while 80% of the audits covered filers earning less than $1 million.
00:32:37.080 And as the Wall Street Journal urges you, don't forget to save those charitable giving receipts.
00:32:43.960 This is exactly opposite what Joe Biden promised the American people,
00:32:50.020 but it's what we knew was going to happen.
00:32:52.280 They were going to use the new agents to go after the middle class. 0.96
00:32:55.720 That's exactly what they're doing.
00:32:57.260 Let me just remind people of what you said on the show, and this was quite some time ago.
00:33:01.440 Here is the warning when we said it here early on that they're going to come after average Americans, 1.00
00:33:07.080 not just the elites, as they were claiming.
00:33:09.200 For Good Friday and Easter, the IRS released the news.
00:33:12.160 They did it as a news dump going into the holiday because they didn't want people to pay attention to it.
00:33:18.140 That they are right now hiring the first 30,000 of those employees.
00:33:22.920 10,000 of them are being hired in the current fiscal year, and in fiscal year 2024,
00:33:29.700 they're planning to double that with 27,000 new hires.
00:33:34.440 Now, what does that mean?
00:33:37.020 Well, let's go through a lot of different elements.
00:33:40.280 The long and short of it is it means a whole bunch more IRS employees there to harass you,
00:33:45.960 to harass citizens, to harass small businesses, to harass and target the political enemies of the Biden White House.
00:33:53.740 But Senator, you look at that warning and you look at what you mentioned right beforehand about prices that have skyrocketed.
00:34:01.440 The costs of goods and services are up, manufacturing jobs that are down.
00:34:05.740 And there has to be a moment, I would argue, of reckoning with the average American voter,
00:34:11.500 where they look at this administration and they sit there and they stare at you in the face.
00:34:15.800 They say, no, no, gas prices are good.
00:34:17.720 And the American people have to know, no, that's not true.
00:34:19.980 And they say, oh, no, no, the price at the grocery store, they're not that bad.
00:34:23.720 They've got to have a moment where they say, no, no, no, we don't believe you anymore.
00:34:28.640 You travel a lot.
00:34:30.000 You talk to a lot of people around the state of Texas.
00:34:32.560 I don't believe that the American people are going to be bamboozled by this much longer.
00:34:37.420 Yeah, look, I think the American people know that Bidenomics is a mess.
00:34:41.360 And, in fact, you see the Biden White House backing away from using that term, Bidenomics,
00:34:46.780 because they thought it was a good thing and they discovered, oh, wait, people think it's a terrible thing.
00:34:53.800 Listen, anyone who's paying the bills, anyone who goes to the grocery store,
00:34:58.200 anyone who fills up their tank at the pump, anyone who deals with health care costs, electricity costs, rent, mortgages,
00:35:06.680 I'll tell you, young people, I think one of the most potent things is young people buying their first home.
00:35:13.860 A young married couple, they're suddenly discovering they can get about half as much house as they thought they could get
00:35:19.820 because a few years ago when you had mortgage rates at 2.5%, you could get actually a pretty big, pretty, you know,
00:35:27.040 a nice three-bedroom house, a backyard, a swing, and suddenly young people are discovering,
00:35:32.240 and holy cow, what I thought I could afford is now out of reach.
00:35:36.940 Yeah, you're absolutely right.
00:35:38.520 This is going to be a top issue, certainly going into this big election in November,
00:35:42.460 and I hope that conservatives all over the country just tell the truth,
00:35:46.500 and I hope that the media will start covering it.
00:35:48.340 They're still covering, and you can hear it in those headlines, you can hear it in the audio.
00:35:52.000 They will allow them to lie on national TV to your face about how great things are when they know,
00:35:57.180 compared to where they were in 2019-2020, it is a disaster.
00:36:00.480 Don't forget, Senator Cruz and I do this show with you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
00:36:04.720 We have a weekend review of what you may have missed on Saturdays, so make sure you grab this show,
00:36:09.760 hit that follow button or subscribe or auto-download, and most importantly, share it on social media wherever you are.
00:36:16.420 You guys were amazing at sharing that episode we did on Israel.
00:36:20.360 It was one of the top episodes we've done.
00:36:22.600 Thank you for getting in the fight and letting other people know what's going on.
00:36:25.960 And on those in-between days, make sure you grab my podcast as well.
00:36:28.520 I'll keep you updated on the latest breaking news, the Ben Ferguson podcast.
00:36:31.740 And then, Senator, I will see you back here on Wednesday morning.
00:36:35.400 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:36:38.280 Guaranteed Human.