Verdict with Ted Cruz - March 08, 2025


Zelenskyy Runs Begging to Europe, Democrats STOOD for NOTHING & Terror-Linked Illegals Released into US Week In Review


Episode Stats


Length

32 minutes

Words per minute

170.06894

Word count

5,518

Sentence count

373

Harmful content

Misogyny

7

sentences flagged

Toxicity

22

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Ted Cruz and Ben Fergusons discuss the latest in the Ukraine crisis and the Democratic response to it. They also talk about the Biden administration's decision to allow a terrorist to return to the United States of America in 2024 and what that means for American taxpayers.

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 .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.620 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.420 Welcome.
00:00:06.080 It is Verdict with Ted Cruz, The Weekend Review.
00:00:08.820 Ben Ferguson with you, as always.
00:00:10.840 And here are the big stories that you may have missed that we talked about this week.
00:00:14.320 First up, Zelensky comes to the White House and leaves empty-handed.
00:00:18.200 So where does he run?
00:00:19.160 To Europe and is begging now for support.
00:00:22.300 So what does this mean for American taxpayers?
00:00:24.700 We break it all down for you in just a moment.
00:00:27.140 Also, Democrats decide to stand for nothing during the joint session of Congress,
00:00:33.200 including supporting us getting a terrorist back to this country.
00:00:37.520 They didn't stand when there was a young man becoming a Secret Service agent
00:00:41.380 who is fighting for his life with cancer.
00:00:44.460 So is there anything the Democrats would actually stand for that most Americans would?
00:00:48.360 We'll break that down as well.
00:00:50.040 And finally, almost 100 known terrorists,
00:00:53.740 those that are on the terrorist watch list or have direct connections to terrorists,
00:00:57.700 were purposely let go into the United States of America in 2024.
00:01:02.420 And the Biden administration knew about all of them and could have stopped it.
00:01:07.300 So where are they now?
00:01:08.660 We'll break that down for you as well.
00:01:10.940 It's The Weekend Review, and it starts right now.
00:01:14.280 Which brings us to now where we are.
00:01:16.700 And look, you've got UK and France and Ukraine that have agreed to, quote,
00:01:23.360 work on a ceasefire plan and try to get, I guess,
00:01:26.820 Zelensky back into a conversation with the President of the United States of America.
00:01:32.580 They're having this big meeting over in Europe.
00:01:35.740 A lot of different countries are there.
00:01:37.560 The summit includes France, Germany, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Canada, Finland, Sweden,
00:01:45.960 Czech Republic, and Romania, the Turkish Foreign Minister, the NATO Security General,
00:01:51.540 and the President of the European Commission and the European Council will also attend.
00:01:55.960 Now, you notice I didn't say the United States of America.
00:01:58.500 This is part of, I think, the most interesting part of President Trump's meeting with Zelensky.
00:02:02.680 It's like, look, you take us for granted.
00:02:05.000 You come in here, you lecture us, you have no plan for peace.
00:02:07.820 You clearly aren't here for peace.
00:02:09.660 Good luck.
00:02:10.500 And now all of these other leaders are having to step up and say,
00:02:15.440 OK, let us try to help you fix this so that we can save your country,
00:02:20.780 because he did so much harm to Ukraine.
00:02:24.040 And look, I say, great.
00:02:25.420 If Europe wants to step up and fund the war for another year, knock yourselves out, guys.
00:02:31.440 Like, our checkbook is done.
00:02:32.940 But it is striking.
00:02:35.960 It's an indication of just how disastrous Zelensky's meeting was,
00:02:41.260 that he immediately ran to the United Kingdom, to France, to meet with the King of England.
00:02:46.800 All right, here's one story from NPR.
00:02:49.140 UK Prime Minister unveils steps towards a Ukraine peace deal, urges U.S. cooperation.
00:02:55.060 Here's what NPR reports.
00:02:56.100 Quote, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Sunday laid out a framework for a plan to end Russia's war in Ukraine,
00:03:02.160 one where Europe will lead the charge for securing peace, yay, while still relying heavily on U.S. backing.
00:03:09.280 Boo.
00:03:09.540 The proposal is the result of emergency talks held by European leaders in London following President Trump's heated exchange
00:03:16.140 with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky at the White House last week.
00:03:23.000 Over the weekend, leaders from over a dozen countries got together to discuss a roadmap for peace and security for Ukraine
00:03:28.500 as the country faces its third year of war with Russia.
00:03:31.580 The emergency summit was also aimed at working to preserve Ukraine's relationship with the U.S.
00:03:35.680 and Americans' involvement in the war overseas.
00:03:38.400 Starmer said that Europe must do the, quote, heavy lifting to secure a lasting peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine
00:03:44.240 and that the U.K. should lead the front.
00:03:47.100 He emphasized that, quote, this effort must have strong U.S. backing,
00:03:51.620 which if he means more hundreds of billions of dollars, the answer is no thank you.
00:03:57.240 But he continues, quote, through my discussions over recent days,
00:04:00.900 we've agreed that the U.K., France, and others will work with Ukraine on a plan to stop the fighting,
00:04:04.620 Starmer said at a press conference on Sunday.
00:04:06.880 Then we'll discuss that plan with the United States and take it forward together.
00:04:11.020 Now, it's interesting.
00:04:12.560 To do so, Starmer vowed the United Kingdom would ramp up its support for Ukraine.
00:04:17.880 That included a loan of, what do you think?
00:04:21.100 A lot of money, right?
00:04:22.680 What do you think?
00:04:23.560 Pick a number.
00:04:25.020 Oh, gosh.
00:04:25.980 See, this is when you get me in trouble because I'm going to either be way too low or way too high.
00:04:30.260 Let's call it $50 million.
00:04:35.200 So higher than that, so you're even more pessimistic.
00:04:39.580 Okay, that includes a loan of 2.26 billion British pounds, which is $2.84 billion.
00:04:46.060 So, look, $2.84 billion, that's real money,
00:04:49.880 except for the fact that the United States has spent about $175 billion on Ukraine.
00:04:55.720 That's part of the fundamental imbalance there.
00:04:58.220 Well, and this is the other thing about finding money.
00:05:01.600 Like, you go back to Trump saying, like, we're no longer just an open blank check.
00:05:06.540 There was also something else that was said that Europe, quote,
00:05:09.640 needs to step in and release some 200 billion euros, it's 207 billion,
00:05:14.800 in, quote, seized Russian assets to help fund the war effort.
00:05:19.540 So, all of a sudden, they're now saying, well, we got 200 billion or 207 billion in U.S. dollars,
00:05:25.560 200 billion euros of seized Russian assets.
00:05:28.860 Maybe we should use that money instead of our own money to help them in Ukraine.
00:05:33.060 And I'm like, wow, you turn off the spigot in America, a brilliant, simple plan,
00:05:38.020 and all of a sudden they find 200 billion euros sitting around.
00:05:41.500 They're like, okay, maybe we can give that to them now.
00:05:43.320 Yeah, look, I'm all for the Europeans stepping in and doing everything they can.
00:05:47.360 If they want to do that, knock yourself out.
00:05:49.740 They're welcome to spend their money.
00:05:51.680 But we're not the welfare provider for the world.
00:05:56.400 And to be clear, why are we borrowing when we got $36 trillion in debt?
00:06:01.140 Why are we borrowing money from China to give it to other countries?
00:06:04.840 That makes no sense.
00:06:07.860 And it is an interesting shift.
00:06:10.480 Now, look, I will say one of the frustrating things about this meeting last week in the Oval
00:06:15.400 is the meeting was there to sign an agreement, an agreement that had been negotiated ahead of time.
00:06:21.640 And that agreement was an agreement where Ukraine would give the United States a substantial interest
00:06:29.360 in its rare earth minerals and valuable resources to pay back the $175 billion we've given them.
00:06:36.620 That agreement made a lot of sense.
00:06:38.300 That agreement was pre-negotiated.
00:06:39.920 I think the White House thought Zelensky was going to show up, sign the agreement, and leave.
00:06:44.740 He didn't.
00:06:45.980 Instead, he put on this performance.
00:06:49.220 And I actually want you to listen to this exchange on CNN because it's a striking exchange.
00:06:55.720 The first speaker is Scott Jennings, who, by the way, Scott Jennings is doing a phenomenal job on CNN
00:07:01.700 being a voice of reason and common sense, fighting against a bunch of numbnuts and left-wing commies.
00:07:09.520 He's really doing an effective job.
00:07:11.660 And he's, in this case, talking with Josh Rogan.
00:07:15.880 Josh Rogan is a very smart reporter for Washington Post intelligence.
00:07:22.200 He does foreign policy.
00:07:23.500 But, look, Josh Rogan and Scott Jennings do not often agree.
00:07:29.740 Listen to this back and forth as they're analyzing what happened with Zelensky in the Oval Office.
00:07:34.980 I don't know if he needs an apology.
00:07:37.200 He needs Zelensky to recognize the position that he's in.
00:07:40.740 Which to you is what?
00:07:41.620 We're their patron.
00:07:42.600 We're their best hope for the killing to stop and for them to emerge from this sovereign and prosperous.
00:07:48.000 And we're also their best hope as a business partner.
00:07:50.640 I mean, all Zelensky had to do today was put on a tie, show up, smile, say thank you, sign the papers, and have lunch.
00:07:59.620 That's it.
00:08:00.680 And he couldn't do that. 1.00
00:08:02.040 And this followed 10 days of being difficult in private and now one day of being stupid in public. 0.99
00:08:08.960 But this did not have to go down this way. 0.92
00:08:13.200 And however you feel about why it started, why it's going on, who's right and who's wrong, we can help them in this and come out okay on the other side and he's making it hard.
00:08:22.960 Now, first of all, I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I actually agree with Scott.
00:08:26.480 And everything that he said was basically right.
00:08:29.540 I know, I'm going to get killed on social media for admitting that, but so be it.
00:08:34.360 We'll follow to him something, and he has not.
00:08:36.000 So that was his point.
00:08:36.700 Well, I have a short answer on this.
00:08:37.720 Go ahead.
00:08:38.000 So the short answer is the Trump administration believes that if Ukraine goes into business with the United States, that in and of itself is a security guarantee.
00:08:47.680 If your interests become our interests, we're going to be interested in making sure our interests are secure.
00:08:53.420 So it would have been wise for him to understand the economic deal, the mineral deal, is a security guarantee in and of itself.
00:09:00.580 And he lost sight of that today in the argument premeditated.
00:09:04.020 I don't know.
00:09:04.420 I think Zelensky misplayed it in the room.
00:09:06.640 And we could disagree about J.D. Vance's position on it or agree on it.
00:09:11.220 But either way, Zelensky certainly had been briefed on what the right way to handle this was.
00:09:16.840 And all he had to do was walk in there and say, thank you.
00:09:21.240 I'm really grateful to be here.
00:09:22.960 We want to be partners with the United States.
00:09:24.900 We're grateful for your leadership.
00:09:26.280 Where's the papers?
00:09:27.160 And what are we having for lunch?
00:09:28.320 That's all he had to do.
00:09:30.440 And, look, the posturing doesn't have to occur now.
00:09:34.220 If he is serious about wanting peace and ending this war, you don't have to keep posturing as a tough guy.
00:09:40.320 Everybody knows you're tough, all right?
00:09:41.620 The Ukrainians are tough. 1.00
00:09:42.780 They're brave.
00:09:43.260 They're fighting a much larger country.
00:09:44.660 Everybody knows.
00:09:45.360 The question for Zelensky is, can you take off the military uniform and put on the uniform of diplomacy?
00:09:51.000 He failed the test today.
00:09:52.180 He failed diplomacy, that test today.
00:09:54.840 It was not a hard meeting.
00:09:57.000 This wasn't something that was going to – it was harder to screw it up than it was to get it right.
00:10:02.360 Look, he needed mostly to be saying, sir, yes, sir.
00:10:06.700 Thank you, sir.
00:10:07.600 May I have another?
00:10:08.200 It – and Scott is right.
00:10:13.340 Look, this deal on minerals had the advantage for Ukraine of having the Trump administration being an integrally involved economic partner with Ukraine.
00:10:25.260 That's really beneficial.
00:10:27.640 And the alternative is very different, which is without the United States, Ukraine's prospects are really dim.
00:10:39.580 And so if you know that your prospects for success are miserably sad unless President Trump supports you, in what universe do you come in and start attacking and insulting him?
00:10:54.500 Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week.
00:11:01.100 Canadian women are looking for more – more out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them. 0.99
00:11:08.040 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.
00:11:11.760 I'm Jennifer Stewart.
00:11:12.960 And I'm Catherine Clark.
00:11:14.200 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.
00:11:17.960 Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.
00:11:23.680 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:11:26.680 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:11:31.100 Now on to story number two.
00:11:34.980 Senator, I want to go back to one other point that we mentioned earlier, but I think it's important to kind of expand on it.
00:11:41.940 And it was a shocking moment of just either completely out of touch or this Democratic Party, I guess you could just say, is in a sense just completely lost.
00:11:54.320 You had not a single Democrat applaud Peyton McNabb, who suffered brain damage after a volleyball spiked by a trans person, a man acting like a woman, ended her hopes of a college career.
00:12:09.660 That's how significant the injury was.
00:12:11.820 And it made her retire and also that took potentially like a scout, changed her life forever.
00:12:19.960 And they couldn't even clap for her.
00:12:23.540 Now, not a Democrat clap for not not one.
00:12:26.240 And by the way, just this past week, every single Democrat in the Senate voted against protecting girls from from boys competing in sports, every one of them.
00:12:37.660 And, you know, in the campaign, listen, in my reelection campaign, Colin Allred claims, I don't support boys playing in girls sports.
00:12:45.960 Well, every Senate and except the fact that he voted for it over and over and over again, every single Senate Democrat, when they're on reelection campaigns, they tell the voters, I don't support boys and girls sports.
00:12:56.560 And yet every single one of them just voted for it and not a one of them applauded.
00:13:01.060 I mean, it's the simple reality of how extreme their party is.
00:13:06.760 Now, I will tell you one thing that that that was particularly meaningful to me was was all the Texans who whom President Trump honored tonight, including Alexis Nungary, the mom of Jocelyn.
00:13:20.020 Now, Alexis was going to be my guest tonight.
00:13:21.920 Every senator gets one guest.
00:13:23.500 And I had invited Alexis.
00:13:25.060 She was coming up as my guest.
00:13:26.540 And then the president invited her.
00:13:28.540 So so she went and she was sitting with Melania Trump.
00:13:32.880 I was really grateful for the for her being being invited by the president to come there.
00:13:39.240 And then right next to Melania Trump was Elliston Berry. 1.00
00:13:43.220 And Elliston Berry is someone also another Texan who was the inspiration for the Take It Down Act.
00:13:48.980 So Elliston Berry is a 15 year old girl from North Texas, from Alito, who when she was 14 and a freshman in high school, 0.97
00:13:56.580 a boy, a classmate of hers took an innocent social media picture of her and used artificial intelligence to create a deep fake naked image of her that that appeared to be real.
00:14:11.440 But it was fake and then sent it to her classmates.
00:14:14.200 And she was the inspiration for my legislation, the Take It Down Act, which which passed the Senate unanimously.
00:14:21.720 And and by the way, how many times have you been involved in legislation that was passed unanimously in your in your career in the Senate?
00:14:29.380 A lot of times I passed one hundred and one different pieces of legislation into law.
00:14:35.420 A number of them were unanimous.
00:14:36.980 The Senate often if you do the work, you can bring people together and pass something.
00:14:41.800 And actually, just yesterday, the first lady, Melania Trump, came came to the Capitol.
00:14:46.840 First time she has his first lady, the second term supporting the Take It Down Act. 0.97
00:14:51.040 And we did a roundtable, which we're going to we're going to talk about significantly more on Friday's pod.
00:14:55.600 But we did a roundtable where Melania Trump heard from Elliston Berry, heard from other victims of of nonconsensual intimate images and called on the House to pass the Take It Down Act. 0.64
00:15:06.560 And President Trump tonight called on the House to pass the Take It Down Act.
00:15:10.160 So I was really glad the two people directly next to Melania Trump to her left were were two Texans, Elliston Berry and Alexis Nungary. 0.97
00:15:20.160 And that made me very happy.
00:15:22.260 It was that that may have been one of the best parts of the night.
00:15:25.260 Let's talk about what this looks like moving forward.
00:15:27.800 I think the president's speech is going to play very well with the American people.
00:15:33.360 I think it's going to help with momentum moving forward.
00:15:35.840 Yeah, I also do think that the American people, in the way they were watching this on TV, saw the the the shocking moments when they wouldn't stand for children that were, you know, murdered by illegal immigrants, their families. 1.00
00:15:50.400 Police officers dying live duty duty is on the list.
00:15:55.120 I mean, you look at all of this bringing an American hostage home from Russia, by the way, they wouldn't stand for that.
00:16:00.880 That was another moment we left out earlier.
00:16:03.120 Were you shocked by that as well?
00:16:05.380 Well, and you and I covered Mark Fogle coming back.
00:16:08.400 We covered that on the podcast when it happened.
00:16:13.280 That was one of the multiple times I turned to the folks around me and I'm like, what the hell is wrong with these people?
00:16:19.620 Like, like, how do you not?
00:16:21.740 This is not partisan. 0.58
00:16:22.960 This is not I get that they don't cheer for, you know, conservative ideas because they're all wacko lefties.
00:16:30.980 But but how do you not cheer for things that are just unambiguously good?
00:16:36.180 And it's today's Democrat Party.
00:16:38.800 It's a combination.
00:16:39.600 They become the party of hate and rage and they're in denial.
00:16:43.880 They don't know how to respond to this election other than to fume and glare.
00:16:49.940 And I got to say, if you're an elected Democrat, how do you think this is a good message to the American people?
00:16:58.260 We hate everyone and everything.
00:17:00.600 That's the Democrats like I don't get that.
00:17:03.760 No, I don't either.
00:17:05.180 So what happens now?
00:17:06.580 My this is my prediction.
00:17:08.260 I think the president's approval rating is going to stay solid and in certain categories, support on certain issues will actually rise coming out of this state of the union.
00:17:18.300 I think this is going to continue the momentum on on things like Doge and even in some of the issues that we're talking about that are in tough ones, whether it's dealing with Mexico and cartels or tariffs or Canada and fentanyl.
00:17:32.760 The list goes on and on.
00:17:34.240 I think same thing on on Ukraine funding.
00:17:37.640 I think this could catapult him to even greater near term success.
00:17:42.820 That's a lot of political capital that that obviously you want your prediction.
00:17:48.300 Look, I agree with you.
00:17:49.720 I think the American people are going to be happy with this speech.
00:17:53.260 They're going to be happy with the results.
00:17:54.720 The American people are happy with successes for America and we're getting on the border seeing illegal immigrations and illegal border crossings drop over 90 percent.
00:18:04.800 That's an unambiguous victory on energy, seeing energy production going up, seeing regulations being repealed, seeing wasteful spending being eliminated.
00:18:15.460 Those are unambiguous victories.
00:18:17.020 In terms of jobs, he went through the investments, the investments on on new investments, whether from Oracle or Apple or car companies bringing new factories here.
00:18:27.580 Those are big wins.
00:18:29.140 Those are the sorts of things.
00:18:30.380 Those are the sorts of things, frankly, when Joe Biden talked about if he would, you know, he had Democrats in their speeches would talk about a new factory.
00:18:37.320 And you know what? The Republicans would all stand and cheer because, hey, a new factory in America is a good thing.
00:18:42.340 And we even if we don't support many, if not most of Biden and Obama's policies, we cheer for the American people.
00:18:50.760 I think that the president's message was really strong, but I also think the contrast with the Democrats made it even stronger.
00:18:59.880 And so I think this was a good night for America, but but but not a good night for today's Democrat Party.
00:19:08.940 As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and download the podcast from early this week to hear the entire thing.
00:19:17.580 Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders and the world around them. 0.97
00:19:24.700 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.
00:19:28.440 I'm Jennifer Stewart and I'm Catherine Clark.
00:19:30.840 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.
00:19:40.320 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:19:43.320 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:19:49.300 I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed.
00:19:53.820 Almost 100 terrorist linked migrants released in 2024.
00:19:59.000 The part that I think we really should hone in on is this wasn't an accident.
00:20:04.100 It wasn't like a misappropriation of paperwork.
00:20:07.520 This was done on purpose.
00:20:09.740 Yeah, they knew they had full knowledge.
00:20:11.720 And look, don't take my word for it.
00:20:14.180 Listen to Tulsi Gabbard and what she said this week down in Texas at Eagle Pass.
00:20:19.180 Give a listen.
00:20:20.200 Trump has been in office.
00:20:21.700 Really what you're seeing here today and what you'll continue to see is a unified effort across President Trump's national security team,
00:20:28.800 the Department of Homeland Security, towards our mission, which is to ensure a safe, free and prosperous society for Americans.
00:20:36.260 As director of national intelligence, there are a number of areas where we are focused.
00:20:40.700 The president talked about in his speech over 21 million people have come across our borders illegally under Joe Biden's administration.
00:20:49.220 There are many of them that we don't know who they are.
00:20:51.600 They have not been vetted.
00:20:53.100 We don't know where they are.
00:20:54.760 I'll give you one quick example of one of the problems that we are getting after.
00:20:58.900 From Central Asia, there were over 4,000 people who came across our borders using an ISIS-affiliated network.
00:21:07.060 Our National Counterterrorism Center went through and identified those individuals.
00:21:11.480 There were hundreds of them who were either known terrorists or associated with known terrorists.
00:21:16.940 That information was provided to the Biden administration.
00:21:19.580 You may remember in some of the news, a little over 100 of those people were arrested in 2024.
00:21:26.360 Of those who were arrested, only eight were either deported or remained in custody.
00:21:32.860 Only eight.
00:21:33.840 The rest of them were released back into our country.
00:21:37.340 Where are they?
00:21:38.160 What are they doing?
00:21:39.280 What may they be plotting?
00:21:41.080 This is just the beginning.
00:21:42.300 There are many, many areas that we need to stay very focused on, working with Department of Homeland Security, working with the FBI to ensure that we're keeping the American people safe.
00:21:52.120 Our counterterrorism center is working on making sure that we have that single source for vetting so that we can figure out who is actually in our country and identify those who pose a threat and get them removed.
00:22:04.360 The president's designation of the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations falls directly into this, especially as we're seeing some of the tactics that these cartels are using reflect some of the tactics that we've seen used by Islamist terrorists in countries that many of us have served in overseas.
00:22:20.300 Our mission is very clear.
00:22:22.580 Our objective is to keep the American people safe.
00:22:25.200 I'm grateful to be a part of this team that President Trump has assembled to accomplish that mission.
00:22:29.780 Thank you.
00:22:30.760 I love the focus.
00:22:32.400 The vice president was down there as well.
00:22:33.940 Well, the team and, you know, you compare that to the border czar who never decided to go to Eagle Pass, didn't want anything to do with it.
00:22:39.420 And now we understand, again, more why, because they knew they were doing all of the things that they were doing to put America's national security at risk.
00:22:47.780 Yeah, and it's worth really focusing on the facts that Tulsi Gabbard, who's now the director of national intelligence, what she said.
00:22:56.020 She said, from Central Asia, there were more than 4,000 people who came across our borders using an ISIS-affiliated network.
00:23:05.860 So ISIS, you know, kind of bad guys, terrorists who've killed lots and lots of Americans, they're smuggling over 4,000 people illegally into this country from Central Asia.
00:23:16.680 By the way, Central Asia includes multiple Islamic countries like Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, where radical Islamic terrorism is a real threat.
00:23:25.080 And Tulsi said the National Counterterrorism Center went through and identified those over 4,000 individuals, and there were hundreds of them, hundreds is the word she used, who were either known terrorists or associated with known terrorists.
00:23:44.080 And then she says, quote, that information was provided to the Biden administration.
00:23:50.940 So the Biden administration knew hundreds of either known terrorists or people associated with known terrorists were smuggled into America illegally by an ISIS-affiliated network.
00:24:03.320 And then she goes on to say in 2024, a little over 100 of those terror-linked people were arrested.
00:24:12.840 And then the shocking thing, of the little more than 100, only eight were either deported or remained in custody, only eight.
00:24:25.740 Quote, the rest of them were released back into our country.
00:24:31.580 So this is not illegal aliens crossing the border that get apprehended, they let them go, but they don't know they're terrorists.
00:24:37.560 These are people they know are either themselves known terrorists or associated with known terrorists.
00:24:45.400 They also know that they were smuggled illegally into this country by an ISIS-affiliated network, and they were arrested again.
00:24:52.540 And yet, over 90 of them, nearly 100, the Biden administration released into America, into your community, into my community, in a single year.
00:25:06.080 This is in 2024.
00:25:08.200 That is stunning. 1.00
00:25:11.100 And I've got to tell you, Ben, I've never heard a single Democrat give any justification for what is just idiocy. 1.00
00:25:19.760 Let's release terror-linked illegal immigrants into America. 1.00
00:25:23.540 What possibly could go wrong with that? 1.00
00:25:25.860 When you look at the, and sometimes it's just people are stupid, is it, but it also could be more, I could be more sinister than that, I guess. 0.99
00:25:34.580 Because, I look at this, I'm like, they knew it. 0.98
00:25:37.680 Did they just not want to admit that the open border would allow for so many bad actors to come across, with many that may just be coming across, right, for a better life, a job, if you put it in the best light possible, Senator.
00:25:51.760 And so they knew that if they admitted they caught these people, and then they didn't release them, and they actually prosecuted them or sent them back to their country, there's a lot of options here.
00:26:01.660 That was going to sign a huge light on the problem.
00:26:04.340 So therefore, hey, we can't admit it's happening.
00:26:06.080 So are we just going to go with this anarchy and insanity until the end?
00:26:10.280 Look, Ben, I really don't know.
00:26:13.440 You know, I had, my very first boss had a phrase he used to say.
00:26:16.600 He said, never attribute to incompetence, never attribute to malice what can be explained with incompetence.
00:26:23.940 And look, I think there's a lot of wisdom to that, that a lot of times people are just, they just do dumb things.
00:26:29.040 That being said, listen, I, do I believe the Biden administration wants terrorists to attack America?
00:26:38.060 No.
00:26:39.540 But then why the hell would you release these people?
00:26:42.380 And I guess the only plausible explanation I can come up with is they're such radicals on open borders.
00:26:50.460 They're so committed to their open borders because they want millions and millions of illegal immigrants because they view them as future Democrat voters,
00:26:58.300 that they're just deportation was off the table.
00:27:01.460 They're not in that business.
00:27:02.900 They don't do it.
00:27:03.640 I don't know.
00:27:05.580 Listen, this is related to a story we covered in a pod a couple of weeks ago.
00:27:09.860 We're in Massachusetts right now.
00:27:12.560 They're taking violent child abusers, child molesters, people who are raping children, 1.00
00:27:19.800 who are illegal aliens. 0.85
00:27:21.240 And even with violent child rapists, the Massachusetts authorities are releasing them rather than give them over to ICE to be deported.
00:27:29.860 Now, look, reasonable people, you could have an argument about what should be the level of illegal immigration.
00:27:35.500 You could have, there are all sorts of things you'd have reasonable disagreements on.
00:27:38.500 But, I mean, Ben, explain to me why someone says, you know what we need more of? 0.66
00:27:43.020 We need more child rapists in our community.
00:27:46.740 Let's let these go.
00:27:47.900 Like, my brain cannot wrap itself around those repeated actions, and yet that's what's happening.
00:27:55.480 This is the same sort of thing.
00:27:56.600 You apprehend someone who's a known terrorist who was smuggled into America by ISIS, and you say, oh, let's let him go.
00:28:03.480 Like, I don't know.
00:28:06.140 You know, the poll numbers that came out from the president's speech the other night were truly incredible.
00:28:11.060 76% approved of Trump's address to Congress.
00:28:14.360 That is a massive win for the president.
00:28:17.440 You look at some of the other ones, poll numbers, not only that, 91% said Trump spent time on issues they cared about.
00:28:25.660 Yeah.
00:28:26.040 That is a home run.
00:28:28.640 71% said the speech was, quote, inspiring.
00:28:31.520 And 62% said it was unifying.
00:28:34.540 And they said that this speech, 68% said they felt hopeful.
00:28:40.740 54% said they felt proud of the country from the speech.
00:28:44.820 And when you look at these numbers, even on the issue of inflation, where Democrats leaned in heavy over the last few weeks to try to say everything that's, you know, eggs and everything else are the problem of Donald Trump.
00:28:55.900 The American people aren't buying that either.
00:28:57.460 When they were asked whether the president had a clear plan to battle inflation, 68% said yes to that as well.
00:29:03.520 And then on the issue of immigration at the border, the people watched and 77% said they were in favor of Donald Trump's plan on immigration at the border.
00:29:17.460 When you see this, right, and you look at what the president's saying, and then all those that are working towards this, you've got the vice president, you've got Tulsa, you've got the secretary of state.
00:29:29.140 Everyone seems to be in lockstep on this issue of the border.
00:29:32.580 Is that the reason why you think the president's winning so much right now on securing this border?
00:29:37.760 Because he's explaining it the way we are right now as well? 0.92
00:29:41.200 Because he is not absolutely frigging nuts? 0.94
00:29:44.000 Yes. 1.00
00:29:44.220 I think the Democrat Party has gone insane. 0.98
00:29:49.660 Releasing murderers and rapists and child molesters into America is a really bad idea, and it turns out it's a really unpopular idea. 0.97
00:29:57.040 Releasing terrorists into America is a really bad idea, and it turns out it's a really unpopular idea. 0.58
00:30:01.980 Look, you and I, we did a pod the night of the State of the Union, and we talked a lot about how the Democrats, for the first time ever, didn't applaud for the president of the United States, didn't stand for the president of the United States, didn't applaud at anything.
00:30:18.560 I'll tell you, actually, yesterday in the Senate, Jim, I had a conversation with a Senate Democrat.
00:30:23.620 I'll keep him anonymous, but he was a Senate Democrat, one of my colleagues.
00:30:27.940 And he made a comment.
00:30:30.180 He said something about he thought we were just living in a surreal world.
00:30:34.600 And I said, look, I got to say, I was shocked that you guys didn't applaud or stand for the president at all.
00:30:44.860 And he was like, well, you got to understand, we just think he's destroying the Constitution.
00:30:52.220 And I said, look, I stood and applauded every year for Barack Obama.
00:30:58.180 I stood and applauded every year for Joe Biden.
00:31:00.300 And I disagreed with almost everything they were doing.
00:31:03.560 But I respect the office and I respect the American people.
00:31:07.240 And he just kind of shrugged and said, we're living in different universes and we're and we're we're we're our bases are fundamentally different.
00:31:16.160 You look at Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
00:31:18.560 He also announced a policy to penalize foreign countries that allow the transit of illegal immigrants and is pressuring many countries that refuse to accept the return of their migrants as well.
00:31:30.900 This could also have a big impact on this country.
00:31:35.380 I want to get your thoughts on that.
00:31:38.420 Yeah, look, this administration is securing the border.
00:31:41.820 They're doing it right now.
00:31:42.880 And they are going to deport illegal aliens. 0.99
00:31:45.940 They are going to send out of the country, especially the violent, criminal illegal aliens, the murderers, the rapists, the child molesters, the gang bangers and the countries that don't take it. 0.99
00:31:57.500 They're they're going to make them take it. 0.92
00:31:59.380 And that's what a strong president who's actually defending this country does.
00:32:03.080 As always, thank you for listening to verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
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