WEBVTT - American Oligarchs 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:03.960 We have all talked for months and months and years 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:07.800 and years about the threats that big tech is posing 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:11.840 to free expression, to the First Amendment, to our public square, 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:17.160 to self government itself. Now, finally the government is taking action. 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.919 The Department of Justice is suing Google on the grounds 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:24.639 of antitrust. The US Senate is going to subpoena Jack 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:28.640 Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg, the heads of Twitter and Facebook. 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:32.320 Big tech is finally being called to account. This is 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:41.880 Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:46.280 I'm Michael Knowles, joined as ever by Senator Cruz. Senator 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:49.640 I like to think that on this show we predict 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:53.000 the future, and I guess sometimes actually maybe affect the future, 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:55.880 because as we're talking about laws that could be passed 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:58.560 and big moves that could be taking place in the 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:01.920 federal government. Last episode we talked about this crazy story 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:06.040 with big Tech censoring a New York Post investigation into 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:10.680 Hunter Biden and possible corruption involving Joe Biden. Big Tech 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:12.840 suppressed the story, shut it down. We also are going 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:15.720 on for days now it appears the federal government is 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:18.399 taking action. All I've seen her the headline, Senator that 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:20.760 the DOJ is going to try to break up Google, 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:23.840 and that the Senate Judiciary Committee is going to subpoena 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:26.479 the other heads of big tech. What can you tell 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:29.640 us about what is actually going on? Well, sure, this 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:33.199 has been a big and momentous week on multiple fronts, 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:37.400 as you just noted concerning big tech. Let's start with 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:42.320 Twitter and Facebook. And last week during the confirmation hearing 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:44.880 on Judge Barrett, we had one story that came out 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:48.600 Wednesday night that was the New York Post blockbuster story 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:56.720 on Ukraine based on Hunter Biden's emails and alleging on 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:01.400 its face corruption by Joe Biden and that he had 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:04.840 lied in saying that he had not not met with 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:09.880 these Ukrainian oligarchs. The next day, Thursday, and we recorded 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:15.440 a Verdict podcast with that information that night, because both 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:20.880 Twitter and Facebook blocked that story. If any individual user 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:24.080 tried to tweet out that New York Post story, you 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:27.520 got a warning sign that said you couldn't tweet it, 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:30.280 you couldn't post it on Twitter said that this was 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:36.760 potentially harmful. Well, the next day, Thursday morning, the story 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:39.720 actually it got worse because the New York Post broke 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:44.680 a second blockbuster story. This second one was again from 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:48.520 the same trove of emails on Hunter Biden's laptop, allegedly, 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:54.080 this one concerning Communist China and an offer from Communist 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:57.200 China to pay not only Hunter Biden millions of dollars, 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:00.960 but to pay Joe Biden himself millions of dollars. The 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:04.799 emails refer to Joe Biden as quote the big Guy, 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:08.920 and it's an offer of serious cash directly to Joe Biden. 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:15.639 So once again, Twitter block that, and I have to 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:17.760 admit I saw this. So I'm sitting on my phone 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:21.640 during the Judge Barrett confirmation hearing, and I'm up at 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:23.239 the Dias and I'm on my phone and I'm looking 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:26.679 at the store and I'm like, wow, this is unbelievable. 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:29.520 And so I put together a tweet. You know, we'll 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.360 Twitter block this one too, and I hit send and boom, 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:37.960 Twitter's blocked it and I can't send it, and I'm 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:43.680 like furious, And so I get up and called Lindsay 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.040 Graham over and he and I stepped out out back. 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:49.680 And so the public hearing room where we do the 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:51.920 hearings is in the Heart Centered office building and there's 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:53.840 an area back behind this like the ante room. So 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.040 I pulled Lindsay back and I was worked up. I said, 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:01.200 you know what, let's subpoena Twitter right now. We're we're meeting, 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:03.800 the Judiciary Committee is here. Let's do it right now. 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:07.600 Get Jack Dorsey to come right here and explain what 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:10.400 in the hell he is doing. So I gotta admit 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:15.320 Lindsay's staff was very worried about this, and look, to 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:17.520 be fair, that they're sitting there saying, well, let's not 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:20.040 do anything to screw up the Judge Barrett confirmation. And 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:22.640 I understand that, and I'm like, well, look obviously I 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:24.040 don't want to. I don't want to do anything to 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:26.760 screw that up. And so they were nervous. Let's just 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.280 let's not do anything else. Let's just do Judge Barrett. 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:36.240 But this was so so absurd. I told Lindsay we 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:38.039 got we got to do something. So what his staff 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:40.120 has said is, well, look we can we can notice 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:44.600 a hearing for next week and vote on subpoena's next week. 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:47.560 And I said great, and Lindsay said, you know, if 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:49.039 you want, you and I can go announce it to 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:51.240 the TV cameras right now. I said, great, let's go. 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:54.840 We both walk out as during a break in the 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:56.920 Judge Barrett hearing, So it's it's just there was a 0:04:57.480 --> 0:04:59.400 kind of a five minute break. Lindsay and I walk 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:02.839 out to the a TV camera out there, and we 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:06.240 both announced together that the Judiciary Committee will be voting 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:11.680 on subpoenas to subpoena Jack Dorsey to testify in front 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:15.320 of Judiciary. And that blew up the news. That was 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:18.800 literally just on the fly, Lindsay and me talking in 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:21.920 the ante room, and we agreed, let's go announce it, 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:25.120 and now this week we'll be teeing it up. This 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:28.880 is something that I realized during impeachment, and I suppose 0:05:29.000 --> 0:05:31.320 probably the listeners and viewers realized it too that I 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:34.480 didn't understand before. In my mind, the way the government 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:37.839 and especially the Senate works is that everything is preplanned 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:40.400 and nothing happens on the spur of the moment, and 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:43.000 you just know what's going to happen. And that's that 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:46.720 what I realized was that's not really what happens in 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:49.159 the moment. I mean, as you described, during impeachment, you'd 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:51.720 hear a question, you'd hear Adam Shifts say something, you'd 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:53.480 go into the cloak room, you'd talk to Senator so 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:55.680 and so, you guys would make a plan to do this, 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:58.000 that or the other thing. And obviously that's what's happening 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:02.680 here as well. Twitter's decision to censor this information, to 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:06.640 suppress it led directly to Jack Dorsey getting subpoenaed on 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:10.360 the fly in the moment. And we'll get into the 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:12.720 legal issue I suspect in a moment, but I think 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:16.599 it is important for listeners to consider just the way 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:19.039 that our political system is structured right now that a 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:24.359 US senator in a hearing trying to post new information 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:26.880 that has just come out from the oldest continually published 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:30.000 daily newspaper in the country founded by Alexander Hamilton, the 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:32.280 New York Post, trying to put that out there in 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:36.080 the public square, could be censored by a tech oligarch 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:39.159 in Silicon Valley. That is the regardless of the legal question. 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:41.640 That is the political situation that we're looking at now 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:43.680 as we head into these subpoenas. So, look, you and 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:46.600 I and on Verdict, we've been talking about tech censorship 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:48.920 a long time, and a lot of us have been 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:53.040 very concerned about tech bias and censorship for years it's 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:56.839 been getting steadily worse. It's been escalating, it's more and 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:03.800 more and more. Last week was a dramatic escalation last week. 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:10.080 It's one thing for big tech to silence individual Americans speaking. 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:13.080 They're doing far too much of it. It's wrong and 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:15.720 it's and I am leading the fight to stop it. 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:19.280 But last week represented something very very different, which is 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:23.760 they silenced a major media publication. The New York Post 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:27.320 has the fourth highest circulation of any newspaper in America. 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:29.720 And not only could you or I or any American 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:33.320 you couldn't tweet their story. Twitter actually blocked the New 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:38.720 York Post itself, prevented the New York Post from posting 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:43.160 their own story and silenced the media from speaking. And 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:49.200 it actually, you know, Politico certainly not a right leaning publication, 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:53.360 to put it mildly, a Politico journalist sent out some 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:55.880 tweets about the New York Post story, and the Politico 0:07:55.960 --> 0:08:00.960 journalist got blocked. And this is big tech a the 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:05.480 power to censor the media. And you know, if reporters 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:12.000 had even the tiniest hint of integrity, they'd be losing 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:16.360 their minds over this, right, because this is literally Jack 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:20.559 Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg saying they can decide what media 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:24.040 outlets an American can report and what anyone in America 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:25.920 is allowed to see, because if they can if they 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:27.600 can censor the New York Post, they can sense of 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:30.520 the New York Times, if they can silence Politico, they 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:33.440 can silence the Washington Post, or they can silence Fox News. 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:39.080 And crossing that threshold of we're now going to silence 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:49.840 silence the media is incredibly dangerous two weeks out from 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:54.920 an election. Certain no reporter cares that they're so invested 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:58.720 in defeating Donald Trump that they're willing to let Jack 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:02.000 Dorsey sensor them and decide which of the stories can 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:06.360 can be published. Um, and it's it's these are these 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:08.480 are American oligarchs. I mean, you want to talk about 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:12.400 the oligarchs of Russia. These are oligarchs with money that 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:16.760 that believe they're drunk on their own power, right. I 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:18.760 think I think this is the point when when people 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:21.280 use the phrase fake news, I think sometimes it's a 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:24.240 little bit ambiguous what that means. But I think in 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:27.640 its most precise meaning, it's not that every single news 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:30.440 story is false. It's not that every single reporter is corrupt. 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:34.120 It's that the news itself is fake because it isn't 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:37.439 the news, because the focus is not on reporting the news. 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:39.480 The focus is not on standing up to censorship when 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.360 the outlets are censored. It's all just about advancing a 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:45.800 narrative that benefits one political party over another. Well, and 0:09:45.880 --> 0:09:49.800 you know, so the most of the Democratic senators have 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:52.360 ignored this issue, have ignored the New York Post story, 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:58.680 have ignored um ignored Twitter censorship and Facebook censorship. U 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.880 by the way, the Biden campaign has ignored it. So 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.800 Joe Biden. About the only thing the Biden campaign has 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:08.240 said is there's no meeting with the Oligarch on his 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:11.520 official schedule. So they haven't denied that this was Hunter 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:14.760 Biden's laptop. They haven't denied that these are Hunter Biden's emails. 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:18.080 They haven't denied that Joe Biden met with the oligarc 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:20.920 even though he said said previously he did not. They 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:24.840 haven't denied that that communist China offered Joe Biden millions 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:27.840 of dollars, So no one's even asked them. You know, 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:32.280 Biden did an ABC town hall the day after these 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:34.840 stories broke, and they didn't bother to ask him. It's 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:40.520 simply it doesn't exist. It's been disappeared. But when it 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:43.480 comes to Democratic senators, to the extent they've said anything 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:50.480 about it, their talking point has been this is Russian disinformation. Okay, well, 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:55.120 I'm not aware of any evidence of that. The Director 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:58.560 of National Intelligence has said it's not. But if somebody 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:01.920 has evidence that it's Russian information, great, show us the evidence. Look, 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:06.720 if these emails are fake, that's highly relevant. If they're 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:10.240 But at this point Joe Biden didn't claiming they're fake. Right, Well, 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:13.680 it would seem, you know, the fact that the Biden 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:16.480 campaign won't deny it, and the fact that photos were 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:20.840 released as well, either these Russian disinformers have the greatest 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:23.640 photoshop skills in the world, or what we're looking at 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:28.800 is legitimate material from Hunter Biden's computer. If something's fake, 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:33.400 that's actually what journalism is for. So I'm perfectly fine 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:35.400 with people reporting it. If you share the New York 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:37.720 Post story, it turns out the story is wrong, fine, 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.120 then they put out the refutation and show that it's wrong. 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:42.719 But Big Tech doesn't want to do that. They just 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:48.240 simply want to make it disappear. And I think Big 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:52.440 Tech believes they are not accountable to anybody, and that's 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:56.640 why I think it's so important that they testify. I 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:59.320 think so as well. I was thrilled when I saw 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:02.200 that you were called for Dorsey and Zuckerberg to come 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:04.840 and testify. I have to ask you for a little 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:07.160 behind the scenes, though, a little cloakroom gossip, if you 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:09.679 don't mind, which is that I've seen headlines that some 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:13.720 Republicans on the committee are wavering, that's the term that's 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:16.760 been reported. Are people going soft here? Are we actually 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.920 going to hear from Zuckerberg and Dorsey or not? I 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:24.600 believe we will. It is true. We are having I 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:30.959 guess what I'll characterize as vigorous internal conversations. We were 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.320 supposed to vote today. This is Tuesday, you and I 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:35.000 are talking. I think the pod will probably can't come 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:37.520 out tomorrow. But we were supposed to vote today on 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:41.480 the subpoenas. We haven't voted today. There is a vote 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:45.880 noticed for Thursday, so two days from now on the subpoenas. 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:50.160 Twitter and Facebook are right now negotiating with the Judiciary 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:57.560 Committee about potentially appearing voluntarily, and actually next week they're 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:00.600 going to be appearing before the Commerce commit I also 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:02.559 serve on the Commerce Committee, so I'm going to be 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:05.480 at a hearing next week with the heads of Google, Facebook, 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:10.480 and Twitter. Anyway, Commerce is a very different committee than Judiciary. 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:12.920 I'm on both of the committee, so it's I'm I'm 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:16.640 fine with that, but Commerce, the issue's Commerce focuses on 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:19.320 Section two thirty will be part of the discussion in 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:25.560 the Commerce hearing. But Judiciary is on both sides, Democrat 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:32.120 and Republican, frankly manned by junkyard dog prosecutors who know 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:34.240 how to pound the hell out of a witness. It's 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:37.560 just a different that, ain't commerce. Commerce is lovey dovey 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:41.040 kumbay yah. It's It's a lot easier to testify in 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:44.679 front of Commerce than Judiciary. What I am pressing for, 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:47.920 what I want to see happen is I want to 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:52.080 see Dorsey and Zuckerberg testify in person. They prefer to 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:55.240 do it remotely. Yeah, I want to drag their asses 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:58.480 to Washington to sit down in that hearing and answer questions. 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:00.800 And I think it needs to be for the election. 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:06.800 I believe we'll see them testify before the election. I 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:11.440 hope it's in person. That's what I'm pressing for and 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:16.760 whether it is by subpoena or voluntary doesn't really matter. 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:19.360 My objective is that they testify. If they agree to 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:24.080 voluntarily shown up, fine, as long as it's in person 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:27.760 before the election. But where the votes are on Judiciary, 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:30.080 I don't know. We may find out on Thursday. We 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:32.560 may see it tied up for a vote. I think 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:34.680 we'll see all the Republicans come on board if it 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:36.840 actually gets pressed to a vote. I think there's some 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:41.240 folks that are nervous, But nervous is not the same 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.840 thing as voting, now, you know, Senator, I read the 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:46.120 mail bag to this show, and we get a lot 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:50.760 of emails and a huge number of people are asking 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:53.160 when these guys are going to be dragged in front 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:55.360 of Congress and in front of the Senate to answer questions. 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:57.720 So I hope that your colleagues on the committee get 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:00.320 the message. Very interesting, it actually had not a occurred 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:03.240 to me that testifying before different committees has a different 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:05.400 tenor because you have different people on those committees. And 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:09.120 I'm not at all surprised the Judiciary Committee has more 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:11.600 of a bulldog kind of style. I certainly want to 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:15.080 see them dragged before that committee and answer those questions. 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:17.360 I also have to ask you though about this separate question. 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:20.880 We've been focusing on Facebook and Twitter, but the big kahuna, 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:25.000 the real giant in this space, is actually not Twitter, 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:28.600 and it's not even Facebook. It's Google. The DOJ has 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:31.560 just announced that they are going to sue Google on 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:35.480 anti trust grounds. Obviously, I am not an expert in 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:37.960 anti trust law, and I suspect most people who are 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:40.320 calling for a big tech to be broken up aren't 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:43.800 expert in that either. What is the case here and 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:45.920 do you think it will be successful? And do you 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:49.200 think it's advisable? So I'm very glad DJ is moving 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:51.920 forward and filing a case. The exact details of it 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:54.680 will be coming out in coming days and weeks, but 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:57.120 as I understand it, they're bringing a case that Google 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:00.600 is a monopoly and it's abusing its monopoly power. And 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:03.560 at least some of what the case is focusing on 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:08.760 is that they force, for example, phone companies to preload 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:11.400 Google on it as your search engine when you get 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:16.560 a phone, and they use their market power to prevent 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:21.280 competitors from doing the same. And look, Google is very 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:25.840 good at leveraging one monopoly and too power in all 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:30.120 sorts of other areas, and so from the initial announcements, 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:33.000 that's what the case is going to focus on. I 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:36.920 hope one component of the case is using their monopoly 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:42.080 power to censor political speech that doesn't fall as traditionally 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:44.880 or cleanly into antitrust laws. And it's one of the 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:47.760 things we've talked about. In fact, when you and I 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:49.600 talked with Bill Barr. I mean I have in the 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:54.240 last four years raise this issue personally and directly with 0:16:54.360 --> 0:16:57.040 the President multiple times, with the Vice President, with the 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:59.160 White House Chief of Staff, with the White House Council, 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:01.920 with the Attorney General, with a Deputy Attorney General, with 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:04.240 the Assistant Attorney General for an I trust, with the 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:06.600 chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. I mean, this is 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:10.600 I think it's the biggest threat in the country to 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:15.679 free speech, to a free press, and to to our democracy, 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:20.520 to our our elections. So I hope and Google is 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:23.919 by far the worst actor. So as I sort of 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:29.160 ranked the actors of big tech, Facebook I have problems with, 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:34.159 but comparatively speaking, they're the least bad of the big guys. 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:38.480 Then there's Twitter, which is quite brazen, and then by 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:41.199 far the worst I believe is Google, and Google owns YouTube, 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:45.640 so so I throw YouTube into it. And remember Google's 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:50.000 motto used used to be, uh, do no evil? Yeah, 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:53.440 don't be evil, don't be evil, don't be evil. Yeah, 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:56.320 it's and then they just scrapped it. I mean they 0:17:56.440 --> 0:18:00.080 literally scrapped the motto and I don't know if it 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:02.760 was what they were twirling their mustache and like the 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:06.480 fires of Hades to which they were condemning the globe 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:09.440 and decided, oh, let's not forswear evil anymore. I mean, 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:15.800 it really is. And the amount of look, Google's worth 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:18.560 over trillion dollars they have I think one hundred and 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:23.480 twenty billion dollars in cash, just just like the change 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:27.040 apparently sitting around and the sofas and between the cushions 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:30.920 and their sofas, like the massive power Google has, and 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:37.760 they are completely brazen about using it to advance their 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:39.520 political lens. And I will say I have a theory. 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:42.800 By the way, so on these New York Post stories, 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:46.480 we know that Facebook and Twitter blocked it. To our knowledge, 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:49.159 Google hasn't blocked it. So I actually tried went to 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:52.000 Google and typed in and Google it comes up, and 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:54.640 I have a theory that actually the reason Google didn't 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:57.800 block it is because they knew this DJ's case was coming, 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:06.280 that they're on mildly better behavior because they're facing massive litigation. 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:09.040 I can't prove that that's just a theory. No, it's 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:12.120 a good suggestion, Senator, because I did wonder at the time. 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:14.320 I said, wait a second, how's Google not jumping on 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:16.959 this bandwagon? But of course Google is getting word when 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:18.720 when you're talking about an entity as large as the 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:22.120 DOJ or the federal government, obviously they know what's coming 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:24.879 down the pike, and what you what you focused on 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:27.920 there is search, which when most people think about how 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:30.720 YouTube is abusing its power or Google is abusing its power, 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:33.600 they think it's through video, or they think it's through advertising, 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:36.920 or they think it's But in this fifty seven page 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:40.480 complaint that the DOJ has just filed here, they actually 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:44.880 focus in on search, and search is Google's core product. 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:46.320 If you make it to the first page of a 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:50.120 Google search, that has so much power, so much more 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:52.600 power than if you're on page two or page two 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:55.680 thousand for that matter. And Google, we know manipulate search 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:59.720 for ideological ends. But what do you say, Senator, beyond 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:03.879 the logical question, beyond the free speech question. What do 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:06.639 you say to people, maybe they're a little more libertarian leaning, 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:10.120 who say, listen, it's it's a free market, and Google's 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:13.600 a private company sort of. And if Google, you know, 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:16.639 is not to your liking, well then fella just go 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:18.879 make your own Google. Do you do you think conservatives 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:24.120 are betraying our kind of free market preferences. Yeah, look, 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:26.480 I understand those sentiments, you know. I will say, by 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:29.200 the way that some of the voices, particularly in DC, 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:34.320 that echo them, some of the more libertarian outfits get 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:37.360 a whole lot of money from big tech. And one 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:40.440 problem we have in our own neck of the woods 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:45.720 in terms of the center rights conservative libertarian world, is 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:48.359 there are some folks who, if you write them a 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:50.719 big enough check, suddenly if you look at some of 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:55.119 the most vigorous defenders of tech from from all of 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:58.840 this scrutiny, for many of them, there's a money trail 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:03.320 to be followed. But let me take your the critique 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:09.439 on face value. I am a free market conservative. I 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:11.879 believe in free markets. That doesn't mean we don't have laws. 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:14.639 That doesn't mean you don't have the antitrust laws the 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:17.960 antitrust laws have been on the books for almost one 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:22.920 hundred years yea, and abusing a monopoly position, which is 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:27.159 what Google does, has been against the law a very 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:31.440 long time. Of course, it is right the government shouldn't 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:35.600 be regulating speech. We don't want some federal police officers 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:37.639 saying this speech is good, this speech is bad. That 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:40.480 would be a terrible outcome, and by the way, the 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:42.680 Democrats would love that outcome. So so we need to 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:45.919 be very cautious about where they want to take this. 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:51.000 But there's a difference between that and not letting someone 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:55.040 abuse their monopoly power. And there's also a difference. Section 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:57.760 two thirty, which we've talked about a lot on this podcast, 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:02.560 is a special immunity from liability that Congress gave big 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:05.120 Tech that nobody else gets. And it's basically a subsidy. 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:07.000 All right, you want to put it in free market terms, 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:10.840 end section two thirty because it's a damned subsidy to 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:14.600 the biggest, most profitable companies on Earth. It's corporate welfare, 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:19.800 and it immunizes them from behaving like the Ttalitarian Star Chamber. 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:25.480 And so that's a pure free market argument which addresses 0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:28.919 directly what the threat is and the magnitude if you 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:31.800 believe in the principles of free speech, which is that 0:22:31.840 --> 0:22:34.960 we ought to be able to speak and debate freely. Yeah, 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:38.199 allowing one or two billionaires to have a monopoly on 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:45.440 every means of communication is a really, really dangerous phenomenon. Absolutely, 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.879 I agree entirely with that, and I think there is 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:53.800 nothing conservative about allowing a couple of oligarchs to dominate 0:22:53.840 --> 0:22:56.399 our public square and control the flow of information. And 0:22:56.440 --> 0:22:59.639 of course there's nothing conservative about letting companies brazenly violate 0:22:59.640 --> 0:23:01.600 the law, laws that have been on the books for 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:03.000 one hundred years or laws that have been on the 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:06.159 books for twenty five years. You have assuaged my fears 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:09.520 on this free market issue, and I think a lot 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:13.240 of conservatives are are recognizing that threat. We have a question, 0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:15.600 by the way, Senator, in our remaining couple of minutes 0:23:15.920 --> 0:23:18.800 that is just as important in my view. I was 0:23:18.840 --> 0:23:20.439 going to I was gonna bring this up with you 0:23:20.520 --> 0:23:22.680 personally as a matter of fact, because I was very 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:26.240 worried when this was mentioned on the Senate floor. This 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:31.520 is from Gregory. Is Senator Cruz really a vegan? Say 0:23:31.560 --> 0:23:34.520 it ain't so, Senator This is after your colleague, Corey 0:23:34.600 --> 0:23:37.200 Booker came out and made this wild accusation on the 0:23:37.240 --> 0:23:41.119 Senate floor. Please clear this up for us. It was 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:47.800