Speaker 1: So much. This is great. This is so great because
Speaker 1: a week ago there was a campaign from a liberal
Speaker 1: student in the Yale Daily News. Maybe you saw it,
Speaker 1: I don't know. There was a campaign to convince people
Speaker 1: in the Yale community not to come to this event because,
Speaker 1: you see, to come to this event tonight would legitimize
Speaker 1: Cruise and Knoles, it would pose a threat to American
Speaker 1: democracy and Senator. Here we are in a room full
Speaker 1: of at least five hundred people, completely packed, live from
Speaker 1: Yale University. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This episode
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Speaker 1: a nish dot com slash cactus. I love Yale. This
Speaker 1: is my alma mater. I love Yale. I don't know
Speaker 1: if my alma mater loves me quite so much, but
Speaker 1: I love it, and I'm so dismayed when I see
Speaker 1: Yale at the forefront of shutting down speech. Just last week,
Speaker 1: a Kristen Wagoner, a conservative lawyer, was shouted down at
Speaker 1: Yale Law School. This is supposed to be the number
Speaker 1: one law school in America. Someone actually said in the
Speaker 1: room a Yale law student, I'll fight you, b I tch.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of discourse we're seeing here. I remember
Speaker 1: some years ago there was a gal we call her
Speaker 1: Shrieking Girl, an undergraduate screaming at her professor saying, this
Speaker 1: is not an intellectual space. This is supposed to be
Speaker 1: a place of comfort and home for me. Senator, what's
Speaker 1: going on in the IVY League. Well, Michael, I'm very
Speaker 1: glad to see that they're teaching spelling at Yale. And
Speaker 1: I will say, you know, it's it's you have been
Speaker 1: longing to come back here for the two and a
Speaker 1: half years we've been doing this podcast. We went on
Speaker 1: the road. We did a campus tour last year, and
Speaker 1: I have to say I still remember we were at
Speaker 1: Catholic University in Washington, d C. And afterwards a student
Speaker 1: comes up and ask you, Michael, to cite and to
Speaker 1: recite rather Dante's Inferno in the original Italia. This is true.
Speaker 1: This is two of you proceeded to do so almost
Speaker 1: in three part harmony. And so my question is number one,
Speaker 1: can you do it again? At number two? What are
Speaker 1: the students at Yale going to ask you today, Senator?
Speaker 1: When I was an undergrad graduate here and I was
Speaker 1: a single man, I had to let it's hard to believe.
Speaker 1: I had to learn some Italian poetry because look, I
Speaker 1: wasn't on the football team. Okay, I didn't have It
Speaker 1: was the best I could. Yale has a football team,
Speaker 1: all right, I had to get something the football tea. Guys,
Speaker 1: they're the only conservatives at the whole school. So all right,
Speaker 1: fair enough, but I did. The question is a really
Speaker 1: good one, Senator, which is, okay, if you're at Catholic
Speaker 1: you they have you recite Dante? What do they have
Speaker 1: you recite at Yale? And I fear the answer is,
Speaker 1: I don't know Fuco Ibraham Kendy. These days, I don't
Speaker 1: know Robin DeAngelo. It isn't this state of American higher education.
Speaker 1: Though we're all having fun here together tonight, no one
Speaker 1: has busted down the door yet and yelled, any four
Speaker 1: and five letter words at us, the state of American
Speaker 1: higher education? Okay, it's it's only here that profanities are
Speaker 1: five letter words. Well, no, the one arts goes to
Speaker 1: eleven is that we just put extra lines some in French,
Speaker 1: you know. But the state of American higher education, yeah,
Speaker 1: is in It is in a sorry state. So what happened.
Speaker 1: We're supposed to be with the elites. We're supposed to
Speaker 1: be with the future leaders. Everyone who matriculates at Yale
Speaker 1: is told you're going to be president for three terms.
Speaker 1: You're the greatest person in the world. And yet why
Speaker 1: are our elites doing such a poor job of things? Look,
Speaker 1: higher education has embraced the idea that the school is
Speaker 1: about not challenging you, is about making you comfortable. The
Speaker 1: whole point of a university is to make you uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: The whole point of a university is to challenge you
Speaker 1: with ideas. Posit as a crazy idea that when you
Speaker 1: enter college at eighteen, every idea you believe maybe is
Speaker 1: not fully formed and you don't entirely under understand the
Speaker 1: entirety of the universe. If that's true, the most im
Speaker 1: poor and value of college is encountering others who challenge
Speaker 1: your ideas, who challenge your assumptions, who make you think
Speaker 1: and and look. I mean, when I went to school,
Speaker 1: I had a lot of professors who I disagreed with profoundly.
Speaker 1: I thought it was very useful to hear their worldview,
Speaker 1: hear what they're saying, because at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: most of the stuff you learn in college you're not
Speaker 1: going to do for your career. I mean most of
Speaker 1: the you know, you know, think how many classes you
Speaker 1: had in college that are useful to being a world
Speaker 1: class podcaster? Stopic, get out of here, plush. You know.
Speaker 1: I did take bartending at Princeton. That has been useful.
Speaker 1: That's a hard skill. But look, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, what you're learning is how to think. And
Speaker 1: if you're only encountering ideas you agree with, then by definition,
Speaker 1: you're not learning how to think. That that's the most
Speaker 1: pernicious part of it at all, is that training people
Speaker 1: in group think, training people you cannot think different Fritenly,
Speaker 1: you know, Galileo was told the same thing. It didn't
Speaker 1: work out well. Science, philosophy, literature, they're all about challenging assumptions,
Speaker 1: challenging what you think and the very dynamic that you have.
Speaker 1: And look what happened to Yale Law School. What's sad
Speaker 1: about that is it's not unusual. Yeah, you see it
Speaker 1: happening at universities all over the country where speakers come in.
Speaker 1: I mean, in that instance, Kristen Wagner, who was there,
Speaker 1: is a Supreme Court advocate who had just won a
Speaker 1: case by a vote of seven to two at the
Speaker 1: US Supreme Court. Now I get it. The students at
Speaker 1: Yale Law School. They didn't like that case. They didn't
Speaker 1: like that case. They were upset about it. So instead
Speaker 1: of coming in and saying, well, you know what, I
Speaker 1: think the justice has got it wrong. You know what
Speaker 1: I think, I think the Constitution says something. And instead
Speaker 1: of doing what one would imagine Yale lawyers would be
Speaker 1: capable of doing, which is presenting arguments and reasoning, they
Speaker 1: instead try to exercise the Heckler's veto and just screen
Speaker 1: down anyone who disagrees. That's not just harmful on the
Speaker 1: particular issue that they're not hearing the other side, it's
Speaker 1: harmful for thinking in life. And I got to tell you,
Speaker 1: when you come out of school, most places you work
Speaker 1: are not safe spaces. Most bosses are not going to
Speaker 1: be overly worried about injuring your fragile feelings. And so
Speaker 1: I think the point of education is prepare you for life,
Speaker 1: and that means encountering things that make you uncomfortable, that
Speaker 1: make you doubt, that make you question. That's really what
Speaker 1: an education is all about. I joked when your former
Speaker 1: or not classmate, but fellow Harvard law graduate, judge Katangi Jackson,
Speaker 1: when she failed to answer the question what is a woman?
Speaker 1: When she laughed, she said, can I answer? Of course
Speaker 1: I can't answer that question. I'm not a biologist. When
Speaker 1: she did that, my first thought was, only someone with
Speaker 1: two degrees from Harvard could be so stupid as to
Speaker 1: not know what a woman is. And and so I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, as you say, there are these
Speaker 1: problems at all of the universities, but to me, it
Speaker 1: seems more. It actually seems more pronounced in the Ivy League,
Speaker 1: these supposedly prestigious institutions, where it seems that whatever you
Speaker 1: see about free speech on other campuses. Yale Law School
Speaker 1: is supposed to be the top law school in the country,
Speaker 1: screaming profanity is at a lawyer for having an open discussion.
Speaker 1: How do you fix that? I don't want to sound
Speaker 1: like the old man. Back in my day things were better,
Speaker 1: but things really do seem to have gotten worse. Michael.
Speaker 1: One of the things I love about you, as I'm
Speaker 1: confident since you were five years old, you've been the
Speaker 1: old man yelling get off my lawn. And I came
Speaker 1: out of the womb with a cigar in my teeth.
Speaker 1: You know, hair parted. Yes, your mother's still ticked off
Speaker 1: about it hurts. It hurts, YEA. Look, we need to be,
Speaker 1: particularly in the so called elite institutions, willing to think
Speaker 1: for ourselves. You're right. Schools like Yale, the students are
Speaker 1: told all the time you are the leaders of the world.
Speaker 1: You are the future Bill Clinton's of the world. The
Speaker 1: kid who wrote that op ed calling for people to
Speaker 1: boycott us, he said, there is a great power and
Speaker 1: responsibility that comes with being a Yale and the kid
Speaker 1: is eighteen years old. This is what This is what
Speaker 1: these students are told. Look, and I think it's part
Speaker 1: of why, if anything, the censorship is greater, because the
Speaker 1: fear is greater at an institution like this. Every student
Speaker 1: here worked your tail off. Since you were in kindergarten.
Speaker 1: You were struggling with the perfect attendance. You were struggling
Speaker 1: to put the apple on the teacher's desk, you were
Speaker 1: struggling to be in student council and drama and debate
Speaker 1: and football and underwater basket we don't even know what,
Speaker 1: but but it was. You know. Look, you recall the
Speaker 1: speech that it seems deans give about their a gazillion
Speaker 1: valedictorians in the world, we turn half of them down,
Speaker 1: and that when you get into a place like you now,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't know, but I would imagine today there's a
Speaker 1: sense of relief of okay, all right, I've made it.
Speaker 1: But there's also a sense of terror of O crap,
Speaker 1: like like like what if I lose it? What if
Speaker 1: I anger the gods of Yale? Yeah, although I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure God or man are allowed it yet,
Speaker 1: you know, no more mostly mostly demons and people of
Speaker 1: unspecified gender. Yeah, but but but but look, it is,
Speaker 1: when you've worked very hard for something, you're often afraid
Speaker 1: to lose it. And if you're afraid to lose it,
Speaker 1: you don't want to take risks um all right, I
Speaker 1: remember coming out of coming out of law school, coming
Speaker 1: out of a clerkship. So I clerked for a judge
Speaker 1: in the Court of Appeals clerk to on the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: I'm clerking for Chief Justice Ranquist, which who was an
Speaker 1: amazing friend and amazing boss. And I remember coming out,
Speaker 1: you got thirty six Supreme Court law clerks coming out,
Speaker 1: and almost all of them were unbelievably risk averse. They
Speaker 1: were going to big, fancy law firms because that's the
Speaker 1: next blue chip thing to do, unless you go become
Speaker 1: law professors and train other people to continue to perpetuate
Speaker 1: the cycle. I remember when I came out, I went
Speaker 1: to a little bitty law firm. It had six lawyers,
Speaker 1: it was nine months old, and I thought it was fascinating.
Speaker 1: Listening to a lot of my co clerks and they
Speaker 1: were like, well, wait, that's really risky. Why would you
Speaker 1: do that. You don't know if this firm is going
Speaker 1: to survive. You don't know if it'll go under. And listen,
Speaker 1: when I was looking for a law firm, I was
Speaker 1: looking for lawyers. I wanted to work for lawyers that
Speaker 1: I wanted to come carry their briefcase and just you
Speaker 1: know the way Abraham Lincoln learned to be a lawyer
Speaker 1: was literally carrying a briefcase and studying and apprenticing under someone.
Speaker 1: That's still the best way to become a lawyer. And
Speaker 1: I remember the other clerks said, well, what if it
Speaker 1: goes bankrupt or, like the lead lawyer at the firm
Speaker 1: is a guy named Chuck Cooper, one of the top
Speaker 1: Supreme Court lawyers of the country, a very dear friend.
Speaker 1: And they said, well, you know, Chuck Cooper could become
Speaker 1: the US Solicitor General in another Republican administration. He could
Speaker 1: become the top lawyer for the government for the United
Speaker 1: States in front of the the Preme Court. I remember thinking,
Speaker 1: a Okay, why is it a bad thing if your boss,
Speaker 1: when you're brand new and starting your career, goes on
Speaker 1: to become the top lawyer for the United States of
Speaker 1: America in the Supreme Court? And why would you want
Speaker 1: to work for someone who wouldn't be considered for that job? Right?
Speaker 1: And fine, if it's a little bitty law firm and
Speaker 1: it's nine months old, if they go bankrupt in a year,
Speaker 1: you know what, I felt confident I could get another job,
Speaker 1: Like if there's any value to working your tail off
Speaker 1: and trying to build some academic credentials in a history.
Speaker 1: It was like, look, I don't think I'm unemployable. Yea,
Speaker 1: it took politics to make me unemployable. But that I
Speaker 1: remember being fascinated at the mindset of the clerks that
Speaker 1: they had worked so hard that risk terrified them. And
Speaker 1: I think you see that manifested at universities across the country.
Speaker 1: But I think the Ivy League it is more intense
Speaker 1: because there's more fear of the risk and the uncertainty.
Speaker 1: I've seen exactly that. I remember it when I was
Speaker 1: in college, not that I guess it was ten years
Speaker 1: ago now, but I as far as I can tell
Speaker 1: visiting campuses, things remain the same. The students at these
Speaker 1: name brands schools. You know, ten years ago Joe Biden
Speaker 1: was vice president. That's true according to Obama. Still is
Speaker 1: that's a good point. So gosh, now you're bringing me
Speaker 1: back to the worst memory I have in college. I
Speaker 1: just got their freshman year. I'm so excited to need
Speaker 1: you to share all. No, No, it's not that much.
Speaker 1: It's not that one door. No. I had just gotten
Speaker 1: here and it was the two thousand and eight election,
Speaker 1: and I thought, oh, this is going to be great.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have such a great time on campus. And
Speaker 1: then then Obama wins and three thousands people. I don't
Speaker 1: know that. Thousands of people come out. They're celebrating. You
Speaker 1: see wafts of marijuana clouds coming up from the Green
Speaker 1: people drinking, and in a dorm on Old Campus one
Speaker 1: of the freshman dorms is me and about six other
Speaker 1: Republicans just drinking vodka out of the handles, say oh,
Speaker 1: no things, everything's going downhill. But I did notice this
Speaker 1: with the conservatives. It's actually very similar to your preparation
Speaker 1: routine for the podcast. It's true, if it ain't broke,
Speaker 1: don't fix it. You know, it's obviously worked a long time.
Speaker 1: I noticed this with the campus conservatives. They're willing to
Speaker 1: wear the bow tie. Generally, they're willing to go and
Speaker 1: advocate for lower taxes and deregulation, maybe even smaller government.
Speaker 1: But on a lot of say cultural issues, the issues
Speaker 1: that the ruling elite really don't want you to touch,
Speaker 1: they won't touch them either. They'll sometimes say things like
Speaker 1: I'm a conservative, but I'm not that kind of a conservative. No, no,
Speaker 1: I'm still a fashionable one. And I think it's to
Speaker 1: protect the job at Goldman Sachs. I think it is
Speaker 1: that same risk aversion that you're describing. Look, I think
Speaker 1: you're right, and I think you see in the conservative
Speaker 1: world generally people being cautious and risk averse. And part
Speaker 1: of it is, Look, everyone likes to be liked, particularly
Speaker 1: young people. I mean, there's a reason peer pressure is
Speaker 1: a thing. Right. You know, you're at college, you want
Speaker 1: to go out, you want to have a good time.
Speaker 1: You know, ideally you'd like to find someone you think
Speaker 1: is attractive, and you know, see what happens. Although I
Speaker 1: remember when I showed up as a college freshman, there
Speaker 1: was there was a T shirt that was popular. It
Speaker 1: said on the front sex Kills and on the back
Speaker 1: it said come to Princeton, Live Forever. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of truth to that, but look, people are there is
Speaker 1: no doubt the positive peer pressure when I was in school,
Speaker 1: when you were in cool, but even more so today
Speaker 1: that if you take an unpopular position, you risk being denigrated,
Speaker 1: you risked being ostracized. And so people opt at a
Speaker 1: minimum to just shut up about it, yea, to just say,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to keep my views quiet.
Speaker 1: How you come through that, I think is one of
Speaker 1: the real testing aspects of education, right right, can you
Speaker 1: withstand that or like the vast majority, do you just
Speaker 1: kind of go along, go with the flow, go along
Speaker 1: with the crowd, and lose whatever principle you might have had.
Speaker 1: This does bring us to your colleague, senator in the
Speaker 1: United States Senate. You're Republican, colleagues, we have just confirmed
Speaker 1: a woman that you say is the most radical Supreme
Speaker 1: Court justice in the history of this country. I agree.
Speaker 1: The woman can't well, sorry, the person cannot tell you
Speaker 1: what a woman is. And she is supportive of critical
Speaker 1: race theory, talks about the founders of that movement by name.
Speaker 1: She has lauded the sixteen nineteen project, which says America
Speaker 1: is evil from the very beginning. It's based on a
Speaker 1: false thesis about slavery. So this woman is very far
Speaker 1: to the left. And yet when I looked at the
Speaker 1: Senate confirmation hearings over who was grilling Katangi Jackson, it
Speaker 1: was you and Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton a little bit,
Speaker 1: and that was pretty much it. And all of the
Speaker 1: other Republican Senators were sitting there twiddling their thumbs and
Speaker 1: in some cases actually encouraging this woman who's now the
Speaker 1: furthest left judge we've ever had on the court. What
Speaker 1: gives well, look, risk, aversion doesn't end when you're twenty one.
Speaker 1: It doesn't end when you're in college. It doesn't end
Speaker 1: when you're in grad school. It doesn't end when you
Speaker 1: start your first job. And in the world of politics,
Speaker 1: if you dare to take on the oar the doxy,
Speaker 1: you get demonized. I promise you. In the what twenty
Speaker 1: minutes we've been sitting here, there have been a thousand
Speaker 1: tweets telling me to go do things that are anatomically impossible.
Speaker 1: Good night, everybody. Look it is And if you're a
Speaker 1: Republican senator, it is not complicated that this nomination was
Speaker 1: an historic first. Anytime a Republican opposes a Democratic Supreme
Speaker 1: Court nomination, you are certain to be vilified by the media.
Speaker 1: All the more so if that nominee happens to be
Speaker 1: the first African American woman nominated the court. It means
Speaker 1: going into it, you know, to a certainty, if you
Speaker 1: say anything, if you say good morning, you'll be called
Speaker 1: a racist, you'll be called a sexist, You'll be demonized.
Speaker 1: And look, today's Democrats, that's their opening line to begin with,
Speaker 1: no matter what you say. But in this context, I
Speaker 1: can tell you among the Republican Senators, most of them
Speaker 1: went into this nomination scared of their own shadow. They
Speaker 1: didn't want to be held up as the modern day clansmen,
Speaker 1: which if you said any critical question, that was the
Speaker 1: attack that was coming on top of that. Look, why
Speaker 1: is it we care about who's on the Supreme Court?
Speaker 1: This is something I cared deeply about. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of Americans care deeply about it. The reason I
Speaker 1: believe we care about it is the Supreme Court has
Speaker 1: been the institution throughout history that has played the most
Speaker 1: pivotal role for protecting our fundamental rights, for protecting free speech,
Speaker 1: for protecting religious liberty, for protecting the right to keep
Speaker 1: in bear arms, for protecting our safety and security of
Speaker 1: our families, by ensuring that the criminal laws are enforced.
Speaker 1: You know, this was one that I'll confess I felt
Speaker 1: conflicted about it. I've known Katangi for thirty years. We
Speaker 1: were in law school together. We were one year a
Speaker 1: part in law school, were on the law of you together.
Speaker 1: She is someone that on a personal level, she's very smart,
Speaker 1: she's charming, she has an easy smile. Everybody who knows
Speaker 1: her likes her. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: a Supreme Court nomination is not about whether someone is
Speaker 1: smart or talented, or whether you like them. It is
Speaker 1: about what their record are, what their record is, and
Speaker 1: what kind of job they will do in the position.
Speaker 1: And as I examined her record, I came to the
Speaker 1: conclusion that a record demonstrated that she will be the
Speaker 1: furthest left of any of the justices that have ever
Speaker 1: served on the Court. Now there's some people that want
Speaker 1: Actually that to me is comforting. It's comforting that there's
Speaker 1: that many people applauding, because that suggests that there's a
Speaker 1: wide difference of opinion in this room. I think that's fantastic.
Speaker 1: I'm actually glad for everyone who applauded there, because if
Speaker 1: you're left of center, thank you for coming out, thank
Speaker 1: you for being part of a conversation. If you're starting
Speaker 1: from a perspective that you don't agree with me, if
Speaker 1: you're starting from a perspective that you don't agree with Michael,
Speaker 1: then it is wonderfully and refreshingly open minded that you're
Speaker 1: here and willing to have this conversation that you don't
Speaker 1: start from the perspective of I can't hear you. That's
Speaker 1: very positive, But I do think in the confirmation now
Speaker 1: Justice Jackson, her record was far out of the mainstream.
Speaker 1: And it's worth pointing out too, because now President Biden
Speaker 1: is trying to suggest that this was the most vicious
Speaker 1: attack on any Supreme Court nominee in history. When Brett
Speaker 1: Kavanaugh was up, they called him a a rapist without
Speaker 1: any evidence whatsoever, and because of the testimony of a
Speaker 1: woman who contradicted herself many times, and whose testimony was
Speaker 1: contradicted by everyone who was even supposedly around her at
Speaker 1: the time, by another woman who certainly never met Breck
Speaker 1: Havanaugh ever, and by a felon lawyer who's currently doing
Speaker 1: time for wire fraud. So CNN said he could be
Speaker 1: the Democratic presidential nominator, right, a fellon lawyer who may
Speaker 1: still become the Democrat nominee someday. And so you had
Speaker 1: that with the Katanshie Jackson confirmation process. You Senator and
Speaker 1: a couple of your colleagues just quoted her court opinions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it reminds me of one of my favorite
Speaker 1: podcasts you and I did was oh over a year
Speaker 1: ago with a Fellowdaymeric Weinstein, who's a very bright man,
Speaker 1: brilliant man, but he's politically left of Senate, and we
Speaker 1: had a long pod with a pretty vigorous discussion on
Speaker 1: lots of issues. But I remember the topic of Supreme
Speaker 1: Court nominations came up and he made a point. He said, well,
Speaker 1: they're nasty, but everybody doesn't. Both sides do it, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just the nature of politics. And as you'll recall,
Speaker 1: and by the way, i'd encourage you that that's a
Speaker 1: fun podcast to go back and listen to, because we
Speaker 1: had some very i think substantive discussions and disagreements, respectful
Speaker 1: and civil. But the point I made to him, as
Speaker 1: I said, look, that's not true. If you look at
Speaker 1: the really nasty confirmations, the confirmations that got personal and ugly,
Speaker 1: it's only one party that does this. Whether it was
Speaker 1: Robert Bourke, whether it was Clarence Thomas, or whether it
Speaker 1: was Brett Cavanaugh. It has been the Democrats that go
Speaker 1: into the gutter with the kind of personal attacks that
Speaker 1: those confirmation hearings featured, and Republicans have not. And I
Speaker 1: don't believe will engaged in that before we get to
Speaker 1: the wonderful leftists in the room, who will get a
Speaker 1: chance to ask questions and perhaps try to refute things
Speaker 1: that we've said. We always have this rule. If you
Speaker 1: disagree with us, you get to cut to the front
Speaker 1: of the line. This really doesn't jibe with my authoritarian tendencies,
Speaker 1: but we deal with it. We let it happen. It's fine,
Speaker 1: it's fine. So we will get to that before that, though,
Speaker 1: I do want to close out this issue of the confirmation.
Speaker 1: Where was the conservative movement? So look, it's a very
Speaker 1: good question. This past week I sat down with a
Speaker 1: number of leaders of the conservative movement, and I got
Speaker 1: to say, the movement, most of the organization's right of center,
Speaker 1: were largely absent from the fight over Katani Brown Jackson,
Speaker 1: and I think the reasons were a couple of fold One,
Speaker 1: I think conservative groups and organizations, just like a lot
Speaker 1: of Republican senators, were terrified at being vilified for daring
Speaker 1: to oppose the first African American woman nominated the court,
Speaker 1: so they didn't want to have the fight. Secondly, there
Speaker 1: is a reasoning that many people found persuasive, which is
Speaker 1: that Justice Jackson was nominated to replace Stephen Briar. Stephen
Speaker 1: Briar is a left of center justice, and so the
Speaker 1: argument went, you're replacing one left of center justice for another.
Speaker 1: It doesn't change the underlying balance of power on the court,
Speaker 1: so it's not worth the fight. Now, I'm not convinced
Speaker 1: that's right. I will say, of the left leaning justices
Speaker 1: on the Court, Briar has been the most conservative of
Speaker 1: the liberals, which is not to say remotely conservative, but
Speaker 1: to give an example, you know, one of the cases
Speaker 1: that I litigated when I was Slicitor General of Texas
Speaker 1: was a case called Van Ord versus Texas, Van Orden
Speaker 1: versus Perry, rather and Van Ordon versus Perry was challenging
Speaker 1: the display of the Ten Commandments monument on the state
Speaker 1: capitol grounds, and that case went all the way to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. At the end of the day, the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court upheld Texas's monument by a vote of five
Speaker 1: to four. Now, what's interesting in that case, as I
Speaker 1: had spent thousands of hours getting ready for that case,
Speaker 1: and we'd written our brief trying to really just mind
Speaker 1: meld with Sandra Day O'Connor, who Justice O'Connor, at the time,
Speaker 1: was the swing vote on the cord and so I
Speaker 1: tried to put every argument in fact that you know,
Speaker 1: one of the lawyers in my office asked, They said, Ted,
Speaker 1: is it possible to be too obsequious to Justice O'Connor,
Speaker 1: And I said, no, it is not. I want the
Speaker 1: most common words in this brief to be O'Connor comma jay.
Speaker 1: I want them more common than and or THEE. And
Speaker 1: if we can put an oil portrait of Justice O'Connor
Speaker 1: on the cover of our brief, I think that would
Speaker 1: be tasteful and appropriate. Well, I tried to pitch those
Speaker 1: all of those arguments. Every argument I aimed at Justice
Speaker 1: O'Connor missed, and she voted to strike down the monument.
Speaker 1: And yet, amazingly, the arguments that I aimed at Justice
Speaker 1: O'Connor found hurtle ground was Stephen Bryer, and Justice Bryer
Speaker 1: was our necessary fifth vote. We won five four because
Speaker 1: Steve Brier voted to uphold the Texas Ten Commandments monument. Now,
Speaker 1: I will say we were replacing who was the most
Speaker 1: conservative of the left leaning justices with a justice who
Speaker 1: I believe and to be honest, you can only assess
Speaker 1: these things after a decade or two, so we'll know
Speaker 1: sometime in the future whether this prediction is right. But
Speaker 1: based on her record, I think she will prove to
Speaker 1: be the furthest left of those justices. That's a meaningful shift,
Speaker 1: but I got to tell you it was amazing. So
Speaker 1: we're engaged in this confirmation hearing, and normally in a
Speaker 1: judicial confirmation hearing, particularly a Supreme Court fight, there's an
Speaker 1: ecosystem on right and left that rise up. So when
Speaker 1: Brett Kavanaugh was nominated, there's all these left leaning groups
Speaker 1: that are funded with millions of dollars that are attacking him,
Speaker 1: that are funding attacks by the way, that are sending
Speaker 1: protesters to Washington to show up in the hearing and
Speaker 1: scream and yell and yell at senators and elevators. There's
Speaker 1: an elevator we call the Jeff Flake Memorial Elevator because
Speaker 1: it's where these protesters who were on the payroll of
Speaker 1: a leftist organization screamed at him. I'm glad that you
Speaker 1: didn't see conservatives hiring people just to scream and yell
Speaker 1: and throw a fit. But they also engage in research
Speaker 1: and what was fascinating so when the issue about her
Speaker 1: Lenian sentences came up, the first response that Democrats had was, well,
Speaker 1: a lot of federal judges sentence defendants, particularly defendants in
Speaker 1: child pornography cases, to below the federal sentencing guidelines. And
Speaker 1: that argument is actually a reasonable argument if you look
Speaker 1: just at the first iteration of the back and forth,
Speaker 1: they had a reasonable point with some some real basis
Speaker 1: for it. The next iteration of the argument, however, was
Speaker 1: she was not just sentencing below the guideline. She was
Speaker 1: sentencing far, far, far below what the prosecutor was asking
Speaker 1: for any in each case, every case where she had discretion,
Speaker 1: she went way below the prosecutor. And then, as we're
Speaker 1: talking about it amidst Republican senators, several Republican senators asked
Speaker 1: the question, well, how does her sentencing compare to other
Speaker 1: federal judges across the country. It's a good question. It
Speaker 1: was a reasonable question I asked my team. Initially, I said, look,
Speaker 1: surely someone is doing comprehensive research on a record this
Speaker 1: ought to be available. So my team reached out to
Speaker 1: the likely organizations that would be doing this research. Nobody
Speaker 1: had done any research. You know that it had the
Speaker 1: situation been reversed, the left would have a dossier, and
Speaker 1: they did. They did for Neil Gorsuch, they did for
Speaker 1: Amy Coney Barrett, they did for Brett Cabnaugh. For all three,
Speaker 1: massive amounts of money were spent. The failure of the
Speaker 1: conservative movement. The movement did nothing to inform any one
Speaker 1: of the facts of this very disturbing The movement should
Speaker 1: have come up with all the fodder for the tough questions. Now,
Speaker 1: speaking of tough questions, I want to get some tough
Speaker 1: questions from the audience. Shall we bring out our friend
Speaker 1: Liz Wheeler to field the questions. Welcome back, Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. I just want to say I noticed that
Speaker 1: when you were throwing the merch out at the beginning,
Speaker 1: the hats and the shirts, that you didn't have enough
Speaker 1: for the whole audience. So I just want to let
Speaker 1: everyone know if you use my promo code live, you
Speaker 1: can get ten percent off on the Verdict with Ted
Speaker 1: Cruz dot com slash shop on the Merch store. This
Speaker 1: is what we call a shameless plug. But I gotta
Speaker 1: say one of the coolest things that set up here
Speaker 1: that I just saw shortly before we started filming is
Speaker 1: somehow we've gotten to be able to project the cactus
Speaker 1: on the wall, which I just think is is really cool.
Speaker 1: We've never done that before, so whoever came up with
Speaker 1: that that was very clever. They're going to paint it
Speaker 1: afterward as a monument to this show, and then we'll
Speaker 1: all be prosecuted for vandalism. I think it's very complimentary
Speaker 1: to the chandeliarly. So are we ready for some questions? Yes?
Speaker 1: And the rule really does stand. I know I joked
Speaker 1: sincerely about how much I hate the rule, but if
Speaker 1: you disagree with us, you really are allowed to cut
Speaker 1: to the front of the line. So just indicate that
Speaker 1: up there and we look forward to hearing from you.
Speaker 1: William F. Buckley Junior used to say a conservative is
Speaker 1: someone who stands athwart history, yelling stop. Does this definition
Speaker 1: still apply to today's political climate? Ooh, good question. Something
Speaker 1: that has misunderstood about that statement is he was speaking
Speaker 1: about history with a capital H. He was speaking about
Speaker 1: the Marxist conception of history as a science that can
Speaker 1: be known with certainty, and it comes from a popular
Speaker 1: line from the left, which is I have seen the
Speaker 1: future and it works. And so Buckley is responding to
Speaker 1: that and saying, no, whatever you think the future is,
Speaker 1: we are going to stand athwart that yelling stop. And
Speaker 1: so this statement is perfectly right inasmuch as Buckley is
Speaker 1: saying in the nineteen fifties, the conservative is one who
Speaker 1: is stopping communism, and he brought together a coalition of
Speaker 1: three disparate groups, the traditionalists who hated the iconoclasm and
Speaker 1: atheism of the Soviet Union, the libertarians who hated the collectivism,
Speaker 1: and the warhawk Democrats, for lack of a better word,
Speaker 1: the people who hated the USSR as imperial ambitions. And
Speaker 1: those three groups didn't have a whole lot in common,
Speaker 1: but they had a common enemy, and so they fought
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union and they won. I mean, for all
Speaker 1: that we knocked that coalition today, it was successful and
Speaker 1: it did win the Cold War. So I think he
Speaker 1: was perfectly right at the time to say that the
Speaker 1: land Wall fell thirty years ago. And conservatives who are
Speaker 1: just playing reruns of the nineteen eighties on YouTube. Frankly,
Speaker 1: I myself sometimes do it as comfort food, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I go in on a cozy night and play
Speaker 1: old Reagan clips. But that isn't going to cut it.
Speaker 1: I'm confident with your wife. That's very romantic it say honey,
Speaker 1: just one more please. You know, Ronald Reagan and Bill
Speaker 1: Buckley fought their battles and now they're resting. Let them rest.
Speaker 1: Don't dig up their bodies and try to revivify them.
Speaker 1: Learn from them. I mean, that's something that we're trying
Speaker 1: to do here at the Buckley Program, right. The William F.
Speaker 1: Buckley Junior Program at Yale isn't about playing the hits
Speaker 1: from the eighties or the seventies of the sixties. It's
Speaker 1: about applying timeless principles and an understanding of the conservative
Speaker 1: tradition to the real circumstances today. So, Michael, I have
Speaker 1: to say, I'm deeply disappointed that we are in New Haven, Connecticut.
Speaker 1: We're at your alma mater. You just got asked question
Speaker 1: about William Buckley, and you sat up straight, No, you're right,
Speaker 1: and argued in plain, clearly enunciated English. Could you try
Speaker 1: it again? And answered appropriately. Well. I'll be joined for
Speaker 1: the full hour today by Senator Ted Cruise. If I
Speaker 1: do not do my William of Buckley Junior impression, he
Speaker 1: will smash me in my damn face. I will stay
Speaker 1: plots stood too? Does that do it very nice? Is that?
Speaker 1: Thank you very much? Thank you? Than true for sure?
Speaker 1: And this is demonstration before it became a podcaster, Michael
Speaker 1: was a frustrated actor and before that half a wasp.
Speaker 1: So I've been tree. You know, I've been trying my
Speaker 1: blue blood accent for a while. Yea, all right. Our
Speaker 1: next question is actually going to be from Verdict Plus.
Speaker 1: If you are a subscriber on Verdict plus this community,
Speaker 1: you get exclusive access to ask the Senator questions, not
Speaker 1: just not just in live events, but on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: That's where we also host the Cloakroom. So this next
Speaker 1: question is from username godzill the rules. This is a question, Senator.
Speaker 1: I picked it because of the question I promised, not
Speaker 1: because of the user name. That was just part of it. Senator,
Speaker 1: if Republicans take the House, who would be the speaker?
Speaker 1: It's a good question. I think the answer probably will
Speaker 1: be Kevin McCarthy. I will say this, I stay out
Speaker 1: of speaker elections. I've got enough battles on the Senate
Speaker 1: side of things. You know, back when I arrived in
Speaker 1: the Senate, John Bayner was the speaker. Bayinner and I
Speaker 1: friends yeah. Yeah. Let me just just say we had
Speaker 1: pretty significant differences of opinion. To put it mildly, I
Speaker 1: think it is likely that McCarthy, if there's a majority,
Speaker 1: will be speaker. Now it's not clear he will stay speaker.
Speaker 1: The job of Speaker of the House is a very
Speaker 1: difficult job. It is like hurting cats. There is wide
Speaker 1: disagreement among Republicans, and I think if there's discontent in
Speaker 1: the ranks, he could be replaced. But I think given
Speaker 1: that he's been Republican leader in the minority, given that
Speaker 1: he's working very hard to take the majority, I would
Speaker 1: be surprised if House Republicans didn't at least given the
Speaker 1: first crack at leading. And if he does a good job,
Speaker 1: then presumably he'll stay speaker. Well, conservative critics would say
Speaker 1: that he leans to establishment and that he's not based enough.
Speaker 1: What say you to I love Liz, how you phrase that?
Speaker 1: You know? Some conservative critics might say, you know conservative
Speaker 1: critics whose name rhyme with wiz Leely Perhaps that's the
Speaker 1: fun part of moderating the questions as I get to
Speaker 1: throw my own in. So look, I had been through
Speaker 1: now multiple Republican leaders in the House when I arrived
Speaker 1: at was John Bayner. Bayner loathed conservatives. There are conservatives
Speaker 1: in the House, and it was interesting because he had
Speaker 1: started out as a relative tively conservative House member before
Speaker 1: he began climbing the wrongs of leadership. But by the
Speaker 1: time he was speaker, I would I would encounter House
Speaker 1: Republicans who would just tell me about He'd walk up
Speaker 1: to them at on the floor and just say, f
Speaker 1: you like to their faith. And Bayner's kind of an
Speaker 1: interesting fellow, and that he's had all sorts of interesting
Speaker 1: things to say about me. He's described me as Lucifer
Speaker 1: in the flesh. He's described me as the most miserable
Speaker 1: son of a bitch he's ever worked with. And the
Speaker 1: irony is, I've never worked with him, so I don't
Speaker 1: know John Baynard my whole life. I have not spoken
Speaker 1: fifty words to banter. So it's kind of a curious thing.
Speaker 1: And so he came out with a book recently that
Speaker 1: I think nobody read, although when he was recording his
Speaker 1: video for it, he did a video of the audio
Speaker 1: book and he's drinking copious amounts of red wine and
Speaker 1: chain smoking, and in the middle of the video he's
Speaker 1: reading a segment of the book completely unrelated. He looks
Speaker 1: in the camera and says, fu ted Cruz, like in
Speaker 1: the middle of the video. And so a friend of
Speaker 1: mine gave me this book. It may have been the
Speaker 1: one copy purchased. And so I did what's called the
Speaker 1: Washington read. So the Washington read. As you take a book,
Speaker 1: you go look in the index to see what they
Speaker 1: say about you, and you go skim through to figure
Speaker 1: out whatever. So I did that, said, all right, let's
Speaker 1: see what he asked to say. And what was fascinating.
Speaker 1: He actually describes why he loves me so much. And
Speaker 1: he said, look, when Cruz arrived in January of twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: he said, the crazies among the House Republicans, by which
Speaker 1: he means the Conservatives, they had been largely beaten down
Speaker 1: and Cruz got there and he convinced them. Suddenly they
Speaker 1: believed they could fight for something. Suddenly they believed they
Speaker 1: could do something. And he said, that made my life miserable.
Speaker 1: So that was bainer when it started. Ultimately, I think
Speaker 1: he was so antagonistic to conservatives it cost him the speakership.
Speaker 1: He was toppled. Ultimately, the next speaker was Paul Ryan
Speaker 1: Paul Ryan was substantially less antagonistic to conservatives than Bayiner. Now,
Speaker 1: Paul had been in Washington a long time. Paul had
Speaker 1: been When he arrived, he was a young Turk charging
Speaker 1: the castle. And I think after twenty years, the Paul
Speaker 1: Ryan twenty years into it was very different from the
Speaker 1: Paul Ryan who had at first arrived in Washington. But
Speaker 1: Paul had a better relationship with conservatives in the House.
Speaker 1: He was no longer one of them, but it was
Speaker 1: less actively antagonistic than Bayer had been. You now have
Speaker 1: McCarthy and McCarthy. It's interesting, I think idea logically, Kevin
Speaker 1: is the most moderated three. If you actually look at
Speaker 1: where Kevin's personal views are, he's the least conservative of
Speaker 1: the three. But he also is the least antagonistic to
Speaker 1: House conservatives. And right now I would say House conservatives
Speaker 1: get along with him pretty well. Now, in some ways,
Speaker 1: it's easier to get along with the leader of House
Speaker 1: Republicans when you're in the minority. When you're in the
Speaker 1: minority and everyone's voting no, there are fewer fracture lines
Speaker 1: for disagreement. I think we're more likely to find disagreement
Speaker 1: next year if we see Republican majorities in both houses.
Speaker 1: Look the singular cause of the disagreements I've had with
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell, and Mitch and I have battled like crazy
Speaker 1: in the Senate. The major cause of those has been
Speaker 1: on the question of how much can we stand up
Speaker 1: and fight the agenda, whether a Barack Obama or Joe
Speaker 1: Bia and so with McCarthy, I think time will tell
Speaker 1: how he navigates those waters. I'm less concerned about where
Speaker 1: he personally is ideologically, and I'm more concerned if and
Speaker 1: when he becomes a speaker, with how he leads and
Speaker 1: whether I'm a big believer. When you got the majority,
Speaker 1: you got to do something with It doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: fight everything. If you fight everything, you're fighting nothing. But
Speaker 1: it does mean that you pick some issues that matter
Speaker 1: that you care about, and you stand up and fight
Speaker 1: and make a difference. And I think if Kevin does that,
Speaker 1: he'll be more likely to keep the job, and if
Speaker 1: he doesn't, he may not. Right, my name is Maya Cook.
Speaker 1: Good evening, Senator, Cuz, thank you so much for coming
Speaker 1: to Yale this evening. And I think in the spirit
Speaker 1: of the Buckley Programs, celebration of intellectual diversity. I wanted
Speaker 1: to take a moment to celebrate our newest addition to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court of the US. Who I know, we've
Speaker 1: already talked about Justice Jackson. You're here tonight, though in
Speaker 1: the name of fostering intellectual diversity in academic spaces. It
Speaker 1: would appear to me that you already recognize the importance
Speaker 1: of new perspectives. And as a young woman, seeing Justice
Speaker 1: Jackson on the Supreme Court is invigorating, truly, And on
Speaker 1: Tuesday it baffled me that you would ask such flagrantly
Speaker 1: racist questions to this exceedingly well qualified candidate. Your colleagues
Speaker 1: in the GOP promised a respectful and dignified hearing for
Speaker 1: Justice Jackson, and to me, you did not uphold this.
Speaker 1: So today I wanted to create a space where you
Speaker 1: might be able to challenge your own thinking, as prudent
Speaker 1: scholars often do. So I'm here to ask you what
Speaker 1: are two nice comments you can give about recent nominee
Speaker 1: Justice Jackson's judicial experience. Besides from she has an easy smile. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: let me start by thanking you for being here and
Speaker 1: thank you for asking a substantive, important question, Thank you
Speaker 1: for engaging in a conversation. I think we all would
Speaker 1: be better off if we engage in substantive conversations. There's
Speaker 1: a lot to praise about Judge Jackson. She is very
Speaker 1: very bright, she is very very accomplished, she is very talented.
Speaker 1: She has an impressive and inspiring personal story. I will say,
Speaker 1: sitting listening to her opening remarks where she described her
Speaker 1: personal story, she described her parents journey, you had to
Speaker 1: be dead not to be inspired by that journey and listen.
Speaker 1: I will say, more broadly, if you look at the
Speaker 1: history of our country, if you look at the history
Speaker 1: of our country on race, it is absolutely inspiring to
Speaker 1: see an African American woman serving on the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: I will also point out that when it comes to
Speaker 1: issues of race, I think both the press and the
Speaker 1: modern left are hypocritical on this question, that they only
Speaker 1: define someone as black, or they only define someone as
Speaker 1: Hispanic if they agree with them ideologically. So Clarence Thomas
Speaker 1: has been on the Court for decades. Clarence Thomas is
Speaker 1: a black man. The Left hates him. They despise Clarence Thomas.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you, by the way, the treatment of
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas on the left is markedly different than say
Speaker 1: antonin Scalia. Antonin Scalia was brilliant. He and Justice Thomas
Speaker 1: were every bit as conservative. And yet the vitriol that
Speaker 1: was heaped on Clarence Thomas nasty racist language from the left.
Speaker 1: There was one magazine cover that that showed Clarence Thomas
Speaker 1: as an uncle Tom sitting at Scalia's feet. I think
Speaker 1: was racist and disgusting. And listen, I will say this
Speaker 1: as an Hispanic man, As an Hispanic man, Jorge Ramos
Speaker 1: went on television in Spanish and described me as a
Speaker 1: traitor to my race for daring. Okay, look, that says
Speaker 1: something about the view of the left that they're telling
Speaker 1: you you have one way to view things in one
Speaker 1: way only, and if you don't, we'll demonize and attack you.
Speaker 1: So look. And by the way, in terms of having
Speaker 1: the first African American woman on the Supreme Court, there
Speaker 1: was an opportunity for this to happen twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: There's a judge named Janice Rogers Brown. Janice Rogers Brown
Speaker 1: was a Supreme Court justice on the California Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: George W. Bush nominated Janice Rogers Brown to the DC Circuit.
Speaker 1: At the beginning of beginning of his presidency, he nominated
Speaker 1: Judge Brown in the DC Circuit. The Democrats filibuster Judge Brown.
Speaker 1: That filibuster was led by a guy named Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: It also included people like Chuck Schumer. It included Pat lagh,
Speaker 1: He included Diane Feinstein, they Philip The reason they filibustered
Speaker 1: Judge Janice Rogers Brown is because she was a black woman,
Speaker 1: but she was also conservative and they did not want
Speaker 1: her to go to the Supreme Court, and they succeeded
Speaker 1: in filibusting her. They delayed her nomination for a couple
Speaker 1: of years until it finally went through. She finally went
Speaker 1: to the DC Circuit. Now, everyone who was rumphing in
Speaker 1: the media that if you oppose an African American woman
Speaker 1: who's a qualified judge, you're a racist. Precisely zero of
Speaker 1: them thought it was racist for Democrats, including Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: to filibuster Annis Rodgers Brown. By the way, there was
Speaker 1: another nominee that Bush put forward, a guy named Miguelistrata mcguel.
Speaker 1: It's an incredibly qualified Supreme Court advocate. He was nominated
Speaker 1: the DC Circuit as well. The Democrats philibustered him. If
Speaker 1: you read the memos that were leaked from Ted Kennedy's lawyers,
Speaker 1: Here's what Ted Kennedy's lawyers said about Miguelistrata. They said,
Speaker 1: we must stop him quote because he is Hispanic. That's
Speaker 1: what Ted Kennedy's lawyers said in writing. Now, I'm going
Speaker 1: to suggest to you, if you oppose somebody because of
Speaker 1: their race, that is the definition of racist. And look,
Speaker 1: I'll point out in your question you said that my
Speaker 1: questioning of Judge Jackson was you use the term racist. Listen.
Speaker 1: Racism is a horrific evil in this country. It is
Speaker 1: also an insult that the left tosses around casually. I
Speaker 1: would welcome if you look at the questions I asked
Speaker 1: Judge Jackson. Every single question I asked her concerned her record,
Speaker 1: either her record as a judge sentencing defendants before her,
Speaker 1: or her record writing academic materials and law reviews, or
Speaker 1: her record giving speeches to law schools. All of that
Speaker 1: is the job of the Senate in the advice and
Speaker 1: consent process. And so respectfully, I could not disagree more
Speaker 1: deeply when you say it is racist to examine a
Speaker 1: judge based on their record. If the Democrats wanted to
Speaker 1: oppose Janice Rogers Brown because they opposed conservatives. You know,
Speaker 1: do you think the Democrats were all sexist when they
Speaker 1: voted party line against Amy Coney Barrett. I'm willing to
Speaker 1: bet you don't, because she's not a liberal woman. So
Speaker 1: you can't have it both ways, which is that when
Speaker 1: a Democratic nominee has a certain characteristic, anyone who opposes
Speaker 1: them as racist or sexist or what have you. But
Speaker 1: when a Republican nominee has those characteristic it's open season
Speaker 1: and you can go after them full force, and the
Speaker 1: left is righteous in doing so. The standard should be
Speaker 1: the same, and I'm going to suggest what the standard
Speaker 1: should be is we should examine people based on their
Speaker 1: actual record and whether into what extent that record demonstrates
Speaker 1: they will defend the constitutional rights of all Americans. I
Speaker 1: think that's what people care about. Mika. I do want
Speaker 1: to add one thing, as a young professional woman similar
Speaker 1: to you, I do want to speak to however you
Speaker 1: identify um. I do think it's important to look at
Speaker 1: exactly what happened with Katanji Brown Jackson as it relates
Speaker 1: to the progress that women have made in our country.
Speaker 1: And by that, I mean how Joe Biden has taken
Speaker 1: us backwards in the progress that we have made moving
Speaker 1: away from sexism. Because when conservatives say that Katanji Brown
Speaker 1: Jackson was nominated by Joe Biden because of her race
Speaker 1: and because of her gender, we're not inferring that. Joe
Speaker 1: Biden said that himself. He said he was going to
Speaker 1: nominate someone because she was a woman, and because she
Speaker 1: was a black woman. And as women, ourselves as minorities,
Speaker 1: this should be extremely insulting to us. It reduces us
Speaker 1: to tokens. It is tokenism, it's racial tokenism, and it's
Speaker 1: it's sexism. And this is this is the fundamental problem
Speaker 1: with the idea of equity right. It leaves women wondering
Speaker 1: did I get the job based on my qualifications and
Speaker 1: my resume, or did I get the job because I
Speaker 1: am part of a gender quota, because I have been
Speaker 1: reduced to my genitalia. And so I would challenge young
Speaker 1: women to reject what Joe Biden has done. I would
Speaker 1: challenge young women to acknowledge that this is actually racial
Speaker 1: discrimination and gender discrimination. And the people who lose the
Speaker 1: most are women who not only are they left to
Speaker 1: wonder about themselves? Their co workers and their colleagues are
Speaker 1: also left to wonder did this woman? Did this black
Speaker 1: woman achieve what she achieved based on her merits or
Speaker 1: because of the color of her skin or her gender? Hello,
Speaker 1: my name is Evan M. Assuming that would end global hunger,
Speaker 1: would you pilate another man? Actually, I do have an
Speaker 1: answer to this, all right? I act? Do you think
Speaker 1: it is better that the alien answer this? You know,
Speaker 1: there's a line and there's a line of American psycho
Speaker 1: about that Yale thing. I think that's when our questioner
Speaker 1: is alluding to a Like a typical left wing undergraduate,
Speaker 1: you are engaging in consequentialist ethics. You are attempting to
Speaker 1: justify flavorantly immoral behavior to achieve a good end. And
Speaker 1: I tell you, my friend, the ends do not justify
Speaker 1: the means. Absolutely absolutely not. I am curious with that,
Speaker 1: young fellow. If it would solve world hunger, would you
Speaker 1: vote for Donald Trump? All right? Hello, Senator Cruz. My
Speaker 1: name is pre and I'm a community college transfer student
Speaker 1: and current undergrad junior at Yale. Are you aware of
Speaker 1: the radical left protests occurring on the popular mobile game
Speaker 1: among us, what are you doing to protect our youth
Speaker 1: from this and other online indoctrination? So I'll confess I'm
Speaker 1: not and you don't say, all right, so among us?
Speaker 1: I've played it a couple of times with my daughters
Speaker 1: and it's sort of fun. But but if there's a
Speaker 1: radical protest on it, I don't know about it. You
Speaker 1: always surprise me. I haven't even heard of this, and
Speaker 1: you're totally hip to the jib of this game. Well
Speaker 1: you know it, You know when you have a thirteen
Speaker 1: year old and eleven year old and the look. I
Speaker 1: grew up driving from Lagory at Yale. I played video
Speaker 1: games the whole way here, so so, but I did
Speaker 1: not play among us. So if there is a protest,
Speaker 1: I don't know about it. All right. Our next question,
Speaker 1: I could pretend is from Verdict plus, but it's actually
Speaker 1: my question. I want to hear your discussion of this topic.
Speaker 1: There was a piece that was published today by David
Speaker 1: French regarding the anti groomer bill, the parental Rights and
Speaker 1: Education Bill in Florida. The left calls of the Don't
Speaker 1: Say Gay bill. He accuses conservatives of being anti free speech.
Speaker 1: In fact, he calls conservatives hypocrites for trying to control
Speaker 1: what teachers are instructing children in the classroom, given that
Speaker 1: conservatives generally support free speech. So my question to both
Speaker 1: of you is, our conservatives hypocrites when it comes to
Speaker 1: these parental rights and education bills? Are Are we hypocrites
Speaker 1: because we don't want the kindergarten teachers to trans the kids?
Speaker 1: That's the question? Yes, Okay, I don't think so. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's in the free speech tradition of America
Speaker 1: to preach transgenderism to five year olds. I have a test.
Speaker 1: It's the what would Washington do test? If you talk
Speaker 1: to the founding fathers, you said, do you believe that
Speaker 1: you founded this country to protect the sacred right of
Speaker 1: weirdos to indoctrinate five year olds into transgenderism and other
Speaker 1: assorted ideologies. I don't think they would have said yes,
Speaker 1: By golly, that's why we fought the revolution. What about slavery?
Speaker 1: I don't think they're teaching a lot about slavery in kindergarten,
Speaker 1: which is probably probably a good thing. But what would
Speaker 1: the founding father Well, it's a good question. Any fathers
Speaker 1: say about slavery, Well, you want to repeat it? Just
Speaker 1: because it was in the microphone. So folks, the question
Speaker 1: was what would the founding fathers say about slavery? And frankly,
Speaker 1: the answer is, we'd be here all night because a
Speaker 1: lot of them vigorously opposed slavery. Some of them own slaves.
Speaker 1: Some of the ones who own slaves recognize the moral
Speaker 1: problem with slavery and wanted to end it, and they
Speaker 1: set up ways for it to end through the constitution,
Speaker 1: and there were vigorous debates. The country almost fell apart.
Speaker 1: We almost didn't get a constitution because of that issue.
Speaker 1: So the answer is it's complicated and would be interesting,
Speaker 1: but that wasn't the question. I was asked the question
Speaker 1: on David French saying that conservatives are hypocrites regarding free
Speaker 1: speech because we don't we don't want kindergarteners learning about transgenderism.
Speaker 1: Is silly to me, because one, kindergarten classrooms are not
Speaker 1: exactly a rollicking free marketplace of ideas where we're discovering
Speaker 1: new scientific technologies and things like that. No, you're learning
Speaker 1: your ABC's. But furthermore, even on this issue of academic freedom,
Speaker 1: there is there is no right of a teacher to
Speaker 1: teach whatever that teacher wants in a classroom specifically to kindergarteners.
Speaker 1: It's funny to hear that kind of a question here
Speaker 1: at the William F. Buckley Junior Program. The Conservative movement
Speaker 1: was founded with a book called God and Man at Yale.
Speaker 1: Everyone remembers the title, few people remember the subtitle, which
Speaker 1: is The Superstitions of Academic Freedom, which he put in
Speaker 1: scare quotes. He said that academic freedom is a hoax,
Speaker 1: that it's a superstition that was merely instrumental for the
Speaker 1: left to get rid of all of the old norms.
Speaker 1: He quotes the former Yale president Charles Seymour, who says
Speaker 1: that skepticism has utility only when it leads to conviction.
Speaker 1: Later on, Bill Buckley is having a debate with Leo
Speaker 1: Chern on firing Line. Buckley said, I do not want
Speaker 1: a more open society. I want the society to be
Speaker 1: considerably more closed. He's used the phrase epistemological optimism, by
Speaker 1: which he meant that we can know certain things, we
Speaker 1: can settle certain things. And Buckley said he it felt
Speaker 1: no desire to protect the rights of a Nazi or
Speaker 1: of a communist. David French infamously defended drag Queen's story
Speaker 1: hour on the suggestion that if we don't protect the
Speaker 1: right of drag queens to jiggle around for little kids,
Speaker 1: then by golly, they might not let us go to
Speaker 1: church on Sundays. And well, first of all, the Left
Speaker 1: has prevented us from going to church on Sundays for
Speaker 1: about the past two years with the COVID lockdowns. But
Speaker 1: even beyond that, if we can't tell the difference between
Speaker 1: tworking for little kids in skimpy outfits at the library
Speaker 1: and a pastor preaching the Gospel on Sunday, then we
Speaker 1: do not possess the rational faculties and the moral conscience
Speaker 1: to govern ourselves. So I've got a different take on
Speaker 1: the matter. And one of the reasons this podcast can
Speaker 1: be interesting and fun is that Michael and I have
Speaker 1: fairly different worldviews. Michael is very Burkian. He is very
Speaker 1: comfortable with tradition, he is very comfortable with lack of change.
Speaker 1: I was amazed to see you disagree in any way
Speaker 1: with Buckley standing athwart and by the way, thwarts a
Speaker 1: word used far too rarely in life. Athwart history, yelling,
Speaker 1: yelling stop. I'm far more libertarian. I am far more
Speaker 1: live and let live. When it comes to free speech,
Speaker 1: I ambrace free speech, and I embrace free speech not
Speaker 1: just for people I agree with, but for people I
Speaker 1: disagree with. I ambrace free speech. You know you mentioned
Speaker 1: for Nazis and communists. I think Nazis and communists have
Speaker 1: free speech rights. Now, reasonable people ought to disagree with
Speaker 1: Nazis and communists, we ought to battle them with more
Speaker 1: free speech. But I very much agree with John Stuart
Speaker 1: Mill that the best cure for bad speech is more speech.
Speaker 1: And so I think academic freedom actually matters, and even
Speaker 1: academic freedom for people who are nutty. That being said, though,
Speaker 1: I think the Florida law the other states that are
Speaker 1: considering laws is markedly different, which is that if a
Speaker 1: state is going to have a public school system, it's
Speaker 1: going to set curriculum that is inherent in the process
Speaker 1: of having a school system. And if you're setting curriculum,
Speaker 1: you're making a choice of what is included in the
Speaker 1: curriculum and what is excluded in the curriculum, and making
Speaker 1: that choice is not in and of itself a violation
Speaker 1: of free speech. You're necessarily sorting what do we think
Speaker 1: it is imperative our kids learn. And the Florida bill.
Speaker 1: You know, it was interesting the opponents of the bill,
Speaker 1: they dubbed it that don't say gay bill. And yet
Speaker 1: the bill provided that that for kids that were pre
Speaker 1: kindergarten through third grade, that you should not discuss questions
Speaker 1: of sexuality. Look, pre kindergarten kids are three and four
Speaker 1: years old, and I think it is perfectly reasonable for
Speaker 1: a state to say we want kids in pre k
Speaker 1: and k to be learning reading and writing and arithmetic,
Speaker 1: and they shouldn't be talking about sex. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I don't want straight teachers talking about straight sex to
Speaker 1: four year old from kindergarten. Like you know, kids go
Speaker 1: to kindergarten to learn, to play blocks, to learn, to
Speaker 1: get some basic education. And by the way, the Florida
Speaker 1: law ended at third grade. At fourth grade it was hey, Katie,
Speaker 1: bar the door, you know, you know, bring out the
Speaker 1: S and M. Let's get exploded. So apparently at age
Speaker 1: nine all was good. But prior to age nine, And
Speaker 1: what's fascinating, I think the cultural left jumped the shark
Speaker 1: on this because you saw many political democrats, You saw
Speaker 1: the corporate media all excited don't say gay. You saw
Speaker 1: Hollywood all chanting gay, gay gay, which I gotta say,
Speaker 1: is not an act of bravery to chant gay in
Speaker 1: Hollywood mandatory, Actually it is. But what's interesting is if
Speaker 1: you look at the polling of parents of Floridians who
Speaker 1: read the terms of this law, which is let's not
Speaker 1: teach little bitty kids about sex, the overwhelming majority of
Speaker 1: Floridians agreed with it, including the majority of Democrats in Florida.
Speaker 1: So it's the cultural elites who are like, how dare
Speaker 1: you silence these brave truth tellers. You can do all
Speaker 1: the brave, brave truth telling you one outside of the
Speaker 1: kindergarten classroom. Ye. Now, as usual, we're running extremely late.
Speaker 1: This is every episode of the show. But before we go,
Speaker 1: I do want to get to one more question. Let's
Speaker 1: do two question. Whoever's next in line? Go ahead, sir,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Hello, Senator Cruz, thanks for coming out. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate you being here making the trip. My name
Speaker 1: is Jamark Simon and my question for you, Senator Cruz,
Speaker 1: is so, according to the Texas Tribune, you refused to
Speaker 1: certify the Arizona presidential election results, But most Republicans like
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell, have admitted that Joe Biden. One, do you
Speaker 1: think Joe Biden legitimately won the twenty twenty election? Why
Speaker 1: are I not? Okay? Great question. Look, Joe Biden is
Speaker 1: indisputably the president of the United States today. Now there
Speaker 1: are those in the media world that love to go
Speaker 1: around to Republicans and ask variants of the following question,
Speaker 1: do you agree the twenty twenty election was fair and
Speaker 1: straight and everything was above board? And the answer that
Speaker 1: is no. In the twenty twenty election, there were widespread
Speaker 1: allegations of voter fraud. If you looked at polling at
Speaker 1: the time, thirty nine percent of Americans, nearly half believe
Speaker 1: the election had been stolen. That is very disturbing for
Speaker 1: anyone that wants to see the American people have faith
Speaker 1: in our democratic system. As we were going to January sixth,
Speaker 1: under legislation called the Electoral Count Act, if a House
Speaker 1: member and a Senator objects to the counting of electoral votes,
Speaker 1: the two chambers split up into separate chambers, we have
Speaker 1: two hours of debate and we vote on it. And
Speaker 1: I spent days and weeks struggling about how to vote.
Speaker 1: And here was my thinking. As I struggled with it
Speaker 1: if I vote no, if I voted against an objection,
Speaker 1: that will be heard and that will be understood by
Speaker 1: tens of millions of Americans. As my saying, voter fraud
Speaker 1: isn't real, it doesn't exist, it's not a real problem,
Speaker 1: and that is not what I believe. That is emphatically
Speaker 1: the opposite of what I believe. So I didn't like
Speaker 1: that option. On the other hand, to simply object to
Speaker 1: the certification of the election because your guide didn't win,
Speaker 1: because the candidate you're supporting didn't win, I think that's
Speaker 1: completely unprincipled and indefensible. So I didn't like that option.
Speaker 1: And so I'm looking at these two options going both
Speaker 1: of these options suck. So I did what lawyers often do,
Speaker 1: which is try to study history to see if there
Speaker 1: are any press precedents from which we can draw insight.
Speaker 1: And as i history, I focused in particular on the
Speaker 1: presidential election of eighteen seventy six. That was an election
Speaker 1: between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden. Now, in that election,
Speaker 1: it was a very close election. It was a nasty,
Speaker 1: divisive election. In that election, there were serious allegations of
Speaker 1: voter fraud in three different states. And what did Congress
Speaker 1: do facing that at those allegations of voter fraud. Congress
Speaker 1: didn't throw their hands in the air and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's nothing we could do. This is terrible, but we're powerless.
Speaker 1: Oh well, that's not what Congress did. What Congress did
Speaker 1: is they appointed what they called an electoral commission. It
Speaker 1: consisted of five House members, five senators, and five Supreme
Speaker 1: Court justices. And that electoral commission conducted an audit of
Speaker 1: the election results in the three challenge states and examined
Speaker 1: the actual evidence and made determinations about the allegations of
Speaker 1: voter fraud. The more I looked at it, the better
Speaker 1: that precedent seemed to me. And so as we were
Speaker 1: heading into January, first, I was headed back to DC.
Speaker 1: Initially I was just going to announce this is what
Speaker 1: I think we should do, and i'd actually typed up
Speaker 1: a two page statement. Was on Southwest Airlines flying from
Speaker 1: Houston back to DC and with my laptop typed up
Speaker 1: a two page statement. But then as I thought about it,
Speaker 1: I decided, you know, it would be better not to
Speaker 1: do this alone, but to try to assemble a coalition together.
Speaker 1: And so I began visiting with other senators, and in
Speaker 1: the next twenty four hours a total of eleven senators
Speaker 1: joined together and we put out a joint statement in
Speaker 1: which we said we were going to object to the
Speaker 1: results of the election in order to call for the
Speaker 1: appointment of an election commission to conduct an emergency ten
Speaker 1: day audit. Now, if that happens on January sixth, it
Speaker 1: means the audit be completed before January twentieth, So wouldn't
Speaker 1: delay the inauguration and have a determination on the allegations
Speaker 1: of voter fraud. I continue to believe if Congress had
Speaker 1: done this, you would have much greater confidence in the election.
Speaker 1: And as I stood on the Senate floor and you
Speaker 1: can watch, I gave a five minute speech on the
Speaker 1: Senate floor advocating for this. I turned to the Democrats
Speaker 1: and I said, look, all of you insist on TV
Speaker 1: there is no voter fraud. It doesn't exist. Well, if
Speaker 1: you're right, you should welcome the election Commission, because presumably
Speaker 1: if the evidence doesn't back up the claims, that's what
Speaker 1: the commission will determine. And you know, Senator, there is
Speaker 1: actually one other historical tidbit here. I know you mentioned
Speaker 1: the first Caveman election where they elected the Grand poobab.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden was actually at that election. Did you know
Speaker 1: that he was? He was in the Caveman Senate and
Speaker 1: no item. This seems like a reasonable proposal that you're describing,
Speaker 1: and it continues to be It continues to be trotted
Speaker 1: out in the media as evidence that Republicans don't accept
Speaker 1: election results. There is another irony to that, which is
Speaker 1: a poll some months ago showed that a higher percentage
Speaker 1: of Democrats don't believe the results of the twenty sixteen election.
Speaker 1: Then Republicans disbelieve the results of the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 1: It is true. Hillary Clinton went all over the country
Speaker 1: saying the election was stolen. The election was stolen. Stacy
Speaker 1: Abram still says she is the sitting governor of Georgia
Speaker 1: and president of Earth too, according to start. Okay, that's true.
Speaker 1: All right, that was just annoying. All right, let's do
Speaker 1: one final question. Thank you, sir, Senator Cruz, thank you
Speaker 1: for coming. My name is Nicola Ryan Schreiber. And in
Speaker 1: the year nineteen seventy one, the US moved off the
Speaker 1: gold standard, and ever since, the centralization of power around
Speaker 1: the ability to print money has been the greatest power
Speaker 1: essentially on Earth, and power creups and absolute power crups absolutely.
Speaker 1: And what I have been dismayed to see that is
Speaker 1: that most conservatives, where they claim to say that they
Speaker 1: want smaller government, at the moment that they have their
Speaker 1: hand on the money printer, they let money printer go burr.
Speaker 1: And this is consistent in the last fifty years. And
Speaker 1: so I'm curious now, with the creation of the hardest
Speaker 1: money that has ever been created, Bitcoin, how would you
Speaker 1: feel about moving to a bitcoin standard. So, look, that
Speaker 1: is a great question, and thank you for that question.
Speaker 1: Let me take a couple of pieces of it. There's
Speaker 1: no doubt that when the United States moved off the
Speaker 1: gold standard, it facilitated a massive inflation of our currency.
Speaker 1: It made it easier for government to print money and
Speaker 1: for politicians. Look, it's actually easy to reach a bipartisan
Speaker 1: deal in Washington. The way you do it is you
Speaker 1: sit down with everyone in the room and we say
Speaker 1: we'll spend a billion for you, billion for you, a
Speaker 1: billion for you, a billion for you. You get to
Speaker 1: a trilia, you're done. And on that deal you get
Speaker 1: all the Democrats and you get half to two thirds
Speaker 1: of the Republicans, and in the Senate they're consistently about
Speaker 1: twenty of us who object to excessive spending, who try
Speaker 1: to fight for spending restraint, but sadly you often see
Speaker 1: the vote about eighty to twenty. The massive spending in
Speaker 1: Washington is what is fueling the inflation that is hurting
Speaker 1: the American people so profoundly right now, and it is
Speaker 1: one of the things that is fueling the move to bitcoin.
Speaker 1: And as you may know, I am a huge proponent
Speaker 1: of bitcoin. I'm a huge proponent of cryptocurrency. I think
Speaker 1: it is an incredibly important innovation. I think one of
Speaker 1: the reasons I personally am an investor in bitcoin, one
Speaker 1: of the reasons that you were seeing people move to
Speaker 1: bitcoin is exactly what you said as a hedge to inflation,
Speaker 1: that bitcoin by design cannot go over twenty one million bitcoin.
Speaker 1: It's a finite sum. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: a currency is a means of exchange in a way
Speaker 1: of setting value of one item visa v Another item.
Speaker 1: And one of the ways to understand inflation is if
Speaker 1: an apple is a dollar and a banana is two dollars,
Speaker 1: and you double the number of dollars on planet Earth. Then,
Speaker 1: roughly speaking, you would expect the apple to be two
Speaker 1: dollars in the banana to be four dollars. Now, the
Speaker 1: math doesn't work out exactly the same, but that's the principle,
Speaker 1: is that currency gives the relative values of one girder
Speaker 1: service visa v another. When you have politicians devaluing everyone's
Speaker 1: goods and services, they look for other ways to store value.
Speaker 1: It's why people in times of inflation are drawn to gold,
Speaker 1: or drawn to silver, or drawn to real estate or
Speaker 1: commodities other hard assets as it hedges to inflation. So
Speaker 1: I am a big proponent a bitcoin. I think the
Speaker 1: single greatest threat to bitcoin and crypto is Washington politicians
Speaker 1: screwing it up, and it is a very real threat.
Speaker 1: You asked if I would support our going to it
Speaker 1: as as legal tender. Look, I'm not looking for the
Speaker 1: government to make the choice to supplant the dollar. I
Speaker 1: know there are a lot in the bitcoin community that
Speaker 1: believe it will inevitably go that way, and if it does,
Speaker 1: I'm fine with that too, But I don't think you
Speaker 1: should have a government mandate to make it so. But
Speaker 1: I think it is important. I think the bitcoin community
Speaker 1: in the crypto community writ large is an incredibly blossoming industry.
Speaker 1: China just shut it down. Texas is becoming ground zero
Speaker 1: for bitcoin and crypto. I want to welcome everyone to Texas,
Speaker 1: and I think, I actually think the bitcoin world is
Speaker 1: at a fork in the road, an awful lot like
Speaker 1: big tech was about fifteen years ago. We're big tech
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley. It could have gone one road to
Speaker 1: being a libertarian utopia. Lead me alone, let us be
Speaker 1: free and innovate, or it could have gone the road
Speaker 1: it shows, which is a woke, scolding, censoring, socialist mob,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately it shows the latter. My hope is that
Speaker 1: bitcoin and crypto chooses the former, and so I think
Speaker 1: we ought to be looking for ways to encourage innovation
Speaker 1: and development in bitcoin and crypto more broadly. Now, I
Speaker 1: want to thank you. That was an excellent question. I
Speaker 1: want to thank everyone out there who had questions. I
Speaker 1: want to thank our Verdict plus community. I want to
Speaker 1: thank Carol Brown and the Irving Brown Lecture series. I
Speaker 1: want to thank the William F. Buckley Junior Program at Yale.
Speaker 1: I want to thank Young America's Foundation. I want to
Speaker 1: thank our friend Liz Wheeler, host of the Liz Wheelers
Speaker 1: Show and Cloak Room over a Verdict plus. Senator, I
Speaker 1: always want to thank you and I want to thank
Speaker 1: everyone who has tuned in here in the room. I
Speaker 1: want to thank everyone who's tuned in on YouTube. This
Speaker 1: has been a wonderful time with all of you. Ye
Speaker 1: thank you. So I'm Michael Michael Ols. This is Verdict
Speaker 1: the Ted Cruise. This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz
Speaker 1: is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack,
Speaker 1: a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations,
Speaker 1: and candidates across the country. In twenty twenty two, Jobs
Speaker 1: Freedom and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates
Speaker 1: running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.