Speaker 1: Welcome. It's Verdict with Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you.
Speaker 1: We've got a lot to talk about, including the big
Speaker 1: exciting news Nancy Pelosi is out. Also the leadership fight
Speaker 1: in this Senate. We're going to get into that, plus
Speaker 1: a big vote on gay marriage. And finally, Republicans paying
Speaker 1: off ready to rock and roll as they've taken the
Speaker 1: majority in the House. They are now going to be
Speaker 1: looking into the Biden crime family. What does this mean
Speaker 1: moving forward? That is going to be on today's podcast now, Senator,
Speaker 1: I want to get to this big exciting moment and
Speaker 1: we should enjoy it because you fought hard for this.
Speaker 1: The bus tour was it was part of this mission
Speaker 1: to make sure we could get the House out of
Speaker 1: the hands of the leadership of Nancy Pelosi. It is official.
Speaker 1: The Republicans control the House. Nancy Pelosi retiring from leadership today,
Speaker 1: that was obviously a massive story. So I just want
Speaker 1: to say one very simple thing. Nancy Pelosi is gone.
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi is gone. Nancy Pelosi, she is gone. Hot
Speaker 1: diggity damn. Nancy Pelosi is gone. And it amazing. I mean,
Speaker 1: it really is, like when this happened today, I was
Speaker 1: sitting there hosting out Numbered, and no one knew if
Speaker 1: she was going to resign from leadership or not. We
Speaker 1: were sitting there on set, and I was sitting there
Speaker 1: with Kenny mcinenny, and we were like, all right, what's
Speaker 1: the over under? And apparently senter. She went home last
Speaker 1: night with two different speeches, one if she was going
Speaker 1: to stand leadership and one if she wasn't, and there
Speaker 1: was zero leaks, no one knew what she was gonna say,
Speaker 1: and she finally said it, I am no longer going
Speaker 1: to be in leadership, and the entire set just was
Speaker 1: a gas. Look, that's incredible. I had not heard that.
Speaker 1: I will tell you, as you know, when we did
Speaker 1: the month long seventeen state national bus tour, the closing
Speaker 1: of my speech at every single rally, and you were
Speaker 1: at a bunch of them, Ben was, I said, I
Speaker 1: and whoever I was campaigning with, whatever House member or
Speaker 1: Senate member I was Senate Canada was campaigning with, I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I and JD am going to be walking
Speaker 1: down the hallway in the Capitol and we're going to
Speaker 1: bump into a little man wearing overalls carrying a screwdriver
Speaker 1: coming to change the sign on Nancy Pelosi's door, and
Speaker 1: inevitably the crowd would go wild at that point, and
Speaker 1: then I would say, and Nancy is gonna get on
Speaker 1: her broom. People would laugh, and I'd say, Okay, that's
Speaker 1: not fair, that's not right. Nancy is going to get
Speaker 1: on her private jet the USS broom, and she's gonna
Speaker 1: fly back to San Francisco. And for her sake, I
Speaker 1: really hope that her husband doesn't pick her up at
Speaker 1: the airport. When I said that, the crow wing crazy.
Speaker 1: In one state, two state, three state, four state, five states,
Speaker 1: seventeen states, the crowd went crazy. And listen, we're all
Speaker 1: bummed that last week's election wasn't much much better. It
Speaker 1: should have been phenomenal. We should have had a big
Speaker 1: majority in the Senate. We should have had a massive
Speaker 1: majority in the House. We don't. But let's take a
Speaker 1: moment to celebrate and say we did something that really mattered,
Speaker 1: which is we want a majority in the House of Representatives,
Speaker 1: and Nancy Pelosi is out of a job, and America
Speaker 1: is better off, Our liberty is safer, our lives are
Speaker 1: more secure because the most radical demogogic socialist left wing
Speaker 1: speaker of the House in the history of America is
Speaker 1: now out of a job. Let's talk about how meaningful
Speaker 1: this would have been over the last two years. For example,
Speaker 1: to put in compare and contrast center, if the republic
Speaker 1: Wikins would have had the House, yes people are bombed.
Speaker 1: We don't have the Senate where yes, people are upset
Speaker 1: that he's still the President of the United States of America.
Speaker 1: But having the ability to say no in the House
Speaker 1: is so significant to stopping so much damage had been
Speaker 1: done just over the last two years, for example, if
Speaker 1: we would have had one of those chambers. So what
Speaker 1: does it mean? What does having the House mean? It
Speaker 1: means number one will have real oversight. We'll have meaningful oversight.
Speaker 1: We'll have House committees issuing subpoenas, engaging an oversight of
Speaker 1: the abuses, the ridiculous policies from this administration. That's a
Speaker 1: big deal. Number two. It will mean we will not
Speaker 1: have the disastrous legislation of the last two years. If
Speaker 1: Democrats have a massive tax increase, it ain't gonna pass
Speaker 1: a Republican House. If Democrats want to make the District
Speaker 1: of Columbia a state and add two new Democrats senators,
Speaker 1: it ain't gonna pass a Republican House. If Democrats want
Speaker 1: to pack the US Supreme Court and add four are
Speaker 1: left wing justices to take the Supreme Court from nine
Speaker 1: justices to thirteen, it ain't gonna pass a Republican House.
Speaker 1: That's a big deal, and I'm happy for that. One
Speaker 1: other thing that I think people look at when they
Speaker 1: see the fact that Nancy Pelosi is out is it
Speaker 1: also comes back to accountability now, and I want to
Speaker 1: spend time on this a little bit later, but before
Speaker 1: we get to that, I want to tell everybody about
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Speaker 1: promo code Verdict. The accountability, the Republicans seem to have
Speaker 1: their act together on the House to really look into
Speaker 1: some of the corruption not only within our government but
Speaker 1: the FBI and also with the Biden family. And that
Speaker 1: is one of I think the payoffs to campaigning on
Speaker 1: the issues that so many conservative Republicans ran on, and
Speaker 1: they looks like they're going to pay off on it
Speaker 1: right away. Well, we need to do that. I was
Speaker 1: encouraged to see Jim Jordan and James Comber come out
Speaker 1: and say they're going to investigate, for example, the corruption
Speaker 1: with Hunter Biden. Now, as everyone who is a regular
Speaker 1: listener of this podcast knows, we've been talking for a
Speaker 1: long time that the issue with Hunter Biden is not
Speaker 1: his personal challenges. He is a troubled soul. It is
Speaker 1: clear he's had a anguished life where he struggled with
Speaker 1: substance abuse his entire life. If that were it, if
Speaker 1: he was some sad sap with substance abuty issues, it
Speaker 1: would not be an issue of public concern. What matters
Speaker 1: about Hunter Biden is the official corruption of Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: Joe Biden is the target of these investigations. Whether it's Barisma,
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian natural gas company that paid Hunter Biden a
Speaker 1: million dollars a year and all of the evidence suggests
Speaker 1: that was essentially Paola to get protection from Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: or whether it's communist China paying Hunter Biden millions of
Speaker 1: dollars a year with ten percent for the big guy.
Speaker 1: Again to Joe Biden. What the House is focused on?
Speaker 1: I was very pleased. They had a press conference Tuesday
Speaker 1: morning where they said, we're focusing not on Hunter, but
Speaker 1: on Joe Biden's corruption. On how much Joe Biden has
Speaker 1: been for sale, being sold to the enemies of America,
Speaker 1: being sold to foreign governments, being sold at aged in corruption,
Speaker 1: literally millions of dollars into the Biden family bank accounts.
Speaker 1: That's important, and I got to say I was really
Speaker 1: encouraged the press conference yesterday morning that Jim Jordan and
Speaker 1: James comber Hill was exactly on the themes that you
Speaker 1: and I have been talking about on this podcast for months,
Speaker 1: which is the focus is Joe Biden, not Hunter Biden,
Speaker 1: and Hunter is just the conduit for the corruption that
Speaker 1: goes straight to the President of the United States. It's
Speaker 1: not only that, but there seems to be a real
Speaker 1: comfort level now, Senator with whistle blowers. Jim Jordan mentioned this,
Speaker 1: and I want to play this because it seems that
Speaker 1: people now feel safe to come out the woodworks and
Speaker 1: risk their careers by whistle blowing on the corruption the
Speaker 1: deep state at the FBI. And here's how Jim Jordan's
Speaker 1: described it. At that press conference. You mentioned a moment
Speaker 1: ago it reports. Two weeks ago Uiciary Committee a report
Speaker 1: that talked about the political influence and the political shenanigans
Speaker 1: going on in our Justice Department, based on fourteen FBI
Speaker 1: agents who come talk to our office as whistle blowers.
Speaker 1: One of those agents said, and this is the term
Speaker 1: he used. He said, at the highest levels of the FBI,
Speaker 1: specifically the Washington Field office. He said, it's rotted to
Speaker 1: the core. Not talking about rank and file agents they're
Speaker 1: doing good, good work, talking about the top people at
Speaker 1: the Washington Field up. I mean, he says, rotten to
Speaker 1: the core, and the whistle blowers in Washington, DC are
Speaker 1: coming to him with this, and I think that's where
Speaker 1: once it takes one or two brave people to come
Speaker 1: forward center as whistle blowers. And now it looks like
Speaker 1: the floodgates have just opened now that the Republicans have
Speaker 1: the majority in the House, and that may be the
Speaker 1: biggest blessing out of all of this. Well, I think
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. Jim Jordan is a close friend of mine.
Speaker 1: He and I have been in the foxholes battling against
Speaker 1: the forces of darkness over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, just like Jim Jordan. I've had
Speaker 1: multiple FBI agents and multiple DOJ prosecutors come to me,
Speaker 1: come to my office as whistleblowers and say the politicization,
Speaker 1: the corruption at DOJ and the FBI is enormous. As
Speaker 1: you know, the book I just wrote the last couple
Speaker 1: of weeks, Justice Corrupted, How the Left is weaponized the
Speaker 1: legal system, is entirely about how the Democrats have turned
Speaker 1: the DOJ and the FBI into political weapons to attack
Speaker 1: their enemies. This is a real and important problem and
Speaker 1: one of the great benefits that we have a majority
Speaker 1: in the House. We're now going to have chairman willing
Speaker 1: to investigate this corruption. And when you twist and pervert
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice and the FBI, it is an
Speaker 1: incredible danger to the rule of law and to our
Speaker 1: individual liberty. Now, Ben, I'll tell you some people on
Speaker 1: the right say abolish the FBI. I understand that sentiment.
Speaker 1: They're so corrupt, I get it. I'm not in the
Speaker 1: camp of abolished the FBI, y because they do a
Speaker 1: lot of work that is really important, fighting terrorists, fighting
Speaker 1: bank robbers, fighting child predators who kidnap and sexually assault kids.
Speaker 1: All of that law enforcement work God bless the FBI.
Speaker 1: Go catch the bad guys, Go catch criminals, Go catch
Speaker 1: terrorists trying to murder American citizens. But what Obama and
Speaker 1: now Biden have really endeavored to do, and sadly with
Speaker 1: real success, is direct them away from never mind the
Speaker 1: next al Qaeda nine to eleven terrorists who want to
Speaker 1: fly a plane into a building. Don't focus on that.
Speaker 1: Go focus on moms and dads speaking at school boards.
Speaker 1: Go focus on soldiers in Israel and the IDF. Asdj
Speaker 1: is recently announced, the FBI is going to be trying
Speaker 1: to target our friend and ally, the nation of Israel.
Speaker 1: Go target pro life activists who dare to speak up
Speaker 1: in favor of life and that politicization. It's what my
Speaker 1: book Justice Corrupt is all about. It is incredibly wrong,
Speaker 1: and I believe we need to use whatever levers of
Speaker 1: power we have to stop it. You know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that representive comer said on the Hunter Biden
Speaker 1: pro he said, and I said this again today, you
Speaker 1: and I have talked about this. This is no longer
Speaker 1: about Hunter Biden. This is about the president. Yes, And
Speaker 1: he said, today the Bidens became millionaires. And I want
Speaker 1: to play this clip by simply offering access to the
Speaker 1: family and the United States government. President let fall forty
Speaker 1: Victory Committee. Republicans have identified over fifty countries the Biden
Speaker 1: families sought businesses in on the international side of the
Speaker 1: Biden family business, The deals were often led by Hunter Biden,
Speaker 1: and that map there behind clay shows all the countries
Speaker 1: where the Bidens had a footprint in international business dealings.
Speaker 1: The investigation reveals a family that engaged with some of
Speaker 1: America's powerful adversaries, planning to sell one of the largest
Speaker 1: sources of cobalt for electric vehicles in the world to
Speaker 1: the Chinese, for example. The Bidens flourished and became millionaires
Speaker 1: by simply offering access to the family. Among the dozens
Speaker 1: of shell companies the Biden set up, there were millions
Speaker 1: of dollars of wire transfers, flights on an air Force
Speaker 1: two to conduct personal business, and meetings with heads of state.
Speaker 1: While Joe Biden was aware of what was happening, all
Speaker 1: the while, he turned a blind eye. Many transactions related
Speaker 1: to these businesses have raised red flags at US banks.
Speaker 1: A Suspicious Activity Report, or SSAR is a document a
Speaker 1: bank must file with the Treasury Department when a transaction
Speaker 1: is suspected to be related to money laundering or fraud
Speaker 1: or other types of criminal activity. According to media reports,
Speaker 1: the Biden family accumulated over one hundred and fifty tsars
Speaker 1: one ssar generated by an American bank to the Treasury
Speaker 1: Department connects Hunter Biden, and this business associates international human trafficking,
Speaker 1: among other illegal activities. The money that was being made
Speaker 1: from foreign principles in the same room as Joe Biden
Speaker 1: was increasingly spent on furthering illegal activity. The Star show
Speaker 1: that Hunter Biden was conducting business with suspected human traffickers.
Speaker 1: I mean, Senator, this is not just and this was
Speaker 1: breaking news. More than fifty countries involved in human trafficking,
Speaker 1: involved with the worst people in the world in China
Speaker 1: and trying to sell American resources. I mean, when you
Speaker 1: think about fifty countries, this was very clearly a mafia
Speaker 1: style enterprise where the kingpen, the big guy is Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: who's now our president. Then he was the vice president
Speaker 1: when much of this was going on as well. But
Speaker 1: apparently none of this has stopped and all these suspicious
Speaker 1: activity reports of Democrats have been blocking us and be
Speaker 1: able to get those. Will we be able to see those? Now?
Speaker 1: Three Republicans have control of the House. Look, I hope so,
Speaker 1: and I have confidence in the House Chairman that are
Speaker 1: leading these investigations. I've got to say, you think about it.
Speaker 1: In over two centuries of our American history, we've had
Speaker 1: forty six presidents. We've had vice presidents under every one
Speaker 1: of them. We have never had a vice president, not
Speaker 1: once in over two hundred years, whose family made millions
Speaker 1: of dollars selling access to the vice president. That is
Speaker 1: the very essence of corruption. And by the way, not
Speaker 1: selling access to the vice president to Americans, to lobbyists
Speaker 1: that we've had before, we've had sort of the domestic
Speaker 1: access corruption, selling access to foreign adversaries, selling access to
Speaker 1: the communist Chinese government, selling access to Barisma, the corrupt
Speaker 1: Ukrainian natural gas company. The degree to which it was
Speaker 1: brazenly you know, it feels like an episode of The
Speaker 1: Sopranos were literally they'd show up with Hunter Buden with
Speaker 1: a paper bag full of cash and say it is
Speaker 1: ten percent for the big guy. Like that should not
Speaker 1: be reality, That should be bad fiction on HBO, But
Speaker 1: it is reality. The Democrat majorities in Congress desperately want
Speaker 1: to cover it up. And I do think one of
Speaker 1: the real consequences of House majorities is that we're going
Speaker 1: to see serious oversight, testimony, hearing subpoenas. We're going to
Speaker 1: get the facts. I think that's important. I want to
Speaker 1: move to the Senate side, and there's been this fight
Speaker 1: for leadership in the Senate. We've talked about this, Mitch
Speaker 1: McConnell's seven percent approval writing among Republican voters right now
Speaker 1: he walked out, made it clear, he said, I have
Speaker 1: the votes. I have the votes. I have the votes,
Speaker 1: whether it's decided today, tomorrow, the next day, I have
Speaker 1: the votes. In other words, I dare you to challenge me,
Speaker 1: or to come after me, or to try to find
Speaker 1: someone else to do this job. You better just get
Speaker 1: back in your positions. I am the leader, even in
Speaker 1: the minority. I have the votes. Where are we now
Speaker 1: with all of this, Well, dare accepted. So the last
Speaker 1: podcast we did Wednesday morning, I was walking into the
Speaker 1: leadership elections, and when that occurred, the very first thing
Speaker 1: that happened literally we sat down. So I want to
Speaker 1: paint the picture the leadership elections for the Republican conference
Speaker 1: are held in the old, the historic Senate Chamber, So
Speaker 1: it's not the Senate floor today, it's the old Senate chamber.
Speaker 1: It's the Senate chamber where in the Civil War one
Speaker 1: senator beat another senator almost to death with a cane.
Speaker 1: It's small, it's intimate, you're on top of each other.
Speaker 1: So we're in there. The very first thing it's done,
Speaker 1: it's called to order, and the first thing that happened
Speaker 1: is I stood up and I made a motion. I said,
Speaker 1: I move that we delay this vote until after the
Speaker 1: Georgia runoff. What proceeded was a couple of hours of
Speaker 1: debate where many senators stood up and argued on both sides.
Speaker 1: My argument was simple, Number one, we don't know who's
Speaker 1: going to be in the Republican conference in this next
Speaker 1: Senate and herschel Walker deserves us say and who the
Speaker 1: next Republican leader is. But number two, more fundamentally, we
Speaker 1: need a debate, in a discussion about how we're going
Speaker 1: to lead our Republicans going to fight. What are we
Speaker 1: going to fight on? Is there any issue on which
Speaker 1: we're willing to fight? We had a vigorous debate. Now
Speaker 1: I'll tell you I've been in the Senate ten years.
Speaker 1: In the ten years i've been there, Mitch McConnell's never
Speaker 1: been challenged. We've never had to vote on leadership. There's
Speaker 1: never been even a discussion or debate about what the
Speaker 1: agenda will be. At the end of a couple of
Speaker 1: hours debate, we took a vote and I got sixteen votes.
Speaker 1: Now they're forty nine Republicans, so my motion failed, but
Speaker 1: twenty five was success. So I got sixteen. We were
Speaker 1: nine short of the twenty five it would have taken
Speaker 1: to delay the election. Ben That is a big damn deal.
Speaker 1: That's never happened before. It was the first serious leadership
Speaker 1: challenge in the sixteen years that Mitch McConnell has been
Speaker 1: the Republican leader. That's a big deal. I think it's
Speaker 1: justified because we had an election where we should have
Speaker 1: had a massive victory and we didn't. And you know,
Speaker 1: as we talked about in prior podcasts, if you have
Speaker 1: a football team that's the number one in the nation
Speaker 1: and it loses big game after big game after big game,
Speaker 1: you fire the coach. We didn't have the votes to
Speaker 1: fire the coach, but we came very very close, and
Speaker 1: I hope it will lead to Republicans in the Senate
Speaker 1: now being willing to fight in a way that they
Speaker 1: haven't been the last two years. What have themality? I mean,
Speaker 1: you come back to DC right after election day. Everybody
Speaker 1: knows where we are with the House, everybody your colleagues
Speaker 1: know where we are now with the Senate. I mean,
Speaker 1: are you're obviously angry and pissed off. That makes sense,
Speaker 1: and it makes sense with you because you care about
Speaker 1: this country. You wanted the Republicans to win, You want
Speaker 1: to majority. You worked hard to try to get it.
Speaker 1: We came up short. But are other Senators angry or
Speaker 1: is it just business as usually? Like, Oh, it is
Speaker 1: what it is. We're in the minority for another two
Speaker 1: years and we'll see what happens then. So it varies. Look,
Speaker 1: I think everyone's frustrated. I mean, you'd have to be dead,
Speaker 1: you'd have to be blind and oblivious not to be frustrated.
Speaker 1: He's leadership frustrated. Maybe that's a better way of saying it.
Speaker 1: Not really, leadership is engaged in the blame game. They
Speaker 1: are trying desperately to blame the results of the election
Speaker 1: on Donald J. Trump, and so that's their messages Trump
Speaker 1: did it, Trump did it? Trump did it? And listen,
Speaker 1: this was enough of a cluster that there is blame
Speaker 1: to go around everyone. I'm not saying anyone is immune
Speaker 1: from blame, but leadership is trying so hard to paint
Speaker 1: the blame on Trump that they're pretending that their actions.
Speaker 1: The case I made to my colleagues, I stood up
Speaker 1: and said, listen, for the last two years, over and
Speaker 1: over again, we have passed Democrat priorities with all of
Speaker 1: the Democrats, every single Democrat, all fifty Democrats and ten
Speaker 1: to fifteen Republicans. We do that over and over and
Speaker 1: over again. And I said, listen, the Democrats never do
Speaker 1: this when we had a Republican majority in the Senate.
Speaker 1: There were no cases, zero where you had all fifty
Speaker 1: Republicans and ten or fifteen ds. They don't do it
Speaker 1: because from their perspective, their only focus is defeat the Republicans' agenda.
Speaker 1: To hell with you. On our side, our guys are chumps.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, okay, the Democrats want to do something here,
Speaker 1: let us help. And so the question that I asked,
Speaker 1: and in that historic Senate chamber, I asked Mitch McConnell
Speaker 1: tell the conference, is there any issue, even one on
Speaker 1: which you are willing to fight? Maybe we should fight.
Speaker 1: We're going to be taking up very shortly the National
Speaker 1: Defense Authorization Act. That's a great avenue to fight. The
Speaker 1: Biden to administration is trying to fire thousands of soldiers
Speaker 1: and sailors and airmen and marines. I think that is assinine.
Speaker 1: It's idiotic, it's indefensible. Those servicemen and women decline to
Speaker 1: take the COVID vaccine, and the Biden administration is saying,
Speaker 1: we don't care that you've defended our nation, that you've
Speaker 1: dedicated your life to keep you our country safe. If
Speaker 1: you don't knuckle under or take this vaccine, you're fire.
Speaker 1: I think that's grotesque. So I stood up and argue
Speaker 1: to my colleagues, stand and fight, grow a pair, like,
Speaker 1: actually fight for real. And the only way you can
Speaker 1: fight is to deny cloture on the NDAA. What is
Speaker 1: the NBA? The National Defense Authorization Act. It will not
Speaker 1: pass unless sixty Senators vote for it. You'll get all
Speaker 1: fifty Democrats, so are there If ten Republicans vote for it,
Speaker 1: it's passed, and guess what, those fighting men and women
Speaker 1: are fired I said, all right, if you don't want
Speaker 1: to fight on that, how about fight on the eighty
Speaker 1: seven thousand new IRS agents. That's what I was gonna
Speaker 1: literally ask you, is is that question? Because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of speculation now that if Republicans are smart on
Speaker 1: this coming out of the House into the Senate, that
Speaker 1: this could be the opportunity where the president actually asked
Speaker 1: to veto use a veto to get rid of something,
Speaker 1: which would be a very interesting moment, especially going into
Speaker 1: the presidential election. How to Republicans play this to get
Speaker 1: rid of these agents? But look, you know the white
Speaker 1: is going to stand out. So the question I asked
Speaker 1: leadership is are we willing to fight in a way
Speaker 1: that uses actual leverage? So what leadership is fond of
Speaker 1: is let's schedule a vote on the floor. Everyone votes,
Speaker 1: and then we lose, and we can go home and
Speaker 1: tell our constituents, look, we voted against it. It's not
Speaker 1: our fault. But oh way, the country, Oh well, the
Speaker 1: country is screwed. If you want to stop it, you
Speaker 1: actually have to use the levers of power you have.
Speaker 1: If you want to stop the forced vaccination of servicemen
Speaker 1: and women, you block the NDAA because Democrats want to
Speaker 1: pass that, So that's using leverage. Next year, there are
Speaker 1: two and only two major lever points. One is the
Speaker 1: government funding bills, either the Continuing Resolution or the omnibus
Speaker 1: funding bill. The other is the debt ceiling. If both
Speaker 1: of those, the Democrats desperately want to pass. So historically,
Speaker 1: if you exert leverage on those, the minority has been
Speaker 1: able to get concessions over and over and over again. Now,
Speaker 1: let's say you stand up on the government funding bill
Speaker 1: and say we're not going to fund the government if
Speaker 1: the funding includes eighty seven thousand new IRS agents, which
Speaker 1: is what I think we should do. Here's what Joe
Speaker 1: Biden is going to say. He's gonna bellow, the Republicans
Speaker 1: are shutting down the government. All of the Democrats in
Speaker 1: Congress are gonna bellow the Republicans are shutting down the government.
Speaker 1: The corporate media, which is utterly corrupt in a Democrat mouthpiece,
Speaker 1: is gonna bellow the Republicans are shutting down the government.
Speaker 1: And what I asked our leadership is, are you the
Speaker 1: friggan Republican leadership going to echo the message of the
Speaker 1: Democrats and the media that the Republicans are shutting down
Speaker 1: the government. If you do, we will lose. The short answer,
Speaker 1: Ben Mitch McConnell didn't answer those questions, but I will
Speaker 1: say we got sixteen votes to delay the election, and
Speaker 1: then Rick Scott ran against Mitch McConnell. I voted for
Speaker 1: Rick Scott. I'm tired of Mitch McConnell's leadership. I don't
Speaker 1: think he's done it right. We had eleven Senators who
Speaker 1: did not vote for Mitch McConnell. That is a big
Speaker 1: damn deal. Mitch McConnell's been the leader for sixteen years.
Speaker 1: In sixteen years, he has had zero senators vote against him.
Speaker 1: This year, eleven senators didn't support him. That's a step
Speaker 1: forward what your usual suspects either. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: a pretty wide ranging group of eleven, and I want
Speaker 1: you to mention just some of those names. People need
Speaker 1: to understand. This wasn't just kind of a core group
Speaker 1: that is you know, you know that you're you're good
Speaker 1: friends with. I mean, this was a cross the spectrum
Speaker 1: where you got these eleven from. So we don't know
Speaker 1: exactly who voted. The vote was thirty seven Republicans voted
Speaker 1: for Mitch. Ten Republicans voted for Rick Scott. I was
Speaker 1: one of the ten, and one Republican voted president, which
Speaker 1: is really weird. I don't know who that was. So
Speaker 1: ten voted for another leader and one didn't vote for Mitch.
Speaker 1: So it's a total of eleven. About half of the
Speaker 1: people have self identified. And that's what I wanted to
Speaker 1: get to is I mean, there were somebody that were
Speaker 1: open saying, hey, I'm just gonna be honest about this.
Speaker 1: I think he should he should not be in leadership.
Speaker 1: And by the way, if we had a functioning press corps,
Speaker 1: they ought to ask every damn Republican, how did you vote?
Speaker 1: Like this should be public. A lot of my colleagues
Speaker 1: the reason they voted for Mitch is he's the single
Speaker 1: largest owner to almost every Republican in the conference. He
Speaker 1: stood up there and said to senator after center, he
Speaker 1: pointed at them and said, you, I gave you thirty
Speaker 1: million dollars. You, I gave you forty million dollars. You
Speaker 1: I gave you fifty million dollars. By the way, for me,
Speaker 1: he gave me zero dollars. For Mike Lee, he gave
Speaker 1: him zero dollars. For Ron Joson in Wisconsin, six years
Speaker 1: ago he gave him zero dollars. Now, I will say,
Speaker 1: to Mitch's credit, this cycle, Ron had a vigorous reelection
Speaker 1: campaign and Mitch put thirty forty million dollars into it.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad of it this time. But historically in
Speaker 1: the Conference there have been three Republicans willing to stand
Speaker 1: up and fight against Mitch McConnell, Me, Mike Lee, and
Speaker 1: Ron Johnson. Now in more recent months, Rick Scott has
Speaker 1: joined that group. But the maddening thing is almost nobody
Speaker 1: else does. And a huge factor in why that's the
Speaker 1: case is because Mitch McConnell every cycle spends between three
Speaker 1: and four hundred million dollars in his superpack, supporting virtually
Speaker 1: every Republican. So the fact that we got a third
Speaker 1: of the Conference to vote with me to delay the
Speaker 1: leadership election is shocking. It's stunning, and I hope that
Speaker 1: it begins to change leadership's willingness to fight. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that will be the case, but I think
Speaker 1: this week was a big, big deal. It was a
Speaker 1: big week because I think it also made it clear
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of Conservatives out there voters that
Speaker 1: are paying attention and expecting more of their elected efficiencies,
Speaker 1: and they're paying attention to what you're going to do
Speaker 1: with the majority in the House and what you're going
Speaker 1: to do to stop the Democrats in the Senate or
Speaker 1: at least fight them, as you mentioned at the very beginning.
Speaker 1: And this brings us up to this big gay marriage vote.
Speaker 1: You know, there was no time wasted by Democrats coming
Speaker 1: back and making sure that they could get as much
Speaker 1: stuff done as they possibly could get done as quickly
Speaker 1: as they can before they lose this power, and this
Speaker 1: is a very important vote. What happened with that, well,
Speaker 1: a lot of what we discussed in the leadership election
Speaker 1: is that for two years we pass bill after bill
Speaker 1: with all the Democrats and ten to fifteen Republicans. And
Speaker 1: the case I made, I said, how come the Democrats
Speaker 1: manage over and over again to unite all of the
Speaker 1: Democrats and to divide our party in a way that
Speaker 1: screws us? But that's not the case. Or Burgher Fell
Speaker 1: was the Supreme Court decision where the court struck down
Speaker 1: the marriage laws all across this country and mandated gay
Speaker 1: marriage all across the country. Now, the predicate for the
Speaker 1: Democrats taking this bill up is the Dabbs decision, which
Speaker 1: overturned Roversus Wade and returned decisions about abortion to the
Speaker 1: state legislatures so the voters could decide Inburgh Fell. Justice
Speaker 1: Thomas wrote a concurrence where he suggested that the Court
Speaker 1: might want to reconsider all of its substantive due process decisions,
Speaker 1: including Aburgh Fell. The left lost their mind and they
Speaker 1: freaked out. Now, importantly, it's worth understanding the majority of
Speaker 1: opinion and Dobbs the case overturning Row said not once,
Speaker 1: not twice, but three times, we are not going to
Speaker 1: revisit Oberghafell. We're not going to revisit the question of
Speaker 1: gay marriage. The third time. Justice Alito, writing for the majority,
Speaker 1: said I don't know how to say this more clearly. No, no, no.
Speaker 1: So the whole predicate for this bill is Democrats scaremongering saying, oh,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court's going to strike down the game marriage ruling.
Speaker 1: It's not, and it's told us it's not. But this
Speaker 1: bill is Congress embracing gay marriage. Now, folks listening to
Speaker 1: this might agree with that, might disagree with that. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of disagreement across the country, and gay marriage
Speaker 1: is one of the issues on which public opinion has
Speaker 1: been changing dramatically. But the consequences of this bill are
Speaker 1: much more than Congress acknowledging and passing into law gay marriage,
Speaker 1: because I believe this bill, if it becomes law, will
Speaker 1: set the stage for the Biden Irs to target churches,
Speaker 1: to target religious universities, to target religious schools K through twelve,
Speaker 1: to target religious social services like Catholic charities that do
Speaker 1: adoption services, to target schools like Bring Them Young. Anyone
Speaker 1: that believes in a biblical definition of marriage, anyone that
Speaker 1: believes that marriage of the union of one man and
Speaker 1: one woman, whether they're Christian, whether they're Jewish, whether they're Muslim,
Speaker 1: whatever faith they are. Any any organization that does not
Speaker 1: accept gay marriage, I think faces an enormous risk of
Speaker 1: the Biden DOJ and the Biden Irs targeting them, suing them,
Speaker 1: and revoking their five oh one C three tax exempt status.
Speaker 1: And that is the real risk of this bill. And
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you it is sad and unfortunate because
Speaker 1: we had a vote on it, and all of the
Speaker 1: Democrats voted yes, of course, but sadly twelve voted yes
Speaker 1: as well. Susan Collins of Baine Lisa Murkowski of Alaska,
Speaker 1: Rob Portman of Ohio, Mitt Romney of Utah. Those four
Speaker 1: are not terribly surprising. But here the next eight. Tom
Speaker 1: tell Us of North Carolina, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Cynthia
Speaker 1: Lummus of Wyoming, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Richard is retiring,
Speaker 1: Shelley Moore, capital of West Virginia, Dan Sullivan of Alaska,
Speaker 1: Joanie Ernst of Iowa, and Todd Young of Indiana. Those
Speaker 1: are the twelve who voted yes. I gotta say I'm frustrated.
Speaker 1: Doesn't begin to describe it. I am beyond upset. So
Speaker 1: we had a lunch on Wednesday, right before the vote.
Speaker 1: It's the steering lunch. Mike Lee as the chairman of Steering.
Speaker 1: I'm on the Steerman Steering Executive Committee. So that's the
Speaker 1: lunch where we discuss policy issues. We talked about this bill.
Speaker 1: Virtually every single Republican who voted yes skip the lunch,
Speaker 1: So of those twelve, I think three or four of
Speaker 1: them were there, so they didn't discuss. They didn't hear
Speaker 1: how the Biden I r RS is going to go
Speaker 1: after Christian grade schools and strip their five O one
Speaker 1: C three status. Is going to go after Christian universities
Speaker 1: and strip their five O one C three status. This
Speaker 1: bill provides a private right of action, So you're going
Speaker 1: to get left wing radical litigant suing Christian or Jewish
Speaker 1: or Muslim chart to organizations or even churches. If your
Speaker 1: church doesn't accept gay marriage, get ready to be sued.
Speaker 1: And I got to tell you, I find it utterly
Speaker 1: insane that twelve Republicans agreed with this. And by the way,
Speaker 1: Mike Lee has an amendment that would explicitly prohibit the
Speaker 1: irs of the government from discriminating against people because of
Speaker 1: their religious beliefs on marriage. And yet the Democrats who
Speaker 1: support this bill said, hell no, we won't take Mike
Speaker 1: Lee's amendment, And the Republicans who support this bill said,
Speaker 1: who's Mike Lee. I'm sorry, we don't know what you're
Speaker 1: talking about. Why do you think we lost on election day?
Speaker 1: While rolling over to Democrats is a big part of it,
Speaker 1: And damn it, Ben, we need to stop it. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: How can people that are listening have an impact on
Speaker 1: this specifically? I mean, is it basically the damage is done?
Speaker 1: Or should you still be reaching out to you that
Speaker 1: your senator especially those that you mentioned. No, we're going
Speaker 1: to have another vote. We'll have another vote the Monday
Speaker 1: after Thanksgiving. And it's a sixty vote threshold. So of
Speaker 1: those twelve Republicans who voted yes, if three of them
Speaker 1: says say, we're not going to support this unless Mike
Speaker 1: Lee's amendment protecting religious liberty is added, we can stop
Speaker 1: this travesty. And by the way, why are Democrats rhyming
Speaker 1: this through now because they know in January they'll be
Speaker 1: a Republican House and they can't get it done. So
Speaker 1: this is the lame duck. This is their last gasp
Speaker 1: where they're saying to the electorate, screw you, we don't
Speaker 1: care that you voted a Republican majority. Now I get Ben,
Speaker 1: if you're Chuck Schumer, if you're Nancy Pelosi, screw you
Speaker 1: to Republican voters. I understand where that comes from, But
Speaker 1: why are Republican senators supporting that? That makes zero sense
Speaker 1: to me. Yeah, it really does it. It's asinine at
Speaker 1: least there's just, as you said, this vote after Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: so reach out. One last thing I want to ask
Speaker 1: you about, Senator, and that is this, Oh, by the way,
Speaker 1: we want to give out amnesty to every illegal immigrant
Speaker 1: in the country, and we need to do it. The
Speaker 1: new Democratic line is because we need workers and Americans
Speaker 1: aren't having enough kids, so therefore we should give out amnesty.
Speaker 1: I didn't think Democrats could be so transparent in a
Speaker 1: moment when they're asking for amnesty, but they were. They
Speaker 1: basically said, we've been screwing you, undermining your family, undermining
Speaker 1: traditional households. It's work. We've been aboarding children left and right.
Speaker 1: It's worked. And now we're going to say because of
Speaker 1: a lack of population, this is their argument that therefore
Speaker 1: we now need to give out amnesty to every single
Speaker 1: illegal immigrant that's in this country. Your reaction to that
Speaker 1: play by them, that was again right away. Clearly they're
Speaker 1: going to make this an issue for the presidential election.
Speaker 1: So a bunch of Democrats senators who were up for
Speaker 1: reelection this year, they ran millions of dollars of ads
Speaker 1: saying we are fighting to secure the border. Now. It
Speaker 1: was fundamentally dishonest because every single time they've had an
Speaker 1: opportunity to vote, they voted against securing the border. But
Speaker 1: that's what they claimed to the voters, and some of them,
Speaker 1: like Mark Kelly in Arizona got re elected lying to
Speaker 1: the voters. What happens after election day? The Democrats immediately
Speaker 1: come back and they say, what do we want to
Speaker 1: do with the lame duck? Not secure the border? Apparently
Speaker 1: all of their ads had no bearing on reality. What
Speaker 1: do they want to do? They want to grant amnesty.
Speaker 1: Joaquin Castro, who's a left wing Democrat congressman from Texas,
Speaker 1: he's leading the charge saying, let's grant amnesty to the
Speaker 1: so called dreamers, that's their priority. He represents a South
Speaker 1: Texas district that is feeling the pain of illegal immigration.
Speaker 1: But Joakin Castro doesn't give a damn about the children
Speaker 1: being physically assaulted, being sexually assaulted by human traffickers. He
Speaker 1: doesn't care about the women being raped by human traffickers.
Speaker 1: He doesn't care about the dead bodies left on the
Speaker 1: farms and the ranches of Texas farmers and ranchers. He
Speaker 1: doesn't care about the hundred thousand Americans who died last
Speaker 1: year of fetanol overdoses from Chinese fetanol flooding across the border.
Speaker 1: He didn't care about any of that. What is his priority? Hey,
Speaker 1: Let's grant amnestate of the people here illegally today. That's
Speaker 1: today's Democrat Party, and I gotta say Joakin Castro represents
Speaker 1: them perfectly. They are radicals who do not care about you,
Speaker 1: your safety, your family, liberty, your life. That's what this
Speaker 1: fight is all about, you know, I gotta say, Center.
Speaker 1: The other great part about this show today is the
Speaker 1: fact that we got to have and give some good
Speaker 1: news and in the show by reminding everybody Nancy Pelosi
Speaker 1: is no longer the Speaker of the House. That is
Speaker 1: what this midterm election was, Ben, Ben, could you repeat
Speaker 1: that again? Yeah, yeah, Nancy Pelosi is no longer the
Speaker 1: Speaker of the House. All Right, one more time. I
Speaker 1: just I just need to hear those words. Nancy Pelosi
Speaker 1: has resigned from leadership, right, She's she's almost a commoner. Now.
Speaker 1: I love this. I don't know how much that's gonna
Speaker 1: affect her incenters. All right, let me ask you a question, Ben, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's the over under on how long till Nancy Pelosi
Speaker 1: retires to Florida and as a constituent around descendis? Oh?
Speaker 1: I think it'll be well within let's go, I say
Speaker 1: seven months, all right, seven months? Seven okay, listeners, I
Speaker 1: want you to hold Ben accountable seven months. So we're
Speaker 1: in November. Run forward seven months from now. Then I'm
Speaker 1: gonna trust you to bring this up on the show,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna ask is Nancy Pelosi a Florida voter?
Speaker 1: And I think she'll be bored out of her mind.
Speaker 1: I think she's gonna try to shepherd the Democrat young
Speaker 1: new leadership through and I think at some point you
Speaker 1: canna say, all right, screw it, I'm out of here.
Speaker 1: I don't think she finishes her Do you think she'll
Speaker 1: finish your term? I don't absolutely not. Yeah, there, I
Speaker 1: see we're in a green up by the way, on
Speaker 1: the overunder. I'm taking the under really okay, I like this.
Speaker 1: I like this. All right, we got we got a
Speaker 1: little wager here. I like this. Dias mark that we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to save this audio. We'll play it back
Speaker 1: one day. One of us is gonna be right, one
Speaker 1: of us is gonna be wrong, and that's gonna be
Speaker 1: really fun. Center. It's always a pleasure. And by the way, Diaz,
Speaker 1: if I'm wrong, delete the audio. I love it. I
Speaker 1: love it. And see now you know who show it
Speaker 1: really is. We'll see you guys back here on Monday morning.
Speaker 1: We will also have a video podcast that we will
Speaker 1: put out on Monday as well, so you can watch
Speaker 1: that on social media on YouTube as well. Senor, I
Speaker 1: know you're traveling this a couple of days. Be safe
Speaker 1: on the road, and we'll see everybody back here on
Speaker 1: Monday morning.