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Speaker 1: Welcome in his verdict with Ted Cruz Weekend Review, Ben

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Speaker 1: Ferguson with you, and these are the stories you may

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Speaker 1: have missed that we talked about this week. First up,

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Speaker 1: Senator Cruise's new book is out, Unwoke, How to Defeat

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Speaker 1: Cultural Marxism in America, And there's a very interesting conversation

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Speaker 1: in this book about how Donald Trump broke the media up. Second,

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Speaker 1: school choice a major issue and how big of an

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Speaker 1: issue should it be in this presidential election. Senator Cruse

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Speaker 1: and I break that down and why Republicans should double

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Speaker 1: down on the issue of school choice. And finally, the

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Speaker 1: southern border. It is a question of national security. Now

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Speaker 1: we bring in Rick Grenelle, who is in the job

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Speaker 1: of dealing with national security under the Trump administration. So

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Speaker 1: just how bad and how dangerous is our broken border?

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Speaker 1: We deal with that as well. It's the week in

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Speaker 1: Review and it starts right now. You mentioned what we're

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Speaker 1: up against in one of your chapters is about the

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Speaker 1: new US room Revolution, and you start with a great

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Speaker 1: story of a former colleague of mind that is hard

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Speaker 1: to deal with, Jake Tapper in a fight as he's

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Speaker 1: in essence calling you a liar. And this is the

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Speaker 1: new thing that the media has done. They've become so

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Speaker 1: sanctimonious that they are always looking for a moment to

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Speaker 1: tell you why you're wrong and why they're brilliant. We've

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Speaker 1: seen this in the last several days as they've been

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Speaker 1: demanding a ceasefire to protect the terrorists in Gaza. Who

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Speaker 1: the who the Israelis are trying to eradicate from the

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Speaker 1: face of this earth with good reason after what they

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Speaker 1: did just one month ago.

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Speaker 2: And we talked about this on Verdict Israel.

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Speaker 1: We knew was on a on an artificial clock the

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Speaker 1: day the terrorist attack happened, before the media, before the

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Speaker 1: left started going to the aid of Hamas and the

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Speaker 1: Palestinian people that were backing Hamas, many of them that

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Speaker 1: were and saying, okay, all right, you had a few

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Speaker 1: days now to go after these terrorists. Now you've got

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Speaker 1: to stop it now. Now it's your your, your obligation

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Speaker 1: to stop trying to protect yourself. And this is our

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Speaker 1: media now. And it goes back to this idea that

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Speaker 1: they have, which is they're better than everyone else. They're

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Speaker 1: not here to report news anymore. They're here to go

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Speaker 1: after people like you and others. They don't like and

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Speaker 1: in doctrinate a nation to believe in socialism and communism

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Speaker 1: and Marxism.

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Speaker 2: Look that that is exactly right.

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Speaker 3: And the media has fundamentally changed. And so the chapter

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Speaker 3: on journalism, I talk about how when I was first

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Speaker 3: elected to the Senate eleven years ago, and I actually

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Speaker 3: focus on CNN as really a case lesson eleven years

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Speaker 3: ago CNN they aspired to be journalists. If you ask them,

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Speaker 3: they'd say, we want to be journalists. We want to

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Speaker 3: present both sides. We want to be fair and objective

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Speaker 3: and balanced, and we want to focus on facts and

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Speaker 3: not our opinion. Now, they were terrible at it. They

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Speaker 3: leaned hard left and they couldn't help themselves. But that

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Speaker 3: was the object active Number one, they would articulate to

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Speaker 3: you they were trying to achieve. But number two, I

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Speaker 3: think they believed in their heart they were trying to

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Speaker 3: do that. And so when I was first elected to

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Speaker 3: the Senate. You may find this hard to believe, but

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Speaker 3: I went on CNN just about every week. I went

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Speaker 3: on there over and over and over again, and they

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Speaker 3: would give you a chance to lay out a conservative

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Speaker 3: argument that they'd attack you from the left, and they'd

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Speaker 3: be unfair and they'd play gotcha questions, but they would

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Speaker 3: give you a chance to present the other side. And

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Speaker 3: what happened is when Donald Trump became president, I think

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Speaker 3: it fundamentally broke the media. Their brains shattered. They hated

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Speaker 3: him so much that today the media no longer views

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Speaker 3: its vision as being journalists, as being fair and impartial

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Speaker 3: and presenting both sides. Instead, they have embraced a vision

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Speaker 3: that they are advocates. They are defenders of democracy, and

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Speaker 3: what they mean by democracy is left wing radical policies.

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Speaker 3: And you know, so the story I tell in the

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Speaker 3: very beginning of the journalism chapter is during the presidential race,

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Speaker 3: I was out on the campaign till I was actually

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Speaker 3: in our campaign bus and I was doing an interview

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Speaker 3: with Jake Tapper. And look, I'll confess I like Jake.

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Speaker 3: I've known Jake for over twenty years. I've known Jake

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Speaker 3: since he was a CUB reporter on the George W.

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Speaker 3: Bush two thousand campaign and I was a baby staffer

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Speaker 3: on it, and so I've known him a long time.

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Speaker 3: And he was interviewing me for his Sunday show and

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Speaker 3: we did an interview and it was I don't remember,

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Speaker 3: probably ten minutes or so, and I had learned a lesson.

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Speaker 3: It's something that I do with every Sunday show, which

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Speaker 3: is that I insist that the Sunday Show either be

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Speaker 3: live or it'd be live to tape. And the reason

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Speaker 3: I learned that is I had done just a few

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Speaker 3: weeks earlier in an interview with Bob Scheffer at CBS,

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Speaker 3: and Bob Scheffer I hadn't insisted on that, and he'd

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Speaker 3: done the interview, and then afterwards his show had edited

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Speaker 3: it and it basically cut out every good argument I

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Speaker 3: made and just put this slash job where he decimated

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Speaker 3: me because he excluded all my good answers and just

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Speaker 3: edited it in a way that was really deceptive. And

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Speaker 3: I said, okay, never again. If we do one of these,

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Speaker 3: they must air what I actually say. And I said, look,

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Speaker 3: if you want to give you five minutes or six

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Speaker 3: or eight or ten or twelve or whatever, you can

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Speaker 3: pick the time. But when we film it, you air

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Speaker 3: exactly what happens during that time. So we had agreed

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Speaker 3: with that with CNN, and in the course of the interview,

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Speaker 3: we were talking about the shooting at Fort Hood and

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Speaker 3: Nadal Hassan, who was the radical Islamist who had walked

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Speaker 3: through and murdered fourteen innocent souls, yelling at luhawk Bar,

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Speaker 3: and I mentioned that the Obama administration knew that Hassan

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Speaker 3: was a radical jahadist. They knew that he had been

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Speaker 3: in email communication with Anwaar al Alaki, who was the

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Speaker 3: Islamist cleric, the radical that he'd asked al Alaki about

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Speaker 3: the permissibility of waging jahad on his fellow soldiers, and

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Speaker 3: yet the Obama administration did nothing until he committed that

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Speaker 3: act of mass murder. And when I said all of that,

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Speaker 3: Jake immediately interrupted and he said, that's not true. No,

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Speaker 3: that's not right, and he said, what you're saying is

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Speaker 3: fundamentally false. That's a lie, it's not true, and you know,

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Speaker 3: I just kind of smiled, and I said, well, you know, Jake,

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Speaker 3: as John Adams said, facts are stubborn things, and what

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Speaker 3: I'm saying is entirely accurate, and you know, when you

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Speaker 3: research the issue, that's exactly what you're going to find out.

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Speaker 3: So we do the interview, Jake and his production team

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Speaker 3: leaves the bus, and I don't know five ten minutes later,

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Speaker 3: there's a knock on the door of the bus and

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Speaker 3: we open it. It's Jake and he's very sheepish, and

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Speaker 3: he said, hey, can come in and talk for a second.

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Speaker 3: I said, yeah, sure, come on in, and he said, look,

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Speaker 3: after we did the interview, he said, I went and

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Speaker 3: got on the internet and I researched it, and actually,

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Speaker 3: you were right, he said. I didn't know that I

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Speaker 3: had missed. I just had not seen the revelation that

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Speaker 3: the Obama administration knew it. It just I couldn't believe it.

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Speaker 3: But turns out you were right. I was wrong, And

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Speaker 3: Jake said, listen, I'll give you a choice. We can

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Speaker 3: do it one of two ways. He said, I agreed

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Speaker 3: we would do this live to tape, and so if

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Speaker 3: you want, I will air it exactly as it happened,

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Speaker 3: and then after I air it, will I will come

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Speaker 3: on live and I'll say after the interview, I researched it,

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Speaker 3: and it turns out I was wrong, and.

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Speaker 2: Cruz was right.

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Speaker 3: What he said was exactly right, and I was in

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Speaker 3: error when I said he was not telling the truth.

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Speaker 3: He said, that's option number one.

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Speaker 2: He said.

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Speaker 3: Option number two, which he said, I'd really much prefer it,

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Speaker 3: is that we just edit out that segment, we just

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Speaker 3: remove it from the interview and we air everything else

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Speaker 3: and just not include that segment. And I describe in

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Speaker 3: the book that you know, I thought about it, and

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Speaker 3: it was obviously in my self interest to pick option

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Speaker 3: number one. That like having CNN having Tapper admit he

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Speaker 3: was full of crap. And I was right, that was

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Speaker 3: a big political victory. But I also expected that I

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Speaker 3: would be doing a whole lot more interviews with Tapper

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Speaker 3: and with CNN, and I frankly respected how he approached it.

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Speaker 3: That he came to me and he admitted he was wrong,

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Speaker 3: and he gave me that option I thought was an

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Speaker 3: honorable way to handle it. And so I made what

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Speaker 3: I would say is a long term play rather than

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Speaker 3: a short term play, and I said, Okay, you can

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Speaker 3: go ahead and cut the segment out, and so they did,

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Speaker 3: so the story I recount in the book that segment

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Speaker 3: never aired because CNN cut the segment out. I focus

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Speaker 3: on Tapper in particular because I think he's a smart guy,

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Speaker 3: and I think he wants to be a journalist, and

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Speaker 3: I think in his heart right now he knows that

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Speaker 3: he's not that Trump broke Tapper that now CNN will

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Speaker 3: have a panel of five experts there to discuss true

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Speaker 3: or not Donald Trump is the devil, and all five

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Speaker 3: of them agree, of course he's the devil.

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Speaker 2: No, he's worse than the devil. That's the whole debate.

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Speaker 3: And you know, look, CNN used to be a place

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Speaker 3: if you go back to twenty seventeen. In twenty seventeen,

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Speaker 3: I did three town hall debates on CNN with Bernie Sanders.

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Speaker 3: We did one on healthcare and two on tax policy,

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Speaker 3: and they were great debates. I think they were among,

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Speaker 3: if not the highest rated shows on CNN that whole year.

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Speaker 3: They were ninety minutes. Bernie is an unapologetic defender of socialism.

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Speaker 3: I'm an unapologic defender of capitalism. And we had a

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Speaker 3: real and substm debate that CNN doesn't exist anymore, and

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Speaker 3: it's bad for America, it's bad for the world that

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Speaker 3: we don't have functioning journalism. And I describe all of

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Speaker 3: this in the book, but I also describe how because

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Speaker 3: journalism corporate media is broken, It's part of what makes

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Speaker 3: the radical Democrats so extreme, why they vote for such

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Speaker 3: ridiculous policy positions that are so out of the mainstream,

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Speaker 3: because they know they will never ever ever get asked

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Speaker 3: about it by reporters back home. They will never have

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Speaker 3: to defend it, and so it's radical the Democrat Party

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Speaker 3: in Washington.

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Speaker 1: Last question for you, a little comedy and congratulations. Jimmy

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Speaker 1: Kimmel is promoting your book, Senator. I'm very excited about this.

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Speaker 1: I also am waiting for the restraining order because he's

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Speaker 1: absolutely obsessed with you. Your new book that is out, Unwoke,

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Speaker 1: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America. He gave it

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Speaker 1: a prime time promotion on his show last night. Here's

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Speaker 1: what it sounded like.

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Speaker 4: Ted Cruz has a new book. It's called Unwoke. It's uh,

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Speaker 4: he's you know what, he's so cool, he's you can

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Speaker 4: tell it's Ted's book because the dust jacket doesn't quite fit.

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Speaker 2: It won't won't button in the front. But this is

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Speaker 2: Cruse's fifth book.

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Speaker 4: The last one was called Ted Cruz A Time for

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Speaker 4: Truth seem there without the beard. He also wrote Ted

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Speaker 4: Cruz head Ooze. He wrote Glued Pubes, the Guy from

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Speaker 4: Isaac Damguro Bearing of course, the New York Times bestseller,

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Speaker 4: A partially Digested.

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Speaker 2: Rat, and other things. I found my chin pouse there.

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Speaker 4: Are many interesting musings and revelations in the books. He

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Speaker 4: says The Princess Bride is his favorite movie and he's

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Speaker 4: seen it hundreds of times, which is definitely not true.

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Speaker 4: No one's seen anything hundreds of times. And apparently he's

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Speaker 4: not a big fan of late night television. This is

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Speaker 4: an excerpt, real excerpt. He wrote a late on TV

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Speaker 4: is virtually unwatchable. I love comedy, but watching angry leftists

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Speaker 4: scream about how much they hate Donald Trump, is it

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Speaker 4: remotely funny?

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Speaker 2: It's pitiful.

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Speaker 4: Well, all I'll say is it's an honor to be

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Speaker 4: called pitiful by a man who abandoned his dog in

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Speaker 4: an ice storm to go to Mexico.

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Speaker 5: But congrat and not seriously doesn't want to say, you know,

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Speaker 5: writing writing a book like this is a huge accomplishment,

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Speaker 5: especially for him.

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Speaker 6: You know, it's very difficult to type with hoofs, I

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Speaker 6: mean cider. It doesn't it prove your point that you

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Speaker 6: just wrote in your book. That was the part that

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Speaker 6: made me laugh is as he's forcing this comedy on

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Speaker 6: the audience and there's some awkward laughter, It's like, yeah,

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Speaker 6: thanks for proving the point of what that you just

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Speaker 6: wrote about in your book.

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Speaker 3: Sure, look, I mean it was when when he did

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Speaker 3: that last night. I actually tweeted his monologue out this

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Speaker 3: morning and I said, hey, thank thanks for pitching my book.

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Speaker 3: You forgot the link to where you can buy it,

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Speaker 3: and I sent the link and I did something that

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Speaker 3: that that is is fairly obligatory also, which is Kimmel

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Speaker 3: regularly blasts me in his late night monologues, and every

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Speaker 3: time he does, I respond and I point out that

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Speaker 3: that that ever since I whipped Jimmy Kimmel's ass in

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Speaker 3: one on one hoops, it seems that I'm living rent

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Speaker 3: free in his head.

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Speaker 2: Uh.

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Speaker 3: And so I sent a video of me scoring on

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Speaker 3: him and blocking him, just to remind him of that

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Speaker 3: moment that I think he probably still wakes up in

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Speaker 3: tremors about. But I thought it was hysterical what he

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Speaker 3: read there was an actual excerpt from the book, and

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Speaker 3: then he put put up the book book cover, and I,

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Speaker 3: I think that's fabulous. But I do wish the substanti

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Speaker 3: point that Late Night Humor I wish was actually funny.

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Speaker 3: I love comedy. I grew up watching SNL. I like

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Speaker 3: real comedians who are funny, and they used to be funny.

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Speaker 3: And now it's one of the many examples that I

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Speaker 3: discussed it at length in the book Unwoke, How How

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Speaker 3: Trump broke the media, Trump broke the Democrat Party, and

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Speaker 3: Trump broke late night comedy because they just it's a partisan,

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Speaker 3: primal skeet scream instead of good comedy, makes fun of

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Speaker 3: both sides. I'm perfectly fine with making fun of me,

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Speaker 3: but they never ever make fun of the Democrats. It's

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Speaker 3: purely a I am leftist. Hear me, roar now.

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Speaker 1: If you want to hear the rest of this conversation,

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Speaker 1: you can go back and listen to the full podcast

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Speaker 1: from earlier this week.

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Speaker 2: Now onto story number two.

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Speaker 1: Before we get into Q and A, I want to

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Speaker 1: ask you one other thing, and it's it's the issue,

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Speaker 1: and I have a feeling a lot of people are.

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Speaker 2: Going to like this idea here choice. I am a

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Speaker 2: huge proponent of school choice. It's been something that.

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Speaker 1: You have been a champion of for years, but it's

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Speaker 1: also become in many circles they say a third rail.

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Speaker 1: Don't touch it, don't talk about it, don't deal with

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Speaker 1: in politics. Do you believe in this next election cycle

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Speaker 1: that conservatives can win on the issue of school choice?

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Speaker 1: And how would they best do that nationwide?

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Speaker 3: Look, I think absolutely, yes, I am. There is no

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Speaker 3: domestic issue I care about more than school choice. I

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Speaker 3: think school choice is the civil rights issue of the

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Speaker 3: twenty first century. And listen, it is worth noting that

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Speaker 3: school choice has been around from the dawn of time.

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Speaker 3: The rich and the middle class have always had school choice.

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Speaker 3: If you were a student at the Bethesda Public Schools

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Speaker 3: in Maryland, Bethesa's this very wealthy suburb of Washington, DC,

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Speaker 3: if that school had a fifty percent dropout rate, if

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Speaker 3: among the students that remained there fewer than half of

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Speaker 3: them graduated reading at grade level, If drug dealers were

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Speaker 3: walking in the hallways, if little girls were getting sexually

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Speaker 3: assaulted in the bathrooms, the Bethesda Public schools would be

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Speaker 3: empty immediately. Because the parents, they are rich, so they

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Speaker 3: would do one of two things. They would either write

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Speaker 3: checks and pay tuition at a private school, or they

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Speaker 3: would move to another neighborhood that had a better public school,

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Speaker 3: and they would exercise choice through choosing where to live.

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Speaker 3: That's what the rich have always been able to do.

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Speaker 3: That's what the upper middle class have always been able

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Speaker 3: to do. It is low income Americans. It is single

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Speaker 3: moms in inner cities who were trapped with failing schools.

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Speaker 3: And those numbers I've described are true in school after

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Speaker 3: school after school in this country, and it dominantly hurts

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Speaker 3: low income kids, It hurts African American kids, it hurts

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Speaker 3: Hispanic kids. And the Democrat Party is bought and paid

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Speaker 3: for by the teachers unions. If you look at African

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Speaker 3: American communities or Hispanic communities, systematically, sixty seventy as much

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Speaker 3: as eighty percent of African American parents, as much as

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Speaker 3: sixty seventy eighty percent of Hispanic parents support school choice.

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Speaker 3: I believe every child in America deserves a right to

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Speaker 3: have access to an excellent education, regardless of their race,

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Speaker 3: of their ethnicity, of their wealth, of their zip codes.

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Speaker 3: So to say, we are sitting in actually an extraordinary

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Speaker 3: place because I want to say to the men and

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Speaker 3: women here, thank you for your leadership. Arizona has led

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Speaker 3: the nation in providing choice to your students. It has

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Speaker 3: been extraordinary, it has been inspirational, it has been powerful,

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Speaker 3: and the Goldwater Institute has been pivotal in making that happen.

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Speaker 3: And if you look nationally, the two states at the

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Speaker 3: front of this fight have been Arizona and Florida. And

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Speaker 3: I will say something. You and I are both Texans,

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Speaker 3: and look Texans. We are known for being quiet and

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Speaker 3: for our humility. Look Aus Texans. I hate that there

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Speaker 3: is anything Texans are not leading on, but when it

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Speaker 3: comes to school choice, Texans have been lagging behind. And

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Speaker 3: I can tell you there's a major battle playing out

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Speaker 3: in the Texas legislature right now. We have the single

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Speaker 3: best moment we have ever had in our lifetimes to

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Speaker 3: pass real and meaningful school choice in Texas. The Governor

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Speaker 3: Greg Abbott has said he's going to keep pat calling

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Speaker 3: special sessions until they pass it. And I'll tell you

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Speaker 3: something that I do in Texas that is unusual. Ben So,

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Speaker 3: virtually every US Senator stays out of state primaries in

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Speaker 3: their own state. And the reason is getting involved in

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Speaker 3: a primary in your own state is just stupid. It

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Speaker 3: hurts you that if you make an endorsement in your

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Speaker 3: own primary. In a primary in your state, the rule

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Speaker 3: of thumb is you get half of their friends and

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Speaker 3: you get all of their enemies. I don't do that.

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Speaker 3: I regularly endorse in primaries. To the best of my knowledge.

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Speaker 3: I don't know another US senator that does. To the

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Speaker 3: best of my knowledge, ninety nine of my colleagues do not.

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Speaker 3: And I endorse in lots of primaries in Texas. And

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Speaker 3: here's how I have my staff prepare an Excel spreadsheet

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Speaker 3: of every vote that a state legislator has cast.

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Speaker 2: On school choice.

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Speaker 3: And my rule is, if you voted in favor of

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Speaker 3: school choice, and you're otherwise relatively conservative, you're quite likely

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Speaker 3: to get my support. If you've voted against choice, the

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Speaker 3: chances of getting my support are essentially zero, And it

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Speaker 3: is very likely that I will indorse your primary opponents.

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Speaker 3: And when I do that, I don't do it gently.

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Speaker 3: I come in and I cut radio and TV ads

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Speaker 3: and I come in.

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Speaker 2: You're accus of a lot of things. You going gently

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Speaker 2: into political time is not one of them.

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Speaker 3: So the stakes are too high. And so we had

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Speaker 3: last election cycle seven runoffs with the teachers unions on

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Speaker 3: one side and me on the other, and we beat

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Speaker 3: them in a majority of those races. And the reason

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Speaker 3: I do that, and listen, it hurts me politically to

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Speaker 3: do that. I am losing votes when I do that.

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Speaker 3: But the reason I'm doing that is that I want

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Speaker 3: for the state legislators when they're thinking about what do

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Speaker 3: I do on this for it to be a carrot

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Speaker 3: and stick that if there is a Republican house member

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Speaker 3: that's on the fence, do I support it? Do I not?

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Speaker 3: I want them to say, you know, I really don't

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Speaker 3: want Cruise to screw around in my primary. So maybe

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Speaker 3: I'll just do the right thing and I'll tell you something.

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Speaker 3: And it's something why I'm so inspired by the men

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Speaker 3: and women in this room. When I was first elected

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Speaker 3: to the Senate in twenty twelve, here's what I told Heidi.

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Speaker 3: I said, sweetheart, if when I die, if my tombstone

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Speaker 3: says Ted played a meaningful role in bringing about school

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Speaker 3: choice to every child in Texas and every child in America,

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Speaker 3: I will die a very very happy man.

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Speaker 1: As before, if you want to hear the rest of

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Speaker 1: this conversation on this topic, you can go back and

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Speaker 1: down the podcast from earlier this week to hear the

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Speaker 1: entire thing. I want to get back to the big

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Speaker 1: story number three of the week you may have missed.

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Speaker 1: I want to ask you about another question that deals

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Speaker 1: with the southern border, and I want to go back

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Speaker 1: to putting your you know, taking the ambassador head Off.

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Speaker 1: Going back to national intelligence, you look at our southern

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Speaker 1: border right now, and it doesn't take a very bright

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Speaker 1: human being to understand that an open border the way

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Speaker 1: it is now is a national security threat.

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Speaker 2: There are more and more people that are saying this.

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Speaker 1: We saw the FBI Director Ray saying that we're at

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Speaker 1: the highest level in his opinion, since nine to eleven

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Speaker 1: for the prospect of an attack in this country.

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Speaker 2: We know that terrorists are coming across the border.

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Speaker 1: Though on the terrorists watch lists that have been caught,

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Speaker 1: these terrorists are not trying to turn themselves into border

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Speaker 1: patrol agents. They're trying to become guidaways. We have no

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Speaker 1: idea how many terrorists have made it into this country

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Speaker 1: undetected so far. But when you look at the warnings now,

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Speaker 1: and you look at what just happened, and you look

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Speaker 1: at the warnings of possibilities of the same type of

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Speaker 1: style attack that we just saw in Israel, and yet

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Speaker 1: we still have an open border and we still have

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Speaker 1: my orcas before Congress, was that yesterday day before saying

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Speaker 1: that no, he doesn't believe we need a border wall.

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Speaker 1: What is your reaction from an intelligence standpoint.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, Ben's good question, because you know, I got to

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Speaker 7: believe that all of the intelligence officials who are collecting

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Speaker 7: raw intelligence see it on a daily basis. They're seeing

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Speaker 7: I mean, how else do we know that someone from

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Speaker 7: the terrorist watch list is crossing the border. It's because

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Speaker 7: of raw intelligence. We're figuring it out. But I think

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Speaker 7: that it's being hidden when they report it. It's not

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Speaker 7: being analyzed and talked about, it's not being put into

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Speaker 7: the president's daily briefing. All of that information is completely

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Speaker 7: being suppressed. And once again we should be asking these

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Speaker 7: questions of Avril Haynes. You know, what are you seeing

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Speaker 7: at the border? What are you hearing at the border?

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Speaker 7: And you know, she's just not getting pushed on it,

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Speaker 7: but it's clearly extremely dangerous. Everybody knows that you're not

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Speaker 7: going to have a country if you have an open border.

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Speaker 2: We all know that.

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Speaker 7: But I find the most outrageous thing is that the

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Speaker 7: media are complicit in this problem, because Democrats would have

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Speaker 7: to face the music if they were hearing from the

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Speaker 7: media in their home states, if they were being pushed

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Speaker 7: and held to account like they used to when I

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Speaker 7: would sit around and watch the news with my dad

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Speaker 7: as a kid. The News was kind of holding both

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Speaker 7: sides to account.

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Speaker 3: Well, Rick, this is a point that we've made a

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Speaker 3: lot on this podcast and that I make in my

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Speaker 3: brand new book, Unwoke, which is that the corruption of

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Speaker 3: the media and Donald Trump, I believe broke the media,

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Speaker 3: he shattered their brains. That has played a critical role

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Speaker 3: in driving today's Democrat party to such extremes and go

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Speaker 3: so crazy left because they never ever, ever get questioned

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Speaker 3: on any of it. So there's no down side to

436
00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:05,560
Speaker 3: giving in to the radical extreme in their party. They

437
00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:08,040
Speaker 3: never fear that they will get a hard question at home,

438
00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:10,080
Speaker 3: they never fear they'll get a bad story at home.

439
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:16,480
Speaker 3: And and so I think the abandonment of any effort

440
00:24:16,560 --> 00:24:21,159
Speaker 3: at journalism by the corporate media has been one of

441
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:24,400
Speaker 3: the most destructive developments in recent years.

442
00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:28,960
Speaker 7: I totally agree, because it's unleashed, right, there's no consequences,

443
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:31,520
Speaker 7: there's no downside, so they get to do and say

444
00:24:31,600 --> 00:24:35,400
Speaker 7: anything they want. As I watch April Haynes, and you know,

445
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:41,399
Speaker 7: she got into office and immediately in order to please Iran,

446
00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:46,080
Speaker 7: one of the first things she did was manipulate past

447
00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:48,960
Speaker 7: intelligence to pretend like it was real, and they went

448
00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:52,000
Speaker 7: after the Saudis and the Kushogi issue all over again.

449
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:55,760
Speaker 7: They literally there was nothing new in that report. It

450
00:24:55,840 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 7: was repackaged to hit the Saudis hard. We had basically

451
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:06,200
Speaker 7: looked at them and tried to make some changes. Uh,

452
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:08,359
Speaker 7: And we're trying to heal that relationship.

453
00:25:08,600 --> 00:25:10,719
Speaker 3: She opened it up or on the verge of signing

454
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:14,600
Speaker 3: the Abraham Acord. Yes, and until Biden screwed that up.

455
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:20,119
Speaker 7: True, and and they I look back now, and it

456
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 7: makes sense to me. The reason they did it is

457
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:26,080
Speaker 7: because they wanted to show the Iranians that somehow that

458
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:29,880
Speaker 7: they were going to play more fair and that they

459
00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:32,520
Speaker 7: were going to be nicer to the Iranians by beating

460
00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:36,240
Speaker 7: up on the Saudis. Right, And then why aren't we

461
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:38,160
Speaker 7: talking about the fact that they took the Houthis off

462
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 7: the terrorist watch list? And the Huthis are the ones

463
00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 7: who just shot down the drone?

464
00:25:42,960 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 1: Why were they taken off that list? To me explain

465
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:46,359
Speaker 1: the politics behind.

466
00:25:46,080 --> 00:25:48,560
Speaker 7: That, Well, I think again, it's a it's a gift

467
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:52,640
Speaker 7: to the Iranians. They're they're trying to please them because

468
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:54,480
Speaker 7: they want to get back and you know, they will

469
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:59,440
Speaker 7: spin that somehow the international sanctions was pressure were pressuring

470
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 7: the Iranians and therefore they were closer to a nuclear

471
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:08,000
Speaker 7: bomb because of the sanctions and the grip that we had.

472
00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:11,480
Speaker 7: And again this is the same strategy that they had

473
00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:15,639
Speaker 7: with Russia. When you go and you see Democrat senators

474
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:19,680
Speaker 7: making the case for dropping the sanctions on Nordstream too,

475
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 7: it is in summary they keep saying, well, we don't

476
00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:26,359
Speaker 7: want to stick it in the eye of the Russians

477
00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:31,960
Speaker 7: this pipeline in US. Sanctioning in it, making it not

478
00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:38,359
Speaker 7: come online is creating problems. So we must therefore let

479
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:43,800
Speaker 7: the pipeline flow through with gas, because things are going

480
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:45,960
Speaker 7: to be better if we don't stick it in the

481
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:46,600
Speaker 7: eye of Putin.

482
00:26:46,680 --> 00:26:53,840
Speaker 3: This is this was appeasement always, always, always fails. It

483
00:26:54,080 --> 00:26:59,240
Speaker 3: invites bullies and tyrants to be aggressive to invade it.

484
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:03,640
Speaker 3: It call war absolutely. I mean Joe Biden inherited peace

485
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:06,000
Speaker 3: and prosperity. We now have the biggest land war in

486
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:08,359
Speaker 3: Europe since World War Two and the biggest war in

487
00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:10,480
Speaker 3: the Middle East of our lifetimes. I mean, I mean

488
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 3: that is and and you know you're talking about the Saudis. Look,

489
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:18,440
Speaker 3: in my view, the dominant foreign policy objective of Joe

490
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 3: Biden and his team has been to re enter an

491
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:25,080
Speaker 3: even worse Iran nuclear deal, and everything in the Middle

492
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:29,200
Speaker 3: East hinges on. Why do they go after the Saudis

493
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:32,440
Speaker 3: so ferociously For the same reason that I am largely

494
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:37,120
Speaker 3: pro Saudi, which is that the Saudis are the most

495
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:42,960
Speaker 3: important regional counterweight other than Israel to Iran. Now, look,

496
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:45,359
Speaker 3: the Saudis have lots of problems, so I describe the

497
00:27:45,359 --> 00:27:49,119
Speaker 3: Saudi's as a problematic ally, but we want them to

498
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 3: be an ally and we want them to be strong

499
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:55,960
Speaker 3: as a counterbalance to Iran. That's precisely why the Biden

500
00:27:56,000 --> 00:28:00,119
Speaker 3: administration wants the Saudis to be weak, because everything is

501
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:06,639
Speaker 3: subservient to getting in another deal with Iran, including in

502
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:10,200
Speaker 3: the middle of this Ukraine War. After Biden's weakness causes

503
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:14,160
Speaker 3: the war in Ukraine, it has now become the ultimate

504
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 3: Democrat virtue signal to wear a Ukrainian flag and commit

505
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:19,840
Speaker 3: that we must be in the war until the end

506
00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:25,520
Speaker 3: of time. And even while they say that, they continue

507
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:30,360
Speaker 3: to flow now roughly one hundred billion dollars into Iran,

508
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:34,439
Speaker 3: much of which goes into Iranian drones. That Iran becomes

509
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:37,439
Speaker 3: the top weapon supplier to Russia and so Biden is

510
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 3: funding both sides of the Ukraine War.

511
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 7: Well, there's no question about that. And this goes back

512
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:46,280
Speaker 7: to what my original point on Iran. It sounds crazy,

513
00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 7: but they trust the Iranians. There's some belief Jake Sullivan.

514
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:55,640
Speaker 7: Maybe it's just a white paper intellectual exercise that if

515
00:28:55,640 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 7: you're nicer to them, somehow they're going to give up

516
00:28:57,800 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 7: a nuclear weapon.

517
00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:00,920
Speaker 2: And they really believe that.

518
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:06,680
Speaker 7: In the NGO community totally supports that, and we call

519
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 7: it a peacement. But they they're trying once again engagement.

520
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:13,120
Speaker 7: And this is one of my problems with the foreign

521
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 7: policy community is that we should be able to try engagement,

522
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:20,440
Speaker 7: try sanctions, try all sorts of things, but we should

523
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 7: quickly evaluate whether it's working or not. We could talk

524
00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:27,000
Speaker 7: all day about Venezuela, because I think that's a failure

525
00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 7: of a policy.

526
00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 3: It is, you know, it's worth also underscoring that the

527
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:38,160
Speaker 3: Biden administration's top Iran diplomat, Rob Malley, who's been fired

528
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 3: and had his security clearance pulled and is nonetheless than

529
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 3: a cushy job at Mi alma Mater at Princeton, which

530
00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 3: is really disgraceful. His inner circle included three individuals who

531
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:57,960
Speaker 3: were Iranian operatives recruited by the Iranian government, reporting directly

532
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 3: to the Iranian Foreign Minister and advancing Iranian policy agendas

533
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:06,800
Speaker 3: within the United States government, within the Biden administration, one

534
00:30:06,840 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 3: of whom, as far as we know, is still a

535
00:30:09,360 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 3: chief of staff in the Department of Defense to this day.

536
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:18,400
Speaker 7: Yeah, and they've been caught asking the Iranian diplomats for

537
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:23,960
Speaker 7: sign off, yes, for speaking engagements. It's really so outrageous,

538
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 7: so treasonous. But once again, you don't see any of

539
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:31,760
Speaker 7: these national security reporters at the New York Times of

540
00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:35,120
Speaker 7: the Washington Post or Politico or anywhere else putting pressure

541
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 7: asking the questions.

542
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:37,320
Speaker 2: They get away with it.

543
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 3: So let me ask you another question. So you were

544
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 3: the Director of National Intelligence under Trump. You were acting

545
00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:50,720
Speaker 3: DNA for how long? It was a short period of time.

546
00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:53,760
Speaker 7: A short period of time supposed to be three months,

547
00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:55,080
Speaker 7: but it was about four and a half.

548
00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 3: So it's four and a half months. It was the

549
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 3: most consequential tenure at DNA that I have seen, and

550
00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:05,000
Speaker 3: you really shook that place up in a very short

551
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:07,400
Speaker 3: time period. And I guess what I would ask is

552
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 3: number one, how did you do that? How did you

553
00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:16,720
Speaker 3: take on the deep state, which, which is real throughout government,

554
00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:20,560
Speaker 3: but especially in the intelligence community, is a persistent problem.

555
00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:25,480
Speaker 3: And and lots of conservatives sometimes feel frustrated and say, well,

556
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:27,560
Speaker 3: you can't take on the deep state. And I think

557
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:32,480
Speaker 3: you managed to do it remarkably during that tenure. And

558
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:35,200
Speaker 3: what I would say as a second part of the

559
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 3: question is what advice would you give to the next

560
00:31:39,760 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 3: Republican Cabinet member coming into office and facing career bureaucrats

561
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:51,280
Speaker 3: that are ideologically and passionately opposed to the next Republican

562
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:53,640
Speaker 3: president and the agenda of the next White House.

563
00:31:54,320 --> 00:31:56,840
Speaker 7: Well, let me take the second part first. I think

564
00:31:57,000 --> 00:31:59,960
Speaker 7: the reality is is you can't hire someone who's life

565
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:03,760
Speaker 7: fleehood is Washington, d C. If you're hiring somebody who

566
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:08,600
Speaker 7: needs a job later in the Washington system, where reporters

567
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 7: go to church with politicians and lobbyists, they live in

568
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:16,680
Speaker 7: the same communities, they're never going to make big, bold

569
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:19,880
Speaker 7: decisions because they'll have the ire of their friends and

570
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 7: their church acquaintances. What I believe that you have to

571
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:29,720
Speaker 7: do is hire people also who really don't care about

572
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:33,280
Speaker 7: their New York Times profile piece, who somehow have the

573
00:32:33,360 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 7: ability to make the right decisions. I've told President Trump

574
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 7: we're going to fix the personnel problem when he's president.

575
00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:44,760
Speaker 7: And the first thing is is to look at every

576
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 7: resume and if the resume has a Washington, d C.

577
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:50,720
Speaker 7: Address on it, throw it away. We can hire people

578
00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:55,480
Speaker 7: from outside of Washington, d C. What happened with me

579
00:32:55,520 --> 00:33:01,120
Speaker 7: at DNI is actually pretty simple. When I came into DNA,

580
00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 7: one of the first things they did is they gave

581
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 7: me four reports that had been done over the last

582
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:12,200
Speaker 7: ten years of how to fix the intelligence system. I

583
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:15,600
Speaker 7: read the reports and I thought, well, a lot of

584
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 7: this makes sense. We've got duplicitous programs, We've got people

585
00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 7: who it's supposed to be a coordinating body, and yet

586
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 7: it's no longer a coordinating body. It's actually a competitive body.

587
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:34,120
Speaker 7: It ballooned to more than two thousand people. It should

588
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:37,520
Speaker 7: be like two hundred people. And so I just started

589
00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:41,360
Speaker 7: sending people back to their home agencies d and I,

590
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:48,000
Speaker 7: the OD and I had become the wasteland. If intelligence

591
00:33:48,000 --> 00:33:50,560
Speaker 7: agency didn't like somebody, rather than fire them, they sent

592
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:53,360
Speaker 7: them over to OD and I, and so I just

593
00:33:53,400 --> 00:33:56,640
Speaker 7: started sending people back and getting rid of every possible

594
00:33:56,640 --> 00:34:02,360
Speaker 7: person that we could freezing hiring this in Germany as

595
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:05,320
Speaker 7: well and forcing people to rethink this.

596
00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:07,120
Speaker 2: You've got to be able to play the system.

597
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 7: But you got to know the system. And I've worked

598
00:34:10,160 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 7: at the State Department, and I knew how the federal

599
00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:16,120
Speaker 7: government works to where you can come in and manipulate

600
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 7: it and start using its own rules against it. I

601
00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:23,360
Speaker 7: do think though, that in order for us to make big,

602
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:26,360
Speaker 7: bold decisions, Congress is going to have to somehow change

603
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:33,240
Speaker 7: the way the labor force is legally allowed to be cut.

604
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 7: As you know, and I'm preaching to the choir here,

605
00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:40,560
Speaker 7: but when we come up with new technologies and we

606
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:45,759
Speaker 7: decide to spend on a different program, by definition, other

607
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:50,239
Speaker 7: things should fall. People should be fired, the program should

608
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:51,720
Speaker 7: be eliminated, and that's not happening.

609
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:55,759
Speaker 1: As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Center

610
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:58,279
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz ben Ferguson with you don't forget to down

611
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:00,920
Speaker 1: with my podcast and you can listen podcast every other

612
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:02,920
Speaker 1: day you're not listening to Verdict or each day when

613
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:05,400
Speaker 1: you listen to Verdict. Afterwards, I'd love to have you

614
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:08,279
Speaker 1: as a listener to again the Ben Ferguson podcasts and

615
00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:10,720
Speaker 1: we will see you back here on Monday morning,