Speaker 1: Welcome.
Speaker 2: It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with
Speaker 2: you and Senator we have got some really important legislation
Speaker 2: that it needs to be talked about that you're working
Speaker 2: on in a bipartisan way. Give people a little bit
Speaker 2: of outdid on that. And also we've got some other
Speaker 2: breaking news we're going to deal with as well.
Speaker 3: Well. That's right.
Speaker 4: So this week I launched major bipartisan legislation focused on
Speaker 4: protecting kids online, and as you know, that's been a
Speaker 4: huge focus of mine for years. But in particular, this
Speaker 4: is focused on AI, artificial intelligence and deep fake technology
Speaker 4: that is being used more and more to exploit children,
Speaker 4: and in particular to create explicit images of teenagers, of women,
Speaker 4: and and and to put it publicly, taking their face
Speaker 4: and melding it with explicit sexual images either pictures or videos,
Speaker 4: and making the public and the victims that are happening
Speaker 4: are growing and growing exponentially. And so I've introduced legislation,
Speaker 4: bipartisan legislation number one, to make it a crime to
Speaker 4: publish deep fake images intimate images of an individual without
Speaker 4: their consent. But number two, and this is really the
Speaker 4: most important part of the legislation to mandate that big
Speaker 4: tech companies take down those images at the request of
Speaker 4: the victim. The name of this bill is to Take
Speaker 4: It Down Act, because right now, when you have a victim,
Speaker 4: and we have victims in Texas, we have teenage girls,
Speaker 4: and many of these these deep fakes target teenage girls.
Speaker 4: These images get posted that their friends at school see them,
Speaker 4: and the big tech platforms will not take down the images,
Speaker 4: they leave them up. And so this legislation would create
Speaker 4: a legal and statutory right for a victim, for a
Speaker 4: victim's parents to say, take this garbage down. It's not right,
Speaker 4: it's not real, it's non consentual, and pull it down
Speaker 4: within forty eight hours. And so that legislation we launched
Speaker 4: launched this week and I'm hopeful we'll get that passed. Secondly, Ben,
Speaker 4: we're going to talk about the polling numbers that are
Speaker 4: coming out, and in particular the enormous surge of support
Speaker 4: that Donald Trump and Republicans are seeing among African American voters.
Speaker 4: And I got to say, this has Democrats freaked out,
Speaker 4: This has the corporate media losing their minds. They're very
Speaker 4: frightened about what this portends. And Finally, we're going to
Speaker 4: talk about major news that did not get a whole
Speaker 4: lot of coverage because it actually reveals the absolute abysmal
Speaker 4: failure of the Biden administration's foreign policy and domestic policy.
Speaker 4: And that is, in the month of May, Russia overtook
Speaker 4: the United States as the gas supplier to Europe. That
Speaker 4: is catastrophic. It's catastrophic for jobs in the state of Texas,
Speaker 4: and it's catastrophic for our national security. But it is
Speaker 4: also ornamous benefit to Vladimir Putin in Russia, and that
Speaker 4: is a gift of Joe Biden and the Democrats. We're
Speaker 4: gonna explain that as well. Yeah, no doubt about it.
Speaker 2: One of the things that so many of you that
Speaker 2: are listening have been a part of, and we want
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Speaker 2: CJ dot org and help the people in Israel that
Speaker 2: support i f CJ dot org. I want to start
Speaker 2: with painting a picture here, especially so people understand just
Speaker 2: how important this bipartisan legislation is. You're working with Amy
Speaker 2: Klobuchar introducing the tools to address known exploitation of innocent people.
Speaker 2: This has become a moneymaker online, by the way, for
Speaker 2: people that want to do this to celebrities. We saw
Speaker 2: that recently happen with Taylor Swift, and it really brought
Speaker 2: to light just how damaging, uh, these deep fakes can
Speaker 2: be and and and and these and this this kind
Speaker 2: of revenge that some people will take on on X's
Speaker 2: and others or people they just want to harm or
Speaker 2: or even just make money off of. But there's also
Speaker 2: I know people personally who have been affected by this
Speaker 2: that are not famous, that are not a celebrity, and
Speaker 2: it has as ruined the reputation. We have seen warnings
Speaker 2: from parents on the issue of suicide with young girls,
Speaker 2: young teens, young boys who have had been exploited in
Speaker 2: this way with things that aren't real, that are fake,
Speaker 2: and they can't get them taken down. They are then
Speaker 2: bullied and it's been tragic and cost many young people
Speaker 2: their lives. And that's why you guys are doing this.
Speaker 4: Well, that's exactly right. And I'll tell you one of
Speaker 4: the major things that brought this issue to my attention.
Speaker 4: What was actually a call we got from a constituent,
Speaker 4: a mom, a family that live in North Texas and
Speaker 4: Alito and her daughter. A fourteen year old girl was targeted,
Speaker 4: targeted by a classmate, a classmate that took her face
Speaker 4: and her image from social media, from Snapchat and other
Speaker 4: social media and used AI use deep fake technology to
Speaker 4: graft her face onto explicit nude images that were not
Speaker 4: her and publicized those to all of her classmates. And
Speaker 4: so she's fourteen years old. This poor girl goes into
Speaker 4: school with all of her classmates believing that they've seen
Speaker 4: explicit sexual images of her and it was a total lie.
Speaker 4: But obviously it traumatized this this this teenage girl significantly
Speaker 4: as any as any young person. Whatder for that matter.
Speaker 4: Most adults would that that that is a horrific experience
Speaker 4: to go through and and listen, there's always been the
Speaker 4: ability for someone to photoshop and you know, put put
Speaker 4: Ben Ferguson's head on Arnold Schwarzenegger's body. And by the way,
Speaker 4: that was you and Connan the barbarian. I was really impressed.
Speaker 3: Ben. You should not punch the camel. I'm gonna sick
Speaker 3: Pete on.
Speaker 5: You.
Speaker 4: Punch you a camel is a bad move. But look,
Speaker 4: if you graft your head onto a different body, it
Speaker 4: was fairly obvious to someone someone watching. What's changed is
Speaker 4: with the deep fake technology, it can now look completely
Speaker 4: real that people can look at it and go do
Speaker 4: I didn't know Ferguson was so ripped and that here's
Speaker 4: an amazing stat Up to ninety five percent of all
Speaker 4: Internet deep fake videos depict non consensual intimate images, up
Speaker 4: to ninety five percent, and the vast majority of them
Speaker 4: target women and girls. And so this is becoming a tool,
Speaker 4: a tool for cyber bullying, a tool for attacking, maybe
Speaker 4: attacking an ex girlfriend or an ex wife or an
Speaker 4: ex partner that you're mad at and using it just
Speaker 4: to smear them and attack them. And so this bill
Speaker 4: I've introduced it along with Amy Klobuchar. Amy klobchar as
Speaker 4: a Democrat, as you know, from Minnesota. It's also co
Speaker 4: sponsored by Cynthia Lummis, who's a Republican from Wyoming, Richard
Speaker 4: Blumenthal who's a Democrat from Connecticut, Shelley Moore Capito is
Speaker 4: a Republican from West Virginia, and Jackie Rosen who's a
Speaker 4: Democrat from Nevada. So we brought together both Republicans and Democrats.
Speaker 4: And the two elements of this are number one, making
Speaker 4: it a crime, making it a felony to publish non
Speaker 4: consensual intimate images without without consent, again against someone's wishes.
Speaker 4: But number two, as I mentioned, and I think this
Speaker 4: is the piece. So there's other bills people have introduced
Speaker 4: that make it a crime to do so, and so
Speaker 4: there are multiple bills and I'm a co sponsor of
Speaker 4: other bills to do that.
Speaker 3: That's a good idea.
Speaker 4: The piece that is not reflected in any other legislation
Speaker 4: I know of that's been filed is the take it
Speaker 4: Down component, which is the obligation on the social media
Speaker 4: company or the big tech company to take the content
Speaker 4: down and so.
Speaker 2: Well, and victims have said this to me, and say
Speaker 2: this to you, is it's one thing that someone does it,
Speaker 2: it's another thing when there's no mechanism to take it
Speaker 2: down when you see it, when it's being used against you.
Speaker 2: We saw this recently with a doctor and nurses and
Speaker 2: they were used and they tried to get it taken down,
Speaker 2: and they couldn't it taken down. Like you just said,
Speaker 2: there's no incentive in essence for these big tech comings
Speaker 2: to even care or notice or respond to you.
Speaker 4: Well, look, that's exactly right. And as we all know,
Speaker 4: this happened to Taylor Swift. So Taylor Swift, you had
Speaker 4: people who took her image and made deep fake, false
Speaker 4: explicit images. And because Taylor Swift is a global superstar,
Speaker 4: she spoke out and big tech took it all down.
Speaker 4: So if you happen to be a global superstar, you
Speaker 4: can get it taken down. But if you're just an
Speaker 4: ordinary kid, you're powerless. And let me tell you a
Speaker 4: story that really illustrates this. At the press conference we
Speaker 4: did this week, we had victims and we had the
Speaker 4: moms of victims who have been targeted by this who
Speaker 4: came and joined us and One of the victims was
Speaker 4: this fourteen year old girl, and I mentioned that her
Speaker 4: mom initially reached out to my office and she's a Texan.
Speaker 4: When I sat down with the mom last week, she
Speaker 4: expressed to me frustration. Last week she said, the images
Speaker 4: are still up. Snapchat has left them up. And she said,
Speaker 4: I've called repeatedly, I've emailed. I've tried to say, take
Speaker 4: down these false images of my daughter. They're horrific, They're wrong,
Speaker 4: and Snapchat basically said, go jump in a lake. She
Speaker 4: got to run around, She couldn't talk to a human being.
Speaker 4: She got referred over and over and over. And they're
Speaker 4: still up. And I'm sitting there in my office and
Speaker 4: I turned to my team and I said, that is garbage.
Speaker 4: And I told my team, I said, I want us
Speaker 4: to get on the phone with Snapchat today. And I
Speaker 4: told my team, if need be, put me on the
Speaker 4: phone with the CEO of Snapchat, and I told the mom,
Speaker 4: we are going to get this taken down within twenty
Speaker 4: four hours. They took the images down now.
Speaker 2: But it took and this is the scary part. It
Speaker 2: took someone getting a hold of you, yes, and then
Speaker 2: having a United States from Texas to then call and
Speaker 2: basically say I want to talk to the CEO to
Speaker 2: get them to respond. The reality is the majority of
Speaker 2: Americans are not going to be able to pull that off.
Speaker 4: And that's exactly lation is important, and it shows it's effortless.
Speaker 4: They could do it instantaneously. They know how to pull
Speaker 4: it down that they're just they're so unaccountable. There's such
Speaker 4: a hubris and arrogance that they don't feel the need
Speaker 4: to respond. So if you're a global superstar, you can
Speaker 4: get it taken down. If you're able to get a
Speaker 4: member of Congress to intervene on your behalf, maybe you
Speaker 4: can get it taken down. But if you're just an
Speaker 4: ordinary teenager in Texas who wakes up one day to
Speaker 4: the friggin' nightmare of walking into eighth grade and every
Speaker 4: kid there is looking at an image on their phone
Speaker 4: that appears to be you doing explicit sexual activity, that
Speaker 4: is an absolute nightmare. And right now, big Tech acts
Speaker 4: with this legislation, I think we're going to get this
Speaker 4: legislation passed. It needs to be passed because you should
Speaker 4: have a right to say, take this damn thing down,
Speaker 4: and take it down now.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about what the big tech world is
Speaker 2: going to respond with, and we've already seen this play.
Speaker 2: They've said, well, look, this is a state issue. The
Speaker 2: states should deal with this, and there's some states that have.
Speaker 2: There's I think over twenty states that have dealt with this.
Speaker 2: But you guys are doing it differently from a federal perspective,
Speaker 2: and that is where there's going to be real teeth
Speaker 2: in the repercussions for those that don't abide by this
Speaker 2: federal law that you guys are working to pass.
Speaker 4: Correct, Correct, and listen. We've talked before about that. That's
Speaker 4: one of the benefits of my role as the ranking
Speaker 4: member on the Senate Committee of Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Speaker 4: The Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over about forty percent of
Speaker 4: the US economy, and it is as the ranking members
Speaker 4: the senior Republican, I'm able to draw legislation like this,
Speaker 4: as you know. You know, the FA Reauthorization Bill that
Speaker 4: was just signing a law a few weeks ago was
Speaker 4: the one hundredth piece of legislation that I've authored and
Speaker 4: passed into law. And from the Commerce Committee, we have
Speaker 4: jurisdiction over big tech and so few things focused the
Speaker 4: mind of an industry more than the government with jurisdiction
Speaker 4: over that industry. And so states are acting, and I'm
Speaker 4: glad in the state of Texas has acted, and that's important.
Speaker 4: But what we're not seeing is the mechanism to require
Speaker 4: that the content being taken down. And actually we modeled
Speaker 4: it after existing federal legislation. When you're dealing with a
Speaker 4: violation of trademarks or copyrights that you have a right.
Speaker 4: You know, if you are Jimmy Hendrix, and by the way,
Speaker 4: if you're Jimmy Hendrix, you're dead, So I hope you're
Speaker 4: not Jimmy Hendrix. But if you're Jimmy Hendrix or the
Speaker 4: estate of Jimmy Hendrix and someone puts your content online,
Speaker 4: you have a right to say, go take it down,
Speaker 4: because that's my content and I own it. And so
Speaker 4: that's an existing legal mechanism in the world of intellectual property,
Speaker 4: and we borrowed that model for taking down non consensual
Speaker 4: intimate images. Now, I'll say earlier or earlier this week,
Speaker 4: I was talking with an editorial board of a major
Speaker 4: paper in Texas and they were asking I think Devil's
Speaker 4: Advocate questions. But one of the things they said is
Speaker 4: they said well, what about the First Amendment. Isn't there
Speaker 4: a First Amendment right to do this? And I said, no, no,
Speaker 4: there's not. And I said a couple of things. I said,
Speaker 4: number one, from the very beginning of the First Amendment,
Speaker 4: it has never covered defamation. It's never covered libel or slander.
Speaker 4: And so when you have false content that depicts someone
Speaker 4: in a way that is defamatory, and intimate and sexual
Speaker 4: images that are not you are by definition defamatory. That
Speaker 4: has always been understood from from the very first days
Speaker 4: the First Amendment was an adopted as not being within
Speaker 4: the protection of the First Amendment. But secondly, the First
Speaker 4: Amendment free speech protections have never covered the intentional infliction
Speaker 4: of emotional distress. And so so if you engage and
Speaker 4: this is this is connected to uh, connected to defamation.
Speaker 4: But but the First Amendment does does not empower you
Speaker 4: to harass and and and and exploit and abuse other people.
Speaker 4: And you can be sued and liable for doing so.
Speaker 4: And it's no defense to say, well, gosh, under the
Speaker 4: First Amendment, I can say anything I want.
Speaker 3: That's not how how our legal system works.
Speaker 4: And and and it's wise, I said, I think we are
Speaker 4: going to get this done. I think we are likely
Speaker 4: to to get this legislation passed, and when we do,
Speaker 4: it is going to be a major protection for for
Speaker 4: for kids, uh and and and for Americans across the
Speaker 4: country in Texas and across the country.
Speaker 1: And that brings me, and that brings me this question.
Speaker 2: And there are a lot of people, especially parents, grandparents
Speaker 2: are going to be listening, and this is something they say, Hey,
Speaker 2: this isn't Republican Democrat. And this is why I think
Speaker 2: you guys are working so together with you and am
Speaker 2: Kovachar on the others. You mentioned this is just an
Speaker 2: issue of right and wrong. So what do they need
Speaker 2: to do to make sure that their voice is heard,
Speaker 2: especially if they're in favor of this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, look, speak out and make clear that this is
Speaker 4: the right thing to do. Look, you and I are
Speaker 4: both parents. If you could imagine the frustration and so
Speaker 4: many parents listen dealing with big tech generally, and as
Speaker 4: you know, this has been a passion of mine for
Speaker 4: a long time. I've authored and supported multiple bills designed
Speaker 4: to protect kids online. So a different bill that I
Speaker 4: have is a bill called Cosma, where I've joined with
Speaker 4: with Brian Shotts, who's a Democrat from Hawaii and Cosma
Speaker 4: would prohibit children under thirteen from being on social media
Speaker 4: at all. So it would ban that across the board,
Speaker 4: and then children under seventeen, it would prohibit big tech
Speaker 4: from engaging in algorithmic boosting, which is the process that
Speaker 4: they push content at teenagers. And as you know, big tech,
Speaker 4: in the pursuit of the dollar, pushes all sorts of
Speaker 4: horrible content at our kids. They push substance abuse and
Speaker 4: alcohol abuse. They pushed self harm, they push suicidal ideation
Speaker 4: that they push body image particularly for young girls, all
Speaker 4: sorts of body image issues. We're seeing dramatically increasing instances
Speaker 4: of depression, of anxiety. You know, the Surgeon General under
Speaker 4: Joe Biden just wrote an op ed in the New
Speaker 4: York Times decrying the risk to mental health from social
Speaker 4: media of young people. The solution, or at least part
Speaker 4: of the solution, I think, is the legislation I have
Speaker 4: with Brian Shotts. It also includes another bill that I've
Speaker 4: authored with John Fetterman, obviously another Democrat, called the Eyes
Speaker 4: on the Board Bill, which says that any school that
Speaker 4: receives federal funds, which is pretty much all of them,
Speaker 4: is required to ban social media from their Wi Fi
Speaker 4: on campus, because kids on campus ought to be paying
Speaker 4: attention to school and not on snapchat, chat or Instagram
Speaker 4: or something else.
Speaker 3: And what I will say on all of these, Ben, is.
Speaker 4: I literally don't know a parent who is not scared,
Speaker 4: who is not frustrated about how do you protect your
Speaker 4: kids online?
Speaker 1: It's shocking. Now, it's scary.
Speaker 2: It's a wild West, and there seems to be no
Speaker 2: real protections for children.
Speaker 4: And look, when you and I were kids, we didn't
Speaker 4: deal with this. Now that this was not a world.
Speaker 4: You know, when I was a teenager, my parents would
Speaker 4: would have me. I'd like, you know, lay on the
Speaker 4: floor on like the landline phone talking to my girlfriend
Speaker 4: till one in the morning. And that was like as
Speaker 4: much as you dealt with You now have these phones
Speaker 4: that are these portals to just about everything evil in
Speaker 4: the world, sexual predators, to bullies, to people just targeting
Speaker 4: our kids. And you know what's interesting, Ben, So in
Speaker 4: the Senate, as you know, look, there are a lot
Speaker 4: of people who are really damn old. I mean a
Speaker 4: lot of my colleagues are their seventies or eighties or
Speaker 4: even nineties. And I got to admit that my colleagues
Speaker 4: that are of that generation are kind of a little
Speaker 4: bit befuddled by this issue. They look at it and frankly,
Speaker 4: you know, their kids weren't dealing with it when their
Speaker 4: kids were children, and their grandkids are now, but they're
Speaker 4: often less connected to it than they would be. And
Speaker 4: what's interesting is the people that I'm joining with, the
Speaker 4: senators that are teaming up with me on this, both
Speaker 4: Democrats and Republicans, almost all of them are either in
Speaker 4: their forties and fifties that they're younger senators, and almost
Speaker 4: all of us have kids that are either teenagers or adolescents.
Speaker 4: And almost to a person, if you're a parent and
Speaker 4: you've got kids who are younger, so you're just starting
Speaker 4: to face this, but I'm sure you're worried about it now,
Speaker 4: and I promise you in five or ten years, you're
Speaker 4: going to be terrified about it, because every parent I
Speaker 4: know is all right.
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Speaker 2: laugh CNN and rarely do I get to say this
Speaker 2: has been left speechless senator after.
Speaker 1: Pulling say that again, Yeah right, CNN.
Speaker 2: Left speechless exactly after polling fines, Donald Trump headed for
Speaker 2: quote unquote his historic performance with black voters. Now, there's
Speaker 2: two parts of this that that we should just bring
Speaker 2: up at the very beginning. One, it is amazing that
Speaker 2: no one's calling out just the straight up racism aspect
Speaker 2: of this. That the Democratic Party and the media just
Speaker 2: assumes that if you're black, you must support the Democratic Party,
Speaker 2: and if you don't, then you're basically, in their mind,
Speaker 2: not a real black person. You're not you're not a
Speaker 2: real black woman. You're not a real black mother. Right,
Speaker 2: you're you're not a real black father. No, No, you're
Speaker 2: you're you're an Uncle Tom. You can't leave the Democratic
Speaker 2: plantation to think for yourself because you must be a Democrat,
Speaker 2: a modern day slave in essence, the Democratic Party. And
Speaker 2: now they can't believe that Donald Trump is headed for
Speaker 2: literally historic performance with African American voters, saying we don't
Speaker 2: like this.
Speaker 1: What's happening under the Biden administration, and.
Speaker 2: Biden's support for from black voters under the age of
Speaker 2: fifty has cratered over the last four years, and they
Speaker 2: don't know what to do with this.
Speaker 4: Now, look that that is exactly right. They are shocked
Speaker 4: that they come in with an assumption that anyone who
Speaker 4: is African American must support the Democrats, as Joe Biden
Speaker 4: famously or infamously said, if you're not supporting me, you
Speaker 4: ain't black, which which is just said, an arrogance that
Speaker 4: I think suffuses, suffuses the current Democrat party, and it's
Speaker 4: worth well, I'll tell you what. Just listen to CNN
Speaker 4: as they're discussing these polling numbers.
Speaker 6: Senior data reporter Harrytton is with us.
Speaker 3: So where does the race stand among African American voters
Speaker 3: right now?
Speaker 6: I keep looking for this to change, to go back
Speaker 6: to a historical norm, and it simply put has not yet.
Speaker 1: So this is the.
Speaker 6: Margin or Biden and Trump among black voters. Compare where
Speaker 6: we were at this point in twenty twenty. Compare where
Speaker 6: we are now. You know, at this point, look at this.
Speaker 6: In twenty twenty, Joe Biden was getting eighty six percent
Speaker 6: of the African American vote. Look at where it is now.
Speaker 6: It's seventy percent. That's a sixteen point drop.
Speaker 1: John. And more than that, it's not just.
Speaker 6: That Joe Biden is losing ground, It's that Donald Trump
Speaker 6: is gaining ground.
Speaker 1: You go from seven percent.
Speaker 6: Single digits at f this point in twenty twenty to
Speaker 6: now twenty one percent. And again, John, I keep looking
Speaker 6: for signs that this is going to go back to normal,
Speaker 6: and I don't see it yet in the polling of anything.
Speaker 1: Right now, we're careening.
Speaker 6: Towards historic performance for Republican presidential candidate, the likes of
Speaker 6: which we have not seen in six decades. And when
Speaker 6: you dig into this, I love this.
Speaker 2: By the way, they're basically saying, we need to go
Speaker 2: back to normal and you guys need to get back
Speaker 2: on the Democratic plantation.
Speaker 1: They're saying that on TV.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Look, it is not subtle who CNN is rooting for.
Speaker 4: They want Joe Biden to win. They want the Democrats
Speaker 4: to win, and they're they're shocked, and they're terrified and
Speaker 4: they are freaking out. And listen, I think this is
Speaker 4: an incredibly important shift. I think we're seeing African American
Speaker 4: voters moving towards Republicans. I think we're seeing Hispanic voters
Speaker 4: moving towards Republicans even faster. And I think that is
Speaker 4: it's part of the broader demographic shift. We're seeing a
Speaker 4: blue collar voters that are moving towards Republicans. We're seeing
Speaker 4: the old conventional wisdom was that Republicans were the party
Speaker 4: of the rich and Democrats were the party of the
Speaker 4: poor and working class. I'm not sure that was ever true,
Speaker 4: but it is especially not true now it has been
Speaker 4: turned on its head. Today, Democrats are the party of
Speaker 4: rich coastal elites. They're the party of big tech billionaires
Speaker 4: and Hollywood moguls and California environmentalist billionaires.
Speaker 3: And I think.
Speaker 4: Republicans, we're the party of truck drivers and steel workers
Speaker 4: and cops and firefighters and waiters and waitresses and everyone
Speaker 4: who works for a living and has callouses on their hands.
Speaker 4: And I think also, so there's an overlap. Listen, if
Speaker 4: you're right now, Let's say you're an Hispanic guy in
Speaker 4: South Texas and you work in the oil fee and
Speaker 4: you drive a pickup truck and you go bird hunting
Speaker 4: on the weekends.
Speaker 3: You're voting Republican.
Speaker 4: Number one, you're seeing the invasion at our southern border
Speaker 4: the Democrats have caused. But number two, the Democrats have
Speaker 4: declared war on your livelihood and way of life. And
Speaker 4: so we're seeing Hispanics moving Republicans significantly. But African Americans.
Speaker 4: We're seeing movement as well, not as rapidly. But listen
Speaker 4: the simple reality. And I'm going to give Donald Trump credit.
Speaker 4: He went to Detroit, he went to an African American church.
Speaker 4: He made the case. He said, listen, for the black community,
Speaker 4: your lives have gotten a lot worse under Joe Biden,
Speaker 4: the Democrats, between inflation, between crime. You look at what
Speaker 4: has happened. And he made the point illegal immigration. Who
Speaker 4: do you think eleven million illegal immigrants are taking jobs
Speaker 4: from They're not taking jobs. Jake Tapper is not losing
Speaker 4: his job to an illegal immigrant. It's actually a point
Speaker 4: you remember I made in twenty sixteen and the presidential
Speaker 4: where I said, if you suddenly had crossing the border
Speaker 4: a bunch of lawyers and bankers and journalists coming here
Speaker 4: to take the job of rich professionals in the media,
Speaker 4: then you would have a crisis. Then they would lose
Speaker 4: their mind. But their view is no, no, no, that's fine
Speaker 4: to bring eleven million people in who take the job
Speaker 4: of low income workers, who take the job of the
Speaker 4: working class, who take the job of a lot of
Speaker 4: legal immigrants in the Hispanic community, who take the jobs
Speaker 4: of African Americans and drive down their wages. And I
Speaker 4: think you're seeing a lot of voters. I mean, the
Speaker 4: numbers among African American voters have more than doubled, and
Speaker 4: that's got Democrats really freaked out.
Speaker 2: But this goes back to a podcast that we did
Speaker 2: with actually your Congressman Wesley Hunt, Yeah, where he was
Speaker 2: on this show, and I would encourage people to go
Speaker 2: back and listen to it. But he discussed that the
Speaker 2: bigotry of low expectations that the Democrats put on African
Speaker 2: Americans and he says, he said at the time, and
Speaker 2: I'm going back to this quote because I wrote it down.
Speaker 1: It's to create victims.
Speaker 2: And he was talking about how the Democratic Party has
Speaker 2: really victimized the African American community, which with low expectations,
Speaker 2: high crime, high poverty, and basically the government getting you
Speaker 2: addicted to poverty.
Speaker 1: And I encourage you to go back and listen to it.
Speaker 2: But that seems to be the case in essence that
Speaker 2: Donald Trump is now making. And Fox, by the way,
Speaker 2: when these new poll numbers came out, I want you
Speaker 2: to hear how they explained it.
Speaker 5: Listen, Al has Biden down nearly thirty percent among black voters.
Speaker 5: Since the twenty twenty election. What's changed? Look at the economy.
Speaker 5: The optimal color is not black, a brown, it's green.
Speaker 5: You hear me say that almost every day. Trump has
Speaker 5: gained fifteen points in that time. Congressman James CLIBURNE of
Speaker 5: South Carolina, downplaying the numbers here, he says, I don't
Speaker 5: think black voters have left the fold. I don't know
Speaker 5: what is going on with the polling taking place here.
Speaker 5: How can the polls get that so wrong? That's going
Speaker 5: on all over the country. Well, not everybody sees it
Speaker 5: that way. Political reports prominent Black Democrats are setting off
Speaker 5: alarm bells over Biden's black voter problems.
Speaker 2: I mean the arrogance there. Just Cleiburn who's saying, I
Speaker 2: don't believe this. I don't see it. I don't think
Speaker 2: this is actually happening. Right, as he said, that's not
Speaker 2: going on all over the country. How can the polls
Speaker 2: get that so wrong? It's it's it's again. I go
Speaker 2: back to this idea and what Wesley Hunt said on
Speaker 2: the show. The Democratic Party believes they own the black
Speaker 2: community and you cannot leave.
Speaker 4: Well, listen, I would encourage listeners go back, as you
Speaker 4: just said, Ben. Listen to the podcast we did with
Speaker 4: Wesley Hunt, and actually that was one of the video
Speaker 4: ones we did, so you can watch it on YouTube,
Speaker 4: but also go back and listen or watch the podcast
Speaker 4: we did with Eric Johnson, the mayor of mayor of Dallas,
Speaker 4: who's African American and he was elected as a Democrat
Speaker 4: mayor of Dallas. He's now become a Republican. Both of
Speaker 4: both with Wesley Hunt and Erick Johnson, both of them
Speaker 4: are are are friends of mine. We have a real
Speaker 4: discussion about how the Democrat agenda has utterly failed the
Speaker 4: African American community and the approach of Democrats is not
Speaker 4: to provide real policy solutions, but it's instead demagogue. Remember
Speaker 4: Joe Biden went I think it was in front of
Speaker 4: the NAACP if I remember correctly where he said they're
Speaker 4: going to put y'all back in chains, which is ridiculous.
Speaker 4: And by the way, if you want to talk about
Speaker 4: about who enslaved African Americans, the answer to that was Democrats.
Speaker 4: It was Democrats who were the party of slavery. It
Speaker 4: was Democrats who founded the Ku Klux Klan. It was
Speaker 4: Democrats who wrote the Jim Crow Laws, and by the way,
Speaker 4: you're on my party. The Republican Party was founded to
Speaker 4: end slavery. That's why our party was founded. The first
Speaker 4: Republican president was Abraham Lincoln. The Democrats record on race
Speaker 4: issues have been horrible, and yet they demagogue and scare people.
Speaker 4: And I do think you're seeing African American voters saying,
Speaker 4: all right enough, already produce results. And by the way,
Speaker 4: I'll give you three issues that I think resonate powerfully
Speaker 4: in the black community. Number one, inflation in the economy,
Speaker 4: and African Americans are getting hammered by that. Number two,
Speaker 4: safety and the combination of the invasion at our southern border,
Speaker 4: which is endangering African Americans and all Americans. But also
Speaker 4: the Democrats undermining the police, undermining pushing for defunding the police,
Speaker 4: for abolishing the police. That has resulted in a lot
Speaker 4: more African Americans being murdered. And the Democrats like to
Speaker 4: say black lives matter, well, their radical policies result in
Speaker 4: more African Americans being victims of murder. But number three
Speaker 4: is school choice, and as you know, school choice is
Speaker 4: the issue. I think it is the most important domestic
Speaker 4: issue in the country. It is the civil rights issue
Speaker 4: of the twenty first century, and today's Democrats are the
Speaker 4: modern day bull Connor. They are standing at the school
Speaker 4: door saying we will not let low income students out.
Speaker 4: I believe every child in Texas and every child in
Speaker 4: America should have a right to access excellent education. And
Speaker 4: it ought to be about education freedom. The student and
Speaker 4: your parents should decide, not bureaucrats who want to keep
Speaker 4: kids trapped.
Speaker 2: Finally, just to expand on this, it's not just African
Speaker 2: American voters that Biden has lost touch with. There is
Speaker 2: now new data with Hispanic voters. For example, another policy
Speaker 2: that Trump has doubled down on, mass deportations is now
Speaker 2: popular in this country. The majority of registered voters favor
Speaker 2: a new national program to deport all undocumented immigrants currently
Speaker 2: living in the US legally, by sixty two to thirty
Speaker 2: eight percent. That is massive. But here's you break that
Speaker 2: number down. Now, a majority of Hispanic center favor mass
Speaker 2: deportations in America as well, fifty three to forty seven.
Speaker 2: And this is another blow to Joe Biden with quote
Speaker 2: minority voters.
Speaker 4: Well, that's right, and it is the fruits of the
Speaker 4: failures of Democrat open border policies that are people are
Speaker 4: seeing the absolute disaster of it.
Speaker 3: And I'll tell you.
Speaker 4: Years ago, I was doing a national interview with Hore
Speaker 4: ramosre Ramos what was of of course, it is the
Speaker 4: national journalist, and he accused me of being and I'm
Speaker 4: going to quote him a trader to my race because
Speaker 4: I believe in securing the border, and his view was,
Speaker 4: as an Hispanic, I'm not allowed to support security into
Speaker 4: the border. He practically yelled on me in national television
Speaker 4: that I'm a trader at my race. And I asked him,
Speaker 4: I said, tell me, what would happen if I went
Speaker 4: illegally to Mexico? What would they do? And he said, oh,
Speaker 4: they deport you. And It's like, well, okay, okay. If
Speaker 4: Mexico is allowed to enforce its laws, why is America?
Speaker 4: Why are our laws less consequential? And you know it
Speaker 4: almost chairs the national news program on Univision. And yet
Speaker 4: the view that he characterizes as a traitor to your
Speaker 4: race is now, as you noted, according to polling number,
Speaker 4: the view of the majority of Hispanics in America.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: I want to move finally to another important story, and
Speaker 2: it deals with Russia, and I want people to think
Speaker 2: about this story through the lens of if we're trying
Speaker 2: to stop Russia, and that's the policy of the Biden
Speaker 2: administration from overtaking Ukraine, and the goal is for Russia
Speaker 2: to lose and to fall back, to retreat within their
Speaker 2: borders and to leave Ukraine alone, and for Ukraine to
Speaker 2: stand in Zelensky to stand, et cetera. Then why are
Speaker 2: you allowing what it we're about to tell you about
Speaker 2: to happen, and that is this Russia overtook the United
Speaker 2: States of America as a gas supplier to Europe in May.
Speaker 2: And this is a Texas issue very much, because this
Speaker 2: is an opportunity to highlight how important it is that
Speaker 2: we support in Texas and around the country our exploration
Speaker 2: of natural gas and oil exporation, liquid natural gas and exports.
Speaker 2: You've been working on this, yet the Democratic Party has
Speaker 2: been trying to shut all that down, which only feeds
Speaker 2: the war chest of Russia and Vladimir Putin to overtake Ukraine.
Speaker 3: That's exactly what's happening. You know.
Speaker 4: The Daily Caller focused on this story. They wrote a
Speaker 4: story that entitled Russian gas sales to Europe exceed US
Speaker 4: supply as Ukraine War rages, and let me just read
Speaker 4: the beginning of it. Russia overtook the US in terms
Speaker 4: of natural gas supplied to Europe in May as the
Speaker 4: war in Ukraine continues. According to Financial Times, once the
Speaker 4: leading supplier of gas to Europe, Russian deliveries fell off
Speaker 4: drastically following the start of the war in Ukraine as
Speaker 4: European states rushed to support the Ukrainian cause. According to
Speaker 4: Financial Times, however, despite the West sanctions and attempts to
Speaker 4: get off Russian fuels, Europe is still buying considerable amounts
Speaker 4: of gas from Russia, while the Biden administration has paused
Speaker 4: approvals for new liquefied natural gas LNG export terminals for
Speaker 4: a further complicating Europe's long term energy supply. If you
Speaker 4: look at what has happened, Joe Biden and the Democrats,
Speaker 4: and by the way, the Democrats in Congress are united
Speaker 4: in favor of this policy. They are helping Russia, they
Speaker 4: are hurting our allies, they are hurting Europe, and they're
Speaker 4: hurting jobs in Texas and hurting jobs in America. And listen,
Speaker 4: the United States is globally the number one producer of
Speaker 4: oil and the number one producer of natural gas in
Speaker 4: the world, and we are and should be the dominant
Speaker 4: energy superpower on the face of the earth. Bizarrely, Joe
Speaker 4: Biden the Democrats have this incoherent view that they hate
Speaker 4: oil and gas produced in America, which by the way,
Speaker 4: produces jobs, raises wages here in the United States, but
Speaker 4: they seemingly love oil and gas produced by our enemies.
Speaker 4: They love Russian oil and gas, they love Iranian oil
Speaker 4: and gas, they love Venezuelan oil and gas. And let
Speaker 4: me say, Ben, if someone presses back and says, come on, Ted,
Speaker 4: that's hyperbolic that they don't love oil and gas produced
Speaker 4: by our enemies. Let me point to a simple data point.
Speaker 4: Let's take for example, Iran. Iran, when Joe Biden became president,
Speaker 4: was selling roughly three hundred thousand barrels of oil a
Speaker 4: day in export. It was the principal funder of their
Speaker 4: theocratic regime, that is, the leading state sponsor of terrorism.
Speaker 4: When Joe Biden came in, he stopped vigorously enforcing the
Speaker 4: oil sanctions. By the way, the Trump administration, at my
Speaker 4: vigorous behest, had been aggressively enforcing those sanctions, which is
Speaker 4: why they had dropped the three hundred thousand barrels a day.
Speaker 4: Today Iran is selling two million barrels a day. The
Speaker 4: Biden administrations policy and every Democrat in Congress supports this
Speaker 4: is allowing the Ayatola to reap. They've made over eighty
Speaker 4: billion dollars because the Democrats won't enforce oil sanctions. Likewise, Russia.
Speaker 4: You know, the Democrats say Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, and yet
Speaker 4: Joe Biden is halting the sale of American natural gas
Speaker 4: to Europe, which means the Europeans are buying them from
Speaker 4: Vladimir Putin. The Democrats are literally funding Russia in the
Speaker 4: war against Ukraine. It is incoherent and it's indefensible.
Speaker 2: When you look at this and you see what this
Speaker 2: administration has done. They've empowered Putin, they have empowered the
Speaker 2: terrorists and Middle East. They have allowed for sanctions to
Speaker 2: go just completely overlooked and just look the other way
Speaker 2: and act like they don't even exist. Exists with Iran,
Speaker 2: and you look at this, this is a national security issue, yes,
Speaker 2: as much as it is an issue of oil and
Speaker 2: gas and all this, by the way, you talk about
Speaker 2: the other issue of safety. Here we have the I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure right now the strategic patroleum reserves in this
Speaker 2: country are at the lowest levels, or close to the
Speaker 2: lowest level they've been in my lifetime.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's forty or fifty years since the strategic petroleum
Speaker 4: reserve has been this low. And the Biden administration is
Speaker 4: talking about releasing a bunch more oil right before the election,
Speaker 4: try to just goose the economy and cause gas prices
Speaker 4: to drop just a little bit because they think voters
Speaker 4: are stupid. It's the same thing they're doing with their
Speaker 4: fake student loan forgiveness. Remember they did that before the
Speaker 4: twenty twenty two election. They knew it was illegal, they
Speaker 4: knew the courts would strike it down, but they thought
Speaker 4: voters were stupid.
Speaker 3: They're doing it again.
Speaker 4: They know what illegal, they know the courts are going
Speaker 4: to strike it down, but they're trying to fool that.
Speaker 4: They do not have a high impression of young people.
Speaker 4: The same thing with releasing oil to lower the gas prices.
Speaker 4: They think people will forget. But let me say two things.
Speaker 4: In terms of Russia passing the United States as the
Speaker 4: supplier of gas to Europe number one when it comes
Speaker 4: to inflation. You know, as you know last Thursday, Donald
Speaker 4: Trump came to d C. I had lunch with him
Speaker 4: along with all the other Senate Republicans. We spent a
Speaker 4: good chunk of the lunch talking about inflation and talking
Speaker 4: about the Americans who are hurt by inflation. And Trump
Speaker 4: rightly focused on that energy is a huge driver of inflation,
Speaker 4: not just in terms of the bills people pay, whether
Speaker 4: it's their their natural gas bill, or their heating oil bill,
Speaker 4: or their their gasoline bill. But energy is a huge
Speaker 4: driver of the cost of everything else. It's a huge
Speaker 4: driver of the cost of food, whether it is the
Speaker 4: the the oil and gas products that go into fertilizers,
Speaker 4: so that drives up the cost of growing food, or
Speaker 4: whether it is the cost of transporting food all of that,
Speaker 4: or whether it's the cost of refrigerating food in the
Speaker 4: grocery store.
Speaker 3: All of that drives up inflation.
Speaker 4: And so one of the things Trump committed to, and
Speaker 4: I will work hand in hand with them, is leading
Speaker 4: the effort we're going to produce energy here at home,
Speaker 4: and that's going to drive inflation way way down. Biden,
Speaker 4: Inflation is hurting Americans across this country. But let me
Speaker 4: say a second point. Ben, the one justification Democrats could
Speaker 4: try to give. Let's say, for halting liquid natural gas exports,
Speaker 4: is well, yes it hurts jobs, Yes it hurts national security.
Speaker 4: Yes it hurts our allies. Yes it benefits our enemies.
Speaker 4: But they might say, we're doing it because of the environment.
Speaker 4: We're doing it because mother Earth. We're doing it because
Speaker 4: the world is going to end in twelve years. As
Speaker 4: an aside, you notice how it's always twelve years. Forty
Speaker 4: years ago. The world was going to end in twelve years.
Speaker 4: Thirty years ago, the world was going to able to
Speaker 4: end in twelve years. Five years ago, the world was
Speaker 4: going to end in twelve years. The twelve years never
Speaker 4: seems to advance. And next year, my prediction is the
Speaker 4: world's going to end in twelve years. Because that's their
Speaker 4: talking point. But let's say you believed it halting LNG
Speaker 4: sales hurts the environment. Why because it's not like the
Speaker 4: Europeans suddenly say, Okay, we're not going to heat our homes,
Speaker 4: we'll just freeze to death in the winter. We don't
Speaker 4: love our kids, so we'll just let them die. No,
Speaker 4: they're going to heat their homes, So what are they
Speaker 4: going to do? They're doing what they're doing right now,
Speaker 4: which is if they don't buy it from America, they
Speaker 4: buy it from Russia, they buy it from Iran, they
Speaker 4: buy it from Venezuela. They buy it from our enemies.
Speaker 4: And every one of them produces oil and natural gas
Speaker 4: much much dirtier than we do. Or secondly, they do
Speaker 4: what Germany has done, they shift from natural gas to
Speaker 4: coal for electricity production. That pollutes much more and emids
Speaker 4: much more carbon dioxide. So this policy is hurting everybody,
Speaker 4: including the environment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I never forget that they're spending your money like crazy,
Speaker 2: sending money to you while also helping fund with these
Speaker 2: policies exactly what Vladimir Putin needs, and that is a
Speaker 2: war chest for his military attack on Ukraine, all because
Speaker 2: we're allowing them to be the big player. Don't forget.
Speaker 2: We do the show Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Hit that
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Speaker 1: You can listen to the weekend.
Speaker 2: Review as well. We do that as well in the center.
Speaker 2: I will see you back here in a couple of days.