Speaker 1: Welcome.
Speaker 2: It is Verdict with Ted Cruz week in Review, Ben
Speaker 2: Ferguson with you, and we've got a lot of major
Speaker 2: stories that you may have missed that we talked about
Speaker 2: this week.
Speaker 1: First up, Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's now been busted line to the American people
Speaker 2: along with the intelligence community. They knew when they gave
Speaker 2: him that letter to get him through the President of
Speaker 2: debate claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation
Speaker 2: the entire time they knew they were lying to the
Speaker 2: American people. Will there be accountability for that? We're going
Speaker 2: to talk about it. Also, terrorists are coming across the
Speaker 2: southern border and we're catching them and the Biden administration
Speaker 2: is letting them go. Now we have multiple terrorists that
Speaker 2: are connected with isis K who have been arrested in
Speaker 2: this country. And finally, Donald Trump has closed door meetings
Speaker 2: with House Republicans and the GOP in the Senate, and
Speaker 2: what they have planned next if he wins, is going
Speaker 2: to be huge for this country. We'll break all that
Speaker 2: down for you. It's the weekend Review and it starts
Speaker 2: right now. Oh, let's forget this. Let's remind people why
Speaker 2: that letter was so important. It was before a president
Speaker 2: of debate and they needed to get out of jail free.
Speaker 3: Excuse Yeah, and Biden cited the letter in the debate.
Speaker 3: He relied on it. Here, take a listen.
Speaker 4: Then we're going.
Speaker 5: To have it's true about Russia, Ukraine, China, other countries, Iraq.
Speaker 5: If this is true, then he's a corrupt politician. Right,
Speaker 5: So don't give me the stuff about how you're this
Speaker 5: innocent baby Joe.
Speaker 6: They're calling you a corrupt politician.
Speaker 1: Nobody.
Speaker 6: I want to stay on the issue of race.
Speaker 4: We're talking about from hill, President Trump.
Speaker 7: We're talking about race right now, and I do want
Speaker 7: to stay on the issue of race. President Trump, you
Speaker 7: have to respond to that.
Speaker 1: Please look very cool.
Speaker 7: Are fifty former national intelligence folks who said that what
Speaker 7: this he's accusing me of is a Russian plant.
Speaker 1: They have said that this has all the care.
Speaker 7: Four five former heads of the c i A both
Speaker 7: parties say what he's saying is a bunch of garbage.
Speaker 7: Nobody believes it except them his and his good friend
Speaker 7: Rudy Jolly.
Speaker 5: You mean the laptop is now another Russia Russia Russia hoax?
Speaker 7: You that's exactly what this is, way exactly what.
Speaker 1: This is where he's going. I want to stay on
Speaker 1: the issue of race. You have to be here we
Speaker 1: go again with the Russia. We're going to I will.
Speaker 2: By the way, how the whole time, the moderator's like,
Speaker 2: we got to move on from this. We gotta, we
Speaker 2: gotta move on as fast as we can.
Speaker 3: We don't get about any topic about this. Look, I
Speaker 3: mean the moderators that they might as well wear Biden
Speaker 3: campaign hats uh and that that that is just where
Speaker 3: the press is and they're even worse now. But but
Speaker 3: every word Biden said there was a deliberate lie. And
Speaker 3: by the way, Hunter Biden knew is an absolute fact.
Speaker 3: The laptop was accurate then, which means either Joe Biden
Speaker 3: knew as a fact that it was accurate, or if
Speaker 3: he didn't know, it's because he didn't want to know
Speaker 3: it he didn't ask his son. Those are the two options.
Speaker 3: So he was lying, and he was he was lying
Speaker 3: because it helped him politically. And and the person who
Speaker 3: organized that letter was Tony Blincoln. The reward for doing
Speaker 3: that b Lincoln becomes the US Secretary of State. That's
Speaker 3: how important it was.
Speaker 2: That letter saved him. I mean, let's be queer. I
Speaker 2: don't think he would have been Joe Biden would be
Speaker 2: president now if it wasn't for.
Speaker 3: That letter, and and it was a flat out lie
Speaker 3: and and and you look at the press, all right.
Speaker 3: Take a listen to Leslie Stall when she's interviewing Trump
Speaker 3: and and and she's making very much the same point.
Speaker 6: It's I think it's one of the biggest scandals I've
Speaker 6: ever seen. And you don't cover him. You want to
Speaker 6: talk about it because it can't You want to talk
Speaker 6: about insignificant things. I'm telling you. Of course, it can
Speaker 6: be verified. They found the laptop, Leslie, listen. Verify can't
Speaker 6: be verified the laptop. Well, you said it. Even the
Speaker 6: family hasn't the family on the LEFTO. He's gone into
Speaker 6: hiding for five days. He's gone and die and he's
Speaker 6: prepared for your debate mods taking them five days to prepare.
Speaker 6: I doubt it.
Speaker 8: I did.
Speaker 2: Okay, So let's get back to the name I will.
Speaker 1: So let's let's just get back to the name calling.
Speaker 4: Here.
Speaker 2: We're gonna move on. We can't talk about it because
Speaker 2: I've got an agenda.
Speaker 3: I've got an agenda, and and facts can't get in
Speaker 3: the way. Look, Leslie Stall pretends she's a journalist. That's
Speaker 3: sixty minutes. That's CBS, and what she's saying it can't
Speaker 3: be verified as a flat out live of course it
Speaker 3: could be verified. It's called journalism. But CBS had no
Speaker 3: interest in doing journalism, nor do they now. You know,
Speaker 3: if Leslie.
Speaker 1: Stall excuse she said there, well he's been.
Speaker 3: Well, they're busy, they're preparing for the debate. So so
Speaker 3: you can't expect them to respond to the overwhelming evidence
Speaker 3: of corruption because you know, let's get back to the
Speaker 3: name calling. I'm busy attacking you, Donald Trump. So so
Speaker 3: so don't you bring up anything that that that that
Speaker 3: Biden is doing. And you know, look, if Leslie Stall,
Speaker 3: if any journalist had a shred of integrity, they would
Speaker 3: stand up and say I was totally wrong. What I
Speaker 3: said was false. I didn't do my job, and I apologize.
Speaker 3: She's not going to do that. None of them are.
Speaker 3: And by the way, the people who have signed this letter,
Speaker 3: they're not coming back and admitting, Okay, I was completely
Speaker 3: full of crap and I lied to the American people
Speaker 3: right before an election, and it influenced the election profoundly.
Speaker 2: Not just that James Clapper, Tod Fox it is and
Speaker 2: he stands by the letter of the laptop.
Speaker 3: You know, the Biden intelligence and the Obama intelligence hardcore partisans.
Speaker 3: Facts have no bearing for them. They are so partisan
Speaker 3: they will stick to their lie no matter what.
Speaker 1: Senator.
Speaker 2: One other question I want to ask you about your
Speaker 2: trip before we wrap things up is met with a
Speaker 2: guy by the names Zelenski. Now, what matters the most
Speaker 2: to me was was he wearing a suit or was
Speaker 2: he still wearing the military fatigues.
Speaker 1: I just I got to know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, he was in the military fatigues. That's what
Speaker 3: he wears every day.
Speaker 1: Oh man.
Speaker 2: I mean back in the good old days when he
Speaker 2: was meeting with Trump and you guys, he was wearing
Speaker 2: a suit when he came to ask for money.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Ever since the war started, he's in the fatigues every day,
Speaker 3: and so he was in kind of an olive green sweatshirt.
Speaker 2: So you meet with him and he's got a bunch
Speaker 2: more money, a couple, you know, a couple of hundred
Speaker 2: million dollars more two hundred and something I think is
Speaker 2: is what Biden said during this trip that he was
Speaker 2: going to give to them again. You guys met with him,
Speaker 2: What was it like this time and what did he
Speaker 2: have to say?
Speaker 3: So, well, there was a group of senators that went
Speaker 3: to D Day for the eightieth anniversary of D Day,
Speaker 3: went to Normandy and there were nineteen senators. It was
Speaker 3: a big, big trip, and there were I think fifty
Speaker 3: three House members. So it was a signific get percentage
Speaker 3: of the United States Congress. And so Zelensky sat down
Speaker 3: had a meeting with all the senators and then after
Speaker 3: that he had a meeting with the House members. So
Speaker 3: both sides sat down and met with him. We met
Speaker 3: in in the historic Talleyrand Hotel, which is this beautiful
Speaker 3: hotel in Paris that actually the US government now owns.
Speaker 3: It's no longer a hotel, and it is where the
Speaker 3: Marshall Plan was signed. And so there's a big room
Speaker 3: that has gold, you know, gold on the ceiling. It's
Speaker 3: very elaborate and and it it's a historic, historic meeting space.
Speaker 3: So that's where we met and it was a good discussion. Look,
Speaker 3: Zelensky was there with several of his aides and he
Speaker 3: was describing what is happening, and he was you know,
Speaker 3: he is a a wartime leader and listen there that
Speaker 3: there are some there are some who are big critics
Speaker 3: of Zelensky. I don't put myself in that camp. I
Speaker 3: think he is trying to defend his nation from an invasion,
Speaker 3: and an invasion from Russian Vladimir Putin is a bad guy.
Speaker 3: And so Zelensky is doing what what you would hope
Speaker 3: any leader when his country is at war is doing,
Speaker 3: which is trying to defend his country and trying to
Speaker 3: get help wherever you can get it. And so he's
Speaker 3: coming in and he's asking for American help. Uh and
Speaker 3: and he's laying out his goals in the war. And
Speaker 3: so he laid them out, and then then each of
Speaker 3: us had the opportunity to ask ask questions. My principal
Speaker 3: question I asked him, I said, how would you define victory?
Speaker 3: What does victory mean? And what is the path to
Speaker 3: getting there? Look, I want Russia to lose the difficulty,
Speaker 3: and I got to say that question that I asked.
Speaker 3: He didn't really answer me on how he would define victory.
Speaker 3: He has another context, define victory as as Ukraine winning
Speaker 3: back essentially every square inch of territory that Russia has taken.
Speaker 3: I understand why Zelensky would say that's victory. If if
Speaker 3: you were Zelenski, you'd probably say the same thing. But
Speaker 3: but that doesn't mean it is in the United States's
Speaker 3: interest to demand every square inch of territory be taken back.
Speaker 3: The reason we have an interest in this war is
Speaker 3: that we want we do not want our enemy Russia
Speaker 3: to win and get stronger, uh and and instead we
Speaker 3: want Russia to be weaker so that they're less able
Speaker 3: to pose a threat to America. They're also, by the way,
Speaker 3: very very significant resources, in particular rare earth minerals in
Speaker 3: Ukraine that are critical for the economy going forward. One
Speaker 3: of the reasons Russia's invading Ukraine is is to get
Speaker 3: a stranglehold on those rare earth minerals. We don't want
Speaker 3: putin to have those those those that would not be
Speaker 3: good for America. Uh and and and so. But but
Speaker 3: you know what was really striking Ben is in the
Speaker 3: meeting with Zelensky and we all so had a classified
Speaker 3: meeting with senior leaders of the Pentagon talking about details
Speaker 3: of what exactly is happening in the war, where the
Speaker 3: battles are, where the victories are, where the losses are.
Speaker 3: And it was a very interesting and worthwhile briefing, but
Speaker 3: the question of what does victory mean? This administration is
Speaker 3: not asking that question. No Democrat in that room is
Speaker 3: asking that question. What is victory? And I got to
Speaker 3: say it really, you know, when it struck me is
Speaker 3: we went out to lunch two days ago at a
Speaker 3: little Paris cafe in between meetings, and we're sitting there
Speaker 3: at lunch talking and I was most of the senators
Speaker 3: there at the lunch table were Democrats, and they were
Speaker 3: all talking about Vietnam. And it struck me looking around
Speaker 3: the table that they're all baby boomers, They're all children
Speaker 3: of Vietnam. They all kind of got their start in
Speaker 3: politics protesting against Vietnam. And look for you and me,
Speaker 3: I mean, neither of us were alive when Vietnam was
Speaker 3: a thing. You weren't alive at all. And I was
Speaker 3: like two when the Vietnam War ended, so I have
Speaker 3: no memories. Vietnam did not impact my awareness of the world.
Speaker 3: It was done by the time I was learning about
Speaker 3: the world. And so I got to say a lot
Speaker 3: of the boomers, particularly the Democrat boomers, they took the
Speaker 3: wrong lesson from Vietnam. And I think there are lots
Speaker 3: of lessons to take from Vietnam. But one of the
Speaker 3: central ones is that you should have a clear, defined
Speaker 3: objective that you know what it is that is directly
Speaker 3: related to your national security that is achievable. You should
Speaker 3: have a plan to achieve it, and then you should
Speaker 3: get the hell out. And Vietnam, we just let it
Speaker 3: go on and on and on and be a quagmire
Speaker 3: and just kept pouring money and American soldiers and lives
Speaker 3: into it without a clear objective that we were willing
Speaker 3: to use overwhelming force to accomplish. This administration has no objective.
Speaker 3: They can't articulate one. They're not even asking that question.
Speaker 3: That is infuriating.
Speaker 2: Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation,
Speaker 2: you can go back and listen to the full podcast
Speaker 2: from earlier this week. Now onto story number two center.
Speaker 2: As I said at the beginning, shocking how crazy the
Speaker 2: news cycle is in the last twenty four hours. Hunter
Speaker 2: Biden trials a big story, yes, being found guilty, but
Speaker 2: there is an even bigger story that we have been
Speaker 2: warning about for months on this show, and that is
Speaker 2: perspective terrorists. Those that are on the terrorists watch list,
Speaker 2: hundreds that have been caught a lot of gotaways that
Speaker 2: have not been caught, and even when terrorists are getting caught,
Speaker 2: we're letting them go. This is the second story of
Speaker 2: this happening, and now we have multiple arrests of isis
Speaker 2: K coming across our southern border. Here is how CBS
Speaker 2: News broke the story.
Speaker 8: Last night, eight individuals, all from the Central Asian country
Speaker 8: of Tajikistan, were arrested in Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia.
Speaker 8: They entered the United States this year and in twenty
Speaker 8: twenty three, crossing the Mexican border. They were vetted and
Speaker 8: allowed to remain in the country. CBS News has learned
Speaker 8: further investigation uncovered the men had possible ties to isis K,
Speaker 8: the terror group which claimed responsibility for an attack at
Speaker 8: a Moscow concert hall that killed more than one hundred
Speaker 8: and forty people earlier this year.
Speaker 2: Center that's eight across the entire country, from the extreme
Speaker 2: west coast to the east coast in Philadelphia, and these
Speaker 2: are just the ones that we've caught that had been arrested.
Speaker 2: You've been warning about this open border, and we've had
Speaker 2: the numbers to back it up. Of those on the
Speaker 2: terrorists watch lists and the administration is saying we're willing
Speaker 2: to roll the dice and taste that rip to bring
Speaker 2: in illegal immigrants.
Speaker 3: Well, sadly, that's exactly right. This story is a big
Speaker 3: damn deal. We have eight suspected terrorists with isis K
Speaker 3: who've been arrested. They've been arrested in Los Angeles, in
Speaker 3: New York, and in Philadelphia. Now they came into this
Speaker 3: country illegally at our southern border. The Biden administration apprehended
Speaker 3: them and then they let them go. They let terrorists go.
Speaker 3: And I've been saying for a long time we are
Speaker 3: at a greater risk of a major terrorist attack in
Speaker 3: the United States right now than we have been any
Speaker 3: time since September eleventh, and let's go. So the first
Speaker 3: outlet to break this story was the New York Post,
Speaker 3: and the New York Post announced that these people had
Speaker 3: been arrested, and they were arrested in the coordinated sting
Speaker 3: operation that occurred in three cities, Los Angeles, New York,
Speaker 3: and Philadelphia. Two ICE sources confirmed to the Posts that
Speaker 3: they arrested six people from Tajikistan over the last week
Speaker 3: after the FBI contacted the agency to warn them. Two
Speaker 3: others who were part of the same group, were also
Speaker 3: arrested after being under surveillance for several months by the
Speaker 3: multi agency Joint Terrorism Task Force. Part of the investigation
Speaker 3: featured a wire tap which revealed one of the now
Speaker 3: arrested individuals was talking about bombs. And here's a quote
Speaker 3: quote remember the Boston marathon bombing. I'm afraid something like
Speaker 3: that might happen again or worse, one of the sources
Speaker 3: told the Post. The subject the target was the subject
Speaker 3: to the wire tap was previously released by federal authorities
Speaker 3: at the southern border with a court date next year,
Speaker 3: but it has since emerged that he has potential ties
Speaker 3: to ISIS. And by the way, it is worth noting
Speaker 3: who is isis K. So isis K IS is a
Speaker 3: splinter group, but it is the group that carried out
Speaker 3: the terror attack that that we just saw, the terror
Speaker 3: attack that that happened in the concert hall in Moscow,
Speaker 3: and that was carried out by terrorists from Czech Tajikistan.
Speaker 3: So the same country these folks are from the same
Speaker 3: terror group isis K. And remember what they did. They
Speaker 3: killed one hundred and forty five people in that Moscow
Speaker 3: terror terror attack, And so the Biden administration has an
Speaker 3: open border. It is effectively a red carpet. If you're
Speaker 3: a terrorist, come to America and we, the idiot Democrats,
Speaker 3: will let you in if we catch you. And by
Speaker 3: the way, they catch all these guys because and what
Speaker 3: happens they turn around and let them go. How many
Speaker 3: terrorists are Joe Biden the Democrats gonna let go? And
Speaker 3: by the way, is anyone in the news covering this,
Speaker 3: is anyone asking Joe by this? Is anyone asking any
Speaker 3: other Democrat? You know, I've got fifty one Democrat colleagues.
Speaker 3: How many of them in Capitol Hill are being asked?
Speaker 3: Why does your party keep releasing terrorists into America? And
Speaker 3: why are you endangering the lives of American families across
Speaker 3: this country?
Speaker 2: And this goes back to another story that happened in April,
Speaker 2: and we talked about it here. There was a man
Speaker 2: on the terror watch list that was released also by
Speaker 2: border patrol. With security funding blocked in Congress, this became
Speaker 2: an issue and they said, quote, the case illustrates the
Speaker 2: challenges US officials face and identifying migrants who posed national
Speaker 2: security threats because we're being overrun at the border. NBC
Speaker 2: News at the time, and we played this, and I
Speaker 2: just think it's important to remind them it's not just
Speaker 2: these eight isis K But go back just to April eleventh, NBC.
Speaker 3: Is happening over and over and again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, listen to what they said back in April.
Speaker 4: An alarming development and the border crisis. Among the record
Speaker 4: number of migrants crossing the southern border was a member
Speaker 4: of an Afghan terror organization who was released into the
Speaker 4: US by border agents. According to US officials, forty eight
Speaker 4: year old Mohammed Harwin illegally crossed into California in March
Speaker 4: of last year. His name is on a US terror
Speaker 4: watch list identifying him as a member of HIG, a
Speaker 4: terror group that's killed Americans in Afghanistan.
Speaker 2: I mean center, This is another story that is completely unrelated.
Speaker 2: A month before that, we found out that another man
Speaker 2: on a terrorist watch list was released and they had
Speaker 2: to go grab him up and upstate I think it
Speaker 2: was upstate New York.
Speaker 1: So you have these.
Speaker 2: Headlines that keep happening. We are catching some of these
Speaker 2: people and we're releasing them because we're overrun.
Speaker 3: So and it's worth remembering that the FBI Director Chris
Speaker 3: Ray has repeatedly testified before Congress about possible ISIS terror
Speaker 3: plots being carried out on US soil and the groups
Speaker 3: potential for using the southern border to get into this
Speaker 3: country illegally. And Chris Ray has warned about a possible
Speaker 3: quote coordinated attack that could take place of the United
Speaker 3: States from ISIS case, so they know this risk is there.
Speaker 3: And I want to point out also, you know, we
Speaker 3: had a couple of months ago, we had the impeachment
Speaker 3: of Alejandro Mayorcis, and it came over to the Senate,
Speaker 3: and I and many others on the Republican side wanted
Speaker 3: to lay out the facts that this administration that may
Speaker 3: Orcus's lawless refusal to follow federal federal immigration law, on
Speaker 3: his his releasing of millions and millions and millions, over
Speaker 3: eleven million illegal immigrants that have come into this country,
Speaker 3: and are Joe Biden that a major threat from that
Speaker 3: are the terrorists that they keep releasing over and over
Speaker 3: and over again. And it's worth noting Ben every single
Speaker 3: Democrat voted not to hear the case, to throw it out,
Speaker 3: to dismiss it at the outset. They didn't want to
Speaker 3: hear the evidence of terrorists being released in the country.
Speaker 3: They didn't want to allow the house house managers to
Speaker 3: present that evidence. They didn't want the American people to
Speaker 3: hear that evidence, and we are on borrowed time. It
Speaker 3: is not complicated that if you continue to invite terrorists
Speaker 3: from all over the world, whether Hamas or Hesbel or
Speaker 3: Palestinian Islamic Jahad or isis K or anybody else. If
Speaker 3: you invite terrorists from all over the world come into
Speaker 3: this country, if when you catch them you release them
Speaker 3: and allow them to continue planning terror attacks, it is
Speaker 3: only a matter of time before tragically Americans are going
Speaker 3: to die.
Speaker 2: March the eleventh, Christopher Ray, in his own words before Congress.
Speaker 9: From an FBI perspective, we are seeing a wide array
Speaker 9: of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border. There
Speaker 9: is a particular network that has where some of the
Speaker 9: overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties that
Speaker 9: we're very concerned about. And then we've been spending an
Speaker 9: enormous amount of effort with our partners investigating.
Speaker 2: That's at least his second, if not third warning to Congress.
Speaker 2: I think in the last six to seven month, Senator,
Speaker 2: does this give you guys leverage to now say we've
Speaker 2: got these eight isis k isis k is the same
Speaker 2: group that had the spinoff that had the attack in Russia.
Speaker 2: The FBI director has now warned us a couple of times,
Speaker 2: why are you guys not changing the policy at the
Speaker 2: southern border as president? And clearly you should know now
Speaker 2: from all of these warnings that this policy is a
Speaker 2: disaster and there are multiple terrorists that are already in
Speaker 2: this country that we don't know where they are.
Speaker 3: So frankly, the only leverage we have is what I'm
Speaker 3: doing right now is shining a light and informing the
Speaker 3: American people. Why is that because not a single Democrat
Speaker 3: in the United States Congress cares. Look the Mayorcis impeachment.
Speaker 3: Every single Democrat, all fifty one of them, they voted.
Speaker 3: Note we don't want to hear the evidence. We don't care.
Speaker 3: I sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee. In three and
Speaker 3: a half years of Biden's presidency, we have had zero
Speaker 3: hearings on the risk of terrorism from illegal immigrants coming
Speaker 3: into this country that Joe Biden and the Democrats they
Speaker 3: don't want to hear it, Which means as long as
Speaker 3: Chuck Schumer is the majority leader, and the Democrats have
Speaker 3: control over the Senate. The Senate is not going to
Speaker 3: do anything, and they're forty nine of us. We can
Speaker 3: jump up and down and yell, but forty nine cannot
Speaker 3: out vote fifty one and so fundamentally, the Senate will
Speaker 3: do nothing as a matter of law to hold Joe
Speaker 3: Biden to the Democrats accountable, and the media will do nothing.
Speaker 3: It's why you and I do this podcast because the
Speaker 3: only solution is the ballot box is throwing Joe Biden
Speaker 3: the Democrats out of office. And then listen in January
Speaker 3: in a Trump administration that we're going to secure the
Speaker 3: damn border. But you've got to have a president willing
Speaker 3: to follow the law, and Joe Biden refuses to follow
Speaker 3: the law as before.
Speaker 2: If you want to hear the rest of this conversation
Speaker 2: on this topic, you can go back and dow the
Speaker 2: podcasts from Earthly this week to hear the entire thing.
Speaker 2: I want to get back to the big story number
Speaker 2: three of the week. You may have missed, Senator, this
Speaker 2: was a very interesting moment on Capitol Hill. Donald Trump
Speaker 2: came and met with a lot of the Republican leadership
Speaker 2: a lot of your colleagues were there, and the initial
Speaker 2: reports that came out were saying it was a lot
Speaker 2: of enthusiasm and a lot of excitement from the Republican
Speaker 2: leaders that were there.
Speaker 1: You were in the room, tell us what was happening.
Speaker 3: So I was. So. Trump began the day by meeting
Speaker 3: with the House Republicans. I was not in that meeting.
Speaker 3: Some of the reports of that as that was a
Speaker 3: little bit wild and wooly. That got into all sorts
Speaker 3: of topics. But Trump came by the Senate to have
Speaker 3: lunch with us, and so we met at the National
Speaker 3: Republican Senatorial Committee, which is like three blocks away from
Speaker 3: the Capitol, and Trump joined us for the lunch and
Speaker 3: it started. We're all sitting sitting in a room. It
Speaker 3: started with him talking for about twenty twenty five minutes,
Speaker 3: and then we did a whole series of Q and
Speaker 3: A where probably about a dozen of us asked him
Speaker 3: questions and he commented on those. And then we went
Speaker 3: out and we did a press conference where we stood
Speaker 3: we all stood behind him, and he stood up and
Speaker 3: gave the press conference and listen, I gotta say the
Speaker 3: biggest thing about the lunch that struck me was the
Speaker 3: unity in the room. Look, the media likes to talk
Speaker 3: about divisions and the Republican Party, and there are certainly some,
Speaker 3: but today I didn't see any of that. Today. Everyone
Speaker 3: in the room was focused on winning in November and
Speaker 3: turning the country around. And Trump was in great spirits.
Speaker 3: You know. One of the things I asked him after
Speaker 3: the meeting. I came up and spent a couple of
Speaker 3: minutes talking with him. I just asked, how are you doing.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's been this bs you're dealing with with
Speaker 3: these New York convictions, their utter garbage. But listen, it's
Speaker 3: not fun to be convicted of felonies. I mean it's
Speaker 3: been He's been through hell. And so just as a
Speaker 3: personal level, I was asking him how he was doing,
Speaker 3: and he said he was doing fine, and it seemed
Speaker 3: real and genuine. I mean, he was not down in
Speaker 3: the dumps, He was not discouraged. In fact, was he
Speaker 3: was really in good spirits. He was optimistic, and his
Speaker 3: message to everyone is listen, let's stand together. And he
Speaker 3: emphasized several things. Number one, he emphasized the border, that
Speaker 3: we've got to secure the border, that it is insane
Speaker 3: that we have open borders, that it's an invitation to terrorists,
Speaker 3: and he's exactly right. If and when Trump wins, we
Speaker 3: will secure the border in the first month or two
Speaker 3: of the next Trump administration. And I can say that
Speaker 3: because we know how to do it. We did it before,
Speaker 3: and we'll do it again. He also talked a lot
Speaker 3: about inflation and energy in particular, and he pointed out
Speaker 3: quite rightly that energy is foundational to inflation. One of
Speaker 3: the reasons that prices have gone up on just about
Speaker 3: everything is that energy prices of skyrocketed because the Biden
Speaker 3: administration has been waging war on American energy and we
Speaker 3: are an energy powerhouse where the number one producer of
Speaker 3: oil in the world, where the number one producer of
Speaker 3: natural gas in the world, and the Biden administration is
Speaker 3: doing everything they can to stifle that. And Trump was
Speaker 3: very clear that we're going to reverse that. We will
Speaker 3: reverse that fast early next year, and that's going to
Speaker 3: have a real impact on energy prices and inflation across
Speaker 3: the board. We also talked about national security and in
Speaker 3: particular how insane it is that the Biden administration has
Speaker 3: flowed one hundred billion dollars to Iran and if and
Speaker 3: when Trump wins, that's going to end as well.
Speaker 2: You mentioned a moment ago that there seemed to be
Speaker 2: unity in the room. That's incredibly important for getting legislation passed. Yes,
Speaker 2: and you need that, and we didn't have that type
Speaker 2: of unity. I would argue last time in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: early on, there was some splinters. There was somede divisiveness
Speaker 2: in the House. That's in its side. What you seem
Speaker 2: to be describing this time is if Donald Trump is
Speaker 2: elected and Republicans have control of the House the Senate,
Speaker 2: it's game on from the from January tewod there's not
Speaker 2: going to be you know, let's get to know each
Speaker 2: other time and have some meetings and maybe come over
Speaker 2: the White House like there's an agenda and it's ready
Speaker 2: to go for the American people.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that's exactly right. And let me put
Speaker 3: it in broader context, which is yesterday the Speaker of
Speaker 3: the House, Mike Johnson, came and had lunch with all
Speaker 3: the Republican senators. And by the way, that almost never happens.
Speaker 3: When Paul Ryan was speaker, he didn't do that. When
Speaker 3: John Bayner was speaker, he didn't do that. When Kevin
Speaker 3: McCarthy was speaker. He didn't do that. Mike Johnson has
Speaker 3: done that this multiple times. This is either the third
Speaker 3: or fourth time he's come and had lunch with all
Speaker 3: the Senate Republicans. I think that's great. He was talking
Speaker 3: at lunch yesterday. He said, you know, it's amazing that
Speaker 3: the media treats it as a news story that the
Speaker 3: House and Senator talking to each other. And the reason
Speaker 3: he came over and talked to us is is he said,
Speaker 3: he's focused on his end, very much on developing the
Speaker 3: agenda and the plans to hit the ground running if
Speaker 3: and when we win in November, if we come in
Speaker 3: to January of next year with a Republican president, a
Speaker 3: Republican Senate, Republican House, we got an enormous amount to accomplish,
Speaker 3: and the Speaker, to his credit, is very focused on
Speaker 3: the first one hundred days. What can we accomplish, what
Speaker 3: can we do to change the path of the country.
Speaker 3: I encouraged him to dig in on that. In fact,
Speaker 3: I shared with a speaker and with everyone else in
Speaker 3: the room. You know a lot of the senators that
Speaker 3: are there now were not there back in twenty seventeen
Speaker 3: when Trump first became president.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 3: The Speaker said, look, when Trump first became president, he
Speaker 3: was a freshman, he was brand new in the Congress,
Speaker 3: and he was amazed that the Congress was not prepared
Speaker 3: with the legislative agenda from day one. And he pointed
Speaker 3: out that he thought a lot of Republicans were surprised
Speaker 3: that Trump won. They were expecting Hillary to win, and
Speaker 3: so when the administration came in, they weren't ready for primetime.
Speaker 3: They didn't know what to do. In this instance, I'm
Speaker 3: very glad the Speaker is trying to think proactively. And
Speaker 3: I described I described something that I did back in
Speaker 3: the summer of twenty eighteen. So summer of twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: we did a lunch with all the Senate Republicans and
Speaker 3: I prepared a PowerPoint. It was about fifty pages long,
Speaker 3: and I spoke to my colleagues probably the better part
Speaker 3: of an hour, and the title of the PowerPoint was
Speaker 3: carpe dim And what I did in the PowerPoint is
Speaker 3: I looked in the past, in previous instances when one
Speaker 3: party controlled the White House, the House, and the Senate.
Speaker 3: It happens pretty rarely. When the Democrats do it, they
Speaker 3: fundamentally transformed the country. So in the last century, the
Speaker 3: first time they did it, they passed the New Deal.
Speaker 3: The second time they did it, they passed the Great Society.
Speaker 3: The third time they did it, they passed Obamacare and
Speaker 3: Dodd Frank And now for the last two years we've
Speaker 3: seen they've spent us into an absolute inflation and recession home.
Speaker 3: And on the other hand, Republicans, when we have unified control,
Speaker 3: we tend to do small and piddling things. So what
Speaker 3: I argued in the PowerPoint is at the time I
Speaker 3: presented it was August of twenty eighteen, I said, listen,
Speaker 3: any rational political observer recognizes that there's a very real
Speaker 3: chance that we will lose at least one House of
Speaker 3: Congress in November. And I said to my colleagues, particularly
Speaker 3: the guys who were the sophomores, who were the people
Speaker 3: who had been elected two years earlier, And I said,
Speaker 3: look for you, guys, we have one hundred and eighty
Speaker 3: three days till the next Congress. For many of you,
Speaker 3: if we do not pass things now, you will never
Speaker 3: again have another chance to pass anything into law. And
Speaker 3: so I put together a spreadsheet. It was about fifty
Speaker 3: different bills all of the bills had been written by
Speaker 3: different Republican senators. Some I had written, but most of
Speaker 3: them were my colleagues. And all of the bills were
Speaker 3: bills that had a reasonable prospect of garnering fifty one votes.
Speaker 3: They weren't fringe things that would get ten or twelve votes.
Speaker 3: They were all things that would easily get forty five
Speaker 3: Republicans and that had a real shot at getting fifty.
Speaker 3: And what I argued is, I said, listen, this is
Speaker 3: going to sound radical to you, Ben, we should do something,
Speaker 3: we should not do nothing. Amazingly enough, that argument proved unpersuasive.
Speaker 3: Mitch McConnell said, well, so the principal avenue that if
Speaker 3: you look, the biggest legislative victory of the Trump years
Speaker 3: was the twenty seventeen tax cuts. We pass that using
Speaker 3: what's called budget reconciliation. Budget reconciliation is a process under
Speaker 3: a bill called the Budget Act in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 3: The budget piece is not terribly consequential. What's consequential is,
Speaker 3: under the terms of the statute, you have an up
Speaker 3: down vote at fifty votes and it can't be filibustered.
Speaker 3: So it's one of the most important exceptions to the
Speaker 3: filibuster we could have. If you look at the Democrats,
Speaker 3: they did three budget reconciliations. It's how they passed almost
Speaker 3: all of their agenda that put us in this hole.
Speaker 3: When the Republicans had the majority, we did only one
Speaker 3: budget reconciliation. We did not do a single one in
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen, which, frankly, Ben is indefensible, and so I
Speaker 3: made the case of the Speaker and my colleagues. Let's
Speaker 3: not make that mistake again. Let's hit the ground running
Speaker 3: as always.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Verdict with Sentner, Ted Cruz,
Speaker 2: Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to deal with my podcast,
Speaker 2: and you can listen to my podcast every other day
Speaker 2: you're not listening to Verdict or each day when you
Speaker 2: listen to Verdict. Afterwards, I'd love to have you as
Speaker 2: a listener to again the Ben Ferguson podcasts, and we
Speaker 2: will see you back here on Monday morning.