Speaker 1: Welcome.
Speaker 2: It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with
Speaker 2: you as always and Senator this is one of those
Speaker 2: shows that I really hope people grab their pins, their
Speaker 2: paper and they're gonna hopefully learn a lot, and it's
Speaker 2: gonna deal with something that we're gonna break down. It's
Speaker 2: the threat of ending the filibuster. Now, people hear that
Speaker 2: word and some of these two like I don't know
Speaker 2: what it means. We're gonna explain it to you and
Speaker 2: what this new threat from Kamala Harris means to this country,
Speaker 2: to the Republic, to democracy in general.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right.
Speaker 3: We are going to explain in this podcast today we
Speaker 3: are less than forty days out from the elections. What
Speaker 3: are the stakes of the election, and in particular, I
Speaker 3: want to talk about what the stakes are if God forbid,
Speaker 3: the Democrats win the White House, the House, and the Senate,
Speaker 3: and we are literally one vote away from ending the
Speaker 3: basic liberties we enjoy in America, from ending our democracy
Speaker 3: as we know. And I'm going to lay out exactly
Speaker 3: why that's the case and how we are one vote
Speaker 3: away from that happening.
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Speaker 2: when people hear the word filibuster, it seems like it's
Speaker 2: like inside baseball. You go back, you're watching an old
Speaker 2: episode of The West Wing, which you and I love,
Speaker 2: but we're political junkies, and a lot of people just
Speaker 2: tune out, like I don't even know what they're talking about.
Speaker 2: So let's break down what the filibuster is, what its
Speaker 2: intent is, why we had it in the first place,
Speaker 2: and then why Kama Harris is threatening to get rid
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 3: Well, the filibuster is actually very simple to understand. It
Speaker 3: is the requirement in the US Senate that in order
Speaker 3: to proceed on major legislation, you need sixty votes. You
Speaker 3: can't just proceed with fifty votes, but you need a
Speaker 3: super majority. You need sixty out of one hundred. There
Speaker 3: are one hundred senators, and almost any major legislation to
Speaker 3: go forward, you've got to get sixty votes. What it
Speaker 3: forces you to do is on most major issues to
Speaker 3: get bipartisan support. It prevents Democrats when they get in office,
Speaker 3: from enacting a radical agenda. Now there's another meaning of
Speaker 3: the word filibuster. It's the one many people think of,
Speaker 3: and they think of the old movie mister Smith goes
Speaker 3: to Washington, and they think of Jimmy Stewart standing on
Speaker 3: the Senate floor and talking and talking and talking. And
Speaker 3: it's true a philibuster. Or you'll recall my first year
Speaker 3: in the Senate, I did a twenty one hour filibuster.
Speaker 3: I stood on the floor of the Senate. I did
Speaker 3: not sit down. I did not leave the floor of
Speaker 3: the Senate. I did not go to the bathroom. That's
Speaker 3: actually the most frequent question I get no, you cannot
Speaker 3: go to the bathroom because you cannot leave the floor
Speaker 3: of the Senate for twenty one hours.
Speaker 2: And a pro tip, right, do not wear cowboy boots.
Speaker 2: I think someone told you that, if I remember the story.
Speaker 3: Correctly, well it was actually if you remember in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 3: Ran Paul earlier in the year had done an eleven
Speaker 3: hour filibuster and he was sharing some thoughts on it,
Speaker 3: and he said, Number one what he said was wear
Speaker 3: comfortable shoes, which was really good advice. I wear cowboy
Speaker 3: boots almost every single day in the Senate. The day
Speaker 3: of my filibuster, I went the day before and bought
Speaker 3: black tennis shoes, and I wore black tennis shoes. And
Speaker 3: I actually have to admit, ben I confessed on the
Speaker 3: floor of the Senate mid filibuster. I apologized to the
Speaker 3: people of Texas that I lacked to wear my boots
Speaker 3: for twenty one hours and so but the tennis shoes
Speaker 3: did save my calves. The other thing Rand said, and
Speaker 3: this was excellent advice. He said he wasn't taken down
Speaker 3: by his legs, he was taken down by his bladder,
Speaker 3: and that was very good advice. And look I didn't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you ever tried to go twenty
Speaker 3: one hours without going to the restroom.
Speaker 1: It's not something long time. That's just a long time.
Speaker 3: So let me give a very simple principle, nothing in,
Speaker 3: nothing out there you go in the entire course of
Speaker 3: twenty one hours. I drank one very small glass of
Speaker 3: water and that that helped.
Speaker 2: But I ask a personal note here, with what point
Speaker 2: were you just looking at the clock? Like when did
Speaker 2: you when was your first time in your head when
Speaker 2: you thought about tapping out?
Speaker 1: How many hours in? I gotta know?
Speaker 3: So actually never, So there was an intense point. So
Speaker 3: I started middle of the afternoon and I went all night,
Speaker 3: and you know, midnight, one, two, and three in the morning.
Speaker 3: About three in the morning, you're a little bit punch drunk,
Speaker 3: and Mike Lee is there, and and he was there,
Speaker 3: and he's a little punch drunk, and you know, we're
Speaker 3: you know, you're just kind of There are points during
Speaker 3: the filibuster where you're just really tired. They had people
Speaker 3: showing up and participating. Now, what you can do in
Speaker 3: a filibuster is you can yield to a question, and
Speaker 3: so one of the ways people will support someone in
Speaker 3: a filibuster is is if I'm standing up there filibustering,
Speaker 3: and let's say Senator Ferguson walks up and can stand
Speaker 3: and say, well, the Senator yield for a question. And
Speaker 3: you can say I will yield for a question without
Speaker 3: yielding the floor. I still have the floor. But what
Speaker 3: someone can do is they can step up and ask
Speaker 3: a thirty minute question and basically give a speech or
Speaker 3: say whatever they want, and then at the end of
Speaker 3: it say wouldn't you agree and hand it back to you.
Speaker 1: So it is a way. Can you sit down?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: For that, okay, you cannot see it.
Speaker 3: You must stay standing. If you sit down, you have
Speaker 3: yielded the floor.
Speaker 2: Now can you lean on the podium for that thirty
Speaker 2: minute question? Not really okay, but it's just a way
Speaker 2: to just not have to talk. Yeah, it lets you
Speaker 2: rest your voice for a little bit. And so throughout
Speaker 2: the twenty one hour filibuster there were multiple people who
Speaker 2: spelled me and jumped in and gave me a period
Speaker 2: to rest my voice. But so the longest filibuster in
Speaker 2: history was strong thermon against the Civil Rights Act, and
Speaker 2: that's twenty four hours. I wanted to break that record. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: when I was filibustering, Harry Reid had already entered into
Speaker 2: the Senate floor via unanimous consent, an agreement that at
Speaker 2: noon the next day we would immediately proceed to the
Speaker 2: next matter.
Speaker 1: So if you.
Speaker 3: Seize the floor and there's no unanimous consent request in place,
Speaker 3: you can keep the four as long as you want.
Speaker 1: I had do you think you could have made it?
Speaker 1: Yea three more hours? Really?
Speaker 3: So I had locked into the Senate rules an endpoint
Speaker 3: of noon the next day, and I didn't have any
Speaker 3: way to extend it. So at like eleven am, I
Speaker 3: actually had my team go and ask Carrie Reid was
Speaker 3: the majority leader, asked carry Reid's team if they would
Speaker 3: allow me to extend it to break strom Thurman's record,
Speaker 3: and Harry they just said no, They just which I actually,
Speaker 3: I really dislike that the record for the longest filibuster
Speaker 3: is is a Democrat philibustering against the civil rights laws.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that needs to be broken, and
Speaker 3: I have no doubt at twenty one hours I easily
Speaker 3: could have gone another three hours that that was not
Speaker 3: an issue at that point.
Speaker 2: Did you now you've got a sharp mind and I'm
Speaker 2: asking the question their bails is thinking right now. So
Speaker 2: I'm going to do this because this is so fun
Speaker 2: for me because I'm warning, did your mind start? And
Speaker 2: I'm just talking about how many hours were you up?
Speaker 2: Did you take a nap before you started?
Speaker 3: No crap, Now, it's just just an all nighter. I
Speaker 3: had different material.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: Look, I was filibustering about all of the problems of
Speaker 3: Obamacare and how it was hurting Texans and hurting Americans.
Speaker 3: And I was walking through so a lot of the filibuster.
Speaker 3: I'm reading people's examples. I'm talking about how individual people
Speaker 3: are are losing their doctor. Remember Obama lied if you
Speaker 3: want to keep your doctor and keep your doctor, Well,
Speaker 3: that was a lie. Many people could not keep their doctor,
Speaker 3: they could not keep their health insurance. And so I
Speaker 3: was walking through all the examples of how this was
Speaker 3: hurting Americans. I was also during that filibuster, I read
Speaker 3: a number of tweets on the Senate floor. I think
Speaker 3: that's the first time in history tweets have been read
Speaker 3: on the Senate floor. And there was a hashtag that
Speaker 3: trended that was make DC Listen, and it was trending
Speaker 3: globally to use.
Speaker 1: A phone or did someone have to print those.
Speaker 3: Offs that they would print them out and hand them
Speaker 3: to me. And I had staff that was giving me
Speaker 3: materials that would come in. So people would send in
Speaker 3: stories and I'm read them on the Senate floor. People
Speaker 3: would send in tweets. This was also the filibuster where
Speaker 3: you may recall I read greet angs at Ham.
Speaker 1: Now do you know why I I had green eggs
Speaker 1: at Ham?
Speaker 2: It was heared girls right at bedtime, the time you
Speaker 2: would normally.
Speaker 3: That that that that's exactly right. So so it was
Speaker 3: the girls were little. I mean that, I mean that
Speaker 3: they were what uh four and six and uh and
Speaker 3: so three and three and five. They weren't younger than that,
Speaker 3: they were three and five.
Speaker 2: So one of the first things you ever showed me,
Speaker 2: if I'm not mistaken, at your house, is a picture
Speaker 2: of them seeing you on TV. Either you show me
Speaker 2: on your phone or I think it's framed in your house, right.
Speaker 3: And it's not in my house, It's it's in my
Speaker 3: office in DC, and so it is okay. Yeah, So
Speaker 3: what happened when they were little? At night when I
Speaker 3: was home, I would read them bedtime stories and it's
Speaker 3: you know, so it's really fun. I'm sure you read
Speaker 3: your kids bedtime stories. It's a great thing to do.
Speaker 3: And so and I tried to do that every night
Speaker 3: when I was at home, read them bedtime stories. And
Speaker 3: so since I was going, uh, we came up as
Speaker 3: actually guy and my on my team that came up
Speaker 3: with the idea of, well, why don't you read them
Speaker 3: a bedtime story during the filibuster?
Speaker 1: And so Green Eggs and Ham.
Speaker 3: When I was a kid Green Eggs and Ham was
Speaker 3: my favorite book as a little kid, and I have
Speaker 3: read it to the girls many many times. And so
Speaker 3: we called home and told him turn on the TV,
Speaker 3: turn on C Span, and I read them Green Eggs
Speaker 3: and Ham because it was their bedtime. And the picture
Speaker 3: you saw as a picture of the two of them,
Speaker 3: they're both in their pajamas. It's it's absolutely adorable. Katherine,
Speaker 3: who's three at the time, they're in matching pajamas, which
Speaker 3: which sadly they're teenagers now so they don't match it anymore,
Speaker 3: but at three and five they matched.
Speaker 1: It was precious.
Speaker 3: Catherine is reaching her hand out and touching the TV
Speaker 3: and it's just like in wonderment that like, wait, daddy
Speaker 3: is reading me Doctor Seuss on TV, and it's just
Speaker 3: the look is is hysterical. And then Caroline, who's my
Speaker 3: eldest whom I adore. She's five, and she's just cracking
Speaker 3: up laughing. And look, Caroline has always been pretty cynical kid,
Speaker 3: and and pretty much nothing I've done in the Senate
Speaker 3: has impressed her. When I when I came home after that,
Speaker 3: she looked at me. She had her arms crossed and
Speaker 3: she went, okay, Dad, that was kind of cool. And
Speaker 3: so it was like, yes, you know, I mean, look,
Speaker 3: scoring points with with your five year old.
Speaker 1: It's hard with a five year old to score points,
Speaker 1: let's be honest.
Speaker 3: So but that's why I read Green Eggs and Ham.
Speaker 3: It's because it was bedtime. But that filibuster is not
Speaker 3: the really consequential one, because at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: a filibuster can delay things for twenty one hours or
Speaker 3: twenty four hours, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: if there's a dedicated majority that moves forward, you can't
Speaker 3: talk long enough to stop it. So what the filibuster
Speaker 3: really is that is of consequence, is how the Senate
Speaker 3: rules operate in order to proceed to take up most
Speaker 3: forms of legislation, you must have sixty votes to do
Speaker 3: what it's called invoking cloture, which is just a fancy
Speaker 3: procedural word for ending debate. Because US senators have unlimited debate,
Speaker 3: you've got to end debate before you have a vote,
Speaker 3: and that takes sixty votes. The requirement of sixty votes
Speaker 3: has stopped most of the dramatic and extreme proposals from
Speaker 3: the Democrats from going into office. And so just this week,
Speaker 3: Kamala Harris was explicit she plans to end the filibuster.
Speaker 3: I want you to listen to her saying that, and
Speaker 3: then we're going to talk about what it means, because
Speaker 3: this is if she follows through on this, it will
Speaker 3: be the end of America as we know it.
Speaker 1: So give a listen to what Kamala said.
Speaker 5: Now to abortion, you've said you want to work with
Speaker 5: Congress to pass a federal bill to codify abortion rights.
Speaker 5: How do you plan to get enough support in Congress
Speaker 5: to restore abortion rights when you'd likely need to pass
Speaker 5: a Senate filibuster, you'd have potential legal hurdles.
Speaker 4: Well, let me first say to all your listeners, you
Speaker 4: must reelect your Senator Tammy Baldwin because we need the
Speaker 4: votes in Congress to do exactly what you are saying,
Speaker 4: and that's true, and it is well within our reach
Speaker 4: to hold on to the majority in the Senate and
Speaker 4: take back the House. And so I would also emphasize
Speaker 4: that while the presidential election is extremely important and dispositive
Speaker 4: of where we go moving forward, it also is about
Speaker 4: what we need to do to hold on to the
Speaker 4: Senate and win seats in the House. That being said,
Speaker 4: I've been very clear I think we should eliminate the
Speaker 4: filibuster for row and we need and get us to
Speaker 4: the point where we fifty one votes would be what
Speaker 4: we need to actually put back in law the protections
Speaker 4: for reproductive freedom and for the ability of every person
Speaker 4: and every woman to make decisions about their own body
Speaker 4: and not have their government tell them what to do.
Speaker 2: So, to be clear, what she's talking about in this
Speaker 2: filibuster is extremely different.
Speaker 3: Well, what she is talking about is ending the reques
Speaker 3: environment that you need sixty votes to move to major legislation,
Speaker 3: allowing the Senate to move forward with just fifty votes,
Speaker 3: and the Vice President, now, let me tell you, and
Speaker 3: she's tried to frame it in terms of abortion, but
Speaker 3: she's not talking about limiting it to that at all.
Speaker 3: She's talking about fundamentally changing the Senate, and that fundamentally
Speaker 3: changes the country. Let me tell you why. So, Look,
Speaker 3: you and I both hope we have a great election
Speaker 3: in November. We hope that Donald Trump is re elected president.
Speaker 3: We hope we have a Republican Senate and we have
Speaker 3: a Republican House. And if we do, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of good things that can happen. We'll do another podcast
Speaker 3: where we talk about the good things that will happen
Speaker 3: with a great election. But let's focus on this podcast
Speaker 3: on the bad things that will happen with a bad election.
Speaker 3: If we wake up the day after election Day and
Speaker 3: Kamala Harris has been elected president and the Democrats have
Speaker 3: won the House, and the Democrats gain one seat in
Speaker 3: the Senate, one here's what happens. So right now, Chuck
Speaker 3: Schumer has forty nine votes to end the filibuster. He
Speaker 3: needs one more. If he goes from forty nine votes
Speaker 3: to fifty votes to end the filibuster, I want to
Speaker 3: tell you what January of twenty twenty five will look like.
Speaker 3: The first thing Chuck Schumer is the majority leader, will
Speaker 3: do in January twenty twenty five is eliminate the filibuster forever.
Speaker 3: And the way that operates, by the way, is doing
Speaker 3: something called the nuclear option, which is he would move
Speaker 3: to proceed to a piece of legislation, and they'd probably
Speaker 3: do it to something something abortion related, because that's been
Speaker 3: the context of the promises that many politicians have made.
Speaker 3: And he would then ask a question of the presiding
Speaker 3: officer a parliamentary inquiry, what is the vote threshold to
Speaker 3: move to proceed to this and the precise officer would say,
Speaker 3: under the Senate rules, it requires sixty votes to proceed
Speaker 3: to this matter. He would then appeal the ruling of
Speaker 3: the chair. That's called the nuclear option. To appeal the
Speaker 3: ruling of the chair, you overturn what the chair has
Speaker 3: just ruled. That it requires sixty votes. In order to
Speaker 3: overturn the ruling of the chair, you only need fifty votes.
Speaker 3: So what he would do is appeal the ruling of
Speaker 3: the chair. You'd have a vote on the Senate floor
Speaker 3: and fifty Democrats would vote to overturn the ruling of
Speaker 3: the chair. The Vice President in this horrible scenario, it's
Speaker 3: Tim Waltz would concur and the result would be number one,
Speaker 3: the ruling of the chair is overturned. But number two,
Speaker 3: that becomes a precedent that binds the Senate, and it
Speaker 3: effectively amends the Senate rules so that it no longer
Speaker 3: requires sixty votes to proceed to legislation, it requires instead fifty.
Speaker 3: That's a bunch of procedural gobbledygook. The important thing to
Speaker 3: know about it is with one additional left wing democrat,
Speaker 3: just one, Chuck Schumer can end the filibuster. If he
Speaker 3: does that, let me tell you the first four bills
Speaker 3: that Chuck Schumer will pass into law now.
Speaker 2: But before we give you that list, I want to
Speaker 2: tell it to you real quick about the International Fellowship
Speaker 2: of Christians and Jews. And with the rise in anti
Speaker 2: Semitism and continued attacks on Israel, it is more important
Speaker 2: than ever to stand with Israel.
Speaker 1: And the Jewish people.
Speaker 2: And as we are approaching the one year mark of
Speaker 2: October the seventh, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews
Speaker 2: is partnering with over two hundred and thirty churches and
Speaker 2: other organizations across America in Flags of Fellowship by planting
Speaker 2: Israeli flags to remember the over one thousand, two hundred victims.
Speaker 2: You can be a part of Flags of Fellowship as well.
Speaker 2: There is a tremendous need for food and basic supplies
Speaker 2: for the evacuated families to survive in communities impacted by
Speaker 2: the ongoing war. You may have seen the Israel has
Speaker 2: been hit over the last few days again, and that's
Speaker 2: why I'm asking one thousand, two hundred of you listening
Speaker 2: to make a gift of one hundred dollars to help
Speaker 2: provide emergency food boxes for the displaced families in Israel.
Speaker 2: Israel needs are support now more than ever, So join
Speaker 2: me in letting the world know that listeners like you
Speaker 2: stand with Israel.
Speaker 1: Call to make your gift right now because the need
Speaker 1: is great. Eight eight eight four eight eight IFCJ. That's
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Speaker 2: You can also give securely online by going to support
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Speaker 2: call them eight to eight for eight eight IFCJ. And
Speaker 2: I say this sincerely, thank you for all of you
Speaker 2: that are getting together and standing with Israel. All right, Senator,
Speaker 2: so you said four major things that would happen. Let's
Speaker 2: roll through those because this is really how I think
Speaker 2: a lot of people should be looking at the importance
Speaker 2: of this election.
Speaker 3: Yes, the first bill Schumer would pass if he ends
Speaker 3: the filibuster is S one. S one is the first
Speaker 3: bill Chuck Schumer introduces in every Senate. S one is
Speaker 3: a federal takeover of all elections in America. S one
Speaker 3: strikes down every election integrity law in the country. It
Speaker 3: strikes down every photo ID law in the country. It
Speaker 3: legalizes ballot harvesting in every state in the Union. It
Speaker 3: automatically registers to vote millions of felons, and it automatically
Speaker 3: registers to vote millions of illegal aliens. S one is
Speaker 3: designed so that Democrats never lose another election. S one
Speaker 3: is designed to massively increase voter fraud on election day.
Speaker 3: That would be the first bill Schumer would pass. He
Speaker 3: has forty nine votes to do that. One more would
Speaker 3: given the vote he needs. The second thing he would
Speaker 3: do is add two new states to the Union. He
Speaker 3: would add d C and he would add Puerto Rico.
Speaker 3: By the way, it does not take a constitutional amendment
Speaker 3: to add a state to the Union. It only takes
Speaker 3: a law that passes Congress and assigned by the President.
Speaker 3: Now that law can be filibustered, but if Schumer ends
Speaker 3: the filibuster, he can pass it with just fifty votes.
Speaker 3: The reason Schumer wants to add d C in Puerto
Speaker 3: Rico is because Schumer and the Democrats believe d C
Speaker 3: and Puerto Rico would elect four new Democrat Senators. That
Speaker 3: means if we started next year with fifty Democrats and
Speaker 3: fifty Republicans in the Senate, we would end next year
Speaker 3: with fifty four Democrats and fifty Republicans in the Senate.
Speaker 3: Schumer would do that so that the Republicans would never
Speaker 3: again win a majority in the United States Senate. That'd
Speaker 3: be the second bill he passes. The third bill he
Speaker 3: would pass would be to grant amnesty and immediate voting
Speaker 3: rights to every single illegal alien in America. Now, we
Speaker 3: don't have a firm count of that, but it is
Speaker 3: upwards of twenty million illegal immigrants. We know eleven and
Speaker 3: a half million have come in under Joe Biden and
Speaker 3: Kamala Harris. We are north of twenty million. If you
Speaker 3: had them all together in Texas, they're two to three
Speaker 3: million illegal immigrants living in Texas now. Ben if they
Speaker 3: do that the instant they do that, Texas turns blue.
Speaker 2: If Chuck Schumer, you say that, and they're gonna say, okay,
Speaker 2: how does constantly term beliefs?
Speaker 3: So explain that, Because if Chuck Schumer and the Democrats
Speaker 3: grant immediate voting rights to every illegal alien in Texas,
Speaker 3: they're two to three million illegal aliens, they would vote
Speaker 3: overwhelmingly Democrat. The Democrats believe this, and the effect of
Speaker 3: that would be every single statewide elected official in Texas
Speaker 3: would lose the next election. The governor would lose, the
Speaker 3: lieutenant governor would lose, the attorney general would lose. We
Speaker 3: have nine Republican Supreme Court justices. All nine would lose.
Speaker 3: Texas would immediately become California. It would not be slow,
Speaker 3: it would not be gradual. It would be instantaneous. With
Speaker 3: three million additional illegal aliens voting in the next election,
Speaker 3: Texas is California. That's number three, and then number four.
Speaker 3: They would pack the United States Supreme Court. They would
Speaker 3: grow the Supreme Court from nine justices to thirteen justices. Now,
Speaker 3: it does not take a constitutional amendment to change the
Speaker 3: number of justices on the court. That can be done
Speaker 3: by statute, but that statute can be filibustered if you
Speaker 3: get rid of the filibuster. The Schuber only needs fifty
Speaker 3: votes plus the vice president. They would add four left
Speaker 3: wing justices to the court. It would go to thirteen justices.
Speaker 3: And I got to tell you something, Ben, Look I
Speaker 3: am you know me well, I'm an optimist. I believe
Speaker 3: in America. I believe the future of America is bright.
Speaker 3: I believe tomorrow is brighter than today. I believe we
Speaker 3: are moving in a good direction. In that scenario, I
Speaker 3: have no answer. I view what I've just described as
Speaker 3: a system ending event. You look through history, great nations rise,
Speaker 3: great nations fall. Yeah, there is I view what I
Speaker 3: just described as the end of the United States of
Speaker 3: America as we know, and there's no way to turn
Speaker 3: that back. And here's the terrifying thing, Ben, I don't
Speaker 3: believe a word of what I just said is hyperbole.
Speaker 3: I don't believe I'm exaggerating anything. Chuck Schumer has forty
Speaker 3: nine votes to do everything I just described. And I
Speaker 3: think most Americans have no idea that we are one
Speaker 3: Senate seat away from that calamity, from that irreversible situation.
Speaker 3: I know that most Texans have no awareness that Texas
Speaker 3: is that close to flipping instantly blue. I think a
Speaker 3: lot of Texans view, well, even if everything goes crazy
Speaker 3: and the rest of the country will be fine, where Texas,
Speaker 3: We're going to be just fine.
Speaker 1: This scenario, you want to ask, what keeps me up
Speaker 1: at night?
Speaker 3: It is the scenario I just described, and we are
Speaker 3: literally one vote away from that happening.
Speaker 2: So let's look at the evidence to really back up
Speaker 2: what you just said. And and you look at the Democrats.
Speaker 2: They have for the last several years really been trying
Speaker 2: to undermine the Supreme Court. They have leaked from the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court the Roe v. Wade decision for example. The
Speaker 2: Democrats have been trying to intimidate Supreme Court justices, and
Speaker 2: we saw just how hostile they allowed people to get
Speaker 2: towards the Supreme Court justice in their homes. I mean
Speaker 2: that the media has been undermining the Supreme Court as
Speaker 2: well and acting like the Supreme Court is this outdated
Speaker 2: body that should be changed. So when you say that
Speaker 2: we're one vote away and this is what would happen,
Speaker 2: they're the ones that have been doing all the things
Speaker 2: you would do for this possible opportunity if it actually arises,
Speaker 2: and you can say yeah, like We've been saying this
Speaker 2: for years.
Speaker 1: We think the Supreme Court should be packed. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: look that that that's correct. And here's the math.
Speaker 3: Today there's a fifty one forty nine Democrat majority in
Speaker 3: the Senate. However, of those fifty one, they're two Democrats,
Speaker 3: Joe Manchin and Kirsten Cinema, who have both voted against
Speaker 3: ending the filibuster. So Chuck Schumer tried to end the filibuster.
Speaker 3: They had a vote on it, and forty nine Democrats
Speaker 3: voted to end the filibuster. Had either Mansion or Cinema flipped,
Speaker 3: they would have had the votes. But the two of
Speaker 3: them are the only things that stopped it. Now, I'm
Speaker 3: going to tell you something we know for an absolute certainty,
Speaker 3: in January of next year, neither Mansion nor Cinema will
Speaker 3: be there.
Speaker 1: Very true.
Speaker 3: Both of them their terms are done, neither of them
Speaker 3: are running for reelection. It's one hundred percent they will
Speaker 3: be gone. That means that Schumer is going into this
Speaker 3: election with forty nine votes to end the filibuster. If
Speaker 3: he picks up one anywhere, he gets to fifty, and
Speaker 3: if Tim Waltz is the vice president, he has everything
Speaker 3: he needs to end the filibuster, and I want to
Speaker 3: make a point here. Also, you notice none of the
Speaker 3: things I listed were economic. I didn't list in the
Speaker 3: calamity in the Parade of Horribles. I didn't list seventy
Speaker 3: percent marginal tax rates. I didn't list massively confiscatory death taxes.
Speaker 3: I didn't list wealth taxes that tax you on unrealized
Speaker 3: capital gains. I didn't list banning fracking and shutting it
Speaker 3: down oil and gas exploration in the United States. I
Speaker 3: didn't list nationalization of mineral rights. Look to be honest,
Speaker 3: the economic stuff, the socialism that follows like night follows day,
Speaker 3: because the Democrat's top priority, the four things I listed
Speaker 3: are all about seizing control and making it permit making
Speaker 3: it impossible that Democrats ever lose. And you know, there's
Speaker 3: something deeply Freudian about how democrats behave because they talk
Speaker 3: incessantly about saving democracy, and yet today's Democrats are profoundly
Speaker 3: anti democratic. Their number one priority is making it so
Speaker 3: the voters can never ever, ever, ever ever vote them
Speaker 3: out of power. And once they're in power, look on
Speaker 3: the economic stuff, the only constraints are just how crazy
Speaker 3: are Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren willing to go. But
Speaker 3: it is look at countries like Venezuela. Once you get
Speaker 3: one party locked in power with no ability to constrain them,
Speaker 3: the country goes downhill incredibly quickly, and I think terrible policies.
Speaker 3: Look policies. I didn't mention gun confiscation, going after the
Speaker 3: Second Amendment, going after liberty, going after the First Amendment.
Speaker 3: They packed the Supreme Court. You're not going to have
Speaker 3: the courts backstopping any of the rights in the Bill
Speaker 3: of Rights. All of that happens as a matter of course.
Speaker 3: Schumer's first focus is power, and if he can lock
Speaker 3: in power forever, that really is the end of our democracy,
Speaker 3: and ironically it's the number one priority of today's Democrats.
Speaker 2: Let me go back to a very consequential vote, and
Speaker 2: I just want to remind people perspective on this filibuster.
Speaker 2: In the sixty plus, when we go back to Obamacare,
Speaker 2: what was the number on Obamacare? How many votes did
Speaker 2: that pass with?
Speaker 1: Do you remember?
Speaker 3: Well, the way they passed to Obamacare was through a
Speaker 3: special budget procedure called budget reconciliation. And budget reconciliation is
Speaker 3: the most important exception to the filibuster. Budget reconciliation comes
Speaker 3: from a law called the Budget Act of nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 3: and it's a special procedure for adopting a budget, and
Speaker 3: under that statute, it is exempt from the filibuster, so
Speaker 3: you can pass it with a majority. That's how they
Speaker 3: did Obamacare, as they did it using budget reconciliation. By
Speaker 3: the way, the Trump tax cuts were passed using budget reconciliation,
Speaker 3: so they were not subject to the filibuster. No Democrat
Speaker 3: voted for the Trump tax cuts. If you look at
Speaker 3: things like the Orwellian named Inflation Reduction Act that was
Speaker 3: passed by the Democrats using budget reconciliation. So there are
Speaker 3: things that can be done that typically involve spending and
Speaker 3: taxing that can be done with just fifty votes. But
Speaker 3: the structural changes to our republic, things like the federal
Speaker 3: takeover of all elections in this country, or adding two
Speaker 3: new states to the Union, or granting immediate voting rights
Speaker 3: to every illegal alien in America, that cannot be done
Speaker 3: through budget reconciliation. Packing the Supreme Court cannot be done
Speaker 3: through budget reconciliation. The statute lays out specific categories of
Speaker 3: what can and can't be done through reconciliation. So the
Speaker 3: sort of simplest way to think about it is spending
Speaker 3: in taxes you can get around the filibuster.
Speaker 1: Everything else as a general matter, you can't see.
Speaker 2: And that's why I want to remind people because we
Speaker 2: were talking about that during the time and it came
Speaker 2: up that you know, the sixty votes and how important
Speaker 2: it is, and it's a hard threshold if you change it,
Speaker 2: and you think about how consequential, for example, Obamacare was
Speaker 2: and during that time when there was almost a super majority,
Speaker 2: and YadA, YadA, YadA, and you go, okay, there's a
Speaker 2: reason why it was set up this way. The entire
Speaker 2: United States of America's history changes if you get rid
Speaker 2: of this.
Speaker 1: Am I wrong? You are absolutely right.
Speaker 3: Look, if Schumer ends the filibuster, no Republican ever wins again.
Speaker 1: It is one party rule.
Speaker 3: And so ask yourself, how has Hugo Chaves and Nicholas
Speaker 3: Maduro been for Venezuela that will be and listen. Some
Speaker 3: people listening might say, oh, come on, that's too much.
Speaker 3: You shouldn't compare Kamala Harris to Nicholas Maduro. Well, if
Speaker 3: their policy is to lock themselves in their party into power,
Speaker 3: forever and to disempower the voters from ever ever ever
Speaker 3: being able to take them out of power. That is
Speaker 3: exactly what Chavez and Maduro have done. That's what Castro
Speaker 3: have done. It is the strategy of dictators and it
Speaker 3: is a shocking thing that today's Democrats no longer believe
Speaker 3: in order to save democracy, they're willing to destroy democracy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's that is really sad.
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Speaker 2: let me ask two questions to wrap this up. There
Speaker 2: may be people that say, look, if there is a
Speaker 2: let's say they get it and they get rid of
Speaker 2: the filibuster, it'll come back in a couple of years.
Speaker 2: Maybe there's like a little bit of an overreaction here.
Speaker 2: I go back in history, and I'm a student of history.
Speaker 2: You are, and you love history as well. When consequential
Speaker 2: things usually happen within our government. A great example is Obamacare.
Speaker 2: Once it's done, it is extremely hard to do it.
Speaker 2: And so if people think, well, maybe they do it
Speaker 2: and we'll get it back, maybe they throw four more
Speaker 2: people on the Supreme Court, but we could get it
Speaker 2: back to nine if we really wanted to how impossible
Speaker 2: would it be to undo some of the things you
Speaker 2: talked about if it actually went into effect because the
Speaker 2: Democrats win in November.
Speaker 3: Well, understand that the four things I listed are all structural,
Speaker 3: so once they happen, you can undo them if you
Speaker 3: have twenty million illegal immigrants voting Democrats win. Texas isn't
Speaker 3: the only state that turns blue. North Carolina turns blue,
Speaker 3: Georgia turns blue, Arizona turns blue. I mean you have
Speaker 3: suddenly swing states that are not swing states anymore. This
Speaker 3: is why the Democrats, they're just focused on power. You
Speaker 3: look at if it's right, DC will elect Democrats for
Speaker 3: all eternity if it becomes a state. Puerto Rico, I
Speaker 3: don't think it's one hundred percent correct that Puerto Rico
Speaker 3: would only elect Democrats. We have seen Republicans elected in
Speaker 3: Puerto Rico, although partisan politics doesn't line up in Puerto
Speaker 3: Rico exactly like it does in the mainland. But if
Speaker 3: the Democrats are correct that that's four new Democrats in
Speaker 3: the Senate. It is very difficult to see a map
Speaker 3: that ever again elects a Republican majority in the Senate.
Speaker 3: So there will never be an opportunity to reverse it.
Speaker 3: And by the way, you can look to what happened
Speaker 3: with the Supreme Court. So if you look at Supreme
Speaker 3: Court nominations, Harry Reid exercised the nuclear option, the same
Speaker 3: method for ending the filibuster for legislation. Harry Reid exercised
Speaker 3: the nuclear option to end the filibuster for judicial nominations,
Speaker 3: and he did so. When he did so, I remember
Speaker 3: I was on the Senate floor, and he did exactly
Speaker 3: what I said. He asked for a ruling from the chair.
Speaker 3: He appealed the ruling of the chair, and all the
Speaker 3: Democrats voted with him, and they overturned it. And so
Speaker 3: to confirm it, Judge, you only need now fifty votes
Speaker 3: plus the Vice President. And I remember being on the
Speaker 3: Senate floor. I turned to Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota,
Speaker 3: and all the Democrats were voting like lemmings to and
Speaker 3: the filibuster. And I told her then, I said, you
Speaker 3: realize the consequence of this. We are going to get
Speaker 3: more justices like Clarence Thomas and antonin Scalia. And that
Speaker 3: is unequivocally correct. And in fact, if you want to
Speaker 3: know why Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett and Neil
Speaker 3: Gorsich were confirmed. It is because the Democrats ended the
Speaker 3: filibuster for judicial nominations. If they hadn't, there is no
Speaker 3: chance on earth Cavanaugh or Amy Cony Barrett gets confirmed
Speaker 3: because it would have taken sixty votes, and there weren't
Speaker 3: going to be sixty votes for any nominee that had
Speaker 3: a proven record of being conservative. So it changed markedly
Speaker 3: the kinds of judges that Trump could nominate. Once the
Speaker 3: change is made procedurally, it never ever ever goes back.
Speaker 2: Final question for you, and that is you look at
Speaker 2: what you just said in this show, and it changes
Speaker 2: my perspective. And I do this with you three days
Speaker 2: a week and talk politics every day because the easy issue,
Speaker 2: right is the economy stupid And that's the number one issue.
Speaker 2: Most voters say number two, they say the border. This
Speaker 2: issue to me, now after we've gone through it is
Speaker 2: even bigger than those two issues when it comes to
Speaker 2: the future of this country.
Speaker 3: Is that a fair take in terms of long term future? Yes,
Speaker 3: it is absolutely a fair take. It is, as I said,
Speaker 3: the single thing that keeps me up at night that
Speaker 3: we are that close to losing our entire country, and
Speaker 3: I think almost everyone is oblivious to it. I look,
Speaker 3: you and I are both tech. How many Texans do
Speaker 3: you know that realize that we could be three months
Speaker 3: away from Texas becoming California becoming a bright blue plate state.
Speaker 3: By the way, if that happens, I'll make a crazy
Speaker 3: prediction that I hope and pray never comes true. If
Speaker 3: the Democrats and the Filibuster, if they grant voting rights
Speaker 3: to every illegal alien in America, every illegal alien in Texas,
Speaker 3: Beto O'Rourke would be the next governor of the state
Speaker 3: of Texas. I don't think that's an exaggeration. I think
Speaker 3: that is actually quite likely.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, it's the reason why Democrats are importing so many
Speaker 2: illegal immigrants right now. They think they can give them
Speaker 2: the right to vote, give them citizenship, and bam, as
Speaker 2: you described it, it changes everything in one day. I
Speaker 2: hope all of you listening will really take this show
Speaker 2: and share it with your friends, put it up on
Speaker 2: social media so others hear it. This is why I
Speaker 2: love doing this show with the Center, because I feel
Speaker 2: like I learned things, and I hope you do as well,
Speaker 2: and we get to talk about these important issues don't
Speaker 2: forget hit that subscribe or auto download button so you
Speaker 2: never miss an episode. We do this Monday, Wednesday, Friday,
Speaker 2: and a week in review recap on Saturdays and on
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Speaker 2: I'll keep you up to date on the news on
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Speaker 2: grab the Ben Ferguson podcast as well and The Senator
Speaker 2: and I will see you back here on Saturday for
Speaker 2: the weekend review.