Speaker 1: Welcome.
Speaker 2: It is Verdict with Ted Cruz and the Weekend Review
Speaker 2: Ben Ferguson with you, and these are the stories that
Speaker 2: you may have missed that we talked about earlier this week.
Speaker 2: Let's start off with what's happening in Michigan. In a
Speaker 2: shocking move, Democrats are looking to buy votes by giving
Speaker 2: home owners cash thousands and thousands of dollars a year
Speaker 2: if they will house illegal immigrants.
Speaker 1: How is this legal? We're gonna break that down for you.
Speaker 2: Plus, Mexico's president decides to come out and do a
Speaker 2: sit down interview with sixty minutes.
Speaker 1: What he said was pretty clear. You gotta well bribe
Speaker 1: him and then he.
Speaker 2: Might help you stop the flow of illegal drugs and
Speaker 2: illegal immigrants coming across the border. But if you don't
Speaker 2: give him billions of dollars every single year, he says,
Speaker 2: the problem is gonna continue and Americans will die. And finally,
Speaker 2: you may have seen the world get rocked when a
Speaker 2: Democratic mayor it's the Republican party in a major city
Speaker 2: in America, So why did he do it? We're going
Speaker 2: to have the story of Eric Johnson, the mayor of Dallas.
Speaker 2: It is Verdict. We can review and it starts right now.
Speaker 2: There's new poll numbers out over the weekend that show
Speaker 2: that Donald Trump, who lost Michigan to Joe Biden the
Speaker 2: last election he won it in sixteen, Trump now tops
Speaker 2: Biden by eight points in a Michigan poll.
Speaker 1: That is significant.
Speaker 2: The President's approval rating in Michigan is at thirty five percent.
Speaker 2: So what has Michigan been doing? I guess it's time
Speaker 2: to buy votes. They're now offering homeowners a five hundred
Speaker 2: dollars a month stipend if they'll welcome what they describe
Speaker 2: as newcomers. What that is is an illegal immigrant into
Speaker 2: their home, and the state of Michigan will subsidize you
Speaker 2: five hundred dollars a sayzen a month up to a year.
Speaker 2: So basically six grand is what they're willing to give
Speaker 2: you to house someone.
Speaker 3: Now, well, that's right. The program that Michigan is rolled out,
Speaker 3: it's called the Newcomer Rental Subsidy and it's designed to
Speaker 3: provide shelter outside of state shelters for so called refugees,
Speaker 3: and refugees is simply the term they use for illegal aliens.
Speaker 3: It lasts for up to a year, and according to Michigan,
Speaker 3: those eligible include refugees, assylees, special immigration visa holders, victims
Speaker 3: of human trafficking, Cuban entrance, Haitian entrance, Afghan nationals, and
Speaker 3: Ukrainian humanitarian paroleese. So get this, the state of Michigan
Speaker 3: is quite literally paying individuals, paying homeowners to house illegal
Speaker 3: immigrants in their house. And by the way, it's not
Speaker 3: just them. Others who qualify include individuals who arrived under
Speaker 3: the family Reunification parole process for El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras,
Speaker 3: and Columbia who in Michigan. Michigan taxpayer says, you know
Speaker 3: what I really want. I want my taxes going to
Speaker 3: paying my neighbor to put an illegal immigrant that Joe
Speaker 3: Biden led into this country into his house and we'll
Speaker 3: send them five hundred bucks a month to keep the
Speaker 3: illegal immigrant there. That is how nutty today's Democrat party
Speaker 3: is on this issue.
Speaker 2: Well, and my question is that I'm not joking when
Speaker 2: I say this. Is this not a form of just
Speaker 2: buying votes? If you're talking, each person is now worth
Speaker 2: six thousand dollars to a Michigan a homeowner to house them.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if there's a you know, a
Speaker 2: cap that you can only have one or maybe you
Speaker 2: have two. What if it's a family. I'm assuming we're
Speaker 2: not going to break up the family. So is if
Speaker 2: you have a family of four and you house them
Speaker 2: or are we now talking that there were twenty four
Speaker 2: thousand dollars to your bottom line? How is that not
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party basically buying vote, saying, hey, you better
Speaker 2: keep us in office, you better vote for us, because
Speaker 2: we're we're twenty four ran a year to you right now.
Speaker 3: Well, and look, I'll read you a quote from Amy Hovey,
Speaker 3: who is the executive director of the Michigan State Housing
Speaker 3: Development Authority, who said the program would help migrants quote
Speaker 3: build a new life here and she said, quote this
Speaker 3: program is truly a win win as it addresses the
Speaker 3: most pressing barrier to refugee resettlement by meeting housing needs
Speaker 3: while setting up families for success with increased employment and opportunities.
Speaker 3: That's the position of the Democrat Party. You too, can
Speaker 3: have an illegal alien in your house.
Speaker 2: Do they care about the cost of housing going up?
Speaker 2: I mean, is that a conversation you guys have in DC?
Speaker 2: Is that a question that anyone asked of the Democrats
Speaker 2: when you have this many illegal immigrants coming into America.
Speaker 2: And I'll go back to what you were talking about
Speaker 2: the very beginning and these votes. It's not just the
Speaker 2: three hundred and twenty thousand legal immigrants that we have
Speaker 2: flown into this country at the taxpayer's dours paying for
Speaker 2: these charter flights. But if you look at how many
Speaker 2: illegal immigrants have come across the southern border since Joe
Speaker 2: Biden was torn in, it's at least at minimum seven
Speaker 2: point two million illegal immigrants have entered the US under
Speaker 2: the Biden administration, which is greater than the population of
Speaker 2: thirty six individual states in America. And now we see
Speaker 2: housing cost issues, rent cost issues, and we see inflationary issues,
Speaker 2: and we see that we're seeing wages that are being
Speaker 2: undermined by illegal immigrants. If Michigan does this and other
Speaker 2: states go along with it, which other states are as well,
Speaker 2: they're saying the same thing, housing illegal immigrant will give
Speaker 2: you cash. Is that not the definition of undermining hard
Speaker 2: working American families who are just struggling to survive.
Speaker 3: Well, look, you got to understand the modern democrat view.
Speaker 3: As they can spend in unlimited money, trillions of dollars,
Speaker 3: they can print unlimited money, and.
Speaker 4: If they want more, they'll just tax the hell out
Speaker 4: of you.
Speaker 3: And it's a giant Ponzi scheme where they print money,
Speaker 3: they raise taxes, they spend more money, Inflation goes up,
Speaker 3: so they print more money. And when it comes to
Speaker 3: if the voters don't like it, don't worry. They'll change
Speaker 3: the composition of the voters. They'll let ten point four
Speaker 3: million people into this country illegally. Those guys the Democrats
Speaker 3: are confident will vote Democrat, and so they stay in power.
Speaker 3: That is, you know, there used to be a time
Speaker 3: when you could have a common sense discussion. There are
Speaker 3: no longer any Democrats in Washington and Congress who engage
Speaker 3: in common sense. I mean, look, we saw these votes,
Speaker 3: every single one of them lined up over and over
Speaker 3: and over again. Illegal immigrant who beat up a cop, Nope,
Speaker 3: don't deport him, like fuck, tell me what world does
Speaker 3: a sane or rational person believe that?
Speaker 4: And yet every Senate Democrat that's their view.
Speaker 2: Last question on this when they vote lockstep like that,
Speaker 2: is that pre planned with a conversation they have behind
Speaker 2: closed doors and they say, hey, no matter what they
Speaker 2: throw out, you know, no matter how sane it is.
Speaker 2: You do not agree with the Republicans on anything, full stop.
Speaker 3: It's why it took all night. They knew what we
Speaker 3: were gonna have votes on. We had put forward these
Speaker 3: early mements we want votes on, and we spent the
Speaker 3: entire day Friday just doing nothing because Schumer was talking
Speaker 3: to his Democrats saying, okay, here are the votes. We
Speaker 3: need every Democrat to stand lock arms and just vote
Speaker 3: against all of them.
Speaker 4: And he had John.
Speaker 2: Walk me through Friday that day because people don't understand.
Speaker 2: I think how dysfunctional Schumer can make things when they're
Speaker 2: trying to get things done like this. So you guys
Speaker 2: wake up Friday. You know you had to stay over
Speaker 2: another day.
Speaker 4: But we didn't.
Speaker 3: We actually thought we would be done Friday afternoon. In
Speaker 3: a normal world we would have been. We stayed there
Speaker 3: the whole night.
Speaker 2: So tell me, like, you guys, wake up Friday morning,
Speaker 2: do you have a vote schedule yet?
Speaker 1: And then he changed ours.
Speaker 2: He just say, hey, wake up and stand by until
Speaker 2: I tell you when you get to vote.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's much more of the latter, and the way
Speaker 3: the Senate works worked. It's a strange place. So the
Speaker 3: majority leader only has one real power under the rules,
Speaker 3: and it's what's called priority of recognition, which means he
Speaker 3: is recognized first if he's on the floor, and he
Speaker 3: uses that to control the Senate calendar, to fill the
Speaker 3: pending business with whatever he wants so that no one
Speaker 3: else can can put anything else on the Senate calendar.
Speaker 3: So you spend a lot of time just sitting around waiting.
Speaker 3: It's a very weird thing. I'll tell you When I
Speaker 3: was new in the Senate, and I'd be a typical
Speaker 3: Senate week. You will fly to DC Monday mornings, and
Speaker 3: you'll fly home Thursday nights, and then typically I'm home
Speaker 3: in Houston Thursday nights. Friday, I travel somewhere around Texas.
Speaker 3: Sometimes Saturday I travel around Texas. I try to spend
Speaker 3: Sunday's home with a family, and then Monday morning I
Speaker 3: fly back to DC. That's the usual rhythm of things.
Speaker 3: But on Thursdays I would call home. Back when Republicans
Speaker 3: had the majority, I would call home and my daughters
Speaker 3: would ask, well, are you coming home tonight, And I'd say,
Speaker 3: I don't know. It depends what Mitch schedules. When he
Speaker 3: schedules votes, and we have no idea. My daughters used
Speaker 3: to say, is that mean man going to let you
Speaker 3: come home? And by that mean man, they meant Mitch McConnell.
Speaker 3: Because you literally have no control over your schedule. It
Speaker 3: is it is utterly incoherent. So Friday we spent all
Speaker 3: day we were waiting to see if a deal would
Speaker 3: be reached. We were waiting to see if a deal
Speaker 3: would be reached, and throughout the afternoon and evening it
Speaker 3: looked like there was going to be no deal. At
Speaker 3: midnight Friday night, funding for the federal government was set
Speaker 3: to expire and we were going to have a shutdown.
Speaker 3: So as the evening went on, I was on the
Speaker 3: Senate floor for a while it looked like there was
Speaker 3: no deal. I went with some senators, grab some food,
Speaker 3: watch some basketball.
Speaker 4: And actually I had gone home.
Speaker 3: I changed, changed out of my suit, was getting ready
Speaker 3: to go to bed, and then after eleven PM I
Speaker 3: got the note, note we're getting ready to vote, and
Speaker 3: we he began voting at eleven fifty six pm, so
Speaker 3: I had to get dressed again head back to the capital.
Speaker 3: Everyone did, and we voted from eleven fifty six pm
Speaker 3: until two oh three am is when it was over.
Speaker 3: But that's just kind of how hectic things are center.
Speaker 1: Lastly, this story broke.
Speaker 2: It's not being covered, of course by the media, because
Speaker 2: why would they want to tell you about this. But
Speaker 2: apparently now the Biden administration has decided we don't want
Speaker 2: to offend extremists jeehatis extremists, and they want to change
Speaker 2: the way you talk about actual terrorists.
Speaker 4: Well, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3: This is a story that The Daily Wire broke, and
Speaker 3: it's a memo that was sent by the diversity, equity
Speaker 3: and inclusion officials at the Biden administration's top intelligence agency,
Speaker 3: and it warns personnel not to use quote problematic phrases
Speaker 3: when discussing Islamic terrorism and foreign adversary such as China.
Speaker 3: The unclassified newsletter, and it's from the Office of the
Speaker 3: Director of National Intelligence, is called Quote the Dive, and
Speaker 3: it was obtained through Freedom Information Act requests by The
Speaker 3: Daily Wire. It argues in its cover story that the
Speaker 3: intelligence community needs to focus on quote changing terminology related
Speaker 3: to counter terrorism because quote words matter. Here's more quote.
Speaker 3: The article is about one of our goals disentangling Islam
Speaker 3: from words and phrases used to discuss terrorism and extreme violence.
Speaker 3: It goes on to declare that trying to remove quote
Speaker 3: certain phrases to identify international terrorism threats that are hurtful
Speaker 3: to Muslim Americans. Some of the problematic phrases include, but
Speaker 3: are not limited to, Salafi Jihadist, Jahadist, Islamic extremists, Suni
Speaker 3: Shia extremism, and radical Islamist.
Speaker 1: Only in America.
Speaker 2: Could you have a memo that someone took this much
Speaker 2: time and waste his time under the Biden administration to
Speaker 2: make people that are directly associated with terrorism feel better
Speaker 2: about I guess what not being a terrorist.
Speaker 3: Well, and sadly, this is continuing the path of putting
Speaker 3: politics above national security that we saw when Barack Obama
Speaker 3: was president. When Barack Obama was president, I actually chaired
Speaker 3: a hearing that examined the purge that the Obama White
Speaker 3: House insisted DHS do to remove from their records any
Speaker 3: reference to radical Islamic terrorism or Islam or Muslis or
Speaker 3: Muslim or Jahadist. And they erased over eight hundred times.
Speaker 3: They erased those words from their records. And by the way,
Speaker 3: the word purge, that's not me adding that word to it.
Speaker 3: That was the word that was used by the political
Speaker 3: official in the Obama White House in the instructions to
Speaker 3: DHS purge your files. Well, these same radicals are now
Speaker 3: running Biden's intelligence agencies. And this article is part of
Speaker 3: a newsletter that is created by ODNI that the Office
Speaker 3: of the Director of National Intelligence, Intelligence Community Diversity, Equity
Speaker 3: and Inclusion and Accessibility Office, and it was sent to
Speaker 3: personnel throughout the intelligence community, which includes the CIA, the NSSA,
Speaker 3: the FBI, the DHS, and the Department of Justice. All
Speaker 3: of them are being told the fact that Palestinian Islamic
Speaker 3: Jihad was one of the two terrorist groups that carried
Speaker 3: out October seventh. October seventh was carried out by Hamas
Speaker 3: and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Apparently that is an inconvenient fact
Speaker 3: to the Language commissars, who I presume want to edit
Speaker 3: out the word Islamic from the name of the terrorist group,
Speaker 3: Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Look, they're not murdering Jews because they
Speaker 3: dislike their hairstyle. They are murdering Jews because they have
Speaker 3: a perverted view of radical Islam that mandates Jahad and
Speaker 3: countering Jahadism, countering the radical religious extremism behind it. It
Speaker 3: is only possible if you acknowledge it exists, and so
Speaker 3: on one level you say, Okay, this sort of language
Speaker 3: political correctness stuff, it's silly, But in this instance it's
Speaker 3: much worse than silly. It is dangerous because if the
Speaker 3: intelligence community has no idea, refuses to acknowledge what is
Speaker 3: actually happening, it means they will be utterly ineffective in
Speaker 3: fighting against it and keeping Americans in our allies safe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is one of those moments when you say,
Speaker 2: what are they focusing their time on right now? Is
Speaker 2: it political correctness or is it actually keeping us safe
Speaker 2: from actual jihadis teraris that they're afraid of offending by
Speaker 2: using the name. It reminds me a lot of the
Speaker 2: President saying that the a individual that killed an innocent
Speaker 2: young girl in Georgia was an illegal immigrant and then
Speaker 2: apologized to the illegal immigrants for calling that individual who
Speaker 2: is the alleged murderer an illegal immigrant.
Speaker 1: It's like, what are you focusing on? What is important
Speaker 1: to you?
Speaker 2: Protecting innocent people, protecting people from terrors tax or is
Speaker 2: it this pr PC wokeness? Is that matter more than
Speaker 2: actually fighting the bad guys?
Speaker 3: Well, unfortunately, based on things like their late night votes,
Speaker 3: where every Democrat voted against the American citizens voted in
Speaker 3: favor of Illy Laliens voted in favor of sending billions
Speaker 3: of dollars to Iran. It's not difficult to figure out
Speaker 3: where their priorities lie right now.
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, Senata,
Speaker 2: I want to move to another issue. There was an
Speaker 2: issue a interview, I should say that happened on Sunday.
Speaker 2: A lot of people don't watch sixty minutes anymore, but
Speaker 2: the Mexican president did do a sit down interview, and
Speaker 2: it actually took a couple days until anyone noticed it,
Speaker 2: which was I think the most unique part of this.
Speaker 2: First off, and then what he said it was diplomatic blackmail,
Speaker 2: as it's been described by many as the Mexican president
Speaker 2: said that the flow of illegal immigrants will continue unless
Speaker 2: the US meets some of his new demands.
Speaker 1: In an interview, he was.
Speaker 2: Asked about the flow of not just illegals, but also
Speaker 2: drugs coming across the southern border. And here's what the
Speaker 2: President of Mexico said about America.
Speaker 5: He thinks you have the power in this moment to
Speaker 5: slow down migration.
Speaker 6: Do you plan to I'll just say we do and
Speaker 6: want to continue doing it, but we do want for
Speaker 6: the root causes to be attended to, for them to
Speaker 6: be seriously looked at.
Speaker 5: With the ear of the White House, President Lopez Obrador
Speaker 5: proposed his fix that the United States commit twenty billion
Speaker 5: dollars a year to poor countries in Latin America and
Speaker 5: the Caribbean, lift sanctions on Venezuela and the Cuban embargo,
Speaker 5: and legalize millions of law abiding Mexicans living in the US.
Speaker 5: If they don't do the things that you've said need
Speaker 5: to be done, then what.
Speaker 7: Bomb the flow of migrants?
Speaker 5: And if you will continue your critics have said what
Speaker 5: you're doing or what you're asking for to help secure
Speaker 5: the borders, diplomatic blackmail?
Speaker 1: What do you say?
Speaker 8: I'm speaking frankly.
Speaker 7: We have to say things as they are.
Speaker 2: Senator, There's like five different things I want to discuss
Speaker 2: with you. Let's just start with number one. This is
Speaker 2: diplomatic blackmail. Twenty billion a year. And if you give
Speaker 2: me twenty billion a year and then you allow all
Speaker 2: the illegal emergateants to become citizens in your country they
Speaker 2: are there. Then you give what we want with Cuba
Speaker 2: in Venezuela, and then if you keep giving us twenty
Speaker 2: billion a year, we might stop the flow of fedneal
Speaker 2: coming across.
Speaker 1: The southern border.
Speaker 2: This is extortion on a level that I can't even
Speaker 2: get my head around.
Speaker 3: From Mexico, well, look, of course it is. And the
Speaker 3: Mexican president everyone calls him Amlo. Amlo is short for
Speaker 3: his full name, which is Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. He
Speaker 3: is a thug. He is a hard leftist. He's been
Speaker 3: a hard leftist his entire life. He has been vocally
Speaker 3: and visually viciously anti American his entire life. That has
Speaker 3: been That's how he got elected. That was his campaign
Speaker 3: standing up against the Yankee imperialists to the north. That's
Speaker 3: who he is. And by the way, notice his demands.
Speaker 3: His demands are in the embargo against Cuba and in
Speaker 3: the sanctions against Venezuela. He's standing with communist dictators in
Speaker 3: Cuba and Venezuela. That's who he aligns himself with is
Speaker 3: the hard left anti American communist axis through Latin America.
Speaker 3: That's who Amlo is, so it's not surprising. That's who
Speaker 3: he's always been. Now that being said, is he trying
Speaker 3: to extort America?
Speaker 4: Of course he is.
Speaker 3: The threat that the flow of migrants will continue unless
Speaker 3: you pay us off twenty billion a year to Latin
Speaker 3: American countries. It's kind of like, you know, a mob enforcer.
Speaker 3: Nice little bar you got here, shame if something happened
Speaker 3: to it, boy, a fire would do real damage. He's saying, well,
Speaker 3: we'll keep these migrants coming unless you pay us off.
Speaker 3: Just you know, a bag of cash each week would
Speaker 3: be good. I'll send my guys to pick it up. Yes,
Speaker 3: that's exactly what he's trying to do.
Speaker 2: But it's almost like, is there a difference between the
Speaker 2: President of Mexico and the cartels of Mexico because the
Speaker 2: way he was talking seems like the same type of
Speaker 2: conversation you'd have with the narcos.
Speaker 3: Well, and by the way, Amlo, one of the problems
Speaker 3: is his government has very much been in bed with
Speaker 3: the narcos and it is devastating the nation of Mexico.
Speaker 3: The people of Mexico are facing murders, they're facing kidnapping,
Speaker 3: They're that they're they're facing enormous violence from these multi
Speaker 3: billion dollar global criminal cartels that that Amlo has facilitated.
Speaker 3: But I'm gonna say something that's gonna surprise you. I'm
Speaker 3: actually not terribly upset that AMLO's doing that.
Speaker 4: That's who he is. That's you know, it's it's like.
Speaker 2: Brand is what you're saying. It's not like he's betraying us.
Speaker 2: This is who he is.
Speaker 3: He is an anti American leftist who is gonna behave
Speaker 3: like a thug. He is just like Nicholas Maduro. He
Speaker 3: is just like the Chavista's in Venezuela. He's just like
Speaker 3: the Gasadistas, uh, Fidel Castro at all of their prodigy
Speaker 3: in Cuba.
Speaker 4: And and that's who he is.
Speaker 3: But but you know why I'm actually not all that
Speaker 3: worked up about what he said. Why is that because
Speaker 3: Joe Biden wants him to say this. Understand, this crisis
Speaker 3: at our southern border is not because Amlo, like his comment,
Speaker 3: you could stop it, couldn't you, And and well, yes,
Speaker 3: but pass money for us to stop it. Understand, Joe
Speaker 3: Biden doesn't want it to stop. Chuck Schumer doesn't want
Speaker 3: it to stop. The Democrats, don't want it to stop.
Speaker 3: The ten point four million illegal immigrants. They're glad of them.
Speaker 3: They want more. They want ten million to become twenty million,
Speaker 3: to become thirty million. Those they view as future Democrat voters.
Speaker 3: And so Amlow listen, you know, do you get mad
Speaker 3: when when when a little like yapping dog comes and
Speaker 3: yaps at the door. No, AMLO's gonna scream. So what
Speaker 3: if we had a president? I'll tell you, when Donald
Speaker 3: Trump was president, Amlo was terrified of him, utterly and
Speaker 3: completely terrified him. By the way, Amlo actually did a
Speaker 3: pretty good job when Trump was president because he was
Speaker 3: so afraid. Let's pause and ask how did we secure
Speaker 3: the border under Trump?
Speaker 4: What happened?
Speaker 3: And I'll tell you what happened. Trump threatened Amlo, and
Speaker 3: what he said is you either help us secure the
Speaker 3: border or I'm going to oppose I Donald J. Trump,
Speaker 3: I am going to impose a twenty five percent tariff
Speaker 3: on everything coming out of Mexico. And Amlow ran screaming.
Speaker 3: It terrified him because he believed Trump would do it.
Speaker 3: It wasn't an empty threat, and he was terrified. And
Speaker 3: what happened. Number one, Amlo put six thousand troops on
Speaker 3: Mexico's southern border. You know, remember the shape of Mexico.
Speaker 3: Mexico is much more narrow at the south than it
Speaker 3: is at the north. At the north, Mexico has a
Speaker 3: two thousand mile border with the United States. At the south,
Speaker 3: their border is much much smaller. Amlo put six thousand
Speaker 3: soldiers on their southern border to stop the flow, and critically,
Speaker 3: because of Trump's threat, Amlo agreed to the Remain in
Speaker 3: Mexico Agreement. What was remained in Mexico. It said, anyone
Speaker 3: that crossed illegally into Mexico, and most of the people
Speaker 3: coming at that time and now were not Mexicans. They
Speaker 3: were from elsewhere. At the time they were mostly from
Speaker 3: Central and South America, remain in Mexico. Said they would
Speaker 3: stay in Mexico. These illegal immigrants would remain in Mexico
Speaker 3: while their US asylum case was proceeding. In what happened
Speaker 3: when suddenly people paid cartels thousands of dollars, traveled all
Speaker 3: the way north and discovered, Holy Cow, I don't get
Speaker 3: to come into America. I'm stuck in Mexico. I can't
Speaker 3: cross over. The numbers plummeted to the lowest rate in
Speaker 3: forty five years. So when Amlo says this, by the way,
Speaker 3: the incidant Joe Biden became president of the number of skyrocketed
Speaker 3: because Biden is weak, Amlo isn't afraid of him. Amelou
Speaker 3: isn't scared at all. And actually everything Amlo is threatening
Speaker 3: Joe Biden and every other Democrat in Congress wants him
Speaker 3: to do that.
Speaker 2: It's almost like he's empowered to say this because he's
Speaker 2: actually backed up by the American policy.
Speaker 1: That's what you're telling us, that that is.
Speaker 3: Exactly right, that he's doing what what they know he'll do.
Speaker 3: He's look, look, Marxist, gonna Marxist, that's who they are.
Speaker 3: He is going to engage in anti American rhetoric. The
Speaker 3: only thing he responds to his strength. This Biden White
Speaker 3: House is not capable of strength against leftist, against enemies
Speaker 3: of America. They're only capable of strength against our friends.
Speaker 3: They're only capable of undermining allies of America. But because
Speaker 3: Amlo is a leftist, just like in Cuba, they're communists,
Speaker 3: just like in Venezuela their communists, just like like Lula
Speaker 3: in Brazil is an anti American leftist, just like Petro
Speaker 3: in Colombia is an anti American leftist. Every anti American leftist.
Speaker 3: This administration gives everything they want and usually they want
Speaker 3: to give them money. So when actually AMLO's saying lift
Speaker 3: the Cuban embargo, you know what Biden White House wants
Speaker 3: to lift the Cuban in bargo. When AMLO says in
Speaker 3: the sanctions against Venezuela, you know what Biden wants to
Speaker 3: end the sanctions against Venezuela. This is they are to
Speaker 3: use the old communist phrase, they are fellow travelers.
Speaker 2: You mentioned the drug aspect of this, and I want
Speaker 2: you to hear what he had to say, and everybody listening,
Speaker 2: because there's zero compassion. The number one killer forty nine
Speaker 2: under this country's fetanol in this nation more than anything else,
Speaker 2: that's what's killing us. And he was asked about the
Speaker 2: drugs and he kind of mocked America and laughed at
Speaker 2: America's demise when it comes to drugs and the deaths
Speaker 2: that are happening.
Speaker 1: Take a listen.
Speaker 5: The head of the DEA says cartels are US producing
Speaker 5: fentanyl and the US State Department has said that most
Speaker 5: of it is coming out of Mexico.
Speaker 8: Are they wrong, see yes, no, or rather they don't
Speaker 8: have all the information. Because fentanyls is also produced in
Speaker 8: the United States, the.
Speaker 5: State Department says most of it's coming from Mexico.
Speaker 7: Fentanyl is produced in the United States, in Canada and
Speaker 7: in Mexico, and the chemical precursors come from Asia. Do
Speaker 7: you know why we don't have the drug consumption that
Speaker 7: you have in the United States Because we have customs, traditions,
Speaker 7: and we don't have the problem of the disintegration of
Speaker 7: the family.
Speaker 6: But there is drug consumption in Mexico, but.
Speaker 8: We put very little.
Speaker 5: So why the violence then in Mexico?
Speaker 8: Borke, because drug trafficking exists, but not the consumption.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's laughing when he gives the last answer there,
Speaker 2: like he's smiling and smirking when he's like, Aha, this
Speaker 2: is Hilaire, Like I can't believe you guys are even
Speaker 2: asking me these questions.
Speaker 3: Well, look, that's exactly right, and he's lying when he's
Speaker 3: suggesting that fentanyl is manufactured in large quantities in the
Speaker 3: United States. The vast majority of what is killing Americans
Speaker 3: is being manufactured in Mexico. Now he's right that the
Speaker 3: precursors are coming from China. It's the Chinese communists who
Speaker 3: are sending it to Mexico. It's the Mexican drug cartels
Speaker 3: who are manufacturing it, and they're smuggling it over the border.
Speaker 3: There's some fentanyl production in the United States, but it
Speaker 3: is very minor compared to the volume coming from Mexico.
Speaker 4: He knows that.
Speaker 3: But this is and by the way, understand the total
Speaker 3: volume last year, over one hundred thousand Americans died of
Speaker 3: drug overdoses. Seventy percent of that, over seventy thousand, was
Speaker 3: from fentanyl, and the vast majority of that was Chinese
Speaker 3: fentanyl manufactured in Mexico by the Mexican drug cartel. And
Speaker 3: Amloe is saying, sadly, with Biden's blessing in the Democrats blessing,
Speaker 3: we're going to keep it flowing 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: podcast from earlier 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.
Speaker 1: You may have missed.
Speaker 2: You were up for reelection right now, running as a
Speaker 2: Republican for mayor.
Speaker 9: Yes, your policies haven't changed.
Speaker 1: The only thing it's changed is they d went to
Speaker 1: an R.
Speaker 9: Correct could you win, I'd win overwhelmingly. I don't have
Speaker 9: any doubt about it, no doubt about it. I'll tell
Speaker 9: you why I believe that. I'll tell you why. I'm
Speaker 9: glad someone finally asked me that on the record, because
Speaker 9: that's sort of the chatter as well. That's why I asked.
Speaker 2: And the other going to say, oh, well, this guy
Speaker 2: could never win, that's why he waited till the end
Speaker 2: of his served and then switch parties.
Speaker 9: So here's the reality that people have to ignore to
Speaker 9: even make that argument. But I understand why people need
Speaker 9: to make it. I mean I told someone, I said,
Speaker 9: you know, you don't switch parties in a two parties
Speaker 9: one to the other and think the other part is
Speaker 9: going to say, well, you know, we wish him the best.
Speaker 4: He was great, and it's our loss.
Speaker 9: You know, they got to come up with something, and
Speaker 9: that's kind of These are the kinds of argument they've
Speaker 9: come up with. But here's the reality I won my
Speaker 9: last election with. It wasn't ninety three percent. Dallas City,
Speaker 9: you know, has ordinances about how right in candidates get
Speaker 9: on the ballot, and if you write in a name
Speaker 9: other than the actual right in candidate's name, that's there.
Speaker 9: You just essentially didn't vote. You threw your vote, your
Speaker 9: your bollot, and the trash of the cast votes, which
Speaker 9: were canvassed by the city and are the official records
Speaker 9: of the city. Ninety eight point seven percent of the vote.
Speaker 9: That's Democrats and Republicans in that group. That's a that's
Speaker 9: a pretty hearty endorsement of the incumbent mayor. And I
Speaker 9: didn't run with a D or an R behind my name.
Speaker 9: I ran just with you, know, as Eric Johnson. Because
Speaker 9: you don't run in Texas, in any city with a
Speaker 9: D or for folks wh aren't from Texas. We don't
Speaker 9: actually have partisan elections in Texas for mayor. You just run,
Speaker 9: and you don't run with a party support. Now, what
Speaker 9: do I think would have actually happened if I had
Speaker 9: just come out and said six months before the election,
Speaker 9: I'm actually a Republican. Here's what would have happened. Some
Speaker 9: Democrats would have gotten together and said, well, this is
Speaker 9: an opportunity for us to run an ostensibly just overtly
Speaker 9: partisan candidate. We're going to do something that's never been
Speaker 9: done in now before, which is to just make it partisan,
Speaker 9: like to say, Okay, we got an R running and
Speaker 9: now we're gonna run a D against him. The problem
Speaker 9: is that the R you're talking about for four years
Speaker 9: well enough to clear the field and went with ninety
Speaker 9: eight or seven percent of the vote. But that didn't
Speaker 9: happen yet. So let's just go back and say a
Speaker 9: Republican has been that effective who happens to also be
Speaker 9: African American and supported by the African American community. We
Speaker 9: think that that person would lose simply by saying I've
Speaker 9: become a Republican. I think what happens is is I
Speaker 9: won the first race in a contested nine person field,
Speaker 9: that it went to a runoff with twelve percent of
Speaker 9: the vote. I want, you know, fifty six forty four.
Speaker 9: I think that goes down to the normal, you know,
Speaker 9: pretty solid win of a you know, fifty four fifty
Speaker 9: three percent win. But I still win. There's still question
Speaker 9: I still win that race because I'm the incumbent at
Speaker 9: that point. No incumbent mayor, if we've had Republican and
Speaker 9: Democrat mayors before, by the way, no incumbent mayor seeking
Speaker 9: re election Dallas has ever lost ever.
Speaker 3: All Right, so let me let me ask a final question,
Speaker 3: which is you have started now a national organization, yes,
Speaker 3: a Republican Mayor's Association, and you have been out articulating
Speaker 3: that Republicans need to have an agenda for the cities,
Speaker 3: that we can't just write off big cities where an
Speaker 3: awful lot of Americans live.
Speaker 4: And I think that's a very important message.
Speaker 3: It's something and I want to ask you what's your
Speaker 3: vision for the message Republicans should have in the cities
Speaker 3: and how do we end up with a lot more
Speaker 3: Republican mayors to big cities. What's the path forward there?
Speaker 9: I said this in the Wall Street Journale, and I
Speaker 9: meant it. It's a two way benefit for America and
Speaker 9: for our party. America needs the leadership that Republicans provide
Speaker 9: at the local level because of the things we talked
Speaker 9: about just a few minutes ago. A Republican mayor is
Speaker 9: going to is going to because it's part of the
Speaker 9: DNA of the party, is going to be right on
Speaker 9: law and order issues, going to be right on public safety.
Speaker 9: People who asked me about that, I've said, let me
Speaker 9: just quiz you very quickly. Every bad idea you can
Speaker 9: think of about public safety came from one side of
Speaker 9: the aisle. There's not even a mixed bag on this issue.
Speaker 9: If it's a bad idea when it comes to public safety,
Speaker 9: you know, defund the police, don't prosecute shopping whatever. Republicans
Speaker 9: don't propose ideas that undermine law and order. They not
Speaker 9: every Democrat believes them, but they only emanate from the Democrat.
Speaker 9: Ye that's just a fact statement. So a Republican is
Speaker 9: going to be right on law and order, republic safety.
Speaker 9: A Republican mayor is going to be right on taxes.
Speaker 9: A Republican mayor ought to be right on infrastructure spending
Speaker 9: and investing prudently. And there's studies that show, I mean,
Speaker 9: been have proven that you actually have lower debt levels
Speaker 9: and you issue less debt when you have a Republican
Speaker 9: mayor versus a Democrat when they've mit professor actually studied
Speaker 9: this and concluded that it is a statistically significant different
Speaker 9: level of debt associated with a city when there's a
Speaker 9: Republican in charge and a Democrat in charge. So we
Speaker 9: actually need Republicans running our major cities because eighty percent
Speaker 9: of Americans live in cities. By twenty fifty, that number
Speaker 9: is going to be ninety percent. So the country actually
Speaker 9: needs the leadership. But I'm actually telling you, as a
Speaker 9: group of partisans, we actually have to pay attention to this.
Speaker 9: And I think we have to pay attention to it
Speaker 9: because I, in my heart of hearts, believe that by
Speaker 9: being competitive in the cities, by basically re engaging. Because
Speaker 9: we were once engaged. So if there was a Republican
Speaker 9: Majors Association at one time, it had a similar name,
Speaker 9: it was like the Republican Conference. It was during the
Speaker 9: Ford administration, and at some point we just lost interest
Speaker 9: in competing at that level and it sort of just
Speaker 9: faded away. But it was very active at one time,
Speaker 9: and we were more competitive in our cities at one time.
Speaker 9: We need to get more competitive there again, because the
Speaker 9: margin of victory at the state level in states like Wisconsin,
Speaker 9: in states like Michigan, states like Pennsylvania, is the difference
Speaker 9: between performing at the city level in You're ready, Madison,
Speaker 9: Green Bay, and in Detroit and in Philadelphi and Pittsburgh
Speaker 9: by just five or ten percent points better. So, in
Speaker 9: other words, engaging in the cities in a more significant
Speaker 9: way and having the GOP brand and associated with the
Speaker 9: things we're talking about. At the local level, it didn't
Speaker 9: take that many votes, and now all of a sudden,
Speaker 9: the whole state is no longer lock stock and barrel
Speaker 9: going one direction because of the advantage that has been
Speaker 9: run up in the cities. You've cut into the advantage
Speaker 9: that the cities have.
Speaker 3: You know, Eric, I'll tell you on that point. So,
Speaker 3: Heidi and I met twenty five years ago when we
Speaker 3: were both working on the George W. Bush campaign in
Speaker 3: two thousand, the presidential campaign. And actually in that campaign,
Speaker 3: you know, I was a young, twenty nine year old staffer,
Speaker 3: but I wrote a memo urging that the campaign consider
Speaker 3: at the time Condoleeza Rice as a VP nominee. And
Speaker 3: in the course of the memo, I laid out all
Speaker 3: sorts of reasons why I thought this was worth considering carefully.
Speaker 3: But one of the things I did is I did
Speaker 3: an electoral analysis. I looked at the three preceding presidential elections,
Speaker 3: and I posited a series of hypotheticals. I said, what
Speaker 3: would have happened if Republicans had gotten five percent more,
Speaker 3: ten percent more, or fifteen percent more of the African
Speaker 3: American and Hispanic vote. So I didn't posit, what if
Speaker 3: we get fifty percent more? I've did five, ten or fifteen,
Speaker 3: so goals that were achievable, I believe, And I ran
Speaker 3: through the numbers, and the one that was most that
Speaker 3: stood out the most was if Republicans had gotten an
Speaker 3: additional fifteen percent of the African American and Hispanic vote
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety six, Republicans would have won an additional
Speaker 3: ninety six electoral votes. I mean, itrect clips the election dramatically.
Speaker 4: But to do that, we've got to compete.
Speaker 9: It's a whole different national conversation about the competitiveness of
Speaker 9: this party if we are a factor at the city level, yep,
Speaker 9: because it's just we're so many people are concentrated. It's
Speaker 9: getting harder and harder to figure out how to win
Speaker 9: elections where we're just not even playing there. I mean,
Speaker 9: it's just not even we ought to be competing in
Speaker 9: every major city where we're currently just sort of saying,
Speaker 9: you know, a Democrat hasn't won, I mean, Republican had
Speaker 9: won there in a long time, so let's not try.
Speaker 9: We just flipped just in this last cycle, the mayor,
Speaker 9: the current mayor of I believe it's Charleston, South Carolina
Speaker 9: is now a Republican. They hadn't elected a Republican mayor
Speaker 9: in Charleston in like one hundred and seventy five years,
Speaker 9: So it can happen. It can be done. You have
Speaker 9: to run the right candy. He was a former legislator
Speaker 9: like I was, and he ran a great campaign. Now
Speaker 9: they've got a Republican mayor. So what's going to happen
Speaker 9: next is he's going to do a good job. And
Speaker 9: when he does a good job, these people who've been
Speaker 9: voting for Democrat mayors for one hundred and seventy five
Speaker 9: year are going to say, you know, when Republicans are
Speaker 9: in charge, the city just seems to be it's safer,
Speaker 9: we hire more cops, and crime goes down, and you
Speaker 9: know what, the taxes go down, and you know, things
Speaker 9: are just better. The brand means something to them at
Speaker 9: the local level and not just the brand will always
Speaker 9: have a federal aspect to it, it will always have
Speaker 9: a state aspect to it. But right now in this party,
Speaker 9: we're missing a brand at the local level. It doesn't
Speaker 9: mean anything out right now at the local level, and
Speaker 9: we get to decide what it means. And I'm saying
Speaker 9: we should be running solid conservatives at the local level,
Speaker 9: winning elections, running cities well. And then that makes people
Speaker 9: at the local level go, yeah, I'm actually a Republican.
Speaker 9: I love my Republican mayor, and so I'm a Republican
Speaker 9: and that has benefits for people running for US Senate,
Speaker 9: running for president, running for governor. But we are right
Speaker 9: now just aren't doing anything. I mean, I was shocked
Speaker 9: to find that there was no one even in this lane.
Speaker 9: I wasn't even stepping on anybody's chose by doing this.
Speaker 3: Well, let me say, Eric, I appreciate you. I appreciate
Speaker 3: your friendship, I appreciate your leadership, and I appreciate your
Speaker 3: joining us from the Verdict podcast.
Speaker 2: Appreciate that as always day, thank you for listening to
Speaker 2: Verdict with Sentner, Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you don't
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Speaker 2: here on Monday morning.