Speaker 1: Parents across the country have been storming school board meetings
Speaker 1: to demand an end to critical race theory in the classroom,
Speaker 1: and prominent leftists have responded in one of two ways.
Speaker 1: Some of them have defended critical race theory is a
Speaker 1: good and important academic movement, and others have denied that
Speaker 1: critical race theory exists at all. And actually many prominent
Speaker 1: leftists have done both at the same time. Critical race
Speaker 1: theory doesn't exist, but it's also terrific and wonderful and
Speaker 1: very important. Well, here to help us break it down,
Speaker 1: we have one of the nation's top experts on critical
Speaker 1: race theory. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I am Michael Knowles, and
Speaker 1: this week I am joined not only by the Senator himself,
Speaker 1: but also by Christopher Ruffo, who is senior Fellow at
Speaker 1: the Manhattan Institute and who is largely responsible for many
Speaker 1: people around the country waking up to critical race theory
Speaker 1: and the associated leftist ideological movements that are poisoning the
Speaker 1: minds of young America. All right, you understand my opinion
Speaker 1: of CRT, but I want to take a somewhat balanced
Speaker 1: perspective Chris, thank you so much for being here. It's
Speaker 1: great to be with you. So, Senator, you and I
Speaker 1: were talking not so long ago about what CRT was
Speaker 1: like back when you were a student in law school,
Speaker 1: because it did begin in the law schools, but it
Speaker 1: didn't end in the law schools. Well, that's right, and
Speaker 1: Harvard Law School is really where it originated, and unfortunately
Speaker 1: it is metastasized and spread and Chris has done a
Speaker 1: terrific job of chronicling where and when it has spread
Speaker 1: and how it's manifesting. And so maybe one thing to
Speaker 1: start this conversation, Chris tell us, does critical race theory exist?
Speaker 1: Because if I turn on MSNBC, I see a lot
Speaker 1: of people screaming at me that there is no such thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it definitely exists. And I've noticed a lot of folks
Speaker 1: on the left, especially in places like MSNBC, equating critical
Speaker 1: race theory with Bigfoot, with the Lockness monster. It seems
Speaker 1: to be impossible to find only in the fevered imaginations
Speaker 1: of conservatives. But critical race theorists, unfortunately for them, left
Speaker 1: a very heavy paper trail. If you look at the
Speaker 1: original academic writings in the late eighties and early nineties
Speaker 1: all the way now to K through twelve schools where
Speaker 1: I've meticulously documented not just people's experiences and people's opinions,
Speaker 1: but actual PDFs, videos, documents, and hard evidence of these
Speaker 1: really atrocious ideas that are not just so give us
Speaker 1: an example of what's being taught to kids in schools. Sure,
Speaker 1: I mean in Kupertino, California, they forced third graders, kids
Speaker 1: that are about eight years old, to deconstruct their racial
Speaker 1: and sexual identities and then rank themselves according to a
Speaker 1: racial hierarchy. In fifth grade, in Buffalo and Philadelphia, they
Speaker 1: were teaching that quote all white people contribute to systemic racism.
Speaker 1: They were forcing kids to hold an assimilated black power
Speaker 1: rally and the auditorium chanting for Angela Davis to be
Speaker 1: freed from prison. In a public high school in New York,
Speaker 1: they sent out an email to white parents saying that
Speaker 1: and hold on, Chris, let me stop you on that
Speaker 1: Angela Davis. For someone who doesn't know who she is,
Speaker 1: Who's Angela Davis? You know? In many ways, Angela Davis
Speaker 1: was the kind of prototype of critical race theory. She
Speaker 1: was the doctoral student of the kind of founding American
Speaker 1: critical theorist named Herbert marcusa who advocated for revolution, who
Speaker 1: condoned even violence. Angela Davis was his student, steeped in
Speaker 1: Marxist ideology, who eventually was provided weapons for a hostage
Speaker 1: situation in a courtroom. She was a member of the
Speaker 1: Communist Party. She advocated for the overthrow of the United States,
Speaker 1: abolishing capitalism, and a lot of the ideas that during
Speaker 1: Davis's time we're really on the radical left fringe have
Speaker 1: now moved not only into mainstream university discourse, but even
Speaker 1: into public K through twelve schools under this guise of
Speaker 1: critical race theory. So, Chris, you know, I want to
Speaker 1: have a good answer for the leftists who have now
Speaker 1: made it seems that they're speaking in Unison. After spending
Speaker 1: weeks defending CRT, now they're denying it, and they are
Speaker 1: saying that almost by definition, critical race theory is only
Speaker 1: taught and discussed in law schools, and that the things
Speaker 1: that are going on in K through twelve maybe they're
Speaker 1: anti white, maybe they're bigoted, maybe they're vicious and far left,
Speaker 1: but whatever it is, they're not the same thing as
Speaker 1: critical race theory. What do you say to people who
Speaker 1: are making that argument. Yeah, I mean it's important. Like
Speaker 1: all Marxist ideologies, you have theory and praxis or kind
Speaker 1: of general ideas, and then the practical implementation of those
Speaker 1: ideas that's embedded within critical race theory. So what it
Speaker 1: looks like in a scholarly paper. Obviously they're not teaching
Speaker 1: kindergarteners how to read the Harvard Law Review, but what
Speaker 1: they are teaching kindergarteners could think can be thought of
Speaker 1: as applied critical race theory. So I'm just gonna lay
Speaker 1: out some key terms, and these are really kind of
Speaker 1: red flag terms that if they're teaching in a K
Speaker 1: through twelve school, it's almost undoubtedly informed by critical race
Speaker 1: theory and using the principles of critical race theory. So
Speaker 1: if you hear whiteness, white privilege, white fragility, oppress or oppressed, intersectionality,
Speaker 1: systemic racism, spirit murder, equity, anti racism, collective guilt, or
Speaker 1: affinity spaces which are racially segregated training programs and educational lectures,
Speaker 1: all of those key terms which you hear in hundreds,
Speaker 1: if not thousands, of school districts across the country, even
Speaker 1: if they don't say under the heading critical race theory.
Speaker 1: Those are all ideas that are derived from critical race
Speaker 1: theory and then applied in the classroom through critical pedagogy. Okay,
Speaker 1: so Chris back up a little bit and run through
Speaker 1: those terms. A lot of those terms we may or
Speaker 1: may not have heard of. But what do they mean?
Speaker 1: To go through them one at a time. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I'll first take the trio of terms related to whiteness.
Speaker 1: It's this idea that people of different racial categories can
Speaker 1: be reduced to a racial essence, this almost metaphysical property
Speaker 1: of whiteness, the condition of being white, and that includes,
Speaker 1: by definition, in their theories, white privilege, the idea that
Speaker 1: society is tilted towards you. You are embedded by simply existing,
Speaker 1: You have vested property, interests, and advantages because of the
Speaker 1: color of your skin. And also white fragility, the idea
Speaker 1: that any reaction against something like critical race theory doesn't
Speaker 1: come from principled agreement or dissent, it comes from the
Speaker 1: kind of the kind of psychopathology of being white. That
Speaker 1: you are fragile, that you are going to react out
Speaker 1: of rage, out of other sorts of emotions, to any
Speaker 1: challenge to your identity. And then I think a second bucket.
Speaker 1: You have to look at oppressor and oppressed. This is
Speaker 1: Marxian conflict theory, you know, derived in the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: but now looking at that through a racial lens, the
Speaker 1: idea that the oppressors are not you know, the capitalist
Speaker 1: landlords and ownership class, but actually a racial category of whites.
Speaker 1: The oppressed are black Americans and people of color. And
Speaker 1: then intersectionality basically takes this kind of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of shake them up approach to this oppressor an
Speaker 1: oppressed distinction, saying all the different racial categories, religion, language, disability, status,
Speaker 1: your body mass index, even are all vestiges of this capitalist,
Speaker 1: white supremacist patriarchy that oppresses people. And then this is
Speaker 1: then the kind of antidote that they profess is something
Speaker 1: like equity or anti racism. And Ibraham Kendy, who I
Speaker 1: think is the kind of critical race guru of our time,
Speaker 1: defines anti racism, defines equity and very simple terms, he says,
Speaker 1: the cure for past discrimination is present dis corimination, the
Speaker 1: idea that being, you know, we don't want to have
Speaker 1: equality under the law, we don't want to have color blindness,
Speaker 1: we don't want to have meritocracy. We want to have
Speaker 1: a legal regime that favors people on the basis of race,
Speaker 1: that tips the scales to someone on the basis of race,
Speaker 1: and even in many cases in critical race theory actually
Speaker 1: abolishes the system of capitalism redistributes land and wealth on
Speaker 1: the basis of racial identity. So let me break down
Speaker 1: because there are a number of concepts in there, like
Speaker 1: like you mentioned equity. Now, equity sounds very similar to equality,
Speaker 1: and equality is a good thing. I mean, we are
Speaker 1: a nation that was built under the principle of equality
Speaker 1: under the law. But when you hear the critical race
Speaker 1: theorists talking about equity, they don't mean equality. What's the
Speaker 1: difference between the two. It's a really key difference. And
Speaker 1: I think that they've adapted the term equity really to
Speaker 1: play a language game to trick most Americans to think
Speaker 1: it's just equality two point zero. It's just a better
Speaker 1: version of what we had before. But the philosophical premise
Speaker 1: of these of these ideas is quite different. Equality, as
Speaker 1: you said, seeks to provide equal protection under the law.
Speaker 1: It protects the individual's right to things like private property,
Speaker 1: to freedom of speech, to political participation or representation so
Speaker 1: equality says you can't discriminate. Equity says you must discriminate.
Speaker 1: Is that am I following this right? That's right? And
Speaker 1: the key difference is that equality looks to you as
Speaker 1: an individual and says that the unit, the key unit
Speaker 1: of measurement, analysis and policy is the individual human being
Speaker 1: who should be protected from discrimination. Equity says, we don't
Speaker 1: want to look at society as as a collection of individuals.
Speaker 1: We want to look as society as a collection of
Speaker 1: competing racial groups, and we need to achieve the equality
Speaker 1: of outcomes between those racial groups by whatever means necessary,
Speaker 1: including racial discrimination which they call positive discrimination or affirmative action.
Speaker 1: Which is so And Chris, let me stope you because
Speaker 1: one thing you said there that I think is really
Speaker 1: important as you talk about the language games and in
Speaker 1: the world of critical race theory, I mean, the left
Speaker 1: is very good and creative when it comes to language
Speaker 1: and the similarity between equity and equality. It's like, well, gosh,
Speaker 1: who could be against equality, which I guess means everyone
Speaker 1: has to be for what they call equity, which is
Speaker 1: discriminate based on race, which is the exact opposite of
Speaker 1: what we should be doing. But but they do a
Speaker 1: similar thing with systematic racism. And when you say so,
Speaker 1: systematic racism is different from racism, like like nobody disputes
Speaker 1: racism is real. There are bigots in the world. There
Speaker 1: are bigots, There are white bigots, there are black bigots.
Speaker 1: There are bigots of every race and creed you can find. Now,
Speaker 1: that is a very different thing from the notion of
Speaker 1: systematic racism, which is that the system is fundamentally racist,
Speaker 1: whether it's the criminal justice system, whether it is the
Speaker 1: capitalist system, whether it is whatever the systems we have
Speaker 1: in the country that they are built into their structure racist.
Speaker 1: That's very different. But the problem is when someone's listening
Speaker 1: to it and they hear systematic racism, they think, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: racism exists, so that must be right. And when they
Speaker 1: hear someone denying it, they say, well, gosh, that guy's
Speaker 1: alone because he says there's no racism. How much mileage
Speaker 1: do they get out of these language games trying to
Speaker 1: make something invidious sound like it's innocuous. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: they've been very successful with it, and I think that's
Speaker 1: why we have to be very vigorous in creating language
Speaker 1: and also subverting their language. So systemic racism is very interesting.
Speaker 1: It achieves really two objectives for them simultaneously. One, it
Speaker 1: assumes that any disparity and outcome through any kind of
Speaker 1: statistical measure where things aren't equal in the ways that
Speaker 1: they want them to be equal kind of makes the
Speaker 1: case for racism as the original cause of everything. So
Speaker 1: what it tries to do is basically say that all
Speaker 1: of these systems are racist because they produce unequal outcomes
Speaker 1: by whatever measure that they're measuring of the day. But
Speaker 1: the second thing that it does is it also implies
Speaker 1: a solution. If something is systematically racist, the only solution
Speaker 1: is to tear down that system. So they try to
Speaker 1: put this systematic lens, institutional lens, systemic lens on all
Speaker 1: of the various categories, whether it's the constitution, whether it's law,
Speaker 1: whether it's private property, whether it's the Civil Rights Act,
Speaker 1: and nondiscrimination. And then they try to say, basically the
Speaker 1: only solution, because we've tried civil rights, we've tried equality,
Speaker 1: we've tried everything that they said was going to lead
Speaker 1: to greater equality, it all has to go. And I
Speaker 1: think at heart, if you look at critical race theory,
Speaker 1: it is anti constitutional, it is explicitly anti Fourteenth Amendment,
Speaker 1: the idea of equal protection under the law. It's explicit
Speaker 1: the anti capitalist, so our economic system has to go.
Speaker 1: And if you go on down the line, you find
Speaker 1: that people that the critical race theoris don't want to
Speaker 1: reform the United States. They want to overturn the United States.
Speaker 1: They want to kind of fundamentally destroy the institutions and
Speaker 1: the hope that something better will emerge. So the question
Speaker 1: that keeps striking me because I think absolutely your right, Senator.
Speaker 1: I mean, you actually saw this ideology develop at the
Speaker 1: place where it developed in the years that it was developing,
Speaker 1: and Chris, you've traced that out very well, and I agree.
Speaker 1: I think the argument now that's being made on the
Speaker 1: left that actually, when educators in high schools and middle
Speaker 1: schools repeat all of the various axioms of critical race theory,
Speaker 1: that that somehow is totally different from critical race theory.
Speaker 1: I think it's a kind of weak argue. It's actually
Speaker 1: a nominalist argument that basically just tries to run away
Speaker 1: from words having any meaning at all as general principles.
Speaker 1: But I am still left with this question, how did
Speaker 1: critical race theory developed in the nineteen eighties at Harvard
Speaker 1: Law School. How did it go from this kooky fringe
Speaker 1: movement at one law school, a very disreputable law school
Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned, by the way, But how
Speaker 1: did it go from there to every system of education
Speaker 1: in the country. Yeah, I mean that's a big question,
Speaker 1: and I think you can look at a couple different
Speaker 1: methods of transmission. I think probably the most important one
Speaker 1: is graduate schools of education. So there's a large body
Speaker 1: of academic research that they think of as the critical
Speaker 1: turn and education. So taking critical legal studies, taking critical theory,
Speaker 1: taking critical race theory, and applying it to education, and
Speaker 1: the idea being that if you can shape a curriculum
Speaker 1: and shape a pedagogy to apply the ideas of critical
Speaker 1: race theory to kids, you're going to bring up a
Speaker 1: generation that can solve some of these problems such as
Speaker 1: white privilege and white fragility, systemic racism, etc. And if
Speaker 1: you look at graduate at schools of education, I mean
Speaker 1: they are steeped in this stuff. The kind of foundational
Speaker 1: textbook in most graduate schools of education is the pedagogy
Speaker 1: of the oppressed by the pedagogies Paulo Freira, and then
Speaker 1: they take all of these ideas from critical theory and
Speaker 1: then do essentially critical race theory the practice portion the practice.
Speaker 1: And then you have I don't know, thousands or maybe
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of people who are graduating from these schools.
Speaker 1: This is really the only framework that they know, and
Speaker 1: they're being put into place in school districts around the country.
Speaker 1: And one thing that I've seen is that older teachers
Speaker 1: are not teaching this. Older teachers are in many cases
Speaker 1: the people who leak documents to me because they're saying,
Speaker 1: this is tearing our institutions apart. But if you're under
Speaker 1: thirty five and you're a new public school teacher or
Speaker 1: within the first five ten years of career of your career,
Speaker 1: this is the water that you swim in. This is
Speaker 1: what you're teaching, this is how you're designing your curriculum.
Speaker 1: And then you have a network of nonprofits of critical
Speaker 1: race theory based training programs and diversity lecturers and contractors
Speaker 1: that have created an economic ecosystem where they can attach
Speaker 1: themselves to public institutions like school districts, and then push
Speaker 1: these ideas from that fringe all the way into in
Speaker 1: some cases, a kindergarten classroom, and I think it. You know,
Speaker 1: in a way, you have to give these folks respect.
Speaker 1: They've had a thirty year plan to get their ideas
Speaker 1: into the institutions, and in many ways they're just on
Speaker 1: the cusp of success unless we stop them. So, Chris,
Speaker 1: one very useful thing I think you've laid out for
Speaker 1: folks listening or watching the pod. If you're a parent,
Speaker 1: if you have kids. Heidi and I are girls are
Speaker 1: ten and thirteen, if you're looking at their curriculum in school,
Speaker 1: they're buzzwords that you want to be looking for. Things
Speaker 1: like white privilege, or whiteness or white fragility, which are
Speaker 1: weird concepts. Things like anti racism, which I have to say,
Speaker 1: by the way, I have to step back in marvel
Speaker 1: at the cleverness of the propaganda because anti racism, I think, well, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I'm anti racism. Racism is horrible and evil and bigotry,
Speaker 1: and so of course I'm against that. But anti racism
Speaker 1: is a code word that doesn't actually mean being against racism.
Speaker 1: It means being a racist explicitly and discriminating number one
Speaker 1: against white kids, discriminating number two, viewing the system in
Speaker 1: a way that it is inherently biased and wanting to
Speaker 1: tear it down. And you know, we talked a minute
Speaker 1: ago about how all of this originated in Marxism. What's
Speaker 1: interesting is it didn't just originate in Marxism. The endpoint
Speaker 1: that this curriculum is designed to teach the kids to
Speaker 1: go to is Marxism itself. It is designed to tear
Speaker 1: down capitalism and replace it with communism, replace it with
Speaker 1: Marxism with government power, although on racial lines. And is
Speaker 1: that a fair characterization? Yeah, I think it is. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that I've noticed in my research.
Speaker 1: You look at critical race theory, and you look at
Speaker 1: their literature, you look at their academic work, and they're
Speaker 1: always focused on pointing out problems. And I've always asked,
Speaker 1: in the back of my mind, well, what do you want?
Speaker 1: What are you proposing? What kind of policy solution are
Speaker 1: you suggesting would solve these problems? And in every case,
Speaker 1: it is active discrimination, this idea that the that equality
Speaker 1: of outcomes must be achieved through government action and government force.
Speaker 1: It's skepticism about private property, saying that private property actually
Speaker 1: is a form of whiteness, that actually private property and
Speaker 1: white identity are inextricably linked, and in order to reduce
Speaker 1: whiteness and white privilege, you have to actually change property arrangements.
Speaker 1: And then it's someone like Ebrahm Kendy again who proposes
Speaker 1: a federal Department of Anti Racism that's unaccountable to voters,
Speaker 1: unaccountable to Congress, on accountled to the executive. And what
Speaker 1: would that department do. It would have the power to
Speaker 1: veto nullify or abolish any law at any level of government,
Speaker 1: and silence political speech that's not deemed anti racist. So
Speaker 1: when you put all of these disparate parts together, you
Speaker 1: have again kind of the end of private property. You
Speaker 1: have redistribution of land and wealth along racial lines, and
Speaker 1: then you have an omnipotent federal bureaucracy with the power
Speaker 1: to suppress speech and the power to invalidate law outside
Speaker 1: of the confines of our federalist system. It starts looking
Speaker 1: a lot like a Marxist twentieth century style state. And
Speaker 1: you should keep in mind, Look, I got to say
Speaker 1: that that as you describe the Federal Department of Anti Racism,
Speaker 1: that is terrifying, and it's not just Marxist, it's profoundly
Speaker 1: anti democratic. To have some government bureaucrat with the ability
Speaker 1: to set aside any law he or she doesn't like
Speaker 1: and to silence and censor speech. But this nonsense is
Speaker 1: not us being taught in the schools, although being taught
Speaker 1: in the schools is dangerous. It's also being taught in
Speaker 1: corporate America. It's also being taught in the federal government.
Speaker 1: It's also being taught in the military. Is a right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. I've reported on all of those domains. I mean,
Speaker 1: started last year with a series of reports I did
Speaker 1: on the federal government. So give us some examples. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so give you some examples. You know. The example that
Speaker 1: I like to tell as Sandia National Laboratories, which is
Speaker 1: a federally affiliated laboratory that designs America's nuclear arsenal, so
Speaker 1: the actual nuclear weapons that we have to keep our
Speaker 1: country safe. They sent their white male executives to a
Speaker 1: three day white male privilege re education camp. They sent
Speaker 1: them to a resort down in New Mexico, and they
Speaker 1: had them deconstruct their white male identities. They had them
Speaker 1: read and recite white male privilege statements, and they had
Speaker 1: them right letters of apology to fictitious women and people
Speaker 1: of color. The idea is that breaking down their identity
Speaker 1: in order for them to be kind of softer and
Speaker 1: more open to absorbing this ideology. And some of these things,
Speaker 1: if you look at them, you say, well, you know,
Speaker 1: this is one crazy training, this is this is something
Speaker 1: that was probably well intentioned, but it went awry. But
Speaker 1: then I started doing reporting at I think now more
Speaker 1: than a dozen federal agencies. I'm sure it's now almost
Speaker 1: every federal agency, including very important places like the Treasury Department,
Speaker 1: like Homeland Security, like the FBI, like West Point Military Academy.
Speaker 1: All of these these these institutions that most Americans had
Speaker 1: faith in, have been really really infected with this ideology
Speaker 1: and really have started to adopt it as their own.
Speaker 1: And I think over the short term it makes for
Speaker 1: a splashy headline, but over the long term, it's something
Speaker 1: that is very dangerous for our country. So Chris, let
Speaker 1: me play Devil's advocate for a second here. This past week,
Speaker 1: General Mark milly is, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
Speaker 1: of Staff, was testifying in Congress and made a lot
Speaker 1: of news. And I know General Milly well. I like him.
Speaker 1: He's a Princeton grad. He actually is the only general
Speaker 1: officer in the military. That is a Princeton grad and
Speaker 1: I got to know him when he was the commanding
Speaker 1: officer of Fort Hood in Texas, when he was a
Speaker 1: three star general, before he had gone up to be
Speaker 1: hit Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. But but General Milly
Speaker 1: kind of vented and he was under questioning in the
Speaker 1: House and he said he was offended that people were
Speaker 1: criticizing the military as woke. And the argument he gave is,
Speaker 1: I've read Karl Marx, but that doesn't make me a communist.
Speaker 1: So what's the response to, Well, what's wrong with reading
Speaker 1: some of this stuff? Yeah, I mean there's a really
Speaker 1: important distinction, right. It's like I read a lot of
Speaker 1: critical race theory. I think it's important to read. I
Speaker 1: think it's totally fine to read in the context of
Speaker 1: a college classroom. But there's there's there's two different ways
Speaker 1: you can approach it. You can approach it as one
Speaker 1: perspective of among many, where you have a reason debate,
Speaker 1: where you look at its flaws, you look at it
Speaker 1: its benefits, and then you try to come to a
Speaker 1: better understanding of the world by comparing a variety of subjects.
Speaker 1: The other way is to really use it as a
Speaker 1: form of indoctrination, to compelling people to believe, to forcing
Speaker 1: them to believe in this, to presenting it not as
Speaker 1: one perspective among many, but as the truth as dogmat
Speaker 1: So there's a difference between say, West Point having a
Speaker 1: survey class of you know, different views of race in
Speaker 1: America and including this among many different views, and also
Speaker 1: reading doctor Martin Luther King Junior and Booker T. Washington
Speaker 1: and Frederick Douglas, and in that context a survey class,
Speaker 1: this could be reasonably incute included as among the views
Speaker 1: there are. That's very different from say a training program
Speaker 1: that you're forcing young eighteen nineteen twenty year old soldiers
Speaker 1: and sailors and airmen and marines to complete this training
Speaker 1: program in order to be able to serve in the military. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. And I think from some of the documents
Speaker 1: that I've seen from within the United States military, it's
Speaker 1: not presenting it as a survey. It's not presenting it
Speaker 1: as one perspective of many. It's saying this is the
Speaker 1: ideology of the US Army or the Marine Corps or
Speaker 1: West Point Military Academy. These are the books you need
Speaker 1: to read. It's Robin D'Angelo, it's Ebram Kendy. It's this
Speaker 1: new gospel of critical race theory that they're presenting as
Speaker 1: this kind of thing that you need to believe. Not again,
Speaker 1: a competing perspective. I think it's also very different when
Speaker 1: you're talking about kids, when you're talking about K through
Speaker 1: twelve education, where again it's different. It's presented not as
Speaker 1: an academic subject, but it's presented as a kind of
Speaker 1: method of indoctrination. And I think that's why you're seeing
Speaker 1: millions of parents rise up to say, hey, look, we
Speaker 1: want to have a discussion about these issues. We want
Speaker 1: to work on these issues, but what we don't want
Speaker 1: is a one sided, manipulative kind of Marxism based curriculum
Speaker 1: that is being forced down our children's throats, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that the parents, the people who actually are invested
Speaker 1: in these school and paying for these schools, disagree with
Speaker 1: this stuff and it violates their conscience. And it's worth
Speaker 1: pointing out a third grade classroom is not exactly a
Speaker 1: free marketplace of ideas. You know, whatever you might have
Speaker 1: in a graduate seminar or an even undergraduate really, when
Speaker 1: you're what you're teaching to eight year olds is this
Speaker 1: is true and this is false. Right, You're giving them
Speaker 1: rudimentary education so that they can think later on in
Speaker 1: more complex ways. And I think you're absolutely right, Chris.
Speaker 1: This is not. Though there are many defenders of CRT
Speaker 1: who are trying to pretend that this is just one
Speaker 1: idea among many in a free marketplace of ideas, it's
Speaker 1: not how it's being taught. And as you also point out,
Speaker 1: as Senator, the fact that this has made it into
Speaker 1: the US military, the fact that officers are being told
Speaker 1: to imbibe this stuff and are being encouraged to treat
Speaker 1: it as the gospel truth rather than just as some
Speaker 1: crazy idea among many, the fact that this is infiltrated
Speaker 1: corporate boardrooms, that this has infiltrated so many institutions in
Speaker 1: our country. It does make you almost lose hope. And
Speaker 1: I wonder is there any glimmer of hope here. It's
Speaker 1: very strange that I think probably the majority of Americans
Speaker 1: disagree with this kind of stuff. You see a lot
Speaker 1: of parents rushing to their school boards, and yet all
Speaker 1: of the powerful institutions seem uniformly to be pushing it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm an optimist. I'm very hopeful about this, and I
Speaker 1: think that what I'm seeing on the ground, what I'm
Speaker 1: seeing in hundreds of emails every day, is people are
Speaker 1: people from all walks of life, people from a variety
Speaker 1: of racial backgrounds, people from all over the country that
Speaker 1: are starting to rise up to say, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I don't want this in my kids school, I don't
Speaker 1: want this in my church, I don't want this in
Speaker 1: my local government. I don't want this being pushed by
Speaker 1: the US Congress. And what I think we're seeing every
Speaker 1: day is a new video of hundreds of parents showing
Speaker 1: up at a school board meeting, getting activated, really pushing
Speaker 1: on this issue. And you know, I talk with a
Speaker 1: lot of local and state legislators and they're telling me
Speaker 1: that when they're out there in their districts, this is
Speaker 1: the number one issue that they get when they're doorbelling
Speaker 1: or going door to door or speaking of events. People
Speaker 1: really care about this. I know that some people are
Speaker 1: saying this has the same kind of energy as the
Speaker 1: ninety four Congressional Revolution or twenty ten the Tea Party Revolution.
Speaker 1: There's something happening in the grassroots of this country that
Speaker 1: people are being energized by this, They're being focused they're
Speaker 1: being engaged, in many cases for the first time in politics,
Speaker 1: and I don't think the institutional responses have been frankly
Speaker 1: very strong. You see all of the media running cover,
Speaker 1: you see the playing language games, you see them retreating
Speaker 1: from critical race theory. None of those strategies are going
Speaker 1: to hold because people know what's being taught to their kids.
Speaker 1: People have a visceral and intuitive understanding of what this
Speaker 1: ideology is trying to accomplish. And we're seeing a critical
Speaker 1: race theory revolt all over this country. That gives me
Speaker 1: an immense amount of hope. And I think that looks
Speaker 1: If Brooklyn and Berkeley want to do critical race theory
Speaker 1: in their k the twelve schools, that's fine, that's their right.
Speaker 1: But I think we're looking at somewhere between seventy and
Speaker 1: eighty percent of Americans that we could alley into opposition
Speaker 1: on this issue. And I think that's a starting point
Speaker 1: for incredible success. So, Chris, if someone wants to learn more,
Speaker 1: where do we go? Where can someone go to learn
Speaker 1: more about what this is, where it's being taught, and
Speaker 1: what to do about it. Yeah, I put together a
Speaker 1: critical race theory briefing book. So if you just search
Speaker 1: Google Christopher Ruffo Critical Race Theory Briefing Book or CRT
Speaker 1: Briefing Book. I've provided anything that you'll need to get
Speaker 1: started to engage on this issue, whether you're a parent,
Speaker 1: whether you're a local legislator, whether you care about this
Speaker 1: in the workplace. So I have definitions, I have key
Speaker 1: concepts and quotations. I have stories about where it's being
Speaker 1: taught in schools. I also have suggestions for language that's
Speaker 1: successful in winning on this issue, as well as some
Speaker 1: model legislation. So that's where i'd recommend you go. You
Speaker 1: could always reach out to me. I'm happy to help
Speaker 1: put you in connection with other people that are working
Speaker 1: on this issue. I think it's just a tremendously important
Speaker 1: thing right now, and I encourage everyone to get involved.
Speaker 1: As Chris, we have got to get to the mailbag now,
Speaker 1: so I will not have you sit around and answer
Speaker 1: the difficult, impossible questions from our listeners, though I'm sure
Speaker 1: you could do it, because you really have done such
Speaker 1: a service with your writing over at City Journal and
Speaker 1: your work on really making this issue come into stark relief.
Speaker 1: Chris Farrufo, thank you for being on the show. Thank
Speaker 1: you before we get to the mailbag. I am so
Speaker 1: pleased to announce that we are now finalizing the dates
Speaker 1: for Verdict Live. We are taking Verdicts with Ted Cruz
Speaker 1: on the road in partnership with the Young America's Foundation.
Speaker 1: We will be coming to a school near you, or
Speaker 1: maybe even to your school, but you will need to
Speaker 1: request that, so you can go to yaff yaf dot
Speaker 1: org slash Verdict and apply to have your school be
Speaker 1: one of the spots. Deadline to apply as August eighteenth, Senator.
Speaker 1: We're taking this thing live. We're going to go meet
Speaker 1: people in real life. We're headed out on the road
Speaker 1: to college campuses. We'll have an auditorium, will film it live.
Speaker 1: We will have hopefully some friendly questions, some hostile questions,
Speaker 1: and it's really up up to the listeners of Verdict
Speaker 1: where we should go. You know, should we go to
Speaker 1: places that are oases of truth and have people that
Speaker 1: are used to hearing about life, liberty in the pursuit
Speaker 1: of happiness. Or do we go to places of communist
Speaker 1: indoctrination where where we're going behind the iron curtain and
Speaker 1: we might have to have a subversive effort to come in.
Speaker 1: I don't know we're asking you, the reader, let us
Speaker 1: know where you think Verdict should be filmed, and we're
Speaker 1: going to have fun regardless, We absolutely are. We could
Speaker 1: even head to the University of East Berlin also known
Speaker 1: as Berkeley in California. There are a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of schools we could go to, and hopefully we'll
Speaker 1: be able to do a combination. So you can apply
Speaker 1: to hostess at your school. That will be yaf dot
Speaker 1: org slash Verdict. Get those applications in by August eighteenth.
Speaker 1: That is the deadline, and we're going to be looking
Speaker 1: forward to it. And now before we see you live,
Speaker 1: we will answer your questions in the mail bag. All right,
Speaker 1: this question completely out of left field, but it's from
Speaker 1: our colleague on this show, who is sitting right behind you,
Speaker 1: Real Truth Cactus, who writes, what are some conservative arguments
Speaker 1: for environmental practices? We all hear the sun monster is
Speaker 1: going to kill us, But as conservatives, do we not
Speaker 1: also wish to conserve our planet? Where is the balance?
Speaker 1: I think that's a great question, and I think a
Speaker 1: lot of conservatives are really timid when it comes to
Speaker 1: discussing environmental issues. All of us breathe, all of us
Speaker 1: drink water, all of us presumably, and you're drinking I
Speaker 1: think coffee or vodka whatever you're drinking right both actually,
Speaker 1: but there you go. But but you know, water is
Speaker 1: at its base. Look, all of us would like for
Speaker 1: our kids to be able to breathe and drink water.
Speaker 1: We'd like for our grandkids to be able to breathe
Speaker 1: and drink water. Protecting the environment. You know, you look
Speaker 1: at Teddy Roosevelt, who was one of the first great
Speaker 1: conservationist and environmentalist. We have a responsibility to protect the environment.
Speaker 1: What does that mean? That means fighting pollution. Fighting pollution
Speaker 1: is a good and noble role. It is an important
Speaker 1: government function. We don't want to see factories pour in
Speaker 1: a bunch of gunk into rivers or into the air
Speaker 1: that make people sick. All of that is legitimate, it's
Speaker 1: not where today's environmentalist movement is. Today's environmentalist movement is
Speaker 1: focused on shutting down production. So it's not. If the
Speaker 1: test is is the air cleaner and is the water cleaner?
Speaker 1: Then you can actually tell an amazing story because as
Speaker 1: American ingenuity has moved forward, we have cleaned the air
Speaker 1: and cleaned the water dramatically. Last year the year twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: what country had the greatest reduction of carbon emissions of
Speaker 1: any country on Earth? Answer? The United States of America
Speaker 1: by far, not even close. And what caused that? What
Speaker 1: caused that primarily was the shale revolution and the incredible
Speaker 1: abundance of natural gas we have, and we've seen a
Speaker 1: large scale shift from electricity production from coal to natural gas.
Speaker 1: Natural gas is a much cleaner way to produce electricity
Speaker 1: than coal, and so we've seen not just carbon emissions
Speaker 1: going down, but pollutant's going down by dramatic numbers. Now
Speaker 1: here's the weird thing about environmentalist on the left. You
Speaker 1: would think if the goal is a cleaner environment, you'd
Speaker 1: be celebrating that. You'd say that's a good thing. What
Speaker 1: the environmentalist on the left are trying to do is
Speaker 1: shut down natural gas. Shut down natural gas, destroy American production.
Speaker 1: And ironically, they also want to shut down US oil,
Speaker 1: which then makes us more dependent on fore and oil,
Speaker 1: all of which is produced in a dirtier way. So
Speaker 1: you end up hurting the environment more. And today's environmental
Speaker 1: movement on the left is an ideology where actually clean
Speaker 1: air and clean water is really low on the priority list.
Speaker 1: Stopping human production, stopping new businesses, stopping new residential developments,
Speaker 1: stopping new economic stopping jobs is their priority. And you've
Speaker 1: got zealots who view economic development inherently as an evil. Look.
Speaker 1: Most of us think jobs are good. We'd like to
Speaker 1: have clean air and clean water two and have jobs.
Speaker 1: You can do both if you actually employ some common sense.
Speaker 1: The radical left on the environment is not interested in
Speaker 1: common sense. Yeah, there does seem to be something a
Speaker 1: little misanthropic about it at all. I don't want to
Speaker 1: read into our opponent's thought process here or anything, but
Speaker 1: it did sometimes seem when I was living in California,
Speaker 1: as though the Left valued the delta smelt more than
Speaker 1: they did working families who are trying to have jobs
Speaker 1: and people who trying pay for energy prices. And ironically,
Speaker 1: so many of their policies actually were harmful ultimately to
Speaker 1: the environment. Next question from Ben is for me. Ben writes,
Speaker 1: will your next book be titled shameless because of your
Speaker 1: shameful plugs of speechless? Yes, it will be. That is
Speaker 1: if I ever write a book again, Senator. I know
Speaker 1: you've written multiple books with words. I frankly am sick
Speaker 1: of writing a book with words. It's much too hard,
Speaker 1: so I'll probably return to my former magnum opus. The
Speaker 1: final question is for you from em Taylor, Senator Crews,
Speaker 1: can you explain standing and why does this not apply
Speaker 1: in the DOJ case against Georgia voting laws. So I
Speaker 1: bring up this question because I want on the next episode,
Speaker 1: I want to get into some legal questions that are
Speaker 1: very much in the news right now. This one just
Speaker 1: came up. The DJ is suing Georgia because of George's
Speaker 1: voter integrity law. They're saying that this is discriminatory and
Speaker 1: the federal government's can go in and stop Georgia from
Speaker 1: passing laws to protect their own vote. And because I
Speaker 1: know absolutely nothing about the law and did not go
Speaker 1: to law school, Senator, can you please explain it for us? Sure?
Speaker 1: Two related concepts. One, in order for a court to
Speaker 1: be able to decide a case, it has to be
Speaker 1: what's called a case or controversy. It has to be
Speaker 1: a live dispute between real parties. It can't just be
Speaker 1: a request for judges to issue an advisory opinion on
Speaker 1: a question of law. An element of that, one element
Speaker 1: of that is that you've got to have a real injury.
Speaker 1: But another element of that is that you've got to
Speaker 1: have a plaintiff with standing, and standing put simply is
Speaker 1: essentially someone with a beef in it, someone who's got
Speaker 1: something at stakes. So listen, if if your book publisher
Speaker 1: breaks it's contract with you and says Michael, we're tired
Speaker 1: of publishing books with no words. We're not going to
Speaker 1: send you any royalty checks. Fair enough. Now, I might
Speaker 1: look at that and say that is ridiculous. Michael is
Speaker 1: the poor guy, as a starving yaely. He depends upon
Speaker 1: these royalty checks to buy his skinny genes and his
Speaker 1: you know, the outfits he wears on verdict. And so
Speaker 1: I'm really upset they're not paying it. Well as upset
Speaker 1: as I might be. I don't have standing to sue
Speaker 1: over breach a contract. It's not I'm not a party
Speaker 1: of the contract. I you have standing to sue if
Speaker 1: if they breach a contract with you, you have standing
Speaker 1: to sue because you've suffered an injury and you're actually
Speaker 1: a party to the in this case the contract. So
Speaker 1: the question is why does the United States have standing
Speaker 1: to sue Georgia in this instance? They sue Georgia under
Speaker 1: section two of the Voting Rights Act, and that is
Speaker 1: a statute that Congress passed to protect voting rights, and
Speaker 1: it actually gives the Attorney General the authority to bring
Speaker 1: suits to enforce the law. And so in the role
Speaker 1: as the chief lawyer for the United States of America,
Speaker 1: the Attorney General has the authority under the Voting Rights
Speaker 1: Act to bring suits. Now, I think the suit is
Speaker 1: not meritorious, and I think we're going to discuss that
Speaker 1: on a subsequent verdict. But in terms of standing, the
Speaker 1: way the Voting Rights Act is written, the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice has standing to bring a case to enforce Section
Speaker 1: two of the Voting Rights Act. All right, that's just
Speaker 1: a little teaser for something talking about. Yes, that's the
Speaker 1: argument from the federal government, and we will knock down
Speaker 1: why it's a very bad idea to go in and
Speaker 1: up end this voting rights law in Georgia. But not
Speaker 1: this time. We run out of time. Senator, Thank you
Speaker 1: as always. And by the way, I think all of
Speaker 1: the listeners of verdict would have standing if I could
Speaker 1: no longer afford my skinny genes. I think that would
Speaker 1: greatly injure all of the viewers out there. But we'll
Speaker 1: discuss it coming up. I'm Michael Knowls. This is Verdict
Speaker 1: with Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz
Speaker 1: is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack,
Speaker 1: a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations,
Speaker 1: and candidates across the country. In twenty twenty two, Jobs
Speaker 1: Freedom and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates
Speaker 1: running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.