Speaker 1: The Olympics are on and nobody is watching. The Olympics
Speaker 1: have reached a record low in terms of ratings, down
Speaker 1: forty three percent over the Winter Games in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: down twenty percent over the previous lowest rated Olympics all
Speaker 1: the way back in the nineteen eighties. So nobody is
Speaker 1: watching the Olympics, nobody wants to watch the Olympics, and
Speaker 1: even more distressing, our own athletes don't seem to want
Speaker 1: to play for the American teams. What has happened to
Speaker 1: America's role in the world. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
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Speaker 1: That's ip v anish dot com slash cactus. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Verdicts with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles, Senator. Have
Speaker 1: you been watching the Olympics? To be honest, I have
Speaker 1: not turned it on even once. I have seen the snippets,
Speaker 1: frankly on Twitter of the opening ceremonies where they had
Speaker 1: a wager athlete light the torch and it was so obnoxious.
Speaker 1: The Chinese Communist Party literally has one million weekers, more
Speaker 1: than one million weekers in concentration camps right now. They
Speaker 1: are being tortured, murdered, they are working in slave labor.
Speaker 1: And for the propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party to
Speaker 1: use this wager athlete to say everything is great. And
Speaker 1: I got to say, NBC Savannah Guthrie, you know said, well,
Speaker 1: critics accuse China doing this, Well, okay, it is a genocide.
Speaker 1: Those are the facts. They are literally trying to exterminate
Speaker 1: the leaguers. But NBC wants to apologize for the Chinese
Speaker 1: communist atrocities and get given that, you know, I can't
Speaker 1: bring myself to watch it. It just is these games
Speaker 1: never should have happened in China. It's wrong that that
Speaker 1: that that the International Olympic Committee allowed China to host
Speaker 1: these games. Now, what do you think is at play here?
Speaker 1: Because there are a couple of dynamics going on. One,
Speaker 1: you have communist China doing all sorts of heinous, horrible
Speaker 1: things in their own country and around the world, so
Speaker 1: people just don't want to tune in for that too.
Speaker 1: You've got this strange dynamic where an American athlete born
Speaker 1: and raised in San Francisco. Though frankly, maybe that explains it.
Speaker 1: An American athlete choosing to compete not for America, her country,
Speaker 1: but for China, the country that her mother is from,
Speaker 1: to compete for the Chinese Communist Party. It seems so shocking,
Speaker 1: so disgusting to me that an American would ever want
Speaker 1: to compete for any other country, to say nothing of China.
Speaker 1: What is it a revulsion at China? Is a revulsion
Speaker 1: at America? Or is it just that people are tuning
Speaker 1: out of the mainstream media? So look, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know this athlete. I was certainly
Speaker 1: saddened by those headlines. You know, I want to be
Speaker 1: a little bit careful throwing rocks. I guess she has
Speaker 1: renounced her citizenship. She's decided she wants to be a
Speaker 1: Chinese national. Okay, that that is an unusual choice. That's
Speaker 1: not a choice many people make. Most people don't go
Speaker 1: from freedom to tyranny. Most people don't choose to subject
Speaker 1: themselves to the oppression of a communist dictatorship. I don't
Speaker 1: know what a reasoning was. I don't know her thinking was. UM.
Speaker 1: I will say I am saddened whenever anyone gives up
Speaker 1: on America. UM, that that is an unfortunate thing. You know,
Speaker 1: it reminds me if this is not exactly the same,
Speaker 1: but another guy from the San Francisco area, remember what
Speaker 1: was his name, John Walker Lynne, the American Taliban. It
Speaker 1: was in Marin County, and decided he wanted to go
Speaker 1: be a Taliban. I'm not suggesting she's a terrorist, so
Speaker 1: I don't want that to be a false equivalency. M
Speaker 1: but it was someone born and raised in America deciding
Speaker 1: to pledge their allegiance to a foreign power and to
Speaker 1: an oppressive foreign power to a foreign power that that
Speaker 1: commits atrocities. M you know that it's we don't know
Speaker 1: the whole story there, but it but it's certainly a
Speaker 1: dismaying development, and it speaks, I think, to a deeper problem,
Speaker 1: not just this one girl or a handful of a
Speaker 1: fleets who want to compete for other countries. But you're
Speaker 1: seeing on the left a disavowal of American power and influence,
Speaker 1: because they say America is immoral and unjust in a
Speaker 1: terrible place, and wherever it goes, it just oppresses people.
Speaker 1: But you're also seeing on the right a sort of
Speaker 1: disappointment with America looking around and and saying, what are
Speaker 1: we doing when we go overseas? Are we fighting to
Speaker 1: I don't know, raise the Pride flag over Kndahar, What
Speaker 1: does it even mean? I think you're seeing a little bit,
Speaker 1: certainly in in certain aspects of the right, a demoralization
Speaker 1: there as well. What are we Are we just in
Speaker 1: a national malaise, Senator, the likes of which we might
Speaker 1: have seen in the seventies. Look, some people are and
Speaker 1: some are not. And unfortunately this really does follow a
Speaker 1: political polarization the left. It is proudly and brazenly anti American. Yea,
Speaker 1: whether it is you know, Nike celebrating Colin Kaepernick and
Speaker 1: pulling the Betsy Ross flag off their shoes, which actually
Speaker 1: truth in advertising is what they followed. Nike would put
Speaker 1: the Chinese flag on their shoes because that's where their
Speaker 1: shoes are made, and in fact that they would put
Speaker 1: Chinese children on their shoes because it's Chinese children who
Speaker 1: sadly are are forced far too often into slave labor.
Speaker 1: But the left generally, you know ESPN covering the Olympics,
Speaker 1: there was you know, one clown on ESPN who did
Speaker 1: this moral equivalence and says, well, yes, they're Chinese concentration camps,
Speaker 1: but you know, who are we to judge because America
Speaker 1: has faults also, and Michael he literally says, well, states
Speaker 1: like Georgia and Texas passed voter ID laws, So apparently
Speaker 1: requiring a driver's license to vote is equivalent to creating
Speaker 1: a concentration camp, putting a million people in them, torturing them,
Speaker 1: raping them, murdering them. That's exactly like requiring an ID
Speaker 1: to vote. It makes sense. It's the most assinine moral equivalency.
Speaker 1: And I do wonder if you know, people that grow
Speaker 1: up surrounded by that leftism, they're incapable of making judgments.
Speaker 1: You know, it was America perfect, of course not but
Speaker 1: but the idea that we are literally, the Biden administration
Speaker 1: is the number one customer for slave labor coming out
Speaker 1: of communist China. John Kerry, when he was asked about
Speaker 1: about the slave labor camps, he says, well, that's not
Speaker 1: my department. You know, I've joked, but it's not really
Speaker 1: a joke that John Kerry should be named the customer
Speaker 1: of the year for the Chinese communist slave labor. Several
Speaker 1: months ago, I introduced an amendment on the floor that
Speaker 1: said it should be illegal for the US government to
Speaker 1: purchase products and in particular or electric cars, electric batteries,
Speaker 1: solar panels made with slave labor in China. Right, every
Speaker 1: single Democrat voted no except Joe Manchon. Joe Manchon was
Speaker 1: the one Democratic voted yes. Everyone else voted no. The
Speaker 1: amendment failed, and you know, it is stunning. We are literally,
Speaker 1: you know, if you look through history at times when
Speaker 1: there have been concentration camps without exception, those are shameful, deplorable, disgusting,
Speaker 1: times that history is not kind to and we are
Speaker 1: funding concentration camps right now by purchasing the fruits of
Speaker 1: that slave labor. It's grossly immoral, and today's Democrats don't care.
Speaker 1: This raises my next question because a lot of people
Speaker 1: are suggesting, well, it's ideological. You know, the radical left
Speaker 1: to hate America, and they do hate America, and they
Speaker 1: protest the flag, and so there's no question there's an
Speaker 1: ideological element here. Well, and they're taught America is evil
Speaker 1: and that the evil is at best equivalent and in
Speaker 1: many ways worse than really evil stuff globally. And no,
Speaker 1: they're not the same. No, George W. Bush was not
Speaker 1: Aidolf Hitler. No, Donald Trump was not Aidolf Hitler. And
Speaker 1: the nuts who say that are nuts. Right, But then
Speaker 1: this raises this question, how does China keep getting away
Speaker 1: with it? Is it just because we're all brainwashed? Or
Speaker 1: is it because of cold hard cash? Is because China
Speaker 1: owns a ton of our debt. Our businesses in America
Speaker 1: are totally in bed with the Chinese. They make all
Speaker 1: of our goods. I mean, is it is it an
Speaker 1: economic problem? It is massively an economic problem. And by
Speaker 1: the way, the political problem is an economic problem. So
Speaker 1: one of the things to understand about the Democratic Party today,
Speaker 1: they are structurally pro China. Now what does that mean.
Speaker 1: That means that they're leading supporters are all completely in
Speaker 1: bed with China. So who is today's Democratic Party funded by.
Speaker 1: It's funded by big tech, big tech, er monster supporters
Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party. It's funded by big business, giant corporations,
Speaker 1: almost all of which are overwhelmingly Democrat right now. It's
Speaker 1: funded by big Hollywood, and it's funded by big universities.
Speaker 1: All four of those big tech, big business, big Hollywood,
Speaker 1: big universities are up to their eyeballs with the Chinese Communist.
Speaker 1: They have billions of dollars depending on the Chinese Communist.
Speaker 1: And so the people who write the checks that keep
Speaker 1: Joe Biden in power, that keep Kamala Harris in power,
Speaker 1: that keep Chuck Schumer in power, that keep Nancy Pelosi
Speaker 1: in power, they have billions of dollars at stake with
Speaker 1: keeping us intertwined with communist China. So the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: does not want to decouple, does not want to delink.
Speaker 1: They may occasionally have a little bit of tough rhetoric
Speaker 1: because they realize that the Chinese commun poll badly, right,
Speaker 1: but they are opposed to actually doing anything about China. Well,
Speaker 1: he who pays the piper calls the tune. But then
Speaker 1: the next question would be, how do we fix that?
Speaker 1: If this is not merely the ideological whims of some
Speaker 1: koukie leftist politicians, but this is really a structural issue,
Speaker 1: as you say, I think quite persuasively, then what's the
Speaker 1: answer to that? How do we fight back? Well, I
Speaker 1: do think the debate has changed, and it's changed a lot.
Speaker 1: You know, when I got to the State a decade ago,
Speaker 1: I was arguing then in twenty thirteen, that China poses
Speaker 1: the single greatest geopolitical threat to the United States over
Speaker 1: the next century. That I believe this. I think it
Speaker 1: is a massive The goal of the Chinese communist dictators
Speaker 1: is global domination, and they are playing the game not
Speaker 1: on the short term, but over decades and over the
Speaker 1: next century. And I got to say, when I got
Speaker 1: to DC and started saying that that was a lonely view,
Speaker 1: almost all of Washington thought that view was nuts. Every
Speaker 1: Democrat did, Every Democrat remember Joe Biden used to say,
Speaker 1: come on, man, come on man, there are friends, Come
Speaker 1: on man. But back then most of the Republicans believe
Speaker 1: that also, most of the Republicans, you know, you go
Speaker 1: back to twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, the Republican Party was
Speaker 1: in a very significant way the Chamber of Commerce party,
Speaker 1: and the Chamber of Commerce looked at China and saw
Speaker 1: big bucks, and the Republican enlightened view was, well, we
Speaker 1: can make a whole lot of money in China and
Speaker 1: eventually that human rights and democracy stuff, well, we'll worry
Speaker 1: about it another time. You know, there's a clip that
Speaker 1: makes the rounds now of Joe Biden way back when
Speaker 1: this was ten years ago now saying that arising China
Speaker 1: is good for America, it's good for the whole world,
Speaker 1: and we should encourage arising China. And one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why it's little tough to use that clip against
Speaker 1: him is because many, if not most Republicans at the
Speaker 1: same time, we're saying the exact same thing. No, that's
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. It was there were a handful of
Speaker 1: us that we're calling out the threat of China, and
Speaker 1: we were we were lonely voices in Washington. I will
Speaker 1: say two things have really changed that and they both
Speaker 1: you know, you asked, how do we deal with this
Speaker 1: in the long term. Two things have changed that for
Speaker 1: the better. Number one is Donald Trump and and Trump
Speaker 1: changed the discussion on China fundamentally. Trump came in, talked
Speaker 1: about China, China. He changed the pronunciation, really he did.
Speaker 1: He did. I don't know a very good Trump impersonation,
Speaker 1: but but he but by force of will change the
Speaker 1: focus to China considerably. And I will say in the
Speaker 1: Republican Party that that made a real difference. But then secondly,
Speaker 1: what really changed it was COVID and and COVID, Chinese
Speaker 1: Communist government's complicity in covering up COVID, and now the
Speaker 1: overwhelming evidence suggests complicity in COVID likely being released from
Speaker 1: a Chinese government lab in Wuhan, and the very real
Speaker 1: possibility that it was the Chinese Communist government that developed
Speaker 1: COVID through gain a function research, and that culpability in
Speaker 1: something that has taken so many lives in America across
Speaker 1: the world, that has destroyed trillions of dollars in jobs
Speaker 1: and productivity and savings, that has changed the fundamental view
Speaker 1: of the Chinese Communist here at home and abroad. And
Speaker 1: I think that is potent. Now, as long as the
Speaker 1: government in the US is controlled by Biden, Schumer and Pelosi,
Speaker 1: they're not going to do a damn thing about China.
Speaker 1: But I'm hopeful when the election happens in November and
Speaker 1: we see new Republican leadership in the House and Senate
Speaker 1: will see I hope, leaders willing to stand up and
Speaker 1: take on China directly. And then in twenty four we
Speaker 1: need a strong Republican president who's willing to take on
Speaker 1: China because it's not going to happen from today's Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: So you've got the China issue seems clear enough at
Speaker 1: least today, Republicans against China, Democrats very pro China, really
Speaker 1: bought and paid for by China. Then there's another issue,
Speaker 1: which is Iran. And for a much longer time, Republicans
Speaker 1: have opposed Iran and Iran's attempts to get a nuclear
Speaker 1: weapon and Iran's attempts to grow, and the Democrats just
Speaker 1: keep coming back to Iran. Barack Obama signed to the
Speaker 1: Iran nuclear Deal. Donald Trump comes into office, rips up
Speaker 1: that deal now again. Joe Biden seems to be trying
Speaker 1: to revive it. As far as I can tell, without
Speaker 1: any input from the US Senate. Yeah. No, it really
Speaker 1: is incredibly dangerous and it is a story the Democrats
Speaker 1: history in Iran is horrific. You go back to Jimmy Carter,
Speaker 1: where you know, the Shava Ran was a US ally
Speaker 1: supported America and then they had an Islamist revolution led
Speaker 1: by the Ayatola Komine which, among other things took Americans
Speaker 1: hostage and held our Americans hostage for four hundred and
Speaker 1: forty four days. And Jimmy Carter, who had undermined our
Speaker 1: ally the Shaw and then sat there helplessly while the
Speaker 1: revolution that displaced the Shaw held Americans hostage. Now Jimmy
Speaker 1: Carter was even worse than sitting there helplessly. He sent
Speaker 1: a rescue team in to try to rescue the hostages.
Speaker 1: This is before you were alive, Michael, just a glint
Speaker 1: in my father's eye. Indeed, the rescue team crashed in
Speaker 1: the desert. The helicopters crashed with no opposing fire. They
Speaker 1: weren't even confronting the enemy. I mean, it was the
Speaker 1: incompetence of the Carter administration had not been mad until
Speaker 1: we got the bidens today. But before we do that,
Speaker 1: let's go in between let's go and by the way,
Speaker 1: the Ayatola Cominy release the hostages the day that Ronald
Speaker 1: Reagan was sworn in, literally as Reagan put his hand
Speaker 1: on the Bible raised his hand on the oath, January twentieth,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one, is when the Ayatola released the hostages
Speaker 1: because he understood there was a new sheriff in town
Speaker 1: and Reagan was going to blow the crap out of
Speaker 1: them if they didn't let the Americans go it. You
Speaker 1: couldn't ask for a better demonstration of weakness and appeasement
Speaker 1: versus piece their strength. Right all right, fast forward to Obama.
Speaker 1: Obama first term big domestic agenda is Obamacare and Dodd
Speaker 1: Frank Obama gets reelected in twenty twelve. Obama's second term
Speaker 1: major agenda was a nuclear deal with Iran, and in
Speaker 1: fact Ben Rhodes, who was the Deputy National Security Advisor
Speaker 1: in the Obama White House, he described an Iran nuclear
Speaker 1: deal as the Obamacare of the second term, which I
Speaker 1: think he meant his a compliment. You look at the
Speaker 1: Obama Iran deal, John Kerry negotiated it with Iran. It
Speaker 1: is absolutely catastrophic. The Iran deal on its face was
Speaker 1: a total capitulation to Iran, and it is dangerous that
Speaker 1: the Obama Iran Deal put in Iran unavoidably on a
Speaker 1: path to having a nuclear weapon. I led the opposition
Speaker 1: to the Iran Deal in the Senate, and in fact,
Speaker 1: you know, it was interesting. As the presidential campaign started
Speaker 1: getting going in twenty fifteen, I helped organize a huge
Speaker 1: rally on the steps of the Capitol, thousands of people
Speaker 1: in opposition to the Iran Deal. I invited Donald Trump
Speaker 1: to the rally and it was interesting. He was like,
Speaker 1: why would you invite me to your rally? You're running
Speaker 1: against me. He was like, well, and I just said, well, Donald,
Speaker 1: because when I invite you, every TV camera in the
Speaker 1: universe follows you. And I want to stop this deal
Speaker 1: because I don't want a theocratic lunatic. Now there's a
Speaker 1: different Ietola. The old one was the Aetola Komeni. The
Speaker 1: new Iotola is the Aetola Kamene. Just when you think
Speaker 1: the iranis you can't get more confusing. The two guys
Speaker 1: have almost the same name. And look, there's an easy solution.
Speaker 1: Call him the Aetola. He's a bearded Jehadas who wants
Speaker 1: to murder us. And by the way, the Iatola Kamene,
Speaker 1: like the Ietola Komeni literally chance death to America and
Speaker 1: death to Israel. And he was doing this, This is
Speaker 1: not hyperbole. While John Kerry in the State Department were
Speaker 1: negotiating the Iran nuclear deal, the Ayatola was leading mobs
Speaker 1: in Iran chanting death to America. They actually have every
Speaker 1: every year they celebrate Death to America Day and it's
Speaker 1: the anniversary of the revolutionaries taking Americans hostage. And yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a great political cartoon that came out about that time.
Speaker 1: I think it was twenty fifteen that had the Ayatola
Speaker 1: and had John Kerry and it had the Ayatola saying
Speaker 1: death to America, and it had John Kerry saying, can
Speaker 1: we meet you halfway? Yeah? Could we just be mortally
Speaker 1: wounded in some way? Well, so this is what the
Speaker 1: left says, because if you look at the facts on
Speaker 1: the face, it seems absurd that the left would continue
Speaker 1: and Democrats specifically and Carrie and Biden specifically would try
Speaker 1: to get this deal. But what they have said is
Speaker 1: look forget about that. That's all just pr from the malas.
Speaker 1: They don't really believe it don't listen to the Republicans.
Speaker 1: This deal is not only not going to give Iran
Speaker 1: a bomb, but it is going to prevent Iran from
Speaker 1: getting a bomb. And on an issue like Iran, as
Speaker 1: we've as we've just said, it's hard to keep track
Speaker 1: of the guy's names. It's difficult to know who to believe.
Speaker 1: So you're right, those are the talking points. And I
Speaker 1: will say a couple of things. So I actually met
Speaker 1: today with a Biden nominee to be an ambassador in
Speaker 1: the Middle East, and we were talking about Iran and
Speaker 1: the nuclear agreement, and he made a comment he said,
Speaker 1: I think everyone agrees with the foreign policy world that
Speaker 1: Iran must never get a nuclear bomb. And I sort
Speaker 1: of stopped him, and I laughed and said, let me
Speaker 1: be clear, I don't think everyone agrees with that. I
Speaker 1: think the Biden White House is perfectly okay with Iran
Speaker 1: having a nuclear weapon. And I said, look, go back
Speaker 1: to the Obama white House. So when Obama was newly
Speaker 1: elected president, one of the very first speeches he ever
Speaker 1: gave was in the Middle East. He went to the
Speaker 1: University of Cairo and he at the University of Kiro.
Speaker 1: He gave a speech and he said that Iran has
Speaker 1: a right and he used that word right to nuclear technology.
Speaker 1: Now that is absurd. I'm familiar with the right to life,
Speaker 1: to liberty, to property. There is no right to nukes.
Speaker 1: And if you're a crazy, theocratic lunatic who wants to
Speaker 1: murder millions of people, you especially don't have a right
Speaker 1: to nukes. Fast forward, there was an article that got
Speaker 1: a lot of attention during the Obama administration by a
Speaker 1: writer in the Atlantic. And what got all the attention
Speaker 1: was a senior White House official in the Obama White House.
Speaker 1: In fact, a lot of people speculated it was Obama himself,
Speaker 1: but that was never conclusively confirmed. But this senior Obama
Speaker 1: official referred to Benjamin net and Yahoo, the Prime Minister
Speaker 1: of Israel, as chicken shit, and it was sort of
Speaker 1: a startling it. It got a lot of attention. My
Speaker 1: view was always that that actually wasn't much of news.
Speaker 1: It was obvious that the Obama White House viewed net
Speaker 1: and Yahoo with contempt. They treated him like crap like.
Speaker 1: The fact that they directed that epithet to them was
Speaker 1: not surprising in the slightest for anyone who watched how
Speaker 1: they treated them. What was interesting in that same quote,
Speaker 1: senior Obama White House officials said, the good thing is,
Speaker 1: and I'm paraphrasing, but this is pretty accurate. The good
Speaker 1: thing is we've delayed Israel from acting for so long
Speaker 1: that they're no longer capable, militarily capable of acting to
Speaker 1: prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear arsenal. And those are
Speaker 1: chilling words where listen, I think Obama and Biden they're
Speaker 1: leftists that it's this same we were talking a minute
Speaker 1: ago with respect to China about the anti americanism on
Speaker 1: the left. They view American leadership in the world as illegitimate.
Speaker 1: They think we have no right. What right do we
Speaker 1: have to deny to these peaceful little Iranians a nuclear bomb?
Speaker 1: That's just American arrogance. Well, you know what, people that
Speaker 1: want to murder us, I want to keep the weapons
Speaker 1: that they can use to murder us out of their hands.
Speaker 1: The left doesn't believe this. I totally agree with that,
Speaker 1: But then, Senator, what do you say to Look, this
Speaker 1: is a longstanding Democrat held belief. Even if they won't
Speaker 1: admit it publicly, they'll at least admit it on background.
Speaker 1: And they've obviously been working toward a world in which
Speaker 1: Iran will have an easier time getting a nuclear weapon. Okay,
Speaker 1: what do you say to those who tell you, look,
Speaker 1: Iran talks a big game on destroying Israel. They're not
Speaker 1: going to destroy Israel. Iran is not going to come
Speaker 1: over and detonate a nuclear bomb in the United States.
Speaker 1: They have no reason to do it, no incentive to
Speaker 1: do it. A lot of countries have nuclear weapons for
Speaker 1: goodness sakes, you know, Pakistan, North Korea, a bunch of places.
Speaker 1: We don't want to have nuclear weapons. They've got them.
Speaker 1: A lot of more people are going to get them.
Speaker 1: What's the big deal? This does not pose an existential
Speaker 1: threat to the United States. I think these are people
Speaker 1: that do not understand evil, and they don't understand. If
Speaker 1: history teaches anything it is that if somebody tells you
Speaker 1: they want to kill you, you should believe them, believe them.
Speaker 1: I'll give one example, the so called father of the
Speaker 1: Iranian nuclear program, an Iranian scientist who has since gone
Speaker 1: to meet his maker, many say, at the hands of
Speaker 1: the Israeli Massad. He had written in his last will
Speaker 1: and testament that he wanted the following words written on
Speaker 1: his tombstone. Here lies a man who sought the annihilation
Speaker 1: of Israel. Not loving father, you know, good husband, No, no,
Speaker 1: just soldier, sailor tinker Taylor. No, No, it's think about
Speaker 1: just how much hatred you have to have that that's
Speaker 1: what you wanted to be remembered for. I want to
Speaker 1: murder as many people as possible. That's like I'm a vicious, racist,
Speaker 1: bigot who wants to commit mass murder. And look, you
Speaker 1: talked about North Korea. North Korea with nukes is incredibly dangerous.
Speaker 1: Jong Un is a megalomaniacal, narcissistic dictator. It was a
Speaker 1: catastrophic mistake for the Clinton administration to screw up and
Speaker 1: allow him to develop nuclear weapons. Now that he has them,
Speaker 1: there is some chance, possibly of something resembling rational deterrence,
Speaker 1: because the one thing that Kim wants is to stay
Speaker 1: in power, and he does know if he used a
Speaker 1: nuclear weapon that that would be the end of his regime,
Speaker 1: that that the imbalance of power, he would be destroyed.
Speaker 1: The danger with the Ayatola, and this is where religion
Speaker 1: is particularly dangerous, is that he's a theocratic zealot. It's
Speaker 1: not just if he were an ordinary dictator. You may
Speaker 1: be able to have some real cost benefit analysis. But
Speaker 1: when you have a zealot who embraces death and suicide,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's like the math of suicide bombers. When
Speaker 1: you have people that are willing to strap dynamite to
Speaker 1: their chest and walk into a bus or walk into
Speaker 1: a shopping mall, ordinary deterrence doesn't work if they're willing
Speaker 1: to blow themselves up. The Aetola knows if he detonated
Speaker 1: a nuclear weapon that the consequences would be hundreds of thousands,
Speaker 1: if not millions of Iranians killed in the war. I mean,
Speaker 1: the consequences would be devastating. The danger for a religious
Speaker 1: zealot is that he just might be willing to make
Speaker 1: that cost benefit analysis. If I get to murder, he
Speaker 1: might say millions of Jews, it's worth it that that
Speaker 1: I will be rewarded with seventy two virgins. What they
Speaker 1: didn't mention that where that the virgins were gomer pile.
Speaker 1: But that's different. Yeah, you don't, you don't, you don't
Speaker 1: want They don't put it in the fine print. Yep.
Speaker 1: That is profoundly dangerous. And I think if it Ran
Speaker 1: acquires a nuclear weapon, the odds are unacceptably high. They
Speaker 1: would detonate it in the skies of Tel Aviv or
Speaker 1: Jerusalem or New York or Los Angeles. Now what are
Speaker 1: those odds. I don't know. I don't want to find
Speaker 1: out that that's not a roll of the dice. I'm
Speaker 1: interested in finding out. Let's suppose Iran gets a nuke
Speaker 1: and that doesn't happen, they don't use it. The best
Speaker 1: case scenario, Well, if Iran gets a nuke, every other
Speaker 1: country in the Middle East suddenly will feel the urge
Speaker 1: to get nuclear weapons as well. The Saudi Arabians will
Speaker 1: want nukes, the UAE will want us, and Cutter will
Speaker 1: want nukes. They'll all want nukes to defend themselves against
Speaker 1: the Iranians. It's it's actually one of the ironies. I
Speaker 1: joked that. Amazingly enough, Barack Obama inadvertently deserve the Nobel
Speaker 1: Peace Prize they gave him because he actually brought the
Speaker 1: Arabs and the Israelis together. All he had to do
Speaker 1: was negotiate a deal that would give the Iranians nuclear weapons,
Speaker 1: and the Arabs and Israelis said, are you frigging nuts,
Speaker 1: Let's put aside our differences. Yes, because because look they
Speaker 1: understand that an Iran with nukes, Iran today is the
Speaker 1: leading state sponsor of terrorism. Even if they don't use
Speaker 1: the nukes, every other country in the Middle East gets
Speaker 1: nukes to counter Iran. Talk about a tinderbox that you're
Speaker 1: just like throwing gunpowder into. And on top of that,
Speaker 1: if Iran is willing to fund terrorists murdering Americans across
Speaker 1: the world today without nuclear weapons, how aggressive do you
Speaker 1: think they would be with nuclear weapons where they feel
Speaker 1: they have impunity. And by the way, that's the best
Speaker 1: case scenario. So Obama ran deal, disastrous deal. They gave
Speaker 1: over one hundred billion dollars to the Ayatola. On the
Speaker 1: face of it, the deal was obvious it would end
Speaker 1: up with a nuclear weapon. Why number one at sunset
Speaker 1: it after a decade it went away. So on the
Speaker 1: terms of it, Obama was like, yeah, ten years from now,
Speaker 1: you can have a problem. Secondly, the deal gives them
Speaker 1: one hundred billion dollars, counts on them to be honest.
Speaker 1: It provided that any inspection of nuclear facilities you had
Speaker 1: to give a RAN twenty one day's advanced notice just
Speaker 1: to tidy up the place. Yeah, you know, I've suggested
Speaker 1: I imagine a law that said, before a search warrant
Speaker 1: is executed on a drug dealer, you've got to give
Speaker 1: them twenty one a day's advanced notice of the place
Speaker 1: to be searched. Do you think you would find anything? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Probably not. Not only that, the deal, on the face
Speaker 1: of it says there's certain sites, sites designated as military
Speaker 1: sites that are exempt from inspections. Now, if they're sites
Speaker 1: that are exempt from inspections, gosh, where do you think
Speaker 1: it is that they met? They will develop the nuclear weapons? Right,
Speaker 1: this was a deal as radical as the Obama folks were,
Speaker 1: as carry were. No one can look at this deal
Speaker 1: and conclude anything other than it. Ran will get a
Speaker 1: nuclear weapon under this deal. They were okay with it.
Speaker 1: Then Trump ended the deal most important national security decision
Speaker 1: Trump made. I spent an enormous amount of time with
Speaker 1: President Trump urging him to end the deal. Well, now
Speaker 1: Biden wants to re enter the deal, and it is
Speaker 1: I think his top foreign policy objective to re enter
Speaker 1: the deal. Biden is desperate to enter a deal that
Speaker 1: will be worse than the Obama deal. It is an
Speaker 1: ideological commitment. So I brought together a group of thirty
Speaker 1: three Senators wrote a letter to Biden making clear that
Speaker 1: under a law that we passed that that was the
Speaker 1: Iran Review legislation, that no deal can have force without
Speaker 1: being submitted to Congress first of all, for review and
Speaker 1: a vote. The Biden administration is going to ignore that law.
Speaker 1: They intended to fy that law. And by the way,
Speaker 1: the right way to do any deal is submit a
Speaker 1: treaty that takes two thirds of the Senate to ratify.
Speaker 1: But they can't get the vote, so they're going to
Speaker 1: ram through a bad deal. Can they do that? Though?
Speaker 1: I mean, if they have to institution says the Senate's
Speaker 1: got to ratify treaties, then how how can the White
Speaker 1: House just go in and say, well, no, this isn't
Speaker 1: a treaty, it's just a it's a it's a nice
Speaker 1: it's a fun compact between friends, between nation friends. So
Speaker 1: that's basically what Obama did, and I and others made
Speaker 1: clear in order for this to have force, it has
Speaker 1: to be a treaty. And and actually, here's a way
Speaker 1: to illustrate it is actually go back to the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: We're sort of jumping in the timeline, but let's go
Speaker 1: to the beginning of the Trump administration, both the State
Speaker 1: Department in the Defense Department under Donald Trump wanted to
Speaker 1: stay in the Iran deal. Rex Tillerson was Secretary of State.
Speaker 1: He said, we need to stay in the Rand deal.
Speaker 1: Jim Madis, who's a Democrat, was Secretary Defense, and he said,
Speaker 1: we need to stay in. Maddis used to say, and
Speaker 1: he said this both public and private. He said, America
Speaker 1: gave our word, we need to keep our word. And
Speaker 1: I told him General and later Miss Secretary, No, America
Speaker 1: did not give our word right. There were two ways,
Speaker 1: and only two ways, that we give our word in
Speaker 1: a binding international context under the Constitution. Number one, through
Speaker 1: legislation that passes both houses of Congress and assigned it
Speaker 1: a law that is a formal commitment as a legal commitment.
Speaker 1: Or Number two, the typical way for an international agreement,
Speaker 1: as a treaty negotiated and signed by the President and
Speaker 1: ratified by two thirds of the Senate. Those are the
Speaker 1: two ways America can give our word that are binding.
Speaker 1: This deal was neither, and we made absolutely clear to
Speaker 1: Obama that the Senate rejected it, and thankfully Trump ended
Speaker 1: up agreeing with me. He overruled his own secretary of
Speaker 1: State in his own Secretary Defense and ended the deal.
Speaker 1: But and it was the most important foreign policy decision.
Speaker 1: Now Biden's trying to negotiate it. The reports are they're
Speaker 1: close to a deal. The one thing that saved us
Speaker 1: from a deal so far as the Iranians are so extreme,
Speaker 1: they see so much weakness with Biden that they're demanding
Speaker 1: an even bigger sweet deal that Obama gave him. Their
Speaker 1: unreasonableness may delay this a little bit. But what the
Speaker 1: eyetolas holding out for is he's saying to Biden, what
Speaker 1: I want as a commitment that will last and will
Speaker 1: last beyond this administration. And what I've said repeatedly is
Speaker 1: Joe Biden can't give you that because the next Republican
Speaker 1: president who comes in is going to rip this deal up,
Speaker 1: just like the last Republican president is. This is disastrous,
Speaker 1: but Biden wants to sign it anyway. Well, speaking of
Speaker 1: acts of violence, I think our listeners are going to
Speaker 1: commit acts of violence, potentially with nuclear weapons on me
Speaker 1: if we don't get to at least one mail. Bad question.
Speaker 1: So I want to get to that before we go.
Speaker 1: There were a number of great questions that came in
Speaker 1: this one though, is completely out of left field, and
Speaker 1: it ties in with a little bit of a news story,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to bring it up from Spack says,
Speaker 1: what is Ted Cruise's view regarding the legality of illicit drugs?
Speaker 1: Love the show. I've been a fan from episode one,
Speaker 1: and it ties into the news because Joe Biden might
Speaker 1: not be able to give us very much in this economy,
Speaker 1: but he is promising to give out free crack pipes,
Speaker 1: so it's a topic at the top of people's minds.
Speaker 1: It's a great question. But let me stop, Michael, how
Speaker 1: is that not a headline from the Babylon b It
Speaker 1: literally is the case of the Biden administration is giving
Speaker 1: out free crack pipes, because this will be good for
Speaker 1: America if everyone's smoking crack, you know, talk about a
Speaker 1: great crime policy as many people on crack as possible.
Speaker 1: These are your Democrats. He actually went further. He said
Speaker 1: that crack pipes were important for racial equity, which seems
Speaker 1: extremely offensive to me to say that, but so not
Speaker 1: only extremely offensive. If you were to come up with
Speaker 1: a conspiracy theory, this would usually be attributed to Republicans.
Speaker 1: If you were to say racist and the media conspiracy
Speaker 1: theorists always claimed them to be Republicans the CIA, so
Speaker 1: this is another one. CIA wants to give crack pipes
Speaker 1: to minorities to destroy minority communities. That sounds like a
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory, except Biden is saying that's what he wants
Speaker 1: to do. It's like, holy crap, you want to fight
Speaker 1: for minority communities. Get the kids off crack. Don't give
Speaker 1: them crackpipes. All right, that's a good rule of thumb.
Speaker 1: Get get the kids off crack. Yes, reasonable people can
Speaker 1: disagree on lots of questions here, but I think we
Speaker 1: can all agree don't give the kids crack pipes. Amen.
Speaker 1: Not a great idea. Just say no. Just say no.
Speaker 1: Because we're high on life. We're high on all of this. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're high on all this great content that we're trying
Speaker 1: to bring to our Verdict listeners. So if you haven't
Speaker 1: subscribed already, you should go go and subscribe. You can
Speaker 1: get your merchant Verdicts with Ted cruz dot com slash shop.
Speaker 1: You can sign up for Verdict Plus on locals. There's
Speaker 1: a whole there's a whole other series right now on
Speaker 1: Verdicts Plus, hosted by our friend Liz Wheeler. It is
Speaker 1: called The Cloakroom, and I think we have Liz with
Speaker 1: us right now. Hi, Michael High, Senator, we do. Indeed,
Speaker 1: we are now, believe it or not, on episode three
Speaker 1: of The Cloak Room on Verdict Plus. So if you
Speaker 1: haven't joined us at Verdict with Ted Cruise dot Com
Speaker 1: Slash plus, please do. We're actually going to do a
Speaker 1: deep dive into the Democrat crack pipe controversy. There's I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess I should be used to saying sentences like
Speaker 1: that since we've had to deal with Hunter Biden for
Speaker 1: the last however many years. At this point, it's a
Speaker 1: low blow. I know, I couldn't resist. I couldn't resist.
Speaker 1: But this is a good conversation. This is about the
Speaker 1: philosophy of the thing right, whether the libertarian version of
Speaker 1: the conservative version of the war on drugs is not
Speaker 1: only the most effective, but the most constitutional. So we're
Speaker 1: going to dive into this. This is a topic, as
Speaker 1: you know, that creates a little discord among the republic
Speaker 1: among members of the Republican Party, so that's always fun
Speaker 1: to dive into that. Again. The Cloak Room is a
Speaker 1: brand new series on Verdict Plus with Senator Ted Cruiz.
Speaker 1: It's cohosted by me, Liz Wheeler. Basically, I'm going to
Speaker 1: pick the Senator's brain like I would in a strategy session.
Speaker 1: It's behind the scenes peak into the details of what
Speaker 1: goes on in DC, just like the actual cloakroom of
Speaker 1: the Senate. So you can join us at Verdict with
Speaker 1: Ted Cruise dot com slash Plus. To join us, use
Speaker 1: the promo code Cloakroom for a one month free trial
Speaker 1: on your annual subscription. You don't want to miss it.
Speaker 1: We have talked about many different things, Stacy Abrams not
Speaker 1: wearing a mask. We've talked about foreign policy and how
Speaker 1: to create a foreign policy philosophy so that when things
Speaker 1: like China happens, or things like Russia and Ukraine happened,
Speaker 1: you know how to apply that foreign policy. It's Verdict
Speaker 1: with Ted Cruise dot Com slash Plus. Promo code Cloakroom
Speaker 1: for one month free trial on your annual subscription. Sounds wonderful, Liz,
Speaker 1: I intend to raise a glass to the new series.
Speaker 1: I intend to raise a cigar. I will not raise
Speaker 1: a crack pipe. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz. See you next time. This episode of verdict
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