Speaker 1: It has been a tough couple of weeks for freedom.
Speaker 1: New threats to our freedom of speech, free elections, freedom
Speaker 1: of movement, the freedom to defend ourselves, even the freedom
Speaker 1: of nations to oppose woke corporations. Thankfully, Senator Cruz is
Speaker 1: finally back from meeting with bb net and Yahoo. He's
Speaker 1: back from Israel. We can hash all of this out.
Speaker 1: This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict
Speaker 1: with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles, Senator, Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the States. I'm glad you're back. Michael. Good to be
Speaker 1: with you. So I want to hear all about Israel.
Speaker 1: I want to hear about this meeting with bb net
Speaker 1: and Yahoo. You were with him on actually rather an
Speaker 1: historic day. But I don't want to talk about that
Speaker 1: right now. I want to be very selfish and first
Speaker 1: get to things that directly affect me. Namely, there is
Speaker 1: a new rule being passed by the ATF. That's the
Speaker 1: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and firearms, three of my favorite things.
Speaker 1: We were warned that the new ATF picks were on
Speaker 1: the radical side, but the headlines I'm seeing is that
Speaker 1: there are new threats to very popular weapons and the
Speaker 1: Second Amendment. What is happening? Well, so the ATF put
Speaker 1: out a new rule today that prohibited stabilizing crips on pistols,
Speaker 1: so shoulder stocks on pistols, and under the law, what
Speaker 1: basically they say, if you attach a shoulder stock to
Speaker 1: a pistol, you turn it into a short armed rifle.
Speaker 1: And short armed rifles under the law have to be
Speaker 1: specially registered. Now why does this matter? Well, it matters
Speaker 1: because according to the Congressional Research Service, they're anywhere between
Speaker 1: ten million and forty million of these stabilizing grips that
Speaker 1: are out there that Americans own, and so by the
Speaker 1: flip of a pick in ATF may be making anywhere
Speaker 1: from ten million to forty million Americans into felons unless
Speaker 1: they suddenly go and register their firearms. And all of
Speaker 1: this is being done by arbitrary fiat. Now, is there
Speaker 1: any legitimacy to the argument? I mean, I see your point,
Speaker 1: the political point that this is going to basically just
Speaker 1: take a ton of guns off the table, which seems
Speaker 1: to be the ultimate goal of the Biden administration. But
Speaker 1: is there any legitimacy to the argument that, Well, actually,
Speaker 1: when you put this sort of stabilizing grip on actually
Speaker 1: it does kind of turn it into a rifle or
Speaker 1: is it just an excuse? So if the objective is
Speaker 1: preventing crime, there are no data to suggest that that
Speaker 1: adding a grip to a pistol suddenly makes it more dangerous,
Speaker 1: suddenly leads to more crimes. That those are not the
Speaker 1: weapons that tend to be used in crimes. The most
Speaker 1: common weapons that are used in crimes are revolvers. You know,
Speaker 1: you go to the city of Chicago where you have
Speaker 1: gang members shooting each other, They're not using stabilizing grips.
Speaker 1: They're just shooting each other with handguns. This is Look,
Speaker 1: you could debate what the rules should be on the
Speaker 1: front end, but this is worse than changing the rules
Speaker 1: on the front end because it's arbitrary under the fact.
Speaker 1: After the fact, if you've got ten, twenty, thirty, forty
Speaker 1: million people that have pistols at home, have these stabilizing
Speaker 1: grips at home, yesterday they were perfectly legal. Now you know,
Speaker 1: presumably those forty million people, not all of them know
Speaker 1: that the ATF suddenly issued this new rule. And it's
Speaker 1: really dangerous when the government can turn you into a
Speaker 1: felon without your knowing. You know, you're doing something that
Speaker 1: it was perfectly legal when you bought it, but suddenly
Speaker 1: the Biden administration decided they don't want it to be legal.
Speaker 1: And the problem is are they going to arrest all
Speaker 1: forty million people? Probably not, but you can count on
Speaker 1: them using it as an arbitrary club that if they
Speaker 1: want to go after you, suddenly you've committed a crime
Speaker 1: that you had had no idea about it. And it
Speaker 1: doesn't It doesn't accomplish anything. It's not actually stopping crime.
Speaker 1: It's just with the stroke of a pen, turning people
Speaker 1: into criminals. That's a point I had not considered because
Speaker 1: I could see these this quibbling over. Well, now it
Speaker 1: looks more like a rifle, and in a way, it
Speaker 1: kind of find what is a rifle really? You know,
Speaker 1: I could see all of that as a way to
Speaker 1: obscure the issue. But your point is the point of
Speaker 1: these regulations is to prevent crime, and we know that
Speaker 1: forget this particular kind of alleged rifle, but rifles of
Speaker 1: all kinds are really not the guns that are used
Speaker 1: in most crimes. It's really just revolvers or as standard
Speaker 1: issue semi automatic pistols. So I think that does tip
Speaker 1: the argument. It's actually good, good Ammo, to use in
Speaker 1: a debate, if you'll, if you'll pardon a labored metaphor. Well,
Speaker 1: and I'll point out, Michael, you know you mentioned the
Speaker 1: nominees for ATF, so that dominated me. The head of
Speaker 1: ATF is the sky David Chipman. We had his hearing
Speaker 1: in the Senate Judiciary Committee couple of weeks ago, and
Speaker 1: this guy is extreme when it comes to gun control.
Speaker 1: He works for one of the major gun control organizations
Speaker 1: in this country, and it was interesting at the hearing.
Speaker 1: I asked him if he wanted to ban AR fifteens,
Speaker 1: which are the most popular rifles in America, and he
Speaker 1: said on equivocally yes, he wants to ban them all.
Speaker 1: And the leading Senate legislation to do that is Diane
Speaker 1: Feinstein's legislation that would ban some two thousand different types
Speaker 1: of rifles that she specifies. And Chipman made the argument
Speaker 1: he said he thought Feinstein didn't go nearly far enough
Speaker 1: and he would go much further. So Feinstein would ban
Speaker 1: the sale of new AR fifteen's. Chipman wants to make
Speaker 1: it illegal for anyone to own one, which sets up
Speaker 1: the same scenario we're talking about, which is the federal
Speaker 1: government being able to knock in your door and confiscate
Speaker 1: your guns or declare your criminal otherwise. And it's striking
Speaker 1: Number one, this is who Joe Biden is picked to
Speaker 1: lead ATF. But number two, this new rule on the
Speaker 1: stabilizing grips didn't come from Chipman. He hadn't been confirmed yet.
Speaker 1: So this is just the career folks at DOJ at
Speaker 1: ATF listening to the political folks at DOJ that it's
Speaker 1: really ominous for the direction the Biden administration is going
Speaker 1: in terms of arbitrary power and hostility to law abiding
Speaker 1: gun owners. Right, this isn't even the entree. This is
Speaker 1: just the appetizer. This is the amuse boush to the
Speaker 1: kind of radical rules we're going to see it. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I don't know what a namuse Bush is
Speaker 1: well putting putting the boushes aside here. Yes, this is
Speaker 1: a terrible announcement. We'll see when this rule actually goes
Speaker 1: into effect. Hopefully hopefully it does not. But not looking good, Senator,
Speaker 1: if you wouldn't mind now that we've out with our
Speaker 1: freedom of self defense I'd like you to disappoint me
Speaker 1: on another aspect of our freedom. These vaccine passports, Yeah,
Speaker 1: seem to be cropping up on the international stage, and
Speaker 1: there are a lot of politicians in the United States
Speaker 1: pushing for them here at home as well. Now, actually,
Speaker 1: I should say, there is a little glimmer of hope here,
Speaker 1: and it came out of you. You introduced a bill
Speaker 1: to ban this stuff. So I did. I introduced a
Speaker 1: bill that would ban mandatory vaccine passports, would ban the
Speaker 1: government issuing vaccine passports. Now, listen my view on it.
Speaker 1: I support vaccines. I think vaccines are a good idea.
Speaker 1: I've gotten the COVID vaccine. Heide's gotten the COVID vaccine.
Speaker 1: My parents have gotten it, her parents have. God did
Speaker 1: I think it makes sense for most people to get it.
Speaker 1: We've not given it to our girls. Our girls are
Speaker 1: ten and thirteen, actually ten year olds. There is in
Speaker 1: a vaccine that's recommended for kids that young, and I'm
Speaker 1: not sure the cost benefit analysis makes sense for a
Speaker 1: teen ager. But I think whether you get the vaccine
Speaker 1: or not should be a question of individual choice. It
Speaker 1: should be up to you, as as an individual, to
Speaker 1: look at your own health situation and decide do I
Speaker 1: want the vaccine or not? For me, I wanted it.
Speaker 1: I wanted the peace of mind, I wanted the freedom
Speaker 1: that comes from getting it. But you're right, there are
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of politicians that are wanting number one,
Speaker 1: the government to issue a vaccine passport, an official thing
Speaker 1: like your passport, like your driver's license. But number two,
Speaker 1: for that passport then to be mandatory for certain activity. So,
Speaker 1: for example, a lot of people are I think understandably
Speaker 1: concerned about airlines. Are they going to not let you
Speaker 1: get on a plane unless you can prove you've had
Speaker 1: a vaccine employment. We have seen instances across the country
Speaker 1: of people being terminated if they don't get vaccinated. And
Speaker 1: my view is that's wrong, that that that that should
Speaker 1: not be permitted. And so what my legislation does is
Speaker 1: prohibits the federal government from issuing a vaccine passport, prohibits
Speaker 1: the government from requiring proof of vaccine status. It protects
Speaker 1: the privacy of your healthcare information. And you think about
Speaker 1: everything else that your healthcare information, that that privacy is
Speaker 1: protected by law. And then it adds whether or not
Speaker 1: you're vaccinated to the list of federal civil rights protections
Speaker 1: that are protected in the course of employment. So just
Speaker 1: like you can't be fired from your job because of race,
Speaker 1: because of ethnicity, because of gender, because of religion, it
Speaker 1: likewise says you can't be fired from your job because
Speaker 1: of whether or not you've chosen to be vaccinated. And
Speaker 1: on this piece, essentially, what the legislation does is it
Speaker 1: incorporates the framework of the Americans with Disability Act. So
Speaker 1: there may be some jobs for which being vaccinated is
Speaker 1: an employer could reasonably conclude that that is necessary for
Speaker 1: that particular job. You know, maybe dealing with patients who
Speaker 1: may or may not have have COVID and may be immunocompromise.
Speaker 1: That might be one example where where you could conclude
Speaker 1: it was reasonable to want care providers to have to
Speaker 1: be vaccinated. But but the way the Americans with Disability worked,
Speaker 1: the way the Americans with Disability Act works is if
Speaker 1: you have a disability, your employer has to make a
Speaker 1: reasonable accommodation. And likewise, if you choose, as a help,
Speaker 1: as a matter of personal choice, not to get the vaccine,
Speaker 1: if my bill passes into law, the employer would have
Speaker 1: to make a reasonable accommodation for that individual choice you made.
Speaker 1: I was so pleased when I saw this headline. I
Speaker 1: really I'm I'm not flattering you in any way, because
Speaker 1: we've seen some moves to ban these things at the
Speaker 1: state level, but we hadn't really seen anything at the
Speaker 1: federal level. And I just thought, the way this issue
Speaker 1: is being presented, you have to either insist that everybody
Speaker 1: get the vaccine immediately to a regardless of circumstance, or
Speaker 1: you have to say that the vaccine is going to
Speaker 1: cause you to grow a third eye in a tail,
Speaker 1: and it's got, you know, the worst thing in the world.
Speaker 1: And what you're bringing into this conversation two very important things.
Speaker 1: Choice that you know, you have faculties of reason you
Speaker 1: can kind of figure some of these things out yourself,
Speaker 1: and prudence, which is a related virtue, the idea that
Speaker 1: for certain people it might make a lot of sense
Speaker 1: to go out and get this thing right away, and
Speaker 1: for other people the risk is just lower. And we're
Speaker 1: free people and we should be able to make that
Speaker 1: calculation ourselves. Well. And look, I can say in my family,
Speaker 1: my dad was pretty skeptical about the vaccine. He didn't
Speaker 1: want to get it and I spent probably a month
Speaker 1: arguing with him, saying, look, Dad, you know you're in
Speaker 1: your eighties. You have been staying home mostly, you've been
Speaker 1: social distancing. You want to get out. He's a preacher,
Speaker 1: he wants to be back out with people. I said,
Speaker 1: you know, you'd be much happier if you get the
Speaker 1: vaccine and you can go out and interact with people
Speaker 1: and return to some semblance of normal life. And ultimately
Speaker 1: he was persuaded. But I think families can work through
Speaker 1: this and consider the pros and cons. Are there risks
Speaker 1: to any experimental drug. Of course there are, and that's
Speaker 1: where rational adults can make their own cost benefit analysis
Speaker 1: and decide what makes sense for now this issue, I
Speaker 1: suppose it's it's more on the conservative side of things.
Speaker 1: I've noticed the left and the Democrats tend to be
Speaker 1: much more more in favor of government mandates generally, but
Speaker 1: certainly with regard to this. Is there any way to
Speaker 1: price some Democrats over to come and support a federal
Speaker 1: ban on the vaccine passports. I don't know. I'll confess
Speaker 1: I'm skeptical. I have not seen any Democrats in the
Speaker 1: Senate expressing concern about vaccine passports. Now, the most promising
Speaker 1: aspect is actually the Biden administration. Jensaki, at a White
Speaker 1: House press briefing said the Biden administration would not be
Speaker 1: requiring vaccine passports and would not be issuing them. That
Speaker 1: the federal administration wouldn't be a shooing them. That's good,
Speaker 1: and so part of what I'm saying as well, Look,
Speaker 1: if Joe Biden is saying this, then we ought to
Speaker 1: be perfectly willing to codify it, to put it into statute,
Speaker 1: and more importantly, to provide some protection so that you
Speaker 1: can't be fired arbitrarily if you choose in your own
Speaker 1: life not to get a vaccine. And in a normal circumstance,
Speaker 1: there would be Democrats willing to protect health privacy that
Speaker 1: that that often is a bipartisan issue. Sometimes protecting civil
Speaker 1: liberties is a bipartisan issue. With COVID, I don't know
Speaker 1: that I'm all that optimistic that Democrats are going to
Speaker 1: be interested in doing so, because they're they're really vested
Speaker 1: in the authoritarian state when it comes to COVID, and
Speaker 1: so I'm certainly going to try. I hope Democrats will agree,
Speaker 1: But but you know, if you ask me, I'm going
Speaker 1: to hold my breath on this Now, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to hold my breath on this one. Well, there may
Speaker 1: be some hope here, I suppose because of the timing
Speaker 1: of this all. You know, I know how much you
Speaker 1: hate to say I told you so. You know how
Speaker 1: much I hate to say I told you so. However,
Speaker 1: we told you so. On this program. We raised a
Speaker 1: lot of questions about the prevailing narrative on the coronavirus,
Speaker 1: on the lockdowns on China, on all of these things
Speaker 1: well over a year ago, and people called us koops
Speaker 1: and conspiracy theorists and rubes and all sorts of things.
Speaker 1: And it turns out that we, and not just us,
Speaker 1: there were other people too, were completely right. And that
Speaker 1: seems to have been proven this week with the release
Speaker 1: of doctor Fauci's emails, three thousand emails obtained through an
Speaker 1: ordinary Freedom of Information Act request. Does the release of
Speaker 1: the Fauci emails change any of the political situation on
Speaker 1: COVID in Washington, Well, let me point out, as a
Speaker 1: matter of logic, just because we were right doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that you and I are not kops and conspiracy theorists
Speaker 1: and a bunch of rubes. Your good point, as the
Speaker 1: old line says, just because you're Parinois does not mean
Speaker 1: they're not out to get you when it comes to
Speaker 1: the origin of the vaccine. Actually went back and looked
Speaker 1: and this podcast in March of last year. We were
Speaker 1: one of the very first podcast news outlets kind of
Speaker 1: outlets anywhere. So we had two different episodes, one in March,
Speaker 1: one in April of last year where we went through
Speaker 1: in real detail the evidence that we knew at the
Speaker 1: time about COVID, about where it came from, and we
Speaker 1: walked through how Wuhan they're two different labs, Chinese government
Speaker 1: labs studying coronaviruses, studying coronaviruses from bats, that one of
Speaker 1: the labs is four hundred yards away from the wet market,
Speaker 1: that the odds were statistically really slim that this was
Speaker 1: a coincidence. And we said on this pod in March
Speaker 1: of last year that the preponderance of the evidence supported
Speaker 1: the conclusion that this escaped from a Chinese lab. Now
Speaker 1: I'm amazed we haven't been banned yet so far. Verdict
Speaker 1: is out there. And I say that midway through this episode,
Speaker 1: and suddenly I may stop mid sentence, So I don't
Speaker 1: know but you look at these Fauci emails. I gotta
Speaker 1: say this, This Fauci guy is a piece of work,
Speaker 1: you know, smug, condescending, willing to control people arbitrarily, and
Speaker 1: the emails. So you have emails where where scientists are
Speaker 1: raising with him in the spring of last year, Hey,
Speaker 1: this virus looks like it may have been manufactured in
Speaker 1: the lab. And actually when we talked about it, we
Speaker 1: broke it down into two aspects of the theory. One
Speaker 1: was did it escape from a lab in other way?
Speaker 1: And two was was it manufactured in a lab? And
Speaker 1: what we said a year ago is we said on
Speaker 1: the ladder, the evidence supports the conclusion. Yes, we don't
Speaker 1: have we don't have direct evidence. We need an investigation
Speaker 1: to determine if that in fact happened, But the proponderance
Speaker 1: of the evidence we have suggest that it escaped from
Speaker 1: the lab. On the first question, was it manufactured in
Speaker 1: a lab? You recall there were several that were Washington
Speaker 1: Post fact checks and others that had scientists saying, we've
Speaker 1: looked at the virus and concluded that based on the
Speaker 1: characteristic of the virus, it's naturally occurring. It wasn't made
Speaker 1: in a lab. And listen, you and I aren't biologist.
Speaker 1: We don't I don't know how to look at a virus.
Speaker 1: So I was like, Okay, if the scientists say that,
Speaker 1: I guess that sounds So we said at the time, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not not maintaining that it was manufactured in a lab. Well,
Speaker 1: unbeknownst to you and me, at the exact same time,
Speaker 1: all of the press was orchestrating these stories. Scientists within
Speaker 1: the NIH were saying, gosh, looking at this virus, it
Speaker 1: looks like it may have been manufactured in a lab.
Speaker 1: And there's something called gain of function research. And I
Speaker 1: think it's worth Michael pausing and reflecting on that because
Speaker 1: people are hearing that term and they don't necessarily know
Speaker 1: what it means. I mean, that's kind of a weird term,
Speaker 1: particularly if you're not a virologist to know what it means.
Speaker 1: And my understanding, kind of a layman's interpretation of gain
Speaker 1: of function research is that you take a virus and
Speaker 1: you alter the genetic code in it, and you alter
Speaker 1: the genetic code to make it more deadly, to make
Speaker 1: it more contagious, You change it to basically turn it
Speaker 1: into a supervirus. And it's a very controversial type of research.
Speaker 1: It is research that FAUCI and congressional testimony insisted, No,
Speaker 1: that wasn't going on in Wuha. No, the federal government
Speaker 1: wasn't funding it, the US federal government, And we now
Speaker 1: know from the FAUCI emails and other sources, Yes, it
Speaker 1: was going on. There was gain of function research going on. Yes,
Speaker 1: the federal government was funding it. Yes, FAUCI was funding it,
Speaker 1: and we now know from the emails. There were scientists
Speaker 1: raising at the time that it appeared this may be
Speaker 1: a virus genetically modified by the Chinese labs to make
Speaker 1: it more contagious among humans, if that's true. Look, it's
Speaker 1: one thing. If if sloppy security at the wuhuant Institute
Speaker 1: for Virology resulted in an accidental leak, that's that's really bad,
Speaker 1: and China bears culpability for the millions of death and
Speaker 1: trillions of dollars of devastation that have come from this.
Speaker 1: But if on top of that, they made the virus
Speaker 1: and then screwed up and let it leak it, it
Speaker 1: is a level of responsibility that is really I don't
Speaker 1: think earth shattering is too strong a term for it.
Speaker 1: And that Fauci was getting emails suggesting at the time,
Speaker 1: and then he would go out publicly and adamantly conclude, no,
Speaker 1: this wasn't manufactured in the lab. We know that it
Speaker 1: occurred naturally. I'm sorry. That's not science. That's propaganda. And
Speaker 1: and and the most disturbing aspect of these fouch emails
Speaker 1: is his consistent willingness to be a propagandist, that he
Speaker 1: has a political message, and it's his decision making is
Speaker 1: not driven by the science, not driven by the evidence.
Speaker 1: He's not going, oh, well, that would be highly concerning
Speaker 1: if it was gained a function. How can we examine
Speaker 1: the virus? How could we examine what the science tells us.
Speaker 1: That's not his concern. His concern was this is a
Speaker 1: bad political story, so let's make sure we quash it.
Speaker 1: And I got to tell you on top of that, Michael,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you read a story that came
Speaker 1: out a few days ago in Vanity Fair. I try
Speaker 1: to avoid Vanity Fair, but I did not see it now,
Speaker 1: so I'm not a reader of Vanity Fair. I don't
Speaker 1: believe I've ever actually held a copy of the magazine
Speaker 1: Vanity Fair. That being said, there is an investigative journalism
Speaker 1: Peace and Vanity Fair that is jaw dropping that goes
Speaker 1: through the massive cover up that was occurring within the
Speaker 1: federal government, within the State Department with NIH of essentially
Speaker 1: deep state bureaucrats trying to cover up information about GATA
Speaker 1: function research, information about federal taxpayers funding it, information about
Speaker 1: this might be a lab leak. And one of the
Speaker 1: stunning things is the individual Peter Dazak, who received the
Speaker 1: grants from the NIH to do this research. Vanity Fair
Speaker 1: revealed he is the one that organized the list of
Speaker 1: scientists that wrote a letter in Lancet denouncing this theory,
Speaker 1: and he literally was covering his own ass. He was
Speaker 1: organizing a bunch of scientists to put out a statement
Speaker 1: that all of the press treated as conclusive, and that
Speaker 1: Facebook went so far as to ban anyone who disagreed.
Speaker 1: This is propaganda of an Orwellian nature and it's really
Speaker 1: it's corrupt, it's frightening, and it's wrong. You know. To
Speaker 1: be fair to Vanity Fair and other outlets too that
Speaker 1: are left wing outlets, every now and again you will
Speaker 1: get a really great piece in there. And now we
Speaker 1: can see the emails for ourselves. It's also worth pointing
Speaker 1: out on this question of a Michael, how damning is
Speaker 1: it to the Washington Post and the New York Times
Speaker 1: and the self declared arbiters of news that Vanity friggin
Speaker 1: fair kicked their ass like that they actually went and
Speaker 1: did journalism a year and a half late. But it's
Speaker 1: a really good, carefully research story. And are you telling
Speaker 1: me there's no reporter at the New York Times that
Speaker 1: could do this? And they just they didn't care because
Speaker 1: the political narrative didn't suit what they wanted to say.
Speaker 1: And every one of these self declared arbiters of journalism
Speaker 1: who have stacks of Pulitzers on their shelves, ought to
Speaker 1: be embarrassed and they ought to fundamentally, they ought to
Speaker 1: have a public discussion about why they didn't investigate this,
Speaker 1: why they didn't ask these questions, why they stepted the
Speaker 1: government Propagain, I don't believe any of them will, but
Speaker 1: if they had even the tiniest shred of journalistic integrity,
Speaker 1: that's what they should do. I won't hold my breath
Speaker 1: on that, of course, but worth pointing out too before
Speaker 1: before we move on. Not only is there this issue
Speaker 1: of the sort of research that was going on at
Speaker 1: the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Not only is there the
Speaker 1: issue of the total cover up by parts of the
Speaker 1: government and by the media, but you have doctor Fauci
Speaker 1: on record defending this type of research. This is very
Speaker 1: dangerous research. He acknowledged it was very dangerous research, and
Speaker 1: he said it was worth the risk. He said the
Speaker 1: potential benefits outweighed the risk. So I agree. It seems
Speaker 1: like we're all being distracted here. We're all being told
Speaker 1: we have to talk about the passports and all of
Speaker 1: our measures of how we're going to protect ourselves. I
Speaker 1: want accountability. I want accountability from China yep. I want
Speaker 1: accountability from the political operatives in our own government who
Speaker 1: knew about this, who covered this up. Hopefully we'll be
Speaker 1: seeing more of that, Senator before we get to Israel.
Speaker 1: I actually have to take a detour on our way
Speaker 1: maybe to Israel, to take a detour down to Nigeria
Speaker 1: because there was a very strange political story that came
Speaker 1: out there. Twitter is at the moment, for all intents
Speaker 1: and purposes, banned in Nigeria because Twitter took down a
Speaker 1: post from the President of Nigeria and the circumstances of
Speaker 1: this post involved various conflicts and factions and all sorts
Speaker 1: of accusations of terrible things. That's not really what I'm
Speaker 1: interested in. Well, I'm interested in it generally. We can
Speaker 1: talk on some other episode. But here, from the big
Speaker 1: tech aspect, you have Twitter going in and saying we're
Speaker 1: going to censor the president of Nigeria and if you
Speaker 1: don't like it, build your own Twitter. And Nigeria responds
Speaker 1: and says, well, we're going to censor Twitter and if
Speaker 1: you don't like it, build your own Nigeria. Where is
Speaker 1: the freedom here? What is the argument? I mean, what
Speaker 1: can we learn about from this in our own situation
Speaker 1: because we face something very similar a few months ago
Speaker 1: in our own country. Well, you're right, and there's actually
Speaker 1: there's a third and fourth iteration to this. So once
Speaker 1: Nigeria band Twitter, Twitter came back and put out a
Speaker 1: statement denouncing Nigeria and saying that that communicating on social
Speaker 1: media is an essential human right in modern society, which
Speaker 1: which I read and it's it's you know, from Twitter itself,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't help but but retweeting that and you know,
Speaker 1: ironically on Twitter and pointing out that in Twitter's own words,
Speaker 1: they have willfully denied the former President of the United States,
Speaker 1: Donald J. Trump, what they characterize as a quote essential
Speaker 1: human right in modern society. So that's that's their terminology.
Speaker 1: And I got And today, I don't know if you
Speaker 1: saw Trump put out a press statement crazy Nigeria's decision
Speaker 1: and saying he wished he'd done the same thing when
Speaker 1: he was president, which I don't actually think the President
Speaker 1: of the United States can band Twitter, So I'm glad
Speaker 1: he didn't do that. But it does highlight the the
Speaker 1: abundant hypocrisy a big tech of course, and I do
Speaker 1: I get. I love the sentiment that President Trump put
Speaker 1: out there. Yeah, if it is not workable in reality,
Speaker 1: I think the sentiment is something that we all agree with. Now, finally, Senator,
Speaker 1: you have answered all of my questions on this individual
Speaker 1: freedom stuff. I have to hear about your trip in Israel.
Speaker 1: We have not spoken in a couple of weeks. You
Speaker 1: were hanging out with cooler, more impressive friends. That's fine,
Speaker 1: notably Prime Minister bb Net and Yahoo, who I believe
Speaker 1: is now about to he's about to leave power. He's
Speaker 1: holding onto power. I have no idea. So last weekend,
Speaker 1: I flew to Israel and spent about two and a
Speaker 1: half days there. And in Israel, I went the first
Speaker 1: day went down to examine where the war fighting had
Speaker 1: been and so went down to the border of Gaza,
Speaker 1: went and met with IDF Israeli Defense forces soldiers, met
Speaker 1: with General Harris, the military attache of the United States
Speaker 1: Army that is down there in Israel. Went to an
Speaker 1: Iron Dome battery, which the Iron Dome is this amazing
Speaker 1: missile defense system that Israel's developed with the United States
Speaker 1: as assistants that shoots down rockets and it has over
Speaker 1: a ninety percent intercept rates. It's an incredible piece of technology.
Speaker 1: And so the first day was visiting all of these locations.
Speaker 1: The second day I was there, I met with various
Speaker 1: government leaders and so met with the Foreign Minister, met
Speaker 1: with the Defense minister, met with Energy minister, met with
Speaker 1: the President the Knesset. But the most interesting meeting was
Speaker 1: the meeting with Prime Minister nat Yahoo And and part
Speaker 1: of what made it interesting is the circumstantial timing. So
Speaker 1: I booked the trip just because Israel had just had
Speaker 1: over four thousand rockets raining down upon it and I
Speaker 1: wanted to go and show my support for Israel and
Speaker 1: to hear firsthand what they needed and what their assessments
Speaker 1: situation was. But the day we're there is the day
Speaker 1: it's announced that essentially there was a revolt. And as
Speaker 1: we sit here today, at least it looks like there's
Speaker 1: going to be a new government in Israel. So what
Speaker 1: happened while we were there is there's this guy named
Speaker 1: Naftali Bennett who leads a small party just has six
Speaker 1: seats in the Knesset, so very small, that is ideologically
Speaker 1: to the right of net and Yahoo. It was announced
Speaker 1: while I was in Israel that he was forming a
Speaker 1: government with the left wing parties, and among the left
Speaker 1: wing parties, he's also forming a government with the Arab parties,
Speaker 1: who are sympathetic too, if not actually Muslim brotherhood. That is,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit like maybe a US analogy would be,
Speaker 1: you could say, Mitt Romney forming a government with Bernie
Speaker 1: Sanders because they both hated Trump. That might be an analogy,
Speaker 1: but it's actually starker than that, because it would be
Speaker 1: you know, if tally Bennett is considered, as I said,
Speaker 1: to the right, a bby, so it would be almost
Speaker 1: like I don't know a Jim Jordan forming a government
Speaker 1: with Bernie Sanders. I mean, it's just weird. So they
Speaker 1: announced they were going to do so. Now to do so,
Speaker 1: they had to get a letter to the President of
Speaker 1: Israel by midnight Wednesday night. So my meeting with Bebe
Speaker 1: was scheduled for two pm on Wednesday. So it's the
Speaker 1: day that the opposing government is supposed to file. And
Speaker 1: so we go ahead and go to the meeting with Babe.
Speaker 1: And I actually told him and I I have gotten
Speaker 1: to know Bbe quite well. I consider him a friend.
Speaker 1: He's a remarkable guy. I told him at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the meeting, I said, look, I recognize today as
Speaker 1: a wild day and a consequential day potentially. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was the day he may well have lost power,
Speaker 1: could be the end. And I said, if you if
Speaker 1: we need to cut this meeting short, if you need
Speaker 1: to be on the phone working the votes and talking
Speaker 1: to people who can esset, I'm a big boy. My
Speaker 1: feelings won't be heard. It's good to see you. We've
Speaker 1: got your back, but if we need to end after
Speaker 1: five minutes, I get this is this day is a
Speaker 1: big deal. Totally understood. Yeah, and he actually he was fine.
Speaker 1: He said, no, let's sit, let's talk. I spent an
Speaker 1: hour and a half with him on what may prove
Speaker 1: to be the last day of his prime minister ship.
Speaker 1: And so the meeting, and I was there with Bill Haggerty,
Speaker 1: who was a senator from Tennessee, a Republican who I
Speaker 1: invited to come with me. So the two of us
Speaker 1: were there, and then BB Senior Leadership, and we're in
Speaker 1: the conference room and we have a discussion about Israel,
Speaker 1: about Iran, a lot of discussion about Iran, and a
Speaker 1: lot of concern that the Biden administration is going to
Speaker 1: go back into the Iran deal and give the Aetola
Speaker 1: billions of dollars and that's going to be really dangerous
Speaker 1: for both Israel and America. And I'm very worried about that.
Speaker 1: But then afterwards BB does what he's done before. He says, hey, Ted,
Speaker 1: come on back to my private office. And Bill Haggerty
Speaker 1: came with us too, So the three of us just
Speaker 1: when we left all the staff and just went back there.
Speaker 1: You and I have talked about how previously I went
Speaker 1: back and smoked a cigar with him. We didn't smoke
Speaker 1: cigars this time. But we just went and talked and look,
Speaker 1: he's pissed. It is not complicated that he's pissed, and
Speaker 1: he expressed frustration. He said, listen, and the people voted
Speaker 1: for a majority on the center right and they're about
Speaker 1: to not get that. And he further said he's been
Speaker 1: pushing for a direct election of prime minister. He said,
Speaker 1: you know, if the voters in Israel could vote for
Speaker 1: prime minister, just vote for do they want me to
Speaker 1: lead or not? He thought he'd get north of sixty percent.
Speaker 1: He said, it's not even close. The voters are strongly
Speaker 1: with me, but more broadly than that, and there are
Speaker 1: some parallels to the United States. What he is very
Speaker 1: worried about is if this new government comes in, and
Speaker 1: the final step for the new government to come in
Speaker 1: is the Knesset has to vote, which is expected to
Speaker 1: in the next week or so. Once it votes, if
Speaker 1: they're sixty one votes, there's a new government and he's
Speaker 1: not prime minister anymore. If that happens, Boebe is very
Speaker 1: concerned that their first order of business is going to
Speaker 1: be to change the law in Israel so that net
Speaker 1: and Yahoo can never run. That as he put it,
Speaker 1: they can't beat him at the ballot box, so they're
Speaker 1: going to rig the game so he could never get elected.
Speaker 1: And it's reminiscent of what we're seeing the Democrats doing
Speaker 1: with S one the Corrupt Politicians Act, trying to change
Speaker 1: the law, rig the game so that they can't lose
Speaker 1: an election. He was very unhappy about that. This brings
Speaker 1: us to this mailback question from Christian Hello, Senator Cruz.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of attention put on Senator Joe
Speaker 1: Mansion and to a lesser degree, Senator Kirsten Cinema about
Speaker 1: blocking the Biden agenda, specifically S one hr one with
Speaker 1: the Corrupt Politicians Act. Because of their unwillingness to end
Speaker 1: the filibuster, do you think that they will hold strong
Speaker 1: in their beliefs despite the pressure. I would bet that
Speaker 1: they cave Right now. They're both holding the line, so
Speaker 1: as best we can tell, they're forty eight Democrats prepared
Speaker 1: to end the filibuster. The two who are outspoken against
Speaker 1: it are Kirsten Cinema from Arizona Joe Mansion from West Virginia. Cinema.
Speaker 1: Cinema is an unusual character um She had been a
Speaker 1: left wing activist at times. She wrote a book called
Speaker 1: Gucci Socialist. Um. She wears bright pink and bright purple
Speaker 1: wigs on the Senate floor, but she also fancies herself
Speaker 1: a centrist and and has at least so far. Um
Speaker 1: said she intends to behave like a centrist, and so
Speaker 1: she has. She has said she doesn't want to end
Speaker 1: the filibuster because it promotes bi partisanship. Mansion. Look, Joe
Speaker 1: is a really nice guy. He's affable guys West Virginia.
Speaker 1: Was governor West Virginia before he was a senator. He
Speaker 1: was a the college football quarterback. I mean he's a
Speaker 1: you know, good luck and jock. Everybody likes Joe. You
Speaker 1: can't not like Joe. He's just an easy going guy.
Speaker 1: He actually has a boat, sort of a small I
Speaker 1: guess a yacht, you know though that you could sort
Speaker 1: of laugh at calling something a small yacht, but a
Speaker 1: boat that he has in the Potomac that he periodically
Speaker 1: invites senators to come out and to go like on
Speaker 1: a cruise up and down the Potomac and you know,
Speaker 1: have a glass of wine. And so I've gone out
Speaker 1: with him on it it's it's and he tries to
Speaker 1: get bipartisan senators. Very hard to dislike Joe Manchin on
Speaker 1: a personal level. In the nine years I have served
Speaker 1: with him, he has never once stood up to Chuck
Speaker 1: Schumer on any issue that matters where he's the deciding vote.
Speaker 1: If Republicans have fifty one votes, Joe, give you a
Speaker 1: fifty second, He'll make it bipartisan. I hope they do
Speaker 1: the right thing. Will they? I don't know, a little
Speaker 1: a little pressure might help, a little gratitude and a
Speaker 1: little pressure before we go, Senator, we have mere seconds left,
Speaker 1: but I really need your answer on this question. I'd
Speaker 1: be curious to see how you answer this from Patrick says,
Speaker 1: for either of you to answer, do you recommend going
Speaker 1: to an Ivy League school? Given the woke takeover that
Speaker 1: has happened? What are the alternatives? If you want to
Speaker 1: jump start a career, would you would you send someone
Speaker 1: to if you had to do over? Or you you know,
Speaker 1: for a child, would you send your kid to an
Speaker 1: Ivy League school? You know, I would listen. Just about
Speaker 1: every college and university right now is messed up. I
Speaker 1: went to Princeton for college. I went to Harvard for
Speaker 1: law school. I really enjoyed both of them. What I
Speaker 1: generally advise people is go to the best school you
Speaker 1: can get into. I still think that's good advice. That
Speaker 1: an awful lot of what you get in either college
Speaker 1: or grad school is credentially is credentially to get a job,
Speaker 1: to do something going forward. So I was very much
Speaker 1: purchasing the diploma and I learned and the relationships actually
Speaker 1: is I ordered what I was the the commercial transaction
Speaker 1: I was engaged in in in going to school. The
Speaker 1: credential was number one, and number two was the relationships
Speaker 1: the people, the other students who were there, the other
Speaker 1: professors that were there, which which are very beneficial. Um,
Speaker 1: they can open doors, they can uh that it can
Speaker 1: make you know, my best friend in the world other
Speaker 1: than Heidi was my roommate at Princeton and Harvard's got
Speaker 1: named David panton As Jamaican. UM. Incredible guy. And and
Speaker 1: and he was best man at our wedding. And I
Speaker 1: think those relationships are valuable. That being said, the schools
Speaker 1: are worse than when you and I were there, and
Speaker 1: and and I don't know that I would survive at
Speaker 1: an Ivy League school today. That that that that I
Speaker 1: don't really have a great feel for just how whacked
Speaker 1: out the cancel cultural culture is. Let me ask you, Michael,
Speaker 1: what would you advise. You're a new father, so so
Speaker 1: this is not theoretical. You maybe get a little while
Speaker 1: to make that decision, but would you advise, Well, just
Speaker 1: like you, My best man was my best friend in college,
Speaker 1: and I'm the best man at his wedding, and I
Speaker 1: totally agree. The credentialism is a reality, and that's true,
Speaker 1: and the relationships are good, and you can get an education,
Speaker 1: though it seems increasingly tricky. Yeah. Actually, going back to
Speaker 1: the Brooklyn schoolyard guy who was a professor of mine,
Speaker 1: Don Kagan, when he was dean of Yale College, I
Speaker 1: think he said something to the effect of it's getting
Speaker 1: increasingly more difficult to graduate from Yale with a liberal education.
Speaker 1: You used to have to have a liberal education to graduate.
Speaker 1: Now there's the question of whether or not you can
Speaker 1: even get one. I think there are schools, a handful
Speaker 1: of schools in this country, you know, but there's only
Speaker 1: a handful of Ivy League schools. And I think there
Speaker 1: are schools where you can get or where you are
Speaker 1: more likely to get a better at liberal education than
Speaker 1: at the Ivy League. And you know, the question I
Speaker 1: would ask my son is one ties right in with
Speaker 1: what we're talking about. I'd say, what do you want
Speaker 1: to do? What do you want to do? What do
Speaker 1: you want to do with it? What is the purpose
Speaker 1: of this? Yeah, and it's a question that I guess
Speaker 1: increasingly we're not allowed to ask. And a lot a
Speaker 1: lot of those rights and liberties and traditions are under threat.
Speaker 1: Hopefully we can hold on to them a little bit longer,
Speaker 1: but we've got to leave that there today, Senator, see
Speaker 1: you next time. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is
Speaker 1: being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack,
Speaker 1: a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations,
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Speaker 1: running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.