Speaker 1: Made your tensions around the country on the police, on
Speaker 1: criminal justice, on race. Some anarchists are talking about defunding
Speaker 1: the police, abolish the police, ginning up racial tensions. Well,
Speaker 1: we have a serious person here who can speak with
Speaker 1: great authority on real criminal justice reform and on real
Speaker 1: racial experiences in America. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles.
Speaker 1: We will get to our special guest in just one second,
Speaker 1: but first I have to thank you so much. We've
Speaker 1: now got over ten million downloads on this podcast, and
Speaker 1: it's all thanks to you. I really exceeded our expectations
Speaker 1: and we're so glad to be able to continue to
Speaker 1: do it. Please head over on Apple Podcasts. I leave
Speaker 1: a five star review if you would like to, and
Speaker 1: if you want to leave less than don't leave anything
Speaker 1: at all. Thank you very much, and please go subscribe
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to podcasts. All right, because the Senator
Speaker 1: is the greatest booking producer in the history of podcasts.
Speaker 1: I am joined by Senator Tim Scott. He is really
Speaker 1: good at what he does, not just in podcast world,
Speaker 1: but in their all worlds. I am so glad. First
Speaker 1: of all, Senator Cruz, thank you for bringing Senator Scott on.
Speaker 1: Senator Scott, you are behind you or the author behind
Speaker 1: probably the most significant piece of legislation that the Senate
Speaker 1: is considering right now. That would be the Justice Act. Yes, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm excited about the Justice side. I wish our Democrat
Speaker 1: colleagues were more excited about not the Justice Act only,
Speaker 1: but about actually serving the community that has been wed
Speaker 1: to the Democrat Party for generations. And they continue to
Speaker 1: under deliver while overpromising. Instead of taking eight today, giving
Speaker 1: them an opportunity to say to the people and the
Speaker 1: communities across the country, we hear you, we see you,
Speaker 1: we are fighting for you. We could have gotten eighty
Speaker 1: percent delivered today. They gave the community zero. They decided
Speaker 1: to make an an election year issue, an election in
Speaker 1: November issue, presidential election issue. And that's just so unfortunate
Speaker 1: for so many kids living in underserved communities, worried about
Speaker 1: making it from their house to the school, always having
Speaker 1: in the back of their consciousness whether or not an
Speaker 1: interaction well in poorly for them. We could have said
Speaker 1: we see you today. I think what would be helpful
Speaker 1: to podcast listeners and viewers. Is knowing some of your
Speaker 1: personal story. This this is a faith journey in a
Speaker 1: life journey for me. Yes, absolutely, And and so you
Speaker 1: know you grew up, you had you had a pretty
Speaker 1: tough upbringing. Absolutely. I grew up in a single parent
Speaker 1: household who mired in poverty. My mother and father got
Speaker 1: divorced when I was about seven years old. I felt
Speaker 1: like this nation, my community, had nothing to offer me.
Speaker 1: So from seven years old, when you come to that
Speaker 1: decision at seven, it's a bad thing. You drift, and
Speaker 1: all drifting leads in their own directions. So by seven,
Speaker 1: from seven to fourteen, I was completely a draft her.
Speaker 1: I flunked out of high school. As a freshman, I
Speaker 1: felt world geography and Civics. Now, Civics is the study
Speaker 1: of politics, So God has a sense of humor. You
Speaker 1: can't failing civics in name while arriving in the body
Speaker 1: that the most deliberative body in the history. Right. I
Speaker 1: also realized that after being here seven years, I'm not
Speaker 1: the only one failing civics in the US. I also
Speaker 1: felt Spanish in English that year. When you feel Spanish
Speaker 1: and English two languages, no one considers you bilingual. They
Speaker 1: all call you by ignorant because you can't speak in
Speaker 1: any language. But I had two major blessings, a mother
Speaker 1: who believed that the power of prayer would deliver her child,
Speaker 1: and a mentor, a white guy who said, you haven't
Speaker 1: yet discovered was in you. You're looking around at your circumstances.
Speaker 1: He said, that's a wrong view. Your vision has to
Speaker 1: be bigger than the vision you see on the outside.
Speaker 1: And he said, if you look at the mirror and
Speaker 1: you start blaming yourself, don't blame your dad because he's
Speaker 1: not around. Do not blame your mother because she's working
Speaker 1: sixteen hours three days a week and eight hours two
Speaker 1: more days a week to put food on the table.
Speaker 1: He should blame yourself. He said. The beauty of it is,
Speaker 1: if you're the problem, the promise is in here. If
Speaker 1: you see the opportunities from the inside, the obstacles from
Speaker 1: the inside, the opportunities manifests on the osite. And yet,
Speaker 1: what do you make of seeing churches now going up
Speaker 1: in flames. There's a prominent BLM activist on Twitter. He
Speaker 1: said that people need to smash stained glass windows at churches.
Speaker 1: That doesn't seem productive to me. Well, it's also the
Speaker 1: opposite of productive. I would say that that person. I
Speaker 1: wonder what Martin Luther King Junior would say that that person.
Speaker 1: I wonder what John Lewis, who was beaten within an
Speaker 1: inch of his life and never struck back, what would
Speaker 1: he say at the Pettis Bridge when he's nearly bleeding out.
Speaker 1: He would say this because he said it to me.
Speaker 1: Don't get better, get better, Embrace your nation. Know that
Speaker 1: if you continue on your journey, it will happen. We
Speaker 1: took a five thousand year leap in the last fifty years,
Speaker 1: mostly because of non violent protesters who believed in America.
Speaker 1: Frederick Douglas did the exact same thing. Yeah, he said,
Speaker 1: I'm not fighting against the Constitution. I'm fighting on the constitution. Right.
Speaker 1: I'm going to make the nation live up to what
Speaker 1: it says in the Constitution. You know, last week we
Speaker 1: had a number of Senators who went to the floor
Speaker 1: and read doctor Martin Luther King's letter from Birmingham jail,
Speaker 1: which I did last week as well. Him and I
Speaker 1: both participated. Yes, it's bipartisan Democrats and Republicans, and it's
Speaker 1: it's so powerful. You know, we've all read it in school. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's different when you hear it, and frankly it's
Speaker 1: different when you read it out loud, and to read
Speaker 1: it on the Senate floor. It is incredibly important, particularly now.
Speaker 1: And and you know, one of the points people forget
Speaker 1: is doctor King wasn't just doctor King, he was Reverend King.
Speaker 1: The letter from the Birmingham Jail was written to my
Speaker 1: fellow clergyman. It was a call to the church. One
Speaker 1: of the things he says in that letter is for
Speaker 1: the church to be a thermostat and not a thermometer.
Speaker 1: Don't just reflect the bigotry of your community. Change it.
Speaker 1: Speak up. It's a call to action. And you look
Speaker 1: at these riots and vandals and tearing down George Washington
Speaker 1: and Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln because you know, Abraham Lincoln
Speaker 1: was such a Confederate percenta. But you know doctor King
Speaker 1: and Frederick Douglas, they made explicit appeals to the founding
Speaker 1: principles of our country. They said, look, we haven't reached
Speaker 1: it yet. But as doctor King said, the arc of
Speaker 1: history bends towards justice. Well, speaking of this justice, I
Speaker 1: do I do want to get to this on this
Speaker 1: exact point, Senator, you have an admirer. I guess in
Speaker 1: the audience this is from Prey who said, other than
Speaker 1: Republican senators like Cruise and Scott and Cotton, where is
Speaker 1: the rest of the Senate gop on justice as we have?
Speaker 1: And the phrase that they used is anarcho communist insurrectionists
Speaker 1: tearing down our country's culture and history. That must be
Speaker 1: a fan of Ted, just is Trey Gotti. I'm sure
Speaker 1: Trey Gotti fan. Take Trey g I did tell him
Speaker 1: the call, so I'm glad he called. Yeah, listen, I
Speaker 1: think our conference is I think we're coming closer and
Speaker 1: closer to the plate. I think many issues we were
Speaker 1: almost shy in our response to some of the challenges
Speaker 1: that we saw in the streets. We just said, and
Speaker 1: know what to do. One of the things that causes
Speaker 1: that kind of paralysis is when you think you have
Speaker 1: to make a choice between law enforcement and communities of color.
Speaker 1: That is not the binary choice on the table today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the binary choice is for America or against America. In
Speaker 1: order to have that as the actual choice, we have
Speaker 1: to say I am for law spent and I'm for
Speaker 1: community's scholor. No conjunction called or it's and when that happens,
Speaker 1: I think we all rise up. And I've been thankful
Speaker 1: to see the conference coming closer and closer, not into
Speaker 1: the microphone, but to the plate. We had fifty three
Speaker 1: Republicans say, let's start debating. I can't imagine that five
Speaker 1: years ago, because five years ago I can get Democrats
Speaker 1: to come to the debate. Well. And Tim's point about
Speaker 1: and is really important protecting civil rights. That doesn't just
Speaker 1: protect American American citizens. That protects police officers, because police
Speaker 1: officers to do their jobs, they've got to have the
Speaker 1: trust of the community. And I've I've heard from so
Speaker 1: many cops right now who are right now they're demoralized.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're they're painted as as as the demon.
Speaker 1: And I think Tim's Justice Stack was an effort to
Speaker 1: help help the police. Officers said. I have called every
Speaker 1: time there has been a shooting in South Carolina where
Speaker 1: the officer loses his life, I try to make sure
Speaker 1: that I'm the first person to call the spouse or
Speaker 1: the parent. Gregor Lea and outside of Columbia, South Carolina
Speaker 1: lost his life because someone murdered him. The suspect that
Speaker 1: he was pursuing killed him. Left a eighteen month old,
Speaker 1: a little boy, and a beautiful wife, Cassie. I showed
Speaker 1: up at the wake, the viewing and had a conversation
Speaker 1: with her and her parents, and they're surprised to see me.
Speaker 1: I didn't want any cameras around it, don't want anybody there.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say, I'm so sorry that someone
Speaker 1: killed your husband. Several months later, she called my office
Speaker 1: and she started nonprofit organizations for police officers. I've contributed,
Speaker 1: We've helped, we stay in touch. She's a blessing to
Speaker 1: our community. Here's the point. So many officers lose their
Speaker 1: lives not because they're making thirty thousand dollars a year
Speaker 1: and they're getting rich. It's because when you look at
Speaker 1: Romans thirteen, there's this notion of mission, that there are
Speaker 1: government officials who can be a ministers of the gospel
Speaker 1: carrying a sword a weapon for what purpose? For a
Speaker 1: righteous purpose. Her husband lost his life for a righteous purpose,
Speaker 1: and we should celebrate law enforcement. When when I had
Speaker 1: a major car accident, it was law enforcement that showed
Speaker 1: up and said to me, son, I was laying on
Speaker 1: the side of the road, I went through the windshow
Speaker 1: came back in my car fell asleep on the Interstate
Speaker 1: twenty six, literally on an interstate, rolling through traffic in
Speaker 1: my car. I'm laying there with glass in my backside
Speaker 1: and my back and he looks down at me and said, son,
Speaker 1: your mom is going to be so happy you're alive.
Speaker 1: And I looked at it and say, sir, you don't
Speaker 1: know my mama. But what he was trying to tell
Speaker 1: I didn't hear. What he was trying to tell me
Speaker 1: was that your mother values you right more than this car. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was saying to me as he bent down and said, son,
Speaker 1: you're so much more valuable. Yeah, you have intrinsic worth,
Speaker 1: far beyond any material possession. He was speaking words of
Speaker 1: affirmation to who I was, well, speaking of words of affirmation.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to hear that you got a nice phone
Speaker 1: call at your office, because I understand you get many
Speaker 1: phone calls that are not very nice at your office.
Speaker 1: You know, I, unfortunately get a lot of phone calls
Speaker 1: that are not that nice, and unfortunately I have learned
Speaker 1: to deal with it. But there are not always words
Speaker 1: of encouragement. You know. This is kind of a this
Speaker 1: is a safe space. We like to think about it.
Speaker 1: I mean this is we try to keep this pretty personal. Yes, seriously,
Speaker 1: could we listen? Yeah. A quick note for our loyal audience.
Speaker 1: What you are about to hear are some profane voicemails
Speaker 1: received by the office of Senator Tim Scott that reflect
Speaker 1: the ongoing racism by certain individuals in this country, specifically
Speaker 1: against black conservative Because it's an important part of the
Speaker 1: context for this episode, we have chosen to play it
Speaker 1: the uncensored sound. If you do not wish to hear
Speaker 1: these recordings, you may choose to tune out. Now, Uncle Tim,
Speaker 1: you're uncle WILLI you coon? Motherfucker you. I hope you're
Speaker 1: choking your fucking tongue in late. Bitch, I don't wish
Speaker 1: sitting good for your motherfucking ass. You are the lowest
Speaker 1: so shit this country ever produced. You sell out, motherfucker
Speaker 1: Your mamma no good, your sperm mother. He's even fucking worse,
Speaker 1: he said, shot to your fucking Mamafaith dot Com catching
Speaker 1: bitch once again. Thank you. This is from the Sunshine State. Also,
Speaker 1: Lisa Grammas, your bitch. You fucking him and he fucking you.
Speaker 1: You sucking him, He's sucking you. Michael Rubens a little bitch,
Speaker 1: he turns on people and motherfucker rich sconsin god damn crook.
Speaker 1: So all you motherfucker's gonna burn in hell together. So
Speaker 1: take your ticket one way to track the hair, you
Speaker 1: sucking motherfuckers. Have a great day and enjoy your evening. Bye.
Speaker 1: This is one imagine being uh, this is the next one.
Speaker 1: My new staff assistant, just graduated from college, first job,
Speaker 1: gets to hear this, bitch, if you had a bill,
Speaker 1: don't you fucking cut You're probably sucking his date. You're nasty, bitch.
Speaker 1: You Oh you fucking folk is nasted. I'm gonna keep
Speaker 1: on calling along that that motherfucker wants to I'm gonna
Speaker 1: sucking my first bit were right, So fuck you motherfuckers,
Speaker 1: you pieces of ship to all come buckets. And then
Speaker 1: later on another one calls to see it's got me
Speaker 1: in the cross errors. That's pretty explicit threatening language. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: there's a level of hate that gets directed at Tim
Speaker 1: that that frankly is different from other members. Acme, why
Speaker 1: is that? I think I know the answer, but unfortunately,
Speaker 1: you know being obviously the racial uh if the racial overtones,
Speaker 1: the the racial words, the slurs, the challenges are being
Speaker 1: a black conservative where you were out of sync with
Speaker 1: the with the he what he thinks is the black cause.
Speaker 1: It incites the kind of rage and anger that could
Speaker 1: lead to violent outcomes in a way that very few
Speaker 1: things I've seen in my life has ever done. And
Speaker 1: you know, when you get sixteen to these, you your
Speaker 1: your your staff, assistance, your your front line folks start
Speaker 1: wondering what in the world. Two eleven, we literally shut
Speaker 1: our phones down because the number of racial slurs that
Speaker 1: we were getting from around the country. Off Calina else.
Speaker 1: I started this journey five years ago because of the
Speaker 1: Walter Scott murder in North Charleston, South Carolina, my hometown
Speaker 1: where I grew up in Frankly, Walter Scott was running
Speaker 1: away from the police. He was shot five times, shot
Speaker 1: out eight times, that shot five times in the bag.
Speaker 1: The officer falsified the police report and said that he
Speaker 1: took his taser when the video came out, which it
Speaker 1: was a few weeks A few weeks later, literally no
Speaker 1: one there was not even a conversation about what happened
Speaker 1: in the incident because we had an incident report, right,
Speaker 1: had it not been for some guy literally walking by
Speaker 1: at the exact right moment the exact right street with
Speaker 1: his phone out capturing the actual interaction, the engagement. Without
Speaker 1: that video, we would not have known Walter Scott's name
Speaker 1: at all. Well, you know, I think the Walter Scott
Speaker 1: won for a lot of us. Sometimes these are complex situations.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the officers used to forces justified the Walter Scott one.
Speaker 1: Everyone looked at that and said, this is outrageous. It's
Speaker 1: just so clear. Yes, And I know there are some
Speaker 1: people in this debate who say that we need to
Speaker 1: abolish the police. The police are hopelessly corrupted. We got
Speaker 1: to I don't know, they're the anarchists in Seattle right now.
Speaker 1: And then there are some people who say the police
Speaker 1: don't need any kind of reform at all. You do
Speaker 1: have an interesting perspective here because you're one of the
Speaker 1: most prominent black politicians in the country and you're the
Speaker 1: author of this criminal criminal justice reform bill. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why I think I have credit
Speaker 1: building on the topic is not just because I'm an
Speaker 1: African American. That's helpful, especially when so many of these
Speaker 1: incidents are African American men having challenges with law enforcement.
Speaker 1: I'm the guy that got stopped seven times as an
Speaker 1: elected official just driving while bligh stop nine times I
Speaker 1: believed that year seven times for doing nothing, two times
Speaker 1: for speeding, so yeah, speeding prigs, but the other seven
Speaker 1: times for nothing. Eighteen unnecessary stops in the last two decades.
Speaker 1: I would like to just put a pause there for
Speaker 1: a moment, because I actually didn't know that. Yes, this
Speaker 1: is a this is a personal experience of an elected
Speaker 1: US senator. Well, this year, this US senator was stopped
Speaker 1: by police form failing to use my turn signal early
Speaker 1: enough in the lane change. I didn't know that was
Speaker 1: the thing. Yeah, I didn't know, but literally pulled over.
Speaker 1: I got a warning ticket thingfully, but how do you
Speaker 1: full over it? I called the police chief at another department,
Speaker 1: and they said, basically, what they're trying to do is
Speaker 1: get your windows down so that you can see they
Speaker 1: smell any weed or anything in the air. Get a
Speaker 1: look inside your car. He said, this is what we
Speaker 1: call racial profiling. Tom I said, I should have dawned
Speaker 1: on me that the reason for the stop was to
Speaker 1: take a look inside. It just didn't. It didn't occur
Speaker 1: to me, even though that was my eighteenth stop. The
Speaker 1: seventeen stop was last year. For having my blinkers on
Speaker 1: while helping someone find their telephone. And you know this.
Speaker 1: You can't make this up right up. And so fortunately
Speaker 1: for me, I've walked away from each one of those unscathed.
Speaker 1: I mean I've got some scar tissue emotionally, but none physically,
Speaker 1: because it's it's a sort of preposterous thing and you
Speaker 1: can laugh about it, Okay, they pulled you over for
Speaker 1: the blinker, but this is this is a real harassment
Speaker 1: that you have personally experienced. One Walter Scott was pulled
Speaker 1: over for a bust at tail light. There's a video
Speaker 1: at least as a scene. I think it was a
Speaker 1: last AGAs Divide where the guy was riding his bicycle
Speaker 1: and it was pulled over. So what we're talking about
Speaker 1: is real. But what you said it is so important,
Speaker 1: and I think that you've focused on it the importance
Speaker 1: of the body camera. One of the reasons why five
Speaker 1: years ago I started talking about increasing funding for body
Speaker 1: cameras by one hundred million dollars per year for five
Speaker 1: years is because if a picture is worth a thousand words,
Speaker 1: then a video should be worth a thousand pictures, right right,
Speaker 1: Because we have an opportunity not only to see it,
Speaker 1: but to watch it unfold. That is really important and
Speaker 1: I think that dynamic. Had it just been a picture
Speaker 1: of the law enforcement officer on George Floyd's neck, yeah,
Speaker 1: you could debate how long. Yeah, you don't know if
Speaker 1: he's fighting, if it's a violent situation. Without the video,
Speaker 1: you don't understand the country, don't, Yes, don't. You don't
Speaker 1: appreciate it. But eight minutes of forty six seconds left later,
Speaker 1: no one had a question, and you can hear him
Speaker 1: gasping for his breath, saying I can't breathe, pleading for
Speaker 1: his life. I mean, it makes a real difference. Yes, right,
Speaker 1: and if we that united our country, this tells me
Speaker 1: something that's really important. Our country. It is the most
Speaker 1: remarkable country on earth, all the racial divisions we've had
Speaker 1: in the last several years. We saw that picture, and
Speaker 1: because there's something in our instinct that says, that's just wrong.
Speaker 1: We are a nation built on fairness. We've been we've
Speaker 1: we've we've always been a nation that was going to progress.
Speaker 1: We've been making progress for the entire time. We saw
Speaker 1: that was a wait a second, that cannot that cannot be.
Speaker 1: People were shocked stunned, they said that's not actually happening,
Speaker 1: and once they understood that it was, the entire conversation
Speaker 1: around police reform became real. I'm afraid that our friends
Speaker 1: who are playing presidential politics, they're willing to waste the
Speaker 1: moments hoping for an outcome, so they'd rather I could
Speaker 1: be wrong. I think they're willing to run campaign on
Speaker 1: police brutality, maybe more than solve it. We just saw
Speaker 1: Senate Democrats filibuster the Justice Act, and they did it.
Speaker 1: I think it's exactly what Tim said. They want a
Speaker 1: political issue. They want to set campaign in November, rather
Speaker 1: than actually make meaningful progress towards addressing the problem doing
Speaker 1: it responsibly. Look, one of the things Tim did a
Speaker 1: very good job of also is understanding the objective here
Speaker 1: is not to tear down cops. It's not to destroy
Speaker 1: the police officers are keeping vulnerable community's safe. Well and
Speaker 1: frankly to as you just alluded to that, there's no
Speaker 1: doubt in my mind that the people who want character
Speaker 1: driven law enforcement, though most our communities of color, sure,
Speaker 1: the people who are saying whin down nine one one,
Speaker 1: I want someone coming immediately our communities of color, why
Speaker 1: not because they're always crime ridden neighborhoods. It's because your grandmother,
Speaker 1: who may not be able to move out of a
Speaker 1: bad neighborhood economically, should always be in a good neighborhood.
Speaker 1: From a social perspective, they want, I want our family members,
Speaker 1: are loved ones, ourselves to always have a responsive law
Speaker 1: enforcement department. And so this defund police and this autonomous
Speaker 1: own concept is anathetical to everything that we believe is
Speaker 1: dear in the communities of color. You know, one of
Speaker 1: the frustrating things. I mean, race, Slavery is our country's
Speaker 1: original sin. Yes, and race is an issue a lot
Speaker 1: of people demagogue on a lot of Republicans are uncomfortable
Speaker 1: talking about it. Away from it too much. We see
Speaker 1: Democrats this week in the Judiciary Committee, there were several
Speaker 1: Democrats who said, we haven't moved one inch since the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties on race and what utter garbage, rebated enormous
Speaker 1: strides Jim Crow laws, you had segregated schools. We're making
Speaker 1: a journey now, We've still got a long way to go. Yes,
Speaker 1: But you know, and I think understanding the perspective so
Speaker 1: many people have of why they feel the justice system
Speaker 1: isn't treating them fairly. I think that's important. And Tim
Speaker 1: has spoken up a lot, particularly in the last couple
Speaker 1: of weeks in the conference, sharing his perspectives. But one
Speaker 1: thing that I thought was particularly powerful. People were asking Art,
Speaker 1: what do we do with the Confederate statues and renaming
Speaker 1: in all of this controversy, And your answer, which which
Speaker 1: almost immediately was echoed by just about every Republican senator right,
Speaker 1: I thought was really powerful. Well, thank you can repeat
Speaker 1: it for me since I don't remember it. But if yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think the country's better off trying to create
Speaker 1: the future than reframe the past. Yeah, we spend almost
Speaker 1: too much time in the rearview mirror and not enough
Speaker 1: time in the windshow. It's hard not to get into
Speaker 1: an accident when all your focus is on yesterday. So
Speaker 1: for us to reframe the past doesn't benefit almost anyone.
Speaker 1: So if we want to reframe the past, however, put
Speaker 1: up more statues. Put up a statue not of just
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King Jr. What about Rosa Parks or our
Speaker 1: book or two at Washington, Washington, Carbor. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of folks that we could celebrate. But tearing something down
Speaker 1: does not necessarily build you up. Number one? Number two,
Speaker 1: Why aren't we spending the time on economic mobility? Why
Speaker 1: are we not spending the time on educational outcomes and
Speaker 1: the poor zip goes in America? Why are we not
Speaker 1: spending the time creating financial literacy and frankly literacy to
Speaker 1: break the pipeline between education and incarceration. If you want
Speaker 1: to spend all the money in the world on something,
Speaker 1: please let it not be on tearing down a statute.
Speaker 1: Let us spend the dollars and the resources on building
Speaker 1: the future where every single American says, yes, that's my country.
Speaker 1: We have just seconds left. But I have to know,
Speaker 1: yes after that, I have to know, with all these
Speaker 1: terrible things in the news, and with particularly awful things
Speaker 1: being directed at you, how do you stay so cheery?
Speaker 1: I mean, why do you keep doing it? Why would
Speaker 1: you sign up for this job? You know? I don't
Speaker 1: think I signed up for this job. I think I
Speaker 1: was called into this job. I think when I became
Speaker 1: a Christian born again believer in nineteen eighty three, the
Speaker 1: Lord had a plan for my life. Jeremiah one five
Speaker 1: talks about before you were in your mother's womb, he
Speaker 1: had a plan for us. I think I was hardwired
Speaker 1: for public service. Why I don't know, the fact that
Speaker 1: I find great joy in serving others is something that
Speaker 1: I think I'm hard wired to do. And frankly, if
Speaker 1: you think about Matthew twenty two thirty seven through thirty nine,
Speaker 1: loving the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul,
Speaker 1: and strength. The second commandment is to love your neighbor
Speaker 1: as yourself. How better do we do that by making
Speaker 1: sacrificial offerings of our time, our talent, or our treasure.
Speaker 1: I was a poor kid, no treasure, time, time, talent,
Speaker 1: not enough. So I went into the one area where
Speaker 1: I knew I could make a difference and hopefully make
Speaker 1: Mamma proudly. Senator, you mentioned a frustrated preacher. I think
Speaker 1: maybe a not so frustrated preacher. I think just an
Speaker 1: honest to God inspiring preacher. I can't beat that. Thank you, Senator,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Senator. 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,
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.