Speaker 1: Welcome. It is verdict.
Speaker 2: Was Senator Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you and Senator
Speaker 2: there was a big hearing on Capitol Hill that dealt
Speaker 2: with big tech oversight. There were CEOs there from Facebook
Speaker 2: and TikTok, and I want to start with Facebook center.
Speaker 2: You had the opportunity to talk to Mark Zuckerberg specifically
Speaker 2: over an issue of child exploitation being the material being
Speaker 2: shared on Facebook. Talk a little bit about why this
Speaker 2: hearing was so important.
Speaker 3: Well, sure, let me set the stage. So this was
Speaker 3: Wednesday morning. It was a hearing of five CEOs of
Speaker 3: big tech. So you had Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of
Speaker 3: Meta which is Facebook and Instagram and others. You had
Speaker 3: the CEO of TikTok, You have the CEO of x
Speaker 3: formerly Twitter. You had the CEO of Snapchat, and you
Speaker 3: have the CEO of Discord and they were all testifying
Speaker 3: before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the focus was the
Speaker 3: abuse of children, and in particular children being targeted by predators,
Speaker 3: by pedophiles, children being subject to extortion. And you have
Speaker 3: to picture the hearing room, so it's a very large
Speaker 3: hearing room. It's the hearing room where we do for example,
Speaker 3: hearings on Supreme Court justices. So it's one of, if
Speaker 3: not the biggest hearing room on Capitol Hill. It's got
Speaker 3: a big audience. And in the audience, the room was filled,
Speaker 3: it was standing room only with parents who had lost
Speaker 3: their children to suicide, to abuse, who had been traumatized
Speaker 3: and abused online, and predators had approached them online. In
Speaker 3: many instances, predators will do things like convincing young young children,
Speaker 3: convincing teenagers to send them compromising pictures, to send them
Speaker 3: naked photographs, and then these scammers will often blackmail the
Speaker 3: kids and threaten we're going to release these pictures unless
Speaker 3: you pay us money, and in a number of instances
Speaker 3: the kids pay money. And repeatedly we've seen children taking
Speaker 3: their own lives, committing suicide. And so you had a
Speaker 3: room full of parents who had photographs of their children,
Speaker 3: most of whom presumably had lost their lives, some of
Speaker 3: whom maybe had survived but had been badly impacted, whether
Speaker 3: it was bisexual predators or other forms of hostile activity.
Speaker 3: And so the focus of the hearing was on big tech,
Speaker 3: and big tech really not only allowing our children to
Speaker 3: be in jeopardy, but profiting off of addicting our children
Speaker 3: to social media and everything dangerous that comes from it.
Speaker 2: You talk about the dangers, and not just Facebook, but
Speaker 2: also TikTok has been There's been lots of warning for
Speaker 2: from those in the medical community, pediatric doctors about the
Speaker 2: depression and also the addictive nature of these apps. They've
Speaker 2: created them to become life altering for young people and
Speaker 2: it takes over their lives. And that's where you're talking
Speaker 2: about not only are these predators using it, but the
Speaker 2: depression that comes in, and yet they're readily available and
Speaker 2: almost all these kids have them.
Speaker 3: Well, that's exactly right. You know. There's a great movie
Speaker 3: that is called The Social Dilemma, which if you haven't
Speaker 3: watched it, I recommend it to you. It's a movie
Speaker 3: about how social media companies target our kids, how they
Speaker 3: have algorithms designed to addict our kids to keep them
Speaker 3: watching more, and it's a great movie. Heidi and I
Speaker 3: sat down with our girls and we made them both
Speaker 3: watch it. They were kind of bored. They didn't think
Speaker 3: it was very interesting, but we wanted them to at
Speaker 3: least hear and understand what it is that big tech
Speaker 3: is targeting them with so they can understand what's going on.
Speaker 3: And what is infuriating is is big tech. They're printing
Speaker 3: money and they give lip service, but yet they are
Speaker 3: not doing nearly enough to protect children online. Let's talk
Speaker 3: about part of this exploitation and child exploitation. You know
Speaker 3: that bad actors are going to do it, but the
Speaker 3: most shocking part is how this is allowed on social media.
Speaker 1: And let's start with Facebook.
Speaker 2: You had a moment where you and Mark Zuckerberg had
Speaker 2: a back and forth and I want to play it
Speaker 2: for people and listen to and part of this center
Speaker 2: explain these warning signs because people are going to be
Speaker 2: able to see the posters that you held up. Explain
Speaker 2: what you were showing and how these warnings worked, and
Speaker 2: then to put it in context.
Speaker 3: Well, so the Wall Street Journal last year did an
Speaker 3: expose about how Facebook was assisting pedophiles. Assisting pedophiles in
Speaker 3: number one, targeting children, but number two finding child pornography online.
Speaker 3: And they had a warning screen. So if you typed
Speaker 3: in a search that was designed to pull up child pornography,
Speaker 3: they would have a warning screen that would pop up
Speaker 3: that says says the search you put in is likely
Speaker 3: to produce images of child pornography, which is a crime.
Speaker 3: You can be prosecuted for it. And then it gave
Speaker 3: you two links. Do you want resources for help or
Speaker 3: do you want to proceed to your search request to
Speaker 3: see the child porn you're searching for? And so I
Speaker 3: asked Mark Zuckerberg, why on earth they were doing that? Here? Here,
Speaker 3: give a listen. Instagram also displayed the following warning screen
Speaker 3: to individuals who were searching for child abuse material. These
Speaker 3: results may contain images of child sexual abuse. And then
Speaker 3: you gave users two choices, get resources or see results anyway,
Speaker 3: mister Zuckerberg, what the hell were you thinking?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 5: Senator? The basic science behind that is that when people
Speaker 5: are searching for something that is problematic, it's often helpful
Speaker 5: to rather than just blocking it, to help direct them
Speaker 5: towards something that could be helpful for getting them to
Speaker 5: get help.
Speaker 3: In what way? I understand, get resources in what sane universe?
Speaker 3: Is there a link for sea results? Anyway?
Speaker 5: Well, because we might be wrong, we try to trigger
Speaker 5: this this warning, or we tried to when we think
Speaker 5: that there's any chance that there.
Speaker 3: Is Okay, you might be wrong. Let me ask you
Speaker 3: how many times was this warning screen displayed I don't know,
Speaker 3: but the you don't know, why don't you know?
Speaker 5: I don't know the answer to that, off the top
Speaker 5: of my head.
Speaker 1: I don't know the answer that off the top of
Speaker 1: my head.
Speaker 2: You also had a follow up question there right after
Speaker 2: that center where you looked at him and you said,
Speaker 2: of the people that got the warning, how many of
Speaker 2: those people those child predators clicked on see it anyway?
Speaker 2: And he's like, I don't know if we have that
Speaker 2: dat really.
Speaker 3: Well, and look what is important. And what I followed
Speaker 3: up right after that is I pointed out that a
Speaker 3: year ago I asked Facebook in writing that question and
Speaker 3: they refuse to answer. So there's a reason I asked
Speaker 3: him there. I expected him to say, I don't know.
Speaker 3: But the point is they don't know because they don't
Speaker 3: want to know, and more importantly, they don't want anyone
Speaker 3: else to know, and so they've been stonewalling Congress and further,
Speaker 3: I asked him a very simple question. Look, if someone
Speaker 3: searches for child porn, searches for images of little children
Speaker 3: being sexually abused, I asked him what does Facebook do
Speaker 3: with that? Do you report the guy? Do you look
Speaker 3: into the children who are in the images to see
Speaker 3: if they need help? Do you do anything? He refused
Speaker 3: to answer any of that. Here play the next exchange. Well,
Speaker 3: you know what, mister Zuckerberg, it's interesting you say you
Speaker 3: don't know it off the top of your head because
Speaker 3: I asked it in June of twenty twenty three in
Speaker 3: an overlight oversight and your company refused to answer. Will
Speaker 3: you commit right now to within five days answering this
Speaker 3: question for this committee?
Speaker 5: We'll follow up on that.
Speaker 3: Is that a yes not a will follow up? I
Speaker 3: know how lawyers write statements saying we're not going to answer.
Speaker 3: Will you tell us how many times this warning screen
Speaker 3: was displayed? Yes or no?
Speaker 5: Senator, I'll personally look into it. I'm not sure if
Speaker 5: we have.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you're refusing to answer that, let me ask
Speaker 3: you this. How many times did an Instagram user who
Speaker 3: got this warning that you're seeing images of child sexual abuse?
Speaker 3: How many times did that user click on see results anyway?
Speaker 3: I want to see that, Senator.
Speaker 5: I'm not sure if we stored that, but I'll personally
Speaker 5: look into this and we'll follow up after.
Speaker 3: And what follow up did Instagram do when you have
Speaker 3: a potential pedophile clicking on I'd like to see child porn?
Speaker 3: What did you do next when that happens? Senator?
Speaker 5: I think that an important piece of context here is
Speaker 5: that any context that we think is child.
Speaker 3: Zuckerberg, that's called a question. What did you do next?
Speaker 3: When someone clicked you may be getting child sexual abuse
Speaker 3: images and they click see results anyway? What was your
Speaker 3: next step? You said you might be wrong? Did anyone
Speaker 3: examine was it in fact child sexual abuse material? Did
Speaker 3: anyone report that user? Did anyone go and try to
Speaker 3: protect that child? What did you do next? Sator?
Speaker 5: We take down anything that we think is sexual abuse
Speaker 5: material on the service, and.
Speaker 3: We did anyone verify whether it was in fact child
Speaker 3: sectually abuse material.
Speaker 5: I don't know if every single search is are or
Speaker 5: falling up on, but did you report to people who
Speaker 5: wanted it?
Speaker 3: Soun er?
Speaker 5: Do you want me to answer your question?
Speaker 3: I want you to answer the question I'm asking did
Speaker 3: you report?
Speaker 5: Time to spend.
Speaker 3: People who click see results anyway?
Speaker 5: That's probably one of the factors that we use in
Speaker 5: reporting in general, and we've reported more people and done
Speaker 5: more reports like this to Nickmick, the National Center of
Speaker 5: Missing explos to Children than any other company in the industry.
Speaker 5: We proactively go out of our way across our services
Speaker 5: to do this and have made I think it's more
Speaker 5: than twenty six million reports, which is more than the
Speaker 5: whole rest of the industry combined.
Speaker 3: So mister Zuckerberg and Ester Zuckerberg that we, your company,
Speaker 3: and every social media company needs to do much more
Speaker 3: to protect children.
Speaker 2: By the way, the question I would love to know
Speaker 2: Center is this, Yeah, you may have reported more, you're
Speaker 2: also bigger than all the other ones. So how much
Speaker 2: sex exploitation of children has happened because of your platform?
Speaker 3: Well, and understand, the Wall Street Journal expose that I
Speaker 3: was asking about demonstrated how on Instagram they had hashtags
Speaker 3: that pedophiles could use to find children and to find
Speaker 3: child born and so their algorithms were actively assisting pedophiles
Speaker 3: and doing this. By the way, Instagram no longer has
Speaker 3: this screen of see results anyway. You know when they
Speaker 3: took it down when after the Wall Street Journal reported
Speaker 3: on what they were doing. So it was only when
Speaker 3: they got caught that they realized, yeah, maybe we shouldn't
Speaker 3: be aiding in a bedding children being abused. That was
Speaker 3: the only time they took it down. But they're still
Speaker 3: not affirmatively acting to protect kids the way they should.
Speaker 2: One thing I do know about these companies, they have
Speaker 2: no problem trying to use these warnings to silence conservatives.
Speaker 2: How do I know this because we put a picture
Speaker 2: up of the pictures that were put in front of
Speaker 2: Congress of Hunter Biden. They were all burned out and
Speaker 2: for six months we lost the ability to promote and
Speaker 2: or reach and or be found by people on Instagram
Speaker 2: and on Facebook. And there was hundreds of conservatives that
Speaker 2: that happened to because they were putting out information about
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Speaker 2: dot com slash Vertict center. I also want to talk
Speaker 2: about the other CEOs that were there, and another big
Speaker 2: part of this was TikTok, and people may not understand
Speaker 2: TikTok the same way they do. Facebook explain a little
Speaker 2: bit of the of the concerns around TikTok, and it's
Speaker 2: actually national security concerns as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so understand in the United States, they're roughly one
Speaker 3: hundred and sixty million people that use TikTok, so roughly half,
Speaker 3: roughly fifty percent of the population of the United States
Speaker 3: of America is on TikTok. They're over over a billion
Speaker 3: users nationwide, but in the United States it's a one
Speaker 3: hundred and sixty million. Where TikTok is particularly powerful is
Speaker 3: among kids, is among young people, is among preteens, is
Speaker 3: among teenagers, is among college kids. TikTok is ubiquitous. It
Speaker 3: is universal among sixth graders and seventh graders, eighth, ninth, tenth,
Speaker 3: eleventh graders. That is their target audience. And understand also
Speaker 3: that TikTok is wholly owned by a company called byte Dance.
Speaker 3: Byte Dance is a Chinese company, and under the rules
Speaker 3: of China, the Chinese government has the power to monitor
Speaker 3: everything that is on TikTok. So look, all of the
Speaker 3: social media companies are responsible for very significant damage. But
Speaker 3: TikTok is a qualitatively different damage because none of the
Speaker 3: other major companies are Chinese companies. That the Chinese Communist
Speaker 3: government has the power to engage in espionage, to engage
Speaker 3: in spying, and to engage in pushing propaganda. And so
Speaker 3: that the CEO of TikTok was there, and I took
Speaker 3: the opportunity to ask him about this as well. Give
Speaker 3: a listen to that exchange two. In the next couple
Speaker 3: of minutes I have I want to turn to you.
Speaker 3: You're familiar with China's twenty seventeen National Intelligence Law, which states, quote,
Speaker 3: all organizations and citizens shall support, assistant, cooperate with national
Speaker 3: intelligence efforts in accordance with the law, and shall protect
Speaker 3: national intelligence work secrets they are aware of.
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm familiar with this.
Speaker 3: TikTok is owned by Byte Dances, bytdance subject to.
Speaker 4: The law for the Chinese businesses that bit dancellens. Yesdy
Speaker 4: will be subject to this. But TikTok is not available
Speaker 4: in mainland China. And Senators you talked about in your office,
Speaker 4: we built Project Texas to put this out of reach.
Speaker 3: So ByteDance is subject to the law. Now under this law,
Speaker 3: which says shall protect national intelligence work secrets they are
Speaker 3: aware of. It compels people subject to the law to
Speaker 3: lie to protect those secrets. Is that correct?
Speaker 4: I cannot comment on that.
Speaker 3: What I said again is that because you have to
Speaker 3: protect those secrets.
Speaker 4: No, Senator, TikTok is not available in mainland China. We
Speaker 4: have moved the data into an American.
Speaker 3: TikTok is controlled by byt Dance, which is subject to
Speaker 3: this law. Now you said earlier, you said, and I
Speaker 3: wrote this down, we have not been asked for any
Speaker 3: data by the Chinese government and we have never provided it.
Speaker 3: I'm going to tell you, and I told this when
Speaker 3: you and I met last week in my office. I
Speaker 3: do not believe you, and I'll tell you the American
Speaker 3: people don't either. If you look at what is on
Speaker 3: TikTok in China, you are promoting to kids science and
Speaker 3: math videos, educational videos, and you limit the amount of
Speaker 3: times kids can be on TikTok. In the United States,
Speaker 3: you are promoting to kids self harm video and anti
Speaker 3: Israel propaganda. Why is there such a dramatic.
Speaker 4: Difference, Senator, That is just not accurate.
Speaker 3: There's not a difference between what kids see in China,
Speaker 3: and what kids see here.
Speaker 4: Senator, TikTok is not available in China. It is a
Speaker 4: separate experience there. For what I'm saying, but you.
Speaker 3: You have a company that is essentially the same, except
Speaker 3: it promotes beneficial materials instead of harmful materials.
Speaker 4: That is not true. We have a lot of signs
Speaker 4: of math content here on TikTok. There's so much of it.
Speaker 3: Okay, let me point. Let me point to this, mister Chew. There.
Speaker 3: There was a report recently UH that that compared hashtags
Speaker 3: on Instagram to hashtags on tiktac TikTok and what trended,
Speaker 3: and the differences were striking. So for something like hashtag
Speaker 3: Taylor Swift or hashtag Trump, researchers found roughly to Instagram
Speaker 3: posts for everyone on TikTok. That's not a dramatic difference.
Speaker 3: That difference drumps jumps to a eight to one for
Speaker 3: the hashtag Leger, and it jumps to thirty to one
Speaker 3: for the hashtag to bet, and it jumps to fifty
Speaker 3: seven to one to the hashtag tienamen square, and it
Speaker 3: jumps to one hundred and seventy four to one for
Speaker 3: the hashtag Hong Kong protest. Why is it that on
Speaker 3: Instagram people can put up a hashtag Hong Kong protest
Speaker 3: one hundred and seventy four times compared to TikTok. What
Speaker 3: censorship is TikTok doing at the request of the Chinese government? None, Senator,
Speaker 3: that lawn.
Speaker 4: The analysis flood has been debound by other external sources
Speaker 4: like the Cato Institute. Fundamentally, a few things happen here.
Speaker 4: Not all videos carry hashtags. That's the first thing. The
Speaker 4: second thing is that you cannot selectively choose a few
Speaker 4: words within the second one by.
Speaker 3: The difference between Taylor Swift and Tienaman Square. What happened
Speaker 3: at Tianman Square.
Speaker 4: Senator, there was a massive protests doing in doing that time.
Speaker 4: But what I'm trying to say is USUS can freely
Speaker 4: come and post.
Speaker 3: How would there be no difference on Taylor Swift or
Speaker 3: a minimal difference and a massive difference on Tienaman Square
Speaker 3: Hong Kong. Senator, Could you wrap up please, Senator.
Speaker 4: Algorithm does not suppress any content. Simply basically question why
Speaker 4: is there a difference? Like I said, I think this
Speaker 4: analysis is flawed. You're selectively choosing some words over some periods.
Speaker 4: We haven't been around there.
Speaker 3: Obvious difference one hundred and seventy four to one for
Speaker 3: Hong Kong compared to Taylor Swift.
Speaker 1: I mean, Senator, you listen to that.
Speaker 2: I just think the guys are flat out wire and
Speaker 2: nothing but a spokesman for the CCP am I wrong.
Speaker 3: Look he effectively reports to the CCP. By the way,
Speaker 3: at the end, that was Dick Dermott, the Democrat chairman,
Speaker 3: gabbling in and trying to protect TikTok, trying to protect
Speaker 3: communist China. He didn't like that line of questioning. He
Speaker 3: wanted it to stop, by the way, when Democrats were questioning,
Speaker 3: he let him go on and on and on, but
Speaker 3: Durbin wanted to jump in and stop that line of questioning. Listen,
Speaker 3: the numbers are obvious on their face, so understand the
Speaker 3: differential in those hashtags. So this was a study that
Speaker 3: compared different trending hashtags on Instagram, which a lot of
Speaker 3: young people use, and on TikTok, which again a ton
Speaker 3: of young people use. And it found for things like
Speaker 3: Taylor Swift, which is something people will post about a lot,
Speaker 3: particularly young people. They're big fans of Taylor Swift that
Speaker 3: it was roughly two to one, So basically there were
Speaker 3: two Instagram posts for every one TikTok posts. So look,
Speaker 3: that's some differential, but it's not like a jarring differential.
Speaker 3: As I went through, the differential became massively different with
Speaker 3: messages that the Chinese communist government doesn't like, and the
Speaker 3: most striking was about Hong Kong, where the differential was
Speaker 3: one hundred and seventy four to one. So, in other words,
Speaker 3: people could post about it on Instagram one hundred and
Speaker 3: seventy four times for every time it appeared on TikTok.
Speaker 3: Now you heard all of his dodge as well. That's
Speaker 3: cherry picking words. I don't care. Yeah, no it's not.
Speaker 3: It's not searching for how frequently the word asparagus trends.
Speaker 3: It's actually searching for words that the communist Chinese government
Speaker 3: does not want people to know about. And miraculously, and
Speaker 3: it's not really miraculous. The words that they most want
Speaker 3: people not to know about are the words that you
Speaker 3: are least allowed to see on TikTok. And mind you,
Speaker 3: the CEO under oath is testifying, well, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: we don't share anything with the Chinese Communist government. But
Speaker 3: I laid out how the law in China is, even
Speaker 3: if they shared everything with the government, they are required
Speaker 3: under the law to lie about it, So he would
Speaker 3: have to say that regardless of what the facts are.
Speaker 2: Do you believe that there is going to be any
Speaker 2: type of new legislation in or oversight that will be
Speaker 2: impact with the staff this I mean obviously showing the
Speaker 2: public and letting parents and grandparents be aware of the
Speaker 2: real dangers here of exploitation and blackmail and human trafficking
Speaker 2: and sex trafficking are extremely important.
Speaker 1: But what about oversight.
Speaker 3: Well, I do think there is growing bipartisan interest in
Speaker 3: doing more to protect kids online, and in the Senate
Speaker 3: Judiciary Committee on which I serve, five different bills have
Speaker 3: passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I supported all
Speaker 3: five of them. They're all designed to enhance the protection
Speaker 3: for kids online. They passed with big bipartisan support, but
Speaker 3: to date none of them have gotten a vote on
Speaker 3: the Senate floor. In the Senate Commerce Committee, as you know,
Speaker 3: I am the ranking member on the Senate Commerce Committee,
Speaker 3: which means I'm the senior Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee.
Speaker 3: We have passed several bills out of the Senate Commerce
Speaker 3: Committee aimed at the same thing, at protecting kids online,
Speaker 3: and again they passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. None has
Speaker 3: gotten a vote on the Senate floor. And I don't
Speaker 3: think it is coincidental that big tech are massive financial
Speaker 3: supporters of Democrats in the twenty sixteen election. Do you
Speaker 3: know who who the employer was whose employees gave the
Speaker 3: most money to Hillary Clinton in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna guess it was either at the time Twitter
Speaker 2: or it was Facebook.
Speaker 3: Nope, neither one.
Speaker 1: Google. Wow.
Speaker 3: Google was the number one supporter of Hillary Clinton in
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen. If you look at do you know who
Speaker 3: the number one individual donors to Democrat causes was in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, the Biden election year?
Speaker 1: Who was it?
Speaker 3: Mark Zuckerberg? The person I was questioning? And to give
Speaker 3: you a sort of order of magnitude, So in the
Speaker 3: twenty twenty cycle, the top Republican donor in the country
Speaker 3: was Sheldon Aatilson. Sheldon Natilson owned casinos. I know Sheldon
Speaker 3: very well. He was a good friend. Sadly Sheldon passed away,
Speaker 3: but Sheldon gave in twenty twenty, roughly one hundred million
Speaker 3: dollars supporting Republicans, biggest in the country. He gave a
Speaker 3: hundred million. How much do you think Mark Zuckerberg gave
Speaker 3: same election cycle.
Speaker 1: I'm going to guess a lot more than that, based
Speaker 1: on the way that you teed that up.
Speaker 3: Four hundred million dollars. Grief, four hundred million dollars, and
Speaker 3: understand what Zuckerberg did. He did something that were called Zuckbucks.
Speaker 3: He paid four hundred million dollars to literally take over
Speaker 3: the election machinery, the apparatus in big blue cities in
Speaker 3: purple states. It was designed to dramatically increase Democrat turnout
Speaker 3: to give the victory to Joe Biden. And there is
Speaker 3: a very real case to be made that Joe Biden
Speaker 3: is president today because of Mark Zuckerberg, that without Zuckerberg's
Speaker 3: four hundred billion dollars, Donald Trump would be in the
Speaker 3: White House.
Speaker 2: And yet was he also buying the guarantee of no
Speaker 2: oversight or fake oversight so you could maximize profits doing
Speaker 2: some of the things that you exposed today.
Speaker 3: Look, I think that is an obvious inference, and it's
Speaker 3: very reasonable to ask, why will Chuck Schumer not bring
Speaker 3: any of these bills to the Senate floor. And I
Speaker 3: think the answer is, if you've got the major funders
Speaker 3: of the Democrat Party there, they don't want to provide oversight.
Speaker 3: You've got Democrats who will posture in hearings. So we
Speaker 3: had lots of Democrats make lots of noise get asking
Speaker 3: what seemed to be tough questions, although actually, oddly enough,
Speaker 3: this was a strange hearing and that many of the senators,
Speaker 3: most of the Democrats, didn't ask questions, Like we all
Speaker 3: had seven minutes in our rounds. Most of the Democrats
Speaker 3: just gave a seven minute speech, and they gave a
Speaker 3: seven minute speech about how kids are really nice, and
Speaker 3: I like kids, you know, puppy dogs are cool too,
Speaker 3: and rainbows are okay. But they didn't actually ask very
Speaker 3: many questions of the witnesses, which is just weird.
Speaker 2: So this is almost an essence of dog and pony
Speaker 2: show for the left. Hey, we're gonna bring you in.
Speaker 2: We're gonna maybe let them rough you up a little bit,
Speaker 2: but don't worry, there'll be no legislation that's going to
Speaker 2: really changing things.
Speaker 1: So your good.
Speaker 3: Well, look, we'll see, as I said, Judiciaries passed five bills.
Speaker 3: Commerce has passed several bills. All of them are hitting
Speaker 3: a roadblock with Charles Schumer and Schumer I think feels
Speaker 3: no pressure to do anything.
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Speaker 2: I want to move also to another important issue, and
Speaker 2: this is one that's starting to pick up some steam here.
Speaker 2: It deals with liquid natural gas and these ports that
Speaker 2: have basically been stopped out of nowhere. And the alibi
Speaker 2: for the Biden White House is we met shocking enough
Speaker 2: with a twenty five year old TikToker that really explained
Speaker 2: to us the environmental problem. So we're going to study
Speaker 2: the environmental problems with liquifiedinancial gas and it may take
Speaker 2: over a year, it will certainly be after the election.
Speaker 2: If we were to turn these back on, it's going
Speaker 2: to have a massive impact on Texas. But the timing
Speaker 2: of it center is the part that's so suspect. It
Speaker 2: was right after Texas and the Supreme Court ruling came
Speaker 2: down that said that, hey, the federal government can get
Speaker 2: through your razor wire. The ruling also, as we talked
Speaker 2: about extensively on the show, it didn't say you had
Speaker 2: to stop putting down razor wire, and it didn't say
Speaker 2: to Texas.
Speaker 1: You have to pick it up.
Speaker 2: And it was almost like the White House said okay, well,
Speaker 2: if you're going to mess with us, And then twenty
Speaker 2: five other governors got involved and said, hey, we're going
Speaker 2: to send troopers at state troopers and our guardsmen, national
Speaker 2: guardsmen to help in Texas. What did a shout across
Speaker 2: about Texas with US out of nowhere plan of theirs
Speaker 2: that was like, hey, we're basically going to put sanctions
Speaker 2: on you guys, because you need to get in line.
Speaker 1: In any other state that talping you, you could be next.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, and yes. So what happened was last week
Speaker 3: the Biden administration announced that it was halting new permits
Speaker 3: for the export of liquid natural gas and for export
Speaker 3: terminal projects to export liquid natural gas. Now what does
Speaker 3: that mean? It means three things. Number One, what Joe
Speaker 3: Biden did is effectively sanctioned the state of Texas. This
Speaker 3: is declaring war on Texas. And I think you're exactly right.
Speaker 3: He did it because he's pissed off that Texas is
Speaker 3: standing up to the Biden administration on the border, is
Speaker 3: fighting to secure the border. And he said, all right,
Speaker 3: if you're going to stand up and fight us. We're
Speaker 3: going to attack you and try to destroy jobs in
Speaker 3: the state of Texas. This was very deliberate, a sanction
Speaker 3: on the great state of Texas. Number two, this is
Speaker 3: a fine on American families. Joe Biden said, hardworking families.
Speaker 3: I don't care about Americans. I'm going to punish you
Speaker 3: by driving up energy costs. And number three, this announcement
Speaker 3: is a subsidy for Vladimir Putin. Understand this announcement is
Speaker 3: Joe Biden saying, I am going to give billions of
Speaker 3: dollars to Putin and Russia. Why because look, our allies, Europe, Asia,
Speaker 3: they need natural gas. Natural gas it's produced in a
Speaker 3: gases form and then it's liquefied to be transported, typically
Speaker 3: on ships. Natural gas is incredibly important for heating for
Speaker 3: power for all of the world, and Europe imports a
Speaker 3: ton of natural gas. Asia imports a ton of natural gas.
Speaker 3: The largest producer of natural gas in the world is
Speaker 3: the United States of America. Now Russia is a massive
Speaker 3: producer of natural gas as well. When Joe Biden says
Speaker 3: we're going to halt new export terminals for natural gas,
Speaker 3: he is handing a gift to Vladimir Pudin, because the
Speaker 3: Europeans are not going to suddenly not heat their homes.
Speaker 3: They're not gonna say, okay, we're gonna freeze to death
Speaker 3: because Joe Biden's mad. No, They're going to get the
Speaker 3: gas somewhere. And if they don't get it from the US,
Speaker 3: they're much much more likely to get it from Russia.
Speaker 3: So this is a gift to Russia. And here's the
Speaker 3: final amazing thing. You know what this decision also does.
Speaker 3: What is that hurts the environment?
Speaker 2: You explain it, because this is the amo that everybody
Speaker 2: listening needs.
Speaker 3: It is critically important. And I'll say twofold number one.
Speaker 3: US natural gas is produced much much more cleanly than
Speaker 3: natural gas virtually anywhere else on Earth, much much more
Speaker 3: cleanly than Russian natural gas. So if you want less
Speaker 3: pollution in the air, if you want less carbon in
Speaker 3: the air, you want to consume US natural gas because
Speaker 3: we have significant environmental protections on how we produce it
Speaker 3: here there they don't. So what Joe Biden is saying is, hey,
Speaker 3: let's rely more on the Russians. Let's have them produce
Speaker 3: more gas, Let's have them pollute the environment even more.
Speaker 3: And by the way, if you notice the atmosphere, it
Speaker 3: doesn't stop a country's border, like the atmosphere goes all
Speaker 3: around the planet. So do you know who the biggest
Speaker 3: polluter on the face of the planet is. I'm going
Speaker 3: to go with either China or Russia. That's my best gas.
Speaker 3: When it comes to this, China, by a huge order
Speaker 3: of magnitude, China is massively the biggest polluter on the
Speaker 3: face of the planet. China is also building more coal
Speaker 3: plants right now than the United States has in the
Speaker 3: entirety of our country. They're building new coal plants that
Speaker 3: exceed the total coal plants in America. Now, why does
Speaker 3: that matter? If you care about the environment, if you
Speaker 3: care about pollution, if you care about carbon which country,
Speaker 3: year after year after year has led the world in
Speaker 3: reduction of carbon emissions?
Speaker 1: America? Why? Because?
Speaker 2: Well, I think when we have tons of regulation, do
Speaker 2: we actually care about the environment?
Speaker 3: Both true, but that's not Neither of those are Why
Speaker 3: what is it?
Speaker 1: Then?
Speaker 3: The biggest reason is the wide scale substitution of natural
Speaker 3: gas for coal and electricity production. So you want to
Speaker 3: talk about what really pollutes the hell out of the environment,
Speaker 3: it's burning coal in power plants to turn on electricity.
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting. A lot of liberals they think,
Speaker 3: you know, they think, oh, I've got an electric car.
Speaker 3: I've got a fancy electric car. Isn't that great? And
Speaker 3: it never occurs to them. Where does that electricity come from? Well, like, well,
Speaker 3: it comes from the wall. I plug it in and
Speaker 3: it just magically spews from the wall.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, well no, that electricity has to be generated, has
Speaker 3: to be generated in a power plant. Now how is
Speaker 3: it generated? For years, the predominant method of generating electricity
Speaker 3: was burning coal. The United States has a ton of coal.
Speaker 3: We're essentially the Saudi Arabia of coal. The problem is,
Speaker 3: when you burn coal, it pollutes a lot and it
Speaker 3: emits a ton of carbon. Now, what we have seen
Speaker 3: in the last decade, because of the shale revolution, so
Speaker 3: the shale revolution shale and it's also the fracking revolution,
Speaker 3: we have unlocked massive reserves of natural gas. And what
Speaker 3: that has done in the United States is we have
Speaker 3: seen tons of coal electricity plants shutting down and being
Speaker 3: replaced with natural gas electricity plants. Why does that matter
Speaker 3: because a natural gas electricity plant emits much, much, much
Speaker 3: less pollution than a coal plant, and it emits much much,
Speaker 3: much less carbon than a coal plant, and that is
Speaker 3: why America leads the world in carbon reductions. At the
Speaker 3: same time we're doing this, China is building coal plants
Speaker 3: like crazy. And so when Joe Biden steps in and
Speaker 3: says we want to stop America from selling natural gas
Speaker 3: to the world, he is a saying, by your natural
Speaker 3: gas from Russia, from Iran, from Venezuela, from enemies of
Speaker 3: America run by dictators who are very dangerous. Number one.
Speaker 3: But number two, he's also saying, producer electricity from coal,
Speaker 3: which pollutes the environment much much more. Understand if all
Speaker 3: you cared about was the environment, Joe Biden's announcement this
Speaker 3: past week was horrible for the environment, and he did it.
Speaker 3: I think you're exactly right. As a petulant attack on Texas.
Speaker 3: He's mad that Texas is fighting to secure the border,
Speaker 3: and he said, all right, I'm going to destroy jobs
Speaker 3: in the great state of time.
Speaker 2: Last question on this, and I think it's interesting to
Speaker 2: see that this could backfire in a big way. The
Speaker 2: Washington Post, the liberal, hardcore socialist Washington Post, put out
Speaker 2: an opinion piece by the editorial board saying Biden's it's
Speaker 2: their headline, Biden's liquid natural gas decision is a win
Speaker 2: for political symbolism, not the climate. They're even calling him
Speaker 2: out for. This was petty and obviously a decision made
Speaker 2: to hurt Texas and they can cost seventy thousand Americans
Speaker 2: or jobs and doing it for these other reasons. And
Speaker 2: by the way, saying it's not about the climate.
Speaker 3: No, that's exactly right. Here's what the Washington Post editorial
Speaker 3: board said. Quote on Friday. However, that same Biden administration
Speaker 3: ordered a de facto halt so the approval of new
Speaker 3: facilities for exporting the resources to countries with which the
Speaker 3: United States does not have free trade agreements, a category
Speaker 3: that includes all of Europe. So, by the way, this
Speaker 3: is also a sanction on Europe. It's an election year
Speaker 3: sop to climate activists that will do much more to
Speaker 3: unsettle vital US alliances than to save the planet. That's
Speaker 3: a quote from the Washington Post. That's how far out
Speaker 3: of the bounds of reasonableness when your two left wing
Speaker 3: for the Washington Post. Well, that's got to be the
Speaker 3: Biden administration, no doubt about it.
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