Speaker 1: The verdict is in in the most controversial case in
Speaker 1: the country, that would be the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse.
Speaker 1: Everybody seems to have an opinion about it. Not very
Speaker 1: many of those opinions are particularly informed by fact. So
Speaker 1: on this podcast, we're going to get back to our
Speaker 1: roots and we're going to break down the case. What
Speaker 1: actually happened, what the law says, what the politics says,
Speaker 1: and what is going to happen now. This is Verdict
Speaker 1: with Ted Cruz. Verdict with Ted Cruz is brought to
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Speaker 1: or text Cactus to six five five three two. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Verdicts with Ted Cruz. It is so wonderful
Speaker 1: to be with our friend Liz Wheeler again. Liz, though
Speaker 1: I know you've been a way, you've been doing your
Speaker 1: own speeches. You've been doing your show, the Liz Wheeler Show.
Speaker 1: Last time I saw you, I was on your show
Speaker 1: at a play at the National Conservatism Conference where all
Speaker 1: three of us actually we're speaking, and it's wonderful to
Speaker 1: be with you finally again. Yeah, it's so good to
Speaker 1: see you. It is funny how the three of us
Speaker 1: tend to always be in the same location, but not
Speaker 1: because of the same reason. We come separately. But we did.
Speaker 1: We got to set down for a long form interview,
Speaker 1: you and I did. We did, and we actually talked
Speaker 1: about this guy who's the other guy on this show.
Speaker 1: What's his name? Is the sitting US Senator? I forget
Speaker 1: what's that? Ted Cruz? Yes, I don't know if your
Speaker 1: ears were itching a little bit when we did discuss you.
Speaker 1: We did discuss your show, even though you weren't there.
Speaker 1: Whatever you said, I wasn't there. I didn't do it, Yo, totalized,
Speaker 1: do not believe a word of it. Well, we're going
Speaker 1: to be getting into exactly what happened here in not
Speaker 1: just not merely the political angles and the media angles
Speaker 1: and the narratives, but what actually happened in Kenosha, Wisconsin
Speaker 1: that led to this trial. Of Kyle Rittenhouse. Then we
Speaker 1: will get to what it means. So Liz, we will
Speaker 1: see you in just a little bit when we need
Speaker 1: to process what all of this actually means. Thanks Michael.
Speaker 1: Everybody at home, everybody at work is talking about this
Speaker 1: verdict and it is an amazing thing because it is
Speaker 1: so polarized less and we live in a time where
Speaker 1: everything is polarized. But but the morality tale that is
Speaker 1: told about the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, they're two different universes.
Speaker 1: If you talk to someone on the left that they
Speaker 1: are horrified, they are shaken, They're like, Okay, some some
Speaker 1: crazed white supremacist illegally brought a gun across state lines
Speaker 1: and then gunned down protesters, and now he was set free,
Speaker 1: and vigilantes are encouraged to shoot anyone they want. On
Speaker 1: the other side, you get a morality play of you know,
Speaker 1: Kyle Rittenhouse, this great hero for justice was vindicated. And listen,
Speaker 1: I am very glad for the verdict. I think the
Speaker 1: jury reached the right verdict, which is not guilty. But
Speaker 1: but by any measure, what happened that night in Wisconsin
Speaker 1: was a tragedy, and it was a tragedy on many fronts,
Speaker 1: because there there is a lot of ignorance. Yes, just
Speaker 1: on the basic facts of the case. You know, members
Speaker 1: of my own family have reached out to me and said, wait,
Speaker 1: I thought this happened. Wait, I thought it was like this,
Speaker 1: you know, and just getting things wrong. Maria shrive Are
Speaker 1: actually sent out a tweet. Maria Shriverers is plugged in
Speaker 1: to the media and to politics as it can possibly
Speaker 1: be when you're at Kennedy, and nevertheless she seems not
Speaker 1: to understand the basic facts. I think you had a
Speaker 1: little bit of an exchange with her on Twitter. Well
Speaker 1: I did so. Her tweet was rather amazing in that
Speaker 1: she tweeted she said, I'm trying to take a beat
Speaker 1: to digest the written house verdict. My son just asked me,
Speaker 1: how is it possible that he didn't get charged for anything?
Speaker 1: How is that possible? I don't have an answer for him.
Speaker 1: I gotta say, I read this and look, on one level,
Speaker 1: it's it's stunning. I mean this woman. I looked actually
Speaker 1: at her Twitter. I wasn't sure what she's doing now,
Speaker 1: but but her Twitter bio describes herself today as an
Speaker 1: NBC anchor, so she is literally paid to be a
Speaker 1: journalist and presumably to report on the news, and she
Speaker 1: has absolutely no idea what occurred. Try this number one,
Speaker 1: He was charged. Remember she starts with how could it
Speaker 1: be he wasn't charged? He was charged. He obviously was charged.
Speaker 1: There was a trial. He was charged with six counts,
Speaker 1: and as I tweeted that that thing that just finished
Speaker 1: was his trial. But like, let's start with that, NBC
Speaker 1: is claiming he wasn't charged with anything. Very basic facts. Look,
Speaker 1: let's let's let's stop for a second and go back
Speaker 1: to what happened that night last year. We all remember,
Speaker 1: we saw riots occurring across the country. We saw violent
Speaker 1: riots occurring across the country, and we saw in the
Speaker 1: August of August of twenty twenty, in these riots, we
Speaker 1: saw cars being firebombed, we saw stores being looted, we
Speaker 1: saw enormous mayhem, and we saw it made even worse
Speaker 1: by politicians, almost exclusively Democrats and maybe maybe exclusively Democrats,
Speaker 1: refusing to enforce the laws and so allowing these riots
Speaker 1: to rage. And in Kenosha, Wisconsin, uh, there were three
Speaker 1: days of violent riots and hundreds of fires set and
Speaker 1: stores looted and car dealerships looted and and just just
Speaker 1: rampant violence. And this was led by BLM and Antifa.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Kenosha riot was specifically because the cops
Speaker 1: shot Jacob Blake, who was a man who was resisting arrest,
Speaker 1: who was accused of sexual assault, who was reaching into
Speaker 1: a car with a weapon. The car had kids in
Speaker 1: it as well. You know, there had been this long
Speaker 1: standoff where he wouldn't he wouldn't submit to being arrested.
Speaker 1: And but but even that then caused days and days
Speaker 1: of riots as though it were some grave injustice. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You literally had a knife wielding felon who was threatening
Speaker 1: the police officers who got shot. And by the way,
Speaker 1: it's really bad idea to threaten police officers with a weapon.
Speaker 1: It can very easily end in deadly force. And that
Speaker 1: that that is what occurred there. But in this hyper
Speaker 1: leftist environment, a criminal threat threatening a police officer with
Speaker 1: a weapon, who in turn faces deadly force becomes lionized
Speaker 1: as a hero. Yeh, And we had riots occurring for
Speaker 1: multiple days. Now. Kyle Rittenhoun House. He was seventeen years old.
Speaker 1: Kyle lived about twenty miles away from Kenosha, so he
Speaker 1: lived in Illinois, it's it is true he lived in Illinois,
Speaker 1: but right on the state line between Illinois and Wisconsin
Speaker 1: and Kenosha, Wisconsin is where Kyle Rittenhouse's mom lived. It's
Speaker 1: where Kyle actually worked. He worked as a lifeguard in Kenosha.
Speaker 1: So to say a cross state lines, people get this
Speaker 1: image of someone you know, you know me traveling from
Speaker 1: Texas to New York or something. You know, I mean this,
Speaker 1: this was twenty miles away from his house, that this
Speaker 1: was his neighborhood, where his mom worked, where he had,
Speaker 1: where his mom lived, where he worked, And there were
Speaker 1: multiple days of protests, and so Kyle went there to
Speaker 1: help help protect the stores, help protect the properties that
Speaker 1: were being burned. That we're being looted, and that sadly
Speaker 1: that the local law enforcement was not protecting he went there.
Speaker 1: One of the things that has been widely reported that
Speaker 1: people say as well, he was illegally carrying a gun.
Speaker 1: That is in fact false. He actually did not carry
Speaker 1: any gun across state lines. When he got to Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: he met a friend there who had an AAR fifteen.
Speaker 1: Now what is an AR fifteen? And this is again
Speaker 1: where people don't people don't necessarily understand the language. An
Speaker 1: AAR fifteen is a rifle. It's not a machine gun.
Speaker 1: An AAR fifteen is a legal rifle. In fact, it's
Speaker 1: the most popular rifle in the United States of America.
Speaker 1: It is a common rifle used for home defense. The difference,
Speaker 1: for those who are not familiar with firearms between an
Speaker 1: automatic rifle and a semi automatic rifle. An automatic rifle
Speaker 1: is a machine gun. You hold the trigger down and
Speaker 1: lots of bullets come out. A semi automatic rifle, you
Speaker 1: pull the trigger. Once one bullet comes out, you pull
Speaker 1: the trigger again. A second bullet comes out, so it
Speaker 1: takes one bullet for each pull of the trigger. Is
Speaker 1: the difference between automatic and semi automatic. Generally speaking, automatic rifles,
Speaker 1: machine guns are largely they're functionally illegal. They've been functionally
Speaker 1: illegal for over eighty years. You have very very limited
Speaker 1: licenses and permits to get one, but as a practical matter,
Speaker 1: most Americans it's the illegal to own a machine gun.
Speaker 1: Kyle Rittenhouse didn't have a machine gun. He had a
Speaker 1: semi automatic rifle. That rifle was his friend's rifle that
Speaker 1: his friend allowed him to use in Kenosha that night
Speaker 1: because they were both going out to try to protect
Speaker 1: the local community, protect the local community from violent criminals
Speaker 1: that were threatening the community. So on the claim that
Speaker 1: he had an illegal gun, we know that claim is
Speaker 1: false because I mentioned a minute ago he had six charges.
Speaker 1: One of the charges that was brought against him was
Speaker 1: that he was carrying a gun illegally. That charge was
Speaker 1: dismissed by the trial court as a matter of law.
Speaker 1: The court ruled that it was wrong that it was
Speaker 1: legal for him to possess the firearm he had, So
Speaker 1: that claim is false. What happened was a violent riot
Speaker 1: was unfolding, and the violent riot consisted of a lot
Speaker 1: of really violent criminals. The first individual that written House
Speaker 1: encountered was a violent felon name Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum was a
Speaker 1: convicted child molester, someone who's served fifteen years in prison,
Speaker 1: a serial child molester more than one time. He pleaded
Speaker 1: guilty to two counts of molesting teenage boys. At the
Speaker 1: time he was charged, it was alleged that he had
Speaker 1: molested five different teenage boys, and he pleaded guilty and
Speaker 1: served fifteen years for it. So you were talking a serious,
Speaker 1: violent criminal and child molester. Rosenbaum saw Rittenhouse angrily pursued
Speaker 1: ritten House screamed at him that he was going to
Speaker 1: kill Rittenhouse, chased Rittenhouse and tried to physically grab his gun. Now,
Speaker 1: Kyle Rittenhouse is running away at the time. He's facing
Speaker 1: a large, angry, violent felon who is screaming death threats
Speaker 1: at him and trying to physically take his gun. And
Speaker 1: it is quite reasonable for someone to believe if the
Speaker 1: violent criminal succeeds in taking your gun, that he will
Speaker 1: do what he is threatening to do, which is to
Speaker 1: kill you. And so Kyle Rittenhouse shoots Rosenbaum and kills
Speaker 1: Rosenbaum as he's trying to take his gun. At this point,
Speaker 1: what does Rittenhouse do next? And remember the narrative that's
Speaker 1: being told of He's this you know, crazed vigilante. He's
Speaker 1: out there like wanting to shoot people. Rittenhouse begins running
Speaker 1: towards the police barricades, trying to turn himself in, and
Speaker 1: a mob chases him. So Rittenhouse running toward the cops,
Speaker 1: presumably not because he believes he has committed some crime,
Speaker 1: but as he's doing it, this mob, that this Antifa
Speaker 1: and BLM mob starts chasing after him, and Rittenhouse goes down. Now,
Speaker 1: at this point, you get the second interaction that's in
Speaker 1: play with the Rittenhouse trial, and that is Anthony Huber.
Speaker 1: So Anthony Huber, another convicted felon, comes up, and Hubert
Speaker 1: doesn't have a gun. Huber has a skateboard. Now, at
Speaker 1: a lot of these BLM and ANTIFA riots, the weapons
Speaker 1: that are used are not always conventional weapons. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: a baseball bat, sometimes it's a skateboard, sometimes it's a
Speaker 1: can of soup. They'll actually throw cans at you. His
Speaker 1: cans are very heavy and if they clock you on
Speaker 1: the head, that's not going to leave you feeling very good,
Speaker 1: and that can really do some damage. But this is
Speaker 1: a part that's a little bit controverted because what the
Speaker 1: defenders of these felons and ANTIFA and BLM we're saying
Speaker 1: is that Rittenhouse had no right to shoot a guy
Speaker 1: who was simply hitting him with a skateboard. Actually, one
Speaker 1: of the prosecutors in the case said, look, everybody takes
Speaker 1: a beating every now and again. Is that is that
Speaker 1: the legal standard? You know, it's it's it's not. Um.
Speaker 1: You have a right to defend yourself from an imminent
Speaker 1: threat to your life and the imminent threat of harm
Speaker 1: and and he's afraid for his life. And so Huber
Speaker 1: is the second person as this guy's assaulting him again
Speaker 1: that he shoots and and kills Huber. He then has
Speaker 1: a third violent felon, Gauge gross Cruts, who are right,
Speaker 1: a third convicted felon is chasing him. Gross Cruts is armed. Now, interestingly,
Speaker 1: somebody here did have a gun illegally. That would be
Speaker 1: Gauge Gross Gross Cruts, who was the felon who illegally
Speaker 1: had a firearm, was carrying it illegally without a license.
Speaker 1: And Gauge testifies at the trial that he points his
Speaker 1: gun directly at Kyle from three feet away, points his gun,
Speaker 1: and when he points his gun and Kyle fires again,
Speaker 1: hits him in the arm, doesn't kill Gauge. Gauge survives
Speaker 1: and testifies, but does real damage to his arm. Those
Speaker 1: are the three people that were shot that night. Now
Speaker 1: it's worth noting several of the facts that the media
Speaker 1: got wrong. Number one, there are I'd be willing to
Speaker 1: bet tens of millions of people across America who believe
Speaker 1: Kyle Rittenhouse shot three black men because this has all
Speaker 1: been painted as a racial attack, as it so happens
Speaker 1: Kyle Rittenhouse did not shoot any African Americans. All three
Speaker 1: of the people he shot were white. Secondly, you know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting I've heard some people who say, well, Rittenhouse
Speaker 1: didn't know these guys were criminals, and it's worth pausing
Speaker 1: and thinking, why is it that all three of the
Speaker 1: people who were shot were criminals? And let me just say, look,
Speaker 1: when you're at a violent riot where they're committing crimes
Speaker 1: all around you, where they're burning cars, where they're looting,
Speaker 1: many of the people, I'd venture to say most of
Speaker 1: the people there are criminals. Well, this is I think
Speaker 1: where the confusion. Yes, this is where I think the
Speaker 1: confusion comes from. Because the way the media presented this riot,
Speaker 1: as they said it was a peaceful protest of anti
Speaker 1: racist demonstrators. And so yes, if you're at a peaceful
Speaker 1: protest of anti racist demonstrators, then you have no reason
Speaker 1: to believe that the people who are around you are criminals.
Speaker 1: But that wasn't the reality. If you are at a
Speaker 1: violent riot with arson and looting and assault and attempted murder,
Speaker 1: then there's a very good chance if you are around
Speaker 1: Antifa or some of the more lurid figures of BLM
Speaker 1: there is a statistically, it's almost a statistical certainty that
Speaker 1: you are around criminals. So we know what happened, which
Speaker 1: is very different than what the media told us happen.
Speaker 1: And we know that legally Rittenhouse was in the right.
Speaker 1: We know that the judge, you know, then the jury
Speaker 1: reached that conclusion. Certainly the jury reached that conclusion, and
Speaker 1: so he has been exonerated in this trial. But now
Speaker 1: that we know what did happen, I think the important
Speaker 1: thing is to ask what does it mean? And for
Speaker 1: that I think we should bring in our friend Liz Wheeler,
Speaker 1: who is back. Liz wonderful again, Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Michael Senator. I think a lot of people, when they
Speaker 1: hear the analysis or read the facts, see the reality
Speaker 1: of what actually happened. Yes, they're very grateful that our
Speaker 1: system of justice worked in this particular instance, but they
Speaker 1: also want to know what happens next, What does this mean?
Speaker 1: What do we do moving forward? And one of the
Speaker 1: biggest questions that I've seen from people all over our country,
Speaker 1: of all political stripes, is what does it mean when
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice now says that they are going
Speaker 1: to potentially conduct a review of this verdict. Can Kyle
Speaker 1: Rittenhouse be tried again or what might that mean for him? Well,
Speaker 1: look the Biden Justice depart it's been fairly striking. In
Speaker 1: less than a year. They've managed to exceed the bar
Speaker 1: for the Obama Justice Department in terms of politicizing the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice. And I think that is an exceedingly
Speaker 1: troubling development that under Merrick Garland this has been a
Speaker 1: left wing Democratic Department of Justice. I think if the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice went after Rittenhouse, it would be an
Speaker 1: absolute abuse of power and a partisan abuse of power.
Speaker 1: There was a trial, the jury heard the evidence. The
Speaker 1: worst conduct in the aftermath of that night was from
Speaker 1: the media and from Democratic politicians who over and over
Speaker 1: and over again referred to Kyle Rittenhouse as a white supremacist. Senator.
Speaker 1: The President of the United States referred to Kyle Rittenhouse
Speaker 1: as a white supremacist. He put him in a campaign
Speaker 1: at the wild irresponsibility of democrat after democrat. It was
Speaker 1: a good political narrative to say this teenager was a
Speaker 1: white sup premises. The only problem for their story was
Speaker 1: there were no facts at the trial that backed it up,
Speaker 1: and they said it anyway. They said it deliberately. They
Speaker 1: said it repeatedly, and listen, this is something I've been
Speaker 1: saying for some time. I think they're a bunch of
Speaker 1: media outlets and Hollywood celebrities who had better hire some
Speaker 1: defamation lawyers because Rittenhouse is going to be suing a
Speaker 1: lot of them and they don't have a defense. They
Speaker 1: don't have a good defense because there are people who
Speaker 1: are actually in a position to know facts, and they
Speaker 1: decided this seventeen year old's life doesn't matter to me.
Speaker 1: I'm going to call him a Nazi, and who cares
Speaker 1: what the facts are because it fits my politics. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that's what a lot of people are wondering now,
Speaker 1: is knowing that we have every strong free speech protections
Speaker 1: in America, we don't have meant much of an opportunity
Speaker 1: for libel suits or slander or anything as they have
Speaker 1: in other countries. Does Rittenhouse have a case? Is he
Speaker 1: going to become the new owner of CNN or the
Speaker 1: Washington Poster or any of those outlets. So I think
Speaker 1: Rittenhouse has a very strong case. I think he will
Speaker 1: file defamation lawsuits. I hope he has retained good and
Speaker 1: effective lawyers, and I think he's going to have to assess.
Speaker 1: I think there are a lot of potential candidates to
Speaker 1: be defendants for these lawsuits. And you know that there's
Speaker 1: a famous Supreme Court decision called New York Times versus
Speaker 1: Sullivan that concerns the standards for defamation, and basically what
Speaker 1: it says is if someone's a public figure, if someone
Speaker 1: has injected themselves into the public discussion, that there's a
Speaker 1: higher standard to prove defamation. So, all right, I'm a
Speaker 1: public figure, I'm a US Senator, I ran for office,
Speaker 1: I've been elected. You can have the New York Times
Speaker 1: can say nasty stuff about me, and they do on
Speaker 1: any given day, probably have today. And as a general matter,
Speaker 1: it is very very hard for me to sue them
Speaker 1: for defamation. Why because the Supreme Court New York Times
Speaker 1: versus Sullivan said for me to succeed in a defamation suit,
Speaker 1: I have to prove actual malice. It's a standard they invented,
Speaker 1: which is a higher standard that basically they have to
Speaker 1: to to know their lying or be utterly reckless and
Speaker 1: saying we don't give a damn if we're lying, We're
Speaker 1: just going to spread it anyway. And so it's it's
Speaker 1: a pretty high standard. The interesting thing about ritten House,
Speaker 1: I think Rittenhouse has a real argument that he was
Speaker 1: not a public figure. He was a teenage kid who
Speaker 1: the press made a public figure. But but when when
Speaker 1: you started seeing the media and celebrities and Democrats attacking him,
Speaker 1: he had not done anything to make himself a public figure. Yes,
Speaker 1: he was a defendant and trial if that happened later,
Speaker 1: and for that matter, after the jury verdict, after it
Speaker 1: was clear that there wasn't any evidence at trial he
Speaker 1: was a white supremacist, we saw a bunch of media
Speaker 1: folks repeating the same lies. I mean, I gotta say,
Speaker 1: the ones that doubled down after the verdict, they really
Speaker 1: should have put like a giant kick me sign on
Speaker 1: their back, except instead of kick me, it should have
Speaker 1: said sue me. Because they don't care what the truth is,
Speaker 1: They're going to spread their political message. Truth be damned.
Speaker 1: And I very much hope the people who were willing
Speaker 1: to spread lies and didn't care about the truth, I
Speaker 1: hope we see some very big damages awarded to Kyle Rittenhouse. Well,
Speaker 1: I think this idea that Kyle Rittenhouse and I agree, Senator,
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems that he's going to be in
Speaker 1: physical danger. Even his lawyer and his family have mentioned
Speaker 1: as much. But this speaks to the bigger philosophical idea
Speaker 1: that the left isn't interested in the pursuit of justice.
Speaker 1: They aren't interested in saying, listen, the jury spoke, and
Speaker 1: what and if we disagree with the jury, this is
Speaker 1: how our criminal justice system works. No, they're interested in
Speaker 1: destroying this kid. They're interested in destroying Kyle Rittenhouse's life,
Speaker 1: his reputation, his future, because they're interested in destroying the
Speaker 1: institution our criminal justice system, this presumption of innocence until
Speaker 1: proven guilty. And they admitted as much on Twitter in
Speaker 1: you know, during the trial itself, of course, but in
Speaker 1: the aftermath, but kind of staying within this same train.
Speaker 1: I don't think they're going to I don't think they're
Speaker 1: going to relent. I don't think they're going to give
Speaker 1: it up. I don't think they're going to stop coming
Speaker 1: after him. There's already been taught that they're going to
Speaker 1: be civil lawsuits against him, against Kyle Rittenhouse on behalf
Speaker 1: of some of the victims. From a legal perspective, what
Speaker 1: do you make of that? Look, I think they can
Speaker 1: bring lawsuits. I think the lawsuits are very unlikely to
Speaker 1: be successful. That may not stop people from filing harassment
Speaker 1: lawsuits to try to proceed. You know, we've seen in
Speaker 1: some circumstances you think O. J. Simpson, where there were
Speaker 1: civil lawsuits that had a lower thresh holding a greater
Speaker 1: chance of success than the criminal trial. This is very different.
Speaker 1: I mean that O. J. Simpson was not an instance
Speaker 1: of self defense in this case. Look, I think what
Speaker 1: we have seen in and around and in the aftermath
Speaker 1: of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial is the perversion and destruction
Speaker 1: of our justice system from the hard left, and that
Speaker 1: was true on multiple levels. During the trial. You saw
Speaker 1: much of the media. You saw many of the left
Speaker 1: wing commentators demonizing the judge, attacking the judge personally, trying
Speaker 1: to defame the judge. The judge, by the way, is
Speaker 1: trying to enforce the law. So, for example, by the way,
Speaker 1: this prosecution, this prosecutor is the Gomer Pile of Screwups.
Speaker 1: Is one of the worst trial lawyers I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: He got repeatedly admonaged from the trial judge because he
Speaker 1: kept doing things wrong. He stood up to the jury
Speaker 1: and said, can you believe he exercise his right right
Speaker 1: to be silent. Well, you're allowed to do that. The
Speaker 1: Fifth Amendment protects your right to remain silent. The moment
Speaker 1: that that really encapsulates it is when the prosecutor took
Speaker 1: the AR fifteen and pointed it at the jury with
Speaker 1: his finger on the trigger, which is horrific. And by
Speaker 1: the way, anyone who has the barest monicum of of
Speaker 1: firearms training knows you don't put your finger on the trip.
Speaker 1: You don't point the gun at anybody unless you are
Speaker 1: in a situation where you are prepared to and may
Speaker 1: need to use lethal force. And you don't put your
Speaker 1: finger on the trigger unless you are prepared to it
Speaker 1: in the instance of pulling the trigger to fire the gun.
Speaker 1: And it you know, to be honest, it when he
Speaker 1: pointed it at the jury, it reminded me of you know,
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin. I mean, it was something nobody who was
Speaker 1: familiar with firearms would possibly do. And yet this clown
Speaker 1: was literally pointing a gun and hoping it was unloaded
Speaker 1: at the jury. But the perversion of justice those on
Speaker 1: the left, and that includes Democrats and media and Hollywood,
Speaker 1: they don't care that the jury heard the evidence and
Speaker 1: has spoken. They don't care about self defense. Stephen Colbert says, well,
Speaker 1: if the law says that it's self defense, we should
Speaker 1: change the law. So what they're saying is you should
Speaker 1: not have the right if someone is violently attacking you,
Speaker 1: if you are on the ground, if a mob is
Speaker 1: chasing you, if they're beating you, if they are threatening
Speaker 1: to kill you, you should not have the right to
Speaker 1: defend yourself. That's scary stuff. But the perversion of justice
Speaker 1: is broader than that. All of this began because left
Speaker 1: wing prosecutors and left wing politicians refuse to enforce the
Speaker 1: law and protect the community from Kenosha against violent rioters.
Speaker 1: If law enforcement had been allowed to do its job
Speaker 1: to arrest the rioters, to put them in jail, to
Speaker 1: put them in handcuffs, you know what, Rose Bob would
Speaker 1: have still been alive. Huber would have still been alive.
Speaker 1: They would have been arrested for being violent criminals and rioting,
Speaker 1: but they would have still been alive. But the politicians
Speaker 1: created this problem, and I got to say, we saw
Speaker 1: a manifestation of that tragically this week again in Wisconsin
Speaker 1: with the horrific Christmas parade. The lunatic who drove the
Speaker 1: SUV into that parade, killing wounding dozens, I think upwards
Speaker 1: of forty people, including young children. It was horrific, and
Speaker 1: you noticed the media isn't covering what caused it. You
Speaker 1: had an individual number one, a Black Lives Matter supporter
Speaker 1: or a rapper, a repeat felon Yea who had just
Speaker 1: recently been arrested for what for running someone over with
Speaker 1: his car. Not just someone, the mother of his child,
Speaker 1: the same car that he used to commit this crime.
Speaker 1: He had run her over with to violently assault her.
Speaker 1: He had been arrested. And there's a left wing prosecutor,
Speaker 1: the district attorney in Milwaukee, who was elected with George
Speaker 1: Soros's financial support. He's part of the left wing prosecutors
Speaker 1: across the country who don't prosecute violent criminals. They let
Speaker 1: this guy go, Michael, do you know what his bail
Speaker 1: was that they let him go on? So it's hard
Speaker 1: to keep track because he's been arrested so many times
Speaker 1: in recent years. The first time, gosh, it was either
Speaker 1: five hundred or a thousand dollars, and I think it
Speaker 1: was a thousand dollars this time too, Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars. He was on bail. For running over
Speaker 1: the mother of his child with the car. He was
Speaker 1: out on bail. In just a few days later, boom,
Speaker 1: he runs over dozens of people. And it's the same
Speaker 1: problem when you have left wing politicians, prosecutors, DA's governors,
Speaker 1: mayors that refuse to enforce the law. Violent criminals target
Speaker 1: innocent citizens. And whether that is burning stores and car
Speaker 1: lots and kenosha or I mean, what a nightmare. The
Speaker 1: videos of that lunatic driving into that parade is the
Speaker 1: stuff of nightmares. But it's not an accident. It's the
Speaker 1: result of policies destroying our justice system, which the radical
Speaker 1: left is trying to spread across the country. And this
Speaker 1: is the dark side of a criminal justice reform, and
Speaker 1: which is the euphemism that is used for movements as
Speaker 1: radical as abolishing the police or abolishing prisons. Rashida to leave.
Speaker 1: The Democrat congressman continues to maintain that we need to
Speaker 1: empty out federal prisons within ten years, empty them all out,
Speaker 1: not leave a single person in them. And this is
Speaker 1: it sounds all very nice and happy and feel good
Speaker 1: and Kumbai. Yeah, and we're gonna be really compassionate to
Speaker 1: the criminals. Well, here's the flip side is that people
Speaker 1: who have done very bad things, who are not reformed,
Speaker 1: who we're going to do really bad things again, go
Speaker 1: out and what do they do? Surprise, surprise, they do
Speaker 1: really bad things. This is the practical effect of the
Speaker 1: extremes of criminal justice reform, and hopefully people can learn
Speaker 1: a lesson from that, Republicans certainly, but hopefully Democrats too,
Speaker 1: because I don't think people like to see their communities
Speaker 1: being torched and looted and attacked by these criminals. I
Speaker 1: want to take a minute and praise the courage of
Speaker 1: the twelve members of the jury. Look, it was not
Speaker 1: complicated that there was and remains a very real threat
Speaker 1: to their physical safety and lives. Left wing activists were
Speaker 1: taking their pictures. I mean heck, MSNBC was banned from
Speaker 1: the courtroom because the cameraman was allegedly trying to follow
Speaker 1: the jurors. And I promise you those jurors knew if
Speaker 1: we vote to a quit, we may find radicals threatening
Speaker 1: us in our families. And and you know it's easy
Speaker 1: to say, well, of course they did the right thing. Look,
Speaker 1: jurors get scared, and it was there were a lot
Speaker 1: of forces that wanted to use the threat of violence
Speaker 1: to intimidate those jurors to convict that kid. Facts be
Speaker 1: damn we want to scalp and I just want to
Speaker 1: praise those twelve men and women for doing the right
Speaker 1: thing in the face of a real risk of intimidation
Speaker 1: and violence. That that that is a moment to be
Speaker 1: proud of our country and our justice system for ordinary
Speaker 1: Americans doing their duty and following the law. Absolutely, courage
Speaker 1: and moral clarity are in short supply, so it's it's
Speaker 1: really edifying and gratifying to see people exercise that. All right,
Speaker 1: we've got to go Liz anything before we leave. Yes,
Speaker 1: we do not have time in this episode today because
Speaker 1: we had so much good content for a mailbag, but
Speaker 1: for next week's episode, go on over to Verdict with
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Speaker 1: subscriber on the plus community, then you get exclusive access
Speaker 1: to ask questions that the Senator, Michael and I will
Speaker 1: answer live here on the show. Go to Verdict with
Speaker 1: Ted Cruise dot com slash plus for all kinds of
Speaker 1: extra goodies to any questions we don't get get to
Speaker 1: here on the show. We usually try to get to
Speaker 1: over on Plus Michael, excellent, and you know there's the
Speaker 1: plus virtual digital community. But we are going to be
Speaker 1: becoming to a school near you. We are going on
Speaker 1: the road in real life. The Verdict Tour will continue
Speaker 1: with Young America's Foundation. To submit your school to apply
Speaker 1: to have us come to your school and do a
Speaker 1: live show and talk to everybody and take your questions.
Speaker 1: Go to YAF dot org slash Verdict. The deadline to
Speaker 1: apply is December fifteenth, So please get all of those
Speaker 1: schools in. We will go to right wing schools. We
Speaker 1: will there. What are they like? Three of those We'll
Speaker 1: go to left wing schools. We will go all over
Speaker 1: the country. So make sure where you get your schools in.
Speaker 1: For now, that's all I'm Michael. This is Verdict with
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is
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