Speaker 1: Welcome.
Speaker 2: It is Verdict with center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you, Senator,
Speaker 2: Let's just start with this. I hope you had a
Speaker 2: fabulous Christmas, and everyone else listening, I hope you had
Speaker 2: a fabulous Christmas as well. You got to give me
Speaker 2: some anecdote from Christmas Day? Did you get anything cool?
Speaker 2: Was there an exciting moment before we get into politics.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll just say, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year. Actually,
Speaker 3: Christmas was awesome. I was just at home with Heidi
Speaker 3: and both our girls. My parents were here. We relaxed,
Speaker 3: We had Christmas dinner, We had a big ham. I
Speaker 3: will say, we do have a new puppy. The new
Speaker 3: puppy is Rudy. Rudy is a golden Doodle. He looks
Speaker 3: like a giant Teddy Bear.
Speaker 4: Come to life.
Speaker 3: He is Catherine's puppy. He is fourteen weeks old. Rudy
Speaker 3: yaps a lot. In fact, you may well get some
Speaker 3: podcasts with Rudy yapping in the background, because I do
Speaker 3: many of these at home and he met Rudy.
Speaker 1: He is cute. Man like. Rudy is next level cute.
Speaker 4: He is majorly cute and I will say all right.
Speaker 3: On Christmas Day, so we had a ham which was great,
Speaker 3: and at the end I turned to Heidi and said,
Speaker 3: what do you think should we give Rudy the hamdbone?
Speaker 4: She said sure?
Speaker 3: So I tossed Rudy the handbone and I cannot believe
Speaker 3: this little puppy became a wolf like he began consuming
Speaker 3: and he's, you know, he's tiny.
Speaker 4: He is the size of a Teddy bear.
Speaker 3: He's like showing into this handbone and then he runs
Speaker 3: into her bushes and he's in his cave and he
Speaker 3: is a wolf. And I'm sitting there. I'm kind of
Speaker 3: feeling mildly concerned. So I pull out my phone and
Speaker 3: I google should you give a puppy a hamdbone?
Speaker 1: I cannot wait to hear what Google said back to you, And.
Speaker 3: It turns out the Google says, no, this is a
Speaker 3: very bad IDEA hambone can splinter and they can stick
Speaker 3: in their stomach and kill your puppy. And I'm sitting
Speaker 3: here thinking, Okay, Catherine is going to kill me if
Speaker 3: I kill her dog. I'm in trouble. So I go
Speaker 3: try to yet Rudy and he does not want to
Speaker 3: give up the hamdbone. And the problem is is I'm
Speaker 3: approaching him.
Speaker 4: Everywhere I go.
Speaker 3: He runs in the bushes and runs in the bushes.
Speaker 3: So I have to drag Heidi out of the kitchen
Speaker 3: because we need a pincher movement to come from both
Speaker 3: sides because Rudy is running and we finally got him
Speaker 3: and got the hamdbone away from him.
Speaker 2: Isn't it amazing how scary Google can be? Though in
Speaker 2: those moments, it's like it tells you basically everything that
Speaker 2: is fun is no longer fun.
Speaker 1: I'm convinced that's what Google's job is.
Speaker 3: And he was such a happy puppy. This is this
Speaker 3: is absolutely the greatest joy. This this animal has had
Speaker 3: since he has been on planet Earth. Was chowing into
Speaker 3: that hamdbone until Heidi and I had to run. But
Speaker 3: he had he had actually he'd eaten all the hams.
Speaker 3: So he was in the chewing into bone moment where like,
Speaker 3: all right, fine, that's.
Speaker 2: Probably enough, that's enough, all right. So we got to ask,
Speaker 2: how did how did you get the name?
Speaker 1: Who named him? How did we come up with the
Speaker 1: name Rudy? Where is it? I mean, a.
Speaker 2: Movie after our movie show, everyone's gonna think Rudy. We're
Speaker 2: going back to Notre Dame here and the famous movie.
Speaker 3: Okay, except for the fact that I didn't name the dog.
Speaker 3: Catherine named the dog. So Caroline has three cats, yea,
Speaker 3: and this puppy was for Catherine, so Catherine got to
Speaker 3: name the dog and Rudy. It actually is connected so
Speaker 3: our last podcast. By the way, if you didn't watch
Speaker 3: your Christmas Day podcast or didn't listen to it, and
Speaker 3: then it is on YouTube so you can watch it too,
Speaker 3: I'd encourage you to go back. It's a very different
Speaker 3: podcast from what we do normally, which is Ben and
Speaker 3: I talked about twenty five of my favorite movies, and
Speaker 3: we went through a bunch of movies, and I love movies,
Speaker 3: and we go through.
Speaker 4: A ton of them.
Speaker 3: And by the way, I told you this story Bet
Speaker 3: as we're getting ready to record in the afternoon a
Speaker 3: Christmas Day, we went over to a friend's house a
Speaker 3: few blocks away from our house who had a Christmas
Speaker 3: Day party and it was very cool. There are lots
Speaker 3: of people out walking their dogs and out on the street,
Speaker 3: and this one family stopped me and this very nice
Speaker 3: woman said, hey, I listened to the podcast this morning.
Speaker 3: I loved it. Great movie recommendations. I'm gonna go watch
Speaker 3: them now, and so I thought that was very cool.
Speaker 3: It made me happy. But if you were call at
Speaker 3: the very beginning of the movie podcast, you asked me
Speaker 3: what was the most recent thing I was watching, and
Speaker 3: I told you it was The Outer Banks. And The
Speaker 3: Outer Banks is this teeny bopper series on Netflix that
Speaker 3: Catherine is very into. And Catherine had asked me to
Speaker 3: watch it so that we could talk about the plot development.
Speaker 4: So I watched the whole thing.
Speaker 3: Well, one of the stars of the show is JJ,
Speaker 3: and the actor who plays JJ is Rudy. I don't
Speaker 3: remember Rudy's last name, Rudy something that Catherne knows his
Speaker 3: last name, but Rudy Something plays JJ, who is the
Speaker 3: sort of kind of cute surfer boy, rebel, sort of
Speaker 3: a lot of trouble, but listen, I can get why
Speaker 3: if you're a fourteen year old girl, he would be
Speaker 3: sort of a cute, attractive guy. So our puppy is
Speaker 3: named after the actor who plays JJ in Outer Banks.
Speaker 3: But as a Ustonian, I'm treating Rudy. I call him
Speaker 3: Rudy T because I treat him as Rudy Tom Jonovich,
Speaker 3: the coach of the Rockets when we won the NBA
Speaker 3: Championship at ninety four and ninety five. So for Katherine
Speaker 3: he's rudy, but for me, I think the tea is silence.
Speaker 1: I love it. That is nice.
Speaker 2: And by the way, on the movie list, so you'll
Speaker 2: you'll laugh. We got a new TV right that was
Speaker 2: one of those like Christmas things. Have you seen nice
Speaker 2: these frame TVs where it puts up artwork on the Oh.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're getting a high falutin.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I'm not trucking hang around such a fancy
Speaker 3: pants guy.
Speaker 2: So this has been on the Missus list and she's like, look,
Speaker 2: I just love it. It doesn't look like a TV
Speaker 2: hang on your wall in the living room. It can
Speaker 2: have like art up there. So Black Friday, I grabbed
Speaker 2: the TV. So fast forward to today. My dad's in
Speaker 2: town and he's helping me mount this new TV, and
Speaker 2: my mother in law comes over and she's like, hey,
Speaker 2: I've got the list of movies that you guys talked about.
Speaker 2: Why don't you guys hurry up and put that TV
Speaker 2: up there and we'll watch one of Ted's favorite movies.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, okay, great, the only problem was we
Speaker 2: ran into a mounting issue with this fancy new TV
Speaker 2: because it doesn't meunt like the other normal TVs in
Speaker 2: the world. And finally she gave up, like, I'll see
Speaker 2: you tomorrow or whenever and we'll watch the movie then.
Speaker 2: So I disappointed my mother in law, but she was
Speaker 2: excited about your list, So there is that there at
Speaker 2: least there's a silver lining in the in the moment,
Speaker 2: and I don't know which TV it was, but she
Speaker 2: had written down the list of movies that she had
Speaker 2: never watched that you had on your list, and then
Speaker 2: it turned into a thing. So now I have a
Speaker 2: feeling I'm gonna be watching some movies with the mother
Speaker 2: in law. She's a movie fan like you are. And
Speaker 2: then she asked she goes Did he go to the
Speaker 2: movie theater? I said, yes, he loves to go to
Speaker 2: the movie theater. Did you go to any movies over
Speaker 2: the holidays?
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 3: I saw Gladiator two, which I enjoyed. It wasn't as
Speaker 3: good as Gladiator one, but Denzel's awesome, and so it
Speaker 3: was fun.
Speaker 2: And I so Rotten Tomatoes has their rating system. If
Speaker 2: we're gonna have a TC rating system, what would you
Speaker 2: have rated the new one, Oh.
Speaker 4: I don't know. On on one.
Speaker 3: To five, I'd give it a three point seven. I
Speaker 3: enjoyed it, But Gladiator one is like a four point nine.
Speaker 3: Like it's I don't remember. Was Glader one on my
Speaker 3: top twenty five? If it wasn't, it could easily have been.
Speaker 3: Gladier one is an awesome movie. Gladi You two is fine.
Speaker 2: And hold on on a five scale zero to five,
Speaker 2: what is a perfect five movie?
Speaker 1: Just so everybody has a barometer.
Speaker 4: The Princess Bride is just right at the top of
Speaker 4: that list.
Speaker 2: There you go, five point Oh there, I love it
Speaker 2: all right. So let's get back to the world of
Speaker 2: politics as well. And as we said, I like it,
Speaker 2: we get to talk a little movies. Here we got
Speaker 2: a five point zero Princess Bride. If you've never watched it,
Speaker 2: if you better do it. That's just it's part of
Speaker 2: If you like this podcast, that's like a price of mission.
Speaker 2: If you've not seen Princess Bride, because you've watched it
Speaker 2: what fifty times in your life.
Speaker 3: Probably more more than that. I did get from a
Speaker 3: friend for Christmas this year, a leather bound copy of
Speaker 3: the book The Princess Bride. The book The Princess Bride
Speaker 3: is wonderful too, but the movie is exquisite. And I
Speaker 3: do take sort of odd I don't know, like reverse
Speaker 3: psychology joy. The entire cast of The Prince Bride or
Speaker 3: all lefties, and they periodically get together and they do
Speaker 3: events to support Democrats, and many of them have been
Speaker 3: critical would be and actually, oddly enough, carry Elwiz, who
Speaker 3: is who is the dread Pirate Roberts, and also Wesley
Speaker 3: So is the male lead in the movie, is a
Speaker 3: big lefty who I've gotten in Twitter wars with and
Speaker 3: he finally blocked me, like he was bashing me. And
Speaker 3: these guys think I can enjoy their movie because they're
Speaker 3: little communists, and so they say, no, no, no, you have
Speaker 3: to be a Communist to enjoy my movie. I'm like,
Speaker 3: screw you. You made your art. It's for the world
Speaker 3: to enjoy. You don't get to decide how I enjoy it.
Speaker 3: And amusingly enough, so when I got into Twitter war
Speaker 3: with carry Ell Was, I have in my office.
Speaker 4: You've been to my office in DC.
Speaker 3: Hanging on the wall is a signed photograph of carry
Speaker 3: Alwis as the Red Pirate Roberts and It is inscribed
Speaker 3: not just to Ted, but to Ted Cruz and oh,
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 4: Remember what he wrote. I should remember what he wrote,
Speaker 4: but I don't.
Speaker 3: But it's signed by him. And it was my first
Speaker 3: year in the Senate and we had an intern in
Speaker 3: the office who went to like a comic con convention
Speaker 3: and he was there signing autographs, and she got him
Speaker 3: to sign it to me by name. And I think
Speaker 3: at the time he didn't know who I was, because
Speaker 3: he probably would have refused to do it. But when
Speaker 3: we were in the Twitter fight, I took a picture
Speaker 3: of the framed photo of him inscribed to me on
Speaker 3: my wall and tweeted it out and he got so
Speaker 3: mad he blocked me.
Speaker 1: That is actually hilarious.
Speaker 2: All right, So I have my Princess Bride story, and
Speaker 2: then I promise we'll get to the political world. So
Speaker 2: in high school, I mean, there's a lot going on
Speaker 2: in politics. There is, there is. But in high school,
Speaker 2: you can judge me for this. We had to do
Speaker 2: a book report on the Princess Bride. Had to read
Speaker 2: the book. You will not be shocked to know that
Speaker 2: when I was focused solely on playing tennis and trying
Speaker 2: to make decent grades, where as a.
Speaker 1: Chance, I went and bought the cliff Notes.
Speaker 4: Oh, how do you in the movie.
Speaker 1: Not even the movie the cliff Notes.
Speaker 2: I was like, I got it, and then I overachieved
Speaker 2: and I went bought this notes.
Speaker 3: Do our younger listeners know what cliff notes are?
Speaker 4: Do those still exist?
Speaker 1: They do? Cliff Notes and Sparklan still.
Speaker 3: Okay, so that's still a I mean, look, it's been
Speaker 3: a while since you and I were in high school
Speaker 3: in college, so I haven't I think GBT.
Speaker 2: Or whatever now right like but but but if you
Speaker 2: look at them, it's that.
Speaker 1: So cliff Notes is the one that had the yellow and.
Speaker 4: Black pep I remember them. Well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so someone in the class said, hey, make
Speaker 2: sure you get the spark Notes.
Speaker 1: Well, the joke was on me.
Speaker 2: I was a new student at Westminster Academy and my
Speaker 2: teacher I will never forget her, best teacher I've ever
Speaker 2: had in my life.
Speaker 1: Missus Perry.
Speaker 2: She made sure that every single question on your test
Speaker 2: for your book report could not be answered by reading
Speaker 2: the cliff Notes or the spark Notes.
Speaker 1: So I got enough.
Speaker 2: It was the last the first time I ever bought
Speaker 2: cliff Notes and the last time I ever bought cliff
Speaker 2: Notes in high school because she made sure there was
Speaker 2: not a single question that could be answered from cliff notes.
Speaker 3: That is a good college Benjamin. You have fallen for
Speaker 3: the second oldest blunder in the world. The first, of course,
Speaker 3: is never get involved in a land war in Asia,
Speaker 3: but the second only slightly less famous. He's never getting
Speaker 3: never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line.
Speaker 4: Ha ha ha and he falls over dead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go. So there's yeah, there's a there's
Speaker 2: a study where.
Speaker 4: Your k can do the entire damn movie. It really is.
Speaker 4: It's it's it's a sick.
Speaker 3: Party trick and and and I got to tell you,
Speaker 3: as as a teenager, it was not effective for for
Speaker 3: forgetting girls.
Speaker 1: It was not.
Speaker 3: No, it was I gotta say being a tennis star,
Speaker 3: I'm sure was more effective in that.
Speaker 2: In that regard, it definitely worked more than quoting Princess Bride.
Speaker 1: But that's a low bar. I don't know what that's
Speaker 1: actually saying. But you know, barely there.
Speaker 3: But you know, I could go to a Dungeons and
Speaker 3: Dragons convention and then like hang out and be just fine.
Speaker 1: Be honest, did you ever go to one? Because I
Speaker 1: never knew. I didn't know.
Speaker 4: I did not go to a convention.
Speaker 3: I did play Dungeons and Dragons as a kid, but
Speaker 3: I did not actually go to a convention. It's sort
Speaker 3: of it's kind of like Star Trek. I'm sort of
Speaker 3: a Trekky and that I've watched all the movies. I've
Speaker 3: watched not one hundred percent of the episodes, but most
Speaker 3: of them. And I really like Star Trek. But Trekkies
Speaker 3: are such so intense about it that I don't actually
Speaker 3: dress as mister Spock, so I don't feel like a
Speaker 3: full on Treki.
Speaker 4: I just really enjoy Star Trek.
Speaker 2: So the first TV show you and I would have
Speaker 2: ever connected on them clearly would have been The West Wing.
Speaker 4: West Wing is fabulous.
Speaker 1: But that was I've watched it, I don't know six
Speaker 1: seven times.
Speaker 3: See, I only think I've watched it once. I watched
Speaker 3: it when it aired live, and that was before streaming,
Speaker 3: so I was and Heidi and I were on the
Speaker 3: George W.
Speaker 4: Bush campaign at the time.
Speaker 3: So every night it aired Wednesdays, I think at nine pm,
Speaker 3: and we had TVs. At the end, we all had cubicles.
Speaker 3: We're all in little cubicles at three or on Congress
Speaker 3: Avenue in Austin, Texas, And at nine pm Wednesday, at
Speaker 3: the end of every isle of cubicles was a TV
Speaker 3: and we would stop and for an hour from nine
Speaker 3: to ten pm, every campaign staffer would watch The West Wing.
Speaker 3: And I watched it live. But I don't know that
Speaker 3: I've ever watched a rerun of The West Wing. So
Speaker 3: I loved every episode.
Speaker 2: Every So every time I get sick, every time i'm
Speaker 2: with flu or i've had a surgery, that's when I
Speaker 2: will ben watch it because I have the DVD set
Speaker 2: and it's like it's like comfort food.
Speaker 1: It's like you're.
Speaker 2: Sick and you can kind of doze off and take
Speaker 2: a nap and wake up and you know exactly where
Speaker 2: you are in the series.
Speaker 1: And that's when I watch.
Speaker 2: I never watch outside of what i'm sick, but if
Speaker 2: I am really sick in bed, laid up, it is
Speaker 2: West Wing for me the entire time.
Speaker 1: All right, it's good.
Speaker 4: By the by the way, what what series are you
Speaker 4: watching now? This is a complete digression.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm one hundred percent. I am all into Landman, like.
Speaker 4: Man is so good.
Speaker 3: It's Landman is is crack cocaine inserted into my veins.
Speaker 3: I Billy, Bob Thornton, I love the Man, and Taylor
Speaker 3: Sheridan can Wright like nobody's business.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like the new Aaron Sorcin of My Life.
Speaker 2: And Sorkin for ber they don't know. He did West
Speaker 2: Wing and several other amazing shows, The American American President,
Speaker 2: the movie Newsroom, the show on HBO.
Speaker 4: Did you watch The Newsroom? By the way, I did,
Speaker 4: it was well done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was one of So it was one of those,
Speaker 2: and I actually knew a couple of the people that
Speaker 2: were quote consultants on that, the same way that Sorkin
Speaker 2: had consultants I did Myers and others on The West Wing,
Speaker 2: and they wanted to make it extremely accurate the Newsroom.
Speaker 2: At the time, I was a commentator at CNN when
Speaker 2: Newsroom came out, and I've been like every time, I
Speaker 2: think it was every Suname night. It came out nine
Speaker 2: on HBO, and I was just like, watch it religiously.
Speaker 2: Those guys like you said, Sharon can write, but yeah,
Speaker 2: Landman right now is amazing. And then obviously they're wrapping
Speaker 2: up Yellowstone with this like last season.
Speaker 3: And by the way, we are going to do a
Speaker 3: different episode that is not this episode, but we are
Speaker 3: going to do an episode like the movie episode on
Speaker 3: streaming series to watch because I've got a I'm on
Speaker 3: a lot of airplanes and so I watch a lot
Speaker 3: of streaming series.
Speaker 4: But that will not be this episode will.
Speaker 2: Be the last thing. What's the top one on your
Speaker 2: list right now? What are you watching streaming besides Lamman?
Speaker 4: Uh so streaming?
Speaker 3: I'm watching The Gifted, which Caroline, my eldest daughter, asked
Speaker 3: me to watch that it's sort of a mutant series
Speaker 3: that had two seasons. Some in the middle of the
Speaker 3: second season of that, and and then I'm in season
Speaker 3: seven of The Walking Dead, which oach. I never watched
Speaker 3: The Walking Dead when it was on air, And so
Speaker 3: what I'm now when I'm.
Speaker 1: On airplanes because I've never watched it.
Speaker 3: Oh luck, it's a bunch of zombies eating your face,
Speaker 3: like it's not is it literature?
Speaker 4: No? But it's fun.
Speaker 3: I'm enjoying it, and it is. You know, I do
Speaker 3: get strange looks on an airplane when I'm sitting there
Speaker 3: on a plane and people walk by and there's a
Speaker 3: zombie eating someone's face, and there's you know, people who
Speaker 3: who don't like me or like figures.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he'd be.
Speaker 3: Readier to the zombie xpect he'd be watching. For the record,
Speaker 3: I'm not rooting for the zombies. But but but hater's
Speaker 3: gonna hate.
Speaker 1: Hater's gonna hate. I love it all right, Now, let's
Speaker 1: get back to the political world. I enjoyed that. By
Speaker 1: the way, that was nice after Christmas.
Speaker 2: So, Joe Biden's administration has got some cover ups going on.
Speaker 2: At the Wall Street Journal center is reporting on behind
Speaker 2: the Closed Doors.
Speaker 1: We found out.
Speaker 2: That the lab we cover up was a legit cover up,
Speaker 2: and now since he's lost, it's like, oh, we can
Speaker 2: report on this now.
Speaker 3: Well, this was a story that came out in the
Speaker 3: Wall Street Journal December twenty sixth, and it really is
Speaker 3: a bombshell story and it describes how the federal government
Speaker 3: essentially the deep state under Joe Biden. But this is
Speaker 3: also true under Trump. They didn't The Journal article doesn't
Speaker 3: talk about Trump, but I'm very interested to what was
Speaker 3: happening under the Trump administration as well. But how the
Speaker 3: deep state covered up the evidence and covered up the
Speaker 3: scientists that we're arguing that the COVID virus escaped from
Speaker 3: the Wuhan Lab in China, and it focuses on in particular,
Speaker 3: it starts with Jason Bannon. So here I'm just gonna
Speaker 3: read at the beginning of the article because it lays
Speaker 3: it out. A car and driver had been ready to
Speaker 3: whisk Jason Bannon from FBI had quarters early one morning
Speaker 3: in August twenty twenty one to brief the White House
Speaker 3: on a novel virus that was killing hundreds of thousands
Speaker 3: of Americans that had stopped the world in its tracks.
Speaker 3: Bannon had been told by his superiors to be on
Speaker 3: hand to in case the Federal Bureau of Investigation was
Speaker 3: asked to join at top intelligence community briefing for the President,
Speaker 3: but the White House summons never came. Bannon, at PhD
Speaker 3: in microbiology, had joined the Bureau after the September eleventh
Speaker 3: terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, when the agency
Speaker 3: bulked up its expertise to deal with the threat of
Speaker 3: germ weapons, toxins, and other weapons of mass destruction. But
Speaker 3: for more than a year he had spent most of
Speaker 3: his waking hours on the COVID nineteen virus that had
Speaker 3: seeped out of China in twenty nineteen. Frustrated by China stonewalling,
Speaker 3: President Bynet Biden had ordered an urgent assessment by the
Speaker 3: US intelligence agencies and national laboratories on whether the virus
Speaker 3: had leaped from an animal to a human or it
Speaker 3: escaped from a Chinese lab that had been doing extensive
Speaker 3: work on coronaviruses. The dominant view within the intelligence community
Speaker 3: was clear when Averill Haines, the Director of National Intelligence,
Speaker 3: and a couple of our senior analysts, brief Bidens and
Speaker 3: its top aides on August twenty fourth. The National Intelligence Council,
Speaker 3: a body of senior intelligence officers who reported to Haines
Speaker 3: and that organized the intelligence review, had concluded with quote
Speaker 3: low confidence that COVID nineteen had emerged when the virus
Speaker 3: leapt from an animal to a human. So did four
Speaker 3: intelligence agencies at the time. The FBI was the only
Speaker 3: agency that had concluded that a labliku was likely, a
Speaker 3: judgment that it had rendered with quote moderate confidence, but
Speaker 3: neither Bannon nor any other FBI officials were at the
Speaker 3: briefing to make the case first hand to the president,
Speaker 3: quote being the only agency that assessed a laboratory origin
Speaker 3: was more likely, and the agency that expressed the highest
Speaker 3: level confidence in its analysis of the source of the pandemic.
Speaker 3: We anticipated the FBI would be asked to attend the briefing,
Speaker 3: Bannon recalled in his first on the record interview on
Speaker 3: the subject. I find it surprising that the White House
Speaker 3: didn't ask. In this article on the Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 3: it goes on and on discussing Bannon, this FBI scientist,
Speaker 3: but also scientists throughout the federal government who had laid
Speaker 3: out evidence early on that COVID came from a Chinese lab,
Speaker 3: and that evidence was systematically shut down. It was systematically
Speaker 3: de emphasized, and it appears that it was systematically blocked
Speaker 3: from going to the White House under Joe Biden. And
Speaker 3: as I said, I'm very interested. The Wall Street Journal
Speaker 3: doesn't report this, but my suspicion is they were doing
Speaker 3: the exact same thing when Donald Trump was president.
Speaker 2: So here's my question, and this is a political one.
Speaker 2: There are people that are really frustrated with so much
Speaker 2: that happened around COVID and the answers we didn't get
Speaker 2: in Fauci line to Congress. The list goes on and on,
Speaker 2: and there's people that are frustrated in all right, now
Speaker 2: that Republicans are in charge, what are they going to
Speaker 2: do about it? Are they going to investigate? Are they
Speaker 2: going to hold people accountable if they're relying to us,
Speaker 2: whether it's on the origins, with the gang of function research,
Speaker 2: there's a long list. Should Republicans go down that rabbit
Speaker 2: hole and do that? Or is that going to be
Speaker 2: looked at by many Americans like, move on already, We've
Speaker 2: done this already.
Speaker 1: What are you doing already?
Speaker 2: There's a there's a real political price that you could
Speaker 2: pay from being out of touch with what the American
Speaker 2: people want. I know there's people that are angry and
Speaker 2: are frustrated. But what should the strategy become January twentieth.
Speaker 3: I think the strategy should be serious transparency, and it
Speaker 3: should be accountability. It should be no, you are.
Speaker 2: In favor of a accountability conners, Okay, So let me
Speaker 2: let me start with transparency.
Speaker 3: And this is a conversation I have had the last
Speaker 3: couple of weeks with Pam Bondi, who's been nominated to
Speaker 3: be the Attorney General, and with Cash Betel, who's been
Speaker 3: nominated to be the director of the FBI, and also
Speaker 3: with the nominee for the Deputy direct Deputy Attorney General
Speaker 3: and with us the senior law enforcement nominees. I've said
Speaker 3: very simply make the information public. Make it public on
Speaker 3: January sixth, the confidential informants that were there, don't give
Speaker 3: the names, don't out obviously people who are undercover, but
Speaker 3: make the information public. It is a public interest, and
Speaker 3: on COVID nineteen, put the evidence out there and make
Speaker 3: it public. I believe China was directly culpable. And by
Speaker 3: the way, I will say this is a prediction that
Speaker 3: Verdict laid out almost before anybody out else. We had
Speaker 3: two different podcasts I believe in March and April of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one, right at the very beginning of COVID,
Speaker 3: where we laid out the evidence that the COVID virus
Speaker 3: came from a Chinese lab, and that evidence we're going
Speaker 3: to do for New Year's We're going to do an
Speaker 3: episode going through all of the predictions that Verdict has
Speaker 3: laid out.
Speaker 4: That have come true.
Speaker 3: Because, look, we have not been shy on taking a risk,
Speaker 3: on making a prediction, making a counter intuitive. Look, when
Speaker 3: I said COVID came from a Chinese virus at the time,
Speaker 3: that was almost universally labeled misinformation.
Speaker 2: Oh it well, on social media, you couldn't post that
Speaker 2: they'd shut you down.
Speaker 4: It remains remarkable to this day.
Speaker 3: I don't know why they didn't block verdict when we
Speaker 3: said it, because others were getting blocked.
Speaker 4: Somehow we got through. And and by the way, I.
Speaker 3: Will say, it wasn't just this scientist at the FBI.
Speaker 3: Let me go back to the Wall Street Journal article.
Speaker 3: Here's a couple more paragraphs.
Speaker 4: Quote.
Speaker 3: Three scientists at the National Center for Medical Intelligence, part
Speaker 3: of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, conducted a scientific study
Speaker 3: that concluded that COVID nineteen was manipulated in a laboratory
Speaker 3: in a risky research effort, But that analysis was at
Speaker 3: odds with the assessment of their parent agency, the Defense
Speaker 3: Intelligence Agency, and wasn't incorporated in the report presented to Biden.
Speaker 3: That if the DIA Inspector General's Office opened an inquiry
Speaker 3: in the spring into whether the scientist's assessments was mishandled
Speaker 3: or suppressed, people familiar with the matter said, and look,
Speaker 3: I think this is important number one, because we need
Speaker 3: truth and accountability. I think the Chinese government bears enormous
Speaker 3: responsibility for the people who died. For the millions who died,
Speaker 3: one point two million Americans are counted as having been
Speaker 3: killed with the coronavirus, seven million people worldwide.
Speaker 4: It was a.
Speaker 3: Massive consequence, and the economy shut down globally. Trillions of
Speaker 3: dollars was destroyed, millions of lives, trillions of dollars. And
Speaker 3: I believe the Chinese Communist government has direct culpability for that,
Speaker 3: And I think the Trump administration would be doing America
Speaker 3: in the world of service from making that evidence public.
Speaker 3: But I also think it's important Listen, there's going to
Speaker 3: be another crisis. We don't want career bureaucrats within the
Speaker 3: government suppressing evidence that they don't like. We don't want
Speaker 3: career bureaucrats the deep state pushing their preferred narrative. You
Speaker 3: got to ask why they were leaning in so hard
Speaker 3: to protect China. Why was that the dominant narrative, and
Speaker 3: why why was everything else shut down? Because the next
Speaker 3: crisis we face. Let's go back to the Wall Street
Speaker 3: Journal article, because we also saw the scientific community lean
Speaker 3: in like crazy. Here's another two paragraphs talking about two theories,
Speaker 3: one that it came from an animal naturally and the
Speaker 3: other that it came from a lab leak quote. Those
Speaker 3: two theories have also divided the scientific community. In February
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, more than two dozen scientists publish a statement
Speaker 3: in the medical journal Landset calling the lab leek hypothesis
Speaker 3: a concer conspiracy theory that would jeopardize global cooperation and
Speaker 3: the struggle against the virus. One of the authors was
Speaker 3: Peter Dazik of EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that has worked
Speaker 3: extensively on coronavirus research with the Wuhan Institute. That statement
Speaker 3: was followed a month later by a March twenty twenty
Speaker 3: paper on the proximal Origins of COVID nineteen, in which
Speaker 3: Kristin Anderson of the Script's Research Institute and four other
Speaker 3: scientists argued that the virus wasn't purposely manipulated in the
Speaker 3: laboratory and almost certainly had natural origins. Now my view,
Speaker 3: right now, based on the evidence that is public, I
Speaker 3: think it is overwhelmingly likely that the COVID virus escaped
Speaker 3: from a Chinese government lamp.
Speaker 4: And I think it is likely.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't use the word overwhelmingly, but I think it
Speaker 3: is greater than fifty percent that the COVID virus was
Speaker 3: manipulated by those Chinese scientists through gain of function research
Speaker 3: to make it either more deadly, more trans dismissible, or
Speaker 3: more in particular.
Speaker 4: Able to impact humans.
Speaker 3: That has not been as conclusively proven as has been
Speaker 3: has been proven in my judgment that it escaped from
Speaker 3: a government lab. It's possible it was a natural virus
Speaker 3: and they screwed up and and it escaped. It is
Speaker 3: indisputable that China covered it up and did everything they
Speaker 3: could to suppress it after the fact. But I think
Speaker 3: it is more likely than not that not only did
Speaker 3: it escape from a Chinese government lab, but they created
Speaker 3: it through gain it to function research. We need to
Speaker 3: know that, and I gotta say the paragraph I read,
Speaker 3: Peter Dazik got a whole lot of money at the
Speaker 3: EcoHealth Alliance for doing research on coronavirus research at the
Speaker 3: Wuhana Institute. There's every reason to expect he was deeply
Speaker 3: invested in not having anyone know that. And by the way,
Speaker 3: so was Anthony Fauci, and Anthony Fauci's culpability Dazik's culpability.
Speaker 3: I hope we have congressional hearings on this. I hope
Speaker 3: we get to the bottom of what actually happened, because
Speaker 3: I think there's there is virtue to transparency and clarity,
Speaker 3: both for accountability and responsibility for the Chinese Communist government,
Speaker 3: but also to prevent manipulating the science for the next crisis.
Speaker 2: So final question on this, and that's going to come
Speaker 2: back to Fauci. What does accountability look like for a
Speaker 2: guy like that?
Speaker 3: Look, I don't know. I think it is likely that
Speaker 3: Fauci lied to Congress under oath. Lying to Congress under
Speaker 3: oath is a felony. I've called repeatedly. I've asked Merrick
Speaker 3: Garland if he's opened an investigation, if he's willing to
Speaker 3: prosecute Fauci. Merrick Garland had no interest in prosecuting Fauci.
Speaker 3: As I'm sitting here right now, I don't remember the dates.
Speaker 3: I think it is likely the statute of Limitations has
Speaker 3: expired on prosecuting him. So it may be I'm not
Speaker 3: remembering the dates as you and I are doing this
Speaker 3: right now. But I think there's a good chance that
Speaker 3: Trump cannot prosecute Fauci for line to Congress. But I
Speaker 3: think laying out that accountability is important, and I think
Speaker 3: The reason the Biden DOJ didn't want to do so
Speaker 3: is because this has been the most politicized Department of
Speaker 3: Justice in history. Fauci went before Congress and insisted that
Speaker 3: the US government had not paid for had not funded
Speaker 3: gain A function research, and actually the NIH came back
Speaker 3: and had to correct that after the fact and make
Speaker 3: clear that what he said was false.
Speaker 2: Which this, by the way, brings me to a perfect
Speaker 2: segue to the second topic I wanted to hit. And
Speaker 2: the way that you're talking about accountability maybe explains why
Speaker 2: we are now seeing Democrats write articles saying that it's
Speaker 2: time to steal the election from Donald Trump. In the Hill,
Speaker 2: for example, Congress has the power to block trumpet from
Speaker 2: taking office, but lawmakers must quote act. Now, this was
Speaker 2: an opinion, a piece written by two different individuals demanding
Speaker 2: that the Democrats refuse to accept the outcome of the election.
Speaker 2: So much for the party that's obsessed with democ Chrissy, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I gotta say.
Speaker 3: This is an article that was in the Hill that
Speaker 3: it came out again on December twenty sixth day after Christmas.
Speaker 3: It is entitled Congress has the power to block Trump
Speaker 3: from taking office, but lawmakers must act now, and it
Speaker 3: is by Evan Davis and David Shulty, who I don't
Speaker 3: know either one of these individuals.
Speaker 4: I don't know anything about them.
Speaker 3: Their bio says Evan Davis was editor in chief of
Speaker 3: the Columbia Law Review and David Shulty was editor in
Speaker 3: chief of the Yale Law Journal, both clerk for Justice
Speaker 3: Potter Stewart. Davis is a New York lawyer served as
Speaker 3: president of the New York City Bar, and Shulty is
Speaker 3: a Chicago investment banker. I don't know these guys, but
Speaker 3: it's been a long time since Potter Stewart served on
Speaker 3: the Court, which means these are not spring chickens. They
Speaker 3: were law clerks a long time ago. I mean I
Speaker 3: clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist in nineteen ninety six, and
Speaker 3: by the time I was there, Potter Stewart had been
Speaker 3: long long god, And I got to say that. The
Speaker 3: most screamingly funny part of it is they begin their
Speaker 3: iOS with they were editor in chief of the Columbia
Speaker 3: Law Review and the dal Law Journal. Like I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: These are presumably accomplished lawyers who were grown ass adults,
Speaker 3: and they're quoting the Law Review. They were on when
Speaker 3: they were twenty four years old. That's just ridiculous, and
Speaker 3: it actually it makes the rest of the article makes
Speaker 3: sense because listen, part of the reason our academy.
Speaker 4: Is so messed up.
Speaker 3: Is is you have people who are disconnected from reality,
Speaker 3: who are hardcore leftists. Far too many people in our
Speaker 3: universities are openly Marxist. When I was at Harvard Law School,
Speaker 3: there were more professors on the faculty who were explicitly
Speaker 3: Marxist than there were who were Republican. And it wasn't
Speaker 3: even close. There were there were more than a dozen
Speaker 3: by their own self description Marxist professors.
Speaker 4: There.
Speaker 3: There was only one open Republican on the faculty when
Speaker 3: I was there. But what these two numb skulls are
Speaker 3: arguing is that Congress, when when we come together on
Speaker 3: January sixth, should block Trump from becoming president, and we
Speaker 3: should do so. They argue under the fourteenth Amendment, Section
Speaker 3: three of the Constitution that says no person shall hold
Speaker 3: any office civil or military, who, having previously taken an
Speaker 3: oath sports Constitution, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion
Speaker 3: against the same. Now, they argue, this has been disqualification.
Speaker 3: The evidence of Trump's engagement and insurrection is overwhelming. It
Speaker 3: has been decided in three separate forums they write, two
Speaker 3: of which are fully contested with the active participation in
Speaker 3: Trump's council. The first was Trump's second impeachment trial. The
Speaker 3: second contested proceeding was Colorado's five day judicials Judicial d
Speaker 3: process hearing where they found that trumpeld engage in insurrection
Speaker 3: and barred him from the ballot. And finally there is
Speaker 3: the bipartisan inquiry of the House Select Committee to investigate
Speaker 3: January sixth. Now, the stupidity of this argument literally leaps
Speaker 3: off of every syllable of every word that they have written.
Speaker 3: Let's take the first. Okay, a bunch of partisan Democrats
Speaker 3: in peach Trump because they hate him. And by the way,
Speaker 3: to be clear, verdict was launched in response, not to
Speaker 3: the second impeachment. I have been a response to the
Speaker 3: first impeachment trial because we have seen law fair against
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. Trump derangement syndrome is real. It is a
Speaker 3: serious mental illness. These people are friggin nuts. They hate
Speaker 3: his guts, They've lost their minds. And at this point
Speaker 3: understand these two numskulls and every other Democrat who engage
Speaker 3: is in fantasy about this is an election denier and
Speaker 3: an insurrectionist. They are trying to say, we don't care
Speaker 3: that the voters voted. We don't care that the result
Speaker 3: was overwhelming. We don't care that of the seven contested
Speaker 3: battleground states donald Trump one, not two, not three, not four,
Speaker 3: not five, nine, six, but seven all seven. We don't care.
Speaker 3: We are angry leftists and their argument is we should
Speaker 3: block it now. To be clear, they said there were
Speaker 3: three different proceedings that had determined he was an insurrectionists.
Speaker 3: The first was the impeachment trial. Of course, the impeachment
Speaker 3: trial is two parts. One is the impeachment in the House.
Speaker 3: Representatives and partisan Democrats did impeach him, but then it
Speaker 3: went to the Senate and there was a trial, and
Speaker 3: at the end of the trial, Donald Trump was acquitted.
Speaker 3: They ignore that fact that literally is not mentioned in
Speaker 3: the roped. The second is the Colorado the radical partisan
Speaker 3: decision of the Colorado Supreme Court, except for the fact
Speaker 3: that the US Supreme Court unanimously reversed that decision. By
Speaker 3: the way, that's another prediction I made on this podcast.
Speaker 3: When the Colorado Supreme Court came back down I said,
Speaker 3: this will be reversed, and it will be reversed unanimously.
Speaker 3: That's what the court did. They barely acknowledged the Supreme
Speaker 3: Court reversed it, but they just kind of ignore it
Speaker 3: and say, well, that's another way it was determined in
Speaker 3: a decision that has been reversed unanimously by the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: And the third I really laugh is the quote bipartisan
Speaker 3: inquiry of the House Select Gmity to investigate January sixth.
Speaker 3: Now it's bipartisan because Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are
Speaker 3: two people fully afflicted by Trump arrangements. Center more included.
Speaker 3: Of course, Nancy Pelosi allowed no Republicans on.
Speaker 2: Rather the way voted for Kamwa Harris and Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: So let's not forget that. But they're like, oh, they
Speaker 2: act like they were Republicans.
Speaker 1: No, they're not.
Speaker 3: I'd look to be clear. And by the way, both
Speaker 3: of them also campaigned against me. I was really grateful
Speaker 3: for it. I think that was quite helpful, probably drove
Speaker 3: votes my way. But to call that inquiry bipartisan when
Speaker 3: the way committees are put together on Capitol Hill is
Speaker 3: that both sides pick The Republicans pick the Republicans on
Speaker 3: the committee. The Democrats pick the Democrats on the committee. Well,
Speaker 3: for the January sixth committee, Nancy Pelosi said, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: I'm picking the Republicans. And the only Republicans I will
Speaker 3: allow on are people who hate Donald Trump, who are
Speaker 3: foaming at the mouth, that will do everything they can
Speaker 3: to destroy Donald Trump. They're the only ones I will
Speaker 3: allow on. And so you know, when you had other
Speaker 3: Republicans that Kevin McCarthy was trying to put on, Nancy
Speaker 3: Pelos has said, nope, they are not welcome. We only
Speaker 3: take Republicans who agree with the Democrats on everything that
Speaker 3: ain't a bipartisan inquiry. And by the way, we're getting
Speaker 3: more and more evidence of just how skew that was.
Speaker 3: The point is, at the end of the day, it
Speaker 3: doesn't really matter what this op ed was, other than
Speaker 3: it is a window into the eyes of what the
Speaker 3: hard left is. They hate Trump so much. Sigmund Freud
Speaker 3: talked about projection, and the left engages in projection all
Speaker 3: the time. Everything they accuse their enemies of doing is
Speaker 3: what they are doing. They claim to be defending democracy.
Speaker 3: This may be the most anti democratic article I have
Speaker 3: ever read. Which is saying that Congress should say, I
Speaker 3: don't care that the voters elected Trump. And by the way,
Speaker 3: they don't dispute that the voters elect Trump. They fully accept. Yes,
Speaker 3: the American people came to vote and want Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: But we know better than they do, and so take
Speaker 3: a stand and take a stand to block what the
Speaker 3: voters want. Why because we are Democrats and we hate democracy.
Speaker 3: They don't say that, but that's clearly what they conclude.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so much for the party of Hey, we're all
Speaker 2: for whatever the people want. No, when it comes down
Speaker 2: to it, this is what they do.
Speaker 1: Don't forget. We do this show money Wednesday and Friday.
Speaker 2: Hit that subscriber auto download button on those in between days,
Speaker 2: grab my podcast, the Ben Ferguson Podcasts. I'll keep you
Speaker 2: up to date on what's going on.
Speaker 1: On those in between days.
Speaker 4: And we do this.
Speaker 2: Like I said, Monday, Wen was in Friday, So we
Speaker 2: will see you back here in a couple of days.