Speaker 1: It is the official two year anniversary A Verdict with
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz. We've just gotten a major win in the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. We've gotten a major win in the United
Speaker 1: States Senate. There's a new, very important First Amendment case
Speaker 1: going to the Supreme Court that Senator Ted Cruise is
Speaker 1: actually bringing himself, and we are in the mood to celebrate.
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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles, Senator.
Speaker 1: Nothing's ever perfect in politics. There are some losses, there
Speaker 1: are some dangers, there are some threats. This has been
Speaker 1: a good week. It has been a damn good week.
Speaker 1: The biggest win before we get into the case that
Speaker 1: you are actually bringing to the Supreme Court, before we
Speaker 1: get into that, before we get into the filibuster, which
Speaker 1: lives lives to see another day, the ocean man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was demanding that eighty
Speaker 1: four million Americans take the fauci auchie as some of
Speaker 1: us call it, the COVID vaccine. Employers were enforcing it.
Speaker 1: Some people brought a lawsuit. One of the groups was
Speaker 1: the Daily Wire, a lawsuit, and the Supreme Court strikes
Speaker 1: effectively strikes down the mandate. Yeah. No, it was a
Speaker 1: huge victory for the rule of law. It was a
Speaker 1: very important case. When the OSHA mandate came out. We
Speaker 1: talked about a lot on this podcast. Your employer, the
Speaker 1: Daily Wire, filed a lawsuit, was a party in the suit.
Speaker 1: So so we're actually sitting here, both of us our
Speaker 1: parties in Supreme Court cases this past week. The Osha
Speaker 1: case was huge, and when it came out, we had
Speaker 1: a podcast at the time where we walked through the
Speaker 1: legal standards for OSHA promulgating a rule like that, and
Speaker 1: you'll recall we we said on the pod we said,
Speaker 1: number one, we said, the Supreme Court's going to strike
Speaker 1: it down. And in fact, when you and I talked
Speaker 1: about it, but when the case was being argued, I said,
Speaker 1: I think the decision will be six three. I think
Speaker 1: there will be six votes to strike it down as
Speaker 1: beyond OSHA's statutory authority, beyond the authority of the federal government.
Speaker 1: And we also talked about Ron Klain, who was the
Speaker 1: White House is the White House Chief of STA who
Speaker 1: stupidly sent a tweet right when the ocean mandate issued
Speaker 1: where he retweeted that this was a workaround to get
Speaker 1: around the law. And you'll recall I talked about I
Speaker 1: tweeted at the time and said this was really dumb.
Speaker 1: And I promise you number one, this edict is going
Speaker 1: to be challenged. Number two, I believe it's going to
Speaker 1: be struck down in court. At number three, this idiotic
Speaker 1: tweet from ron Klain is going to be exhibit A
Speaker 1: in the lawsuit and the Supreme Court's decision six three
Speaker 1: striking it down. What did they sit, among other things
Speaker 1: ron Klain's tweet, this seems to be a workaround, and
Speaker 1: that's not legit. So I read the opinion of the court,
Speaker 1: I read the concurring opinion of the Court's conservatives three Thomas, Alito,
Speaker 1: and Gorsich, and I read the liberal dissent. This is
Speaker 1: obviously all great news, but it was a little confusing.
Speaker 1: I'm not a lawyer, I have no So they were
Speaker 1: they stay the mandate and then they sent the mandate
Speaker 1: back to the lower Okay, So what they did is
Speaker 1: they upheld the injunction, So the mandate is enjoined. An
Speaker 1: injunction is an order from a court, either to do
Speaker 1: something or not to do something. So the injunction means
Speaker 1: the mandate has no legal force. Okay, But they remandered
Speaker 1: it to the lower court to have a trial to
Speaker 1: consider the claims challenging the mandate. But the reason why
Speaker 1: this is really good, one of the grounds for upholding
Speaker 1: the injunction is likelihood of success on the merits. So
Speaker 1: six Justices have said the plaintiffs are likely to succeed.
Speaker 1: They haven't conclusively said their claims are valid, but they've
Speaker 1: said they're likely to succeed on the merits that that
Speaker 1: the Ocean mandate, for all intents and purposes, it is dead. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: there was a second decision that came out the same day,
Speaker 1: and that second decision was five four upholding a different
Speaker 1: vaccine mandate, the vaccine mandate that the Biden administration put
Speaker 1: on healthcare workers, and it put on healthcare workers in
Speaker 1: facilities that are receiving federal funds either through Medicare or Medicaid.
Speaker 1: And that was five to four. It consisted of the
Speaker 1: three Liberals plus Chief Justice Roberts plus Brett Cavanaugh were
Speaker 1: the five. And you know, we talked about before the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court's decision coming out of New York with healthcare workers,
Speaker 1: where they had refused to stay the decision out of
Speaker 1: New York. I think that was a mistake. I think
Speaker 1: this was a mistake. But look, the three Libs, they
Speaker 1: like all these mandates. Apparently the Biden can mandate us
Speaker 1: to do whatever we want to dance on one leg
Speaker 1: in a pink two two while singing Yankee Doodle Dante.
Speaker 1: The Libs more or less say that in the descent,
Speaker 1: they say there's basically no limit to what the government
Speaker 1: can do in this regard Roberts and Kavanaugh on healthcare workers,
Speaker 1: they're pretty comfortable with the federal government or the state government.
Speaker 1: The New York case was a state government issue. Here
Speaker 1: it's the federal government. But they're pretty comfortable with the
Speaker 1: federal government forcing state workers, state healthcare workers, or just
Speaker 1: healthcare workers generally who were receiving government money to have
Speaker 1: to have to get vaccinated. I think that was a
Speaker 1: serious mistake. I think they're undervaluing the liberty interest of
Speaker 1: these healthcare workers because I had this question when I
Speaker 1: saw Kavanaugh squish and flipped to the other side, I thought, well,
Speaker 1: do healthcare workers not have the same rights as every
Speaker 1: other employee. So you remember we talked about that. There
Speaker 1: are four different mandates that came out. There's a mandate
Speaker 1: for military service men and women. There's a mandate for
Speaker 1: civilian employees. There's a mandate for federal contractors. There's a
Speaker 1: mandate for private employers with a hundred and more employees
Speaker 1: under OSHA, and I said, they're all in descending likelihood
Speaker 1: of surviving. Yeah, so the OSHA order was always the
Speaker 1: most vulnerable legally because the Oceans Statute doesn't allow this.
Speaker 1: That this is really a far stretch from what Congress
Speaker 1: intended on in OSHA, which is why Ron Klaine called
Speaker 1: it a workaround. To be fair the healthcare workers, there's
Speaker 1: a stronger statutory argument there. The statutory language is different,
Speaker 1: and so there is a stronger argument. I still think
Speaker 1: that mandate should have been struck down as well, but
Speaker 1: there is a meaningful difference in terms of with OSHA,
Speaker 1: they had zero legs to stand on. With the healthcare workers,
Speaker 1: they didn't even have a leg, but maybe they had
Speaker 1: a toe. Fair enough, fair enough, and still still basically
Speaker 1: a win. Even if it was unfortunate that the court
Speaker 1: wouldn't go all the way on this second case, still
Speaker 1: a major win. Eighty four million Americans don't need to
Speaker 1: be vaccinated against their will. Well, and I gotta say
Speaker 1: I take particular pride because not only did we predict
Speaker 1: at every stage would happen in this case on the podcast,
Speaker 1: but the lawyer argued the case was my former chief Council.
Speaker 1: So it's a fellow named Scott Keller's a great guy.
Speaker 1: Scott was actually a student of mine. So I met
Speaker 1: Scott when I was teaching at University of Texas Law
Speaker 1: School and he was a law student there. I taught
Speaker 1: a seminar on US Supreme Court litigation and he took
Speaker 1: the class. He was excellent in the class, did extraordinary.
Speaker 1: I gave him an A plus, and then I didn't
Speaker 1: give very many a pluses. He graduated number one in
Speaker 1: his class at University of Texas Law School. He went
Speaker 1: and clerked on the Court of Appeals. He clerked for
Speaker 1: Justice Kennedy on the Supreme Court, and I recommended him
Speaker 1: for that. And then when I several years later, when
Speaker 1: I was elected to the Senate, I hired Scott as
Speaker 1: my first chief council. So when I showed up a
Speaker 1: decade ago in the Senate, Scott we were down in
Speaker 1: the basement. I just got in here. When you first
Speaker 1: get here, you don't have a real office. You're sort
Speaker 1: of intemporary space, and you're just trying to figure out everything.
Speaker 1: So Scott spent a couple of years with me as
Speaker 1: my chief counsel and then actually came and quit. And
Speaker 1: here's why I quit, because he'd been appointed to be
Speaker 1: the Solicitor General of Texas. Not a bad gig, and
Speaker 1: it's my old job. It's a job I loved. I
Speaker 1: did five and a half years. And when Scott gave
Speaker 1: his notice, I was really sad, like I didn't want
Speaker 1: to lose him because he's a really talented lawyer. But
Speaker 1: I couldn't complain because SG of Texas is an amazing job,
Speaker 1: and you get to argue cases. You get to argue cases.
Speaker 1: So Scott has now argued more cases than I did.
Speaker 1: I argued nine cases. When he argued his tenth case,
Speaker 1: I called in that morning and said, all right, screw you.
Speaker 1: I just had to say that as former boss, I
Speaker 1: had to like throw that marker down. So now I
Speaker 1: have to ask you, Obviously you're not going to be
Speaker 1: arguing a case before the Supreme Court right now, but
Speaker 1: are you bringing this case before the Supreme Court just
Speaker 1: to beat your old general counsel? Well? No, but but
Speaker 1: there was a separate case. So we're sitting here, we're
Speaker 1: recording this. On Wednesday. This morning, the Supreme Court heard
Speaker 1: oral argument. The very first case was Federal Election Commission
Speaker 1: versus Ted Cruz, and I am the plain iff. I
Speaker 1: have sued the Federal Election Commission seeking to strike down
Speaker 1: a provision of McCain Finegold. The Big campaign finance legislation's
Speaker 1: terrible piece of legislation has all sorts of problems, but
Speaker 1: at the heart of it, McCain Finegold was all about
Speaker 1: incumbent politicians wanting to make it harder for anyone to
Speaker 1: run against them and challenge them. It was about the
Speaker 1: one thing Republicans and Democrats could agree on is nobody
Speaker 1: should beat us in an election. Mcain Finegold is throwing
Speaker 1: barriers in the way of challenge. This doesn't make sense though,
Speaker 1: because I was reading a lot of left wing news
Speaker 1: sources today. They was telling me. They were all telling
Speaker 1: me about the case, and they say that Ted Cruz
Speaker 1: is bringing a lawsuit before the Supreme Court to make
Speaker 1: it easier to bribe and corrupt politicians and to make
Speaker 1: this swamp land even swampier. Are you telling me that
Speaker 1: the left wing media got it wrong? You're right, that's
Speaker 1: every headline as Cruise wants more bribery, and even for
Speaker 1: the media that's a little dishonest. So there were two
Speaker 1: provisions of McCain fine Gold that were called the Millionaire's
Speaker 1: Amendment so incumbent politicians hate anyone that can challenge them.
Speaker 1: They particularly hate people who have money. So if you
Speaker 1: get a really rich person that runs against you, that's
Speaker 1: really problematic because then they can run ads and communicate,
Speaker 1: and you get a problem. So the Millionaire's Amendment half
Speaker 1: of it said that if someone self finances and puts
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of money into his own campaign, that
Speaker 1: the federal limits for the other guy are tripled. So
Speaker 1: instead of twenty nine hundred a person, it's nearly nine
Speaker 1: grand a person, And that's entirely designed to benefit incumbents
Speaker 1: and to discourage rich people from running against them. Well,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court a few years ago struck that half
Speaker 1: of the Millionaire's Amendment down. Said, look, if someone decides
Speaker 1: to run for office, if they want to invest their
Speaker 1: own resources and speak, you have a right to speech.
Speaker 1: And that means spending your own money to speak. If
Speaker 1: you want to put a billboard on the freeway, if
Speaker 1: you want to run a radio add or a TV ad,
Speaker 1: all of that is political speech. So that was half
Speaker 1: of the Millionaire's Amendment that was struck down several years ago.
Speaker 1: The other half of the Millionaire's Amendment is what this
Speaker 1: case is all about, and it's a provision that limits
Speaker 1: the ability of a candidate who's running for office to
Speaker 1: loan money to his own campaign. So the way it works,
Speaker 1: let's say Michael Knowles wakes up and says I'm going
Speaker 1: to run for Congress, and you'd say, get this man
Speaker 1: to a psychiatrist who's lost his mind. But you're incurable,
Speaker 1: and you say, I'm gonna run. I'm taken on AOC,
Speaker 1: I'm moving to New York, my old district. We're going
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna win. Now, if you're starting, you know,
Speaker 1: you may not have a lot of supporters. You're not
Speaker 1: an incumbent politician. You don't have lobbyists probably supporting you,
Speaker 1: you don't have the infrastructure that an incumbent has. So
Speaker 1: what a lot of people do if they launch a
Speaker 1: campaign is they loan themselves some money. So they have
Speaker 1: some money, some savings, and they put some money in
Speaker 1: to start the campaign. What McCain Feingold said is if
Speaker 1: you loan your if you loan your own money to
Speaker 1: your campaign after the election, you can only pay yourself
Speaker 1: back up to two hundred and fifty thousand of it. Okay,
Speaker 1: anything above two hundred and fifty thousand with money that
Speaker 1: is raised after the campaign, you can't pay back and
Speaker 1: you're just stuck. By the way, when when you talk
Speaker 1: especially about competitive districts, these campaigns can cost millions and
Speaker 1: millions of dollars. So two hundred and fifty thousand is
Speaker 1: not as much as it sounds like. So, and what
Speaker 1: this is designed to do is it's designed to disincentivelenge challengers.
Speaker 1: So look, if you're a gazillionaire, and by the way,
Speaker 1: we're seeing more and more billionaires running for off as
Speaker 1: if you're a billionaire, you don't care. You can put five, ten,
Speaker 1: twenty million dollars into your campaign. You don't matter. You're
Speaker 1: so rich it doesn't make a difference. You never need
Speaker 1: it back. So this is not a disincentive to the
Speaker 1: super rich. And we're actually seeing more and more billionaires
Speaker 1: who are running for office because they have the massive money.
Speaker 1: What this is an incentive too, is the small business owner.
Speaker 1: But this is an incentive too, is the doctor. This
Speaker 1: is the somewhat rich. It's not the super rich. It's
Speaker 1: the someone who has enough money that you could invest
Speaker 1: a substantial amount of money. You could invest five hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: You can invest a million dollars you've saved. You put
Speaker 1: your money in the bank, you've saved, and you can
Speaker 1: invest the money in a congressional race. If you could
Speaker 1: put five hundred thousand or a million, that gives you
Speaker 1: a real shot at communicating. Yea, this is designed to
Speaker 1: punish that guy and say, well, you know what. Let's
Speaker 1: let's say you worked hard, you're a physician, You've got
Speaker 1: a million dollars in the bank, you loan it to
Speaker 1: the campaign, you spend every penny of it on the campaign.
Speaker 1: You can pay back two hundred and fifty thousand and
Speaker 1: seven hundred and fifty thousand of it. Tough luck, Michael.
Speaker 1: You have given it to the United States of America.
Speaker 1: You don't get it back. And so that's what the
Speaker 1: existing law is. And so what I did in twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen is I loaned my campaign two hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Now that's a specific number, Senator, it is
Speaker 1: it's it's ten thousand more than the limit. So I
Speaker 1: loaned my campaign to two hundred and sixty thousand right
Speaker 1: before the election, and then twenty days after the election,
Speaker 1: a little bit later than that, I repaid myself to
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty thousand, which what you're allowed to do.
Speaker 1: So there's ten thousand that under the law, it's illegal
Speaker 1: for me to pay myself back, and I did that
Speaker 1: in order to file this lawsuit. As I was just
Speaker 1: reading it, obviously you can tell it better because you
Speaker 1: were there. The lawyer for the government is saying that
Speaker 1: this case should be dismissed, it should be thrown out
Speaker 1: because you obviously were doing something that you knew was
Speaker 1: against law. You were just trying to trigger this court case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was an argument that the Biden Justice Department made
Speaker 1: that that's a really weak argument. So if you look
Speaker 1: at there are lots of cases that are test cases
Speaker 1: that if there's any legal or unconstitutional law, you're allowed
Speaker 1: to challenge it, and you're allowed to violate that law
Speaker 1: to challenge it. You're allowed to create the facts. And
Speaker 1: there are literally hundreds of test cases where people you know,
Speaker 1: if if the government makes it illegal for Michael Knowles
Speaker 1: to defend the right to life, you know, the government said, well,
Speaker 1: you chose to say it, you chose to violate it.
Speaker 1: You could have just obeyed. Why didn't you. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: dismiss the case, and so that argument is not going
Speaker 1: to go anywhere. I'll say, the argument I think went well,
Speaker 1: I hope. So the lawyer who argued it is a
Speaker 1: guy named Chuck Cooper who is a very close friend
Speaker 1: of mine. He was my first boss when I came
Speaker 1: out of my clerkship, and so I clerked for Chief
Speaker 1: Justice William Rehnquist on the Supreme Court. I came out
Speaker 1: of the clerkship in nineteen ninety seven and I joined
Speaker 1: Chuck at what was then a tiny little law firm
Speaker 1: that was called Cooper and Carvin and it was Chuck
Speaker 1: Cooper's Mike Carvin law firm had six lawyers in it.
Speaker 1: It was all of nine months old. And Chuck had
Speaker 1: been also a clerk for rink Quists, so he was
Speaker 1: a former renk Whist clerk. He's one of the top
Speaker 1: Supreme Court litigators in the country, and he was my
Speaker 1: first boss, and so I went to work for him
Speaker 1: to learn how to be a lawyer. He really taught
Speaker 1: me how to be a lawyer. And so he's representing
Speaker 1: me in this case, and he's a dear, dear friend.
Speaker 1: He did a terrific job. And I will say, look,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's never absolutely clear how a case is
Speaker 1: going to come out. I think on the merits, there
Speaker 1: are clearly a majority of justices who agree that this
Speaker 1: provisions on constitution. Okay, the Department of Justice is trying
Speaker 1: to raise lots of procedural issues that basically are saying,
Speaker 1: don't get to the merits, don't address whether the laws constitutional,
Speaker 1: and and and so they're throwing a lot of muck
Speaker 1: in the air, trying to say, avoid the actual question
Speaker 1: to the lawsuit. I hope the Court doesn't do that.
Speaker 1: I hope they actually answer the question, because this provision
Speaker 1: really is designed. And by the way, if you look
Speaker 1: at the proponents of it, if you look at Harry Reid,
Speaker 1: you look actually at Kay Bailey Hutchinson, my predecessor in
Speaker 1: the Senate. They got up and said, this is to
Speaker 1: make it harder for people to challenge us. This is
Speaker 1: all about protecting incumbents and protecting the super wealthy, the billionaires,
Speaker 1: and it's about hurting the small business owner, the doctor,
Speaker 1: the entrepreneur, the person who wants to run for Congress
Speaker 1: because they want to be mister Smith going to Washington.
Speaker 1: They want to challenge the swamp. So what's the swamp
Speaker 1: want to do make it a lot harder to challenge
Speaker 1: the swamp. Now, speaking of incumbent senators who are desperately
Speaker 1: trying to hold onto power, there has been a major
Speaker 1: push from the Biden administration and the Democrats senators and
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer to get rid of the filibuster before they
Speaker 1: lose their elections, which increasingly it looks like is going
Speaker 1: to happen in November. They are trying to get through
Speaker 1: any legislation and they can't do that right now because
Speaker 1: they don't have enough votes to get through the sixty
Speaker 1: vote threshold. And I think you know it more closely
Speaker 1: than I do. I think that the attempt to kill
Speaker 1: the filibuster is just as dead as the ocean mandate?
Speaker 1: Am I right? Hopefully? Yes? And I think you are okay.
Speaker 1: So you and I were recording this Wednesday late afternoon.
Speaker 1: As soon as we finish recording this, I'm going to
Speaker 1: get up literally in a half hour, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be in the Senate floor and we're having the filibuster
Speaker 1: fight tonight. So I have not yet had that battle,
Speaker 1: but at about half hour we will. What is going
Speaker 1: to happen is that Chuck Schumer is going to file
Speaker 1: cloture on their federal election takeover legislation. Cloture takes sixty votes,
Speaker 1: It's going to fail. He will probably get all the Democrats.
Speaker 1: It'll probably be fifty fifty, but it will fail because
Speaker 1: fifty is not sixty. They then, i think, will yabber, awhile,
Speaker 1: because they want to make us listen to them. Yabber.
Speaker 1: And then what he's going to do likely is file
Speaker 1: a motion to re consider, and he will challenge the
Speaker 1: He will inquire of the Chair whether it takes fifty
Speaker 1: or sixty votes to proceed to culture. The Chair will
Speaker 1: reject his claim. We'll say it takes sixty, assuming the
Speaker 1: Chair follows the law right, in which case Schumer will
Speaker 1: move to appeal. He will appeal the ruling of the chair.
Speaker 1: That's what's called the nuclear option. So the rules of
Speaker 1: the Senate, they're written down, they're in a book. We
Speaker 1: all have that book in our desks. You have you
Speaker 1: have the rules of the Senate. The rules of the
Speaker 1: Senate say culture takes sixty votes. That's literally black and
Speaker 1: white typed in the type than the rules. Now, you
Speaker 1: can change the rules of the Senate. To change the
Speaker 1: rules of the Senate takes sixty seven senators, so it's
Speaker 1: a higher threshold. Sixty seven senators can agree to change
Speaker 1: the rules of the Senate. They don't have sixty seven senators.
Speaker 1: There is one other way to do it, and it's
Speaker 1: what's called the nuclear option. So Schumer will appeal the
Speaker 1: ruling of the chair. Any ruling of the chair can
Speaker 1: be a to overturn the ruling of the chair just
Speaker 1: takes fifty votes, takes a majority, doesn't take sixty, and
Speaker 1: then the Senate is weird. If the ruling of the
Speaker 1: Chair is overturned, that becomes a precedent, and they actually
Speaker 1: keep a book of all the precedents of the Senate,
Speaker 1: and that precedent has the same force as the rules
Speaker 1: written on paper. So, in other words, if Schumer succeeds,
Speaker 1: he will break the rules of the Senate in order
Speaker 1: to change the rules of the Senate. So now you'll
Speaker 1: have these two rules written down on the paper, and
Speaker 1: the new one beats the old one, right, and the
Speaker 1: new one is just a precedent. It's just a majority
Speaker 1: of the Senate voted that this is now the rules.
Speaker 1: So the old ones written on the paper don't matter anymright, Now,
Speaker 1: the good news is, I think the odds are extremely likely,
Speaker 1: hopefully certain, that Schumer is going to fail. And the
Speaker 1: reason for that is that they're two senators, two Democrats
Speaker 1: who have been explicit saying they're not going to participate
Speaker 1: in nuking the filibuster. Joe Mansion Kirsen Cinema, Kirson Cinema,
Speaker 1: last week gave a speech on the Senate floor. I
Speaker 1: was sitting on the floor. I heard her speech where
Speaker 1: she drew a line and said, I will not do this.
Speaker 1: This will destroy the Senate. It will destroy bipartisanship. Mind you,
Speaker 1: one of the illustrations of just how nasty and partisan
Speaker 1: ending the filibuster would make the Senate. That same week,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden was down in Georgia giving this right racist, nasty,
Speaker 1: divisive speech, partisan speech. He called half the country bull
Speaker 1: Connor racists. He called every Republican in America a bull
Speaker 1: Connor racist. He called Joe Mary by the way, he
Speaker 1: literally said, you are like bull Connor, you are like
Speaker 1: George Wallace. It was hateful. Now, set aside the irony
Speaker 1: that bull Connor and George Wallace were Democrats. Set aside
Speaker 1: the irony that Joe Biden literally gave a eulogy at
Speaker 1: Robert Bird's funeral, a'd exalted cyclops the ku klux Klan.
Speaker 1: So if anyone has no standing to be on his
Speaker 1: high horse on racial grounds, it's Joseph Biden. But that
Speaker 1: kind of speech is just not only do they not
Speaker 1: want any Republicans. Susan Collins is too conservative for the
Speaker 1: mitt Romney is too conservative for them. Now they don't
Speaker 1: even want Democrats Mansion and Cinema. Today you've got Bernie
Speaker 1: Sanders talking about he's going to support primary challengers to
Speaker 1: Mansion and Cinema, and Chuck Schumer said he didn't know
Speaker 1: if he would support his own caucus. It is ugly
Speaker 1: assuming Cinema on Mansion don't blink, and I don't think
Speaker 1: they will at this point. If it was just one
Speaker 1: of them, the risks, I would be more nervous. With
Speaker 1: the two of them, I'm hoping each bucks the other up.
Speaker 1: And just as a matter of practical politics, person to
Speaker 1: person politics, the Democrats seem to be doing everything they
Speaker 1: can to irritate Mansion and Cinema, chasing them into bathrooms
Speaker 1: and filming them. And I'm gonna say, with Mansion, you
Speaker 1: know come on in the water's warm. As I told
Speaker 1: Joe several weeks ago, you know, one of the two
Speaker 1: parties actually likes you right right now. You want it so,
Speaker 1: but the odds are very very high that tonight Schumer
Speaker 1: will fail to be honest, this is performance theater for
Speaker 1: Schumer's primary in New York that he doesn't want AOC
Speaker 1: to primary him, so he's trying to appease the radical
Speaker 1: left by failing tonight. So he's setting it up to
Speaker 1: fail tonight. It'll be interesting to see if Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: is in the seat as the presiding officer. My bet
Speaker 1: issue will be because you know, if you're gonna have
Speaker 1: a big failure, you do need Kamala to presider over it.
Speaker 1: And that literally fitting. It's the way they think that
Speaker 1: it is all about appease the crazy left. This is
Speaker 1: going to fail tonight. But you want to hear something
Speaker 1: really ironic. Okay, So we were supposed to be on
Speaker 1: recess this week. Schumer is a terrible majority leader. He
Speaker 1: doesn't actually know how to run the Senate and so
Speaker 1: he had to like cancel the recess and come back
Speaker 1: to do this performance theater and failed night. Um, I
Speaker 1: actually on my flight out here today. Rand Paul was
Speaker 1: on the flight because he was called back and I
Speaker 1: had to vote him. And we're all here. Every Republican
Speaker 1: has to be here. Um. You know, if if they
Speaker 1: could knock one of us off, they could win this
Speaker 1: filibuster fight. So so we're like, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: we've got taste to look. Um, it's for two weeks
Speaker 1: they've given speeches about how the filibuster is a Jim
Speaker 1: Crow relic from racist times, The filibuster is evil. Do
Speaker 1: you know what the very last thing the Democrats did
Speaker 1: was for today? No, No, I have no idea Senator,
Speaker 1: let me the last thing the Democrats did last week
Speaker 1: was filibuster my bill sanctioning Russia, sanctioning Nordstream too. No,
Speaker 1: we've talked a lot about Nordstream too. You know, if
Speaker 1: they didn't have double standards, they would have no standards
Speaker 1: at all. Literally, as they're giving speeches the filibuster is racist,
Speaker 1: let's filibuster this like simultaneously. And I got to say
Speaker 1: it was amazing. So this vote, the vote we had
Speaker 1: last week was a big, big deal on nord Stream too.
Speaker 1: So this is about this pipeline, and it's really about
Speaker 1: the future of Ukraine, Visavi Russia and Visavi the West. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the history of it. We've talked a lot about
Speaker 1: Ukraine on this show. We started off two years ago
Speaker 1: with impeachment in Ukraine and Bearisma, and we talked about
Speaker 1: how Ukraine used to be part of the Soviet Union
Speaker 1: and when the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine became an independent nation.
Speaker 1: Ukrainians don't like the Russians. The Russians want to control
Speaker 1: and dominate Ukraine and many of their neighbors, most of
Speaker 1: their neighbors and Putin. Look, Putin is a KGB thug.
Speaker 1: He has said. One of the most candid things he's
Speaker 1: ever said is he said that he thinks the greatest
Speaker 1: geopolitical disaster of the twentieth century was the dissolution of
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union. And so Putin longs to reassemble the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union and have Russia. He wants Soviet greatness again.
Speaker 1: And if you're reassembling the Soviet Union, there's nothing you
Speaker 1: want more than Ukraine. Ukraine is the bread basket. Now
Speaker 1: Putin has invaded Ukraine before he did it in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: You remember Crimea, that's part of Ukraine. Putin marched in
Speaker 1: and invaded it and took it over and kept it
Speaker 1: and kept it. But he stopped. He didn't continue invading Ukraine.
Speaker 1: He stopped short. Why did he stop short? Well, the
Speaker 1: reason is that right now, Russia's major export is natural
Speaker 1: gas and oil. That's Putin is basically a petro tyrant.
Speaker 1: And to get his natural gas to Europe, who's the
Speaker 1: major consumer of it, it goes through pipelines that go
Speaker 1: right through Ukraine. So Putin's sitting there going, well, if
Speaker 1: I march into Ukraine, they could damage or destroy those pipelines.
Speaker 1: And if they damage or destroy those pipelines, suddenly Russia
Speaker 1: can't get the gas to Europe and we're screwed. So
Speaker 1: Putin was mad because he's like, I want to invade them,
Speaker 1: but they've got a stranglehold on our ability to get
Speaker 1: gas to Europe, so suddenly I can't invade them. So
Speaker 1: what did he do? The next year Putin launched a
Speaker 1: project called Dordstream two, and it was let's build an
Speaker 1: undersea pipeline that skips Ukraine altogether, goes under the ocean
Speaker 1: and goes straight from Russia to Germany. And that pipeline
Speaker 1: wants it's complete. We don't have to worry about Ukraine
Speaker 1: and the energy infrastructure. We can march in and take
Speaker 1: it over because we can get our gas to Europe well.
Speaker 1: Two years ago, I introduced bipartisan legislation to stop it,
Speaker 1: pass it through Congress, Trump signed it to law, and
Speaker 1: we stopped the pipeline. We won. The pipeline was dead, buried,
Speaker 1: stopped put for over a year. Then Joe Biden came
Speaker 1: into US and Biden surrendered. He capitulated to Putin. Putin
Speaker 1: began rebuilding the pipeline literally on January twenty fourth, twenty one.
Speaker 1: I'm glad he took a nice long weekend, you know,
Speaker 1: a few days, and then starts up again four days
Speaker 1: after he Biden's worn in. So the pipeline right now
Speaker 1: is completed. So Putin has finished it because Biden formally
Speaker 1: waived the sanctions, but it's still awaiting certification in Europe,
Speaker 1: so they can't turn it on till the regulatory agents
Speaker 1: have certified it. And so I introduced legislation to reimpose
Speaker 1: the sanctions to overturn Biden's surrender to Putin. Now twice,
Speaker 1: I've introduced legislation like this before. And twice it's passed
Speaker 1: essentially unanimous. Every Democrat has supported it twice. We had
Speaker 1: a big battle in December. I was holding dozens of
Speaker 1: State Department nominees. Were there till one in the morning.
Speaker 1: I'm negotiating with Chuck Schumer. I said, all right, I'm
Speaker 1: going to lift thirty two holes. Let these nominees go
Speaker 1: through in exchange for scheduling the vote on nord Stream
Speaker 1: two that we had just last week. Schumer gave in
Speaker 1: scheduled the vote. They did not want that vote. They
Speaker 1: were the Biden White House was lobbying against it like crazy,
Speaker 1: because even if the Democrats win the vote, then they're
Speaker 1: all on the record of saying Ukraine see you later.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. And they for two years had been
Speaker 1: sent had been squarely against Nordstream two. This is a vote.
Speaker 1: When Trump was a president, every Democrat was for these sanctions.
Speaker 1: The only thing that there's two things that are different.
Speaker 1: Number One, instead of a Republican with an R behind
Speaker 1: his name, a president with an ARM behind his name,
Speaker 1: there's a president with a D behind his name. Now
Speaker 1: that it's a Democrat, suddenly the Democrats support Russia. And
Speaker 1: number two, they're over one hundred thousand troops on the
Speaker 1: border of Ukraine. Any day now we could see the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian invasion by Russia. And they have to do it
Speaker 1: in about the next month or so, because as we
Speaker 1: get into the spring, the land starts to thaw and
Speaker 1: the Russian tanks get stuck in the mundy, so their
Speaker 1: window to invade is narrow. But we voted on it.
Speaker 1: It was amazing we ended up. So I won the vote,
Speaker 1: won a substantial bipartisan majority of the Senate. The vote
Speaker 1: was fifty five to forty four. So every Republican voted
Speaker 1: yes except Ran Paul, and Ran Paul pretty much opposes
Speaker 1: all sanctions, so I got all Republicans but Rand and
Speaker 1: on the Democratic side, six Democrats voted with So it
Speaker 1: was fifty five to forty fours, a big bipartisan majority.
Speaker 1: We're not living in a particularly bipartisan era, so that
Speaker 1: it's impressive. Now, fifty five is not sixty, and so
Speaker 1: the Democrats fellowbustered and said, you don't have sixty, you
Speaker 1: don't get the passage. Now here's another interesting thing. There
Speaker 1: are a number of Democrats who are in vulnerable elections,
Speaker 1: who are the ballot in November. Every single Democrat in
Speaker 1: a vulnerable election in November voted with me. So Mark
Speaker 1: Kelly and Arizona voted for my sanctions on Russia. Catherine
Speaker 1: Cortez Masto Nevada voted for my sanctions in Nevada on Russia.
Speaker 1: Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire voted for my sanctions against Russia.
Speaker 1: Even Raphael Warnock, one of the most liberal senators in
Speaker 1: the Senate, voted for my sanctions against Russia because he
Speaker 1: didn't want to tell the voters of Georgia November. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I voted to support Putin because I'm a Democrat. We
Speaker 1: got six Democrats you know who he didn't get Mansion
Speaker 1: or Cinema. Huh, they're doing enough. So what was amazing
Speaker 1: the day of the vote, Biden came to the Capitol.
Speaker 1: He had lunch with all the Democratic senators the day
Speaker 1: of the vote, and Joe Biden was personally lobbying the
Speaker 1: Democratic senators to vote against Cruz's sanctions on Russia. And
Speaker 1: so it's actually I mean, you said it tongue in cheek,
Speaker 1: but it's actually true. I just think Mansion and Cinema
Speaker 1: felt they couldn't stand up to the White House and
Speaker 1: anything else. They were getting so pounded on everything else,
Speaker 1: you've killed your legislative agenda. So we'll let you. And look,
Speaker 1: I didn't like that they voted no, but but I'll
Speaker 1: give them a mulligan because they are saving the republic
Speaker 1: on other sides. But the Democrats are literally, this is
Speaker 1: not hyperbole. They are literally acquiescing in Russia, wiping Ukraine
Speaker 1: off them. So there you might say they are thumbing
Speaker 1: their nose at Ukraine, which raises one I know, we
Speaker 1: have to let you get to the Senate to go vote,
Speaker 1: but it does raise one very important story that involves
Speaker 1: a victory and a loss. You won a basketball game,
Speaker 1: you lost the use of your thumb. True enough, And
Speaker 1: by the way, that's that's quite the segue. Um. Let
Speaker 1: me just say, if the President of Yale ever sees
Speaker 1: that segue, they will revoke your degree. They've been trying
Speaker 1: for years. Well that's true that that that they would
Speaker 1: provoke your degree for many other reasons before then. So
Speaker 1: so that's probably the least least of your sins on
Speaker 1: that front. So yeah, so I broke my thumb. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't have a cast on, so I don't I've
Speaker 1: got a splint, but you can take it off, okay.
Speaker 1: So so I was playing, uh Friday, I play basketball
Speaker 1: up twice a week, and so Friday, because Schumer doesn't
Speaker 1: know how to run the Senate, we were still around,
Speaker 1: and so I was playing Friday morning. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: play a lot of times. Other senators play, but but
Speaker 1: I play every week with my staff. We got some good,
Speaker 1: good ball players. We've got a couple of guys who
Speaker 1: played college basketball, a couple of guys who played college football.
Speaker 1: So we're playing, and you actually haven't invited me to
Speaker 1: this game. I did make sure I was busy that
Speaker 1: day so that I did not humiliate myself on the court.
Speaker 1: So I have joked that our game is more violent
Speaker 1: than skillful, and and it is. I mean, we play
Speaker 1: no blood, no foul, and there are regularly foul, so
Speaker 1: so there is regularly blood. And so in this instance,
Speaker 1: I was going up for a rebound and the culprit
Speaker 1: is a guy who's a law clerk in our office.
Speaker 1: You'll appreciate this as a New Yorker's name is Tony.
Speaker 1: He's from New York. I imagine, um. He is a
Speaker 1: great guy, hard working conservative law student, but but he's
Speaker 1: from Brooklyn, and he played street ball in Brooklyn, and
Speaker 1: he tony from Brooklyn in every respect. So I went
Speaker 1: up for a rebound and he came down like a
Speaker 1: ton of bricks on my thumb and broke it right
Speaker 1: across there. So I had an X ray today, and
Speaker 1: they're like, actually, yesterday, I had an X ray. They're like, yep,
Speaker 1: that's that's a fracture. So you you lost a little
Speaker 1: bit of the use of your thumb, but you did
Speaker 1: win the game. I did, and we actually finished the
Speaker 1: game terrifyingly enough, with the broken thumb. I tried to
Speaker 1: shoot and I couldn't. I mean, it really hurt. This
Speaker 1: is not quite at the level of Teddy Roosevelt getting
Speaker 1: shot now finishing his speech, but by the same Prince.
Speaker 1: But I will say this, I did score a layup
Speaker 1: with a broken thumb because I could use my four fingers.
Speaker 1: I just stuck my thumb off to the side and
Speaker 1: did a little scoop layup. So so I even even
Speaker 1: scored scored a bucket with a broken thumb. Physical lesson,
Speaker 1: it's a political lesson. No pain, no gain. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: have to make some sacrifices for the wins. I hope
Speaker 1: you got a win tonight before we go. You might
Speaker 1: remember on the one hundredth episode of Verdict that we
Speaker 1: announced a contest, actually a series of contests, free merch
Speaker 1: for people who commented, an opportunity maybe to come out
Speaker 1: and see us some some other wonderful prizes as well. Well. Now,
Speaker 1: because this is the two year anniversary of Verdict with
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz, we have the winners because we all want
Speaker 1: to celebrate. Here to introduce those winners, our very ownless wheeler,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me. I don't like to think
Speaker 1: of this as giving away free stuff though, this is
Speaker 1: this is earned merchandise. Yes, these these our community here,
Speaker 1: our community here earned this by being part of what
Speaker 1: we do. This is oh yeah, we hit these benchmarks,
Speaker 1: by the way, most of them, and we're going to
Speaker 1: do the fun stuff. Anyway. We hit these benchmarks, which
Speaker 1: is awesome. On YouTube, we said ten people commenting on
Speaker 1: episode one hundred would get a free box of March
Speaker 1: you know, the sweet cactus hat, the laptop stickers, the
Speaker 1: T shirts. Fifteen hundred people commented, Wow, that's pretty good, right,
Speaker 1: I think that's incredible. So here are the winners. Ken
Speaker 1: Melbourne Junior. You won Metaveria, you want Stephan Ds, you
Speaker 1: want Shelley Carter, you want Philip Paxton driving Fritz. I
Speaker 1: assume that's a user name, right, Thomas Lusty, Doctor rig
Speaker 1: Mark Erdman, Safe Spot, Andrew Clark, Megadeath till Death. Another
Speaker 1: user name still counts Todd Cole, Mary Fleshman, and Cosmic Carosella.
Speaker 1: These are the winners. By the way, if some parents
Speaker 1: actually named their child little Megadeath, yeah, he or she
Speaker 1: may be very upset right now. I think that's slavic.
Speaker 1: So we will reach out to each and every one
Speaker 1: of you to give you your merch here, and I
Speaker 1: want to see pictures. I want to see pictures of
Speaker 1: every day wearing this merch. So that's on YouTube. Then
Speaker 1: on Verdict Plus this this was maybe the most fun one.
Speaker 1: We said that a member of Verdict plus the Verdict
Speaker 1: plus community will win an all access trip to come
Speaker 1: and see us on the road on college campuses. Well,
Speaker 1: we have a winner here. This is an Italian name, Michael.
Speaker 1: You can tell me if I'm butchering this puzzoli, let
Speaker 1: me see it. I would say at your pronunciation was beautiful,
Speaker 1: I would say me a little more you know you
Speaker 1: get the face down putsually. Well, mister you have won
Speaker 1: a trip to see Verdict live. That's pretty awesome. We
Speaker 1: will reach out to you and then, um, this is
Speaker 1: my favorite one and I am going to buy us
Speaker 1: this poll. We are going to post this on the
Speaker 1: Verdict plus community that's Verdict with Ted Cruise dot Com
Speaker 1: slash plus because everyone needs to vote in this. For
Speaker 1: this upcoming year, there's going to be a community based
Speaker 1: competition or Shenanigans if you will, and this is what
Speaker 1: you're going to vote on. I'm not taking part in this.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to enjoy it. You guys will have
Speaker 1: to do this. Should for an episode of Verdict The
Speaker 1: Senator where a braves Jersey, it's option number one, Option
Speaker 1: number two. Should there be an arm wrestling match between
Speaker 1: Michael and the Senator. I think we all know how
Speaker 1: that would end. Um Should the Real Truth Cactus be
Speaker 1: a special guest on the show. I think that's a
Speaker 1: good option. Or should there be a throwdown episode trash
Speaker 1: Talking Yell versus Princeton that could go on for hours.
Speaker 1: That could go on for hours. So this poll will
Speaker 1: be posted on again Verdict with Ted Cruise dot com
Speaker 1: slash plus Um, can I tell you which one? I
Speaker 1: want to see? Which one? Well, I'm gonna vote for
Speaker 1: the arm You're going to vote for the art and
Speaker 1: who do you think is gonna win? Michael, don't ask
Speaker 1: questions you don't want to know the answer to polite
Speaker 1: you can vote in it now. Look, Michael may now
Speaker 1: be engaged. Now that I have a broken song. He
Speaker 1: may suddenly feel true, he sees an advantage. Providence has
Speaker 1: smiled upon me. Thank you very much. Well, congratulations to
Speaker 1: all of the winners. Thank you to everyone who has
Speaker 1: tuned in for two years. Two years a Verdict. It's wonderful.
Speaker 1: We look forward to a whole lot more episodes with you,
Speaker 1: and we look forward to arm wrestling. I'm Michael Knowles.
Speaker 1: This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict
Speaker 1: with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs,
Speaker 1: Freedom and Security Pack, a political action committee dedicated to
Speaker 1: supporting conservative causes, organizations, and candidates across the country. In
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, Jobs Freedom and Security Pack plans to
Speaker 1: donate to conservative can In did its running for Congress
Speaker 1: and helped the Republican Party across the nation