Speaker 1: As the liberal establishment goes into overdrive spinning new yarns
Speaker 1: about the January sixth insurrection, the Supreme Court is taking
Speaker 1: more rights away from the people, specifically denying a petition
Speaker 1: from New York healthcare workers to avoid the coronavirus vaccine mandate.
Speaker 1: And on that point, on killers and insurrectionists and the
Speaker 1: coronavirus and our rights being taken away, my very own
Speaker 1: co host, Senator Ted Cruz, has been accused of being
Speaker 1: tantamount to a murderer because he refuses to wear his
Speaker 1: mask almost two years after the beginning of slowing the
Speaker 1: spread after his own vaccination. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
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Speaker 1: Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles astounded that here
Speaker 1: in the twelfth month of the Year of Our Lord
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, we are still talking about January sixth,
Speaker 1: even after so many of the media narratives about what
Speaker 1: happened that day have fallen apart the idea that police
Speaker 1: officers were murdered by these violent white supremacist people. So
Speaker 1: many of these claims have been retracted by the mainstream media.
Speaker 1: And yet, Liz, we were just talking and you told
Speaker 1: me that there is a major bombshell from the January
Speaker 1: sixth committee. What's the bombshell? Michael, I think you might
Speaker 1: be mistaking which Liz is propagating the idea that there
Speaker 1: is a bombshell, because if it's Liz Cheney that you're
Speaker 1: talking about, I think I speak for the American people here.
Speaker 1: I presume I take that presumption to speak for the
Speaker 1: American people here when I say, what exactly is this
Speaker 1: bombshell that Liz Cheney is talking about? What exactly is
Speaker 1: this smoking gun? Because what she did is she read
Speaker 1: in the January sixth committee, she read a list of
Speaker 1: text messages that Mark Meadows, who was at the time
Speaker 1: of coorse, President Trump's chief of staff, text messages he
Speaker 1: received on January sixth. These are These are texts from
Speaker 1: Fox News personalities like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram and
Speaker 1: Brian kill Me. These are text messages from Don Junior,
Speaker 1: obviously President Trump's son, all all saying condemning the violence,
Speaker 1: saying the President should speak out and condemn this loudly
Speaker 1: so it's not conflated with the peaceful protesters. Liz Cheney
Speaker 1: portrayed this as if it was an indictment on those
Speaker 1: sending the text messages, on the conservatives who were condemning
Speaker 1: the violence. And the mainstream media, of course, just picked
Speaker 1: up this narrative that this was some kind of bombshell revelation.
Speaker 1: These text messages were, and this clip, this video of
Speaker 1: Liz Cheney went viral. Take a look at this. These
Speaker 1: text messages leave no doubt the White House knew exactly
Speaker 1: what was happening here at the Capitol. Members of Congress,
Speaker 1: the press, and others wrote to Mark Meadows as the
Speaker 1: attack was under way. One text mister Meadows received said quote,
Speaker 1: we are under siege here at the Capitol. Another quote,
Speaker 1: they have breached the capitol. In a third, mark, protesters
Speaker 1: are literally storming the Capitol, breaking windows on doors, rushing in.
Speaker 1: Is Trump going to say something? A fourth there's an
Speaker 1: armed standoff at the House Chamber door. And another from
Speaker 1: someone inside the capitol, we are all helpless. Dozens of texts,
Speaker 1: including from Trump administration officials, urged immediate action by the president.
Speaker 1: Quote Hodas has to come out firmly and tell the
Speaker 1: protesters to dissipate. Someone is going to get killed. In
Speaker 1: another mark, he needs to stop this now. A third
Speaker 1: in all caps, tell them to go home. A force
Speaker 1: and I quote Hodas needs to calm this ship down. Indeed,
Speaker 1: according to the records, multiple Fox News hosts new the
Speaker 1: president needed to act immediately. They texted mister Meadows and
Speaker 1: he has turned over those texts. Quote Mark, the president
Speaker 1: needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home.
Speaker 1: This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.
Speaker 1: Laura Ingram wrote, please get him on TV, destroying everything
Speaker 1: you have accomplished. Brian Kilmeade texted quote, can he make
Speaker 1: a statement, ask people to leave the Capitol. Sean Hannity urged.
Speaker 1: As the violence continued, one of the president's sons texted,
Speaker 1: mister Meadows quote, he's got to condemn this shit asap.
Speaker 1: The Capitol police tweet is not enough. Donald Trump Junior texted,
Speaker 1: all right, Senator, am I missing something here? Is this
Speaker 1: a smoke? Is this a smoking gun? Is this a bombshell? No?
Speaker 1: Not not remotely. You had a bunch of folks saying
Speaker 1: violence is bad and the violence should stop. That that
Speaker 1: that should not be a smoking gun. I will say
Speaker 1: you noted the confusion between Lizzes and Lizes. I think
Speaker 1: in the future will simply refer to the greater Liz
Speaker 1: and the lesser Liz and and and I'm very pleased
Speaker 1: the greater Liz as our co host. Well, thank you
Speaker 1: for that compliment. Let me just pivot to Michael. Does
Speaker 1: this not exonerate these folks that sent the text messages,
Speaker 1: because these are people that have spent the last year
Speaker 1: facing accusations of encouraging or being complicit with this violence,
Speaker 1: and yet they proved that even behind the scenes, they
Speaker 1: were condemning this from moment one. Of course, I don't
Speaker 1: really see what the story is you had all of
Speaker 1: these prominent conservatives, some of whom we're at Fox News,
Speaker 1: some of whom were lawyers, and they texted Mark Meadows,
Speaker 1: who's been on this program before, White s chief of staff,
Speaker 1: and they said, hey, the President should address the country.
Speaker 1: And then he addressed the country and he said all
Speaker 1: that stuff. And that does not exactly seem like a
Speaker 1: man bites dog story to me. But Senator, you know
Speaker 1: you're you're there. You were there at the Capitol that day,
Speaker 1: and you're at the Capitol around these people every single day.
Speaker 1: What is the outcome of this January sixth commission? If
Speaker 1: this is the best they've got, well, listen. I think
Speaker 1: you have to distinguish from the substance of the issue
Speaker 1: versus the politics of the issue the substance, and it's
Speaker 1: very easy. You know. In some ways, this reminds me
Speaker 1: of the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, where everything was so polarized
Speaker 1: that it was either one hundred percent one direction or
Speaker 1: one hundred percent the other direction. And I think this
Speaker 1: podcast was one of the few places that we tried
Speaker 1: to say, Okay, let's assess what occurred, let's assess what
Speaker 1: the facts are. If you look at January sixth, it's
Speaker 1: a little bit the same way, where where if you
Speaker 1: listen to democrats, if you listen to the corporate media,
Speaker 1: it was Pearl Harbor, it was nine to eleven. It
Speaker 1: was cats and dogs living together, ar mcgeddon. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was the worst day in the history of the universe.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, there's some that defend January six
Speaker 1: it's just another day that was perfectly fine. I view
Speaker 1: it somewhere in the middle, which is I think where
Speaker 1: reality lives. My view, straightforward violence is wrong. If you
Speaker 1: commit an act of violence, you should be prosecuted. If
Speaker 1: you violently assault a police officer, you should go to
Speaker 1: jail for a very very long time. And I don't
Speaker 1: care if you're left wing or right wing, or you
Speaker 1: don't have any wings at all. If you violently assault
Speaker 1: a cop, you're going to the slabber. That ought to
Speaker 1: be non controversial, That ought to be really straightforward. What
Speaker 1: we see with January six and the media right now
Speaker 1: is hyperventilating. I had multiple reporters stopped me in the
Speaker 1: Capitol to day and say we want you to reflect
Speaker 1: on the anniversary of jail Anuary sixth, and and my response,
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, when I hear from Texans,
Speaker 1: I don't hear from Texans on that. What I hear
Speaker 1: from Texans on is they're upset about inflation. They're upset
Speaker 1: about the chaos at the open borders. They're upset about
Speaker 1: illegal vaccine mandates. They're upset about the disaster and Afghanistan
Speaker 1: and weak for and policy. They're upset about all of
Speaker 1: the things that are impacting their lives and their families.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't fit with the political narrative. And Democrats
Speaker 1: seized upon the aftermath of that day to try to
Speaker 1: score political points. And so one of the ways they
Speaker 1: score political points is in language. And listen, language matters
Speaker 1: immensely in all forms of discourse, but especially political communication.
Speaker 1: The word insurrection, what nonsense. Insurrection. This wasn't an army
Speaker 1: that that like was trying to conquer America. I mean,
Speaker 1: like insurrection is you know, we had an inc it
Speaker 1: was called the Civil War. Six hundred thousand people died.
Speaker 1: That was an insurrection, really bad one. This was it
Speaker 1: was a riot. It was and in fact, I would
Speaker 1: say it was a terrorist attack. When you have a
Speaker 1: mob that is attacking police officers, that's a terrorist attack.
Speaker 1: But we came out of a year in which we
Speaker 1: had an entire year of terrorist attacks all over the
Speaker 1: country and cities all over the country. We had fires,
Speaker 1: we had stores looted, we had police cars fire bond,
Speaker 1: we had police officers murdered. And the Democrats spent the
Speaker 1: entire year ignoring, whitewashing, covering it up, apologizing it, but
Speaker 1: even worse, celebrating the violence, celebrating the terrorist attack. You know,
Speaker 1: I remember the mayor of Seattle went on TV and said, oh,
Speaker 1: it's the Summer of love, man, It's the summer of love.
Speaker 1: And this is where leftist terrorists had declared remember the
Speaker 1: Chaz Autonomous Zone. The whole thing was out of a
Speaker 1: bad South Park episode where they declared, we the warlords
Speaker 1: are in charge. And you had women being raped, you
Speaker 1: had assault, you had ongoing you want to talk about
Speaker 1: an insurrection, These numb nuts were actually trying to do
Speaker 1: the violent overthrow of the government, and because the Democrats
Speaker 1: were such knitwits, they rolled over and let them succeed
Speaker 1: an insurrection for weeks at a time, and yet that
Speaker 1: became the Summer of Love. There is a real threat
Speaker 1: to our political rights and our way of life that
Speaker 1: was just handed down from the Supreme Court. So I
Speaker 1: want to get to that, Liz the Greater Liz, you
Speaker 1: will be getting back to us in the mailbag though.
Speaker 1: That is correct, Yes, And if anybody wants to ask
Speaker 1: a question, head on over to Verdict with Ted Cruz
Speaker 1: dot com slash locals and submit those questions. We'll get
Speaker 1: to the mailbag shortly. I want to go back to
Speaker 1: January sixth for a minute, because there's another component that
Speaker 1: for five months after January sixth, the United States Capital
Speaker 1: was surrounded with fences, big giant, black, scary fences, chain
Speaker 1: lick fences that at the top of them they had
Speaker 1: razor wire, and it was frightening looking. It looked like Baghdad.
Speaker 1: It looked like our capital was under siege. And in
Speaker 1: front of the fences you had thousands of National Guardsmen.
Speaker 1: Now the National Guardsmen are there in uniform in camo
Speaker 1: and they're holding machine guns with no magazines, they had
Speaker 1: no bullets in them. And it was the most absurd
Speaker 1: exercise of political theater. Why did that happen. It happened
Speaker 1: because Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer wanted to say that
Speaker 1: every person in America who voted for Donald Trump, every Republican,
Speaker 1: every conservative an, everyone who loves liberty were all terrorists,
Speaker 1: were all insurrectionists, were all violently attacking the capital. And
Speaker 1: very quickly it became clear that's what was going on,
Speaker 1: and so the Red state governor said, all right, bring
Speaker 1: our guardsmen home. We're not sending them up there to
Speaker 1: be part of a set in a studio production. So
Speaker 1: the only guys left were guardsmen from Blue states, and
Speaker 1: they were from New York and New Jersey and Rhode Island.
Speaker 1: And I'd go talk with them. A number of them
Speaker 1: would come in and meet with me in my office.
Speaker 1: I take pictures with them, and I visit with them,
Speaker 1: and it was interesting, almost to a person, they recognized
Speaker 1: this was ludicrous theater, that they were actors in a
Speaker 1: democratic play that had a political purpose, and the machine
Speaker 1: guns with no bullets really captured at all. The cherry
Speaker 1: on top of the hypocrisy Sunday from Democrats and the
Speaker 1: media is that Kamala Harris, our vice president, raised money
Speaker 1: to bail out of jail violent rioters and terrorists who
Speaker 1: had committed acts of violence. So she actively supported the violence.
Speaker 1: And it was very funny. One of the reporters today
Speaker 1: was in the Capitol said said, well, well, okay, yes,
Speaker 1: I understand that that that you know, there were protests elsewhere,
Speaker 1: And I laughed and said protests, Oh, really, is that
Speaker 1: what you call it? Protest? When they're firebombing police officers,
Speaker 1: when when officer David Dorne is shot and murdered, that's
Speaker 1: a protest. And the reporter like almost had to step
Speaker 1: back and met, okay, yeah, I guess calling them protests. No,
Speaker 1: they were violent riots that democratic officials were complicit in
Speaker 1: refused to send the police, refused to allow the police
Speaker 1: to do their jobs, and and and effectively sponsored And
Speaker 1: my view, as we ought to be consistent, whether you
Speaker 1: agree with the ideology or not of a violent criminal,
Speaker 1: nobody has a right to commit an act of violence
Speaker 1: on another American, of course, And where does the real
Speaker 1: threat to our way of life in our system of
Speaker 1: government come from the horn guy or the other eccentric
Speaker 1: who tried to take Nancy Pelosi's lectern, or the people
Speaker 1: who wield actual political power in the United States, Which
Speaker 1: is why I'm quite concerned about this Supreme Court decision.
Speaker 1: The Justice has rejected this petition of the New York
Speaker 1: healthcare workers who did not want to take the vaccine
Speaker 1: for any number of reasons why they didn't want to
Speaker 1: take the vaccine. The Court, as I understand it, came
Speaker 1: down and said, nope, sorry, the mandate stands now. Senator,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know anything about the law. I
Speaker 1: know a tiny little bit about the Constitution. What is
Speaker 1: the deal with the court? Justice Courseus wrote a a
Speaker 1: fourteen page descent, which which I commend to you. I've
Speaker 1: read the whole thing. It's worth reading. It is exceptionally
Speaker 1: well done. It details what happened, which is that that
Speaker 1: New York state has a vaccine mandate for healthcare workers.
Speaker 1: And it actually talks about how under Governor Andrew Cuomo,
Speaker 1: it was fine. When Cuomo rolled out the mandate, he
Speaker 1: said he was going to allow an exception for religious objections.
Speaker 1: And so that was Cuomo's rule, which was fine. It
Speaker 1: protected religious liberty, protected writes a conscience. And then you know,
Speaker 1: Cuomo kind of got himself in trouble and and uh,
Speaker 1: you know he's now with his younger brother in in
Speaker 1: in the ranks of the unemployed, and then his successor,
Speaker 1: Kathy Hochel or Hotchel or I'm not sure hown't pronounced
Speaker 1: something like um. Anyway, she came in. Look, she was
Speaker 1: lieutenant governor. Nobody knew anything about her other than she
Speaker 1: was Cuomo's number two. Suddenly she's governor. And this woman
Speaker 1: was a zealot. And so she changed the policy to
Speaker 1: eliminate the exception for religious liberty. And you know, Justice
Speaker 1: Corset writes about that, and it explains that she explained why,
Speaker 1: and in her press conferences she said, quote, we left
Speaker 1: off the religious exception in our regulations intentionally, so it
Speaker 1: had been there in the original version that they carved
Speaker 1: out religious exceptions. And she asked why. The governor answered
Speaker 1: that there is quote no sanctioned religious exemption from any
Speaker 1: organized religion. And she goes on to say, quote everybody
Speaker 1: from the Pope on down is encouraging people to get vaccinated.
Speaker 1: Then to a different audience, she says, quote, how can
Speaker 1: you believe that God would give a vaccine that would
Speaker 1: cause you harm? That is not truth. Those are just
Speaker 1: lies that are out there on social media. And then
Speaker 1: even further, she specified, quote all of you, yes, I
Speaker 1: know you're vaccinated, you're the smart ones. But you know
Speaker 1: there's people out there who aren't listening to God and
Speaker 1: what God wants. You know who they are. So think
Speaker 1: of the arrogance of an elected official who now claims
Speaker 1: to speak for God. And if you don't share her view,
Speaker 1: you're not listening to God and what God wants. Who
Speaker 1: the hell are you, Cathy? What's your name? You know what?
Speaker 1: Just because you are an elected of power, you don't
Speaker 1: get to decide questions of faith for the people. And
Speaker 1: so she carved it out by the way that there
Speaker 1: are exceptions for health issues. So if you have a
Speaker 1: doctor who says, for some reason, the vaccine is a
Speaker 1: health risk for you, there's an exception for that. There's
Speaker 1: also an exception for people that were given the placebos
Speaker 1: in tests of the vaccine. So they're two exceptions. But
Speaker 1: they decided religious liberty doesn't count. And this was a
Speaker 1: lawsuit is brought by about twenty healthcare workers who had
Speaker 1: been providing care to COVID peoples. These were the heroes
Speaker 1: on the front lines that are not only about to
Speaker 1: get fired, but the New York governor also decided they
Speaker 1: don't get unemployment benefits. So we're going to fire you,
Speaker 1: and you are categorically ineligible for unemployment because apparently you're
Speaker 1: not listening to God. It's clearly vindictive, you know, going
Speaker 1: after the unemployment. And she's presuming not only to speak
Speaker 1: for God, but to speak for the Pope, who I
Speaker 1: suppose himself speaks for God, but's and she's misrepresenting the
Speaker 1: position by the way. It is true that many Catholic bishops,
Speaker 1: including the Pope, have encouraged people to get the vaccine
Speaker 1: or said that it's permissible to get the vaccine. But
Speaker 1: the way that they have said it is permissible is
Speaker 1: by saying that even though the vaccine involves a remote
Speaker 1: cooperation with evil, the evil of the aborted fetal cells,
Speaker 1: or the evil of the abortion from which the fetal
Speaker 1: cells that were used in the development and production of
Speaker 1: the vaccine came the which is not compelling anybody to
Speaker 1: do that. The Church can't. The position of the Church
Speaker 1: is that it cannot force you to cooperate with evil,
Speaker 1: no matter how remote. So this glib governor of New
Speaker 1: York is presuming not only to speak for God, which
Speaker 1: is outrageous enough, but to speak for other people who
Speaker 1: have their own religious views, and to misrepresent those views.
Speaker 1: It is so arrogant, But it is also so ignorant,
Speaker 1: and I suppose new in American jurisprudence well, and the
Speaker 1: fact that she says there are no organized religions, big
Speaker 1: formal organized religion here, no religious liberty. It is not.
Speaker 1: You don't have to have a big organized religion to
Speaker 1: sign off on it. The Constitution protects your faith, and
Speaker 1: you know it can be challenged on whether it's sincere.
Speaker 1: But if there's no dispute with these planets that their
Speaker 1: faith is sincere, if they're acting according to their faith,
Speaker 1: and the Constitution protects it. Whether you're in a religion
Speaker 1: of a billion people or a religion of just a handful,
Speaker 1: there are protections of religious liberty. And I got to
Speaker 1: say it was disappointing. So you had three justices Thomas,
Speaker 1: Alito and Gorsuch who would have stayed the mandate, in
Speaker 1: other words, said you can't fire these healthcare workers until
Speaker 1: the court decides whether to grant sirci or whether to
Speaker 1: hear the case. Yeah, but the other supposed conservatives, John
Speaker 1: Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett all voted no.
Speaker 1: If one of them had voted yes, they could have
Speaker 1: granted cert if two of them had voted yes. They
Speaker 1: could have stayed the order. All three of them voted no,
Speaker 1: and you know, I got to say justice. Gorsuch wrote
Speaker 1: in the end a comparison that was really powerful, and
Speaker 1: he talked about World War two. World War two, and
Speaker 1: in the time leading up to World War two, people
Speaker 1: were freaked out and they were concerned, and obviously it
Speaker 1: was a major war, and local jurisdictions passed laws in
Speaker 1: public schools requiring students to say the pledge of allegiance
Speaker 1: to the flag. They wanted national unity because we were
Speaker 1: heading into a war. And one public school in Minersville, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: had that mandate. And there was a family, Lillian and
Speaker 1: William Gobitis, who were Jehovah's witnesses and their their child
Speaker 1: was in the schools. And Jehovah's witnesses believe as a
Speaker 1: matter of faith that they should not pledge to anything
Speaker 1: but God, and that includes a pledge of allegiance to
Speaker 1: the flag. And so they had a genuine and heartfelt
Speaker 1: religious objection to to their their child being forced to
Speaker 1: pledge allegiance to the flag. They brought a lawsuit, went
Speaker 1: all the way to the Supreme Court, and in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty right at the dawn of World War two. The
Speaker 1: Court rejected their claim and said, no, this is this
Speaker 1: is an emergency, it's a crisis. You don't have a
Speaker 1: religious liberty right, and so they throw them out. Now.
Speaker 1: Three years later, ninety three, in another decision called Barnet,
Speaker 1: Supreme Court reversed itself. It reversed itself and said we
Speaker 1: were wrong, we were wrong, and this religious liberty right
Speaker 1: it was a different Jehovah's witness who was bringing a
Speaker 1: challenge to a similar mandate. And they reversed itself. And
Speaker 1: here's what justice coursed its wrote that I think was
Speaker 1: really powerful. He said, quote today our nation faces not
Speaker 1: a world war, but a pandemic. Like wars, though pandemics
Speaker 1: often produced demanding new social rules aimed at promoting collective interests,
Speaker 1: and with those rules can come fear and anger at
Speaker 1: individuals unable to conform for religious reasons. If cases like
Speaker 1: Gobitis bear any good, it is as their cautionary tale
Speaker 1: they remind us that in the end, it is always
Speaker 1: the failure to defend the Constitution's promises that leads to
Speaker 1: this quart's greatest regrets. And that is a powerful, powerful
Speaker 1: analogy that. I think it's disappointing that we didn't see
Speaker 1: all nine justices say we're going to defend the religious
Speaker 1: liberty rights of these doctors and nurses who were the
Speaker 1: heroes of this pandemic, and now they're going to be
Speaker 1: fired and denied unemployment for daring to stand for their
Speaker 1: faith right. It does raise questions about where are the
Speaker 1: real threats to liberty and our way of life and
Speaker 1: our rights really come from. I think we should hear
Speaker 1: from some of our wonderful viewers and listeners from a Verdict.
Speaker 1: So we should bring on not Liz the Lesser, but
Speaker 1: Liz de Greater with the mailbag. Liz, thank you, Michael.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of good questions tonight. As always,
Speaker 1: if you want to submit a question to ask to
Speaker 1: Senator Cruz, to ask to Michael Knowles, or to ask
Speaker 1: to me, you can do so at Verdict with Ted
Speaker 1: Cruz dot com slash plus. If you are a subscriber
Speaker 1: on Verdict Plus, well you get access to ask question
Speaker 1: since that we'll be answered right here live on episodes
Speaker 1: of Verdict. So, Senator I'll let's start with UM, Well,
Speaker 1: an obvious fact here, this is a reality you were
Speaker 1: trending on Twitter this week because of Senator Bob Dole's
Speaker 1: funeral was this week you attended. Of course, he was
Speaker 1: a great man, a great conservative. That is not why
Speaker 1: you were trending, though. You were trending because left wing
Speaker 1: blue check marks on Twitter were angry because you were
Speaker 1: not wearing a mask at this funeral, and they essentially,
Speaker 1: I mean, these people were hysterical. They were essentially accusing
Speaker 1: you of murder, of homicide because you didn't wear a
Speaker 1: mask to protect others. They said against covidndew. Do you
Speaker 1: how do you respond to this? Well? You know, it
Speaker 1: was interesting how the whole thing spun out of control
Speaker 1: on Twitter and online. I went to Bob Dole's funeral.
Speaker 1: I didn't know Bob personally. We didn't serve together. He
Speaker 1: was obviously a national figure. I knew of him, but
Speaker 1: we didn't We didn't know each other personally. But I
Speaker 1: respected his service, and in particular his his heroic service
Speaker 1: in World War Two, where where he's you know, he
Speaker 1: really embodied the greatest generation, the heroism he lived his
Speaker 1: whole life with with serious injuries that that that that
Speaker 1: he suffered in World War Two, and were at time
Speaker 1: when when the very last of the greatest generation are
Speaker 1: passing from us, that there are only a handful that
Speaker 1: are left. And so I wanted to go to honor
Speaker 1: his his life and service and legacy. And I went
Speaker 1: in their whole bunch of senators that went um but
Speaker 1: I did not wear a mask. I wasn't the only
Speaker 1: senator not wearing a mask. Roger Marshall, whose senator from Kansas,
Speaker 1: as a medical doctor, he didn't wear a mask. Alphonse
Speaker 1: Dematto from from New York state, former senator, he didn't
Speaker 1: wear a mask. But most of the senators wore masks,
Speaker 1: most of the all the Democrats wore masks, most of
Speaker 1: the Republicans wore masks, and Twitter went nuts. H and
Speaker 1: the corporate media then through gasoline on the fire. It
Speaker 1: culminated in in this past Sunday on Tapper Show on CNN,
Speaker 1: Jake Tapper was interviewing Amy Klobuchart, Democrat from Minnesota, and
Speaker 1: Amy and I were sitting next to each other, and
Speaker 1: she was on Tapper Show, and Tapper and I'm gonna paraphrase,
Speaker 1: but he basically said, so, you were at Bob Dole's funeral,
Speaker 1: and Ted Cruz was sitting next to you, and you're
Speaker 1: a breast cancer survivor, and didn't Ted in danger your
Speaker 1: life put your life in danger because he was next
Speaker 1: to you without a mask. Now, Amy to her credit,
Speaker 1: and I will give her credit. She didn't take the bait.
Speaker 1: She actually took the high road. She didn't take a
Speaker 1: shot at me. She didn't go as as Jake was
Speaker 1: begging her to do and say, you know, yes, Ted
Speaker 1: and endangered my life. But I will say a couple
Speaker 1: of observations that were particularly ironic. Number one, Jake Tapper
Speaker 1: asked this question sitting just a couple of feet from
Speaker 1: maybe Klobuchar, not wearing a mask. He didn't have a
Speaker 1: mask on, she didn't have a mask on. They're facing
Speaker 1: each other. Now, his premise is to be in the room,
Speaker 1: to be next to Amy Klobuchar without a mask, you
Speaker 1: are endangering her life. And they're both staring at each
Speaker 1: other with no mask while making that point. It is
Speaker 1: the absolute hypocrisy. We were talking about it on January six,
Speaker 1: We're talking about it on CNN. It is political theater
Speaker 1: in kabuki theater. Let me tell you a second component,
Speaker 1: which is how did I get to the funeral? Well,
Speaker 1: I got to the funeral the way most of the
Speaker 1: other senators got to the funeral, which is we all
Speaker 1: loaded up into a bus that met in the capital
Speaker 1: and we rode in the bus from the Capitol to
Speaker 1: the funeral. Now, on the bus, you have a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of current senators former senators on the bus. Almost
Speaker 1: every single senator took their mask off. So on the bus,
Speaker 1: we're sitting next to each other, we're all together, Democrats
Speaker 1: and Republicans. Almost to a person, I'd say the senators
Speaker 1: took their masks off on the bus, including most of
Speaker 1: the Democrats. We're next to each other, chatting, and then
Speaker 1: we step off the bus and suddenly the masks go on.
Speaker 1: And it is because there are political There are TV
Speaker 1: cameras there, and apparently a TV camera something in the
Speaker 1: lens makes the virus more dangerous that when you're on
Speaker 1: a bus and there are no cameras, everything's hunky dory.
Speaker 1: But when you're when you're performing for theater, that's what
Speaker 1: was going on there. And so look, I think it
Speaker 1: real It revealed the utter, utter hypocrisy. And by the way,
Speaker 1: that hypocrisy continues if you look at the Senate when
Speaker 1: democratic senators get together in the capital today, most of
Speaker 1: them take their masks off. It's only when the cameras
Speaker 1: are there they're putting it on. So it it showed
Speaker 1: the masks are an aspect of theater, just like the
Speaker 1: razor wire and the National Guard with machine guns and
Speaker 1: no bullets, or an element of political theater. And ridiculously,
Speaker 1: CNN and other folks in the corporate media are enthusiastic
Speaker 1: participants in the charade. And Michael very similar question to you.
Speaker 1: Have you ever worn your mask over your nose? Almost never.
Speaker 1: I actually I was on an airline a few weeks ago.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say which airline. I don't want
Speaker 1: to get them in trouble. But the stewardists came over.
Speaker 1: The speaker admitted that they all hate the stupid masks
Speaker 1: and they don't want to enforce it. One of the
Speaker 1: stewardists had a mesh mask on. It was fully mesh.
Speaker 1: My mind was on my chin for the entire flight.
Speaker 1: But of course, for you to Senator Cruz's point, there
Speaker 1: is no virtue signaling theatrical benefit to us putting on
Speaker 1: the mask for the cameras or aut in public. If
Speaker 1: we are conservatives or Republicans or sensible ordinary people. But
Speaker 1: for Democrat ardent democrats and Democrat elected officials, they really
Speaker 1: do because it has taken on this symbolism. It's almost
Speaker 1: a religious symbolism, certainly a political symbolism. And so you
Speaker 1: get to that case and one point, Senator, I'm actually
Speaker 1: envious that you got to go to Bob Dole's funeral.
Speaker 1: I loved Bob Dole. I was just a child. I
Speaker 1: really liked the guy. I was a Republican, basically straight
Speaker 1: out of the womb. And there was a great line
Speaker 1: and here's farewell letter in which he said he looked
Speaker 1: forward to seeing if heaven really looked a lot like Kansas,
Speaker 1: and if he would still be able to vote in Chicago.
Speaker 1: So even among the political theater, Dole was still cracking jokes,
Speaker 1: even at the very end well. And in fact, his
Speaker 1: line was if he would still be able to vote
Speaker 1: in Chicago, like so many who have gone before me
Speaker 1: have done, which and it was funny. The Democrats were
Speaker 1: all nervous, Oh, dead people voting inst Chicago. We're not
Speaker 1: allowed to laugh at that. The Republicans we were a
Speaker 1: howling laughing. And I gotta say all right, Norm did
Speaker 1: a fabulous Bob Dole. And after the ninety six election,
Speaker 1: Dole went on SNL with Norm playing him, and and
Speaker 1: you know, he blasts him for you know, and why
Speaker 1: are you speaking in the third person? Bob Dole wouldn't
Speaker 1: do that. Bob Dole would not be speaking in the
Speaker 1: third person. So I have one Bob Dole anecdote, which
Speaker 1: is a good friend of mine. Was an intern in
Speaker 1: Dole's office in ninety one in the First Persian Gulf War.
Speaker 1: And I guess the Iraq ambassador, foreign minister, some senior
Speaker 1: Iraqi official came by his office to meet with him,
Speaker 1: and Dole apparently walked out into the hallway of the
Speaker 1: Senate Office building, and you know, lots of people walking
Speaker 1: up and down the hallway, and he says, there any
Speaker 1: military men here, and and two young men step forward
Speaker 1: and they go, yes, sir, we're both United States Marines.
Speaker 1: And Dole goes, good, there's an Iraqi in my office.
Speaker 1: He'll kick his ass. And that apparently is a true story.
Speaker 1: That is magnet. They don't make them like that anymore.
Speaker 1: All right, Senator, this is a little bit more serious
Speaker 1: of a question. This is from Daniel read over at
Speaker 1: Verdict Plus. He says, Senator, other than registering more voters
Speaker 1: and electing more Conservatives in thirteen months, what steps can
Speaker 1: you in Congress or us in the community take to
Speaker 1: prevent wild left policies like Build back Broke or Corrupt
Speaker 1: Politicians Act from being enacted. Well, we've got to keep
Speaker 1: shining a light on how bad they are. We got
Speaker 1: to make it clear to the American people. We've got
Speaker 1: to mobilize and educate to be honest, this podcast tries
Speaker 1: to do that. I mean a big purpose of this
Speaker 1: pod it is to give the Verdict community the information,
Speaker 1: the facts, the background, so that when you're talking with
Speaker 1: your friends, when you're talking with your families and your
Speaker 1: co workers, when you're posting on social media, you can
Speaker 1: spread the word about how disastrous the Corrupt Politicians Act is.
Speaker 1: How does astros the Build back Broke bill is? To
Speaker 1: defeat them, We've got to get Democrats on the fence
Speaker 1: like a Joe Mansion or a Kirsten Cinema, to continue
Speaker 1: to vote no on Build back Broke. They are right now,
Speaker 1: that could change any day now. And I think the
Speaker 1: more we highlight the substance the policy, the more unpopular
Speaker 1: it gets, the less likely it is that you'll get
Speaker 1: all Democrats uniting like lemmings to jump off a cliff.
Speaker 1: But but, but we'll see right now, the Democrats have
Speaker 1: all the levers of power. But but the most important
Speaker 1: lever of power is the American people. And the more
Speaker 1: we can inform and educate and mobilize the American people,
Speaker 1: the more we have a chance at stopping the bad things,
Speaker 1: and also the more likely we are to reach take
Speaker 1: the House and hopefully the Senate as well in twenty two.
Speaker 1: And Michael, let me ask you about retaking the House
Speaker 1: and Senate. Give us a prediction here. I mean, most
Speaker 1: of the time, the first midterm election of a first
Speaker 1: term of a sitting president, that president's party loses both
Speaker 1: the House and Senate by a significant amount. What do
Speaker 1: you think it's going to look like in twenty twenty two. Well,
Speaker 1: I like to think that part of the reason I've
Speaker 1: been able to keep my podcasts in my career in
Speaker 1: political commentary is I don't make very many predictions. I
Speaker 1: did make one prediction once. I had a bet with
Speaker 1: Ben Shapiro over who would win in twenty sixteen, and
Speaker 1: I won four hundred bucks off the guy. So I'm
Speaker 1: batting a thousand basically on my predictions. And I look,
Speaker 1: if you're looking at the polls, then yes, the Republicans
Speaker 1: are looking really great in twenty twenty two. Certainly we'll
Speaker 1: see what happens in twenty twenty four. The one objection
Speaker 1: I have heard is that if the Supreme Court over
Speaker 1: rules ro versus Wade, that that will galvanize the Democrats
Speaker 1: and they will suddenly be motivated to go out and
Speaker 1: get to the polls. And that's why we all need to,
Speaker 1: you know, not save all the babies and save the
Speaker 1: series reading the Constitution. But other polls do not back
Speaker 1: that up, and so this should give a lot of
Speaker 1: hope to conservatives here. Yes, many Democrats care about abortion,
Speaker 1: but according to polls, a relatively small number of voters
Speaker 1: of the Democrat or Republican party are actually motivated to
Speaker 1: show up to the polls given a candidates stance on abortion.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's going to be a big motivator.
Speaker 1: And so then then you're looking at all of the
Speaker 1: other issues, and on all of the other issues, the
Speaker 1: Republicans are winning. So I think it is a safe
Speaker 1: bet to say that, right now the Republicans are looking
Speaker 1: at a very very good midterm election. I certainly hope.
Speaker 1: So this this next question from Nancy. I'm excited to
Speaker 1: hear both of your answers on this. Senator, I want
Speaker 1: to go to you first. Nancy says Julian Assange, hero
Speaker 1: villain or pawn um. I don't like people that reveal
Speaker 1: information that endangers national security. And I am grateful for
Speaker 1: highlighting abuses of government power, but doing so in ways
Speaker 1: that put put our country's security at risk are not great,
Speaker 1: and so I would rather have the abuses of power
Speaker 1: highlighted in ways that don't endanger covert operatives, don't endanger
Speaker 1: people who are actively fighting to protect our security. So
Speaker 1: somewhere in between is my answer for that. All right,
Speaker 1: and Michael, what is your analysis? This, by the way,
Speaker 1: is coming on the heels of Julian Assange is very
Speaker 1: likely to be extradited back to the US, so that's
Speaker 1: why he's in the news again. Well, the reason this
Speaker 1: is a tricky question, as Senator Cruz has alluded to,
Speaker 1: is because the corruption within the American intelligence community. If
Speaker 1: the American intelligence community, at the highest levels of leadership
Speaker 1: were not incredibly corrupt, then this would be an easy answer.
Speaker 1: Who do you side with the United States government or
Speaker 1: the guy who's publishing secrets of the American government. But
Speaker 1: because of the intense corruption of the intelligence community and
Speaker 1: more broadly, what we call the deep state, we've seen
Speaker 1: this play out time and time again. They tried to
Speaker 1: subvert the twenty sixteen presidential election. They spied on Donald
Speaker 1: Trump as a candidate, and then they tried to undermine
Speaker 1: his whole presidency. Because of that, it's very difficult to
Speaker 1: defend the IC, certainly the leadership of the intelligence community.
Speaker 1: And what does this mean for Julian Assange. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about Julian Assange, But in the
Speaker 1: political battle that we're talking here between this guy, mister Assange,
Speaker 1: and the political leaders of the IC, it strikes me
Speaker 1: that it's similar to the Iran Iraq war. I hope
Speaker 1: they both lose well. And if he is in fact
Speaker 1: extradited to the United States and there's a trial, we
Speaker 1: may get greater assessment about the extent to which the
Speaker 1: secrets he revealed genuinely endangered Americans. If they did, that's
Speaker 1: a real problem. We right now have just sort of
Speaker 1: broad assertions about that and the facts and substance matter. Yep,
Speaker 1: it's great points. So basically, to summarize the answer, the
Speaker 1: very non vegue answers all of the above hero, villain
Speaker 1: and pawn at this moment until we get more information.
Speaker 1: If you want to submit a question to ask Senator Cruse,
Speaker 1: Michael Noise, or me, please join us over on Verdict Plus.
Speaker 1: It's Verdict with Ted Cruise dot com slash plus. If
Speaker 1: you want your questions answered live on air. That's the
Speaker 1: best place to get inside access to the Senator and
Speaker 1: his answers to all of your concerns. Michael, on that note,
Speaker 1: I will hand it back to you now. We're very
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