Speaker 1: Welcome at his verdict of Senator Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson
Speaker 1: with you as well, and Senator, you just got out
Speaker 1: of classified briefings that deal with something the President refused
Speaker 1: to bring up during the State of the Union, and
Speaker 1: that is the Chinese government and their balloons and the
Speaker 1: fact that they went all the way across our country
Speaker 1: and then finally he said sorry, I'll deal with it
Speaker 1: after they pretty much got anything they wanted. What did
Speaker 1: you learn today that the American people need to know about? Well,
Speaker 1: I spent two hours today in a classified briefing in
Speaker 1: the skiff down in the basement of the Capitol. And
Speaker 1: by the way, I'll point out that when I left
Speaker 1: the classified briefing, I didn't bring any classified materials with
Speaker 1: me because you can't bring it out of the skiff,
Speaker 1: and so I don't have any at home with me.
Speaker 1: I don't have many any anywhere else. That seems to
Speaker 1: be very unlike Joe Biden, who seems to have classified
Speaker 1: materials everywhere he goes. But the two hour briefing was
Speaker 1: entirely on the Chinese spy balloon, and it was a
Speaker 1: detailed briefing. It included senior official from the Department of
Speaker 1: Defense and the Department of State and the intelligence community
Speaker 1: walking through what happened, and they revealed quite a lot
Speaker 1: because it was classified. I'm not going to repeat anything
Speaker 1: that was said there, but I can characterize the administration's
Speaker 1: position is they are spinning mightily. Number One, They're trying
Speaker 1: to diminish the seriousness of the damage to national security
Speaker 1: that happened from the espionage that China was allowed to
Speaker 1: undertake in the United States. I did not find their
Speaker 1: spinning credible. Number two, they were presenting highly legalistic arguments
Speaker 1: as to why they didn't shoot down the balloon when
Speaker 1: it first entered US airspace. And mind you, they did
Speaker 1: shoot down the balloon a week later, after it had
Speaker 1: spent a week in US airspace, after it had been
Speaker 1: able to hover over sensitive military facilities and other facilities
Speaker 1: that that implicate national security, and after it had traversed
Speaker 1: the entire United States of America. Was only when it
Speaker 1: crossed out into the Atlantic off the coast of South
Speaker 1: Carolina that more than a week later, they finally shut
Speaker 1: it down. You know, I have to say it was
Speaker 1: really striking listening to the administration give these these over
Speaker 1: lawyered answers suggesting that there were impediments to they're shooting
Speaker 1: it down in Alaska. Apparently you can shoot it down
Speaker 1: off of South Carolina, but not Alaska, which is assinine it.
Speaker 1: I practiced law for a lot of years. It was
Speaker 1: it reeked of after the fact, rationalization and trying to
Speaker 1: find a justification for impotently doing nothing for the entire
Speaker 1: week it was over the United States. And just from
Speaker 1: the public time line, there's one thing that is critically
Speaker 1: important that I don't think many people have focused on.
Speaker 1: So the public timeline, it was Saturday, January twenty eighth
Speaker 1: when the balloon began entering American territory, entering Alaskan airspace
Speaker 1: near the Aleutian Islands. And that was on the twenty eighth.
Speaker 1: By the thirtieth, two days later it left American territorium,
Speaker 1: was over Canada. Did we warn Canada? By the way?
Speaker 1: I mean, is that something that we would have done?
Speaker 1: And I know when we say we found the same
Speaker 1: coming over Alaska, but that's when the public noticed it.
Speaker 1: Do we even know if our military noticed it before then?
Speaker 1: So I know the answers to both of those questions
Speaker 1: I'm not able to answer what I will say is
Speaker 1: is that NORAAD and Northcom operates in close coordination with Canada,
Speaker 1: and so our military is in frequent consultation and discussion
Speaker 1: with their Canadian counterparts. That's as much as I can say.
Speaker 1: But here's the other piece that we know, again from
Speaker 1: public reports, not from the briefing. Today, Tuesday, January thirty first,
Speaker 1: was the first day President Biden was briefed, which means
Speaker 1: the Chinese spy balloon was over Alaska for two days,
Speaker 1: over US soil, conducting surveillance, and yet Joe Biden had
Speaker 1: not been brought in the loop. Joe Biden had not
Speaker 1: been briefed, and so a lot of us, myself included,
Speaker 1: have asked why the hell didn't they shoot it down
Speaker 1: when it first entered Alaska. And just from the public record,
Speaker 1: one of the facts that's there is when it entered Alaska,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden had no idea because the commander in chief
Speaker 1: had not been informed at that point. That that's a
Speaker 1: what is the chain of command? Because you just you
Speaker 1: just giving that information immediately brings up the question does
Speaker 1: the military get to make the decision when it's over
Speaker 1: a lask if the president doesn't notice shoot it down
Speaker 1: or does it go to the commander in chief every time?
Speaker 1: And they just said, ah, we don't need to inform
Speaker 1: him of this. I mean that that's a either way.
Speaker 1: That is a shocking reality that there could be this
Speaker 1: much of a disconnect. So that there is existing statute
Speaker 1: that governs this, that that that if if if there
Speaker 1: is an airship, an unmanned airshift with with with hostile intent,
Speaker 1: with hostile capacity, that our military commanders have the legal
Speaker 1: authority to engage and to take it out. Uh And
Speaker 1: and so the northcom commander has the authority to do that.
Speaker 1: They also have the authority to engage and take it
Speaker 1: out if it if it is engaged in hostile intelligence gathering,
Speaker 1: which which I think in this instance it plainly was.
Speaker 1: It is to some extent a judgment call when and
Speaker 1: to what extent it is reported up the chain of
Speaker 1: command to the commander in chief. So you know, in
Speaker 1: a hypothetical where where suddenly you see something that has
Speaker 1: say a bomb payload, that could do harm in an
Speaker 1: immediate circumstances, our military can engage and take it out
Speaker 1: in the instance to protect the American homeland. Well, let's
Speaker 1: talk about that you're going in a skiff for this
Speaker 1: classified briefing. Who gets invited to this is that? And
Speaker 1: what qualifies you to get this briefing? Can any senator
Speaker 1: ask to be a part of this, to be a
Speaker 1: part of this briefiefing or just based on the committees
Speaker 1: that you are appointed to that you serve on. So
Speaker 1: there are often classified briefings that are committee based, and
Speaker 1: so I serve on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We
Speaker 1: have many classified briefings on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Speaker 1: Previously served on the Senate Arm Services Committee. We had
Speaker 1: many classified briefings on the Senate Arm Services Committee. So
Speaker 1: there are committee specific reasons that you'll go to classified briefings.
Speaker 1: There are also periodically all senator briefings. That's what this was.
Speaker 1: So every senator was invited. If you are a US senator,
Speaker 1: you that this was at TSSCI, so at a high
Speaker 1: level of clearance, and all senators have that clearance by
Speaker 1: virtue of being elected senators. And virtually all the senators
Speaker 1: were there. I didn't notice anyone missing, but it was
Speaker 1: certainly was a full room and there was a lot
Speaker 1: of interest. I stayed until the very end, and and
Speaker 1: I'm going to point out something else that is striking
Speaker 1: and yet not a lot of people have noticed and
Speaker 1: focused on, which is on February fourth, the same day
Speaker 1: that the Biden administration shot down the balloon. The Biden
Speaker 1: administration was getting a lot of criticism, obviously for having
Speaker 1: allowed this balloon to stay in US airspace and conduct
Speaker 1: surveillance for over a week. On the day on that day,
Speaker 1: on February fourth, the Biden administration arranged a briefing with
Speaker 1: the media with a quote senior defense official. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that I asked about in the briefing
Speaker 1: today was who that senior defense official was. And I
Speaker 1: got an answer to that, but I can't tell you
Speaker 1: the answer to that. But the transcript of the briefing
Speaker 1: from the unnamed senior defense official included the following paragraph
Speaker 1: that that individual told the reporters on the day the
Speaker 1: balloon was shut down. Quote PRC Government surveillance balloons transited
Speaker 1: the continental United States briefly at least three times during
Speaker 1: the prior administration, and once that we know of at
Speaker 1: the beginning of this administration, but never for this duration
Speaker 1: of time. And so you'll recall when the balloon was
Speaker 1: shot down. This paragraph suddenly became a major talking point
Speaker 1: that the defenders of the Biden White House began using, saying, well,
Speaker 1: three times there were balloons during the Trump administration. And
Speaker 1: you'll recall, as it played out, we then had a
Speaker 1: series of senior officials from the Trump administration, like the
Speaker 1: Secretary of State, like the Director of National Intelligence publicly
Speaker 1: say I don't know what these guys are talking about.
Speaker 1: That didn't happen. We don't know anything about it. In
Speaker 1: other words, they weren't briefed on it, and they see
Speaker 1: they were held in the dark. Well, it turns out
Speaker 1: that at the time the Biden administration was telling reporters
Speaker 1: that this happened three times during the Trump administration, the
Speaker 1: Biden administration knew full well that nobody in the Trump
Speaker 1: administration was aware of this. They knew that, and so
Speaker 1: they were deliberately misleading the reporters by saying, well, happened
Speaker 1: three times out under Trump. And they were speaking the
Speaker 1: truth technically, but they were omitting a major part because
Speaker 1: the obvious inference when you hear that is, oh, and
Speaker 1: Trump didn't do anything about it, And they know full
Speaker 1: well that Trump didn't know about it. The Secretary of
Speaker 1: State didn't know about it. Secretary Defense didn't know about it.
Speaker 1: And so the Biden administration was perfectly happy to spend
Speaker 1: the reporters, and the reporters were perfectly happy to be
Speaker 1: spun and to midsly the American public on purpose to
Speaker 1: cover their rear end political spin. And it was deliberate
Speaker 1: on a matter of really important national security. I want
Speaker 1: to ask you about another public report that's come out
Speaker 1: that the Chinese by balloon passing over Sense of Sites
Speaker 1: quote could have collected communications. The State Department has now
Speaker 1: revealed that. Before I ask you about that aspect of this,
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Speaker 1: slash verdict center that this was for me, I think
Speaker 1: honestly shocking when this came out. The State Department is
Speaker 1: admitted that the Chinese spy balloon that floated over the
Speaker 1: United States America for these eight days, including floating over
Speaker 1: vital national security sites, was equipped they now say, with
Speaker 1: intendas that likely could collect our communications. How concerns of
Speaker 1: the American people be about that aspect of the spy balloon, Well,
Speaker 1: I think we should be very concerned. It was a
Speaker 1: balloon that was launched for the purpose of espionage, for
Speaker 1: the purpose of presumably taking photographs, perhaps using infrared or
Speaker 1: other technology, and attempting to intercept communications, attempting to gather
Speaker 1: information that can be used to undermine the national security
Speaker 1: of the United States. And if you look at the
Speaker 1: flight path of this balloon, it was very liberate that
Speaker 1: it went over sensitive sites. It went over sites, the
Speaker 1: military sites. It went over sites that are extremely sensitive
Speaker 1: from a national security perspective. And by the way that
Speaker 1: you and I, if we were in a private plane,
Speaker 1: are not allowed to fly over and if we did,
Speaker 1: it would probably be shot down. That's how secure these
Speaker 1: sites are. Well I'm not sure we'd be shot down,
Speaker 1: but they are sites that are highly secure. And the
Speaker 1: Biden administration made a decision to allow this to happen.
Speaker 1: They could have shot it down in Alaska. Mind you,
Speaker 1: no one even bothered to tell Joe Biden about it
Speaker 1: when it was over Alaska. But they could have shot
Speaker 1: it down there. They could have shot it down in
Speaker 1: the wilderness of Canada. They could have shot it down
Speaker 1: in Idaho or Montana, and they didn't. They allowed it
Speaker 1: to spend a week collecting intelligence. That intelligence presumably was
Speaker 1: sent up via satellite back to Beijing, so that Beijing
Speaker 1: has what ever information they gathered and stole. Presumably the
Speaker 1: Chinese Communist government has that information now, and it was
Speaker 1: only after the mission was complete, after the espionage was done,
Speaker 1: that they shot it down in the Atlantic Ocean. I
Speaker 1: think that was a reckless decision, but I also think
Speaker 1: it was a dangerous decision because it projected weakness. It
Speaker 1: projected weakness to the Chinese Communist government and to every
Speaker 1: other enemy of America because it told them that they
Speaker 1: could brazenly enter American airspace conduct espionage on sensitive military secrets.
Speaker 1: And this president, this commander in chief would not act
Speaker 1: to prevent that. Last question on this, I want to
Speaker 1: ask you, and this is something I just think that
Speaker 1: we should debunk very quickly. I've actually seen commentators and
Speaker 1: people on social media saying, well, you don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about what information China got, because we shot this
Speaker 1: thing down. They didn't get their balloon back. That to
Speaker 1: me maybe one of the biggest lies that I've seen
Speaker 1: that has kind of happened over the last several days.
Speaker 1: This information that they were stealing was going back up
Speaker 1: to their satellites in real time at what they didn't
Speaker 1: need to get their balloon back to basically get all
Speaker 1: the intel In all likelihood, that's exactly how this operated,
Speaker 1: was that it was sending the information back to China
Speaker 1: real time so that it doesn't have to go back
Speaker 1: to China for them to get the data. Senator, before
Speaker 1: we get to some other big news things happening on
Speaker 1: Commerce and Judiciary, which you're a member of, and I
Speaker 1: know you want to give an important update on what's
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Speaker 1: give us some updates on what you're working on right
Speaker 1: now on these important committees, because you've had a lot
Speaker 1: of meetings over the last twenty four forty hours. Well,
Speaker 1: today was a busy day. In addition to the classified
Speaker 1: briefing on the Chinese by balloon, we also had hearings
Speaker 1: in both the Commerce Committee and the Judiciary Committee. The
Speaker 1: morning started in Judiciary with the Senate Democrats taking up
Speaker 1: twenty nine judicial nominees who were who had been nominated
Speaker 1: last year and had not gotten confirmed, and they were
Speaker 1: moving moving them forward out of committee. Now these were
Speaker 1: these included many of the most extreme and radical nominees.
Speaker 1: These include the judicial nominee who, at a conference at
Speaker 1: actually my alma mater, Princeton University, reportedly said that police
Speaker 1: kill unarmed black men every single day. And she reportedly
Speaker 1: agreed with that statement. When she was questioned about it
Speaker 1: at her confirmation hearing, she said, well, I said that
Speaker 1: as an advocate. Now, mind you, that statement is wildly
Speaker 1: blatantly false. It's not remotely true as a factual matter,
Speaker 1: and it's an incredibly harmful statement because if people believe it,
Speaker 1: it is a lie that has real consequences and that
Speaker 1: endangers the lives of police officers. And three times she said, well,
Speaker 1: it was as an advocate, so you know, apparently, look,
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of years practicing law as an advocate.
Speaker 1: You're not entitled to lie either that It's not like
Speaker 1: you have the ability when you're just being an advocate
Speaker 1: to lie. She subsequently, after a confirmation hearing, tried to
Speaker 1: say in a letter, oh no, I don't think I
Speaker 1: said this after all, But she did it after the
Speaker 1: hearing when there was no opportunity to ask her questions.
Speaker 1: She was one of the judges. They were moving forward
Speaker 1: another judge, another district court nominee, as a judge who
Speaker 1: described himself as a wild eyed liberal and described how
Speaker 1: he is motivated every morning to get out of bed
Speaker 1: by his hatred for conservatives. And I asked the Democrats
Speaker 1: on the committee, I said, look, this is who's been
Speaker 1: nominated to be a district judge in New York. How
Speaker 1: would you feel if you were a Republican, you were
Speaker 1: a conservative in New York, there are some and you
Speaker 1: found yourself in front of a federal judge who has
Speaker 1: said he gets up every morning motivated by his hatred
Speaker 1: for you. That's a person obviously unfit and without a
Speaker 1: judicial temperament suitable to be a judge. And then I
Speaker 1: also asked about the district court nominee that we talked
Speaker 1: about on a previous podcast, who went under questioning from
Speaker 1: John Kennedy didn't know what Article five of the Constitution was,
Speaker 1: didn't know, which is not a trick question. If you
Speaker 1: miss that in our pod, go back and listen to
Speaker 1: that podcast that we did, because you explained how basic
Speaker 1: that that question is to any legal scholar, any anybody
Speaker 1: that's a lawyer, especially if you are looking to serve
Speaker 1: at this level, you would be prepared to know about
Speaker 1: this well. And the follow up, John Kennedy asked, he
Speaker 1: asked about what's an Article two of the Constitution, and
Speaker 1: she said she didn't know, she couldn't remember. Now that
Speaker 1: that is not a gotcha question, that is not obscure.
Speaker 1: That is a question that any first year law student
Speaker 1: could answer. And if you couldn't answer it, you would
Speaker 1: flunk constitutional law. It is very simple. So the first
Speaker 1: three articles of the Constitution. Article one establishes the Congress,
Speaker 1: the legislative branch of our government. Article two establishes the
Speaker 1: President of the United States, and the executive branch. An
Speaker 1: Article three establishes the judiciary. This person is nominated to
Speaker 1: be what is called an Article three judge. And yet
Speaker 1: apparently she doesn't even know what that is. She didn't
Speaker 1: know what Article two was. And I pointed out at
Speaker 1: the hearing that Dick Durban, the Democrat chairman of the committee,
Speaker 1: said after that hearing, well, there are probably a lot
Speaker 1: of members of our committee that couldn't answer those questions either,
Speaker 1: And so I brought that up, and I said, I
Speaker 1: thought that was really an astonishing statement. And I said,
Speaker 1: I'm confident that everyone on the Republican side of the
Speaker 1: aisle could answer the question what's article too? But but
Speaker 1: I find it stunning to the Democrats here that your
Speaker 1: chairman is saying you have no idea what Article two
Speaker 1: of the Constitution is it? And I had said I
Speaker 1: would do this on the podcast, so I followed through it.
Speaker 1: I said, does anyone here what who admit right now
Speaker 1: you don't know what Article two is? And they all
Speaker 1: stared away and stared at their phones, and stared at
Speaker 1: their shoes and did everything to avoid eye contact. And
Speaker 1: it's a ridiculous point, as I said, listen, it's real simple.
Speaker 1: Anyone who doesn't know what Article two of the Constitution
Speaker 1: is has no business serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee,
Speaker 1: and certainly has no business serving as a federal judge.
Speaker 1: And and I made a plea to my Democrat colleagues.
Speaker 1: I said, look, what is wrong with you people. You
Speaker 1: have rubber stamped every single Biden judiciariinee, one hundred percent
Speaker 1: of them in the last two years. You have voted
Speaker 1: for every single nominee, no matter how bad, no matter
Speaker 1: how extreme. And by the way, every other Senate Democrat
Speaker 1: has as well. All of the judicial nominees when they
Speaker 1: went to the floor. One hundred percent of the Democrats
Speaker 1: have voted for all of them. And I put it out.
Speaker 1: I said, look, during the Trump administration, Trump nominated some
Speaker 1: fantastic judges. We confirmed some fantastic judges, but there were
Speaker 1: several nominees that were not fantastic nominees that had problems.
Speaker 1: And as Republican Senators who actually take seriously the quality
Speaker 1: and caliber and qualifications of the judiciary, we push back
Speaker 1: and made clear to the Trump White House those nominees
Speaker 1: would not get confirmed. And I looked at my colleagues
Speaker 1: and said, are none of you willing to stand up
Speaker 1: for anything? Will you at least admit a judge should
Speaker 1: know what Article two of the Constitution is? Will you
Speaker 1: at least admit a judge shouldn't have a record of
Speaker 1: saying he has motivated by hatred for conservatives each and
Speaker 1: every day. Not a single Democrats said a word. The
Speaker 1: only substance of response I got as I said, look,
Speaker 1: your behavior suggests that if Joe Biden nominated a ham sandwich,
Speaker 1: you would vote to confirm the ham Sandwich is a judge.
Speaker 1: And the only substant of response I got is Corey
Speaker 1: Booker chimed in afterwards and he said, I just want
Speaker 1: to clarify one thing. He said, I'm a vegan, so
Speaker 1: I would not vote to confirm a ham sandwich, which
Speaker 1: he was pretty funny. Yeah that, And actually Corey Booker
Speaker 1: is a pretty good guy. He and I are get
Speaker 1: along well and are often kidding each other back and forth.
Speaker 1: But it spoke volume that neither Durban nor anyone else
Speaker 1: engaged in any of the substance. And then, like the
Speaker 1: Politburo in the Soviet Union, they all voted dah and
Speaker 1: moved on the nominees and they do not care. They'll
Speaker 1: fill the judiciary with left wing zealots and they don't
Speaker 1: even feel, as far as I can tell, a twinge
Speaker 1: of remorse or guilt. What scares me more than liberal
Speaker 1: is an ignorant liberal. And if you have these types
Speaker 1: of individuals on our court system, it terrifies me what
Speaker 1: it means when you walk into their courtroom knowing that
Speaker 1: this is who they're putting there. And I think every
Speaker 1: Americans should care about this, especially if you're listening and
Speaker 1: you have a senator that is a democratic liberal. You
Speaker 1: should be calling them and telling them that this is unacceptable.
Speaker 1: I want to move to something else, and that deals
Speaker 1: with the Twitter files. And before we get to that,
Speaker 1: there's also a new senator that's actually got banned from
Speaker 1: Twitter and now he's getting reinstated. We're going to tell
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Speaker 1: dot com. You look at the Twitter files that has
Speaker 1: hit the outside this week, and I want to play
Speaker 1: just one of the examples of all these former executives
Speaker 1: have been fired by Elon Musk Center had to come
Speaker 1: before the House, before the House Oversight Committee, Jim Jordan
Speaker 1: talked about when what made them decide to get rid
Speaker 1: of the Hunter Biden story, to get rid of the
Speaker 1: New York Posts article, to treat it even if you
Speaker 1: try to share it in private messages like child pornography sharing,
Speaker 1: to make sure this story got shut down and it
Speaker 1: wouldn't impact or minimize the impact to the presidential election.
Speaker 1: And this was a very interesting viral moment from Jim
Speaker 1: Jordan talking to all these fired leaders. Some of them
Speaker 1: former FBI officials who then went to work at Twitter.
Speaker 1: So the FBI didn't tell you that it was faked
Speaker 1: and tell you that it was hacked, And mister Roth,
Speaker 1: did did the story violate your policies? In my judgment
Speaker 1: at the time, No, it did not. Yeah, that's why
Speaker 1: you said, said what I would propose. Excuse me, as
Speaker 1: you said, it isn't clearly a violation of our hack
Speaker 1: materials policy, nor is it clearly the violation of anything else.
Speaker 1: So I think what a lot of people are wondering is,
Speaker 1: if it didn't violate your policies, and they didn't tell
Speaker 1: you it was fake, didn't tell you it was hacked,
Speaker 1: why'd you take it down? The company made a decision
Speaker 1: that found that it did violate the policy. It wasn't
Speaker 1: my personal judgment at the time that it did, but
Speaker 1: the decision was communicated to me by my direct supervisor,
Speaker 1: and ultimately I didn't disagree with it enough to object
Speaker 1: to you know, you know what, you know what I
Speaker 1: think happened, mister Roth. I think I think you guys
Speaker 1: got played. I think you guys wanted to wanted to
Speaker 1: take it deep down. We saw it, but the chairman
Speaker 1: put up where you said, you know everyone in the
Speaker 1: White House is as a fascist. I think you guys
Speaker 1: wanted it to be taken down. I think you meet
Speaker 1: with these guys every week. We know that's been established
Speaker 1: in the Twitter foles. You had weekly meetings with mister
Speaker 1: Chan and the run up to the election, they send
Speaker 1: you all kinds of emails. They send you documents on
Speaker 1: the super secret James Bond tell reporter you get information
Speaker 1: on that. I think you guys wanted to take it down.
Speaker 1: I think you guys got played by the FBI. I
Speaker 1: think that's a brilliant assessment of this. It was either
Speaker 1: you got played by the FBI or you knew you
Speaker 1: were getting played and you went along with it because
Speaker 1: you didn't want Donald Trump to have a chance to
Speaker 1: become the president again. Yeah, I think that's right. The
Speaker 1: only thing about there getting played by the FBI is
Speaker 1: they were so willing to get played that I think
Speaker 1: they were eager to jump in that bed along with
Speaker 1: them that it was. They hated Donald Trump, they wanted
Speaker 1: him to lose, they wanted Biden to win, and they
Speaker 1: were going to use the power they had to silence
Speaker 1: any story that was politically problematic for Joe Biden, and
Speaker 1: it was naked politics. You know, the fact that the
Speaker 1: FBI was being political and was urging them to do
Speaker 1: it made it all the worse because they were essentially
Speaker 1: conspiring with the FBI. And we've talked a lot on
Speaker 1: this podcast about the fact that Elon Musk has gone
Speaker 1: in and bought Twitter and fired these these left wing
Speaker 1: petty authoritarians who believe they had blanket authority to influence
Speaker 1: and steal elections, to silence and censor anyone they disagreed with,
Speaker 1: to coordinate and act as henchmen on behalf of the
Speaker 1: federal government, silencing their political enemies. Elon Musk coming in
Speaker 1: and firing them was a big deal. But I'll tell you,
Speaker 1: even with and Elon's fired, I think up to two
Speaker 1: thirds of the employees at Twitter and he is running
Speaker 1: Twitter day in, day out. But even so that they
Speaker 1: are still fighting him. It is It's reminiscent of the
Speaker 1: deep state in government, where during the Trump administration, there'd
Speaker 1: be good people in a political position and the deep
Speaker 1: state would fight them a rearguard action. Well, this week,
Speaker 1: one of the things that happened is Twitter spended a
Speaker 1: US senator suspended Steve Danes. Steve Danes as Senator from Montana,
Speaker 1: a good friend of mine. Steve Danes had posted on
Speaker 1: his profile picture a beautiful picture of Steve and his wife,
Speaker 1: Cindy and an antelope that they had just shot on
Speaker 1: a hunting trip. And it's it's a gorgeous picture, and
Speaker 1: he had it on his profile picture. And he woke
Speaker 1: up Monday morning to find that he was blocked on Twitter.
Speaker 1: They had shut down his senatorial account, and the message
Speaker 1: they had given was delete profile image. That he was
Speaker 1: not going to be allowed to use Twitter until he
Speaker 1: deleted that image, and it was deleted because Twitter said
Speaker 1: you may not include graphic violence or adult content in
Speaker 1: your profile header image, and and we consider graphic violence
Speaker 1: to be any form of gory media related to death,
Speaker 1: serious injury, violence, or surgical procedures. So apparently hunting qualified,
Speaker 1: and so Steve. Tuesday morning, as I was flying to
Speaker 1: DC for the State of the Union, Steve texted me
Speaker 1: and told me he had been banned from Twitter. And
Speaker 1: so I jumped on Twitter to speak up for my friend.
Speaker 1: I sent out a tweet. I said, ridiculous, my friend
Speaker 1: Steve Danes is in Twitter. Jail for posting this pick
Speaker 1: with his wife, Cindy. If you don't like hunting, fine,
Speaker 1: don't go, but don't censor others who disagree. And I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure this is a formal job responsibility for a
Speaker 1: senator from Montana. Yeah, if you don't, If you don't
Speaker 1: hunt in Montana, it's pretty hard to get elected statewide.
Speaker 1: It is. And I'll tell you, actually, I did a
Speaker 1: follow up, which is I put a comment on it.
Speaker 1: I said, Steve also told me that he was aiming
Speaker 1: for the balloon, but he had an antelope instead. Well,
Speaker 1: that took you a minute. Ben, don't go back and
Speaker 1: editing and take that pause out. That that pause that
Speaker 1: there is a lengthy pause there is, Ben's processing. What
Speaker 1: I will give you, well played. When you make a
Speaker 1: joke that's a good one, I'll give you the golf
Speaker 1: clap for that one. I'll give you the golf clap.
Speaker 1: There we go. I'll take it. Um. But thankfully I
Speaker 1: began tweeting about it. Mike Lee began tweeting about it,
Speaker 1: and interestingly enough, Elon Musk had to get personally involved.
Speaker 1: He reached out directly to Steve Danes. The two of
Speaker 1: them talked on the phone and Elon number one reinstated
Speaker 1: Steve Danes on Twitter, but he had to do it personally.
Speaker 1: And number two he changed the policy so it is
Speaker 1: no longer their policy to ban you if you put
Speaker 1: up a picture of of of you hunting, and it
Speaker 1: was it number one, it was the right thing to do.
Speaker 1: I'm very glad Elon did it. But it speaks volumes
Speaker 1: that you think of the thousands of decisions he has
Speaker 1: to make every day that he had to get involved
Speaker 1: at that La granularity to reverse the decision that was
Speaker 1: baked into the Twitter operations. It also tells you I
Speaker 1: think about the mindset, lastly, of those working at Twitter
Speaker 1: who are just obsessed with their power to silence and
Speaker 1: censor and to shadow band people that they just don't
Speaker 1: like their life. And they're willing to do it to
Speaker 1: United States senator, which means they're obviously more than willing
Speaker 1: to do it to others. And imagine if you're not
Speaker 1: a US senator and they find you. And we've seen
Speaker 1: this through the Twitter files, and I think this is
Speaker 1: the part that Elon Musk is up against. It's almost
Speaker 1: like he has people within Twitter that are willing to
Speaker 1: have the come be destroyed and be a part destroying
Speaker 1: the company, hoping that he runs it into the ground. Actively,
Speaker 1: I would argue working against him just so they can
Speaker 1: at least make sure that conservatives or people that they
Speaker 1: disagree with how they live their lives, that they're not
Speaker 1: a vegan, that they actually go out and hunt and
Speaker 1: fish and do other things. They're willing to go all
Speaker 1: in because they had to know there was going to
Speaker 1: be a story written about this. I can't imagine they're
Speaker 1: dominant to think that elon'sco isn't going to hear about it.
Speaker 1: I just think there's a culture of arrogance that they
Speaker 1: have the ability to silence. Look, these are the same
Speaker 1: people that ban Donald Trump. If you think, okay, former
Speaker 1: President of the United States doesn't matter, I can decide
Speaker 1: to silence them. If they can ban the President, they
Speaker 1: can ban anybody. And the level of arrogance if you
Speaker 1: disagree with what someone says. Look, I think AOC says
Speaker 1: lots of things that are idiotic. I think Bernie Sanders
Speaker 1: says lots of things that are idiotic. I wouldn't ban them,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't silence them. Heck, I might even want them
Speaker 1: to get more people hearing what they say. I think
Speaker 1: it actually helps the cause of common sense when people
Speaker 1: hear the ridiculous things they're saying. But there is a culture,
Speaker 1: and it's not just Look what is so significant about
Speaker 1: what Elon is doing at Twitter, as Twitter wasn't acting alone.
Speaker 1: Facebook's doing the same thing. Google's doing the same thing,
Speaker 1: YouTube's doing the same thing. They're all engaged in it.
Speaker 1: It's just Elon is airing the dirty laundry. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you I spent more than a half hour this week
Speaker 1: on the phone with Elon talking about the challenges he's
Speaker 1: facing at Twitter. And I'm now the ranking member, the
Speaker 1: senior Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, and we are
Speaker 1: going to be focusing very directly and vigorously on big
Speaker 1: tech censorship. And I think what Elon is doing at
Speaker 1: Twitter is enormously, enormously consequential. Yeah, not just for freedom
Speaker 1: of speech, but also to see what happens in the
Speaker 1: future with big tech. Senator, It's always a pleasure to
Speaker 1: get to chat, especially on a busy week in Washington.
Speaker 1: This is why I think so many people love listening
Speaker 1: to Verdict. You get to see behind the scenes here.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to make sure you hit that subscribe button,
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Speaker 1: couple of days.