Speaker 1: Welcome. It is Verdict with Ted Cruz Weekend Review, Ben
Speaker 1: Ferguson with you. And if it sounds like I'm under
Speaker 1: the weather, h I have the flu right now. But
Speaker 1: the show, as they say, must go on. So here
Speaker 1: are the three stories that you may have missed that
Speaker 1: we talked about this week. First up, Democrats not in
Speaker 1: charge and don't mind shutting down the government to hurt
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. So will it work? We'll explain that in
Speaker 1: a moment. Also, so security checks are going out to
Speaker 1: people that are one hundred and fifty years old. That's right.
Speaker 1: Doge is uncovering more waste, fraud and abuse. It's incredible
Speaker 1: what we found in the first three weeks. And we'll
Speaker 1: have the list for you as well. And finally, usaid
Speaker 1: money going directly to terrorist organizations and charities and the
Speaker 1: government knew it the entire time. It's the week in
Speaker 1: review and it starts right now. Democrats now trying to
Speaker 1: figure out their footing. They had Alamo mar who went
Speaker 1: on TV today saying that Trump has decided he will
Speaker 1: not abide by the constitution, just throwing it out there,
Speaker 1: and then she says, by the way, every executive order
Speaker 1: that's been to now has been shut down by the court.
Speaker 1: That's a lie, not true. But even face the nation
Speaker 1: try to softly correct her because they want this to
Speaker 1: be true. Right, And then there's this new threat of like,
Speaker 1: all right, we'll just shut down the government. I kind
Speaker 1: of laugh because for many concerns are like, great, let's
Speaker 1: shut it down and save some money for a while.
Speaker 1: I wish it worked that way. I wish it was
Speaker 1: that simple. It's obviously not. But this is the new
Speaker 1: temper tantrum of the left. They're saying, if we aren't
Speaker 1: in charge, then we want to destroy what the government does. Well,
Speaker 1: we want to hurt people, and we want to shut
Speaker 1: down the government to hurt people. So you'll blame Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: That's what this is really all about. Am I wrong?
Speaker 2: Well, look, understand, there's a battle going back and forth,
Speaker 2: and at some level, this battle is inherent in the
Speaker 2: structure of our government. It's inherent in the Constitution Congress.
Speaker 2: Under Article one, all legislative power is vested in the
Speaker 2: Congress of the United States. Congress passes the laws that
Speaker 2: the president signed under law and that are then binding
Speaker 2: federal law. The executive All executive power is vested in
Speaker 2: the president of the United States. That's under Article two
Speaker 2: of the Constitution, and the president is charged with has
Speaker 2: given the authority to and also the responsibility to quote
Speaker 2: take care that the laws be faithfully executed. That's the
Speaker 2: Constitution's language. And so a lot of you know, it's
Speaker 2: interesting as I travel around and talk to people back
Speaker 2: back home in Texas or around the country, they ask, Okay,
Speaker 2: so is what Elon's doing? Is what Trump is doing
Speaker 2: cutting off funding at USAID pausing other funding? Is that
Speaker 2: going to stick? And this is a battle back and
Speaker 2: forth between the executive and legislature that has occurred since
Speaker 2: the very first days of the Republic. And one of
Speaker 2: the things right at the heart of this battle is
Speaker 2: about something called impoundment. Now, what does impoundment mean. Impoundment
Speaker 2: is when the President of the United States decides not
Speaker 2: to spend money that has been appropriated by the US Congress.
Speaker 2: Now you might ask, okay, is impoundment some crazy theory
Speaker 2: that Donald Trump cooked up or Elon Musk cooked up? Well, no, No,
Speaker 2: impoundment has been around for more than two hundred years.
Speaker 2: The first president to exercise impoundment was Thomas Jefferson, and
Speaker 2: he did so in eighteen oh one. And if you
Speaker 2: look at what Thomas Jefferson did, the first use of
Speaker 2: impoundment involved a refusal to spend fifty thousand dollars, which
Speaker 2: fifty thousand dollars in twenty twenty three dollars is about
Speaker 2: one point twenty four million in funds that were appropriated
Speaker 2: for the acquisition of gunboats for the United States Navy.
Speaker 2: And Thomas Jefferson said in eighteen oh three that quote,
Speaker 2: the sum of fifty thousand dollars appropriated by Congress for
Speaker 2: providing gunboats remains unexpended. The favorable and peaceful of affairs
Speaker 2: on the Mississippi rendered an immediate execution of that law unnecessary. Now,
Speaker 2: Jefferson did so, and in the years that went on,
Speaker 2: presidents did so for two hundred years. Now what happened, well,
Speaker 2: in the nineteen seventies, Richard Nixon had a battle with Congress,
Speaker 2: and Congress got angry with Richard Dixon and felt he
Speaker 2: was using impoundment too aggressively, and Congress passed a law
Speaker 2: called the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy four that purported to remove the power of impoundment
Speaker 2: or at least to severely curtail it, and the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court heard a decision. It was a decision called Train
Speaker 2: versus City of New York, where the Supreme Court upheld
Speaker 2: the Impoundment Control Act and significantly reduced the president its
Speaker 2: power to exercise impoundment. Now, by the way that there
Speaker 2: was a subsequent wrinkle in this in that Congress came
Speaker 2: back afterwards and passed a bill called the Line Item
Speaker 2: Veto Act of nineteen ninety six. This happened after the
Speaker 2: Republican takeover of Congress Knu Gingrich came in, and the
Speaker 2: Line Audam Veto Act gave the president the power of
Speaker 2: line adam veto, which Bill Clinton used on the federal
Speaker 2: budget eighty two times. However, that law was struck down
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety eight by the Supreme Court. It was
Speaker 2: a five to four vote. Actually, my former boss and
Speaker 2: very good friend, Chuck Cooper, the man who taught me
Speaker 2: how to be a lawyer, argued that case. Unfortunately, he
Speaker 2: was on the losing side of that case and lost
Speaker 2: five to four. The point what Elon is doing and
Speaker 2: what Trump is doing, there's a long history of presidents
Speaker 2: saying I don't want to spend money that is wasteful
Speaker 2: and I'm not going to Now. There's also a history
Speaker 2: of Congress pushing back what's likely to happen. There is
Speaker 2: already and there will be more a crap ton of
Speaker 2: litigation challenging these actions. We're seeing Democrat attorneys general bringing lawsuits.
Speaker 2: We're going to see Democrat interest groups being bringing lawsuits.
Speaker 2: We're going to see activist judges striking down actions executive orders,
Speaker 2: and this is going to test the legal boundaries at
Speaker 2: the end of the day. Part of what is going
Speaker 2: on is this is designed to go to the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court and to restore the power of impoundment to the president.
Speaker 2: I think that would be a very good thing. I
Speaker 2: think it is consistent. It is an inherent authority of
Speaker 2: the president to exercise the authority of impoundment. But understand,
Speaker 2: we're going to see a litigation battle Royale and it'll
Speaker 2: take in all likelihood.
Speaker 1: So this is that you're saying, this is a fight
Speaker 1: that we want to go to the Spring Court. And
Speaker 1: if it does go to the Spring Court and it
Speaker 1: plays to our advantage the way that you're describing it
Speaker 1: with the law, how long is it going to take
Speaker 1: us to.
Speaker 2: Get it there probably a couple of years, two to
Speaker 2: three years.
Speaker 1: So and so in the next two or three years,
Speaker 1: we're going to be just dealing with pure fights with
Speaker 1: with the media. Democrats coming after and trying to stop
Speaker 1: everything that they're trying to cut with waste fraud, number.
Speaker 2: Use yes, and and understand Elon and Doze that they're
Speaker 2: embodying right now, the Silicon Valley mantra of move fast
Speaker 2: and break things. I mean, that's what they're doing. Not
Speaker 2: everything that they do is going to be upheld. There
Speaker 2: will be injunctions issued, and I think they understand that,
Speaker 2: and I think they're trying to They're trying to implement
Speaker 2: the mandate that came from the voters as rapidly and
Speaker 2: effectively as possible. Listen, I for what I'm excited about
Speaker 2: that and and I think if you look at some
Speaker 2: of the egregious abuses that have been uncovered so far,
Speaker 2: it gives an illustration of just how important this is.
Speaker 1: Before we move on to the federal financial watchdog order
Speaker 1: to c sectivity, and that's important we're going to do
Speaker 1: with that. In a second, one final question on this,
Speaker 1: we could go back. I think whenever the sale was
Speaker 1: a year and a half whatever it was when Elon
Speaker 1: Musk took over Twitter and we saw the Twitter files
Speaker 1: and then we saw the corruption. I actually think you
Speaker 1: can trace this all the way back to there. When
Speaker 1: people really start paying attention to saying I don't trust
Speaker 1: the government. You add COVID in there, and the lies
Speaker 1: of the vaccine and the two weeks stuff the spread,
Speaker 1: and then we want into virology, and then the lies
Speaker 1: over the hunter Byden laptop, and there started to be
Speaker 1: these moments that were big where people are like, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe I shouldn't be so trusting of the news, maybe
Speaker 1: I shouldn't be trusting of the government, the deep state,
Speaker 1: the president, and then you have him take over X
Speaker 1: Twitter now X. Part of the reason why I think
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's having so much success now is because we're
Speaker 1: getting the word out about the waste and the fraud
Speaker 1: and getting the line out of it, and people are
Speaker 1: seeing it. Because before you go back twenty sixteen, center
Speaker 1: big tree falls in the forest, no one's around. Does
Speaker 1: it make a sound right? The answer is no. But
Speaker 1: now what we're getting in the info that we're getting
Speaker 1: and it's getting out because big tech can't suppress it.
Speaker 1: On X. How valuable is that to saving our democracy?
Speaker 2: Look, I think it's incredibly valuable. I believe Elon Musks
Speaker 2: buying Twitter was the most important development for free speech
Speaker 2: in modern times because it turned around the rampant censorship
Speaker 2: from big tech. It put positive pressure on the rest
Speaker 2: of big tech, and it created a vehicle for the
Speaker 2: truth to get out. So you know, we've gone through
Speaker 2: in previous podcasts all the examples, not all the examples,
Speaker 2: but a number of examples of abusive spending two million
Speaker 2: dollars for sex changes in Guatemala. Now, who the hell
Speaker 2: can defend that? Why US taxpayers are paying for sex
Speaker 2: changes in Guatemala? Money to the BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation,
Speaker 2: By the way, that why the hell are American taxpayers
Speaker 2: paying for the BBC? The last I checked, the United
Speaker 2: Kingdom is a major developed country. They can pay for
Speaker 2: their own damn television station. What we need? What do
Speaker 2: we need to pay for that? And what's amazing is
Speaker 2: the Democrats are just digging in. Give a listen to
Speaker 2: Senator Chris Coons defending spending twenty million dollars on American
Speaker 2: taxpayer money for Sesame Street in Iraq.
Speaker 1: Give a listen.
Speaker 3: Is funding Sesame Street a judicious use of soft power? Well, Michael,
Speaker 3: the way you put it is the way I hope
Speaker 3: folks considering your poll today will think about it. This
Speaker 3: isn't just funding a kid show for children, millions of
Speaker 3: children in countries like Iraq. It's a show that helps
Speaker 3: teach values, helps teach public health, helps prevent kids from
Speaker 3: dying from dysentery and disease, and helps push values like collaboration, peacefulness,
Speaker 3: cooperation in a society where the alternative is isis extremism
Speaker 3: and terrorism. And to your point, it's pennies on the dollar.
Speaker 3: The US Department of Defense has an annual budget of
Speaker 3: about eight hundred and fifty billion dollars. USAID was spending
Speaker 3: about thirty billion dollars. It is a small proportion of
Speaker 3: our total federal spending. And as Joe and I would
Speaker 3: often say, it's not just soft power, it's smart power.
Speaker 3: Let me leave you with one other quote, Michael, if
Speaker 3: I could, Jim Mattis, who is a four star Marine
Speaker 3: Corps general and Trump's Secretary of Defense in his first term,
Speaker 3: in a hearing back then said, if you slash development
Speaker 3: and aid spending, then I'm going to need more bullets
Speaker 3: for our troops.
Speaker 1: I mean, you want to talk about stretching. He's saying,
Speaker 1: Sesame's He's going to save us from extremism. Are we
Speaker 1: kidding ourselves?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 2: Look, the Democrats are dug into defending everything to defending
Speaker 2: all of the money that was just flowing out with
Speaker 2: no checks whatsoever. And I think these examples are having
Speaker 2: a real effect of pissing people off, saying, why is
Speaker 2: my money going to that? By the way, if Democrats
Speaker 2: think that's such a good idea, let them give their
Speaker 2: own money for that. But what right do they have
Speaker 2: to take your money that you're working hard to provide
Speaker 2: for your kids and your family, to take it and
Speaker 2: spend it on every radical agenda item they want to push.
Speaker 2: That's what's been happening. It happened at egregious levels under
Speaker 2: the Biden administration, and I think that's what Trump's working
Speaker 2: very hard to turn around.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Great point. Finally, I want to ask you about
Speaker 1: this because I think it should be on listeners, radar screen.
Speaker 1: It's an important issue. The New York Times is coming
Speaker 1: out talking about this. The Federal Financial Watchdog has been
Speaker 1: or deceive activity known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Speaker 1: Why is this happening and what does this mean?
Speaker 2: Well, the CFPB, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, was was
Speaker 2: created by the Dodd Frank Law. This is a creation
Speaker 2: of Elizabeth Warren and and and it is it has
Speaker 2: descended like locusts putting putting all sorts of regulations and costs.
Speaker 2: It brings abusive litigation. It is it is an avenue
Speaker 2: for for left wing bureaucrats to try to control community banks,
Speaker 2: smaller financial institutions, and to drive up costs. And the CFPB.
Speaker 2: I've introduced repeatedly legislation to eliminate the CFPB.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: What happened this week is Russ vote was confirmed leave
Speaker 2: the Office of Management and Budget. And Russ's is a
Speaker 2: good friend. He's a good guy. He he ran ob
Speaker 2: under Trump during the first term. And Russ was just confirmed.
Speaker 2: We just confirmed him this past week to run o
Speaker 2: and be again. And on Friday he was also named
Speaker 2: the acting director of the of the Consumer Financial Protection
Speaker 2: Beer the CFPB, and as a result, he issued an
Speaker 2: order for them to halt what they're doing. So one
Speaker 2: chunk of it, so the way Elizabeth Warren structured it,
Speaker 2: Congress does not appropriate money to the CFPB, which is weird.
Speaker 2: By the way, if you look at virtually every federal agency,
Speaker 2: Congress appropriates money for them. That's that's part of the
Speaker 2: checks and balances of how the federal government is set up. Well.
Speaker 2: Dodd Frank instead has the CFPB funded with money from
Speaker 2: the Federal Reserve that flows automatically, so Congress doesn't get
Speaker 2: to appropriate and engage in the oversight that comes with that.
Speaker 2: So as a result, on Saturday, russ Vote wrote that
Speaker 2: he had notified the Federal Reserve that the CFPB quote
Speaker 2: will not be taking its next straw of unappropriated funding
Speaker 2: because it is not reasonably necessary to carry out its duties.
Speaker 2: The bureau's current balance of seven hundred and eleven point
Speaker 2: six million dollars is in fact excessive in the current
Speaker 2: fiscal environment. This spigot, long contributing to CFPB's unaccountability is
Speaker 2: now being turned off. That is fantastic. And I'll tell
Speaker 2: you what. I've introduced legislation that will zero out the CFPB,
Speaker 2: that will shut it down permanently. I believe we will
Speaker 2: get that done as part of budget reconciliation, and so
Speaker 2: eliminating the CFP would be a major victory for lowering inflation,
Speaker 2: for lowering burdensome regulation, for lowering the nanny state control
Speaker 2: of big government. And if we get that done, that's
Speaker 2: a huge victory. I'll tell you, Russ vote taking over
Speaker 2: his acting director in the past few days was a
Speaker 2: major step forward in that regard.
Speaker 1: Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation,
Speaker 1: you can go back and listen to the full podcast
Speaker 1: from earlier this week. Now onto story number two. Let's
Speaker 1: move to another aspect of just an incredible three weeks
Speaker 1: where Elon Musk and Donald Trump are doing exactly what
Speaker 1: they said they were going to do, and they are
Speaker 1: i think using the media, the bully pulpit, the microphone
Speaker 1: that they've been given in the Oval Office to inform
Speaker 1: the American people, those that voted for him and others
Speaker 1: that maybe didn't, that hey, we're finding some of the
Speaker 1: most ridiculous, egregious waste of your tax dollars. And one
Speaker 1: of the stories they talked about was people that are
Speaker 1: still getting Social Security checks when they're quote one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty years old.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was really powerful. So President Trump and Elon
Speaker 2: Musk did a press conference from the Oval Office on Thursday.
Speaker 2: Earlier this week, President Trump signed an executive order instructing
Speaker 2: DOGE to coordinate with federal agencies and to execute massive
Speaker 2: cuts in federal government staffing numbers. And the order instructs
Speaker 2: federal agencies and DOGE to significantly shrink the size of
Speaker 2: the federal government and to limit the hiring of new employees.
Speaker 2: And I got to say, Elon Musk laid out several
Speaker 2: of the egregious examples of abuse. Listen to listen to
Speaker 2: this first one.
Speaker 5: You know that's crazy things like just cussory examination of
Speaker 5: social Security. And we've got people in there at one
Speaker 5: hundred and fifty years old. Now do you know anyone
Speaker 5: one hundred and fifty?
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 5: Okay, they should be on the Guinness Book of World Records.
Speaker 5: They're messing out, so you know that's the case, where
Speaker 5: like I think they're probably dead, that's my guess, or
Speaker 5: they should be very famous.
Speaker 1: The two I mean, I want to meet him, and
Speaker 1: you want to want to meet him. The President wants
Speaker 1: to meet him. You want to meet him. Right, if
Speaker 1: you're one hundred and fifty, you're still check.
Speaker 2: Ben Ben, I got to say, you don't look at
Speaker 2: day over one hundred and forty CA.
Speaker 1: I mean, and this is the stuff that you just
Speaker 1: can't even make it up. Of course, they would be
Speaker 1: sitting a check to somebody that we assume is just
Speaker 1: is committing fraud here right like this check's ever stopped
Speaker 1: and I just keep cashing them and stupid your center fraud.
Speaker 2: Of course it's fraud. And the Biden administration had no
Speaker 2: interest in uncovering that fraud. And take a listen to
Speaker 2: what President Trump said about the magnitude of the waste
Speaker 2: fraud and abuse. That they're finding.
Speaker 6: Billions and billions of dollars in waste fraud and abuse.
Speaker 6: And I think it's very important, and that's one of
Speaker 6: the reasons I got elected. I say, we're going to
Speaker 6: do that. Nobody had any idea was that bad. That's sick,
Speaker 6: and that corrupt. And it seems hard to believe that
Speaker 6: judges want to try and stop us from looking for corruption,
Speaker 6: especially when we found hundreds of millions of dollars worth
Speaker 6: much more than that in just a short period of time.
Speaker 6: We want to weed out the corruption. And it seems
Speaker 6: hard to believe that a judge could say, we don't
Speaker 6: want you to do that. Well, so maybe we have
Speaker 6: to look at the judges because that's very serious. I
Speaker 6: think it's a very serious violation.
Speaker 1: He mentioned the judges there by the way, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of activist judges that were put in by liberals
Speaker 1: who are like, all right, we're the last defense here,
Speaker 1: so let's try to, you know, stop him at all
Speaker 1: costs to, you know, because he's too successful at giving
Speaker 1: the American people transparency and their money back.
Speaker 2: Look, Barack Obama and Joe Biden put a lot of
Speaker 2: radicals on the federal bench, and right now you've got
Speaker 2: Democrat attorneys general going and seeking out these radicals to
Speaker 2: file lawsuits. You've also got left wings special interest groups
Speaker 2: seeking out these radical judges. We're going to see a
Speaker 2: lot of lawsuits. We're going to see a lot of
Speaker 2: law fair over the next four years. But you know,
Speaker 2: I got to say, watching Democrats in the media melt
Speaker 2: down number one, they've always melted down over Trump. They
Speaker 2: have Trump arrangement syndrome, but they also have Elon derangement syndrome.
Speaker 2: And they scream, well, Elon Musk was not elected to anything. Well, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's true, but Donald Trump was elected to something. He
Speaker 2: was elected to President of the United States, and he
Speaker 2: was elected on a mandate. And this is actually a
Speaker 2: point that that Elon made made quite effectively in the Oval.
Speaker 2: Give a listen.
Speaker 5: The people voted for major government reform. There should be
Speaker 5: no doubt about that. That was on the campaign. The
Speaker 5: President spoke about that at every rally. The people voted
Speaker 5: for major government reform. And that's what people are gonna get.
Speaker 5: They're going to get what they voted for. And a
Speaker 5: lot of times that you know, people that don't get
Speaker 5: what they voted for, but in this presidency, they are
Speaker 5: going to get what they voted for. And that's what
Speaker 5: democracy is all about.
Speaker 1: I got to say, I love listening to Elon. You've
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time with him. I think this
Speaker 1: is a perfect example of just how genuine his heart
Speaker 1: is on this. He truly is a believer in this
Speaker 1: country and giving the American people what they voted for.
Speaker 1: And he is an agent to go find the waste
Speaker 1: brown abuse, and he's and he's and he's incredibly focused
Speaker 1: on it.
Speaker 2: He is he is incredibly focused, and he's right. This
Speaker 2: is democracy, and yet it is causing the radical left
Speaker 2: to lose their minds. You know, I got to say,
Speaker 2: I want to play this, this this segment from CNN,
Speaker 2: because it really does show how the media that their
Speaker 2: minds are melting down. You had former New Hampshire governor
Speaker 2: Chris Snunu who's on, and he's on with Anderson Cooper,
Speaker 2: and Anderson Cooper loses it. And you've also got Jeffrey Tubin,
Speaker 2: another left wing CNN contributor. You know your old buddies.
Speaker 2: These are all the folks you piled around with them,
Speaker 2: like seven years in hell? Seven years in hell. Do
Speaker 2: you have CNN tattooed somewhere on your body?
Speaker 5: I do not.
Speaker 1: I do not. I'm just checking.
Speaker 2: So all right, give a listen to Chris Sonunhu and
Speaker 2: and and and look how he how he causes the
Speaker 2: CNN folks to lose their minds.
Speaker 5: It surreal.
Speaker 7: But I got to tell you, I know what you're
Speaker 7: not showing here. Must gave seven specific examples off the
Speaker 7: top of his head of where the corruption and fraud were.
Speaker 6: I know you don't.
Speaker 7: You didn't play the clips. He was talking about a
Speaker 7: contractor that had a three month contract, he was paid
Speaker 7: for twenty years. He was talking about welfare benefits that
Speaker 7: were being paid to someone that was technically one hundred
Speaker 7: and fifty years old. He was talking about line item from.
Speaker 4: Ridden had no justificationenty act like he doesn't present any
Speaker 4: actual evidence.
Speaker 7: Well, he's standing there in the Oval office. Do you
Speaker 7: expect him to come in with ten thousand pages? And
Speaker 7: I have to be clear to complain about this administration
Speaker 7: about transparency. When this president takes open questions on a
Speaker 7: daily basis, yet Joe Biden didn't show up a press
Speaker 7: conferences six months is insane. These guys are being extremely transparent.
Speaker 7: They don't have to sit there and take the questions,
Speaker 7: but they do. That's all on the website.
Speaker 4: It's all out there.
Speaker 8: It's not transparency to say things that have no factual background.
Speaker 8: I mean to say we're cutting you know, we've found
Speaker 8: a billion dollars or trillion dollars in waste with no specifics.
Speaker 1: That's just talk.
Speaker 8: That's not transparent.
Speaker 7: It's twenty three days in here, twenty three days you
Speaker 7: were you were you were talking about two point three
Speaker 7: billion that was saved last year. These guys are saving
Speaker 7: two point three billion a day.
Speaker 8: But no, well that's what It's incredible, that's what they're saying.
Speaker 1: But where's the game.
Speaker 5: You're waiting.
Speaker 7: You're not going to be satisfied till he shows up
Speaker 7: at ten thousand pages.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 7: He's giving very specific thing.
Speaker 4: But he's not actually giving any evidence of that.
Speaker 7: It's all going to come because what they also said
Speaker 7: was if we have to go to Congress, we'll go
Speaker 7: to Congress.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: But the show where some of the details that have
Speaker 4: come out, like the you know, fifty nine million dollars
Speaker 4: spent on luxury hotels, it's actually not the thing.
Speaker 7: About the FEMA money that was used for migrants. That
Speaker 7: was FEMA money for migrants. That's okay.
Speaker 4: Now no I'm not saying it, so I'm not saying
Speaker 4: it's okay.
Speaker 1: Don't put word So would you stop that?
Speaker 7: Would you stop that process? Don't be a dick.
Speaker 4: The portrayal what I'm saying is the portrayal by him is.
Speaker 1: I just got to say, I this is from my
Speaker 1: my seven years and how it's CNN. When the host
Speaker 1: start cursing at you, don Lemon lost it on me
Speaker 1: one night, screaming that that is BS, that is BS,
Speaker 1: but saying the full thing. When you see Anderson Cooper
Speaker 1: get rattled like this, this is when you know they're
Speaker 1: losing America and they feel it, and they're witnessing it
Speaker 1: because they're part of this cover up center. And now
Speaker 1: they realize how stupid their argument is that, well, we
Speaker 1: didn't see a piece of paper with it on there.
Speaker 1: What you think Eoon Musk is sitting there making this
Speaker 1: up in the Oval office, like, what's wrong with you guys?
Speaker 1: And by the way, you guys never question anything that
Speaker 1: was shady with the Biden administration when you knew it
Speaker 1: was shady.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Look, number one, you see Jeffrey Tube and jumping in
Speaker 2: screaming that's not transparency. Trump is literally doing a press
Speaker 2: conference every day. They're putting all of this out for
Speaker 2: everyone to see. They're giving chapter and verse and specifics
Speaker 2: and and and and you see Anderson Cooper at the
Speaker 2: end where he just curses and and and melts down
Speaker 2: and insults a governor.
Speaker 1: By the way, yeah, I mean yeah, I mean to me, wow.
Speaker 2: To be clear that that is the reason Anderson Cooper
Speaker 2: does that is he realizes he's in a completely indefensible position.
Speaker 2: He's defending the prior administration diverting funds from FEMA. By
Speaker 2: the way, funds that FEMA are supposed to use to
Speaker 2: deal with a natural disaster, whether wildfires in California or
Speaker 2: a hurricane or tornadoes or other natural disaster. And the
Speaker 2: prior administration took those disaster funds and instead use them
Speaker 2: to pay for hotel rooms for illegal aliens. And Anderson
Speaker 2: Cooper realized, wait a second, I'm defending something that is
Speaker 2: so absurd that even the four viewers who are watching
Speaker 2: CNN are going to know it's absurd. And that's why
Speaker 2: he melts down. And I got to say, the fact
Speaker 2: that President Trump is standing up and delivering real cuts,
Speaker 2: that is taking on this waste, fraud and abuse. The
Speaker 2: fact that the fact that Anderson Cooper is melting down,
Speaker 2: that shows President Trump is winning. That shows Elon Musk
Speaker 2: is winning, and that shows the American people are winning.
Speaker 1: As before, if you want to hear the rest of
Speaker 1: this conversation on this topic, you can go back and
Speaker 1: dow the podcasts from earlier this week to hear the
Speaker 1: entire thing. I want to get back to the big
Speaker 1: story number three of the week you may have missed.
Speaker 1: I want to move to USAID and some of the
Speaker 1: big issues that are now coming out of that, and
Speaker 1: it deals also with the issue of terrorism. We got
Speaker 1: some shocking news that has come out. It's something, by
Speaker 1: the way, that I think we need to point out
Speaker 1: very clearly. You had been talking about this now for
Speaker 1: several years in Congress and on this show. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: thank goodness, now at least all of it seems to
Speaker 1: be being exposed because of the digging with Doge and
Speaker 1: the Trump administration back in office.
Speaker 2: Well, there was a lengthy tweet that I sent this
Speaker 2: week that said the following. The full story of USAID
Speaker 2: funding HAMAS is vast, and much of it was done
Speaker 2: in secret. Before and after October seventh, the USAID flowed
Speaker 2: unaccountable hundreds of millions of dollars towards HAMAS that enabled
Speaker 2: it to launch the attack and keep backing Israel afterwards.
Speaker 2: They lied about the nature of that aid in public databases,
Speaker 2: refused to disclose what groups were getting the money, and
Speaker 2: gave tens of millions in American cash to be distributed
Speaker 2: without American supervision. They internally admitted the aid would benefit
Speaker 2: HAMAS and even exempted themselves from anti terrorism laws, but
Speaker 2: in public issued denial for all four years of the
Speaker 2: Biden administration, I prevented them from confirming a Middle East
Speaker 2: Administrator because they wouldn't acknowledge what they were doing because
Speaker 2: continuing their secret pro Hamas programs was more important to them.
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you there was a major article in
Speaker 2: the Washington Free Beacon that I tweeted out as well,
Speaker 2: and it's an article my team and I provided a
Speaker 2: significant amount of the information to the Washington Free Beacon.
Speaker 2: But it's entitled at USAID funding for terroritied groups, an
Speaker 2: internal hostility towards Israel goes back years. One former State
Speaker 2: Department official described a lack of embarrassment among some USAID
Speaker 2: staffers about being associated with terrorist organization. And I'm going
Speaker 2: to read from the beginning of this article because it's
Speaker 2: an important article and the fact Senate are very disturbing.
Speaker 2: As the Trump administration works to shutter the United States
Speaker 2: Agency for International Development USAID, Current and former US officials
Speaker 2: who work closely with the unbattled AID group say they
Speaker 2: watched for years as it funneled millions of dollars to
Speaker 2: anti Israel advocacy groups and entities linked to terrorism. That
Speaker 2: funding caused internal friction across multiple administrations, according to those
Speaker 2: who spoke with the Washington Free Beacon in some cases,
Speaker 2: USAID fought to conceal how taxpayer funds were spent, and
Speaker 2: when it came to Israel, officials recalled battling USAID over
Speaker 2: funding for groups that worked to undermine the Jewish State
Speaker 2: or maintain ties to terror organizations.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 2: For those who believe in a strong US Israel relationship,
Speaker 2: elements of USAID had been problematic for years, said one
Speaker 2: former State Department official who worked with USAID during the
Speaker 2: Biden administration.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 2: There was even a lack of embarrassment among some USAID
Speaker 2: staffers about being associated with terrorist organizations. Some of the
Speaker 2: terrortied funding initiatives are publicly known. In November twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: for instance, USAID awarded one hundred thousand dollars to a
Speaker 2: Palestinian activist group whose leaders hailed the Popular Front for
Speaker 2: the Liberation of Palestine a designated terror group. Just six
Speaker 2: days before Hamasa's October seventh assault on Israel, USAID handed
Speaker 2: nine hundred thousand dollars to a terror charitor charity in
Speaker 2: Gaza involved with the son of Hamas leader Ismail Hanaye.
Speaker 2: USAID's hostilities towards the Jewish State, however, ran deeper than
Speaker 2: the agency's grant making under Samantha Power, former President Joe
Speaker 2: Biden's pick to run USAID, Agency, officials fought pro Israel
Speaker 2: policy making at the State Department, often urging their colleagues
Speaker 2: at Foggy Bottom to pare down statements that praised the
Speaker 2: Jewish state. Former official said in twenty twenty one, during
Speaker 2: a period of conflict with Hamas, Power herself refused to
Speaker 2: meet with Israel's ambassador unless Israel reached a cease fire
Speaker 2: with the Iran backed terror group. The decision put Power
Speaker 2: at odds with the White House National Security Council, which
Speaker 2: signed off on the meeting. Emails obtained by the Freebeacon Show.
Speaker 1: It is shocking to hear you read that, and yet
Speaker 1: it's so well documented. It's something that you and sound
Speaker 1: the alarm on for a while. Now, because of a
Speaker 1: new administration, we're actually getting some movement on this. But
Speaker 1: how angry should Americans be that their tax dours have
Speaker 1: been going to terrorist organizations through these funnel through these
Speaker 1: charities and other groups. And there were warnings, meaning that
Speaker 1: the government, Biden, Harris and their team, they knew the
Speaker 1: money was ending up with these people. This wasn't a
Speaker 1: one office. Wasn't an accident. This was deliberate.
Speaker 2: Well, they knew it and they actively hit it. Let
Speaker 2: me read a little more from this Freebeacon article. A
Speaker 2: January memo from the Inspector General Paul Martin noted that
Speaker 2: the agency quote does not maintain a comprehensive internal database
Speaker 2: of sub awardees. In other words, the foreign entities that
Speaker 2: work with a primary grantee on a USAID project often
Speaker 2: go unreported, impeding the ability of the agency investigators to
Speaker 2: vet fraud allegations. According to the memo, such allegations often
Speaker 2: include the diversion of taxpayer funded aid to terrorist organizations.
Speaker 2: In a November report, for example, Martin quote identified deliberate
Speaker 2: interference and efforts to divert humanitarian assistance by foreign terrorist organizations,
Speaker 2: including systemic coercion of aid workers by ftos foreign terrorist organizations,
Speaker 2: and FTO influence over beneficiary selection. These diversion efforts are
Speaker 2: particularly pronounced in Hamas controlled Gaza. A February report from
Speaker 2: the Middle East Forum think tank found that the USAID
Speaker 2: had awarded millions of dollars to organizations directly in Gaza
Speaker 2: controlled by Hamas. Let me read that again. A February
Speaker 2: report from the Middle East Forum think tank found that
Speaker 2: USAID had awarded millions of federal dollars to organizations directly
Speaker 2: in Gaza controlled by Hamas, and it continues. In one
Speaker 2: bideneric case, USAID funded an educational and community center in
Speaker 2: Gaza controlled by a local group called the Unlimited Friends Association.
Speaker 2: The association openly collaborated with HAMAS, inviting the terror group's
Speaker 2: officials to its office and boasting of US funded projects
Speaker 2: in HAMAS controlled newspapers. In twenty twenty one, its director
Speaker 2: called for Jerusalem to be cleansed. Quote from the impurity
Speaker 2: of the Jews. This is who Joe Biden and the
Speaker 2: Democrats were sending millions of dollars to, and this is
Speaker 2: who they were covering it up.
Speaker 1: Not only were they covering it up, but this has
Speaker 1: a USAID has a long history that's now well documented
Speaker 1: of them helping radicals. And one of the things you
Speaker 1: and I talked about before the show was another just
Speaker 1: totally insane aspect of this, and that included paying for
Speaker 1: terrorists college funds.
Speaker 2: Well, that is exactly right, and it is a stunning story.
Speaker 2: So this is something that's been reported in Fox News
Speaker 2: and The New York Post. Here's what the New York
Speaker 2: Post said, USAID reportedly bankrolled al Qaeda terrorist college tuition.
Speaker 2: Unearthed record showed USAID American bord jahattist anwar all Illachi
Speaker 2: received full funding to attend Colorado State University in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: USAID documents obtained by Fox News showed, now who is
Speaker 2: on We're all Laki. He is a notorious terrorist, so
Speaker 2: notorious that President Barack Obama ordered him killed in a
Speaker 2: US air strike in Yemen twenty years later. The document
Speaker 2: revealed that al Alaki, who was born in Las Cruces,
Speaker 2: New Mexico, lied on his application and claimed that he
Speaker 2: was born in Yemen, apparently so he would be eligible
Speaker 2: for the federal tuition funding worth more than twenty seven
Speaker 2: thousand dollars at the time. That was nineteen ninety Tuition
Speaker 2: and fees for an international student at the university today
Speaker 2: would be nearly ten times that. Using the education USAID
Speaker 2: provided him, he earned a bachelor's and civil engineering in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four. Alilachi would go on to teach Islam
Speaker 2: at mosques across the country, from Denver to San Diego
Speaker 2: and Virginia, where US officials believe he used his platform
Speaker 2: to radicalize and recruit terrorists and understand Alilachi is directly
Speaker 2: implicated in number one. At the San Diego Mosque, he
Speaker 2: met the nine to eleven hijackers Nawaf al Hazmi and
Speaker 2: Khalid al Midhar, two of the men who flew Flight
Speaker 2: seventy seven into the Pentagon on nine to eleven, and
Speaker 2: he was arrested in two thousand and six for his
Speaker 2: terrorist ties in Yemen, and three years later anweil Allachi
Speaker 2: communicated with Nadal Hassan, who murdered fourteen innocent souls at
Speaker 2: Fort Hood onwile Ololachi was also tied to the underwear
Speaker 2: bomber Umar Farouk Abda Matullab, who tried to blow up
Speaker 2: a Detroit bound Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine with bombs hidden in his shorts. This
Speaker 2: is who USI aid, said, you know what, we're going
Speaker 2: to pay for you to get a college degree. What
Speaker 2: in the hell are these people doing?
Speaker 1: So the question that I got to ask finally on
Speaker 1: this to wrap it up, and people that are listening
Speaker 1: and say, number one, how did this a happen? But
Speaker 1: even more so How are people not going to jail
Speaker 1: for knowingly giving American taxpayer dollars to terrorists. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you are working in our government, even if it's
Speaker 1: under the direction of the Biden Harris regime at the time,
Speaker 1: and you're sending out money that you know is going
Speaker 1: to terrorists around the world, is that not like breaking
Speaker 1: some law?
Speaker 2: Senator, Well, look, that's a question that I think is
Speaker 2: going to have to be investigated and examined. I will say,
Speaker 2: US anti terrorism laws prohibit sending money that goes to terrorism,
Speaker 2: And in fact, the Biden administration made a formal assessment
Speaker 2: and they concluded that sending the money to Gaza that
Speaker 2: it was very likely that money would be used by
Speaker 2: Hamas for terrorism. Now, ordinarily, when you make that determination
Speaker 2: under American anti terrorism law, you don't send the money.
Speaker 2: You can't send the money once you determine that it's
Speaker 2: likely it'll go to terrorism. However, the way the law
Speaker 2: is written, the president has the authority to waive that provision.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what they did because they made a
Speaker 2: determination that their radical politics were more important than stopping
Speaker 2: terrorists from murdering American citizens and murdering Israeli citizens, and
Speaker 2: tragically the entire world saw the consequences of that radicalism
Speaker 2: on October seventh.
Speaker 1: Do you think there will be any accountability for this
Speaker 1: or is this going to be another one of those
Speaker 1: where hey, we were in charge, so we get we
Speaker 1: got away with it.
Speaker 2: Look, I certainly hope there will be accountability, but at
Speaker 2: a minimum, we're seeing accountability in President Trump and Elon
Speaker 2: Musk shutting down these programs at USAI D. I think
Speaker 2: that is very good. And my hope and expectations is
Speaker 2: that Congress will come along and we will pass legislation,
Speaker 2: presumably as a part of budget reconciliation later this year
Speaker 2: to codify these cuts and and eliminate the waste, fraud, abuse.
Speaker 1: And Senator you mentioned, you know, the corruption and in
Speaker 1: what the president's starting to clean it up. As always,
Speaker 1: thank you for listening to Verdict with Center Ted Cruz
Speaker 1: Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to deal with my podcast,
Speaker 1: and you can listen to my podcast every other day
Speaker 1: you're not listening to Verdict or each day when you
Speaker 1: listen to Verdict afterwards, I'd love to have you as
Speaker 1: a listener to again the Ben Ferguson podcasts, and we
Speaker 1: will see you back here on Monday morning.