Speaker 1: Welcome in his verdict with center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson
Speaker 1: with you as always, and Senator, it's nice to be
Speaker 1: back in the studio with you. You've been traveling like crazy.
Speaker 1: You guys have been really busy in Washington and adding
Speaker 1: some days onto the work week as well. We're finally
Speaker 1: back here together. We've got a big show.
Speaker 2: So it's something going on in Washington, right exactly. You know,
Speaker 2: there's an old Chinese curse, may you live in interesting times.
Speaker 2: We certainly live in those. Donald Trump has hit the
Speaker 2: White House with speed and fury and velocity. There's never
Speaker 2: been anything like it. They've never been a president like
Speaker 2: this in the first hundred days. Last week, obviously, the
Speaker 2: President announced on April second tariffs on just about every
Speaker 2: country on Earth, the highest tariff level since nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 2: It is a big, big deal. Every nation across the
Speaker 2: globe is reeling. They're all trying to figure out what
Speaker 2: do we do about it. The stock market, the stock
Speaker 2: market collapsed, It went into free fall. Six trillion dollars
Speaker 2: evaporated in forty eight hours. Now Monday, everyone's wondering, how's
Speaker 2: the market going to open Monday morning? But there's a
Speaker 2: lot of concern that the market isn't done going down,
Speaker 2: and the question is where do we go from here?
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you the reason President Trump is doing
Speaker 2: this is important. The reason President Trump is doing this
Speaker 2: is that we've seen of the last fifty years a
Speaker 2: hollowing out of manufacturing in America. We've seen what used
Speaker 2: to be the heart of the American middle class, the
Speaker 2: heart of blue collar jobs going away, being pulled abroad,
Speaker 2: going overseas, and the industrial Midwest just just being utterly
Speaker 2: decimated by good paying jobs leaving America. And President Trump
Speaker 2: was elected for many things, but heart and center to
Speaker 2: fight for bringing those jobs back. That's right at the
Speaker 2: core of this, bringing those jobs back to America. But
Speaker 2: there is now a very active debate within the White
Speaker 2: House which direction do we go next. Do we use
Speaker 2: this as leverage to lower other countries tariffs and then
Speaker 2: lower our own tariffs to reflect that, or do we
Speaker 2: leave these tariffs up forever and ever and ever. And
Speaker 2: I'll tell you there are different advisors in the White House.
Speaker 2: There are angels and demons on each of President Trump's shoulders,
Speaker 2: urging him use them as leverage or keep them forever.
Speaker 2: We're going to break down that debate and what the
Speaker 2: consequences are for you, what it means for you if
Speaker 2: these tariffs are used as leverage to lower the tariffs
Speaker 2: of our trading partners, and what it means for you
Speaker 2: if these tariffs are simply a permanent economic feature of America.
Speaker 2: We're also going to talk about nationwide injunctions. Nationwide injunctions
Speaker 2: we have seen in the last three months. It is
Speaker 2: the new incarnation of lawfare. It is how the left
Speaker 2: is attacking Donald Trump. They are filing lawsuits, they are
Speaker 2: looking for left wing radical judges who are issuing nationwide
Speaker 2: injunctions to stop the president's agenda. We had a hearing
Speaker 2: in the Senate Judiciary Committee this week on exactly this topic.
Speaker 2: We're going to take you there and talk about what
Speaker 2: the problem is and what the solution should be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to be very interesting. I also want
Speaker 1: to talk to you real quick about the International Fellowship
Speaker 1: of Christians and Jews. Israel is still under attack. Missile
Speaker 1: fire has resumed from the Huthis, from Hesblah and hamas
Speaker 1: enemies seeking Israel's destruction. Here in America, we cannot imagine
Speaker 1: living under constant threat of terrorism and rocket attacks. This
Speaker 1: is the reality in Israel. Parents taking their kids to school,
Speaker 1: falling to the ground to lay on top of their
Speaker 1: small children, trying to comfort them as sirens blair. The
Speaker 1: next attack against Israel is happening now with little time
Speaker 1: to repair. And that's why your help is needed right now.
Speaker 1: The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is helping provide
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Speaker 1: a gift today will help provide security essentials like bomb shelters,
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Speaker 1: get by going to support IFCJ dot org. That's one word,
Speaker 1: support IFCJ dot org. Now center, I have a very
Speaker 1: important question, a big question before we get into all
Speaker 1: the politics. There's a game that's happening on Monday, and
Speaker 1: your hometown team is in that game. How excited are
Speaker 1: you to see Houston make it through the final four
Speaker 1: of the championship game.
Speaker 2: Look the Cougars. They played incredibly against Duke. They were
Speaker 2: underdogs against Duke. It was a great victory. We're now
Speaker 2: in the finals tonight. I got to say, Houston that
Speaker 2: is going to win tonight, is gonna beat Florida. Florida
Speaker 2: played well. They had a tough game against Auburn and
Speaker 2: managed managed to just scrape it out. Florida is a
Speaker 2: good team, but they don't have what it takes to
Speaker 2: beat Houston. Houston's defense is too stifling. I'm gonna call
Speaker 2: it Houston by six.
Speaker 1: I like Houston by six. I like the Bowl prediction.
Speaker 1: Well done. All right, so let's talk about tariffs. You
Speaker 1: and I we did a show on Friday. It was
Speaker 1: a show that a lot of people listen to. It
Speaker 1: actually kind of went viral over the weekend as well.
Speaker 1: People just want to know what is going to happen
Speaker 1: this week, next week. There's concern, there's the stress anxiety
Speaker 1: watching the market, but there's also something that's happening right
Speaker 1: now that's very interesting. Countries are lining up to meet
Speaker 1: with the Trump administration. Vietnam is apparently at the front
Speaker 1: of the line. They sent emergency delegation in the US.
Speaker 1: They want to get a deal done as fast as
Speaker 1: they possibly can. And now we're hearing there's dozens and
Speaker 1: dozens of other countries are saying, Hey, we want to
Speaker 1: talk too.
Speaker 2: No, there is an historic upper two to hear. And
Speaker 2: if the White House capitalizes on this opportunity, it could
Speaker 2: prove to be one of the most significant, one of
Speaker 2: the most powerful moments for US economic interest for American
Speaker 2: workers this country has ever seen. Right now, every country
Speaker 2: that is on the receiving end of these tariffs, they're
Speaker 2: freaking out, They're panicking. This is a great opportunity to
Speaker 2: engage in. Let's make a deal here. Listen to Kevin Hasset,
Speaker 2: who is the head of the National Economic Council, describing
Speaker 2: how countries are coming to the White House right now.
Speaker 3: I got a report from the USDR last night that
Speaker 3: more than fifty countries have reached out to the.
Speaker 2: President to begin a negotiation.
Speaker 3: But they're doing that because they understand that they bear
Speaker 3: a lot of the tariff.
Speaker 2: More than fifty countries. And that's just in a few days.
Speaker 2: And listen, I've had a lot of countries that are
Speaker 2: reaching out talking to my office, and my advice to
Speaker 2: them is, go cut a deal. Go cut a deal,
Speaker 2: and the front half of your deal needs to be
Speaker 2: the tariffs that we've imposed against US goods, against US crops,
Speaker 2: against US livestocks, against used cars, against US manufacturing, against
Speaker 2: US services. All of those tariffs we are going to
Speaker 2: slash if we see Vietnam came in, Israel has come in.
Speaker 2: Israel and Vietnam were right at the front. But you know,
Speaker 2: it's interesting. Vietnam is a country that is worth talking
Speaker 2: about a little bit because we have a very significant
Speaker 2: trade deficit with Vietnam. Yeah, do you know why?
Speaker 1: Why is that?
Speaker 2: Because America is winning? Why do we have a big
Speaker 2: trade deficit with Vietnam? Because most of that manufacturing used
Speaker 2: to be in China. And what happened is America, starting
Speaker 2: under President Trump, leaned on manufacturers and said move your
Speaker 2: manufacturing out of China. And so a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: them moved them out of China and went to Vietnam.
Speaker 2: So Vietnam was doing what we asked them to. We asked, hey,
Speaker 2: can you take on this manufacturing instead of China? And
Speaker 2: there was a massive move of American companies that pulled
Speaker 2: manufacturing out of China and moved it to Vietnam. Look,
Speaker 2: everything we do to delink from China is a good thing.
Speaker 2: So moving those jobs out of China was a terrific victory,
Speaker 2: and it was a victory for President Trump. It was
Speaker 2: the Trump administration that urged moved those jobs to Vietnam.
Speaker 2: Now Vietnam suddenly has a big trade deficit because all
Speaker 2: those jobs came out of China to Vietnam, and now
Speaker 2: Vietnam has a massive tariff that was levied on it
Speaker 2: by President Trump. The question is are they going to
Speaker 2: work a deal where they lower barriers on both sides.
Speaker 2: I hope they will, But there's another path. Listen, there
Speaker 2: are voices in the White House who simply believe in
Speaker 2: tariffs as a permanent feature of the US economy. There
Speaker 2: are voices in the White House that want these high
Speaker 2: tariffs to be in place in six months, in a year,
Speaker 2: in two years, in five years, in ten years, that
Speaker 2: they want tariffs to be the main source of economic
Speaker 2: revenue for the federal government. That is a very different philosophy.
Speaker 2: And this is one of the things I'll tell you
Speaker 2: within the Senate with my colleagues. A lot of us
Speaker 2: are debating, Okay, how much of this is leverage to
Speaker 2: get great deals from other countries.
Speaker 1: And how much of this is what you said, economic
Speaker 1: revenue for the government.
Speaker 2: And by the way, you know, you get some people
Speaker 2: that talk about, well, we'll do tariffs instead of the
Speaker 2: income tax, and I got to say that sort of
Speaker 2: reminds me of the old cartoon Popeye. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 2: I'll gladly pay you tuesday for a hamburger. Today, I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: wait a second. The last I checked, we still have
Speaker 2: the income tax and we have these tariffs. That's just
Speaker 2: a ton more taxes. If you want to get rid
Speaker 2: of the income tax, then we can talk. But I
Speaker 2: don't see anyone proposing getting rid of the income tax.
Speaker 2: And so at the end of the day, in my view,
Speaker 2: if the outcome from these tariffs is really high tariffs
Speaker 2: from every country on Earth against American goods, and really
Speaker 2: high tariffs from America against goods from every every other
Speaker 2: country on Earth, that is going to be really bad
Speaker 2: for Texas and really bad for America.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about momentum. You mentioned the people coming to
Speaker 1: the table, and you heard there in that comment fifty
Speaker 1: nations are now lining up. You and I both know
Speaker 1: that that one of the things Donald Trump does really
Speaker 1: well is the art of the deal and loves when
Speaker 1: there's something to celebrate celebrating it. Yes, I see in
Speaker 1: our near future Vietnam America on stage White House. We
Speaker 1: got a historic deal done, and that's where that move goes.
Speaker 2: So what I'm urging is for the President to come
Speaker 2: and make major deals and make them quickly. Look to
Speaker 2: calm the stock market down. A few major deals quickly
Speaker 2: would really really help. I would love it if this week,
Speaker 2: this week we had an announcement from the president, this
Speaker 2: major country came in, they offered huge concessions. They slashed
Speaker 2: their tariffs, and we're slashing ours. That would be a great.
Speaker 1: Outcome, and that's momentum building as well.
Speaker 2: Look, the stock market has a psychology to it. If
Speaker 2: people start saying it's a bear markeage, people start saying
Speaker 2: we're going into a recession, that feeds upon itself. That
Speaker 2: means people are less willing to invest money, they're less
Speaker 2: willing to take risks, and so it is important for
Speaker 2: people to see the real tangible victories coming from this,
Speaker 2: and those victories are not just cash. One of the
Speaker 2: things you're hearing the White House say is, well, look
Speaker 2: at all the revenue we're getting from tariffs. That's not
Speaker 2: actually bringing jobs back to America getting those tariffs, that's
Speaker 2: just raising prices. And if the immediate effect for voters
Speaker 2: of these tariffs is serious inflation because the cost of
Speaker 2: what they're buying is going up. I mentioned on Friday's
Speaker 2: podcast how one of the big three American auto manufacturers
Speaker 2: told me last week the effect of this tariffs is
Speaker 2: they would increase the cost of the cars they sell
Speaker 2: by four five hundred dollars a car.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of mind average Americans.
Speaker 2: That is a lot of money. That is a big hit.
Speaker 2: And so we've got to see the upside. We've got
Speaker 2: to see the benefit. Look one upside. Right now, Europe
Speaker 2: has a ten percent tariffs on American cars, and prior
Speaker 2: to April second, America had a two percent tariff on
Speaker 2: European cars. Now, I can tell you the Europeans are
Speaker 2: already back channeling. They are already putting on the table
Speaker 2: zero and zero. They'll take their ten percent to zero,
Speaker 2: we take our two percent to zero, and cars go
Speaker 2: back and forth from Europe and America without a tariff.
Speaker 2: That deal is there. The President could announce it this week.
Speaker 2: That's a major victory. Getting rid of those tariffs in
Speaker 2: Europe is a major victory. But it is important. So
Speaker 2: they're different voices. So, for example, one of the voices
Speaker 2: speaking out is Elon Musk. We had Elon on the podcast.
Speaker 2: Elon said last week. Here's what he told Reuters. US
Speaker 2: tech billionaire Elon Musk said on Saturday he hoped in
Speaker 2: the future to see complete freedom of true between the
Speaker 2: United States and Europe, speaking days after President Donald Trump
Speaker 2: announced tariffs on trading partners Mosca. Trump advisor has been
Speaker 2: working to eliminate wasteful US public spending. Spoke via video
Speaker 2: link at a congress in Florence of Italy's right wing
Speaker 2: Co Ruling Party Co Ruling League party.
Speaker 1: Quote this is from US quote.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, I hope it's agreed
Speaker 2: that both Europe and the United States should move ideally
Speaker 2: in my view, to a zero tariff situation, effectively creating
Speaker 2: a free trade zone between Europe and North America. So
Speaker 2: when I talked about angels and demons, Elon is one
Speaker 2: of the angels. This is a good good voice that
Speaker 2: is focused on US jobs that I hope the President
Speaker 2: is listening to. I hope the President is listening to
Speaker 2: Elon Musk. President Trump has an historic opportunity. The leverage
Speaker 2: right now is massive. The question is will the White
Speaker 2: House make the decision to use that leverage to try
Speaker 2: to lower foreign tariffs. I mentioned something else. Very good
Speaker 2: friend of mine works in finance, very very smart finance
Speaker 2: here suggests it an idea for how to use this
Speaker 2: leverage and get even more of a win win, which
Speaker 2: is he said, Look, here's the problem. Let's say you're
Speaker 2: an American company or your foreign company, and you've got
Speaker 2: a factory somewhere. You've got a factory abroad, you've got
Speaker 2: a factory in Vietnam, you've got a factory anywhere other
Speaker 2: than the US, and you're contemplating do I move the
Speaker 2: factory to the United States. The problem with that decision
Speaker 2: making is that move takes years. You can't do it instantaneously,
Speaker 2: even if you decide today, okay, let's build it in America.
Speaker 2: In a lot of places, just the permitting takes years
Speaker 2: to get a factory permitted, much less built. By the way,
Speaker 2: that's why everyone should come to Texas. If you're going
Speaker 2: to build a factory, come to Texas. Permit it fast.
Speaker 2: We're not if you go to California, you deserve what
Speaker 2: you get. Come to Texas.
Speaker 1: You should turn that into like a public service announcement,
Speaker 1: right like you go there, you go me, you deserve
Speaker 1: you want to get into business, Texas place to come.
Speaker 1: I will tell you.
Speaker 2: As an aside, several years ago, a CEO came and
Speaker 2: met with me in DC and he was thinking of
Speaker 2: opening a new factory and he was looking at Texas,
Speaker 2: he was looking at California. And he said, all right,
Speaker 2: well tell me in Texas. What do you give me
Speaker 2: to go to Texas? And I said, not a damn thing.
Speaker 2: I said, but we won't tax you to death, won't.
Speaker 2: We won't regulate you to death, and we won't allow
Speaker 2: lawsuits just to tear you apart. And I said, you
Speaker 2: know what, if you go to California, you deserve.
Speaker 1: What you get.
Speaker 2: So that being said, let's say you're you're a big
Speaker 2: car company and you're trying to decide where do I
Speaker 2: put my next car factory. Just the process of getting
Speaker 2: it permitted, getting it built, putting the equipment in that
Speaker 2: takes a minimum of two, three, four, five years. That's
Speaker 2: just how long it takes.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So the problem for your decision making is if you're
Speaker 2: looking at this, if you're doing it based on the
Speaker 2: Trump tariffs, you don't know how long they'll be place.
Speaker 2: Sure you're trying to look at the math, you don't
Speaker 2: know a is Trump going to lift them in a
Speaker 2: deal where you may make a decision for the tariffs
Speaker 2: and then suddenly the tariffs aren't there anymore, and the
Speaker 2: math changes pretty substantially or be at a minimum in
Speaker 2: three and a half years, Trump is not going to
Speaker 2: be president, So you don't know if the next president
Speaker 2: is going to keep the tariffs or eliminate the tariffs.
Speaker 2: So the problem is by the time you opened.
Speaker 1: Your factory, completely different group could be in charge.
Speaker 2: So the idea that my buddy from the finance world
Speaker 2: came up with is for the president to announce a fund,
Speaker 2: an invest USA fund that individual CEOs could make it
Speaker 2: a commitment. Let's say you're the CEO of Mercedes Benz,
Speaker 2: that you could make a commitment we are going to
Speaker 2: open three new factories in America, all in Texas. We're
Speaker 2: going to open three new factories in America, and we're
Speaker 2: going to invest one hundred billion dollars in building these factories.
Speaker 2: Now the piece that is, look that has some teeth
Speaker 2: to what my friend suggested. Look, you can make that announcement,
Speaker 2: you can put out a press release, and by the
Speaker 2: way of circumstances change, you never spend one hundred million dollars.
Speaker 2: It doesn't actually arrive. The idea is you're the CEO
Speaker 2: Mercedes Bend. You announced three new factories one hundred billion dollars.
Speaker 2: You deposit the one hundred billion dollars in the fund,
Speaker 2: the Invest America Fund. You actually spend the money on
Speaker 2: the front end. Now, two things happen when you invested
Speaker 2: in the Invest America Fund. Number One, the United States
Speaker 2: earns interest on the money while it's sitting there, So
Speaker 2: it's benefiting the US just from the interest. If you
Speaker 2: leave it there, we'll get interest while it's there. But
Speaker 2: number two, as long as you have that money on
Speaker 2: the fund, you get a credit that you can use
Speaker 2: against your tariffs. Maybe it's a one to one credit,
Speaker 2: maybe it's a two to one credit, but it's economically
Speaker 2: you create an incentive to put the money there for
Speaker 2: CEOs to invest in America, to create jobs in America,
Speaker 2: and to actually deploy the cash, because if you make
Speaker 2: the credit on the tariffs only dependent on the dollars
Speaker 2: actually being in the fund Let's say you give a
Speaker 2: two to one credit, so one hundred dollars deposit in
Speaker 2: the funds gets you a two hundred dollars credit on
Speaker 2: your tariffs. Yeah, that's pretty economically compelling to lean in
Speaker 2: and invest. And what we want to see is what
Speaker 2: President Trump talks about a lot, a golden age in
Speaker 2: manufacturing where companies are profoundly incentivized to invest in.
Speaker 1: America, not only to grow, but to stay here so
Speaker 1: we don't have to worry about them leaving in the future.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and if that that has some real potency
Speaker 2: and idea like that. But if the solution is simply
Speaker 2: let's go back to the world in nineteen hundred, when
Speaker 2: you had really high tariffs, when you had you know,
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty three, you had smoot Holly that played a
Speaker 2: major role in the Great Depression. When you put up walls,
Speaker 2: it hurts America. We compete very well on the global level.
Speaker 2: We just need to make sure we're competing fairly. And
Speaker 2: I think the president has real leverage to do that
Speaker 2: right now if he's listening to the angels and not
Speaker 2: the voices in his administration that are saying more tariffs,
Speaker 2: more tariffs, higher tariffs forever.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you a final question on this, and
Speaker 1: you talk about the two different viewpoints here. There is
Speaker 1: a real debate. I'm having it with friends, I'm having
Speaker 1: it with colleagues. I mean, I've witnessed this on TV.
Speaker 1: There is, like you said, this core idea, there should
Speaker 1: always be tariffs. I've heard people talking about Greg Zama
Speaker 1: was China, we should always be at twenty percent or
Speaker 1: thirty percent or forty percent, whatever that number is. And
Speaker 1: there's others saying, no, you use this as leverage. You
Speaker 1: get the better deal now, and then you have the
Speaker 1: market stabilize and people understand what the new norm is.
Speaker 1: That seems to be what you're advocating for, which is,
Speaker 1: let the market know, the CEOs, know the people that
Speaker 1: are pouring their dollars to decide what they're gonna do next,
Speaker 1: give them whatever the new normal is going to be
Speaker 1: so that we can move forward. Is that fair?
Speaker 2: You've got to have some modicum of certainty, because if
Speaker 2: there's uncertainty. Business doesn't invest. No one invests if they
Speaker 2: don't know what the rules are going to be. If
Speaker 2: it's chaos, they sit on their cash and you don't
Speaker 2: have jobs. We want people to feel confident. And by
Speaker 2: the way, chaos under Biden came from regulatory chaos of
Speaker 2: new and job killing regulations, one after the other after
Speaker 2: the other. But if there is uncertainty, uncertainty is an
Speaker 2: enemy of investment, and that means it's an enemy of jobs.
Speaker 2: So some limited uncertainty can be helpful to incentivize a deal,
Speaker 2: but we need to get to a deal a predictable outcome.
Speaker 2: And I will say listen, China is different. I am
Speaker 2: actually quite fine with tariffs against China because I think
Speaker 2: dlinking from China their economy, they have us in a
Speaker 2: position where they are single greatest geopolitical threat. They are
Speaker 2: utilizing that economic interconnection as leverage against America, and so
Speaker 2: I think everything we can do to move Moving those
Speaker 2: jobs from China to Vietnam is a good move, is
Speaker 2: an important move, and moving them from China to Mexico
Speaker 2: that's a good move. Moving them from China to America
Speaker 2: is a good move. But everything we can do to
Speaker 2: d link from China's.
Speaker 1: Not just trade, it's also national security variations, right, And
Speaker 1: I want to bonus question. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people when you mentioned this is a different mentality with
Speaker 1: China and tarists are good there. I agree with you.
Speaker 1: My reason for it is a lot of national security reasons.
Speaker 1: I think that's something that's not been talked about as much.
Speaker 1: Give me your thoughts on that, quickly said, people understand
Speaker 1: the national security aspect of this.
Speaker 2: So look, we saw in the middle of COVID how
Speaker 2: much our critical supply chains were dominated by China. China
Speaker 2: is fighting a thousand year war against the United States.
Speaker 2: When I arrived in the Senate thirteen years ago, I
Speaker 2: said China is the single greatest geopolitical threat at America's
Speaker 2: facing for the next one hundred years. When I started
Speaker 2: saying that, almost nobody in the Senate agreed with me.
Speaker 2: All the Democrats disagreed, and most of the Republicans disagree.
Speaker 2: Most of the Republicans looked at China and they just
Speaker 2: saw dollar signs as far as the eye can see.
Speaker 2: A lot more people's eyes have opened up to the
Speaker 2: threat China poses today. And I think COVID did an
Speaker 2: awful lot of that. You know, in the middle of
Speaker 2: the COVID pandemic, there was one major Chinese state owned
Speaker 2: newspaper that advocated cutting off life saving pharmaceutical drugs manufactured
Speaker 2: in China from going to America, because we've allowed much
Speaker 2: of our pharmaceutical drug industry to be manufactured in China,
Speaker 2: and they were literally threatening to take away heart medicine
Speaker 2: and cancer medicine and diabetes medicine from Americans who needed
Speaker 2: to live. That underscored this is stupid to let a
Speaker 2: communist government who is our enemy.
Speaker 1: Be in charge of her health in that way.
Speaker 2: Likewise, critical minerals, critical minerals, China has a stranglehold on
Speaker 2: the production of critical minerals, which are essential for semiconductors
Speaker 2: and electronics and for defense and for all sorts of
Speaker 2: We need to move all of that out of China.
Speaker 2: We need to be able to stand on our own
Speaker 2: And I got to say President Trump has been really
Speaker 2: effective focusing on that threat. We need to accelerate the
Speaker 2: delinking from China.
Speaker 1: Another threat, and it's not been covered in the news
Speaker 1: the way that it should have because we've been dealing
Speaker 1: with this. Obviously, we led with this issue because it's
Speaker 1: very important, But it's judicial activism that's having a major
Speaker 1: impact on this administration, and in a shocking way, I
Speaker 1: would even say historic way when you look at the numbers.
Speaker 1: You're dealing with this now in the Senate, with these
Speaker 1: judges that are basically get to be activists, but their
Speaker 1: injunctions are having a whole nationwide. A lot of people
Speaker 1: didn't even know that was a possibility. Is an abusive power?
Speaker 1: Is there a check and balance that we need to
Speaker 1: have on that. Lit's dive into that as well.
Speaker 2: So it's an absolute abuse of power. It is worse
Speaker 2: than it has ever been seen against Donald Trump. In
Speaker 2: the first two months of administration, more nationwide injunctions issued
Speaker 2: against President Trump than in the entirety of the George W.
Speaker 2: Bush administration all eight years, the entirety of the Barack
Speaker 2: Obama administration all eight years, the entirety of the Joe
Speaker 2: Biden administration all four years. More in two months than
Speaker 2: in those twenty years.
Speaker 1: We have two months and twenty years. You say it,
Speaker 1: You said it quickly. I want people to just pause
Speaker 1: and think about how much of abuse of power there
Speaker 1: has to be if they're doing it that much like
Speaker 1: this is deliberate.
Speaker 2: Well, and listen to Attorney General Pambondi talk about this.
Speaker 4: The president is going to comply with the law. He
Speaker 4: was overwhelmingly elected by an overwhelming majority of the United
Speaker 4: States citizens to be our commander in chief, and that's
Speaker 4: what he's been doing, Shannon. Just since January twentieth, we've
Speaker 4: had over one hundred and seventy lawsuits filed against us.
Speaker 4: That should be the constitutional crisis right there. Fifty in junctions.
Speaker 4: They're popping up every single day, trying to control his
Speaker 4: executive power, trying to control where he believes our tax
Speaker 4: dollars should be allocated. And saying he won by an
Speaker 4: overwhelming majority is so important because that's what the American
Speaker 4: people want, what President Trump campaigned on and what he
Speaker 4: won on, and he's implementing that agenda at a rapid speed.
Speaker 4: None of us can keep up with them every single day.
Speaker 4: And so it's just we're going after all of these lawsuits,
Speaker 4: we're defending them all. We just got a great win,
Speaker 4: and we'll continue to fight.
Speaker 1: I talked to a judge this week and he described
Speaker 1: it this way, because I was wanting to understand this subject. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we were going to talk about it. It's important and we
Speaker 1: haven't dealt with this a lot. He said. In essence,
Speaker 1: what the court's doing, Ben is they are doing a
Speaker 1: coup against Donald Trump by neutering him with his agenda.
Speaker 1: And he said that is not how the constitution was
Speaker 1: set up, Like you should not be able to neuter
Speaker 1: a president in this way, saying we know you won,
Speaker 1: we know the American people support you, they voted for you,
Speaker 1: but we're not going to let you do what you're
Speaker 1: supposed to do as president anyway.
Speaker 2: Well, and Barack Obama and Joe Biden put left wing
Speaker 2: radicals on the courts, and then this is Democrat state
Speaker 2: attorneys general and left wing radical groups going and seeking
Speaker 2: out these radical judges, many of whom, by the way,
Speaker 2: used to work for the groups that are suing. I mean,
Speaker 2: I mean it is. It is fundamentally corrupt, and it
Speaker 2: is one judge. Normally a judge has the authority over
Speaker 2: the parties before him or her, but these judges are
Speaker 2: issuing nationwide orders trying to stop everything President Trump is
Speaker 2: trying to do. We had a hearing of the Judiciary
Speaker 2: Committee last week on this that was focusing on the
Speaker 2: threat to democracy and the rule of law from these
Speaker 2: nationwide injunctions. Here's what I had to say at the hearing.
Speaker 2: It's long been said that hypocrisy is the tribute that
Speaker 2: vice pays to virtue. I have to admit I'm enjoying
Speaker 2: listening to my Democrat colleagues suddenly discover the virtues of
Speaker 2: the rule of law after four years where they brazenly
Speaker 2: supported the most lawless Department of Justice and the most
Speaker 2: politically weaponized department justice our nation has ever seen. We
Speaker 2: just heard the Senator from Rhye Island talk about the
Speaker 2: imperative of protecting judges, and yet not a single Democrat
Speaker 2: senator cared about the violent protesters that showed up outside
Speaker 2: Supreme Court justices homes, including I might note female justices
Speaker 2: like Justice Amy Coney Barrett threatening their family. And Joe
Speaker 2: Biden's Attorney General didn't do a damn thing and refused
Speaker 2: to enforce the law to protect those judges. Why because
Speaker 2: he agreed with the violent protesters and he wanted to
Speaker 2: intimidate and threaten those judges, Professor Bray, Under our constitution,
Speaker 2: who should decide elections the voters or on elected judges.
Speaker 3: The voters are the ones who should vote in the
Speaker 3: election according to the laws, and the laws sometimes have
Speaker 3: to be applied by the judges if they're anse.
Speaker 2: And under our constitution, who is charged with making policy decisions?
Speaker 2: Elected representatives elected by the people or unelected federal judges.
Speaker 3: I think the question of policy, Senator is a little
Speaker 3: broader than the particular case. So the basic laws should
Speaker 3: be enacted by Congress. That's where the fountain of.
Speaker 2: La policy decisions are the elected branch. Right, law is
Speaker 2: the province of the court. Policy is the province of
Speaker 2: the elected branches. These are not complicated, Professor Bry, Let
Speaker 2: me ask you this. Do the federal courts have power
Speaker 2: to issue remedies for people who are not parties to
Speaker 2: a case?
Speaker 3: That's the question, I agree is not complicated. They do
Speaker 3: not have that power.
Speaker 2: Is the phrase nationwide injunction or universal injunction found anywhere
Speaker 2: in the Constitution?
Speaker 3: It is not first chart the.
Speaker 2: First one hundred and fifty years of our republic. How
Speaker 2: many nationwide injunctions were issued?
Speaker 3: My view is that there were not any until nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty three zero.
Speaker 2: Now fast forward, how many nationwide injunctions were issued in
Speaker 2: the entire twentieth century?
Speaker 3: It's a small number. I would I would think it
Speaker 3: would be a dozen. Giver take it's not large.
Speaker 2: Twenty seven actually, excluding Trump's first term. How many nationwide
Speaker 2: injunctions were issued in the last twenty years far more
Speaker 2: than that thirty two from twenty one to twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four against Biden, Obama and Bush thirty two. And how
Speaker 2: many nationwide injunctions have been issued in the last two
Speaker 2: months alone, there have been quite a few thirty seven.
Speaker 2: Let that sink in. There have been more nationwide injunctions
Speaker 2: in the past two months against President Trump than in
Speaker 2: the entire twentieth century. There have been more nationwide injunction
Speaker 2: against President Trump in the last two months than both
Speaker 2: terms of George W. Bush, both terms of Barack Obama,
Speaker 2: and Joe Biden's term. We saw during the Biden presidency
Speaker 2: law Fair indicting President Trump four times, using the machinery
Speaker 2: of justice to attack him, and that was an attack
Speaker 2: on democracy because democrats today hate democracy. Democrats today are
Speaker 2: angry at the voters for re electing Donald Trump and
Speaker 2: electing a Republican Senate in a Republican House, and they
Speaker 2: engaged in Lawfair to stop democracy from operating. Understand, this
Speaker 2: is the second phase of lawfair. Second chart. This is
Speaker 2: the second phase of lawfair. Now that their efforts to
Speaker 2: indict President Trump and stop the voters from re electing
Speaker 2: him have failed, they're going and seeking out individual radical
Speaker 2: judges to try to shut down policies. And they are
Speaker 2: forum shopping like crazy. Give me any loon judge put
Speaker 2: on the bench by Obama or Biden who disagrees with
Speaker 2: the policy. We just saw a judge flagrantly ignore US
Speaker 2: immigration law concerning TPS being revoked. US law explicitly said
Speaker 2: there's no judicial review for that. But hey, they found
Speaker 2: a judge who says, you know what, what we the
Speaker 2: Democrat Party, we are the party of illegal aliens. We
Speaker 2: are the party of murderers and rapists and gang members.
Speaker 2: And the Democrat Party exists here to fight to keep
Speaker 2: murderers and rapists and gang members in your communities. There's
Speaker 2: a reason the Democrat Party is at twenty six percent
Speaker 2: approval nationwide because they put radical policies ahead of rule
Speaker 2: of law nationwide. Injunctions are an abuse of power. It
Speaker 2: is the judiciary acting as policy deciders, and it is
Speaker 2: incumbent on this committee and this body to rein in
Speaker 2: the abuse of power from these unelected radical judges who
Speaker 2: are trying to overturn the election because they disagree with
Speaker 2: what the voters decided.
Speaker 1: So here's my question you just teased at the end,
Speaker 1: and that is it's our job to look at raining
Speaker 1: them in. How long does that take? Can it be
Speaker 1: done through legislation? What are the options here? And how
Speaker 1: quick can we get this under control?
Speaker 2: Well, it could be done quickly. There's legislation. In fact,
Speaker 2: there's legislation we were talking about at that hearing that
Speaker 2: Chuck Grassley's introduced that I'm a co sponsor of that
Speaker 2: would remove the power of a district judge to issue
Speaker 2: nationwide injunctions. I think that makes an awful lot of sense.
Speaker 2: Is that going to pass? Probably not, because for it
Speaker 2: to pass in the Senate would take sixty votes, which
Speaker 2: would mean we would need seven Democrats to support it.
Speaker 2: Every Democrat they're enthusiastic about this lawfare. They want to
Speaker 2: see more of it, so they are dug in. That
Speaker 2: remedy is not there. The other remedy that you and
Speaker 2: I have talked about before is impeachment. Impeachment, you can
Speaker 2: impeach a judge in the House with a majority vote
Speaker 2: to utter and eighteen votes. It may well make sense
Speaker 2: that that one or more of the most egregious district
Speaker 2: judges who are who are defying their oath of office,
Speaker 2: should and perhaps will be impeached by the House. However,
Speaker 2: if and when that happens, it'll come over to the
Speaker 2: Senate for the trial. And under the Constitution it takes
Speaker 2: two thirds to convict. That means we'd need Democrats, and
Speaker 2: the Democrats are not going to convict. There may be
Speaker 2: value in impeaching one or more of these judges anyway
Speaker 2: to highlight the utter, brazen lawlessness of it, and doing
Speaker 2: so would mean we could have a trial on the
Speaker 2: floor of the Senate to lay out just how lawless
Speaker 2: their conduct was. But the judge is not going to
Speaker 2: be removed because the Democrats are all in in support
Speaker 2: of illegal aliens and against the rule of law. That
Speaker 2: means the remedy are number one, the court of public
Speaker 2: opinion making people understand sure just what an abuse of
Speaker 2: power this is, and number two the appellate process, the
Speaker 2: courts of appeals and ultimately the Supreme Court. Now, I
Speaker 2: will say, immediately after I finished my questioning Amy Klobuchar
Speaker 2: spoke next, and I think my comments rattled her because
Speaker 2: she tried to respond, and I got to say what
Speaker 2: she was saying made so little sense. I couldn't resist
Speaker 2: jumping in and and and we had some real fireworks.
Speaker 2: So here, give a listen.
Speaker 5: And the only reason there's all these injunction, center Cruise,
Speaker 5: is because he's violating the constitution. Why would Trump appointed judges?
Speaker 2: Why don't you file him in red red districts?
Speaker 5: Senator cru Why what did you just say?
Speaker 2: Why don't you file him in red districts? Why are
Speaker 2: the Democratic tonator generals seeking out Senator Cruz left wing.
Speaker 5: Senor Cruse's activity in this I'm just gonna ask for
Speaker 5: a point of order. Clob center center, Moody.
Speaker 2: We have debates on this committee that that.
Speaker 5: Let's let her have her time and then we'll get
Speaker 5: back to that. If you want to wait, we'll get
Speaker 5: back to senator.
Speaker 2: Question ahead, choice, go ahead.
Speaker 5: So I was following Senator Cruise once again, but I
Speaker 5: will excuse me, I didn't hear you. What did you
Speaker 5: say to be following him? He and I have a
Speaker 5: permitting you your time to continue. You would be following
Speaker 5: him in order excuse me, go ahead, Senator klob during hearing,
Speaker 5: Go ahead, Satric what I'm rehiring to go ahead? And
Speaker 5: I will take more than my time since he's taken
Speaker 5: more than his time to yell at me.
Speaker 2: Good, I'm not yelling. I asked a question, Senator.
Speaker 5: Crmes, Please, I'll give you time.
Speaker 2: I do have to say, I've seen you yell. That
Speaker 2: was not yelling. I didn't raise my voice at all.
Speaker 2: And by the way, Amy Klobachar had no answer none.
Speaker 2: She's like, well, oh, these injunctions are issuing because everything
Speaker 2: he's doing is illegal. It's like, great, why don't they
Speaker 2: file him in red districts? Why are you seeking out
Speaker 2: the most left wing judges in the country who used
Speaker 2: to be radical activists, who were nominated because they're radical
Speaker 2: activists who used to work for the left wing groups
Speaker 2: that are now bringing the lawsuits. Why are you only
Speaker 2: filing them in their in their courts. If it was
Speaker 2: so clear, if it was such a slam dunk, you
Speaker 2: ought to be able to file them in in red
Speaker 2: districts and Nope, Nope, they ain't gonna do that. She
Speaker 2: had no answer whatsoever. Because this is about power and
Speaker 2: abuse power. This is not about the rule of law.
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