Speaker 1: Welcome. It is verdict for Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with
Speaker 1: you today. And if you heard the president while he
Speaker 1: was eating his ice cream, he wants you to know
Speaker 1: that you're crazy if you think the economy is bad.
Speaker 1: Take a listen. It's strong as hell. I'm eating an
Speaker 1: ice cream cone. That's your president joining me now. Center,
Speaker 1: Ted Cruse, Center, when you saw this, I'm sure you
Speaker 1: had to be shocked, like what world is he living in? Look,
Speaker 1: I want to say all the history teachers in America,
Speaker 1: they must have smiled because it's nice to see the
Speaker 1: President of the United States giving a shout out to
Speaker 1: Marie Antoinette. She does not get enough credit. And when
Speaker 1: she said let them eat cake, that was widely ridiculed.
Speaker 1: But but Joe Biden feels that same sentiment towards the
Speaker 1: American people. He has his ice cream cone. And so
Speaker 1: you know, if you're having trouble feeding your family, if
Speaker 1: you can't afford to fill your truck, well that's your problem.
Speaker 1: It is absurd and it demonstrates just how out of
Speaker 1: touch this administration is. Let me give you just some
Speaker 1: basic stats. Since Joe Biden became president, fuel oil is
Speaker 1: up fifty eight percent. Airline fares are up forty three percent,
Speaker 1: Eggs are up thirty one percent, gas is up eighteen percent,
Speaker 1: Electricity is up sixteen percent, Milk is up fifteen percent,
Speaker 1: groceries are up thirteen percent, baby food is up twelve percent, meat, poultry,
Speaker 1: and fish are up eight percent. And inflation overall is
Speaker 1: up eight point five percent. And Joe Biden says the
Speaker 1: economy's doing great, just so long as you don't have
Speaker 1: to buy anything. CBS News. Senator even came out on
Speaker 1: CBS this morning, and I think this tells you that
Speaker 1: they see what's about to happen in this country. They
Speaker 1: had a report that said sixty five percent of Americans
Speaker 1: say the economy is getting worse under Joe Biden. And
Speaker 1: that is a plurality of Americans are now blaming Democrats. Listen,
Speaker 1: look a worsening views of the economy, Nate who there's
Speaker 1: two thirds of people say it is getting worse. And
Speaker 1: let me show you why. One of the ways people
Speaker 1: interact with the economy is gas prices. You're paying more.
Speaker 1: You're seeing those big signs up. Back in August, there
Speaker 1: was some optimism. Majority said well, okay, they're going down,
Speaker 1: but look at this now, sixty three percent say gas
Speaker 1: prices are going up in their area. So I ask people, okay, well,
Speaker 1: let's turn to politics there, who do you blame for this?
Speaker 1: What's the reason? Well, look, there's more folks now who
Speaker 1: say that Democratic policies have harmed the economy than helped it.
Speaker 1: It's not the only reason they see for this, but
Speaker 1: they're reasoning out of results, right, They're filling a pinch.
Speaker 1: Parties in power, okay, must be doing something wrong. And
Speaker 1: then by contrast, they think, well, Republican policies more likely
Speaker 1: would help. I love the last part of that center.
Speaker 1: They said the majority of Americans now say Republican policies
Speaker 1: would in fact help. Now, the Democrats are out there
Speaker 1: and the talking point that they're giving Americans is, if
Speaker 1: you vote for us, we're going to fix the problem
Speaker 1: with inflation. How is that possible? One of the ones
Speaker 1: that created this economic crisis, and they're the ones are
Speaker 1: in charge of the House and the Senate and the
Speaker 1: White House. Why would you give them a second chance
Speaker 1: when they've already destroyed the economy with the first chance. Well, Ben,
Speaker 1: you're exactly right, and I will point out that that
Speaker 1: Raphael Warnock got asked that exact question on the campaign trail,
Speaker 1: says said, look, Democrats have been in charge of the
Speaker 1: White House, the Senate, the House, all of the levers
Speaker 1: of government. You have it fixed. Inflation. Inflation got much
Speaker 1: worse on your watch. Why should anyone trust you? And
Speaker 1: he sat there like a deer in headlight, silent, and
Speaker 1: then finally the only answer he could stammer out is, well, well,
Speaker 1: we're instill in the middle of a COVID pandemic, which
Speaker 1: is complete garbage. And I would point out one person
Speaker 1: who said the pandemic was over was Joseph Robinette Biden
Speaker 1: Junior on a TV interview, so their talking points are shattered.
Speaker 1: But it is interesting. You know, just today Biden tweeted out,
Speaker 1: I'm going to read you what he tweet did. He
Speaker 1: tweeted quote, if Republicans in Congress get their way, prices
Speaker 1: will go up and inflation will get worse. It's that simple.
Speaker 1: And I got to give them credit for one thing,
Speaker 1: and it's utter hutzpah, which is what he is saying
Speaker 1: is so bizarrely counterfactual. Two years ago, when you did
Speaker 1: have a Republican president in office, we had two dollars gasoline.
Speaker 1: Now in a lot of parts of the country it's
Speaker 1: five to six seven dollars a gallon. Two years ago,
Speaker 1: you could get a home mortgage at two three percent,
Speaker 1: now at six seven percent and heading up. Two years
Speaker 1: ago the price of everything was much much lower. And
Speaker 1: the cause of it that this is where democrats are
Speaker 1: counting on economic ignorance they hope from the voters and
Speaker 1: active complicity from the media. Where does inflation come from
Speaker 1: it It has one source, and one source only. Milton
Speaker 1: Friedman put this beautifully a long time ago. Inflation comes
Speaker 1: when the federal government spends too much money. When it
Speaker 1: prints money it doesn't have. When it spends money it
Speaker 1: doesn't have it. And I'll explain it in a really
Speaker 1: intuitive way. Look, all dollars are or a measure of value,
Speaker 1: so that we can know the relative value of one
Speaker 1: good versus another. Think, before we had currency, we had barter.
Speaker 1: And if you if you were growing chickens and I
Speaker 1: was growing wheat, and you decided you wanted some wheat,
Speaker 1: you brought three chickens, and I gave you a bushel
Speaker 1: of wheat. That was less than convenient to carry three
Speaker 1: chickens with you. So yeah, although I will say for
Speaker 1: the record, Ben usually has three chickens on him wherever
Speaker 1: he goes. You got you gotta have that backup cash
Speaker 1: when you need it, my friend. Look, I mean, how
Speaker 1: do you think you made it through Greek life at
Speaker 1: old miss? I mean, three chickens are helpful? Ha ha ha.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you get away with that one. Okay,
Speaker 1: I've got but but just know it will come back
Speaker 1: one day. We're talking idly style, I'm gonna hold back.
Speaker 1: But look, money then arose. All right, if we have
Speaker 1: a standard, let's say a coin, maybe we know that
Speaker 1: it is one coin for a bushel of wheat and
Speaker 1: two coins for a chicken. And the coin is just
Speaker 1: a relative unit of measurement of one good versus another.
Speaker 1: And so let's get fast forward to today. Suppose the
Speaker 1: price of an apple is a dollar and the price
Speaker 1: of a banana is two dollars. The dollar is giving
Speaker 1: you the relative value of how much more apples there are,
Speaker 1: how much more people like bananas? If you double the
Speaker 1: number of dollars in the world, If you suddenly print
Speaker 1: twice as many dollars as a simple rough back of
Speaker 1: the nonvolute math Suddenly an apple will be worth two
Speaker 1: dollars and a banana will be worth four dollars because
Speaker 1: they're twice as many dollars. And what the money is
Speaker 1: showing is just the relative value of one good or another.
Speaker 1: Why do we have rampant inflation? Because the Democrats have
Speaker 1: run the printing presses is like crazy, and they've spent
Speaker 1: over twelve trillion dollars and that's produced the inflation. And
Speaker 1: what they're counting on is that some voters who may
Speaker 1: not pay attention, may not know that, and the media
Speaker 1: will lie to them about it. But I think the
Speaker 1: voters are a lot smarter. You know what you just
Speaker 1: played a moment ago. People have basic common sense. They
Speaker 1: recognize this stuff wasn't happening until the Democrats took over,
Speaker 1: and it really is making life harder for people across
Speaker 1: the country right now. You mentioned the lie a moment ago.
Speaker 1: This was literally at the White House press briefing, and
Speaker 1: this is what they said today when we talk about
Speaker 1: inflation gas prices, that's been something that's the American people
Speaker 1: have seen for the past several months, several weeks, and
Speaker 1: has costs has been coming down. That's a lie. The
Speaker 1: costs have not been coming down. And even Bloomberg today
Speaker 1: Sender said the odds of a recession hit one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: In a blow to this idea that are coming down,
Speaker 1: they said today they describe this as a blow to
Speaker 1: the presents economic messaging ahead of the November elections, because
Speaker 1: they said, the US economy is effectively certain to enter
Speaker 1: a recession in the next twelve months according to model
Speaker 1: projections from Bloomberg economists. That is clear we are headed there.
Speaker 1: And yet she sets from the White House podium today, No, no, no,
Speaker 1: prices are actually coming down. Where is my question her?
Speaker 1: Where are they coming down? So there are a couple
Speaker 1: of things going on there. Number one, even Bloomberg, which
Speaker 1: is acknowledging that it's one hundred percent we're headed to
Speaker 1: a recession. Even that is pro Biden Democrats spin, why
Speaker 1: because we are in a recession right now? Right now,
Speaker 1: we are already in a recession. Why what is a
Speaker 1: recession defined as? What has it been refined at? Defined
Speaker 1: as for a long long time, two consecutive quarters of
Speaker 1: negative economic growth We've already had that we are in
Speaker 1: that this instant. The Biden White House tried to redefine
Speaker 1: what the word recession means. But even under their redefined terms,
Speaker 1: now nobody can credibly say okay, well, even under their
Speaker 1: redefined terms, which is basically when a bunch of government
Speaker 1: economists sit around in a room and say, yep, this
Speaker 1: is a recession, they've gotten to the point that even
Speaker 1: the people who are on their payroll can't lie about
Speaker 1: it anymore and say anything other than this is a
Speaker 1: recession because of the policies we've seen. Now. Secondly, what
Speaker 1: Karene John Pierre is saying is she's focusing on gas prices,
Speaker 1: and what happened is for the first year plus of
Speaker 1: the Biden administrations, gas prices spiked enormously, grew more than
Speaker 1: one hundred percent, went from two dollars and thirty eight
Speaker 1: cents when Biden came in to four and a half
Speaker 1: and in places like Nevada and California to six and
Speaker 1: seven dollars a gallon. Now, it is true that in
Speaker 1: the summer gas prices dropped a little bit, they had
Speaker 1: a little bit of a decline, and the Biden White
Speaker 1: House immediately took a big victory laugh and said, see,
Speaker 1: they're not as horribly high as they were. A couple
Speaker 1: of months ago. They're still much much, much higher than
Speaker 1: they were when Biden became president. Now even that little
Speaker 1: dip has turned around, they're going back up again. And listen,
Speaker 1: as we talked on the last podcast, Biden has been
Speaker 1: rendered utterly naked and exposed when the sadis made clear
Speaker 1: that he went and said, will you please give us
Speaker 1: a price break on oil for one month until election day?
Speaker 1: The day after election day, jack the hell out of it.
Speaker 1: We don't care. We're good with ten dollars gasolene. He
Speaker 1: didn't say that part, but that's implied, and it makes
Speaker 1: clear that when the White House Press Secretary is talking,
Speaker 1: she's just spinning and she's not focused on It is
Speaker 1: not a policy objective for this administration to lower the
Speaker 1: price of gasoline going forward. What's a policy objective is
Speaker 1: to have a momentary dip right before election day so
Speaker 1: that they hope voters are full tooled that this is
Speaker 1: something other than exactly what Joe Biden and the Green
Speaker 1: New Deal Democrats want, which is gasoline unaffordable because they
Speaker 1: want you to sell your truck and buy a little Prius,
Speaker 1: and they're going to make your life miserable until you
Speaker 1: do that. You mentioned policies. One of the big policies
Speaker 1: that the President talked about today is a lasted effort,
Speaker 1: I think to buy votes. And there's so many American
Speaker 1: center that I think are still confused on the legality
Speaker 1: of this student loan forgiveness program. They announce this website,
Speaker 1: they announce you can get started on it, and I
Speaker 1: know many conservatives don't understand. One, how does the president
Speaker 1: have the power to do this without Congress being involved?
Speaker 1: And two can the president decide because based on what
Speaker 1: they've been told, they're said they truly believe the president
Speaker 1: can't just forgive this private debt, which is what student
Speaker 1: loan debt is. It's my debt, not the public's debt.
Speaker 1: Yet they've started this website, they're moving forward with this.
Speaker 1: It's going to add to inflation and our deficit. How
Speaker 1: are they able to do this if in fact it
Speaker 1: is illegal? Or does the president have the right to
Speaker 1: decide what debts he wants to pay off in the
Speaker 1: private sector? Yeah, So there are two different questions that
Speaker 1: are both relevant. Number one, is what Biden is doing legal?
Speaker 1: And number two will the judiciary? Will the courts step
Speaker 1: in and stop it? And those are separate questions. The
Speaker 1: first question, I think the answer is clearly no, that
Speaker 1: the actions of the Biden administration are contrary to federal law. Now,
Speaker 1: the way the Biden administration justified this student lint loan
Speaker 1: giveaway is they based it on a statute that Congress
Speaker 1: passed after nine to eleven, twenty plus years ago, that
Speaker 1: gave the Secretary of Education some authority to forgive debts
Speaker 1: for soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines their family.
Speaker 1: So for people that were actually fighting al Qaeda that
Speaker 1: we're going and enlisted and we're fighting to defend this
Speaker 1: nation against terrorism. Congress passed a bill called the Heroes
Speaker 1: Act that gave some authority to forgive their student loan debts.
Speaker 1: What the Biden Department of Justice did in an opinion
Speaker 1: that I've read that the opinion it's from the Office
Speaker 1: Illegal Counsel, which is the office and the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice charged with giving authoritative legal determinations from the entire
Speaker 1: executive branch. And it has been headed by some of
Speaker 1: the greatest legal minds in history, including Anton and Scalia,
Speaker 1: including William Rehnquist, including my former boss, Chuck Cooper, including
Speaker 1: Ted Olsen who was George W. Bush's solicitor general. All
Speaker 1: of them have headed OLC. They the Biden OLC concluded
Speaker 1: that under this statute they could interpret essentially the families
Speaker 1: of servicemen and women to mean everybody. And that's the
Speaker 1: really weak legal hook they used to argue that he
Speaker 1: can forgive student loans for everyone making under one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty five thousand a year. Now, I believe if
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court gets before at the straightforward question, does
Speaker 1: Joe Biden have the statutory authority to forgive what could
Speaker 1: be a trillion dollars or more of debt to the
Speaker 1: United States? And one point on this you said they're
Speaker 1: private debts. Unfortunately, one of the things the Democrats did
Speaker 1: under Obama is they nationalize the student loan industry. So
Speaker 1: they used to be when you and I took student loans.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I had a ton of student loans.
Speaker 1: I repaid my staff. Yeah, I paid it. I was
Speaker 1: I think thirty eight thirty nine years old when I
Speaker 1: paid them off. I paid them for nearly twenty years.
Speaker 1: I had about one hundred thousand dollars in student loans.
Speaker 1: When you and I took them out, you would take
Speaker 1: them from a private bank. Under Obama, the federal government
Speaker 1: essentially federalized it all. So it's it's the US taxpayers,
Speaker 1: it's it's to whom the debt is owed. And so
Speaker 1: essentially what Biden is doing is giving away between somewhere
Speaker 1: between five hundred billion and a trillion dollars in the
Speaker 1: estimates vary. That will drive inflation, it will make a
Speaker 1: cost higher for everyone. I think if the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: gets to the question is it legal, I think they
Speaker 1: will conclude no. I think it would be a six
Speaker 1: three ruling. Clearly, under the terms of the statute, Biden
Speaker 1: can't do it. Now here's the challenge. It is not
Speaker 1: clear any court will determine the merits of the question
Speaker 1: because it is a real challenge to find a plaintiff
Speaker 1: that has standing to bring the lawsuit. And this is
Speaker 1: where it gets a little bit complicated. But the basic
Speaker 1: principle is under the Constitution, our judiciary exists to resolve
Speaker 1: what are called cases and controversies, so actual disputes. It's
Speaker 1: got to be a real fight the judiciary. You can't
Speaker 1: go to the court and just say, hey, answer this
Speaker 1: legal question for me. I'd like to know the answer
Speaker 1: to is what the President did on Tuesday or not.
Speaker 1: Our courts don't do that. It's got to be an
Speaker 1: actual case or controversy. That usually means something like a
Speaker 1: civil suit. Say you and I get in a car wreck,
Speaker 1: I hit your car, you sue me. Okay, that's an
Speaker 1: actual case or controversy. And if I've hit your car,
Speaker 1: you are a plaintiff with a concrete injury. In order
Speaker 1: to have standing, you have to have a concrete and
Speaker 1: particularized injury. There are a bunch of lawsuits that have
Speaker 1: been filed, but the real challenge is are the courts
Speaker 1: going to conclude any of the plaintiffs who brought the
Speaker 1: lawsuit have an injury to them in particular, not an abstract.
Speaker 1: This is illegal and I don't like it, but I
Speaker 1: ben Ferguson have been hurt by that decision. If they
Speaker 1: can get overstanding, I think the courts will strike it down.
Speaker 1: But I also think there's a chance that they don't
Speaker 1: find a plaintiff who has standing, and that's clearly what
Speaker 1: the Biden administration is rolling the dice and gambling off.
Speaker 1: So then here's my next question. I would argue, and
Speaker 1: this is where I love that you're an attorney that
Speaker 1: understands us and a senator that understands the laws. I
Speaker 1: would say, well, I was hurt because I worked my
Speaker 1: tail off to pay my student loans off. When I
Speaker 1: got married, I said to my wife, we're gonna pay
Speaker 1: her student loans off. It hurt our family significantly economically
Speaker 1: because that money that we paid off. I'd love to
Speaker 1: have it back now if my tax dollars in theory,
Speaker 1: we're gonna pay it off anyway. Is that a damage
Speaker 1: or is that pretty much good luck? But the court
Speaker 1: would not say that's a reason to bring it forward
Speaker 1: to to a court of law to say your damages
Speaker 1: are You're a responsible American, you paid off your student debt.
Speaker 1: So as a general matter, the answer is no, that
Speaker 1: courts would not conclude that's a sufficient injury for standing.
Speaker 1: And for a long time the courts have said there
Speaker 1: is not taxpayer standing, which means you or I, because
Speaker 1: we're taxpayers, we can't go file a lawsuit and say, hey,
Speaker 1: the government is spending money on X, and X is
Speaker 1: illegal because if you could, everyone would have standing to
Speaker 1: challenge just about everything. And so it starts to become
Speaker 1: much more a system where courts are just resolving legal
Speaker 1: questions rather than actual disputes and cases and controversies. So
Speaker 1: the argument that you and I and millions of people
Speaker 1: have that we were responsible and paid off our debts
Speaker 1: and it's not fair what's happening here. As a general matter,
Speaker 1: the courts have not concluded someone has standing to say, hey,
Speaker 1: it's not fair that the government gave that person a
Speaker 1: benefit that they didn't give me, unless there is a
Speaker 1: reason for that distinction that somehow violates the law. So
Speaker 1: there are different groups that potentially have standing. Number one,
Speaker 1: you could find plaintiffs that say, have student loans right
Speaker 1: now and that have earn one hundred and twenty six thousand,
Speaker 1: so they're ineligible, and they perhaps could argue this is
Speaker 1: an illegal benefit to someone similarly situated that advantages them
Speaker 1: over themselves. That's a tough standing argument. I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: it's impossible, but a lot of courts would throw that out.
Speaker 1: That's one possible plane iff. Another possible plane iff would
Speaker 1: be either an individual or a group of students, either
Speaker 1: current students or people who are applying to colleges who
Speaker 1: say the effect of this trillion dollar giveaway is it's
Speaker 1: going to drive up the cost of tuition for everyone.
Speaker 1: The universities are going to say, great, let's charge them
Speaker 1: even more. That is true as an economic matter, it
Speaker 1: is going to drive up the cost of tuition for everyone.
Speaker 1: The question is would a court determine that that was
Speaker 1: specific and concrete enough to give you standing. The best
Speaker 1: theory I've heard for who might have standing to challenge
Speaker 1: this is the loan processor. So their private company that
Speaker 1: are in the business of processing these loans, and with
Speaker 1: a trillion dollars of debts disappearing, those loan processors will
Speaker 1: make significantly less money. That is a concrete injury sufficient
Speaker 1: to give standing. The question now is a political one.
Speaker 1: If your business is being a loan processor and the
Speaker 1: federal government is your principal client, suing the federal government
Speaker 1: is a good way to piss off your principal clients.
Speaker 1: So the question is going to be are there going
Speaker 1: to be loan processors willing to bring those lawsuits? I
Speaker 1: hope so, but that's still very much up in the air.
Speaker 1: So then that brings me in my final question, and
Speaker 1: this is the one where everybody's saying, all right, let's
Speaker 1: say that we can't go down the legal road the
Speaker 1: way you described it, and it's probably not going to work.
Speaker 1: Then the question is, if you become the majority in
Speaker 1: the Senate and we gain control of the House, is
Speaker 1: there a way to stop this or is the damage
Speaker 1: already done. Well, it's a good I certainly think we
Speaker 1: should tee up a vote and get everyone on record
Speaker 1: on this, because I got to say, as a matter
Speaker 1: of fairness, this decision really is reverse Robin Hood. You know,
Speaker 1: Robin Hood famously took from the rich and gave from
Speaker 1: the poor. What Joe Biden the Democrats are doing is
Speaker 1: exactly the opposite. They're taking from the poor and working
Speaker 1: class and giving to the rich. They're taking from truck
Speaker 1: drivers and welders and cops and firefighters and waiters and
Speaker 1: waitresses and blue collar workers, everyone who didn't go to college.
Speaker 1: They're saying, you know what, We're gonna take a trill
Speaker 1: you to your tax dollars, and we're gonna give it
Speaker 1: to a twenty three year old Brown University graduate who
Speaker 1: majored in you know, French poetry, and we're just going
Speaker 1: to give that money to college graduates who are significantly
Speaker 1: richer than you are. Why. Because Biden and the Democrats
Speaker 1: want to buy their votes, and there's a there's a
Speaker 1: real unfairness there. So I hope when we have a majority,
Speaker 1: we tee up a vote and get everyone on record
Speaker 1: on it. Whether Congress is able to reverse it is
Speaker 1: going to be a harder challenge because presumably any legislation
Speaker 1: number one would face a Democrat filibuster in the Senate.
Speaker 1: So even if we take a majority, we're not going
Speaker 1: to have sixty in the Senate, so the Democrats would
Speaker 1: be able to filibuster it, and even if we passed it,
Speaker 1: Biden would be able to veto it. And so we
Speaker 1: can tee it up as a fight next year with majorities,
Speaker 1: but we need to win the White House before we
Speaker 1: have the ability to actually make a meaningful impact on
Speaker 1: this decision. It's frustrating for many Americans because it is
Speaker 1: buying votes, and that's the part that's so frustrating, because
Speaker 1: you're supposed to be illegal to do it, and yet
Speaker 1: this present is somehow pulling it off this way and
Speaker 1: trying to get rid of a trillion dollars in debt. Senator,
Speaker 1: I want to get to two other stories that we've
Speaker 1: highlighted here over the last couple of episodes, and for
Speaker 1: people that are listening right now, make sure you go
Speaker 1: back and listen. You may not realize this. We're doing
Speaker 1: three podcasts a week, so make sure you get that
Speaker 1: subscriber download button. Most importantly, please write us a five
Speaker 1: star review wherever you're listening to this podcast as well.
Speaker 1: But these two stories that we talked about. Number one,
Speaker 1: the DEM's not wanting to debate, and this scares me
Speaker 1: for our democracy that we're going to just have democrats
Speaker 1: that realize debating is not going to help them in
Speaker 1: an election. It's only going to hurt them because they
Speaker 1: can't stand up and defend their own stances on the issues.
Speaker 1: But there's an interesting thing that happened in a race
Speaker 1: that you've gotten involved in, where you had a Democrat
Speaker 1: the very last minute who had agreed to debate just
Speaker 1: said screw it, I'm out, I'm not debating. And the
Speaker 1: reason why she didn't want to debate was also another
Speaker 1: issue that we just talked about. Give us more detail
Speaker 1: into this. Democrats running from the debate stage. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: we had two of the stories. On our last podcast intersect.
Speaker 1: We talked about Democrats refusing to debate. Since we did
Speaker 1: that podcast. Yet another Democrat is backed away from a debate.
Speaker 1: Abigail Spanberger, who is an incumbent Democrat in Virginia, very
Speaker 1: vulnerable democrat. I think she's going to lose in November.
Speaker 1: Her opponent as a candidate named yes Leie Vega. Yeslie
Speaker 1: is someone who I know well. Yesli is a fantastic candidate.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you about yes Lei Vega. Yeslie is
Speaker 1: the daughter of immigrants from El Salvador. Yeslie's brother was
Speaker 1: shot and nearly killed by MS thirteen. So when it
Speaker 1: comes to illegal immigration, she knows firsthand just how horrific
Speaker 1: it is. It is personal to her. Yeslie is married
Speaker 1: to a soldier. The two of them were stationed abroad
Speaker 1: and Korea. She is the mom of two teenage kids,
Speaker 1: and she's a police officer. When her brother was shot,
Speaker 1: she was so upset she went and signed up. She's
Speaker 1: been a cop for over a decade and she is
Speaker 1: a fireball. She is a fighter. So Abigail Spanburger, the
Speaker 1: coming Democrat, didn't want to debate her, but agreed to
Speaker 1: accept it a debate. And then the other story we
Speaker 1: talked about last week, this Virginia delegate who introduced legislation
Speaker 1: in the Virginia legislature to make it a felony if
Speaker 1: a parent refuses to transition your child from one sex
Speaker 1: to another, refuses to give surgery, refuses to accept if
Speaker 1: you're a little boy or a little girl comes in
Speaker 1: and says that they want to be the opposite. If
Speaker 1: a parent says, no, I'm not going to take you
Speaker 1: to a doctor and sterilize you and engage in permanent
Speaker 1: life altering surgeries, the state of Virginia, if this legislation passed,
Speaker 1: would make that a felony and lock the parent up. Well,
Speaker 1: that left wing Democrat happens to be a big surrogate
Speaker 1: for Abigail Spamberger. And suddenly Abigail Spamberger is going, oh, crap,
Speaker 1: if I go to a debate, they're going to ask
Speaker 1: me about this crazy position, and I've either got to
Speaker 1: distance myself from my supporter or defend this lunacy. And
Speaker 1: so what did she do. She's trying to back out
Speaker 1: of the debate. And I got to say, there's a
Speaker 1: reason democrats don't want to debate. They can't defend their
Speaker 1: policies because they're indefensible. The idea that you would lock
Speaker 1: parents up for refusing to mutilate your child. It is
Speaker 1: it defies words. And so that's why this Democrat doesn't
Speaker 1: want to justify. When you see them not debating, and
Speaker 1: I do think this is a trend. It early on,
Speaker 1: your initial reaction is, oh, look, they can't even defend themselves.
Speaker 1: This is great. But I think what we're seeing and
Speaker 1: where we're moving forward is I worry about a day
Speaker 1: when a Democratic candidates running for the White House and says,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to debate the Republican and then we
Speaker 1: lose all debates in this country, and debates wing elections.
Speaker 1: When you were running for president, one of the things
Speaker 1: that I think, and when you're running for the Senate,
Speaker 1: the debates were you were you your place to shine,
Speaker 1: and they make people's political careers. And when you up
Speaker 1: against big money and big donors, the debate stage cannot
Speaker 1: hide you. Right. You can have your messaging, you can
Speaker 1: buy a million ads, you can spend one hundred million
Speaker 1: dollars on ads, but the debate stage is what I
Speaker 1: refer to as the grand equalizer. It's a moment where
Speaker 1: you can't hide behind the the you know, the the
Speaker 1: TV screen to the voters. Any longer, and you're exposed
Speaker 1: your weaknesses if you're not a great candidate. And now
Speaker 1: We're at a point in this country where I'm worried
Speaker 1: it's going to be totally normal for Democrats say we
Speaker 1: will never debate a Republican again. Look, I am very
Speaker 1: concerned about that, and you're right. The next step is
Speaker 1: for Democrats to elevate that to the presidential level. Joe
Speaker 1: Biden basically hidden the basement the entire campaign, but he
Speaker 1: did at least show up to the debates. He didn't
Speaker 1: take that final step, And I will say that is
Speaker 1: another factor. Listen, I've done a lot of debates, a
Speaker 1: lot of political debates in my time, and going back
Speaker 1: to the presidential race, in any campaign, but particularly a
Speaker 1: national campaign, a presidential campaign, the corporate media has enormous power.
Speaker 1: On any given day, whatever message the corporate media tries
Speaker 1: to carry, decides to carry, that dominates the airwaves, and
Speaker 1: that typically favors It favors whoever the candidate is with
Speaker 1: the most name ide, whoever the candidate is that conventional
Speaker 1: wisdom is is supposed to win, or whoever the candidate
Speaker 1: is that the corporate media wants to win. For any
Speaker 1: other candidate. It is incredibly difficult to break through that
Speaker 1: giant wall of constant narratives set by the corrupt corporate media.
Speaker 1: Debates are one of the very very few moments where
Speaker 1: you can break through, where you can actually have a
Speaker 1: message heard that the corporate media doesn't want you to hear.
Speaker 1: And it's why this is very different ferential on a
Speaker 1: partisan line. Listen, if you're a Democrat, the media carry
Speaker 1: your water every day, they carry your message. They are
Speaker 1: your propagandists, particularly today, so many Democrats never face difficult questions.
Speaker 1: The only place they might face a difficult question is
Speaker 1: on a debate stage, where at least their opponent can
Speaker 1: ask the question. Ideally a moderator will too, but a
Speaker 1: lot of the moderators are wildly biased. But on a
Speaker 1: debate stage, at least the opponent can turn directly to
Speaker 1: a Democrat candidate and say, you voted for X, you did,
Speaker 1: why your position is hurting people? Give me your answer.
Speaker 1: And so the decision to say we're going to avoid
Speaker 1: debates as Democrats saying we will not answer questions, that's
Speaker 1: a really dangerous shift going forward, because there really is
Speaker 1: nothing like a debate to cut through whatever the established
Speaker 1: corporate media narrative is, which brings me to my last question.
Speaker 1: There's a big debate that you're going to be having
Speaker 1: on Monday. The View took a shot at you today
Speaker 1: saying the only time conservatives will come on our show
Speaker 1: is when they want to sell a book. Yes, you
Speaker 1: have a book out, that's exactly why. By the way,
Speaker 1: the View is having you on their show. But I
Speaker 1: want people to listen to what the View said today
Speaker 1: and then I want to get your reaction to it
Speaker 1: and set your DVR because this coming Monday, Senator Cruze
Speaker 1: is going to be on the View. It will be fireworks.
Speaker 1: I've got my money on you listen to this. And hey,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't turn people away except a fair
Speaker 1: election deniers. Right, Well, no, I think we don't turn
Speaker 1: to election deniers away either, because, as you said, people
Speaker 1: need to hear where people are coming from. And if
Speaker 1: that's what see, this is the problem with it. We
Speaker 1: have to we have to give you. We have to
Speaker 1: give you. He's been enough, I don't know, and he
Speaker 1: has just take him on the problem. Yes, take him on.
Speaker 1: But you see, you haven't been here before. What tends
Speaker 1: to happen when your guys come is they don't come
Speaker 1: to talk to us. Oftentimes they come to sell a book.
Speaker 1: They don't like to come to just talk to us. Also,
Speaker 1: that is what I want to quick thing. No you can't.
Speaker 1: Can you really fast to a really really just go quick?
Speaker 1: There's talking Trump world that Carry Lake is going to
Speaker 1: be his running mate. That's how much the Trump base
Speaker 1: loves her, which is horrifying. But go ahead. I love
Speaker 1: that last part and I left in there because the
Speaker 1: fake Republican on the panel is telling you that Carry
Speaker 1: Lake is horrifying. And then you hear on a Navarro
Speaker 1: they're saying, Oh, I'm going to bring it on. Senator.
Speaker 1: You're not one to shy away from a grand debate.
Speaker 1: That's why you're going on the show. Yet they accuse
Speaker 1: you and others of shying away from the debate when
Speaker 1: you're literally showing up to debate the entire hostile panel. Well,
Speaker 1: I do find it amusing that the that they're common
Speaker 1: is let's take him on. Yes, let's take him on.
Speaker 1: You know, you know that's the fair and impartial journalism
Speaker 1: we have today. They are rich, out of touch leftists,
Speaker 1: and I fully expect that they're just going to scream
Speaker 1: and yell at me for the entire interview. That's fine.
Speaker 1: I assume none of them will have read my book.
Speaker 1: None of them care to read the book, none of
Speaker 1: them care to hear an opposing point of view, and
Speaker 1: their objective is just going to be to attack, and
Speaker 1: I assume to attack in a pretty nasty manner. That
Speaker 1: that's fine. I'm actually eager to have conversations about actual
Speaker 1: substance and facts because I think the American people deserve that.
Speaker 1: And and we'll see if any of that happens on Monday.
Speaker 1: I hope it will. I can't say I'm filled with
Speaker 1: excessive optimism that that we will have a civil, respectful
Speaker 1: conversation on the merits, but but one can always hope. Look,
Speaker 1: I think these debates are important. Set your DVR. You
Speaker 1: will see the Center Ted Cruise do what he does
Speaker 1: so brilliantly. Center. It's always a pleasure hanging out with you.
Speaker 1: And for everybody listening, reminder, we do this three days
Speaker 1: a week now, so make sure you get that subscriber
Speaker 1: auto download button so that you get every episode of
Speaker 1: Verdict as it comes out, and we will see you
Speaker 1: back here in a couple of days.