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Speaker 1: enter code Verdict. Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Speaker 1: I am Michael Knowles, Senator. I saw you trending on
Speaker 1: Twitter today. I say, what has Senator CRUs done? Now?
Speaker 1: And I kid you not. The description says Senator Cruz
Speaker 1: gets into a fight with big Burn. What is happening? Well,
Speaker 1: I guess it's a sign that I had too much
Speaker 1: time on my hands yesterday afternoon. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: important to take on the muppets that are destroying America.
Speaker 1: And there are furry puppets being controlled, being controlled by dark,
Speaker 1: ominous forces that are really a danger to our liberty. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, we might sound like we're joking about this,
Speaker 1: but there actually are furree puppets being controlled by dark,
Speaker 1: ominous forces, because we're not talking about doctor Fauci. We're not.
Speaker 1: That's un tootally. We would never say that about the
Speaker 1: good doctor Applicable though it may be. The muppets are
Speaker 1: actually being used as a mouthpiece right now to persuade
Speaker 1: children to get the vactor that we're talking about kids
Speaker 1: between the ages of five and eleven, to go get
Speaker 1: the COVID vaccine. Well, look that that's exactly right. And
Speaker 1: when it comes to vaccine, it ought to be your choice.
Speaker 1: You ought to be the one making that decision. And
Speaker 1: what we're seeing from Joe Biden, what we're seeing from
Speaker 1: a lot of big businesses, what we're seeing from sports
Speaker 1: leagues is they want to use government force to force
Speaker 1: you to comply. And when it comes to kids, I
Speaker 1: think that's really pernicious. So, you know, a couple of
Speaker 1: days ago, Big Bird tweeted out, I just got the
Speaker 1: COVID vaccine and boyd as my wing hurt. And and
Speaker 1: you know, it's a tweet sent out directed at kids,
Speaker 1: and listen, on one level, it's Big Bird, but but
Speaker 1: you know, and so I responded on my phone and
Speaker 1: I said, government propaganda directed at your five year old
Speaker 1: and I gotta say Michael's it's an amazing thing. Liberals
Speaker 1: I think are genuinely like mentally ill on open border,
Speaker 1: two million people crossing illegally. They don't care a disastrous
Speaker 1: retreat from Afghanistan, surrender, giving eighty billion dollars in military
Speaker 1: equipment to the Taliban. They don't care, skyrocketing inflation, they
Speaker 1: don't care. All the disasters that are happening, none of
Speaker 1: them matter. But you mess with Big Bird. Holy crap
Speaker 1: that they lost it. I mean, we're seeing lefties. I
Speaker 1: just initially intended a smartass tweet. I was driving along
Speaker 1: and saw it and just thought it was kind of dumb.
Speaker 1: And then the reaction of the left. This has been
Speaker 1: on ABC News, on NBC News, on CBS, the Washington Post,
Speaker 1: like the entire corrupt corporate media is surrounding Big Bird.
Speaker 1: They're protected the big fella. And you also apparently had,
Speaker 1: you know, tweets coming out from Elmo, you had tweets
Speaker 1: coming out from Oscar the Grouch. Now pause for a second.
Speaker 1: Would you really take vaccination advice from somebody who lives
Speaker 1: in a trash can? I mean, that's just not a
Speaker 1: safe place to get needles and you got to wonder
Speaker 1: about that. It does not seem conducive to public health.
Speaker 1: It most assuredly is not. And the entire thing is
Speaker 1: driven by I don't get the left that wants to
Speaker 1: control you and force you to take the vaccine. If
Speaker 1: you want to take the vaccine, make a decision and
Speaker 1: take it. If you don't want to take it, don't
Speaker 1: take it. And with your kids, if you decide you
Speaker 1: want your kids to get the vaccine, that's your right.
Speaker 1: You ought to be able to make that decision, but
Speaker 1: you also ought to be able to make the decision
Speaker 1: with your five year old that, gosh, maybe this isn't
Speaker 1: the right decision for a five year old. That the
Speaker 1: cost benefit analysis, the risk for a child of getting
Speaker 1: seriously ill from COVID is very very low. The risks
Speaker 1: of unknown side effects from a new and experimental vaccine,
Speaker 1: we don't know what those are. I think parents can
Speaker 1: make that determination. And it is bizarre to see the
Speaker 1: democratic complex saying you don't have a right to make
Speaker 1: your choices, you don't have a right to make choices
Speaker 1: for your kids. Well, it's that last part that I
Speaker 1: think is what's so pernicious about this muppet assault you know,
Speaker 1: propaganda assault for the COVID vaccine because ninety nine percent
Speaker 1: plus of the viewers of Sesame Street are children. And
Speaker 1: maybe you've got a parent watching too, or walking into
Speaker 1: the room or something. But this was not a message
Speaker 1: going out saying, hey, parents, you really should vaccinate your kids.
Speaker 1: And here are the reasons why this was going over
Speaker 1: the heads of parents, going directly to the kids. That
Speaker 1: seems really ugly, It seems disordered, and I know that
Speaker 1: beyond the cartoons and the puppets, you're actually bringing this
Speaker 1: fight to Capitol Hill to try to put some teeth
Speaker 1: in it, to stop these mandates for five and six
Speaker 1: year olds to get the faucciogi. No, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: So I've filed legislation. I filed legislation banning vaccine mandates
Speaker 1: at work. I filed legislation banning vaccine passports. I've filed legislation.
Speaker 1: Just this past week, I filed legislation focused on kids
Speaker 1: to prevent any level of government federal government, state government,
Speaker 1: local government, school boards from requiring kids to get the
Speaker 1: COVID vaccine. It should not be a requirement. Look, we're
Speaker 1: seeing places like California where they're forcing school kids. Whether
Speaker 1: you want it or not, you've got to give this
Speaker 1: vaccine to your kids. I don't think that's right. I
Speaker 1: think we ought to empower parents, and I'll tell you
Speaker 1: the arrogance of the left. Look when it comes to parents.
Speaker 1: We saw that play out in Virginia where the same
Speaker 1: people who are saying, we the government are going to
Speaker 1: force your kids to obey whatever you think. You know,
Speaker 1: it's what Terry mccullufs said. Parents have no business telling
Speaker 1: schools what to teach their kids. These same people think too,
Speaker 1: parents have no business making healthcare decisions for their kids.
Speaker 1: I gotta say that's nuts. I believe in parents and
Speaker 1: trust parents. You know. I will say one of the
Speaker 1: people who got mad at me about this was Seth
Speaker 1: Seth McFarlane, you know, the comedian who's family guy, and
Speaker 1: he's funny as all get out. And he sent a
Speaker 1: tweet saying that that that big bird is smarter than Cruz,
Speaker 1: and so's Elmo and the Cookie Monster and Oscar the
Speaker 1: Grouch and animally listed a whole bunch of others, and
Speaker 1: you know I had to respond and I said, look,
Speaker 1: last I checked, every one of those you listed are puppets.
Speaker 1: Usually with someone's hands stuck up their rear end. So
Speaker 1: and I said, listen, you're a really funny guy, and
Speaker 1: I'm sad to see you shilling for authoritarian tyrants who
Speaker 1: want forced kids to obey and take away healthcare choices
Speaker 1: from parents. I think that's not right, of course, And
Speaker 1: you know, comedians used to speak truth to power. Now
Speaker 1: they just push the regular narrative. But you know, the
Speaker 1: Virginia of it all is what's interesting to me, Because
Speaker 1: the Democrats just got a shellacking. You would imagine they
Speaker 1: got the message that this issue of education, parents having
Speaker 1: a right and how their kids are raised, that's really
Speaker 1: going to resonate even in a blue state like Virginia.
Speaker 1: So do you think there's any chance that you could
Speaker 1: get some Democrats in the Senate or in the House
Speaker 1: to come along, come over and say, you know, no
Speaker 1: mandates for kids? Or is the party line so strictly
Speaker 1: enforced that doesn't matter what happens in Virginia they can't
Speaker 1: back down from it. Look, I think the party line
Speaker 1: is so strict they're terrified. You know, we had a
Speaker 1: vote on vaccine mandates on the Senate floor where we
Speaker 1: voted to stop government funding for vaccine mandates for your job,
Speaker 1: that you shouldn't be fired if you decline to get
Speaker 1: a vaccine, and every Democrat to no. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was a complete party line vote. It's where their party is.
Speaker 1: They believe in government power, and they don't think you
Speaker 1: have individual rights. They don't think you have individual liberty.
Speaker 1: And I gotta say, Michael, it's striking as I travel
Speaker 1: the country, I'm hearing from people in all sorts of
Speaker 1: walks alive. I'm hearing from doctors and nurses because they're
Speaker 1: firing thousands upon thousands of doctors and nurses because they're
Speaker 1: declining to get the COVID vaccine for various reasons. I'm
Speaker 1: hearing from airline pilots and air traffic control controllers. You know,
Speaker 1: we're seeing every week, it seems there's a new story
Speaker 1: about thousands of flights being canceled Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, United,
Speaker 1: one after the other, cancelation after cancelation, and the corporate
Speaker 1: media is desperate to say it has nothing, nothing, nothing.
Speaker 1: I mean, they freak out, absolutely nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the vaccine mandates. I'll tell you, I'm talking with the pilots, unions,
Speaker 1: I'm i was chairman. I'm now the ranking member on
Speaker 1: the Aviation Subcommittee the Senate Commerce Committee. So I talked
Speaker 1: to aviation people a lot because I'm the lead Republican
Speaker 1: on all aviation issues. I'm talking to the pilots unions,
Speaker 1: I'm talking to the air traffic controllers unions. I can
Speaker 1: tell you they're a whole bunch of them who are
Speaker 1: really upset about these mandates. And what I'm hearing is
Speaker 1: that we're seeing sickouts and walkouts. Now, the unions don't
Speaker 1: want to acknowledge that publicly because there are negative legal
Speaker 1: repercussions that come from doing that. But I think that's
Speaker 1: what's happening, and the media is desperate to have nobody
Speaker 1: acknowledge it. And you know, I gotta say. This weekend,
Speaker 1: I was up in Chicago and I was speaking at
Speaker 1: an event that was called Freedom Fests, about seven eight
Speaker 1: hundred people there and was talking to them. So I
Speaker 1: flew up there. Now, as I flew up there, this
Speaker 1: happens almost every time I fly now where people stop me,
Speaker 1: airline pilots, flight attendants, mechanics on airplanes. They come up
Speaker 1: to me that they grab me by the shoulder, they say,
Speaker 1: ted thank you. Keep fighting. It has gotten to the
Speaker 1: point now I almost can't get on an airplane without
Speaker 1: somebody coming up and saying that because they're facing I'm
Speaker 1: hearing every time I fly someone saying I've been with
Speaker 1: airlines such and such for ten, twenty twenty five years.
Speaker 1: I'm losing my job. When I arrived in Chicago, I
Speaker 1: was greeted by Chicago cops. Didn't look normally, there's a
Speaker 1: police officer too that is there to escort you. In
Speaker 1: this case, it was seven or eight cops who were there,
Speaker 1: and the Chicago cops. I love the Chicago cops. They
Speaker 1: gave me two of their patches Chicago Police Department. And
Speaker 1: I've been speaking out loudly for the Chicago cops because
Speaker 1: the Chicago Police Union is fighting their idiot. Mayor Lori
Speaker 1: Lightfoot has a vaccine mandate. According to the Chicago Police Union,
Speaker 1: a third of the Chicago police have refused to file
Speaker 1: and their vaccination status and they're facing being fired. Joe
Speaker 1: Biden was asked in a national town hall what should
Speaker 1: Chicago do should should they fire a third of their cops?
Speaker 1: And Biden said, yeah, fire, I'm fire cops. I gotta
Speaker 1: tell you the speech I gave in Chicago. I told
Speaker 1: that story and I pulled out the patch of the
Speaker 1: Chicago Police Department. I held it up and said, I
Speaker 1: am proud to stand with the men and women of
Speaker 1: the Chicago Police Department. Every person in the room stood
Speaker 1: to their feet, a long, rousing standing ovation for those
Speaker 1: Chicago cops. I told the press who were there, I said,
Speaker 1: why don't you guys cover this, that every person at
Speaker 1: the Chicago gathering stands with the Chicago cops. You know what,
Speaker 1: It didn't make the sixty six o'clock news. It did not,
Speaker 1: And it's not just the Chicago cops. There was a
Speaker 1: story out now that more than a third something closer
Speaker 1: I think to thirty seven percent of truck drivers in
Speaker 1: the United States could resign or be fired, but would
Speaker 1: would end up off the job amid a supply chain
Speaker 1: crisis as we're approaching the holiday season, could could be
Speaker 1: a massive disruption to the economy. Little Johnny won't get
Speaker 1: won't get his Christmas presents in time, and there will
Speaker 1: be more serious consequence. But the Big Bird has a
Speaker 1: special present for little Johnny. That's right there there is
Speaker 1: I mean, it's industry after industry you mentioned the airlines.
Speaker 1: What coincidentally, there was only negative weather that affected Southwest
Speaker 1: Airlines a few weeks ago. Then there was only negative
Speaker 1: weather that affected American airlines just a couple weeks later.
Speaker 1: These are obviously sickouts. Sometimes it's not even the airline, it's,
Speaker 1: as you say, the air traffic controllers. So there was
Speaker 1: a court decision, i believe from the Fifth Circuit Court
Speaker 1: of Appeals that pushed for a stay on the Biden
Speaker 1: vaccine gandate, saying we're gonna have figure out if this
Speaker 1: is constitutional or not. In the meantime, you can't force
Speaker 1: your your employees to take the vaccine. The Biden White
Speaker 1: House has just come out today and said, never mind,
Speaker 1: forget about that, force your your employees to get the
Speaker 1: vaccine anyway. It seems utterly lawless and the very least
Speaker 1: extremely confusing. So what are the work workers supposed to do? Yeah? Look,
Speaker 1: lawless is the right word for it. If you look
Speaker 1: at the Biden vaccine mandates, there's four levels to it.
Speaker 1: There's a mandate that applies to federal civilian employees. There's
Speaker 1: a mandate that applies to federal military active duty military.
Speaker 1: There's a mandate that applies to government contractors, anyone that
Speaker 1: does business with the federal government. And then there's a
Speaker 1: mandate through OSHA that's supposed to be a health and
Speaker 1: safety regulation that applies to any employer with one hundred
Speaker 1: or more workers. All of those mandates are being challenged
Speaker 1: in court. I think all of them are legally dubious.
Speaker 1: The ones focused on federal employees are the most likely
Speaker 1: to succeed, just because the federal government has a fair
Speaker 1: amount of leeway there. But what's interesting is the litigation
Speaker 1: is succeeding against all of those different components. You know,
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, I'm I'm also hearing from a
Speaker 1: lot of active duty military, from soldiers, from sailors, from
Speaker 1: airmen and marines. I've talked to Navy seals, you know.
Speaker 1: I was in the Detroit airport and a guy pulled
Speaker 1: me aside, said said, I am a ten year Navy seal.
Speaker 1: I've given over ten years of my life to defending
Speaker 1: this nation. They are forcing me to get this vaccine.
Speaker 1: He said, I'm gonna quit. And he said, a bunch
Speaker 1: of the other seals who have put in years and
Speaker 1: years and years, and he said, some of them who
Speaker 1: are at fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years, and you know you
Speaker 1: get your retirement the military at twenty years. He said,
Speaker 1: those guys are ready to quit, and so that dynamic
Speaker 1: is massive. Now there's been different litigations. So for example,
Speaker 1: the United employees have sued trying to stop the vaccine
Speaker 1: mandate for the airlines. Where they're getting hit is the
Speaker 1: government contractor aspect of it. So you know, Southwest Airlines
Speaker 1: the United States government as their single biggest customer. All
Speaker 1: of the other lines are customers. The government is a
Speaker 1: customer to them, and so they're really they're between a
Speaker 1: rock and a hard place because the federal government is
Speaker 1: threatening to withhold millions of dollars if they don't comply
Speaker 1: the litigation. The last I checked the United litigation, there
Speaker 1: was a stay in place so that the employees had
Speaker 1: won the initial round. The Fifth Circuit case you're talking
Speaker 1: about is a lawsuit that was brought against the OSHA
Speaker 1: regulation targeting employees employers that have one hundred or more employees,
Speaker 1: and the Fifth Circuit, the Federal Court of Appeals concluded
Speaker 1: that they had stated a strong initial case that there
Speaker 1: was a likelihood of success on the merits and a
Speaker 1: strong case of statutory and or constitutional violations. The Biden
Speaker 1: administration is litigating this. I've said from the beginning, the
Speaker 1: Osho rule is going to be struck down. It's going
Speaker 1: to be struck down as contrary to law. I believe
Speaker 1: that is by far the most likely litigation outcome. I
Speaker 1: also think Michael Joe Biden's lawyer due too, that they've
Speaker 1: told the Biden White House we're gonna lose in court.
Speaker 1: But they've also said, look, litigation takes months, sometimes years.
Speaker 1: It's slow, and in the meantime, most people will comply.
Speaker 1: And so you know, if you watch at the White
Speaker 1: House press conference when asked so so, the Biden administration
Speaker 1: lost in court. The Federal Court of Appeals stayed the order,
Speaker 1: in other words, say issued an injunction saying this order
Speaker 1: has no effect, and the Biden deputy Press secretary said, well,
Speaker 1: people should comply. Nonetheless, just shut up and obey, never
Speaker 1: mind the law. That's that's really disturbing. You know. I
Speaker 1: had the same gut reaction when President Biden made the announcement.
Speaker 1: I said, I think that they're on shaky legal ground here,
Speaker 1: but they're just going to hope that everyone takes the
Speaker 1: jab and then it won't be a big deal. Today.
Speaker 1: When when the White House came out and said, well,
Speaker 1: while this is working its way through the courts, comply anyway,
Speaker 1: I thought, there's the proof. There's the proof that you
Speaker 1: know you're not going to win in court, so you're
Speaker 1: going to try to get your desired outcome before that
Speaker 1: all happens. There's a ton of hypocrisy here, by the way,
Speaker 1: and we've seen this from the beginning on the left
Speaker 1: and democratic politicians not following their own mandates and their
Speaker 1: own health requirements. And before we get to the mailbag,
Speaker 1: I can't let us move on without bringing this up.
Speaker 1: There was a ton of hypocrisy from left wing politicians
Speaker 1: who have just been at their climate change of pelooza
Speaker 1: all week, the United Nations Climate Summit, and it seems
Speaker 1: to me a fair number of them flew private jets
Speaker 1: on the way to save the world and stop the emissions. Well, look,
Speaker 1: hypocrisy is something democrats do a lot. I gotta say
Speaker 1: by that. Let me start off by saying, what did
Speaker 1: the Scots do to piss us off so much that
Speaker 1: we caused all these people to descend upon them like locust?
Speaker 1: I always liked the Scots. By the way, if you
Speaker 1: haven't watched it, Michael, have you seen Robin Williams's analogue
Speaker 1: on golf? I don't think I have act. Oh, oh,
Speaker 1: your life is incomplete. You are culturally stunted. So look,
Speaker 1: I adored Robin Williams. I think he's one of the
Speaker 1: funniest human beings to have ever lived. I shed a
Speaker 1: tear when he passed. He was such an incredibly gifted,
Speaker 1: funny as hell talented actor. But his stand up on
Speaker 1: golf um now language warning that there is a profanity
Speaker 1: about every third word. But it's like a like like
Speaker 1: my ribs hurt and I can't breathe when I watch
Speaker 1: it when he talks about the scotsman inventing golf, and
Speaker 1: and and and and and just what a screwed up
Speaker 1: game golf is. So so I will say, I love
Speaker 1: the Scots. I wish we hadn't caused all these folks
Speaker 1: to descend upon them the hypocrisy of democrats. It's it's
Speaker 1: almost their defining characteristic. Um. Look on masks, they all
Speaker 1: know masks or Kroc. So Nancy Pelosi when she does
Speaker 1: a fundraiser in California, all the rich Democrats sit at
Speaker 1: the table, the big donors. They don't wear masks, and
Speaker 1: they make their serving staff wear masks. Barack Obama when
Speaker 1: he does his birthday party in Martha's Vineyard he turned sixty,
Speaker 1: he's dancing on the disco floor along with him, dancing
Speaker 1: or other rich Democrats, none of them have a mask.
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom at the French Laundry, the mayor of San Francisco.
Speaker 1: I mean, the examples go on and on and on,
Speaker 1: and they put rules they don't follow. Just this weekend,
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer was down in Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico as
Speaker 1: a mask mandate indoors. He's partying indoors, dancing. By the way,
Speaker 1: no one should have to gaze at Chuck Schumer dancing.
Speaker 1: It's a violation of the Geneva conventions. I think I
Speaker 1: will tell you a true story of one of my colleagues,
Speaker 1: a Republican senator who's female. Describe being in the Senate
Speaker 1: gym and accidentally the door opened and seeing Schumer in
Speaker 1: his tighty whities, and she just said she wants she
Speaker 1: said she wanted to wash her eyes with bleach. It was,
Speaker 1: it was, it was deeply traumatic. Um but look Schumer
Speaker 1: dancing away no mask. By the way, you know who
Speaker 1: was down there too, Randy Weingarten, the head of the
Speaker 1: one of the big teachers unions, partying away no mask.
Speaker 1: Um mind you, this is the person one of the
Speaker 1: people saying all kids have to wear a mask at
Speaker 1: all times. And she explained, well, I didn't wear a
Speaker 1: mask because it was hard for people to hear me.
Speaker 1: Oh oh really, Oh okay, that's that's unique to you
Speaker 1: that no one else has ever had the problem of
Speaker 1: it being hard for people to hear them. But the
Speaker 1: hypocrisy is massive and on climate. Look, the person who
Speaker 1: I think embodies hypocrisy so much is John Kerry. John
Speaker 1: Kerry is dripping with patrician condescension. Thurston Third. So, okay,
Speaker 1: how old are you, Michael? I'm thirty one years A
Speaker 1: lady never tells, but I'm thirty one years young. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: but you know who Thurston Howell is. So I was
Speaker 1: on Fox News and I referenced Thurston Howe and I
Speaker 1: went back to my office and my staff they're all
Speaker 1: twenty somethings in thirty somethings. Nobody on my staff had
Speaker 1: any clue who Thurston Howell was and I felt a
Speaker 1: thousand years old. They didn't watch enough Nick at night
Speaker 1: when they were kids. You know, those reruns were very important.
Speaker 1: And apparently Thurston Howell the third was based on one
Speaker 1: of the founders of the Conservative movement, William F. Buckley Jr. Oh,
Speaker 1: Now that I didn't know. Okay, that's an interesting bit
Speaker 1: of Okay, there's the the Yaloe mafia kicking years the connection,
Speaker 1: so it was interesting. I told that story at the
Speaker 1: Republican Senator's lunch and I stood up and said, you know,
Speaker 1: I talked about John Kerry. I was like Thurston Howe.
Speaker 1: And then I said warning to you guys that that
Speaker 1: I asked my staff and no one knew who he was.
Speaker 1: And I said, no, you got there are all such
Speaker 1: old fart yo'all know who he is. And and Mitt
Speaker 1: Romney had some advice. He said, used mister Burns instead,
Speaker 1: that mister Burns is a younger hipper reference. And I
Speaker 1: looked to Met for younger hipper references. So that but
Speaker 1: this is a digression on a digression. John Carrey has
Speaker 1: a private jet. He flies his private jet all over
Speaker 1: the place and carries comment He said, you know, really
Speaker 1: for someone like me, it's the only way to travel
Speaker 1: that makes sense. A rich, condescending, arrogant hypocrite, mind you,
Speaker 1: who's trying to impose taxes and fees and regulations on
Speaker 1: you because of carbon emissions to drive up the cost
Speaker 1: of living and to take away he wants, I mean
Speaker 1: to take away practically all the joys of your life.
Speaker 1: The guy's got a bigger car carbon footprint than most
Speaker 1: small towns. So this past week I was doing a
Speaker 1: press conference with a bunch of Republican senators talking about
Speaker 1: the environment, talking about if you want to clean up
Speaker 1: the environment, you want low cost energy, you want more
Speaker 1: natural gas, all of the steps that actually lower emissions.
Speaker 1: And I talked about carrieous hypocrisy on the jet and
Speaker 1: I said, you know, last I checked, none of us
Speaker 1: up here on this stage have a private jet. Now.
Speaker 1: John Kennedy was one of the senators there, and Kennedy
Speaker 1: is ridiculously funny, and Carrie deadpans goes Portman does. So
Speaker 1: Rob Portman was behind me, and it was funny. And
Speaker 1: here's the here's the funny, funnier thing. The media all
Speaker 1: believed Kennedy check me. ABC News wrote stories about how
Speaker 1: Cruz was fact check because Rob Portman has a private jet. Okay, shocker,
Speaker 1: Rob Portman does not have a private jet. Kennedy was
Speaker 1: being funny as hell and and a smart like it's
Speaker 1: actually Portman. And I spent the next day like fighting
Speaker 1: back these fact checks because the Liberals were so happy,
Speaker 1: ah ha ha, this Republican has a private jet, you
Speaker 1: know what. Portman doesn't. But even if Portman did, he's
Speaker 1: not running around trying to impose rules on you that
Speaker 1: he's not obeying. That's what John Kerry is doing. I
Speaker 1: feel very confident that Barack Obama when he went to
Speaker 1: Scotland for his speech, did not fly commercial. And these
Speaker 1: guys are hypocrites. Yes, you know Obama, I don't think
Speaker 1: was you know, in section B of Southwest or anything. No,
Speaker 1: he flies private, I think all of the time and
Speaker 1: has for a very long time. And so beyond the
Speaker 1: hypocrisy which we all see, I mean, at this point,
Speaker 1: it's it's almost we don't even want to talk about
Speaker 1: it because it's so flagrant. You know, if the Democrats
Speaker 1: didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all.
Speaker 1: But the substance of what was said at this conference
Speaker 1: was a little disconcerting too, especially in Barack Obama's speech.
Speaker 1: It made me long for a Scandinavian teenager. And by
Speaker 1: the way, that's a sentence that can really be cut
Speaker 1: out of context and used against me. So so I'm
Speaker 1: going to insist that there be broader there's no clipping
Speaker 1: of that sentence. You think they took the Kennedy Portland
Speaker 1: private jet thing out of context, that you are, Senator,
Speaker 1: You're going down with that one. But but what Barack
Speaker 1: Obama said was that he apologized to the world. It's
Speaker 1: too bad that America has been behind on climate for
Speaker 1: so long because of big bad Donald Trump. Mind you,
Speaker 1: by the way, that in the first year of the
Speaker 1: Trump administration, the United States did better than the actual
Speaker 1: signatories to the Paris Climate Accord on reducing carbon emissions
Speaker 1: and protecting the environment. Never mind completely thrown out the
Speaker 1: window because big Bad Trump got us out of the
Speaker 1: Paris Climate Deal. But what Barack Obama said was that
Speaker 1: it was the fault of rising nationalism that we weren't
Speaker 1: taking on this problem of climate change, and we need
Speaker 1: to come together. If there's one thing that should transcend
Speaker 1: our politics, it ought to be climate change. And It
Speaker 1: was so spooky to me because what he was saying
Speaker 1: is that all the ordinary political fights and workings of democracy,
Speaker 1: in our constitutional order and the way we run our government,
Speaker 1: basically all of that's got to be suspended and superseded
Speaker 1: by the need to fight off the sun monster. And
Speaker 1: it occurs to me that's basically been their strategy from
Speaker 1: the beginning. Well, look, their strategy is always, always, always
Speaker 1: give them power. It's the only thing they care about.
Speaker 1: The COVID vaccine mandate, the shutdown, schools shutdown, businesses shut down,
Speaker 1: churches shutdown, synagogue shutdown. It's all about power. They want
Speaker 1: control over your life. And when it comes to climate,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's policies are terrible for the environment. Last year,
Speaker 1: the number one nation leading the world and reducing carbon
Speaker 1: emissions and pollutions was the United States of America. Because
Speaker 1: of the widespread substitution of natural gas for coal and
Speaker 1: energy production. Joe Biden and the lunatics in his administration
Speaker 1: are shutting down US production. Meanwhile, they're begging OPEC to
Speaker 1: produce more oil. OPEC produces it dirtier and pollutes more.
Speaker 1: They're literally shifting from low pollution energy to high pollution, energy.
Speaker 1: They don't believe what they're saying. They're hypocrites. But their
Speaker 1: answer to everything is they say, we're all going to die.
Speaker 1: There's a catastrophe. It's coming tomorrow. They've been saying for
Speaker 1: thirty years, in twelve years, the world's going to end,
Speaker 1: and no one notices when twelve years passes. They just
Speaker 1: repeat it again and again and again. And you know what,
Speaker 1: when you get twelve years, twelve more years, twelve more
Speaker 1: and there's a solution, it's a solution. Fidel Castro looks
Speaker 1: at these people up from hell and says they're good.
Speaker 1: I mean, what an excuse? Make me dictator for life
Speaker 1: or else all of humanity will perish. That's the left
Speaker 1: pitch right now. You want to have a serious conversation
Speaker 1: about protecting the environment, about keeping air clean, water clean,
Speaker 1: being good stewards of our earth. Absolutely, yes, these guys
Speaker 1: are not having that conversation. They this is an excuse
Speaker 1: for power. Right. The past is always evil, the future
Speaker 1: is always going to be wonderful, and the present is
Speaker 1: always a crisis that justifies them taking more and more
Speaker 1: power before any of us know what is going on.
Speaker 1: So before we die, I think it would be important
Speaker 1: to bring back our good old friend Liz Wheeler to
Speaker 1: come on and bring some of the questions that all
Speaker 1: of the Verdict listeners have submitted. So a Liz, give
Speaker 1: us some questions. We have a lot of great questions
Speaker 1: over at verdict plus tonight. By the way, anybody who
Speaker 1: wants to met a question for upcoming episodes, please join
Speaker 1: me over at Verdict with Ted Cruz dot com slash plus.
Speaker 1: We will be exclusively taking questions from our supporters over there.
Speaker 1: That is Verdict with Ted Cruz dot com slash plus.
Speaker 1: The questions tonight are very interesting, very intellectual. Michael, this
Speaker 1: one's for you. This is from Real Truth Cactus, who
Speaker 1: says we've seen the red wave come to Virginia. Do
Speaker 1: you think one of the biggest reasons with that Junkin
Speaker 1: made the race about the issues while mccaulliffe tried to
Speaker 1: make about Trump. We need to move our arguments away
Speaker 1: from Trump and to the culture war. Well, don't forget
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was pretty successful by running on the culture
Speaker 1: war two and some people really like Trump and some
Speaker 1: people really hate Trump. And I think that mccaulliff's strategy
Speaker 1: in Virginia was recognizing that Virginia has a lot of Democrats,
Speaker 1: a whole lot of Democrats, and a lot of more
Speaker 1: moderate Republican voters. Mccaulliffe wanted to make this all about
Speaker 1: about Trump, and then he thought that he would handily
Speaker 1: defeat Yunkin. Yunkin realized I think one that he is
Speaker 1: not a personality driven candidate, right. He is not quite
Speaker 1: the reality TV star of Donald Trump. He's a standard
Speaker 1: conservative Republican of the sort that can win in Virginia.
Speaker 1: And so he picked his issue very well. He wasn't
Speaker 1: just running on tax cuts, he wasn't just running on
Speaker 1: kind of ordinary Chamber of Commerce type issues. He ran
Speaker 1: on a big culture war issue, which is education and
Speaker 1: whether parents have the right to raise their kids and
Speaker 1: keep radical racial and sexual ideologies out of the classroom.
Speaker 1: So I think that worked very well in Virginia. I
Speaker 1: think the lesson more broadly for the gops, we do
Speaker 1: need to lean into these cultural issues, but you've got
Speaker 1: to be smart about it. You know. If I think
Speaker 1: if Glenn Yuncan had run on the campaign of overturning
Speaker 1: Oberghafell and getting rid of gay marriage, I don't think
Speaker 1: that would have been a culture war issue, but I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think he would have won in Virginia. If
Speaker 1: Glenn Yuncan had run on a hardline immigration campaign, that
Speaker 1: would be a culture war issue, but I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't think it would have won in Virginia. So there
Speaker 1: is a little bit of savvy here that's required. You
Speaker 1: need to be wise as a serpent and innocent as
Speaker 1: a dove. And so it depends on what district you're in.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are certain districts I think in this
Speaker 1: country where if you certain states, even but certainly certain
Speaker 1: districts where if you ran on your great friendship with
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, that would probably serve you very well, but
Speaker 1: it wouldn't serve you very well in Northern Virginia. And
Speaker 1: so there is just an element of running a good
Speaker 1: campaign that you need to have here. And if we're
Speaker 1: going to retake the country, I mean, it's a very
Speaker 1: conservative principle. There's just not going to be a one
Speaker 1: size fits all strategy. You're gonna have to tailor your
Speaker 1: message to the different constituencies and to the different states
Speaker 1: and districts that you will be representing and not pretend
Speaker 1: that some solution that's going to work for a Republican
Speaker 1: in California is going to be the same sort of
Speaker 1: thing that a Republican in the middle of Texas is
Speaker 1: going to want. Senator Cruz, you have the cactus sitting
Speaker 1: behind you, So same question to you. You, by the way,
Speaker 1: also started a culture war this week when you hit
Speaker 1: Big Bird for engaging in propaganda about the COVID vaccine. Well, listen,
Speaker 1: let me say a couple of things on that number one.
Speaker 1: What you know Michael's answered a minute ago. I think
Speaker 1: there are a lot of Republicans that that that behave
Speaker 1: as if they're wise as doves and innocent as a circuit,
Speaker 1: they get it backwards. Um. You know, when it comes
Speaker 1: to Donald Trump right now, the Democratic playbook is scream Trump, Trump, Trump,
Speaker 1: Trump Trump. So when you had the California recall, they
Speaker 1: made Larry Elder into Donald Trump. Terry McCullough's strategy in
Speaker 1: Virginia was to say, Glenn Yunkin is Donald Trump. Well,
Speaker 1: look he's not. They're very different people. I think that
Speaker 1: playbook is a one dimensional playbook and it's not very
Speaker 1: tethered to reality. The flip side, though, I don't think
Speaker 1: Republicans should be running away from Trump I think we
Speaker 1: accomplished an enormous amount when Trump was president, and he's
Speaker 1: going to continue to have a significant platform and a
Speaker 1: significant voice, and so we can acknowledge all the good
Speaker 1: we did working together without having every election. If you're
Speaker 1: debating is Glen Yunk and Donald Trump, that's really dumb. Secondly,
Speaker 1: on culture war, it's worth remembering, Listen, we're not waging
Speaker 1: a culture war. It is the left that is waging
Speaker 1: a culture war. They are attacking every institution of our culture.
Speaker 1: They're tearing them down. They're tearing our communities down, they're
Speaker 1: tearing our families down, They're chearing our children down, they're
Speaker 1: tearing our churches down. They are engaged in cultural jahad.
Speaker 1: And all we're doing is defending the culture. So Terry
Speaker 1: mcculloff stood up and said, we should not teach critical
Speaker 1: race theory to our kids. We shouldn't be telling them
Speaker 1: that America is inherently racist and that all white people
Speaker 1: are racist and America was built on racial oppression. That's
Speaker 1: not waging a culture war. That's defending our culture. That's
Speaker 1: saying American culture has value. You know, when Terry mcculloff
Speaker 1: says parents have no business saying what's taught in our schools.
Speaker 1: He's waging a culture war. Now, Republicans have a choice.
Speaker 1: We can roll over and surrender our culture. And by
Speaker 1: the way, if we surrender our culture, we surrender our country.
Speaker 1: Or we can actually defend the Declaration of Independence. We
Speaker 1: can defend the Constitution, we can defend the Bill of Rights.
Speaker 1: We can defend the founding fathers, not pretending that they
Speaker 1: are We're perfect men, not lionizing them. Yes, they had faults.
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner. Slave owning is horrific.
Speaker 1: He also laid out a vision for America of equality
Speaker 1: that ultimately resulted in abolishing slavery and transforming the world.
Speaker 1: And so we can defend our culture with honesty and facts.
Speaker 1: But you know, I get irritated at the press when
Speaker 1: they say we're waging a culture war. We're simply defending
Speaker 1: America against Marxists who are trying to destroy our culture. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well said. So this next question is kind of a
Speaker 1: long question, but I think it's worth asking. It's a
Speaker 1: little bit edgy, which is something that I really like.
Speaker 1: I like to hear both of you answer these questions.
Speaker 1: This comes, of course, on verdict Plus it is from
Speaker 1: t Cells who asks Republicans, including Senator Cruz, seem to
Speaker 1: be carrying on as if the twenty twenty election was
Speaker 1: like all other elections. They're focusing on twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: and expect to win back seats that they lost. How
Speaker 1: do we know that all of the mailed out ballots,
Speaker 1: not the absentee ballots, connect with a real, live, legal voter.
Speaker 1: I want to be convinced that Biden the Democrats won
Speaker 1: in the close elections, but I am not there. The
Speaker 1: alternative that they beat the system is frightening, and if true,
Speaker 1: should make election integrity the number one, if not only,
Speaker 1: priority for Republicans right now. The fact that really bothers
Speaker 1: me is this. If we counted all the votes as
Speaker 1: we have done it before, in person and absentee ballots,
Speaker 1: Trump wins. If we add in the very abnormal mailout ballots,
Speaker 1: then Biden wins. I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist,
Speaker 1: but it seems like it would not be too hard
Speaker 1: to manipulate that kind of vote. Senator you first, so listen.
Speaker 1: Those concerns are real, and their concerns I hear all
Speaker 1: across Texas and all across the country. When it comes
Speaker 1: to voter fraud. My view is that the two extremes,
Speaker 1: neither one of them is right. There are right now
Speaker 1: those in the corporate media and Democrats who say there
Speaker 1: is no voter fraud, it doesn't exist, it's the big lie. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a load of crap. That's simply not the case.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, it's not the case that that
Speaker 1: there is such widespread voter fraud that every election is
Speaker 1: rigged and we can never have a real election. That's
Speaker 1: not true either. The reality is democracy is messy. Voter
Speaker 1: fraud has been part of elections as long as people
Speaker 1: have been voting. There have been people stealing votes. Should
Speaker 1: we fight against it. Absolutely, Yes. I've spent thirty years
Speaker 1: fighting against voter fraud and we need to fight for
Speaker 1: strong election integrity legislation. Now, what do we do in
Speaker 1: twenty two and twenty four. There's a shift, and it's
Speaker 1: a shift that has happened in the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: It used to be a few years back that you
Speaker 1: would get some monicum of bipartisan agreement that we want
Speaker 1: safe and secure elections and we should have reasonable ballot
Speaker 1: integrity provisions That used to be possible that you could
Speaker 1: work together Republicans and Democrats. That has changed, and it's
Speaker 1: changed because Democrats have decided I believe that voter fraud
Speaker 1: benefits them, that it's good for them politically. And so
Speaker 1: right now today in the United States Congress, you get zero,
Speaker 1: not a single Democrat willing to work in any way
Speaker 1: on any positive element of election integrity. That's true. In
Speaker 1: the Senate, there are zero Senate Democrats, and I think
Speaker 1: it's true in the House. I don't know of any
Speaker 1: House Democrats. What does that mean for twenty two and
Speaker 1: twenty four, Well, it means in red states like Texas
Speaker 1: or Georgia or Florida, you're going to see the legislatures
Speaker 1: they're passing reasonable, common sense voter integrity laws. That's good.
Speaker 1: I support that. I salute them for doing the right thing.
Speaker 1: In blue states, you're not. In states that have democratic
Speaker 1: governors or democratic legislatures, they're not going to pass good
Speaker 1: legislation in the next two years or four years. On
Speaker 1: the federal level. As long as Pelosi and Schumer are
Speaker 1: running the two houses, the chances that Congress passes good
Speaker 1: voter integrity law are zero. The Democrats don't want it,
Speaker 1: So what's our answer. The answer, the good news is
Speaker 1: election fraud historically only matters when it's close, when it's
Speaker 1: on the margins. If it's a close election, absolutely election
Speaker 1: fraud can take and switch the results. The answer is
Speaker 1: what we saw last week in Virginia, which is in
Speaker 1: twenty two and twenty four, we've got to win by
Speaker 1: a big enough margin they can't steal it. Was there
Speaker 1: voter fraud in Virginia? Sure was there voter fraud in
Speaker 1: New Jersey? I'm sure there was. But if we win
Speaker 1: by a big enough margin, you can overcome the fraud.
Speaker 1: And that may not be fair, but listen, we have
Speaker 1: two options. We either win by a lot or we
Speaker 1: give up our country. And I'm not willing to give
Speaker 1: up on the country, but that's the reality. If we're
Speaker 1: sitting there waiting for democratic legislatures to change the laws
Speaker 1: to protect ballot integrity, we will wait until health freeze
Speaker 1: is over. So the only answer is go in and
Speaker 1: beat them. And that's exactly what we did in Virginia.
Speaker 1: All Right, Michael, same question to you. I'm interested to
Speaker 1: hear your response on this. I think that's a great point.
Speaker 1: It's also worth pointing out when people talk about should
Speaker 1: we go back and just constantly focus on twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: I mean there has been a lot of inquiry into
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, and there has been the discovery of shenanigans
Speaker 1: and fraud and election practices that appear to be in
Speaker 1: violation of the state constitution, at least up in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: But then you look back and you think nineteen forty eight,
Speaker 1: there's a young fella by the name of Lyndon Johnson
Speaker 1: from a senator from your state. And that fella, Lyndon Johnson,
Speaker 1: he stole a Senate seat. He stole it, and he
Speaker 1: stuffed a bunch of ballot boxes, and he actually joked
Speaker 1: with top Democrat officials fdr. This was on an earlier race.
Speaker 1: They joked about sitting on the ballot box. And it
Speaker 1: went up to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, wouldn't
Speaker 1: hear it sound familiar? And Lyndon Johnson goes and he
Speaker 1: gets his Senate seat. Then he gets picked to be
Speaker 1: vice president, then he becomes the president, then he leaves
Speaker 1: the presidents, he does what he does, then he dies.
Speaker 1: And then in nineteen ninety, a writer named Robert Carro
Speaker 1: laid out the strong case that he had stolen that seat. Well,
Speaker 1: what a great moral victor are gonna Are we gonna
Speaker 1: go back and fight the nineteen forty eight Senate race. No,
Speaker 1: you can't. You can't do that. He got away with it.
Speaker 1: And sometimes these things happen. And so Senator, to your point,
Speaker 1: I just I think it's so pragmatic and realistic. You've
Speaker 1: just got to deal with the realities on the ground
Speaker 1: and win and just win the next election so that
Speaker 1: you can make the changes that you want. And it's
Speaker 1: very encouraging to see in Virginia apparently at least we
Speaker 1: can still win elections as Conservatives and Republicans. Hey man,
Speaker 1: It's almost a vicious cycle, isn't it. In order to win,
Speaker 1: you have to have elections which are intact, and in
Speaker 1: order to enact election integrity or form you have to
Speaker 1: have you have to have won the elections to have
Speaker 1: the power to do that. Like I said before, anybody
Speaker 1: who wants to ask a question to Senator Cruz or
Speaker 1: to Michael Knowles in upcoming episodes, go on over to
Speaker 1: Verdict with Ted Cruise dot com slash plus. That is
Speaker 1: the Verdict plus community. We will exclusively be taking questions
Speaker 1: from our supporters over there. That's Verdict with Ted Cruise
Speaker 1: dot com slash plus. Senator Michael, thank you for having
Speaker 1: me a great round of questions this week. So, Liz,
Speaker 1: one more thing before we go. We just finished, as
Speaker 1: everyone knows, our campus tour where we traveled the country
Speaker 1: bringing Verdict live to your campus. Well, we're going to
Speaker 1: continue it again this spring, the second half of the
Speaker 1: campus tour, and and so we want to come to
Speaker 1: your campus, but we want you to invite us to
Speaker 1: your campus and tell us why we should come to
Speaker 1: see you. So go to YAF dot org slash verdict again,
Speaker 1: that's WYF dot org slash verdict, and and apply for
Speaker 1: your campus to be where where Michael and Liz and
Speaker 1: I where we come in the spring we do Verdict
Speaker 1: on campus. It is rocking. We had a fantastic time
Speaker 1: at University of Wisconsin Madison, a fantastic time at Texas
Speaker 1: A and m a fantastic time at Catholic University, and
Speaker 1: we want to be at your school too, So go
Speaker 1: to YF dot org slash verdict. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Liz.
Speaker 1: All Right, we have covered quite a lot of ground.
Speaker 1: But I think it's very important when we think about
Speaker 1: our elections, when we think about the tyrannical government pushing
Speaker 1: these crazy mandates on us, when we think about our
Speaker 1: would be plutocratic leaders in Scotland telling us that we
Speaker 1: have to upend our democratic norms, we need to tell
Speaker 1: them no, you've heard, chance of let's go Brandon. I
Speaker 1: think it's it's important to follow the Senator's lead and
Speaker 1: give the bird to Big Bird as well. I'm Michael Knowles.
Speaker 1: This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1: This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought
Speaker 1: to you by Jobs, Free and Security Pack, a political
Speaker 1: action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations, and candidates
Speaker 1: across the country. In twenty twenty two, Jobs Freedom and
Speaker 1: Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running for
Speaker 1: Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.