Cancer Survivor Advocate (37:38)
Texas united states senator ted cruz. Sad bless texas, And God bless president donald j. Trump. In the last 15 months, we have won historic victories across the nation. As we gather today on the occasion of our nation's 250th birthday, I want to take a moment to reflect on who we are and what we believe. You know, there was a moment last year where the clarity of what we believe was crystal clear. We had a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. President Trump had nominated an individual to serve in the State Department. I came into the questioning just as Democrat Senator Tim Kaine, not a crowd favorite, was questioning him. And this Trump nominee had said in his written testimony that he viewed his obligation as defending the God given rights of Americans. And Tim Kaine responded and said that the idea that our rights come from God and not government, he said, is a radical and revolutionary idea. He said, that's the kind of idea that theocrats in nations like Iran believe. And in America, he said, we don't believe our rights come from God. I got to admit I had a whole set of questions that I was prepared to ask and I promptly threw them aside. I was speaking shortly thereafter, and I said, you know, just minutes ago, Senator Kaine said the idea that our rights come from God was a radical and revolutionary idea. He's right. It also happens to be the founding principle upon which our nation was created. And I said to the folks listening and watching, if you don't believe me, maybe you would believe another Virginian who penned the immortal words, we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator, not by government, not by the dnc, but by God Almighty with certain unalienable rights, And that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Jefferson continues that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men and are just with the consent of the governed, too secure. Who are we as a nation? Our rights. They're not given to us by any federal official. They're not given to us by any state. They are given to us by the Lord God Almighty. Who are we and what do we believe as conservatives? We believe that the United States of America is the greatest nation the world has ever seen. We believe that freedom is powerful and liberating and is a fundamental right of every human being. We believe that the American free enterprise system is the greatest engine for freedom and prosperity the world has ever seen. And we believe in American strength and leadership. That America is, as Ronald Reagan put it, a shining city on a hill. Now let's talk about those principles put into action. We have three core priorities to focus on in any given election or in any given governmental action. Jobs, freedom, and security. Let's take those one at a time. Let's start with jobs. The Republican Party is and should be, I believe, the party of jobs. Now, where do jobs come from? They don't come from Washington, D.C. they don't come from bureaucrats. They come from the men and women here. They come from small businesses putting capital at risk to meet a need. But although government doesn't create jobs, boy, can it screw them up. Many times I have suggested that Gavin Newsom should be named the Texas Realtor of the Year. Because nobody in history has sold more homes in the state of Texas than Gavin Newsom. And by the way, Comrade Mondaami is the Florida Realtor of the Year. You look across the country, it is not subtle. Big blue states with high taxes and high regulations that hammer the living daylights out of small businesses, every one of them. Their populations are fleeing, and they are fleeing to red states, states with low taxes and low regulations, where small businesses can grow and prosper. And yet, what did today's liberals say? They say, let's make America more like California and New York. Let's have high taxes and high spending and high debts. And I want to say within the conservative movement, the question of what do we believe is important as well. In many ways, the most important political shift of the last decade is the Republican Party has become a blue collar party. It used to be conventional wisdom that Republicans are the party of the rich and Democrats are the party of the poor and working class. I'm not sure that was ever the case, but it sure as heck isn't the case now. Today, the Republican Party is the party of truck drivers and steelworkers and cops and firefighters and waiters and waitresses and the men and women with calluses on their hands who go to work every day and provide for their families. And the Democrat Party is the party of rich coastal elites, effete leftists sipping soy lattes with their pinkies in the air. And I will say, within our movement, there is also a debate about whether we believe in small government and limited governmental power and individual liberty, or whether we believe in big government and high taxes and a nanny state. Let me be clear. Some in our party who call themselves populists, I agree with them. I am very much a populist. You look at every election I've ever run. When I launched my campaign for Senate 14 years ago with a lot of the men and women in this room, nobody thought we had a prayer. We started at 2%, and there are a lot of the original 2 percenters who are gathered here right now. And all of the money and special interest was on the other side. But this was a populist revolution in Texas. And we went from 2% to winning the primary by 14 points and winning the general by 16 points and shocking the hell out of Washington. But the people who are urging our party the way to be populist is to embrace high taxes and high regulation and government power. The people who say we're conservatives, but we're big government conservatives. I'm here to tell you you're not being a populist if you're advocating for the policies of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. A lot of the folks here were here on the ground also at the founding of Turning Point usa. We remember a T shirt and a slogan, socialism sucks. That was true then and it is true now. And as the son of a Cuban refugee who was imprisoned and tortured in Cuba, communism is evil and socialism is a disaster. And let me say, in terms of our record of success, last summer we passed the Working Families Tax Cut Act. That bill has more conservative victories in it than any legislation that has ever passed into law. We invested over $100 billion into securing the border. The largest investment in border security in the History of America. We invested over $150 billion in rebuilding the military because we live in a dangerous world. We passed the largest tax cut in American history, over $4 trillion. We made the Trump tax cuts permanent and we passed new tax cuts cuts, including no tax on tips, which I'm the author of. I wrote no tax on tips. And no tax on overtime and no tax on Social Security. That's what it means to be a populist, to empower people to take government off their backs and stop taxing their tips and their overtime and their Social Security and let them provide for their families. And I will tell you, in that bill, there are two provisions that I'm most proud of. You know, in April of last year, we did a retreat of all the Senate Republicans and I stood up in front of my colleagues, I said, listen, there are lots of things that are really important to in this bill that we care about. Border security, tax cuts, the military, all of that, very, very important. But I said we ought to pause for at least a second and ask ourselves, think about legacy, ask ourselves what will be remembered from this bill in 10, 20, 30 years? And I said, if I can, I'd like to humbly suggest two possibilities. Number one, school choice. And number two, what are now called the Trump accounts. Both of those provisions are in the bill and both of those provisions I wrote into law. School choice. We passed the single most far reaching federal school choice bill that has ever been enacted that is going to unleash tens of billions of dollars of scholarships to low income kids, to kids in failing schools all across America. And 10, 20, 30 years from now, there are going to be millions of kids that escaped failing schools where they weren't learning to read, they weren't learning to write, they were facing violence and instead they got an education and they have a chance to get achieve the American dream. That's what it means to deliver real results that impacts this country. And then the Trump accounts, starting on July 4th of this year, our nation's 250th birthday, every child in America will have a personal investment account open for them. Newborn children will have it seeded with 5,000. With $1,000, parents, families, employers can contribute up to $5,000 each year in a tax advantaged account. And all of that will be invested in the stock market, the S&P 500. Now, there are two massive advantages to that. Number one, every child in America is going to experience the benefits of compound growth. Look, a lot of the people here understand what compound growth is all about. But but nearly half of Americans don't own a single stock or a single bond. And our kids now, if they're investing, if parents or family or employers are investing 5,000 a year, within just a couple of decades, our kids will have hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal investment accounts that they own. And they. And we're not talking just the kids of rich people. We're talking the kids of single moms waiting tables who suddenly their babies will have the resources to buy a home, to get an education, to start a business. But secondly, even more exciting, we are going to create a whole new generation of capital capitalists. Listen, every one of us has seen the sorry statistics of young people who are losing faith in free enterprise, who think that socialism may be a good idea. Well, 10 years from now, a little boy is going to pull out his cell phone and he's going to look at the app of his Trump account and he's going to say, wait a second, I own 100 bucks of Apple. I own 50 bucks of Boeing or 75 bucks of McDonald's. And suddenly, instead of corporations being these mean, evil things that he's told he should throw bricks at and want to burn down, he's got skin in the game. And our children will be the owners of the largest employers in America. That's what winning as a conservative looks like. All right, let's talk freedom. You look at the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Thomas Jefferson referred to our Constitution as chains to bind the mischief of government. Many of y' all know my father, Pastor Rafael Cruz. He has referred many times to the Constitution and Bill of Rights as the most inspired documents ever written by the hand of man, other than the Bible, the most consequential documents in the history of humanity. Every one of us has an obligation to defend free speech and to defend free speech not just for those who agree with us, but those who disagree with us. Everyone. I will defend the rights of people who think I'm a son of a bitch to say I'm a son of a bitch, Because that's what free speech is all about. But when it comes to religious liberty, there is a reason. Religious liberty is the very first clause in the very First Amendment to the Bill of Rights. Because our entire freedom is built upon the right to seek out the Lord God Almighty with all your heart, mind and soul, without government getting in the way. And the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, there's a reason it is right after the first, because it is fundamentally about the right to life, the right to protect Your children, to protect your family. It is fundamentally about ensuring that sovereignty remains with we the people and not with the government. And then there's security. Under Joe Biden, we saw an invasion of this nation. More than 12 million illegal immigrants came into this country. The worst illegal immigration in our nation's history. And the people in 2024 said, Enough. End it and end it now. And when President Trump was sworn into office, illegal border crossings have dropped more than 99%. So what does that mean? Why does that matter? All across the country, the murder rate has dropped 20%. The rate of drug overdose Deaths has dropped 20%. It is literally the case that there are thousands of Americans who are alive right now, today because President Trump was reelected Senate and because we have a Republican Senate and Republican House and we've secured the border and we're deporting illegal immigrants and murderers and gang bangers and child rapists and getting them the hell out of our country. And to give you a sense of just how radical and extreme the Democrat Party has been, we just saw this week, that is the position of the Democrats, that every single one of them refuses to pay even a penny to fund ICE to deport criminals. The Democrat Party today is a party of hatred of Donald Trump and open borders. And by the way, if you want to know who they are, listen to Chris Murphy, the lefty Democrat senator who said on television, he said, the people who we care about the most. And by we, he meant Democrats are illegal immigrants. That is their party. Well, I'll tell you what we're going to do. Even though every Democrat is a hard no on funding border security, we are going to come back, we are going to take up another reconciliation bill, and we are going to fund ICE and Border Patrol for 10 years. And the consequence of Elizabeth Warren and the rest of these commies is we are going to increase the funding for ICE and Border Patrol when we we do that. Because if they will not defend the citizens of this nation, we will. And let me say right now, we also should stand together right now and pass the Save America Act. We need to force every Democrat to do a talking filibuster, to stand and talk and talk and talk like Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith's Goes to Washington like I did in 2013 for 21 hours against Obamacare. And when they talk and talk and talk and can't talk anymore, then we will pass the Save America Act. And let me say, looking abroad, when it comes to security, we have seen the difference between a weak commander in chief and a Strong Commander in Chief Joe Biden came into office in 2021. He inherited a world with peace and prosperity. And he was weak and feckless. And what happened? We saw war break out all over the globe. We saw Russia invade Ukraine, and we saw October 7th as Hamas invaded Gaza. Tragically, they do. And that is the consequence. The reason for those wars is because Joe Biden was so weak that our enemies were not afraid of him. The left believes the way you avoid war is through weakness. There is a reason that nobody goes and studies and gets a degree at the Neville Chamberlain School of Foreign Affairs. Appeasement does not work. And if you want an object lesson on what a strong commander in chief looks like, take a look at the current resident of the Oval Office, President Donald J. Trump. Today we have a greater chance that in the next six months we will see a new government in Venezuela, in Cuba and in Iran. Than any time in our lifetimes. And look, I will admit there are a thousand ways that could go wrong. But this is what happens when you see American strengths and there are people that are trying to say Donald Trump is an isolationist. I can't believe I anyone saying that has been in a coma the last 15 months. I will tell you this at 3am on January 3, when our Delta Force apprehended Maduro, every Latin American dictator had to change his shorts. And America is safer and the world is safer when the President is strong and our enemies are afraid of him. Let me finally say this, wrapping up, I look across this room, by the way, a lot of folks online were saying this room was empty. It ain't empty now. And I am encouraged by the men and women who are here because you are rising up to fight to defend our country. I will tell you, the left, they want to win in November. They want to take the House, they want to take the Senate, they want to impeach the president, they want to open the border, they want to defund the police, they want to tear this country down. And I am encouraged because each of you, because I am gathered with warriors who are fighting for liberty, who know what you believe and who know what you are fighting for. And I want to say equip yourself. Many of you know I do a podcast three days a week. It's called Verdict with Ted Cruz. We have millions of listeners across the country. I want to ask each of you to pull out your cell phone right now and text the word verdict to the number 24005. Let me give that to you again. The number is 24005 Text the word verdict V E R D I C T what you will get back is a link to subscribe for free to the podcast and three days a week it'll be downloaded to your phone and the reason I do the podcast, today's podcast or yesterday's podcast I finished at three in the morning. The reason I do it is to tell you what's going on. To bring you behind the scenes on the battles in the Senate or the battles in the White House and the battles in the Supreme Court so that you know the facts and you can go battle. You can battle with your friends and neighbors. You can battle with your co workers, you can battle with your crazy Uncle Joe at the Labor Day picnic. And you will be empowered with the facts and the truth. You will be empowered to stand up to the Islamists. And let me say this right now, Sharia law will never be allowed in Texas or the United States of America. I am inspired by every one of you and as Jesus told us 2,000 years ago, and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. We are going to preach the truth. We are going to do so with love, with a smile, with strength, and we are going to save the greatest nation in the history of the world. That shining city on a hill that is the United States of America. Thank you and God bless you.
