← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
Trump Gets Green Light to Clean House, Mamdani's 'Gloom and Doom' American Vision & Birthright Citizenship Hits a SCOTUS Wall Week In Review
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- [00:00]
A
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Why should you listen to Armstrong and Getty on demand? We're not boring. A lot of news is boring and tedious and depressing. It makes you angry. You don't want to live your life like that. Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong.
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B
He's Joe Getty.
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A
We're Armstrong and Getty. We try to bring you the truth and help you figure out this crazy modern world. How about something about a comedic tone? We have a winner. Yes. Listen to Armstrong and Getty on Demand on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What God started in my life. He's going to finish the Joel Osteen Daily Podcast. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. What was meant for my harm? Lord, I want to thank you. Right now you're turning to my advantage. Your daily source of hope and encouragement. Your second wind is on its way. God is about to breathe on your life in a new way. Listen to the Joel Osteen Daily podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts and wherever you get your favorite podcast. Thumbtack presents uncertainty strikes. I was surrounded the aisle and the options were closing in. There were paint rollers, satin and matte finish, angle brushes and natural bristles. There were too many choices. What if I never got my living room painted? What if I couldn't figure out what type of paint to use? What if I just used thumbtack? I can hire a top rated pro that knows everything about interior paint. Easily compare prices and read reviews. Thumbtack knows homes. Download the app today.
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B
Welcome. It is Verdict with Ted Cruz Week in Review. Ben Ferguson with you. And here are the stories that you may have missed that we talked about this week. First up, the Supreme Court gives a major win to President Trump that he actually has the authority to fire whoever he wants. We break that down. Also, there was a fourth of July message from the President that was about hope. And then there was a grim outlook of America from Mandani with why did the Democrats choose him to be their mouthpiece? We explain it and finally, there's a big fight over birthright citizenship and the Supreme Court gave their ruling. So what did they decide and what does it mean for the future going forward? It's the week in review and it starts right now. All right, so Senator, let's talk about some of the victories. And one of them was a very interesting case. It's about the President having the ability to fire people. And this was one of those that maybe wasn't on a lot of people's radar screen, but to really important case.
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A
Well, let's start with two decisions and this is a big victory. Trump versus Slaughter and Trump versus Cook. And it dealt with the ability of the President to file fire people in his administration. So almost 100 years ago the court decided a case called Humphreys Executor. Humphrey's executor. Actually 91 years ago the court concluded that the President cannot fire a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission. And the Federal Trade Commission was set up as a so called independent agency. It was an agency with three commissioners appointed by the President confirmed by the Senate from the majority party and two commissioners appointed by the President confirmed by the Senate from that minority party. And the so called independent agencies arose coming out of the Woodrow Wilson era, coming out of the Progressive era as a way to limit presidential power. And Humphrey's executor said the President doesn't have the ability to fire an FTC commissioner without cause. Well, in my view Humphrey's executor was wrong the day it was decided 91 years ago. And it has been wrong every day for nine decades since then. Why? Because under the Constitution. The constitution, the first three articles of constitution, Article 1 vest all legislative power in the Congress of the United States. Article 2 vests all executive power in the President of the United states. And Article 3 vests all judicial power in the judiciary. What Humphrey's executor did is severely limit the The President's Article 2 authority over the Executive branch. Anyone in government, you are either in one of those three buckets, you're either a legislative official, I'm a legislative official. I'm elected by the people of Texas to represent them in the Senate. I'm in the legislature, I'm in Article one. You could be a judicial official that is appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate. You're a judge with life tenure adjudicating cases, that's an Article 3. Everyone else is an Article 2. Article 2 is the executive and under the Constitution the President has authority over the Executive. Humphrey's executor said no, no you don't. There could be someone that works for the executive. And yet somehow Congress has taken over the ability of the President to control that person. Well, when President Trump came in in the second term, he fired two FTC directors, commissioners rather, one of which was Rebecca Slaughter. Rebecca Slaughter is a Democrat. She was one of the five FTC commissioners and he fired her. He said, you know what, I just want Republican Commissioners. I'm not appointing Democrat commissioners. Now, he did that knowing it would prompt a legal challenge and anticipating that, that it would be a legal challenge he would prevail in. I will tell you, I've said publicly multiple times for a long time Trump was going to prevail. And you know, as I talked to reporters, they'd say, well, what do you think about this case? I said, Trump's going to win and he's going to win because Humphrey's executor was wrong. The President has the authority over the executive branch and I believe the Court is going to overrule Humphrey's executive. Well, this week that prediction came true. By the way, we talk on this podcast a lot about the predictions we make. And the vast majority of the predictions we make come true and we hold ourselves accountable. When they come true, we lay them out. When they don't come true, we lay them out. In this instance, Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion. He was joined by Justice Alito, Justice Gorsuch, Justice Kavanaugh, Justice Barrett and Justice Thomas, in part. So it was a 6:3 decision and the Court overturned. Humphrey's executor said the President can fire an FTC commission. That's a big victory. That's a big victory for presidential authority. That's a big victory for the text of the Constitution. That's a big victory for the original understanding of the Constitution. Now, here's kind of a weird wrinkle. There was another case that was Cook versus Trump. So Lisa Cook was a Federal Reserve governor.
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Yeah.
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A
And Trump also fired Lisa Cook. Now, interestingly enough, look, you would think the same principle should apply, that if Trump can fire an FTC commissioner, he ought to be able to fire a Federal Reserve governor. Well, you'd be wrong on that. The Court, by a vote of 5 to 4, held that Trump could not fire Lisa Cook, that the Federal Reserve was different and it was a different majority. Chief Justice Roberts wrote both opinions, which did not surprise me. Trump versus Cook was joined. Roberts joined by Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. So it was five, four. Now, Clarence Thomas defended. He called the ruling incorrect. He pointed out that it was inconsistent with the Slaughter decision. I got to say, this did not surprise me at all. And indeed, I had predicted Humphreys executors would be overturned. But at the same time, the Court would be reluctant to accord the President carte blanche over the Federal Reserve. And in my view, look, Chief Justice Roberts had different distinctions about the statute of The Federal Reserve actually think those distinctions did not matter. This was I believe in significant respects, a results driven outcome. I think at the end of the day, you did not have five justices that were willing to accede the power to the President to fire a Federal Reserve governor because the role of the Federal Reserve with our currency, with our economy was significant enough that they were reluctant to do it. That doesn't surprise me. The consequence of these two decisions is Trump vs Cook, pure and true to the Constitution. Probably not. But it is a fairly narrow exception to the much broader precedent which is Trump versus Slaughter, which overrules Humphrey's executor and upholds the President's authority to fire executive branch employees at his discretion.
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B
That's going to obviously have big impact moving forward right over the next couple of years for the President as well. Would you agree?
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Yeah. No, no. It's a big deal. And it's going to mean as a practical matter, going forward, I think there's a real possibility, in fact a likelihood that these so called independent commissions will not have bipartisan commissions. I think going forward you're going to see commissions like the ftc, the fcc, potentially the fec, the various commissions that are bipartisan. What we've seen with Trump is that he says, I'm not going to appoint Democrats to it and he leaves those seats vacant. My guess is if and when we have another Democrat president, and unfortunately we will likely have another Democrat president, I'd rather not. I think the Democrats policies are really damaging. But if history is any guide, we will see the Democrats in charge of the White House at some point. And I think it is quite likely that when the Democrats are in charge, they will appoint to the independent commissions three commissioners from the Democrat Party and zero Republican commissioners. And look, I'll say about 25 years ago when George W. Bush was elected President, I came in, I was a young campaign staffer. I'd been down in Austin, Texas on the campaign team with within Governor Bush. I met Heidi on the Bush campaign. She and I came to join the Bush administration. I spent about six months in the Department of Justice and then I went over to the Federal Trade Commission and the FTC is what was the subject of this litigation. My boss at the time was the chairman, Tim Buris. Tim is a brilliant conservative lawyer, economist. And I was the head of policy at the FTC when I was 30 years old. I was a young kid. It was a fascinating job. I did that for a little over two years. Very much enjoyed the job at the time. We had three Republican commissioners, two Democrat commissioners, and to be honest, to be a minority commissioner in the Pettit Commission, it's kind of a weird job because you don't have the votes, but you can nonetheless express your views. You can dissent, you write opinions, you press back within the executive branch. I think the consequence of this decision is you're not going to see minority commissioners from the party out of power. You will see the independent agencies operate much like the rest of the executives. So just like in the Department of Labor, you don't have a Republican secretary of labor and then a Democrat secretary of labor who argues against it. Instead, you just have appointees of the president. I think you will see in the independent agencies the same sort of thing. They will just be appointees of the majority party.
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B
Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week.
- [12:19]
A
Why should you listen to Armstrong and Getty on demand? We're not boring. A lot of news is boring and tedious and depressing and makes you angry. You don't want to live your life like that. Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong.
- [12:30]
B
He's Joe Getty.
- [12:31]
A
We're Armstrong and Getty. We try to bring you the truth and help you figure out this crazy modern world. Something about a comedic tone. We have a winner. Listen to Armstrong. You get it on Demand on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Joel Osteen Daily Podcast. God's plans for you are for good. Be inspired.
- [12:54]
B
Get ready.
- [12:55]
A
God is about to exceed your expectations. Joel Osteen Daily Podcast. You are coming out of that dry place into more than enough daily encouragement right when you need it. There are opportunities in your future bigger than you can imagine. Listen to the Joel Osteen Daily podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
- [13:20]
B
Now on to story number two. Very dark, dark Fourth of July speech from Mandani. Whereas, by the way, his desk was backwards. If you didn't see that, it's hilarious. But here's Mandani in his own words.
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Yes, we see America in a health insurance industry that exploits the sick. But that is not all we see when we look for America. We see it, too in the nurse who works a double shift and then stops on her way home to check on an ailing neighbor. Yes, we see America in corporate landlords for whom negligence is a business model. We see it, too in the father who tucks his children into bed Beneath a ceiling stained with leaks, who wakes before dawn to go to work and still believes his country can do better by his family. Yes, we see America when we spend our tax dollars on bombs and bailouts, when we sell our elections to the highest bidder.
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B
I mean, you hear that, and it's like, wow, you really genuinely hate this country, and it's scary what you want to do with it.
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A
Well, and he's contrasting every. Everything about America is bad. But then he says, you know, we care for the nurse. We care for the individual person. And this is the classic lie of the communists. The communist comes and says, we're for the little guy. We're for the poor, we're for the downtrodden. And yet, what you have, every time you have communism, you get poverty and misery and suffering and death. You get more poor people. You get equality, but you get equality of misery. And in fact, the only people that are not equal are the rulers. Ironically, you know, Mondami put out a decree, told New Yorkers, turn your air conditioning up to 78 degrees because it's going to be hot this Fourth of July. And a watchdog group came and checked on Mandami's offices, and of course, they were not up at 78 degrees. They were turned down to 72, because what the communist decrees for you. He never lives by his own rules.
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B
You know, by the way, I was laughing. You were on vacation. I didn't send you the clip, but it exploded. I was on seeing in on Abby Phillips show on Thursday night when they were celebrating Mandani saying to turn your, your AC up to 78. And, and I, I, I, I just asked, are you, are you in favor of this? And they tried to, you know, like, yeah, well, yeah, I was like, well, it's not 78 right now in this studio. So, so what? Let's crank up. I looked at everybody on set, all the liberals, like, all right, let's crank it up in solidarity with Mandani. Like, let's go to 78 and sweat. Let's go. If you guys are going to be all in favor of this, why is it 67 in here right now instead of 78? And it goes to the point you're making, they'll go on national TV and say that he's a hero for saying this. But they wouldn't. Even in New York City, we were in New York City. They would not put the studio at 78 degrees because they would never do that and have a sweaty show.
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Look, Fidel Castro was a billionaire. Putin is a Billionaire communist leaders aggregate all the money for themselves. They live like kings, and they use the military with guns as enforcers. I want you to listen to another segment from speech.
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C
American Exceptionalism. American Exceptionalism, the conventional wisdom tells us, makes our freedom a little more free, is how we dug the Erie Canal and irrigated the west, is why children in faraway lands grow up dreaming of one day moving here. And yet, the irony is that the story of America has so often been written by those who were told by others with power and influence and wealth that they were anything but exceptional. For generation after generation, we have been told that when the world has sent its people to our shores, it has not sent its best. It sent Puritans and Sikhs and Quakers and Muslims and Jewish people who were banished for praying the wrong way, worshiping the wrong gods, angering the wrong people. It sent peasants and serfs from slums and shtetls who were treated as less because they hardly owned clothes, let alone land. It sent immigrants from whom power was something someone else had. We are told that America is exceptional because we are richer, stronger, more powerful than everyone else. The truth, my friends, is that America is exceptional because here, nothing is fixed into place. The frontier may be closed. We may have walked on the moon, but the work of fulfilling the values first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, that work endures. And it belongs to us all. It belongs, too, to our newest Americans, those standing here with me today, all of whom were recently naturalized nearly a decade ago. I, too, felt what you feel. The joy of no longer being just a New Yorker, but an American, too. You each hold a special power, the power to determine what America means. The powerful have always known their answer. America, in their view, is an arena of supremacy, where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal. America, if you ask them, becomes less the more people it welcomes. America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin. The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit. How small they are, how weak, how unoriginal. At every moment in our past, those who led through exclusion and isolation have tried to win power and enrich themselves by turning us against one another. Division is the oldest trick in politics and the cheapest. But time and again, including 250 years ago, though those forces of division have been vanquished by the forces of progress.
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B
You listen again. This is a manifesto of why America is bad. Why America should not, apparently, I guess, be celebrated. On the 4th of July, why you should tamper down your excitement for the fireworks. And, and I do believe this is not a one off. As we mentioned earlier, this is the new manifesto of the Democratic Party. Heading into the midterms, as I listened
- [19:32]
A
to him talk, I think, what a small and petty man, filled with hate, filled with ideology, filled with contempt, not just for you and me and this fellow American, but for the very idea of America. You know, his remarks there are profoundly dishonest. One thing he says is we are told that America is exceptional because we are richer or stronger or more powerful. Baloney. Who has ever said that? I've never heard any human being articulate that sentence. That's what's known as a straw man. It's erecting a fake argument to then demolish it. He is in fact inverting the causality. We are not richer and stronger and more powerful. That is not why we are exceptional. Rather, because we are exceptional, that is why we have become richer and stronger and more powerful. He's completely misunderstanding the cause and effect. What is exceptional about America, number one, is that our rights come from God. And you know, nowhere in that speech could Van Damme bring himself to say that, that God has given the rights. He says, we are told people are not created equal. Well, really, Gosh, comrade, what is this holiday we are celebrating on the 4th of July? What was the document that John Hancock put his signature on? What did Thomas Jefferson write? We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He claims that America was built on the notion that we're not equal. And he is spitting in the face of the Declaration of the Constitution. Of course, he probably doesn't know that. He is counting on the people listening to it. Definitely not to know that. And his notion about the people that came here because we are built by immigrants, we must let everyone in with no limits. Listen, my father was an immigrant who came from Cuba. America was a beacon of freedom for my family. But there's a right way to come. You come legally. And the argument that the leftists and the Marxists say is because we were built by immigrants, we have to open up our borders to every criminal, to every rapist, to every terrorist, that we could have no laws whatsoever. And why? And I'm going to answer this question, but I want to ask it first. Why in the speech does Comrade Mandami not reflect on what is it that makes people from every country on earth want to be in America. What do we have here that is different? You don't have other countries, people coming, coming to. And it is because of the opportunity, the opportunity to a have your rights protected. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And notably, we don't have a right to happiness. We have a right to the pursuit, to the journey. None of us are guaranteed happiness. But the American dream is real and alive. And it comes from. Do you know what gives us the American dream? Capitalism, not communism. If you want communism, Comrade Mondami, go to Russia, Comrade Van Damme, go to Cuba. Comrade Mandami, go to North Korea. Why do all the communist countries have such misery and suffering? And you know what? They all also have zero human rights. Because those petty little despots. And Mandami is so eager to use that power. When they get power, if you disagree, if you dare speak to the contrary, they will lock you up. That is the history, that is the legacy of communism. You know, Ben, it's been a while since, since I told the story that my grandmother told me of what happened in Cuba when Fidel Castro and the communists took over. So my grandmother was, was a sixth grade teacher in Cuba, and then she taught sixth grade for many, many years. And she told me the story that, that when the communists took over, soldiers came into the classrooms. And she described to me in particular what they did in a first grade classroom. They came in with machine guns and they told all of the kids in the classroom, they said, close your eyes, close your eyes and pray to Jesus for candy. And all the kids closed their eyes, they prayed, and there was no candy. They then told the kids, close your eyes and pray to Fidel Castro for candy. They close their eyes, and the soldiers quietly set a piece of candy on the desk of every child. That is communism. It is based on lies, it is based on power. It is based on subjugation.
- [24:35]
B
As before. If you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and download the podcast from earlier this week to hear the entire thing. I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed. All right, Senator, let's get to the the bad cases. There's two of them that I think we need to highlight one of them, and it's one that there's been a lot of discussion over, and that's birthright citizenship case. My take on this was, look, the president wanted there to be a grand debate nationwide on birthright citizenship. I think a lot of People around him knew that if this went to the Supreme Court and this was a fight they were willing to have, that there was a good chance it was not going to be a vict. But it did open up a big conversation nationwide on immigration, immigration status and birthright citizenship, people coming in. Birther tourism is a simple way of putting it, and it certainly did, I think, educate people on what's happening in this country. That, for me, is a victory. But the reality is, the Supreme Court, this was a loss.
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A
So it was. The question is, what does birthright citizenship protect? And in particular, are children of illegal aliens entitled to become US Citizens because they were born on US Soil? Now, as a policy matter, birthright citizenship, I think, is a very foolish policy. It is a policy that encourages illegal immigration. It rewards people for breaking our laws. Most other countries on earth don't have that policy. If you break in illegally to another country, most other countries, if you have a kid there, that kid is not a citizen of that country. It also encourages things, as you noted, like birth tourism, where pregnant women will get on a plane and fly to America on tourist visa simply to have a baby in America so that baby can become a U.S. citizen. That's a foolish policy. Now, there's a legal question of how can you change birthright citizenship? And I talked a minute ago about the 14th Amendment, and the 14th Amendment says all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. This case turned on the phrase and subject to the jurisdiction thereof. What happened there have long been understood as really two potential ways to change current law and birthright citizenship. The one way that is unquestionably permissible and valid would be a constitutional amendment that changes the Constitution and makes clear that the child of an illegal immigrant born in America is not a US Citizen. I strongly support that. I would vote for that. That's good policy. The second way, and there's dispute among legal scholars, is could Congress pass a law saying the children of illegal immigrants born in America are not US Citizens? That is still a somewhat murky question. Donald Trump explored a third avenue, which is he signed an executive order that said, I am ordering the children of illegal immigrants are not U.S. citizens if they're born in the United States. Now, to be honest, prior to Trump coming into office, I'd never heard anyone articulate a legal theory that that could be done by executive order. The Trump administration knew it was pushing the bounds of what's permissible. You are right that we've now had a robust debate on birthright citizenship and what a bad policy it is. Now, the court unfortunately ruled 5, 4 that the executive order is invalid and that the children of us of illegal immigrants born in the US Are US Citizens. That is unfortunate. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion. I will say that that did not surprise me. It was clear from the oral argument this was the likely outcome. This was where the votes were headed. I wrote an amicus brief, actually two different amicus briefs in the Court, joined by multiple members of Congress, in which I asked the Supreme Court to restore the original meaning of the birthright citizenship clause. And I would encourage anyone interested in this issue go read the brief that I wrote that laid out the original understanding of what the phrase subject to the jurisdiction thereof meant and that someone who was unlawfully present in the country, it did not fall within those parameters. I think that's the right conclusion. I wish the Court. I think the dissenters, have the better argument. I wish the dissenters, instead of having four votes that had five, I wish we had one more. That being said, I was not surprised just now. I will say this. Justice Thomas wrote a spectacular dissent, 91 pages. It is incredibly effective. And I will say Justice Thomas dissent cited my brief twice in that dissent. I'm glad that the dissent commanded four votes. I wish it had commanded five. Where does that leave us? Well, there's still some ambiguity on whether Congress could pass legislation defining subject to the jurisdiction thereof to exclude the children born by parents here illegally. The Court did not resolve that question because it wasn't presented with that question. But let me be clear. From my perspective, this is a terrible policy outcome, and it's also the wrong legal outcome. And I would support, number one, a constitutional amendment to end birthright citizenship. I would support, number two, legislation just to end birthright citizenship. I hope we go down the road of both of those.
- [30:44]
B
Yeah. Yeah, I agree with you there. And finally, we got to deal with a case that deals with mail in ballots.
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A
That's right. This is another case that is Watson versus rnc. And Watson versus RNC deals with the laws in Mississippi concerning governing absentee ballots. So the laws in Mississippi say that absentee ballots have to be postmarked by election day, and they can be received up to five days after election day. And in this case, the RNC filed a lawsuit challenging that and saying that under the terms of federal election law, election day is understood to be the actual day of the election. And so the argument the RNC made is, is that you could not count ballots received up to five days after the election. Unfortunately, by a vote of five to four, the Supreme Court rejected that argument. And Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and the three liberals, concluded that Election Day is understood to mean the day when, quote, voting is complete, not when ballots are received. In other words, they upheld Mississippi's law allowing ballots to receive be received up to five days after election Day. There were vigorous dissents. It was 5, 4. But at the end of the day, what it means is that the Court has concluded federal law does not limit late received mail in ballots. The consequence of this is it's going to remain state by state. Red states can put real and meaningful limits, can limit balloting, can limit late received ballots. Mississippi can change their law. But it also means that blue states, states like California, can have the atrocity they had in their most recent election, their, their mayor's election in la, where they have votes coming in days, weeks, as much as a month later. Look, this, this decision is unfortunate, but I'll tell you what it really underscores. It underscores the need to pass the Save America Act. The Save America act would, would protect against illegal voting. I'm an original sponsor of the Save America Act. I'm fighting for it in the Senate. This decision, unfortunately was, was, was a real loss at the Supreme Court.
- [33:14]
B
As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. Don't forget to download my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day. You're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards. I'd love to have you as a listener Ben Ferguson Podcast and we will see you back here on Monday morning.