Chinese Illegal Fishing Decimates the Oceans, DSA Lunatics Grow Stronger & the DNC is Broke

Summary

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The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson

Episode: Chinese Illegal Fishing Decimates the Oceans, DSA Lunatics Grow Stronger & the DNC is Broke

Date: July 27, 2026
Host: Ben Ferguson
Guest: Sen. Ted Cruz

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Episode Overview

This episode takes a deep dive into three major issues shaking up global politics and U.S. policy: the massive scale and severe impact of Chinese illegal fishing and its global consequences, the intensifying radicalism of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) within the Democratic Party ahead of the midterm elections, and the dire financial state of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) as reported by none other than The New York Times. Throughout, Ben Ferguson and Sen. Ted Cruz connect these threads—highlighting the dangers of lawless regimes, unchecked radicalism, and the practical fallout for working people and American interests.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Chinese Illegal Fishing: A Global Ecological Crisis

[02:05]–[21:31]

• Scale of the Problem

  • Ted Cruz opens by describing China’s distant-water fishing fleet as the largest and most destructive in the world: “It is somewhere between 2,000 vessels and 16,000 vessels,” many operating far outside Chinese waters ([03:40], Ted Cruz).
  • Chinese illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing makes up a staggering 44% of the world’s illegal fishing activities between 2022–2024 ([04:12], Ted Cruz).

• Consequences for Environment and People

  • Chinese operations destroy marine habitats, kill hundreds of endangered animals (“sharks, whales, dolphins”), and decimate coral reefs ([05:13], Ted Cruz).
  • These fleets use forced labor—described as “slave labor” with abuses like withheld pay, malnutrition, and violence ([05:22], Ted Cruz).
  • The disruption devastates local fishing economies, especially in Africa, causing dire food insecurity and pushing local fishermen out of work: “They overfish it, so they destroy the fishing population...they will fish a population out of existence and just move on.” ([08:34], Ted Cruz)

• Mechanics of Chinese Fishing Evasion

  • The Chinese circumvent detection by turning off their vessels’ automatic identification systems (AIS) and by running an elaborately organized network that includes refrigerated ‘reefers’ (to bulk-sell fish), tankers (to refuel at sea), and floating medical bases ([11:47], Ted Cruz).
  • Targeting support vessels is the key leverage point, as a relatively small number of reefers and tankers enable the entire illegal fleet ([13:37], Ted Cruz).

• U.S. Response and Bureaucratic Frustration

  • Cruz detailed a legislative push that included $170 million for U.S. Coast Guard “marine domain awareness” explicitly to fight Chinese illegal fishing—funds that were instead redirected by DHS to World Cup security, against the letter of the law ([16:35], Ted Cruz).
  • Cruz is spearheading a Senate effort to retrieve those funds and sanction the supporting supply vessels by name ([17:20], Ted Cruz).

• Impact on U.S. and Global Fisheries

  • Even U.S. fisheries feel the effect—Ben relates a “Wicked Tuna” anecdote about depleted tuna stocks off the East Coast ([18:02], Ben Ferguson).
  • Cruz ties this to the core economic principle: “Who cares the most about preserving fish population?... Fishermen, because they don’t want to be out of a job next year.” ([18:59], Ben Ferguson; [19:02], Ted Cruz)
  • He extends the argument to the logic of responsible hunting and conservation, contrasting Chinese lawlessness with regulated, sustainable practices ([19:20], Ted Cruz).

• Memorable Quotes

  • “It’s almost like locusts descending and just consuming everything.” ([08:34], Ted Cruz)
  • “[The Chinese fleet] would fish it till there were no more fish in the world and they just don’t give a damn.” ([20:15], Ted Cruz)
  • “These are the same fishermen that also do shark finning, which is a particularly grotesque process…” ([20:38], Ted Cruz)

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2. The Rise of Democratic Socialists and the State of the Democratic Party

[21:31]–[28:29]

• DSA's Increasing Influence

  • Ferguson asserts: “If you thought the Democratic Party was going to make a course correction with the Democratic Socialists of America, you would be wrong. This...is a Democratic socialist midterm.” ([21:31], Ben Ferguson)
  • Cruz points to recent polling that shows 52% of Democrats have a favorable view of socialism—and warns this has transformed the party’s identity ([22:28], Ben Ferguson).

• The DSA Agenda, In Their Own Words

  • The show plays a segment with the DSA co-chair listing their positions, summarizing:
    • Abolish the Senate, alter the Presidency and Supreme Court.
    • Abolish ICE and borders; give amnesty to all currently in the U.S. illegally.
    • Defund the Pentagon, abolish prisons, enact government ownership of large corporations.
  • “When they tell you who they are, Senator, believe them. They’re not lying to you.” ([24:11], Ben Ferguson)

• Cruz’s Critique of Socialist Agendas

  • Cruz: “These are people that want to rip the Constitution to shreds....There’s nothing protecting your rights. You have no rights in their world.” ([24:24], Ted Cruz)
  • He warns of historical precedent: Communism brings “massive human rights abuses... genocide... concentration camps.” ([25:27], Ted Cruz)
  • He ties DSA and groups like Black Lives Matter to Marxist philosophies, personal enrichment, and increased societal risk (“They want murderers and rapists and child molesters living right next to you. And mind you, there are no police because they’ve abolished the police.” ([25:24], Ted Cruz).
  • Cruz links back to the Chinese illegal fishing topic: “Ask yourself, how does the Chinese illegal fishing fleet behave?...rapacious thieves. And I think that tells you where these radicals want the Democrat Party to go and where they want America to go.” ([27:59], Ted Cruz)

• Memorable Quotes

  • “The Democratic Party is dead. I think it is Marxist socialism. Communists—[they] use the word Democrat [but] does not scare too many people off.” ([22:28], Ben Ferguson)
  • “Whatever company you work for, guess what? You just become a federal government employee because the government seizes all of the companies.” ([24:41], Ted Cruz)

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3. The DNC’s Dire Financial Situation

[28:29]–[34:14]

• Unexpected DNC Cash Crunch

  • Ferguson: “It is typical to see the party out of power, have a great amount of cash come in...The Democratic National Committee does not have the money. In fact…they’re in essence completely broke.” ([29:16], Ben Ferguson)

• New York Times Confirms Crisis

  • Cruz agrees, citing The New York Times: “Inside party headquarters, every week brings paranoia, worries about money, and on occasion, emotional eruptions. The Democratic Party is so short on cash…asking vendors not to send bills until after the midterm elections.” ([29:40], Ted Cruz)
  • The DNC is $2 million in debt, versus the Republicans’ $130 million war chest and Trump’s $400 million PAC ([30:48], Ted Cruz).

• Mismanagement and Internal Turmoil

  • Biggest single DNC expenditure: $7.3 million spent buying the remnants of Kamala Harris’s failed 2024 campaign list—to bail out campaign debts, rather than invest in competitive races ([32:07], Ted Cruz).
  • Cruz recounts drama inside party HQ: current DNC chair reportedly threw a phone across an aide’s desk in anger, resulting in a formal HR complaint ([32:48], Ted Cruz). He jokes about managing to never throw a phone at staff in his own career (“The only thing I’ve ever thrown at anyone who worked for me is I have thrown a Nerf basketball.” ([33:35], Ted Cruz).

• Quick Detour—Lighthearted Banter

  • The episode ends with friendly teasing about a broken finger Ben suffered playing basketball with Ted, serving as comic relief and rapport-building ([34:27], Ben/Ted).

• Memorable Quotes

  • “The single biggest expenditure was $7.3 million to buy the remnants of Kamala Harris’s campaign list from her failed 2024 bid.” ([32:07], Ted Cruz)
  • “When it comes to, like, not throwing hard metal objects at your employees, that does not take massive restraint.” ([33:35], Ted Cruz)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• Ted Cruz, on Chinese illegal fishing: "It's illegal fishing at a scale that constitutes ecocide combined with gross human rights violations." ([03:53])
• Ben Ferguson, on the DSA platform: “I love when people in politics don’t lie. It’s very refreshing. This is who they are. When they tell you who they are... believe them. They’re not lying to you.” ([24:11])
• Ted Cruz, on DNC financial woes: “The Democratic Party is so short on cash that leaders at its headquarters have undertaken a new gambit to mask the severity of problems, asking vendors not to send bills until after the midterm elections.” ([29:40])
• Ben Ferguson, on friendly competition: “When you're losing, Ted doesn't play fair. That's what I learned from that...It's crooked for life.” ([35:08])

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Key Timestamps

| Segment | Topic Description | Timestamp | |-----------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------|----------------| | Chinese illegal fishing overview | Chinese distant-water fleet, scale and methods | [02:05]–[06:03]| | Impact on Africa & U.S. | Food security, jobs, and economic devastation | [06:03]–[09:19]| | How they evade detection | Stopping illegal fishing, role of support vessels | [09:19]–[14:48]| | U.S. response and bureaucratic issues | Funding redirected, Cruz’s legislative push | [14:48]–[18:02]| | Environmental and industry impact | Fishermen as conservationists, principle of property rights | [18:02]–[21:31]| | Rise of the DSA | The socialist platform, polling, DSA’s influence | [21:31]–[28:29]| | DNC's financial crisis | Debt, New York Times report, impact on party operations | [28:29]–[34:14]| | Humorous outro | Broken finger story & camaraderie | [34:14]–[35:51]|

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Tone & Style

• The tone is direct, combative, and at times, colloquial, especially in political critique.
• Cruz and Ferguson blend detailed policy analysis with anecdote, humor, and pointed warnings about both foreign threats and domestic political shifts.

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Summary Takeaways

• China’s widespread violation of fishing law presents a serious ecological, economic, and human rights crisis with global ramifications—and the current tools, while available, are undermined by bureaucratic misallocation and lack of political will.
• The Democratic Socialists of America have, per Ferguson and Cruz, overtaken the Democratic Party’s ideological identity, pushing unprecedented radical measures far outside U.S. mainstream values.
• The DNC is reportedly in financial free fall, raising existential questions about its near-term political competitiveness—underscored by elite mismanagement and damaging internal discord.
• Ferguson and Cruz link these crises as symptoms of lawlessness and left-wing radicalism, urging listeners to take electoral and policy action.

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For listeners who missed the episode: This summary captures the urgent tone, key policy worries, and undercurrent of humor and rapport that define Ben Ferguson and Ted Cruz’s conversations, as well as the facts and figures at the heart of today’s most fraught headlines.

Transcript

[Ben Ferguson]

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[Ben Ferguson]

It is verdict with center Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. It's so nice to have you with us wherever you are listening to us around the country and center. We've got a big show today, including China yet again being accused of not playing by the rules, having a shadow fleet of fishing boats that are not a few a lot that are destroying international waters and hurting so many other countries.

[Ted Cruz]

Well, on today's podcast we're going to talk to you about Chinese communists, going to talk to you about American communists, and then we're going to talk to you about the Democratic National Committee. And you will notice there is a thread that connects them all. But let's, let's start with The Chai cops. Let's start with the Chinese Communist Party. We all know the horrible things they do. We know the murders, the tortures, the concentration camps, the genocide, the lying, the producing COVID virus and causing massive damage to the world and covering it up. All of those are a given. But you know what? You may maybe didn't know that China is responsible for one of the greatest ecological disasters across the globe and a systemic theft in the oceans. And it's something that's called illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. IUU is the acronym. Now, the Chinese Communist Party has a distant water fishing fleet. How big do you think their fleet is that does distant water fishing? In other words, not around China. It's not fishing around China. It's fishing on the other side of the world. How big do you think their fleet is?

[Ben Ferguson]

I mean, 50 ships, 60 ships would be my guess.

[Ted Cruz]

It is somewhere between 2,000 vessels and 16,000 vessels. And they engage, by the way.

[Ben Ferguson]

The fact we don't know, as you just mentioned, tells you how big the fleet is.

[Ted Cruz]

It's, it is a massive number. It's engaged in theft, but it's, it's illegal fishing at a scale that constitutes ecocide combined with gross human rights violations. And, and so this is the issue I've been involved with a long time and, and trying to urge the federal government to use the tools we have to stop this massive illegal fishing. By the way, this illegal fishing, it happens in the, in the Gulf of America, it happens in the Atlantic Ocean, it happens all around Africa, does massive damages to Africa. It happens in and around South America, it happens in the Indian Ocean, it happens all over the globe. And the consequence of is subsidized by billions of dollars from the People's Republic of China. Between 2022 and 2024, Chinese illegal fishing accounted for 44% of global fishing all over the world. 44%. Nearly half.

[Ben Ferguson]

You just said illegal. So that's outside of their, quote, legal fishing they're doing in and around China.

[Ted Cruz]

Yes. Measuring at least 110 million hours of fishing in more than 90 countries. And by the way, not only do they engage in illegal fishing, they also kill hundreds of critically endangered animals, including sharks, whales, dolphins. They've destroyed tens of thousands of acres of coral reefs. And they use forced laborers, so they've got slave labor that they put on the boats. That's who's doing the illegal fishing. Are, are, are people who are enslaved and they're subjected to physical abuse, malnutrition, overwork, and withheld pay in many instances for years. And so it is an enormous challenge and one that I've had real progress fighting. But there's a lot more that we can and need to do.

[Ben Ferguson]

It's incredible. We're going to talk about that. We're also going to talk about the craziness happening with the Democratic Socialists of America 100 days out from the midterms and also the DNC Democratic National Committee. They're broke. We're going to have all that for you coming up in a moment. Before we get to that, I want to talk to you a moment about what you can do in simply praying for the people right now that are under attack in Israel. The headlines move on, but the heartache and terror they do not. Iran and its terrorist proxies are continuing to target Israel and Hezbollah continues its attacks in the north, forcing families to live under constant threat. Israel is not only defending her people, she is standing on the front lines against terror that literally threatens all of us. Now, even when the news crews leave Israel, the international fellowship of Christians and Jews, they remain. Every day they are on the ground providing life saving aid. And near Israel's border with Lebanon, a Hezbollah drone recently struck the home of Yelena. She was widowed earlier this year, living alone, and she was trapped inside by that blast. Now, thankfully, she was not injured, but she remained displaced. It's hard these days, she said, but I don't want to leave. And honestly, why should she have to leave her home? As Christians, we're called to stand with God's people and pray for those defending Israel and protecting the freedoms we hold dear. I want you to join the international fellowship of Christians and Jews in praying for the peace of Jerusalem and for the soldiers, the families and civilians carrying the burden of this fight right now. You can go right now and help and learn who you can pray for by visiting the pray ifcj.org that is pray ifcj.org pray ifcj.org center I want to go back to you mentioned Africa a moment ago and this is be one of the things that's really come out of this story is when you have a fleet that is this large, as the Chinese Communist Party does, and they're all over the world and they're doing all this illegal fishing 247 and using slave labor to do it. They're also destroying the the fishing around many people who desperately need it for survival. And when I say survival, I'm talking about life and death. Africa is one of the countries they've targeted off their. Off their. You know, off their. Their shoreline. And it is having. It's decimating their local fishing, which is survival not only for the food. Right. Because that food's not going to Africa when they catch those fish. They're going back to the international market. They're not taking back to shore like the local fishermen do. But also it's putting countless fishermen out of work.

[Ted Cruz]

Yeah, look, it's a huge problem from food supply, especially in Africa, where you have many countries that are struggling, have significant problems with food insecurity and hunger. It also means the jobs of the local African fishermen are imperiled because you have the Chinese stealing their fish. They overfish it, so they destroy the fishing population. So not only are they denying them food and denying them jobs now, but if you responsibly fish, it's a sustainable harvest and you can keep on fishing and keep on fishing. The Chinese don't give a damn, and they will fish a population out of existence and they'll just move on. I mean. I mean, it's almost like locusts descending and just consuming everything. So they don't engage in responsible fishing. Look, you and I both live in Texas. There are a lot of Texans who are fishermen. There's a big commercial fishing operation in Texas. Whether it's shrimpers or red snapper in, it's an important part of our economy. But it is understandably and necessarily regulated, because if you overfish a population, it goes away and you destroy the ability to keep going back and fishing it. We have this problem in the Gulf of America with Mexicans, many of whom are funded by the Mexican drug cartels, using illegal launches to come up and fish red snapper. And in fact, they fish snapper from the Gulf of America. They do it illegally, they steal it, they take it back down to Mexico, they smuggle it into the United States, and they sell it here and pretend it's domestic cot. And so it is another form of theft that tends to be more the Mexican drug cartels, where they'll get local Mexican fishermen and literally put a gun to their head and say, okay, go get us some snapper in violation of the laws. The Chinese provide funds for that as well. But look, in and around the United States, we have the Coast Guard, we have our military. We're able to do a pretty good job of guarding our waters in a continent like Africa that the nation is there. Their coast guards and Navy are just much, much smaller. So they have very limited ability to counteract it. And the same is true around South America. Where you see the Chinese taking advantage again. And, and let me talk about the mechanics of how you fight this, because this is, it's interesting and complicated. Look, normally if you deal with a fleet that is doing something illegal, you would sanction them out of existence. So to run a fleet, you need flagging, you need financing, you need insurance, you need fuel, you need port services, you need customers willing to purchase goods, you need crews, and the crews themselves need food and medical care. So you could impose sanctions on an illegal fleet and shut them down. Now, how does a Chinese fleet get around that? Well, ordinarily, when it, when a ship is out at sea, they keep what's called their AIs, their automatic identification system turned on. It's essentially the way everyone else can spot them so that, you know, if an illegal ship, if the USS Ben Ferguson is out fishing illegally, you can go see the air and you can go interdict them. Well, what the Chinese do is they turn their air off.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Ted Cruz]

And so, and so you're not able to spot them. And you look at the capacity. 16,000 ships with, with their, their AIs off, so you can't spot them. And the way they make this operate is they have an elaborate hub and spoke system. So they have fishing vessels that are out fishing. They have their AIs off so you can't see them. But then to, to make the, the fleet operate, they have refrigerated reefers that collect the catches at sea and sell them in bulk. And they have to keep their AIs on because the illegal fishing vessels all have to know where to go to drop off their catch. Uh, they also have tankers that refuel the fishing vessels. So they have a big tanker and the, and the illegal fishing vessels will get up, refill, and go back to fish. And on top of that, they have floating bases which provide the crews with their medical care and other services. And so what I have been leading the fight to do is to go after the refrigerated reefers, the tankers and the floating bases with medical care, because those support vessels can be sanctions they have to keep their eyes on or the 16,000 vessels can't figure out where they are. Uh, and they're limited in number, so, so 55 reefers accounted for nearly half of the shipping. Ten tankers represented 61% of all global bunkering activities. And, and, and so we have the ability by targeting those support vessels, to cripple the illegal fishing. Now, now here's where it gets frustrating. Last year when we were passing the working families tax cut, as we talked about in this podcast before, the way a big reconciliation bill works is each committee chairman is responsible for writing the portion of the bill that is within your committee's jurisdiction. So I'm the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. We have jurisdiction over about 40% of the U.S. economy. That includes the Coast Guard. So I wrote the entire title on the Coast Guard. That is within the reconciliation bill. And we ended up providing 20 and a half billion dollars in funding for the Coast Guard. That is the single largest investment in the Coast Guard in American history. And it is having massive positive benefits, including. We are now bringing shipmaking back to America. I was at the groundbreaking for Davies Shipbuilding in Galveston, Texas. A billion and a half dollars where they're going to build Arctic ice cutters so that we can compete with China and compete with the Russians in the Arctic. We're right now getting our tails whipped. Uh, but the funding stream that we put in place for the Coast Guard enables us to sign contracts. By the way, we also had a huge announcement, Ben, just last week, Saronic, which we've talked about before. Saronic is the drone company based in Austin.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Ted Cruz]

That builds naval drones. That builds drones from little ones to big ones. Remember, we covered on this podcast how Saronic sent drones to rescue the two Apache pilots who were shot down over Iran. And also Saronic drones were used militarily to attack Iranian facilities. Well, Sirotic was just in the middle of a big decision about where to build their brand new shipyard. And the choice was Texas or California. And they were going back and forth, back and forth. They have significant facilities in California, too, you will not be surprised to know, number one, I weighed in vigorously on that question. Uh, and, and my views were not subtle or difficult to understand. And I'm very glad to say they made exactly the right choice. So Saronic is building a brand new shipyard in Brownsville, Texas, right on the water. It's three, three and a half billion dollars. So all of this shipbuilding is coming to Texas. And it's a direct result of what we did in the working families tax cut that I was able to write in the funding to provide for this. Well, also, as a part of that, I specifically allocated to the Coast Guard $170 million for marine domain awareness that was to fight this Chinese illegal fishing so that we would know where the reefers are, know where the tankers are, know where the medical ships are. That $170 million would have given the Coast Guard the tools to shut much of this down. Now, this is where the story gets frustrating. We wrote that in law, it was specifically designated to go to marine domain awareness. You know what happened?

[Ben Ferguson]

What happened? They. Let me guess, somebody took it from you.

[Ted Cruz]

DHS took the money and allocated it to the World cup instead.

[Ben Ferguson]

And they can do that, right?

[Ted Cruz]

No, no, actually they can't. The law was very clear. They can't do that. They did it. And, and listen, World cup security is important. I, I don't dispute that having security at the World cup was, was important, but the law was very clear that that money was designated for marine domain awareness to fight a very real problem of Chinese illegal fishing that is destroying entire fish populations, that is doing massive damage to the environment, that is hurting jobs, and, and, and that is continuing completely unabated right now. So listen, my commitment, I just, just this week wrote this letter here, joined by nine other senators to the Treasury Secretary calling on the treasury sector Secretary to sanction these vessels. And you can actually see in the letter, I identify quite, quite a few of these vessels by name. I give their specifics. And so the known Chinese supply vessels, I lay out where they're flagged, their name and all their information, and I'm calling on treasury to sanction them. We're also going to get that 170 million back. And so I'm irritated DHS did that, but we're going to get that money and make sure it goes where it belongs, which is to maritime domain awareness.

[Ben Ferguson]

Final question on this. I took the boys fishing up and if you've ever watched the TV show Wicked Tuna, we went to the same port where a lot of those ships come out of. And one of the things was interesting was the guy that took us out fishing for summer vacation said that the tuna have moved and it's much harder for them to fish compared to what it used to be. Is that possibly because they just said things have changed and there's not as much fish there used to be? Is part of that because of what we're witnessing? I mean, it's not just Africa that's being affected. It also is the United States of America.

[Ted Cruz]

It is the Atlantic and Pacific as well. And absolutely, this is a worldwide problem. You're looking at roughly half of fishing that's occurring in the world is Chinese illegal fishing. And it's doing massive damage. And, and it's not only illegal, but it's, it's deliberately irresponsible. It, it's, you know, this goes back to the principle, look, do you know, who cares the most about preserving fish population?

[Ben Ferguson]

I would assume fishermen because they don't want to be out of a job next year.

[Ted Cruz]

Right, right. And. And the principle is the same. Like when it comes to, to conserving wildlife, species hunters are among the most vigorous conservationists. You know, I'm friends with Ted Nugent. Ted lights up my phone texting all of these stories about, look, hunters want to preserve biodiversity. They want. Now they like, they like to hunt the animals. But that means, look, if there is a hunting market, there is incentive to preserve and protect the species and grow the population. You actually see this in different African countries. The African countries that have prohibited safari hunting, they ended end up having their populations dwindle mightily because there's no economic value in preserving the species. Whereas those African countries that allow safari hunting, that they regulate it, they sell. You've got to buy a tag to hunt a particular species. Suddenly that species has economic value. And so the park or preserve where they are, they invest real money and stop stopping poachers and protecting the animals and, and you see the population grow. It's. It's a basic principle that if you have a property rights system that, that, that allocates value to something, then there's an incentive to protect it. If, if nobody has value on something, then you end up having what the Chinese are doing, which is just. They would fish it till there were no more fish in the world and they just don't give a damn.

[Ben Ferguson]

And then they would move on to something else. Like they wouldn't care. They don't care if they extinct tuna or any other fish. They just say, move on next. What can we do? What can we destroy and capture now for our personal gain? It is incredible.

[Ted Cruz]

And by the way, these are the same fishermen that also do shark finning, which is a particularly grotesque process where you catch a shark and you pull it up and you just cut the fin, the dorsal fin off. And in Chinese cuisine, that's considered a delicacy. I think it's supposed to be an aphrodisiac and have all sorts of medicinal qualities, but they cut the fin off and then throw the shark back and the shark dies. Like, without the fin, the shark bleeds and dies and they don't care about how many animals they kill.

[Ben Ferguson]

Same with whaling. They have no problem with whaling. Yes, huge.

[Ted Cruz]

For China, it is a massive problem. And so I am fighting hard to end it because it's the responsible thing to do from the environment, from preserving wildlife populations, from jobs, and from food security across the globe.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah, it's a great point. We're going to keep you updated on the story because it's an important one. I want to move. We are 100 days out for the midterms. And if you thought the Democratic Party was going to make a course correction with the Democratic Socialists of America, you would be wrong. We are now witnessing this midterm election center the best way I can describe it, it is a Democratic socialist midterm and the Democratic Party is a part of it. They are involved in it, but they're not calling the shots at this point. It is the Democratic Socialists and the candidates that is the midterms.

[Ted Cruz]

Yeah. Here listen to left wing journalist Steve Kornacki describe the current state of affairs. We've been seeing it in the primary season. Socialists winning Democratic primaries, candidates from the far left. And look at this here. Among Democrats, this is that Fox poll. A majority have a favorable view of socialism. Step outside the Democratic Party. It's a totally different world. Look at Independence Socialism, deeply unpopular there.

[Ben Ferguson]

This is interesting. Views of socialism, Democrats 52% favorable, 43% unfavorable. It's what, it's what you and I have been saying for a long time. I think the Democratic Party is dead. I think it is Marxist socialism. Communists, they use the word Democrat does not scare too many people off. But this midterm is absolutely this agenda.

[Ted Cruz]

Well, and that clip, if you guys are not watching the video on YouTube, you will not have seen it. But the more general polling for the American people on socialism, socialism, 77% unpopular, 13% favorable. So, so among normal people, that's includes Republicans and independents. They're like, no, we don't want socialism. And let's be clear, even socialism is a euphemism. These people are Marxists. They are outright communists. I want you to listen right now to the, to the co chair of the dsa, the Democrat Socialists of America explaining their radical agenda. Give a listen to the DSA co chair.

[DSA Co-chair]

So we're going to put up on the screen a few of the things that are part of your platform. And I want to ask you, just give me sort of a true or false on these. Abolish the Senate.

[Ben Ferguson]

True.

[DSA Co-chair]

Okay. Replace the presidency and Supreme Court as we now know them.

[Ted Cruz]

Yep.

[DSA Co-chair]

Abolish ice. Absolutely. Abolish borders and give amnesty to anyone currently in the US illegally as a long term plan. Yep. Defund the Pentagon. Absolutely. Abolish prisons, at least in large part.

[Joel Osteen]

Yeah.

[DSA Co-chair]

Again, that is part of a long term program. Yeah. Okay. So no prisons, government or public ownership of most large corporations.

[Ted Cruz]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Ben Ferguson]

You listen to that. And I got to give them credit, I love when people in politics don't lie. It's very refreshing. This is who they are. When they tell you who they are, Senator, believe them. They're not lying to you.

[Ted Cruz]

Look, these are people that want to rip the Constitution to shreds. They want to abolish the presidency, they want to abolish the Senate, they want to abolish the Supreme Court. So there's nothing protecting your rights. You have no rights in their world. Understand? Abolishing the Supreme Court, that means they can do anything you want. And you don't have free speech, you don't have religious liberty, you don't have a second amendment. The government is in charge of everything. That's what they believe. Now they also want to abolish the Pentagon. So we have no military, we're unable to defend ourselves. That means the Chinese and the Russians and, and Hamas and Hezbollah. Every terrorist on earth can run all over us and we have no military, we can't defend ourselves. They want to abolish ICE so we're not able to enforce our borders, which is okay. Cuz they want to abolish borders. They want to say anyone on planet earth who wants to come to America can come to America. Um, they want to grant amnesty and American citizenship to every illegal person here. So, so that every left wing radical, everyone who's broken the law, every, every human trafficker, every gang member, all of them are the people who vote. And they want to close down prisons, so. So they want murderers and rapists and child molesters living right next to you. And mind you, there are no police because they've abolished the police. So let all the murderers go and eliminate the police. And then, and then to be clear, this is why I said these people are communists. They, they, they also Shannon, I give her credit, she asked, do you want the federal government to own most big companies in America? She said yes. So, so whatever company you work for, guess what? You just become a federal government employee because the government seizes all of the companies. Now these young people are too ignorant to know that what they're proposing has been implemented. It has been implemented in the Soviet Union, it's been implemented in Cambodia, it's been implemented in Vietnam, it's been implemented in Cuba, it's been implemented in North Korea. Uh, it's been implemented, although with a twist, in China. Uh, and every place has been implemented. It's been an absolute disaster. It doesn't work. And here's what happens. You have massive human rights abuses Yep. You have people, every time, imprisoned, tortured, murdered. You have genocide. You have concentration camps. Right now the Chinese Communists have concentration camps with over 1 million Uyghurs, over 1 million people held in concentration camps. Right now the DSA wants to turn America into the equivalent of China, the same sort of government. And when it comes to. Look, they don't know or they don't care because it is all about power. And by the way, you know what? These DSA guys, just like, you know, the Black Lives Matter, who are also a Marxist organization, a communist organization, they raise lots of money, many of them from, from useful idiots in, on the left and in big companies that wrote checks. We have a bunch of giant American companies that wrote checks to Black Lives Matter, who then used to try to destroy the capitalist system and moves us towards a Marxist system where the government takes over their companies. But you know what? The people running DSA or Black Lives Matter, they tend to live in multimillion dollar mansions. They're stealing the money like blind. And, and I'll give them credit for that in this, they are real communists because that's the same thing Putin does. That's the same thing she does. That's the same thing Castro does. That's the same thing Kim Jong Un does. Look, in Communism you have billionaires. The only billionaires though are the ones with the machine guns that are robbing the people. And actually, there's a reason we connected these two stories. Ask yourself, how does the Chinese illegal fishing fleet behave? Do they demonstrate any responsibility? Do they demonstrate any concern about the environment? Do they demonstrate any concern about people who need jobs, about people who are hungry, about people who'd like a living? Or do they act people purely as rapacious thieves? And I think that tells you where these radicals want the Democrat Party to go and where they want America to go.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah, well, and if you want to know how much the Democratic Social of America have a hold right now on the Democratic Party there, this is abnormal going into a midterms. People understand usually the party that is out of power, the people that support them, whether you're Republican or Democrat, if you're in the minority, you usually have a lot of fundraising. Because then you say, okay, now my ideals are under threat. I'm no longer taking them for granted. This other side has got power. We want to get it back. And usually you have a surge in fundraising. It is typical to see the party out of power, have a great amount of cash come in once their ideals, what they believe in, are under attack. The Democratic National Committee does not have the money. In fact, we're now being told that going into the midterms, they're in essence completely broken.

[Ted Cruz]

Well, that's right. And our source for that is, is admittedly a very right wing outlet. So you've got to take what they say with, with a grain of salt. And that would, of course, be the New York Times. And the New York Times. I want to read from the beginning of the article inside the phone. Throwing drama at the troubled, broke Democratic Party. The Democrats should be well positioned to make gains in this year's midterms. But inside party headquarters, every week brings paranoia, worries about money, and on occasion, emotional eruptions. The Democratic Party is so short on cash that leaders at its headquarters have undertaken a new gambit to mask the severity of problems, asking vendors not to send bills until after the midterm elections. The bookkeeping maneuver, which was described by three people briefed on it, is the latest sign of financial duress for the dnc, and it's as it's embattled leader as money troubles threatened to undercut democratic momentum with 100 days until the midterms. Uh, and, and to give you a sense of, of the money differential directly, here's what the New York Times says. The Democratic Party and its allies are far beyond Republicans when it comes to money. Mr. Trump controls a $400 million super PAC, and the Republican National Committee is sitting on nearly $130 million. Where's the DNC? $2 million in debt.

[Ben Ferguson]

Wow.

[Ted Cruz]

When you have the New York Times saying, what in the hell is going on with you people? You know, it goes on to say, trusted Mr. Martin, the head of the DNC, was sapped by his handling of a long promised autopsy of the 2024 election late last year. He said he would not release the document, but then, as criticism mounted, he released an incomplete draft that featured searing annotations from the DNC that undermined the report. Uh, now Mr. Martin is both paralyzed by the idea of leaks and surrounded by them. During a May meeting with the full staff of the dnc, days after the draft's autopsies release, he admitted that times were tough, and he chided his team for revealing to reporters what was happening inside party headquarters. Quote, it me off when I see leaks out of this building no more. Mr. Martin said he saw a lot of down faces and people hanging their heads. Keep your heads up. Keep a smile on. My success is your success. So the weaker I am, the weaker all of you are. Well, what, what kind of manager is this fellow? Let Me tell you. Well, this is clearly someone who knows how to watch his pennies. Here's another quote from the New York Times article. The single biggest expense of the Martin era. What do you think that was, Ben?

[Ben Ferguson]

I'm going to go with private jets just because I know how much they love those private jets, the dnc.

[Ted Cruz]

I have every certainty the private jet bill is massive, but that was not the single biggest expenditure. The single biggest expenditure was $7.3 million to buy the remnants of Kamala Harris's campaign list from her failed 2024 bid. Ms. Harris Political action committee then used that money to cover additional remaining deaths. So that's his biggest expenditure, is bailing out Kamala Harris's bankrupt campaign rather than actually trying to win elections going forward. And here's a little more about his very gentle experience, management style. Another paragraph from the New York Times. Mr. Martin's fraying nerves are showing in a peak of frustration. In early July, he threw his phone at the desk of a junior aide while upbraiding the person. The phone tossing incident resulted in a formal complaint to the DNC's human resources department. The fallout from the phone throwing episode was described by half a dozen people familiar with the incident who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal party matters. None of them witnessed the account, and there was some dispute over how aggressively the phone was tossed. Mr. Martin was said to have thrown the phone at the desk rather than the aid.

[Ben Ferguson]

Oh, there you go. That makes it better.

[Ted Cruz]

There you go. You know what? Somehow I've managed to live 55 years on planet Earth, to work in a bunch of different offices, to work with a lot of people that. A lot of people working for me. I. I've magically managed to refrain from. From throwing a phone at anybody. I. And you know, I gotta say, any desk. I've gotta say it hasn't been difficult. I think the only thing I've ever thrown at anyone who worked for me is I have thrown a Nerf basketball. So. So if that counts, I'll plead guilty to that. But, but, but when it comes to, like, not throwing hard metal objects at your employees, that does not take massive restraint.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah, I guess it doesn't. It doesn't boost morale. It's incredible. That is the Democratic Party.

[Ted Cruz]

Although terms. Although I do need to. I do need to come clean. Although I haven't thrown anything at one young Benjamin.

[Joel Osteen]

This is.

[Ben Ferguson]

This is true. You have broken bones.

[Ted Cruz]

I have, in fact, broken his finger. So. So. So maybe.

[Ben Ferguson]

Maybe it's still crooked, folks. There it is. You see the crookedness there, folks? You see? I just want everybody watching to see that is not straight anymore. That is a Ted Cruz broken bone right there. I just want to. And it's just really clear about that.

[Ted Cruz]

Look, it's important to acknowledge that you have this, you know, big strapping Division one college athlete. This like studly. And if you don't know how studly he is, give Ben a minute, he'll tell you how studly he is. He's very proud of being a Division 1 college athlete. And he's playing hoops with little old me, a college debater. And I'm just saying the consequence of playing hoops is bones are broken.

[Ben Ferguson]

And when you're losing, Ted doesn't play fair. That's what I learned from that. When you're losing, Ted doesn't play fair. And this is what happens. It's crooked for life.

[Ted Cruz]

So you're admitting to our listeners that not only did your finger get broken, but you also lost. That's good. I'm glad you were on the record. I don't think so. No, no. I think the finger lies.

[Ben Ferguson]

Do you want to know what I keep on my desk? This is a true story. So we were in Austin. We were playing the game. This is the remnants of the tape that is still left that I used to tape said finger together, the crooked finger right there. And keep playing an entire another game. So I kept it as a. I just, you know, that's just. That's, that's, that's Ben.

[Ted Cruz]

Ben. Just don't ever say I never gave you anything.

[Ben Ferguson]

There you go. I like it. Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Hit that subscribe auto download button in the center and I will see you back here in a couple of days.

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He's Joe Getty.

[Ted Cruz]

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[Ted Cruz]

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[Ted Cruz]

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