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Jack Armstrong
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.
Ben Ferguson
He's Joe Getty.
Jack Armstrong
We're Armstrong and Getty. We try to bring you the truth and help you figure out this crazy modern, modern world.
Ben Ferguson
How about something about a comedic tone?
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We have a winner. Yes. Listen to Armstrong. You get it on Demand on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Ben Ferguson
It is verdict with Senator Ted Cruz. Ben Ferguson with you. Senator, I am so excited to hear that you've decided to get behind free groceries. I just want to know when can I get my free groceries from you? What borough is it going to be in and how long until we never have to pay for groceries again? Because this is now what we're up against with the communist party in America.
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, Ben, I will say that there are consequences to communists coming to power. And look, the democrats who are winning, the people who are taking over the Democrat party, they're not socialists. They're not liberals, they're not progressives. They are Marxists.
Ben Ferguson
Yeah.
Senator Ted Cruz
Comrade Mondami is an absolute Marxist. So two things that happened this week that illustrate what happens when communists take over. Number one, this week the New York City government doxxed hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers. So. So Mondame published a list of every New Yorker with their name and their home address who he says owns a pied a terre who owns a million dollar or more home in New York and doesn't live in New York. By the way, many of the people who are on that list say they do live in New York full time. But this list, which is published with full names, with full home addresses, is designed for one purpose. It's designed so that leftist radicals will harass, will threaten, and indeed will even commit acts of violence against them.
Ben Ferguson
Yeah.
Senator Ted Cruz
At the same time, Mandami announced that he's going to open five government run grocery stores where they are going to sell food for 30% below the market rate, which is going to effectively drive out of business the private grocery stores in New York City. We're going to break down both of those because this is, this is not, let's have a little bit higher taxes, let's have a little bit more welfare. This is the government, number one, targeting the enemies of the state and using violence and intimidation to go after them. And number two, moving towards government seizure and control of private industry. We're going to break all that down today.
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, it really is incredible. I also want to ask you to take a moment and I pray for the people of Israel with me. There are so many prayers that are needed right now for those that are in pain and suffering in Israel and they are constantly still under attack and under threat. The headlines, they may move on the, the reporters may move on to the next big story, but the heartache and the terror, they do not. Iran and its terrorist proxies are continuing to target Israel as we speak, Hezbollah continues its attacks in the north, forcing families to live under constant threat. Now Israel is not only just defending her people, she is standing on the front lines against terror that threatens all of us. And that is why I want to ask you to join me in helping pray for the people of Israel. The international fellowship of Christians and Jews, they have remained there even after the news crews have left. And every day they are on the ground, they're providing life saving aid. Near Israel's border with Lebanon. Just recently, Hezbollah drone struck the home of Yelena. She was widowed earlier this year, living alone. She was trapped inside by that blast. Now, thankfully, she was not injured, but she did remain displaced. And as she described it, it's hard these days, but I don't want to leave. And why should she? As Christians, we're called to stand with God's people and pray for those defending Israel and protecting the freedoms we hold dear. And that's why I want you to join the international fellowship of Christians and Jews in praying for the peace of Jerusalem and for the soldiers, families, and civilians carrying the burden of this fight right now. How do you find out who you can pray for and what their needs are? Go to prayer. IFCJ.org that is pray IFCJ.org pray IFCJ.org all right, so center, let's start with this doxing list that you brought up a moment ago. Very interesting list. I. I've been on one of these lists before. To dox me. There was a kid that made a clock. It looked like a bomb. It happened in Texas. They filed a lawsuit. They published their home address. We had to move out of our house as the FBI described. There were so many credible threats. This is no different than that. What they did was they said, here's a list of people. They are evil. They have money. They live in a place of more than a million dollars. We want you to harass and target them so they will feel unsafe. And by the way, this is very close and eerie to the same type of violence we saw against that health care CEO where people celebrated that that health care CEO was assassinated on the streets of New York. You would think they would have learned from that. But this is now being done by the leader of New York, Mandani.
Senator Ted Cruz
So we have a lot of listeners to this podcast who are in New York. And if you're on this list, I'm sorry, but. But for everyone else outside of New York, I want to think how you would feel if you have this newly elected communist mayor who publishes a list of essentially ungrateful millionaires who don't pay their fair share. And your name is there and your home address is there. And that is designed to send harassment your way and to send threats of physical violence. Here's what the New York Post reported. Momdani publishes names and addresses of all NYC property owners who could be hit with the new pied a terror tax. Mayor Zoharan Mandami's administration has published a searchable database of Big Apple properties that could fall under the state's new pet a terror tax effectively doxing thousands of wealthy New Yorkers, the city's Department of Finance uploaded the comprehensive list, which purports to cover all unoccupied non primary residences in the five boroughs worth north of $1 million, including the full names and addresses of every property owner. Quote, it's a reckless and foolish move, especially considering there are potentially thousands of properties on that list that do not qualify as second homes or whose owners will successfully dispute their inclusion. Council Minority Leader David Carr, Republican of Staten island, whose own home appears on the list, told the Post on Monday. Uh, the move follows a widely pand exposed by the mayor in which he put wealthy residents on notice to, quote, check your mailbox when you're back in the five boroughs because you've got mail, a warning that notification letters were on their way. This is understanding. This is the strategy that communists do. They want to drive. Just look. Mandami started out by going after Ken Griffin. Yeah, by demonizing him.
Ben Ferguson
He was a Citadel CEO. So people understand. A man that has built a hedge fund that's massive and moved a lot of his offices, by the way, down to Miami to get out of New York for this exact insanity.
Senator Ted Cruz
And Griffin had invested billions of dollars in New York. He had thousands of employees in New York. And Mandami did a video as the elected mayor attacking him. How dare you have an apartment in New York even though you don't live here full time. You know what, Griffin, understandably, he was planning on expanding operations in New York City. He said, you know what I'm not gonna do. So. So if, if, if you want jobs in New York, well, guess what? Your mayor doesn't want. You have jobs in New York. But it didn't just stop with Ken Griffin. It wasn't just, you know, it's always the radical left. They say, oh, it's just the billionaires. This list had 960,000 names and addresses on it. This is much broader. Like when this tax was announced, they said, oh, it'll just be a handful of people. It won't be you.
Ben Ferguson
Yeah.
Senator Ted Cruz
And yet this is a massive list. And, you know, I suppose you could be a devil's advocate and say, well, they didn't intend it to be that way. Look, the example you gave of the UnitedHealthcare CEO who was murdered, shot in the back of the head. The left celebrated that murder. You had leftists cheering it. You have leftists wearing T shirts of the murderer with his face. You have idiots who are tattooing the guy's face on their bodies. Yeah, because they're so proud that he murdered a CEO. This list, tragically is certain to result in harassment and may well result in violence. And Mandami is perfectly okay with that. He wants to drive these people from New York. If you do not support him, he wants you out of New York. That is not new. And it's one of the points. Look, communism is. You know, when you say there's a communist takeover of the Democrat Party, to a person that doesn't play close attention to politics, that sounds extreme, that sounds radical. Come on. That can't possibly be real. That is, in fact, what's happening. And understand, communism is not something abstract and theoretical. Look, my family fled Cuba. My father was imprisoned and tortured in Cuba. My aunt, my Theasonia, who we've had on Verdict as a guest on Verdict, she was imprisoned and tortured by Castro's goons. If you look at communism, everywhere it's been implemented, whether you're talking about Cuba or China or Vietnam or North Korea or the Soviet Union or Venezuela, it produces misery, it produces poverty, it produces murder, torture, oppression. And one of the things to understand, by the way, do you know who does own a pied, a terre? Which, by the way, is not a term I use. It's kind of weird that I keep using this weird French term. You know who does own one?
Ben Ferguson
Who?
Senator Ted Cruz
That would be Comrade Mondami. He has this luxurious estate in Uganda because he comes from money himself. But understand, that's not unusual. Fidel Castro was a billionaire.
Ben Ferguson
Yep.
Senator Ted Cruz
Putin is a billionaire. In communist dictatorships, the Communists have all the money and have all the power. And so this effort to demonize and attack capitalists is deliberate. And it's dangerous.
Ben Ferguson
Yeah. Not only is it dangerous, I also think there's a. There's a method to this madness that I want people to understand. This is how you gain power and control. If you're Mandani, if you push all the people out that have the resources and the intellect to actually challenge you on these things, and you make life for them so miserable, where they finally just say, I have the resources to get out of here. I don't have to stay anymore. Then by default, that gives Mandani even more security. He doesn't have to worry about massive donations coming in against him. They don't have to worry about another democrat that might actually be sane that runs against him and beats him. We have witnessed this, by the way, happen all over the country in high crime, high poverty, failing cities in America where people are like, why do they keep electing these people? Right?
Senator Ted Cruz
Over and over again, Minneapolis turned into Mogadishu. It was Somali invasion. The Democrats sold the city to Somali fraudsters and criminals. Regular verdict listeners will know the answer to this. Who is the single largest donor to Al Shabaab, which is the radical Islamic terror group in Somalia?
Ben Ferguson
Yeah,
Senator Ted Cruz
the taxpayers of Minnesota. Yeah. It was literally. The fraud was so blatant and the Democrats signed off on it, they facilitated it, they profited from it, they got elected from it. They took campaign donations from it. Mondami's effort here is to lock in control, to drive out anyone who opposes him. But by the way, you might think, okay, I'm not a billionaire. You might think even I'm not a millionaire. So what does it concern me? This week he also had had another announcement. He had an announcement about grocery stores. I want you to listen to what he had to say about grocery stores.
Zoharan Mandami (Mayor of New York City)
Here's how it will work. Once a month our five city run grocery stores will set prices for this core set of goods at 30% below typical retail prices. No exceptions, no gimmicks. The savings will last for the entire month. That means no weekly fluctuations nor sticker shock at the checkout line.
Ben Ferguson
It's simple. Why don't we just do this all over the country? Center, right, like who needs, you know, this is a no brainer. We can just fix prices. The prices never fluctuate. We force the prices down. They make it sound like it is so easy. And if it was this easy, by the way, then it worked. A lot of people don't realize this. Grocery stores margins on the goods they sell are usually about 1 1/2% total. Like if you go to a grocery store chain, they're not making 20, 30% on groceries they sell you. It is extremely thin margins. If you do a really good job, as one grocery store executive told me a couple years ago, you might hit two and a half to 3%. So if you're paying a dollar for something, they paid 97 cents for it.
Senator Ted Cruz
To put in perspective and listen, a couple of things are going to happen. So you're going to have five city run grocery stores. They're going to set prices 30% below cost. So one of the things that's going to happen is people are going to come in and buy those goods at those lower costs. They're going to run out, they're going to be empty shelves. By the way, the media is not going to show you the empty shelves, but they're going to run out. And by the way, you see that in the Soviet Union. You see that in communist countries where the, the government run grocery stores have empty shelves because it turns out government planners are not very good at deciding and figuring out what people want. And so if bananas are 30% cheaper at the government run grocery store, they're going to run out of bananas and they're going to be no bananas. But secondly, let's assume that Mondami is spectacularly good, that he just orders so much food that they don't run out. What is the effect going to be? Let's suppose you run a grocery store down the street. If you're running a grocery store and Mandami store is selling all of their food at 30% below cost, there's no way for you to compete with that. You don't have the ability. If you're paying cost, you can't sell it for 30% less than cost. And so if he continues this, you're gonna go out of business. And understand this is not just giant, wealthy capitalist grocery stores. And there aren't necessarily all that many giant, wealthy capitalist grocery stores. We're talking bodegas, we're talking like little grocery stores that are owned. Many of them have Hispanic owners, many of them are immigrants. If you're selling, you know, you got a little bodega, you've got some milk, you've got some eggs, you've got, you know, you've got kind of different. Yeah, you've got different necessities. People in the neighborhood come by, well, you know, what if milk at Mondami's government run grocery store is 30% less than you can buy it for?
Ben Ferguson
Yeah.
Senator Ted Cruz
The bodegas are going out of business. And understand this is part of the communist agenda as well. It's to drive out their opponents, but it's also to destroy private enterprise, destroy small businesses. The bodegas, remember we had just a week or two, we played this on the podcast where one of the heads of the DSA in New York was asked about the margin in bodegas, and he said, well, look, if, if you can't, if you have to charge such high prices, maybe those bodegas just shouldn't be in business at all that they want to drive these people out of business. And the objective which the DSA is telling us is for the government to be in charge of all, a private enterprise in charge of every business, to be the employer, to be the store to be. And you know, I actually had some fun tweeting out today saying Mandami in five years when he visits another town. And I showed the image of Boris Yeltsin when he visited Your and my hometown of Houston. And he went to a grocery store, and he was totally blown away at the incredible array of diversity and choices. And it's actually what. What helped convince him that the Soviets could not win the Cold War, that If we had 40 different kinds of ice cream and they had one kind of ice cream and they were out of it in the Soviet Union, that they were not going to compete, that the marketplace works. And Mandami, he doesn't understand that and he doesn't care. He is saying, the government is going to be in charge of every aspect of your life. That's dangerous. And I want to underscore. There are some Republicans who are celebrating saying, oh, this is great, okay? The Democrats have gone so crazy that they're gonna be unelectable. And that's good for Republicans. We're gonna win. I am not in that camp.
Ben Ferguson
I've changed on this, by the way. I was one of those early on that was like, I love having an aoc. I even said to you once, I said I would actually give money to keep her in office, tongue in cheek, because she would say the crazy things that Democrats actually believe out loud. And she was a useful idiot in that way. Now, I'm as concerned as you are about this, that this is now turning into a cancer. How do you stop it?
Senator Ted Cruz
Look, we have two major political parties in this country. I would like two parties that are somewhat sane, relatively normal. We could have differences, okay? Republicans want lower taxes, Democrats want higher taxes. Okay, that's fine. I mean, we can have differences on, you know, Republicans are pro life, Democrats are pro choice. Okay? There are differences that you can have in the arena of political discourse and go back and forth. I don't want one of our two major political parties to be a Communist party. That is outright nuts. And that's what's. And by the way, that's not all the Democrat Party. Look, listen, in the Senate, there are no more than a handful of Democrat senators who I would say right now are Marxists. You've got the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warrens, who, by the way, are recruiting these communists and they're celebrating. And when Elizabeth Warren looks at a Nazi communist misogynist oyster farmer and says, he's my kind of guy, well, she's telling you the truth. That is her kind of guy. But most of the Democrats in the Senate are not yet Communists, but every one of them are terrified of the Communists. It's that radical left that has them scared.
Ben Ferguson
And by the way, when you say they're terrified it's because they're afraid of losing power.
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Ben Ferguson
That's what they're terrified.
Senator Ted Cruz
They're afraid of primary.
Ben Ferguson
They're afraid of losing their job to a socialist slash Communist slash Marxist candidate. And this goes back to the original fear with aoc, Chuck Schumer. I have never seen a man capitulate more than I have with him in the last couple years because he's so afraid, as you described it perfectly, that they were going to get rid of him, the leader of the Democratic Party, and replace him with AOC in the Senate.
Senator Ted Cruz
I believe it is 100% that Chuck Schumer cannot win another primary in the Democrat Party in New York. And I think he's gradually coming to realize that.
Zoharan Mandami (Mayor of New York City)
I.
Senator Ted Cruz
He was terrified that AOC was going to primary him. I've joked that Schumer was going to be the inaugural member of the AOC for President campaign. It's. It's actually not a joke. Look, I think AOC will run for president.
Ben Ferguson
Save his own tail.
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah. I think she is one of the two front runners for president. On the Democrat side, I think it's AOC and Gavin Newsom that is two front runners. But I've also predicted, I think Mondame will be the next Democrat senator from New York. I do not think Schumer. My guess is Schumer won't even run because he can't run, because the party, particularly in New York, but it's a cancer spread in the rest of the country, has gone crazy. And listen, New York is the largest city in America. My heart grieves that New York is an incredibly important part of our country. And to see it run by an outright communist is really dangerous because, and I am sorry to say there will come another Democrat who's elected president. I wish there wasn't. I would like that never to happen. But if history is any guide, it will happen. I don't want the next Democrat president to be an outright communist. And I think the odds of that happening have increased exponentially because they're engaged in a hostile takeover of the Democrat Party. And other than John Fetterman, who's been heroic in fighting back on this, almost no other Democrat is even willing to fight back on these lunatics.
Ben Ferguson
Yeah.
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Jack Armstrong
Why should you listen to Armstrong and Getty on demand? We're not boring. Lotta news is boring and tedious and depressing and makes you angry. You don't wanna live your life like that, but you do wanna be informed. Can you be informed without being all of those other things? We think so. Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. The Armstrong and Getty Show. We try to bring you the truth and help you figure out this crazy modern world. If you shoot at us and we deflect it, it doesn't really count. And that just doesn't make any sense. You gotta make a rule. Don't shoot at the United States or if you prefer, Iran, blah blah blah. America haters are winning. The would be communists, the Marxists are winning in America and they're doing so openly and nobody cares. I think giving the downtrodden money enables them. They aren't getting the money. I'm winning. Good Lord. That was the voice of the patriarchy right there, folks. Listen to Armstrong and Getty on Demand on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Ben Ferguson
Talking about lunatics, I got to get to this other big story that deals with Anthony Fauci, so thank you. I've never said this before to Anthony Fauci, but thank you for keeping a really, really good diary, because now we have his record of what he was worried about during COVID when it was exploding, and it all went back to what I would describe as psychotic narcissism. He was obsessed with being famous. He loved being the center of attention. He also, I think, clearly knew that. And there's new accusations out that he was lying about the side effects of COVID 19 vaccines, some of which apparently affected him personally, but he did not disclose to the public.
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah, Look, Fauci is the single most dangerous bureaucrat in American history. He's a megalomaniac. He loved the press, and he was willing to implement policies that hurt Americans, and he was willing to lie. So, for example, Fauci played a critical role in shutting down schools all across America.
Ben Ferguson
Yeah.
Senator Ted Cruz
Now, when America saw devastating results, we have witnessed. I actually think a decade or two from now, people will look back at the school shutdowns during COVID and marvel at what an idiotic policy this country pursued as sort of mass psychosis. We have seen, and the data demonstrate this, the largest learning loss in recorded history since we began measuring the learning of our students. Yeah, the biggest learning loss came from the COVID shutdowns. And by the way, the racial gap, the gap between black and white students, the gap between Hispanic and white students, it's more than the. During the COVID lockdowns again, than any time since. Since it's been recorded. Now, once it became irrefutable that the school shutdowns were a travesty, a disaster, Foushee's tried to back away and say, oh, I didn't ask for the schools to be shut down. Well, a number of his private diary entries have been really released. Here's what he wrote on March 15, 2020. So this is pretty early in the. In the COVID pandemic, he writes, quote, big day. It's written in red letters. I spoke with Bill de Blasio, mayor of New York City, and convinced him, based on what I was saying publicly in my conversations tonight, to close the New York City schools. He had already decided based on what I was saying on tv. That's what he said. His private notes in March.
Ben Ferguson
Amazing.
Senator Ted Cruz
By the way, he said the same thing, quote, I had a similar call with Ann o', Leary, the chief of staff of Governor Gavin Newsom, in. In California, and said that based on my TV appearances today and yesterday, the governor has decided to close the schools in California as well as the bars and the restaurants. Now, seven. Seven months later, October 16, 2020, ABC News is interviewing Foushee and he denies he had any role in the lockdowns. He says, quote, let's go back and look at the transcript. We said we should try as best as possible we possibly can to keep the children in schools. Nobody plays that clip. They always come back and say, Fauci was responsible for shutting schools down. I had nothing to do with it. Now, there's a technical word for that that's called a lie. Also in 2022, he told the Hill that he, quote, didn't recommend locking anything down. Well, his own private diary refutes that, by the way, January 2024, he said, quote, when he was testifying the House Representatives, I did not close the schools. Foushee is dishonest and the diary is unequivocal. Five days later, here's what Foushee's diary says. Quote, also had a phone call with Mayor de Blasio, who wants to go to shelter in place for the entire city, is asking my advice. Since Governor Cuomo is pushing back, I advise de Blasio to go ahead and do it. I will try to speak with Cuomo. So he's saying, shut everything down. By the way, Fauci also in, in March of 2020, describes President Trump as incorrigible. This is this pattern. And the rest of these diary entries are stunning. They reveal a megalomaniac. All right, here's another component that's fairly stunning. You remember, Fauci laid out at great length that the source of COVID was not the Wuhan Institute for Virology.
Ben Ferguson
Yes. So that was one of the big ones. And he got angry on TV when it was brought up.
Senator Ted Cruz
It was not the Chinese government. It was not any of that. It was instead the wet market in China that occurred organically from, like bat soup in the wet market that just jumped from animals. So here is what he wrote in January of 2020. So right at the outset, he wrote the following. It now appears using EPI data and genomic data, that the first infection was in early December and not connected to the market. The infection spread among people weeks before the Chinese reported that they were dealing with a new infection. And that gave the virus time to establish itself in multi generational sustained spread. Remember, early on, the Chinese were saying that there is no human to human transmission and that all the original 27 cases were from the market. Now we know the market was not the source. It was the amplifier. Having said that, somewhere the virus jumped from animals. To humans. I want to repeat that sentence. Now. We know the market was not the source. It was the amplifier. This was January of 2020. And Foushee repeatedly lied about this over and over again. And by the way, in March And April of 2020, for those who are longtime listeners to Verdict, we have a lot of new listeners to verdict.
Ben Ferguson
Yeah.
Senator Ted Cruz
But in March and April of 2020, go back and listen to. I did two episodes on Verdict where we laid out the evidence early in Covid.
Ben Ferguson
Yep.
Senator Ted Cruz
That the weight of the evidence was the COVID virus came from the Wuhan Institute for Virology, where they were studying coronaviruses derived from bats, and that it escaped. I think it was likely an accidental lab leak. I think they were engaged in research, gain of function research, where they took existing viruses, they made them more dangerous, they more transmissible, more targeted to humans. I think they were studying them and then they screwed up. They had lax. They had lousy biosecurity measures. And I think a doctor or a researcher or someone got the disease, walked out and spread it to someone else. And spread it to someone else. Spread it to someone else. That is the most likely scenario, by the way, multiple US Government agencies now concur with that. That assessment. Foushee knew that at the outset and life. He lied. It was straight out lying, and it was. It was profoundly harmful.
Ben Ferguson
You look at what we're seeing now in these notes, I love the transparency. There's some that are mad that this put out saying, well, people aren't going to take accurate notes in the future. They think they're going to be outed. In this scenario, you should not be afraid of your notes unless you are lying and manipulating and don't lie.
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah, just don't, don't lie.
Ben Ferguson
Like, they'd be like, well, don't you want transparency? I'm like, of course. Like, well, if you out these types of notes, you're never gonna get transparency again. I'm like, no, just don't be a pathological liar to the American people. And what we saw in these notes was on the biggest issues of COVID And I think this is the core reason why I want to wrap it up and get your reaction to it. Now, I understand why he needed a pardon, preemptive pardon, because I think it's
Senator Ted Cruz
abundantly clear he was lying and knew
Ben Ferguson
he was lying and quoting his own words, he was lying under oath to you guys who were questioning him in Congress.
Senator Ted Cruz
And by the way, I also believe Fauci funded the gain of function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He was covering his own rear end because his decision to fund reckless research was a direct cause, I believe, of the pandemic. Understand this is not a new phenomenon for Fauci. I want to read an entry from his diary from 2013, so long before COVID happened. 2013, January 14, 2013. HHS turned me down on requests from CNN, Wolf Blitzer and Soledad O'. Brien. I asked John Burkow to call up Bill hall and find out what the heck is going on and what the reason for all of this is. John told me that CDC complaining to Bill hall and HHS that I was getting all of the publicity on an issue, influenza tracking that they considered was their issue. I do not know who at CDC did this. It could be anyone from Tom Frieden. I doubt this to more likely Tom Skinner, CDC PR person. In any event, it has nothing to do with my use of the word epidemic on Wolf Blitzer show and everything to do with pure jealousy that I am a rock star stealing their thunder. Shame on the CDC. So this is 2013. This man's own personal assessment. I want to read that sentence again. It has everything to do with pure jealousy that I am a quote unquote rock star stealing their thunder. This is someone who. Who's a narcissist who just wants to be on tv. So when we're in the middle of a pandemic, we're in the middle of a crisis. What did he wanted to do? He wanted to be on TV as the savior, as the solution. And he was willing to lie. He knew early on, he knew that the wet market is not where this virus came from. And yet he lied about that deliberately. And I think he did so again to cover his own culpability. And when it came to lockdowns, he repeatedly urged and advocated locking down schools, locking down small businesses, locking down churches, destroying people's livelihoods, destroying kids. There were tens of millions of kids in America who did not go to school for more than a year because
Ben Ferguson
of these lockdowns and ruin their education moving forward.
Senator Ted Cruz
And by the way, the data show that learning loss will be with them the rest of their lives when they're 80.
Zoharan Mandami (Mayor of New York City)
Yeah.
Senator Ted Cruz
They will still suffer the consequences. And he's born. No. No consequences for his own recklessness. This was egomaniacal. It was reckless and it was wrong.
Ben Ferguson
It really was. We're going to keep covering it. He's also going to be speaking, I think, before Congress very soon. We'll have that for you as well, to see if he is at least having to answer some questions on this. Don't forget we do the show Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Hit that subscriber auto download button so you do not miss a single episode. And you can also watch most of our episodes on YouTube as well. So make sure you hit that subscribe on YouTube and the center and I will see you back here on Friday morning.
Episode: Mamdani Doxxing New Yorkers & Destroying Bodegas, plus Fauci Caught Lying about Lockdowns & China
Date: July 29, 2026
Host: Ben Ferguson
Guest: Senator Ted Cruz
Main Topics: Doxxing of New Yorkers by Mayor Mandami, government-run grocery stores in NYC, and new revelations about Fauci's role in COVID-19 lockdowns and the origins of the virus.
In this episode, Ben Ferguson and Senator Ted Cruz tackle two major political developments:
The tone is urgent, combative, and highly critical of left-wing policies, with frequent references to “communist” and “Marxist” tactics being adopted by Democratic leadership.
“If you have this newly elected communist mayor who publishes a list of essentially ungrateful millionaires who don't pay their fair share. ... That is designed to send harassment your way and to send threats of physical violence.” —Sen. Ted Cruz (06:58)
“Fidel Castro was a billionaire… Putin is a billionaire. In communist dictatorships, the Communists have all the money and have all the power.” —Sen. Ted Cruz (12:01)
“You're going to have five city run grocery stores. They're going to set prices 30% below cost. ... They're going to run out, they're going to be empty shelves. By the way, the media is not going to show you the empty shelves, but they're going to run out.” —Sen. Ted Cruz (15:21)
“If you push all the people out that have the resources and the intellect to actually challenge you on these things… Then by default, that gives Mandami even more security.” —Ben Ferguson (12:37)
“I was one of those early on that was like, I love having an AOC ... Now, I'm as concerned as you are about this, that this is now turning into a cancer. How do you stop it?” —Ben Ferguson (19:14)
“He writes, quote, big day. ... I spoke with Bill de Blasio... and convinced him, based on what I was saying publicly, to close the New York City schools.” —Sen. Ted Cruz (26:32)
“There’s a technical word for that, that’s called a lie.” —Sen. Ted Cruz (27:59)
“Now we know the market was not the source. It was the amplifier.” —Sen. Ted Cruz quoting Fauci’s diary (30:20)
“It has everything to do with pure jealousy that I am a 'rock star' stealing their thunder.” —Sen. Ted Cruz, quoting Fauci (2013 diary) (33:55)
Ben Ferguson and Senator Ted Cruz present a forceful critique of what they see as the radicalization of left-wing governance, using New York City’s latest policies as evidence of a broader “Marxist” takeover. They warn of the dangers posed by doxxing, destruction of small businesses, and the rewriting of pandemic history, especially by figures like Anthony Fauci. Their appeal is to listeners concerned about government overreach, suppression of opposition, and the future direction of the Democratic Party.
Ferguson closes by promising continued coverage of these topics, especially as Fauci faces congressional testimony.