A Senator, a Catholic, and a Cactus Walk Onto a Campus

Summary

Podcast Title: The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
Episode: A Senator, a Catholic, and a Cactus Walk Onto a Campus
Release Date: October 21, 2021
Host/Author: Premiere Networks

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Episode Summary

In the episode titled "A Senator, a Catholic, and a Cactus Walk Onto a Campus," hosted by Ben Ferguson, prominent discussions unfold featuring Senator Ted Cruz, Michael Knowles, and moderator Liz Wheeler. Set against the backdrop of the Catholic University of America, the conversation navigates through pressing political issues, including mask mandates, paternity leave within the Biden administration, inflation, supply chain disruptions, hypersonic weapons advancements, and the ongoing immigration crisis. The episode also includes an interactive audience Q&A segment, providing deeper insights into the guests' viewpoints and policy stances.

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1. Mask Mandates and Presidential Privileges

The episode kicks off with Senator Cruz expressing frustration over perceived inconsistencies in the enforcement of mask mandates, particularly highlighting that President Joe Biden is exempt from these requirements in Washington, D.C.

Ted Cruz [01:50]: "Only if he's out at a restaurant palling around with rich people, then the mask mandate doesn't work."

Cruz criticizes the double standards in policy enforcement, emphasizing that while mask mandates are strictly applied to the public, the President appears to enjoy exemptions, undermining public trust in governmental policies.

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2. Paternity Leave of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg

The discussion shifts to the extended paternity leave taken by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, with Cruz questioning the impact of such prolonged absences on the ongoing supply chain crisis.

Ted Cruz [03:21]: "I am pretty sure Pete Buttigieg is the first and only cabinet secretary in the history of our country to take a paternity leave."

Cruz argues that the Secretary's two-month absence during a critical period exemplifies a lack of accountability and responsibility within the administration, potentially exacerbating existing economic challenges.

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3. Inflation and Supply Chain Challenges

Senator Cruz delves into the current state of inflation, comparing present rates to historical data to underline the severity of the economic situation.

Ted Cruz [07:15]: "We have inflation up at about 5 or 6% now, so we're several times higher than what's historically been true."

Michael Knowles supports Cruz's perspective, labeling the rising inflation and supply chain disruptions as significant threats that predominantly affect lower-income individuals, contrary to the administration's narratives that frame these issues as "high class problems."

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4. Hypersonic Weapons and National Security

The conversation transitions to national security concerns, particularly focusing on China's advancements in hypersonic missile technology and its implications for U.S. defense systems.

Ted Cruz [11:21]: "Our missile defense systems are designed to try to take them out. A hypersonic is very dangerous…"

Cruz elaborates on the vulnerabilities introduced by hypersonic weapons, explaining how their speed and maneuverability can potentially evade existing missile defense technologies, thereby posing a significant threat to national security.

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5. Audience Q&A: Interactive Discussions

a. Purpose of Human Freedom

A student named Nick poses a philosophical question about the ultimate virtue of human freedom. Both Cruz and Knowles provide their interpretations, intertwining personal faith and constitutional principles.

Ted Cruz [20:05]: "Look, think about what people will say at your funeral... Lives that you touched... are the people whose lives were made better because you lived."

Cruz emphasizes the role of freedom in personal development and societal contribution, aligning it with Christian values and the foundational principles of the United States.

b. Legal Immigration and Policy Funding

Jane Edwards questions the panel about funding for immigration courts and legal processes, focusing on the administration's handling of family separations and asylum claims.

Ted Cruz [26:16]: "I introduced legislation to address it… safe, secure family detention facilities."

Cruz outlines his legislative efforts aimed at preventing family separations and improving the efficiency of immigration courts to ensure swift adjudication of asylum claims.

c. Big Tech and Whistleblower Testimonies

Real Truth Cactus addresses the timing of Facebook's shutdown coinciding with whistleblower Frances Haugen's testimony, prompting a discussion on potential motivations behind corporate actions.

Ted Cruz [32:51]: "You know, I have to admit, I thought the same thing. And that day tweeted out a gif of Facebook headquarters running through the hallways going, shred it all, shred it all."

The panel engages in light-hearted banter while acknowledging the suspicious timing, though without concrete evidence linking the two events.

d. Border Crisis and Human Rights Violations

Ali Trust raises concerns about the abuse and sexual assault occurring at the U.S. border, seeking Cruz's stance on addressing these humanitarian issues.

Ted Cruz [34:11]: "This is horrific… The answer to fix it is reverse the three decisions Joe Biden made…"

Cruz vehemently criticizes the Biden administration's immigration policies, linking them to increased violence and exploitation by cartels, and advocates for reinstating stringent border control measures.

e. Definition of Liberty and Cross-Aisle Collaboration

Sam questions the panel on their definitions of liberty and the feasibility of bipartisan cooperation in implementing meaningful changes.

Michael Knowles [47:42]: "Liberty is not the ability to do whatever you want to do, but rather the right to do what you ought to do."

Ted Cruz [52:30]: "Liberty is the right to swing my fist ends at the tip of your nose…"

Knowles and Cruz present contrasting views on liberty, with Knowles emphasizing moral responsibilities and Cruz advocating for a libertarian interpretation that prioritizes individual freedoms while acknowledging the right to make personal choices, even imperfect ones.

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6. Conclusion and Final Remarks

As the episode winds down, the panel reflects on the current state of political polarization and the challenges of fostering bipartisan cooperation. Senator Cruz shares anecdotes about past bipartisan efforts and underscores the importance of engaging with the electorate to secure legislative victories.

Ted Cruz [59:47]: "The failure of both parties to work across the aisle is a symptom of a broader phenomenon that's playing out in our society and culture…"

Michael Knowles echoes the sentiment, highlighting the necessity of substantive discussions on policy issues over personal attacks to bridge the growing ideological divide.

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Notable Quotes with Attribution and Timestamps

• Ted Cruz [03:21]: "I am pretty sure Pete Buttigieg is the first and only cabinet secretary in the history of our country to take a paternity leave."

• Michael Knowles [07:15]: "We have inflation up at about 5 or 6% now, so we're several times higher than what's historically been true."

• Ted Cruz [11:21]: "Our missile defense systems are designed to try to take them out. A hypersonic is very dangerous…"

• Ted Cruz [20:05]: "Look, think about what people will say at your funeral... Lives that you touched... are the people whose lives were made better because you lived."

• Ted Cruz [26:16]: "I introduced legislation to address it… safe, secure family detention facilities."

• Michael Knowles [47:42]: "Liberty is not the ability to do whatever you want to do, but rather the right to do what you ought to do."

• Ted Cruz [52:30]: "Liberty is the right to swing my fist ends at the tip of your nose…"

• Ted Cruz [59:47]: "The failure of both parties to work across the aisle is a symptom of a broader phenomenon that's playing out in our society and culture…"

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Key Discussions and Insights

1. Policy Inconsistencies: The episode highlights perceived double standards in the enforcement of health mandates, questioning the administrative accountability of high-ranking officials.

2. Economic Challenges: Inflation rates and supply chain disruptions are scrutinized, with critiques directed at the administration's handling of these issues and their impact on everyday Americans.

3. National Security: The advancement of hypersonic weapons by geopolitical rivals raises concerns about the adequacy of current U.S. defense systems and the need for strategic countermeasures.

4. Immigration Crisis: The panel offers a critical view of the Biden administration's immigration policies, linking them to increased illegal crossings, human rights abuses, and the exploitation of vulnerable migrants by criminal organizations.

5. Concept of Liberty: Differing interpretations of liberty underscore the broader ideological debates between moral responsibility and individual freedoms, emphasizing the complexity of balancing personal choices with societal well-being.

6. Political Polarization: The discussions reflect on the deepening ideological divides and the diminishing prospects for bipartisan cooperation, attributing these trends to media echo chambers and heightened tribalism.

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Conclusions and Takeaways

The episode underscores the challenges facing contemporary American politics, from policy inconsistencies and economic woes to national security threats and immigration crises. Through incisive dialogue and audience engagement, Senator Cruz and Michael Knowles articulate a conservative perspective on these issues, advocating for stricter enforcement of existing policies and a return to foundational principles of liberty and accountability. The interactive Q&A segment further delves into philosophical and practical aspects of governance, inviting listeners to reflect on the nuanced interplay between individual freedoms and collective responsibilities.

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Note: This summary is designed for those who have not listened to the episode, providing a comprehensive overview of the key points, discussions, and insights presented.

Transcript

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[Ted Cruz]

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[Ted Cruz]

Now. Thank you.

[Michael Knowles]

We have now been to two schools. This is the third stop on the fall Verdict Live tour in partnership with Young America's Foundation. Special thanks to the Logan family. We started out on Governor Walker's home turf of Wisconsin. We moved on.

[Ted Cruz]

Well, we were supposed to be on a college campus.

[Michael Knowles]

That didn't quite work out. They don't like us up there. But we still made that podcast work. We then moved on, Senator, to your home turf of Texas. We are now on my home turf. This very popish place here. A Southern Baptist and a Catholic and a cactus walk onto a university campus. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. It is really terrific to be here at Catholic University of America. You know, we just came from the land of freedom in Texas, and I landed here, and I gotta tell you, I was pretty shocked because there's this mask mandate in place. Every single person in Washington, D.C. needs to wear a mask except the President of the United States. Do I have that right?

[Ted Cruz]

Look, only if he's out at a restaurant palling around with rich people, then the mask mandate doesn't work. And to be fair, he didn't know there was a camera.

[Michael Knowles]

Most importantly, he didn't know about the camera.

[Ted Cruz]

This is a very tricky virus. You put a camera on you, my God, you need 16 masks. You take the camera off, no problem at all.

[Michael Knowles]

I have to say, it is pretty audacious right now. We've been talking about this vaccine mandate, the mask mandates that is actually shutting down segments of our economy. And amid all of this, with such hubris, with no shame at all, the President and his wife walk into this restaurant. The security detail is masked. Everyone else there is masked. But the rules don't apply to him.

[Ted Cruz]

By the way, you know, that is the same restaurant, or actually the sister restaurant of. If you remember a couple of years ago when Heidi and I were going out to dinner in D.C. and this group of antifa protesters surrounded us, yelled at us, ended up following us out of the restaurant. Exact same restaurant that Joe Biden is walking around in without masks.

[Michael Knowles]

You know, to Biden's credit, though, I think we need to give him credit. He, unlike the transportation secretary, has ostensibly been showing up for work over the past two months. But the transportation secretary, amid the worst supply chain crisis, certainly of my lifetime, he's on two months, going on three months of paternity leave.

[Ted Cruz]

You know, I gotta say, this story actually pisses me off. Look, number one, people are walking on eggshells around this story. Yeah, they're, like, nervous about, oh, well, it's paternity leave. You're not supposed to say anything bad about that. You know, we're really. We're woke, we're sensitive, and, you know, he's gay. So then I really can't say anything about it. You can't talk about.

[Michael Knowles]

Don't say it, Senator.

[Ted Cruz]

And like, okay, our country is over 200 years old. I am pretty sure Pete Buttigieg is the first and only cabinet secretary in the history of our country to take a paternity leave.

[Michael Knowles]

Yes. Yeah, I think that's fair.

[Ted Cruz]

You know, not just, okay, stay home, be a few days with the kid, be a week with the kid, but two damn months.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, and counting. And he said he won't. He won't stop. He won't come back to work, even with the supply chain crisis. I suppose the only thing you have to recommend it is that probably if Buttigieg were doing his job, the crisis would be worse. I have to assume.

[Ted Cruz]

Look, this story actually encapsulates a lot of the things that are infuriating. Number one, Buttigieg doesn't show up to work for two months.

[Liz Wheeler]

Yeah.

[Ted Cruz]

Number two, they keep it a secret. They don't tell anyone. There's no public announcement. There's no. He's a cabinet member. If you're a cabinet member, you got a responsibility to show up to work. Number three, it was fascinating. None of the press reports on it. Is there any reporter at the Department of transportation who 60 days in would say, you know who we haven't seen in 60 days? That secretary guy. Does he still work here? And it's. Okay, look, you might say the secretary of transportation doesn't show up to work, and it's like a tree falling in the woods. Who notices?

[Michael Knowles]

Who cares? Right?

[Ted Cruz]

But it happens to be right in the middle of a transportation crisis that is impacting the whole country.

[Michael Knowles]

Well, now, listen, I'm not an economist, so I would like to hear your thoughts as a lawmaker, someone who sees this up close. I have been reliably informed that historic inflation and an historic supply chain crisis is one, a high class problem. That's what the White House chief of. And two, it's actually a good thing. That's what Jen Psaki at the White House and Pete Buttigieg have both said in the last two days.

[Ted Cruz]

Look, there is an arrogance to this and all of these themes are connected together. The arrogance is that this administration wants to implement policies on working people, on the little people that they themselves don't follow.

[Michael Knowles]

Yep.

[Ted Cruz]

And when you look at something like inflation. So the White House chief of staff, Ron Klain tweeted out that it's a high class problem. Inflation. You know, last I checked, buying food is not a high class problem. Yeah, the last I checked, rent isn't a high class problem. Gas isn't a high class problem. Diapers aren't a high class problem. You know, it's easy to sit back and say, oh, what difference does it make as inflation's going up and up and up. But listen, and I gotta say, we're with mostly college students. By the way, love the Astros shirt. Awesome shirt, by the way. In 19 when the Astros played the Nationals, I went to one of the Games here in D.C. sat behind home plate was the lone orange shirt in a sea of red. And remember, that was a weird series where the away team won every game. So I was literally surrounded by Nationals fans. I'm wearing Astros. It is a miracle I didn't get my ass kicked.

[Michael Knowles]

I'm seeing a theme here. That restaurant in D.C. with antifa. And then you're the orange shirt in.

[Ted Cruz]

Nashvilles at the game. It had nothing to do with politics. It was all baseball and we were winning. And so I was pretty loud and obnoxious about it. But look, the double standard, you know, for all of y'all in college the last 20 years, we've lived in this sort of weird, weird holiday from history because inflation hasn't really exist. We've had inflation 1 and 2% for about 20 years now. I'll tell you, I remember the 1970s. So I was born in 70. I was a kid in the 70s. And I mean, I remember when we had double digit inflation. I remember when you had home loans, home mortgage loans of 21 and 22%. That's massive. And the thing about inflation, we're up at about 5 or 6% now, so we're several times higher than what's historically been true. And I'll tell you who really gets hit by that are seniors. If you're a senior, you're on a fixed income, and suddenly all your expenses are going up, right? Rent, food, gas, utilities, everything you're paying for. And so the income doesn't move and the outflow goes up.

[Michael Knowles]

You know, there's an irony where the White House chief of staff and the whole Biden apparatus now is trying to pretend that inflation and supply chain issues are a high class problem. Actually, the opposite is true. These issues disproportionately affect poorer people. You know, historically speaking, wealthier people can just make. They tend to make more money even as inflation goes up. But also basic goods, gas, heating, your home, food. I mean, that will disproportionately affect people on smaller incomes. But it's the. Speaking of gas, it's the gaslighting that's going on now. We're being told that up is down and black is white and right is left. And meanwhile, by the way, while we're debating paternity leave for our transportation secretary.

[Ted Cruz]

And let me be clear about something, because, look, you and I are both fathers. In fact, you're a new father.

[Michael Knowles]

I am.

[Ted Cruz]

Thank you.

[Michael Knowles]

You know, babies always get applause at a Catholic university. You can count on it.

[Ted Cruz]

Yeah. So, you know, I remember when our girls were born. So our girls are 13 and 10. Katherine's about to turn 11. And listen, I'm A maternity leave is awesome. Heidi took a full maternity leave. It was wonderful with a newborn. So our girls were born 10 and 13 years ago. I have to admit, 10 and 13 years ago, I'd never heard of paternity leave.

[Michael Knowles]

10 months ago, I'd never heard of paternity leave.

[Ted Cruz]

We didn't talk about. And it wasn't like we made a conscious decision not to talk about it. It was okay. She was caring, and I love my girls, but it wasn't a thing. All right, so now it's a thing. And that's fine. Jobs, that can be fine. But being in the cabinet is different. Yeah, like, you have a responsibility not to disappear from the job for two months. And you know what? It's not that damn hard to pick up a zoom in the middle of a pandemic. You can zoom. You can be on the job at home. And it says something that there's a view that, this is not a problem, we can do what we want. And it's the same double standard that applies in a lot of contexts.

[Michael Knowles]

And meanwhile, if you zoom out and you look at the geopolitical Picture here we're sitting around debating whether cabinet secretaries should just disappear for family time for more than two months. We're debating whether woke generals in the military ought to be sending critical race theory texts to the troops.

[Ted Cruz]

Meanwhile, look, it's not like there's anything important to monitor.

[Michael Knowles]

No, there's nothing.

[Ted Cruz]

I mean, it's not like the Chinese are testing hypersonics or anything.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, that's the thing I just read about. So our greatest geopolitical foe is testing out weapons that are blowing us away that we didn't know were possible at the moment. And meanwhile, we're twiddling our thumbs.

[Ted Cruz]

So look, a hypersonic. You look at a ballistic missile that goes up in the air, goes up into the atmosphere, comes down, and we have missile defense systems to take them out. And then you put a nuclear warhead on the top of an ICBM and you can. Our missile defense systems are designed to try to take them out. A hypersonic is very dangerous because in what China tested is something that goes up on a rocket, but then very low to the atmosphere, goes about five times the speed of sound, and is able to orbit the earth, is able to steer. Suddenly, missile defense doesn't work that well. And they were testing it with the ability to put a nuclear warhead on the front end of it. It also means one of the potentials. So our missile defense is all keyed on missiles coming over the North Pole. Look, a lot of it was developed with the Soviet Union, where naturally the North Pole is the shortest distance there with China, also, the North Pole is the most natural. So you've got in Alaska, big missile defense batteries. Well, the problem with the hypersonic is they can now come over the South Pole. They can come over this. Potentially, the technology would let them come over the South Pole, where we don't have the same missile defense on our southern border, or for that matter, our southern border, the Rio Grande. They could just give it to a drug cartel and carry a nuke in it.

[Michael Knowles]

That's probably the easiest way. It's the most direct way, far closer than the South Pole.

[Ted Cruz]

And listen, hypersonics technologies moving forward. We're developing them, our enemies are developing them. But I gotta say, reading the stories, the Biden administration repeatedly said, we were shocked. We were astonished. We had no idea they had this technology. And it reminded me of the disaster in Afghanistan where they said, we were shocked, we were astonished. We had no idea the Taliban were bad guys.

[Michael Knowles]

If only someone had told us.

[Ted Cruz]

And maybe they should be shocked a little less. Like if they Weren't concentrating on putting out cartoon recruiting ads.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, yeah, very.

[Ted Cruz]

Maybe we could be focused on our enemies who want to kill us.

[Michael Knowles]

Right. You know, when you look at the current crop of leadership, whether it's in the agencies or it's in the White House or wherever or it's in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it's pretty depressing. When you look at the future of America, though, when you look at the young people, especially the ones assembled here, it gives you a little more hope. Should. Should we get to their questions?

[Ted Cruz]

Absolutely.

[Michael Knowles]

That's what I'm here for.

[Ted Cruz]

Yes.

[Michael Knowles]

Should we bring out our friend Liz Wheeler to moderate an open discussion? We're gonna be taking all of your questions, so make sure that you line up if you disagree with us.

[Ted Cruz]

I'm not sure all of them.

[Michael Knowles]

Not all. If they're tough. Please, we don't want. We don't need to hear that. Okay.

[Ted Cruz]

And just in a low math, just for the rule, if you start with linear algebra, I'm gonna make the Yale graduate answer that one.

[Michael Knowles]

That's great. You know, I mostly studied lesbian dance theory, underwater basket weaving. You know, all the top major, so. But you know what we can do? We'll kick it to Liz. She can answer those questions.

[Ted Cruz]

You know, if you make that promise, we may demand a performance.

[Liz Wheeler]

Good to see you.

[Ted Cruz]

Good to see you.

[Liz Wheeler]

Good to see you. Senator. I hope when you said that a Catholic, a senator, and a cactus were coming to a campus that. I hope you weren't talking about me when you said campus.

[Michael Knowles]

You are not the cactus. You are the second Catholic. Actually, we brought reinforcements. Shall we take some questions?

[Liz Wheeler]

Yes. Do we know the rules of the questions? We know the rules of questions. Ask one question, not two, not three. Not two. Part, not three, part. One question. Make it succinct so that we can get to as many questions as possible. If you disagree with the senator, if you disagree with Michael, our producers will bring you to the front of the line because that's why we're here. We're also going to. While everyone gets lined up, I want to talk to you for just a second about Verdict plus, it's a portal for access to Senator Ted Cruz, where not just tonight, but every night, or not every night, but frequently, we will get together and do question and answer. So you can submit questions through that portal. It's verdict with TedCruz.com plus, you probably have a little card that was on your seat when you sat down. There's a promo code on that card. I think the promo code says Live, you will get a month free trial to verdict if you use that promo code. So That's Verdict with TedCruz.com/plus. And the promo code is live. And while everyone is lining up, we're actually going to take our first question directly from Verdict plus. There's some great questions that have already been submitted. So this first question, Senator, is directed obviously at you. It's from an Iraqi war veteran, and he says, as we all know, there have been over 160,000, quote, unquote migrants released into the country since March. With that being said, why are we still not processing K1 fiance visas? Why punish those who are trying to do immigration the legal way?

[Ted Cruz]

Look, I think it's a very good question. You know, my view on immigration. I've always summarized in four words, legal, good, illegal, bad. I think there's a right way to come to this country. The right way is to stand in line, to follow the rules and come here legally. And fiance visas have been one of the long and traditional ways of doing that. You know, one of the strange things about how the Biden administration has handled immigration is on the southern border, we have an open border. We've had over 1.3 million people cross illegally just since Biden's become president. But at the same time, they've shut the border down to legal commerce. It's a very strange combination where they're not allowing. So you have Mexican citizens, for example, who routinely would come up to Texas, they'd go shopping, they'd go go out to dinner, they would come there. There's a heavy traffic back and forth. That is a legal commerce back and forth. The Biden administration shut that all down. So. So it is a bizarre. If you're coming with a cartel to break the law, they're fine with it. If you're actually coming legally to drive the economy, they're not. I think that's backwards and we ought to be prioritizing doing it the right way.

[Michael Knowles]

But do you think, Senator, I mean, to the viewers, question, is it incompetence from the Biden administration or to quote your colleague Marco Rubio from the campaign, you know, does Biden know exactly what he's doing? Let's dispel with the fiction that he doesn't know what he's doing. I mean, is this intentional?

[Ted Cruz]

So I think the open borders are intentional, and it's because it's two things. One, Biden and Harris essentially made promises to the radical left in the Democratic Party that they would have open borders, that they wouldn't enforce the law. And so far, they haven't been willing to renege on those promises. But secondly, I think more broadly, they view unlimited illegal immigration as future Democratic voters. I think this is a crass political decision, and I gotta tell you, it's horrific. I've spent a lot of time at the border. The kids who are coming in are being brought in by traffickers. They're being abused. It is. It takes your breath away to see what's happening. You know, on the legal side, I don't have a good answer for it. So why, for example, they shut down legal commerce across the bridges, I don't know.

[Michael Knowles]

Right.

[Ted Cruz]

It doesn't make any sense. I actually. I've called for them to open it up. Democrats have called for them to open it up, but they don't do it. I have never been able to get a good answer as to why.

[Liz Wheeler]

It's interesting, too, I think, to note that the Biden administration tried to prevent the media from covering this. They tried to prevent the drones that were showing footage in Del Rio. I mean, you were actually the first one. You took your cell phone down there to show the American people what was happening. Because clearly the Biden administration knows that what's happening isn't just arbitrarily happening, that it's happening as a direct result of their political choices. So it does beg the question whether it's being done or for what intention it is being done, since they know that their choices are causing that problem.

[Ted Cruz]

Yep.

[Liz Wheeler]

All right, are you guys ready? So when you step up to the mic, introduce yourself first, and then you can address your question to the senator, to Michael, or to me. What's your name?

[Nick]

Hi, my name's Nick. I'm a senior history major here at cua. And for the record, the History Department rocks here.

[Liz Wheeler]

Great. I love to hear it.

[Nick]

So, Senator, I want to ask you about freedom. You talk a lot about freedom. You talk a lot about liberty, but with all respect, I haven't heard you talk a lot about throughout your career. What is the purpose of human freedom? So I want to ask you tonight, what is the purpose of human freedom? And is it the ultimate virtue as human beings that we should seek, or is there something more?

[Ted Cruz]

Wow. So, Nick, let me say you have just demonstrated your first statement, which is the History Department rocks here. That is a great and profound question. And we're starting with depth. Look. At the end of the day, I think every human yearns for meaning, yearns for a purpose larger than ourselves, a purpose larger than our lives. That is a Purpose that for billions, for the time of humanity, has been filled for many with faith. As for me, I'm a Christian, and my faith is a very important part of who I am. But I think when it comes to freedom, there's a different role. If you're assessing how am I going to live my life, then there is a question of what are the governmental policies that should be in place. And, you know, if you look at the founding of our country, we were founded by people fleeing religious oppression and coming to a place where we could live according to our faith and worship God and live our lives according to our faith, according to our conscience. And so from a governmental perspective, I think government should not have its finger on the scale one way or the other. We should protect rules that allow everyone to go and seek whatever faith questions, whatever faith journey. And by the way, look, I'm a Christian now, but all of us have had a faith journey. I was raised as a Christian. I had a period when I was in school where I was probably fairly described as an agnostic. I had doubts, which a lot of young people certainly do. Actually. Heidi had a similar journey questioning her faith when she was in school. I think that's a very common part of life. I think we ought to have legal rules in place that protect the ability of each of us to try to answer the ultimate question, to try to answer what is our purpose? I can tell you one thing I point out a lot, particularly when I talk to young people, is I say, look, think about what people will say at your funeral. Little macabre, but when you're dead and buried, what are they gonna say? And nobody is gonna remember how big of a flat screen TV you had. Nobody is gonna remember if you had a fancy car or not. I mean, the material possessions in life. Look, you need enough money to have food and shelter and provide for your family. But the only thing anyone ever talks about at a funeral are the lives that you touched, are the people whose lives were made better because you lived, are the people you inspired, are the people you helped, are the people whose world was bettered because of your effort. And so I think that's a big part of having a higher purpose, is making a positive difference in your home, in your family, in your neighborhood, in your community, in your state, in your country. And I think each of us is on a journey to figure that out.

[Michael Knowles]

It's also worth remembering a line from St. Paul when we're trying to make sense of what do we really mean by freedom. St. Paul says the things that I want to do, I don't do. And the things that I don't want to do, I do. Now, is he just speaking gibberish? What does that even mean? Well, what he's describing is the difference between his appetite, his base desires, and his higher rational will. And we all know, I mean, the clearest example of this, I guess, would be a drug addict, right, who at the very base appetite level wants to shoot up a bunch of drugs. But at the higher level, he does. He wants to quit. He wants to be in control of himself and have freedom. You know, the Founding Fathers described this distinction as one between liberty and licentiousness. And you know, we all used to understand, not just conservatives, everybody in this country used to understand that. And I think recently we've kind of redefined liberty as this idea of just doing whatever you want, you know, no matter how base that is. And, you know, the Founding Fathers warned that this would be the end of liberty. This is why when John Adams says that the Constitution is built for a moral and religious people and it's not fit to the government of any other, he's not Bible thumping. John Adams was not a Bible thumper. And he's not being superstitious. He's describing this, this complex fact of human freedom. And I mean, I think that's what you're speaking to, Senator. And I suspect that's what the question is getting at, that if we want self government, if we want to keep the project of the Republic going, we need to be able first to govern ourselves. And in recent years, we've had trouble doing that.

[Ted Cruz]

And on the question of licentiousness, for what it's worth, the brownies here were provided by the state of Colorado.

[Liz Wheeler]

I think too, if I may interject here, I think too, as Catholics and as Christians, we should recognize that freedom as protected by the government is a vehicle for us to make the right decision. It allows us as Christians and as Catholics, to choose virtue, to choose Christ. It almost mirrors the choice that Christ gives us, you know, giving us free will. We can choose him or we can choose to reject him. And that's why it's incumbent on us as both Catholics and Christians, but also political activists, to defend freedom in as many aspects of life as we can, because it allows us to be, as Christians and Catholics, closer to God by making those decisions. So it's also a vehicle that mirrors our faith, I think.

[Ted Cruz]

Thank you.

[Liz Wheeler]

Hi, what's your name?

[User 1]

Hi, I'm Jane Edwards. So I actually have a question regarding immigration. I'm A history major here at Catholic University. And my question for the immigration is for legal immigration, because it is often on a case by case basis. Will you actively seek to fund immigration courts and lawyers?

[Ted Cruz]

So it's a great question. The answer, at least on the court side, is yes. And I can tell you. So back a couple of years ago, you remember when suddenly the news was dominated with the phrase kids in cages and it was said over and over again, look, I was very concerned then and now about the kids in cages. And I actually introduced legislation to address it. And in particular, you had a phenomenon. So if you go back to the history of where this came from, why is it that there are kids in cages? The initial cages were built by Barack Obama. And what happened, if you go back to. And my numbers are, if you go back to, I believe it's 2013, the number of unaccompanied children that came to the US in that year was, I believe, 6,000. Shortly thereafter is when Obama announced DACA, which was the executive amnesty for people who came illegally to the country as children. Now, if you announce amnesty for people who come as kids, you create a massive incentive for people to come as kids. And the very next year, the number of unaccompanied children that came illegally to this country went from 6,000 all the way up to 93,000. It was a massive explosion. And so the first time I saw the kids in cages was in 2014. They were in Texas. Barack Obama was present. They were in Lackland Air Force Base. And they built them because the numbers, the massive numbers were coming in as a response to the executive amnesty. And actually the Border Patrol interviewed the kids and said, why are you coming? And the kids said over and over again, they said, because we get a permiso, which is if we come, we get to stay. It was very difficult to get the press to cover all of the kids that were in cages then, and kids, by the way, that were being physically assaulted, sexually assaulted, the traffickers that are bringing them in are bad, bad guys. Fast forward to the Trump presidency. Then suddenly the kids in cages that were still there, that became a major issue. And we saw a new phenomenon which was family units coming over. And so that was a different form of migration. And what drove that is something called Flores. So Flores was a lawsuit that the Obama administration had settled, and it's a settlement that they entered into in the ninth Circuit that provided a strict time limit on how long a child could be kept in detention if they came illegally. And the Obama administration agreed to It. It was entered into as a consent decree by the federal court under Flores. What it then became the case was that if an adult came with a child, all of them would be released within the time limits of Flores. And so it would force them all to be released. And we started to see a phenomenon that was a terrible phenomenon where adults were showing up with kids that were not their kids. So they would present as a family unit and Border Patrol would do a DNA test. And a very significant percentage of them were completely unrelated to the kids. And in fact, we were seeing a horrific phenomenon of children being rented out, that if you were a single adult man who wanted to come to the United States, if you brought a kid, that kid was a get out of jail free card. Well, in light of all of that, I introduced legislation and I tried to team up with the Democrats. So I spent, oh, probably 20 hours negotiating with Dianne Feinstein and trying to say, diane, okay, let's not have family separation. I agree emphatically. Families should stay together, that if you have a mom and dad and kids, they should all stay together. No one wants to see the kids separated from the family. But the answer can't be, so release everybody, because that creates much more illegal immigration. So the bill I introduced kept families together. It created safe, secure family detention facilities where you would keep a family all together. And then it funded, if I remember correctly, I think it was 500 new immigration judges to provide for expedited hearings, so that if you have a family presenting a claim of asylum, presenting a credible fear of persecution, that you would have the courts right there to adjudicate it, right? Then get a swift answer. And if they meet the legal standard, they stay. And if they don't meet the legal standard, you put them on a plane and send them home. And so I filed this legislation. You can read the bill. You know, it was interesting negotiating with Diane. When she and I would talk, we actually had quite a bit of agreement. And she was. When we talk about what was happening at the border and she was disturbed by it. You know, I have to say, her staff, I think, was far to the left of where she was. And actually Democratic leadership, they sent Dick Durbin to basically monitor Diane because they didn't want her to agree to anything with me. We ended up not being able to get bipartisan agreements. So I filed my bill, but no Democrats joined together. I said, look, we can end family separation right here, and we can also fund the immigration courts to resolve these claims. There was no Democratic appetite to do that. Thank you.

[Liz Wheeler]

All right, for those watching online, those watching the events live streaming on YouTube, make sure you subscribe to the Young Americas Foundation YouTube page and ring that bell. I'm talking to you, those who are watching online right now. Before we get to your question, I do want to take another question from Verdict Plus. This is a little bit of a saucy question about big tech and I'm very interested to hear your answer, actually. And this is the username of this individual I thought was very funny too. It's Real Truth Cactus.

[Ted Cruz]

Ah, yes, we love the Real Truth Cactus.

[Liz Wheeler]

Real Truth Cactus. He asks.

[Ted Cruz]

She.

[Michael Knowles]

She.

[Ted Cruz]

It's a.

[Michael Knowles]

She's the lady Truth Cactus. Yeah.

[Liz Wheeler]

Oh, well, my apologies, of course. This is what she asks. Is it a coincidence that Facebook shut down the same day that Frances Haugen, that's the Facebook whistleblower that testified in Congress, blew the whistle on them? Or am I just crazy?

[Ted Cruz]

You know, I have to admit, I thought the same thing. And that day tweeted out a gif of Facebook headquarters running through the hallways going, shred it all, shred it all. You know, I don't know, but it was. It sure was an interesting coinky dink.

[Michael Knowles]

You know, if the last few years have taught us anything, I think it's that the difference between a wild crazy conspiracy theory and the truth is about six to 12 months. You know, that would be the big distinction.

[Liz Wheeler]

So here's my follow up question. That was.

[Ted Cruz]

But I have it on good authority it came from Russia to begin with.

[Liz Wheeler]

Here's my follow up.

[Ted Cruz]

That's a joke for the Internet censors. That's a joke. I didn't get it on good authority I got it from the Hillary Clinton campaign.

[Liz Wheeler]

YouTube can't stand when we call them out for subscriptions, so we gotta balance that out a little bit. Let's get to your question. What's your name?

[User 1]

Hi, my name's Ali Trust. I'm a double major here in philosophy, pre law and history. Wow. I have. Thank you. I have a question about immigration regarding the humanitarian crisis at the bor. What are you. Or what would you do regarding all the abuse and sexual assault going on at the border right now with those kids in cages?

[Ted Cruz]

Yeah, look, it's. What is happening now. I've been to the border a lot of times. I represented Texas nine years in the Senate going down the border, something I do frequently. I've never seen it remotely this bad. And it's worth noting, you know, when you ask, what can we do about it? Sometimes when the press asks that Question. What they mean is there's no way to solve it. I'm not suggesting that's what you mean by it, but it's what the press means when they ask it. And we know that's actually not true because last year we had the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years. So what we were doing a year ago was working. What were we doing a year ago? Well, the best way to understand how we got into this crisis now is the first week Joe Biden was in office, he made three decisions on immigration that had massive consequences. First thing he did is he immediately halted construction of the wall. And so if you go down to the wall, there are portions of it that are built that are big, beautiful wall, as someone might say. And then on January 20th, they literally dropped their tools. You see rebar that's just rusting down on the ground. You see bulldozers that are just parked and they. We are paying contractors millions of dollars not to build the wall. That was step number one. Step number two is the Biden administration reinstated catch and release. Catch and release was the policy where you apprehend someone, you give them a court date sometime in the future. You let them go say, hey, please show up at court. The vast majority of them are never seen again. Catch and release doesn't work. If you want a secure border, you can't have catch and release. Catch. The third decision, and this was probably the most significant, was that Joe Biden ended the remain in Mexico policy. Now, remain in Mexico was an agreement that President Trump negotiated with the government of Mexico and Mexico agreed that people crossing illegally into Mexico, typically from Central or South America, would remain in Mexico while the US Asylum case was cases were proceeding. Remain in Mexico proved to be an incredible success. And it's what produced. I mentioned a moment ago, we had the lowest rate of illegal immigration last year in 45 years because of remain in Mexico. Our government, working cooperatively with the government of Mexico on day one, Biden tore that into pieces. And we have today the highest rate of illegal immigration in 21 years. And let me take a minute to talk about. So what is happening? You know, a few weeks ago, I was down in South Texas at a bunch of roundtables and sat down with law enforcement and sheriffs and ranch owners and farmers and local elected officials. So the ranchers, I remember there were two different ranchers, both women, who described almost the exact same thing. They said they don't allow their teenage kids to go out on their property without an armed firearm. That there are just so many traffickers crossing their property on a daily basis that it's not safe for their kids to be out there. And they were mad. They were ticked off. You know, how is my country not allowing these criminal cartels just to ignore the law with impunity? We also heard from law enforcement who described so many of the illegal immigrants who come across, they're wearing a colored wristband, and the color corresponds. So to cross the border, you have to pay the cartels. You can't. If you're in Mexico, you want to cross in the U.S. if you try to swim on your own, they'll kill you. The cartels have a total monopoly, and you pay them anywhere between three and $8,000. And what happens when people come across is typically they get put in stash houses just north of the river. The stash houses are really violent, dangerous places. There are a lot of physical assaults there. There are a lot of rapes that happen in these stash houses. And often they will extort thousands more once you're there. And so the color coded wristbands correspond to how many thousands of dollars you paid and how many you owe. Now, what happens next? Many of these folks then go turn themselves in to the border patrol, and the Biden administration sends them to cities throughout the country. So you may think, you know, maybe you're from New York or LA or Chicago, or maybe you're from D.C. you may think, well, gosh, I'm not on the border. This is not a problem that impacts me. Well, there are hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants that the Biden administration is sending to every city across the country. And you get, for example, teenage boys that arrive here in D.C. who owe the cartel several thousands of dollars. And so they're working for the cartels, and they have to pay it off. Remember, the cartels, they know who their families are. And so if you're a teenage boy and you owe $4,000, if you don't pay that off, they will kill your mother, they'll kill your sister. And so you now have all of these. Many of them are teenagers working for the drug cartels in every city across the country. You also, tragically, have, particularly with teenage girls, many of them are put into forced prostitution, and it is horrific. So the prostitution houses that the cartels have set up are like an old plantation. They keep a ledger of every expense. So they charge you for your room, they charge you for your board, they charge you for utilities, they charge you for every different fact. I was told the cost for the scissors to cut the ankle monitor bracelet off your ankle was $30. They charge you $30 to cut the bracelet off. And so if you can imagine a 15 year old girl from Honduras or Nicaragua or Guatemala who came north cause she wanted to come to the promised land. She wanted to live free. She was inspired by America. And a few months later she is living in hell in forced prostitution in an establishment run by the drug cartels. This is horrific. And it's one of the things that frustrates me politically when we talk about it, is that the defenders of this policy say they're being humane and compassionate. There's nothing humane about what is happening to these people. I think the answer to fix it is reverse the three decisions Joe Biden made, which is return to building the border wall, end catch and release and reinstate the remain in Mexico policy. And we know that worked because it worked last year dramatically well, but right now, at least Joe Biden and Kamala Harris don't want to do it.

[Michael Knowles]

There was an incredible statistic that came out a few years ago. It was actually reported in the Huffington Post, left wing outlet. It was relying on data from Fusion and Amnesty International that 60 to 80% of women and girls who cross the border illegally are raped or otherwise sexually assaulted on the journey. Senator, to your point, there are politicians in this country, and I'm not going to both sides, it. It's politicians on the left, overwhelmingly on the left, who are incentivizing people to do this and incentivizing this perilous, violent journey because they think they can score some votes out of it and in some cases cheap labor. But mostly it's votes. And if you are doing that, if you are opposing a border wall, if you are opposing border enforcement, if you are doing all the things that the left is doing in this country, as far as I'm concerned, you've got blood on your hands. And it's not gonna be solved as a both sides question. It's the left needs to grow a conscience and look at the numbers and look at the reality of what's happening and cut it out.

[Liz Wheeler]

Yeah. And Michael, I think too, it's especially pertinent being at Catholic University, that sometimes the leadership in the church misunderstands the church doctrine on compassion, on humanitarianism, and teaches instead social justice. Because we know biblically, we're taught to welcome the traveler, welcome the stranger, and that the church, sometimes the leadership of the church, teaches that this is equal to an open borders policy. Speak to why this is not correct.

[Michael Knowles]

Well, you have a right to A country. There's nothing in Catholic doctrine saying that you don't have a right to have your own country or that patriotism is wrong or that enforcing the law is wrong. Actually, the civil authority is instituted with the authority of God. And St. Paul writes about this. You see this throughout the Bible. And the love of country is an extension of the love of one's own family. It's perfectly natural and it's perfectly right. So we want to be very kind and very welcoming. And we do all of these things. We do it in private charity, and we do it at the national level too. But this does not mean tearing down borders that actually can have a very negative consequence. Because by the way, if you erase the borders of this country, you are erasing the national identity itself. And then where is it exactly that the people are fleeing to? It's an incoherent action.

[Ted Cruz]

Well, and Liz, I think you raise a good question and I'd say a couple of things on that point. Number one, I will say that charities and churches, but in particular Catholic Charities in South Texas, does an incredible job caring for these children, caring for these women who are abused. There is in the Rio Grande Valley, Sister Norma who leads that effort, and I know her, she is there constantly. She works tirelessly. And you know these children who are going through unspeakable horrors, it's not the kids fault. And we should certainly show these children and these people love and compassion. But the real love and compassion would be not to create a legal system that incentivizes hundreds of thousands or millions of people to be brutalized by these cartels. And you know, it is absolutely true that the Catholic Church and the Bible teach to welcome the traveler. But often what is missed, There is no country on the face of the planet that welcomes more immigrants than the United States of America. We are the most generous and welcoming country in the history of the world. And in fact, the countries that lecture us on how dare you secure your borders, they don't let people in. I mean, it's utter and complete hypocrisy. We're a country built by. Look, my dad came as an immigrant from Cuba. I love that we are a melting pot and we are built by people seeking freedom. We should keep that. But simply having a lawless system where innocent people are abused by vicious criminal cartels, that's not compassionate. That is being willfully blind to the horrific crimes that are being carried out as a result of failed government policies.

[Liz Wheeler]

Yep, I think that's correct. And it's the right thing to do to note which side of the aisle those policies are being carried out. Thank you for your question. All right, well, we're teeing up the next. Very good. While we're teeing up the next question, that card that I mentioned before, that's on your seat that has that promo code. Make sure to Visit verdict with TedCruise.com shop. You can see this hat that's sitting very comfortably back here on the cactus. We have some pretty cool cactus merch that's now up for sale. You can get 10% off that merch by using that promo code live. If you go to verdict with TedCruz.com show.

[Ted Cruz]

Luce, I gotta say, that's very Escheresque of the cactus wearing a hat with a cactus on it. It just sort of is folding in upon itself.

[Liz Wheeler]

And I don't know if I was supposed to mention tonight that the cactus beat both of your faces onto the dust.

[Michael Knowles]

I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. We have a face for podcast, but the cactus is the real star of the show.

[Liz Wheeler]

Yeah, that's exactly right. All right, Are you ready with your question?

[Ted Cruz]

Yes.

[Liz Wheeler]

Introduce yourself, please.

[Sam]

Howdy. I'm Sam. I'm a working professional. But Senator Cruz, I was actually one of your interns back in college. Dallas, Houston. I see Grant over there. So. Hey, Grant. I don't know if he remembers me, but hey. And you know Michael and Liz, obviously, we're both. All of us are part of the mystical body of Christ. So I feel like I already know you guys already.

[Michael Knowles]

That's where I knew you from.

[Ted Cruz]

I knew I knew you from somewhere.

[Sam]

So my question is to both Michael and Senator Cruz and Liz as well, if you'd like, surrounding the definition of liberty. Liberty is a word that's kind of used as a buzzword on the right, but is also used by many on the right to justify and perhaps even passively allow the cultivation of very vicious acts. So I was wondering if Michael and Senator Cruz, if you could both give your own definition of the word liberty and maybe compare and contrast, because something tells me you might not perfectly agree on the definition.

[Michael Knowles]

Sure. I'll borrow my definition of liberty from Lord Acton. Winston Churchill famously said that if you don't have a good education, you should just quote really smart people. So I'll quote.

[Ted Cruz]

I quote Michael Knowles all the time.

[Michael Knowles]

All the time. So Lord Acton points out that liberty is not the ability to do whatever you want to do, but rather the right to do what you ought to do. And we touched on this A little bit earlier when we talked about how liberty and licentiousness are not the same thing, about how the rational will exists to mediate between the appetite, the base passion, and the divine will. And it's what separates us from the beasts. So I guess the example I would use to bring all of that down to earth is education. The point of education is to make us free, right? That's why we call it liberal education. We call it the liberal arts. So the whole point of it is to make us free. And when you are free, you are not being coerced, right? I think that's probably the basic thing we would all say about freedom. But the irony here or the, the complication is that in order to attain this freedom, you need to be coerced by your teachers, by the exams, by the grades. I mean, you're coerced for 12 years, 13, I don't know, 15, depends on how much schooling you're going to go through. By the time that this administration is over with free college and pre K, it's going to be 35 years. So it's a lot of coercion, but it does serve a purpose. You do actually have to train your will. And this is a difficult process. And when people are in college, sometimes they make some mistakes. They let their appetites run away with them. It's not so good. George W. Bush famously said, when I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible. But the idea is you want to mature and grow up. And so I think we have this mistaken conception of liberty that really comes from Freud. We have this kind of steam engine idea of liberty, which is that I've got all of these appetites and desires and if I don't engage in them, even the base ones, even the one, the naughty ones, that I'm not supposed to do, if I don't let off a little steam every once in a while, then I'm just going to explode. This is different from, say, Aristotle's understanding of behavior, of vice and virtue and the Catholic understanding and my own understanding, which is that when you practice the virtues, which are habits, they get a little bit easier. This is a fallen world. We're all sinful. We're going to stumble. We're probably not going to act perfectly in this world. In fact, I know that we're not. But it is going to become easier the more you practice these virtues. And the same is true of the vices. And I say this with a great deal of experience. When you practice the Vices, it's kind of hard to do it the first couple of times, and then it's easier and easier, and then it's harder to stop. And this, I think, would be the description of addiction. And so any coherent understanding of liberty, I think, has to take into account virtue. It certainly did for the founding Fathers. It has for statesmen for all time. You mentioned the mystical body of Christ. Christ says in the Gospels, the man who sins is a slave to sin. And we just know that to be true in our own lives. Anyone who's ever sinned knows that that is the case. And so I think I agree with you. I think sometimes just in recent decades, we've taken a more shallow view of liberty, and liberty is not a shallow thing. And to quote Ronald Reagan, it's not passed in the bloodstream either. Okay? It's one generation away from being lost, which is why it's so important to educate people in freedom. That's what YAF is trying to do. That's part of the purpose of this podcast. And while the left, I think, wants to really suppress our freedom by appealing to all of our vices, Senator Cruz and I talked about this on the Prageru Book show. We talked about Brave New World and the conquering of a people by cultivating vice. I think we need to recognize that to have true freedom, we have to have some idea of what's good.

[Ted Cruz]

So that was an amazingly erudite and well thought out answer.

[Michael Knowles]

Thank you.

[Ted Cruz]

You know, I will say that, number one, Michael talked about practicing vices. And I will note that after the last verdict we did at Texas A and M, that you and the entire team came back to my house in Houston and we practiced vices until about.

[Michael Knowles]

Three in the morning. Three in the morning.

[Ted Cruz]

We had some very expensive scotch and some very good cigars. And I'll say, you know, your practice makes perfect, and you're getting pretty good.

[Michael Knowles]

This is the thing. I keep working on it, you know, But, Senator, to be fair, the body is a temple, and the temple needs incense. Okay? So I'm gonna defend that.

[Ted Cruz]

So one of the things I find interesting in your question is you said, you guys may disagree on this. And I think that was insightful because I listened to what Michael said, and I thought it was quite learned, and yet I didn't really agree with it. And, you know, I would say there's a distinction. It may be the Catholic Protestant distinction. I would say I have a more libertarian bent perhaps, than Michael.

[Michael Knowles]

I would say most people, I think Attila the Hun has a more libertarian.

[Ted Cruz]

Best way there is that look when you ask what liberty is. Liberty is the right to make your own choices in your own life, to think, to speak to. The right to, as John Locke put it, life, liberty and property liberty. One of the famous formulations of liberty is my right to swing my fist ends at the tip of your nose. You have a right to do whatever you wish with your life. You don't have a right to impinge on the liberties of others. You don't have a right to impinge on the rights of others. There's some in the philosophical world or legal world that have positive a distinction between negative liberties and positive liberties. Negative liberties are essentially, leave me alone, don't silence my speech, don't prevent me from practicing my faith, don't take away my right to keep and bear arms. Those are negative liberties, positive liberties, and they're typically folks on the left that are advocating this, are a liberty to have health care, a liberty to have housing, a liberty to have. And it's an entitlement that is framed as a liberty. In my view, liberty is the former and not the latter. Liberty is the right to be left alone. Now, what Michael said about the right to do as you ought. Look, yes, I think you ought do as you ought. That's what ought means, the power of tautology. But I also think you have every right not to do as you ought. And so if you want to exercise your free will to be a sloth or a drunkard or to fritter away your life, you have a right to do that. Now, I would hope you wouldn't. I would encourage you not to. But it is within the realm of choice for you to make. And so in the legal world, and I'll shift to law, There's a big debate in constitutional law that is sometimes viewed as a debate between Scalia and Thomas. And it is whether the law protects, whether the Constitution protects natural rights. And my view is that the Constitution limits the power of government. And there are a host of things. So, for example, school choice is an issue I am deeply passionate about. I've spent 25 years of my life fighting for school choice. As much as I believe in school choice, I don't think you should have judges mandating school choice, even though it would help kids enormously, because I don't think we should be reading into the Constitution a mandate for our own personal policy choices. So when it comes to what liberty is, I would say I have a more capacious framing of it. And I would leave in terms of urging the virtuous life, that was a very Aristotelian call on your part. I think that's a great. That is a great calling for pastors and priests and motivational speakers and anyone seeking to teachers, anyone seeking to help people find their calling in life. But at the same time, we shouldn't force it. And by the way, a natural area this is playing out is vaccine mandates, where you have government trying to force people to make a health care decision. I've been vaccinated. I believe in vaccines. I encourage people to get the vaccine. I also believe you have individual liberty and the right not to get the vaccine if you choose not to. And you're an adult and make your own choices. And I will say in response to that, I did tweet out the hashtag your bodyyourchoice. And the left lost their mind. They just said, no, you're not allowed to say that. I'm like, why are you telling people they gotta stick a damn shot in their arm? I think liberty should have a lot of flexibility and a lot of room in it, including the liberty to make stupid decisions, because, to be honest, we learn more by mistakes anyway. And you have the right to do dumb things, too.

[Liz Wheeler]

Right. And I think it matters, too, what liberty is in relation to. So if you're talking about liberty in a community or liberty in a culture or liberty in your church group, that's different. You know, the cultural stigma that might be on certain actions versus whether it's legal. And we know many politicians are abusive. We know people in power like to exercise that power. And so we have to, I think, take the more libertarian view on liberty to allow us to make the choice to be holy. Because that's what liberty should be for conservatives and Christian conservatives is the ability for us to choose that virtue that you're talking about, because it's like personal charity versus welfare. Right? If you are forced by the government to give money, it does nothing for you. You're not giving of your own free will. You're not giving of your heart versus when you're giving by your own choice, that is an act of charity that benefits both you as the giver and the recipient. So I lean more libertarian on liberty, too, to make sure that your right to live your life, or as the founders say, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, which obviously means property, which means the extension of person, the fruits of your labor, is protected because that allows us the right to make the right choices.

[Michael Knowles]

Well, you know, while I may disagree with that particular libertarian view, I will point out to the senator's point on our staying out late and smoking cigars and, you know, having with scotch and things like that.

[Ted Cruz]

We burned the evidence.

[Michael Knowles]

And burning the evidence. I will say I have always relied on the capaciousness of libertarians when I myself am indulging in these behaviors.

[Liz Wheeler]

And in my defense, I went home.

[Michael Knowles]

And fed my baby, did a virtuous thing.

[Liz Wheeler]

Yes, thank you for your question. I appreciate it.

[Ted Cruz]

All right.

[Liz Wheeler]

This is going to be the final question, but for everybody who I appreciate getting in line, if you didn't get a chance to ask your question, you can go to verdict with Ted Cruz.com/ and you can submit your questions there. And like I said, Senator Cruz and I will be taking questions on a fairly regular basis from those who are part of that community. So hi, what's your name?

[Peter]

Hi there. My name is Peter. I actually work here in the DMV area. I have a question for you, Senator, for Mr. Knowles. Why does it not seem like you work better to work across the aisles with people that have a platonic idea of the way that the world works versus us as an Aristotelian view? We both have the same idea of eudaimonia, but it doesn't seem like you work well across the aisle enough to do meaningful changes.

[Ted Cruz]

So, Peter, that again, is a very learned question. And I will say Catholic University is coming through powerfully strong. Look, in many ways, the failure of both parties to work across the aisle is a symptom of a broader phenomenon that's playing out in our society and culture, which is that we're getting more and more polarized and tribalized and atomized. And I think social media contributes to that powerfully. You know, it used to be that we had homogenizing institutions in our lives, that we might be a Republican, we might be a Democrat, and yet we went to work with someone of the opposite party. We went to church with someone of the opposite party. Our kids played together on the playground. And it's hard to believe someone's the devil if you're sharing a burger at a backyard barbecue. Today we're so separated that the right listens to right wing news, the left listens to left wing news. On social media, if someone disagrees with you, you just unfriend them. They disappear and we end up in these feedback loops where we only hear views we agree with. And we think that's the only thing. We began this podcast. Got a couple of questions on immigration. If you watch Fox News or Newsmax or Oan you know about the immigration crisis? If you watch cnn, it doesn't exist. It's simply there is no immigration crisis. That is a really harmful dynamic. How does it play out on Capitol Hill? I'll say in the Senate at least. Here's an encouraging thing. By and large, the senators get along pretty well. There's very little direct personal incivility one to the other, which is good. There's more of that in the House. The House is more bare knuckle place and people can be nastier to each other. There's very little of it in the Senate. There are a number of Democrats I get along with very well. You know, Cory Booker and I are friends. Kirsten Gillibrand and I are friends. Actually, three different Democratic candidates for president, Cory, Kirsten and Amy Klobuchar, all campaigned and used as a laugh line in the Democratic primary. Heck, I can even work with Ted Cruz. And it was kind of like, okay, apparently I'm unifying Democrats somehow obliquely. There are and there is some bipartisan cooperation. So let's take for example, Kirsten Gillibrand. Kirsten and I have worked on a number of matters together. We started working together my first year in the Senate where we were both on Senate Armed Services Committee. And she's been really heroic in leading the fight to change how the military handles rape and sexual assault. And there's been a long, persistent problem in the military of far too many instances of sexual assault and victims of assault being afraid to come forward and report. And what Kirsten had been advocating was moving the decision and the prosecution of sexual assault out of the direct chain of command rather than the commanding officer making that decision, moving the decision to a professional career military prosecutor. And that's a change. Other countries, our allies, the United Kingdom has done that. Israel has done that. And it's seen significant improvements in terms of preventing assault. Kirsten made those arguments. I actually went into, we were having a hearing and a markup. I went in with an open mind. I listened to the arguments she made, thought they were persuasive. And I teamed up with her. And so for eight years, we've been working side by side. She's been leading the Democratic efforts, I've been leading the Republican efforts. I think we're likely to finally win that victory this year. I think we're right on the cusp of victory. That was an example where we were able gradually to build bipartisan support. The problem more broadly, because the electorate is polarized. Let's take right now the Bernie Sanders budget We're getting ready to vote on the Bernie Sanders budget. It's a $5.5 trillion budget. It is massive in size. It has trillions of dollars in tax increases. And the congressional Democrats have decided they want to use brute power to ram it through. So there are no Democrats talking to Republicans about this. They don't intend to get a single Republican vote in the House. They don't intend to get a single Republican vote in the Senate. Right now, they're trying to pound the living daylights out of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, the two lone Democratic holdouts in the Senate, to get them to submit. They're talking to an echo chamber that is amplifying the extremes. And to be honest, the right is, too. That ends up producing far less cooperation and common ground. I think we can move beyond this. I'll tell you, I am. In terms of the polarization and fighting we've had, I am short term pessimistic, and I'm long term optimistic. Short term, I think that the Democratic leadership in Congress and this administration are really radical right now. That I think, and in many ways, that's an outgrowth of the Trump presidency is the left hated Trump so much that it radicalized them. And that's being reflected in policy after policy after policy. I don't see a whole lot of common ground right now as they're trying to ram through the Bernie Sanders budget. You're not going to get Republicans going along with that. I do think, however, going forward, there is the potential for common ground, particularly if we don't demonize or vilify each other. So this is a nasty business. I mean, you get insulted, you get. I mean, they go after your family, they go after your kids. It is brutal. And by the way, like, I'm on Twitter. I read just about every nasty thing people say on me about Twitter. And there are a lot of them. I mean, you get. And the funny ones I enjoy, like, if someone just says f you, it's like, ooh, that's very clever. You know, let's go, Brandon. But I try, and I hope others try not to engage in nasty personal slanders. I mean, even as we discussed things here, I'll disagree on policy. I'll explain why a policy decision I think is a bad idea. And look, I will tell a joke. So, I mean, the fact that you don't, you know, you don't have to talk like you got a ruler inserted somewhere. I mean, you can have some fun. But if you're criticizing, I think it's better to have a light touch and a smile rather than, you know, the typical political attack ad is this, you know, super deep voice. My opponent hates kitten Ted Cruz. Gosh, what do you. I.

[Michael Knowles]

Sounds scary.

[Ted Cruz]

So you could work better across the.

[Peter]

Aisle, though, with them on meaningful changes to bring this back to a republic from the democracy than it is, say, using the.

[Ted Cruz]

Can you hold the microphone up?

[Peter]

Saying phasing out the. Phasing out the positive human rights that the federal government does to increase, say, like a ubi. Phasing out the rest of the positive human rights that the federal government does. Doing that. And to restructure the. To restructure the IRS to be. To do a tax on the velocity of money, and that's it.

[Ted Cruz]

So I think those are creative ideas. I think those are when it comes to the irs, I've long advocated abolishing the IRS and simply having a simple flat tax. And by the way, to understand the dangers of it, we didn't get into it, but one of the elements of the Bernie Sanders budget right now is requiring your bank to report to the IRS every single transaction you make of $600 or more. And you want to talk about Big Brother monitoring. That is a terrifying thing. And I'll say the press will characterize that as, oh, that's just monitoring big money rich people. Look, we're in a room of college kids. Every one of you that has an apartment, if you're in D.C. you're paying more than 600 bucks in rent unless you got 42 roommates. That. I am very skeptical of government power. And I think the more you can protect liberty against government power, against government spying, against government control, the better. Those are ideas that get a lot of resonance, I think, when you talk to people. And it's. Frankly, it's. One of the purposes of this podcast is that we try to engage in substance on issues. You know, as Michael knows, my wife Heidi listens to the podcast. And if she thinks we get too dogmatic, if we're suddenly, like, pounding the table and repeating Republican talking points, she'll call Michael or me and say, that sucked.

[Michael Knowles]

You know, it's never compliments when the number comes up.

[Ted Cruz]

I don't think it's so true. Sometimes she'll say, michael was really good. Ted, not so much. Michael was great.

[Michael Knowles]

But, you know, frankly, I appreciate the honesty because you do want to make sure that you're engaging with real issues. You're not just straw manning the other side. You're not. Increasingly, we're not even speaking the Same language, very. We can't even agree on the definition of man and woman these days. So it can be difficult to communicate with the other side. And you want to be engaging with the best arguments that they have. But there is another side to it which comes from Ronald Reagan. He was famously asked his strategy on the Soviet Union and the Cold War and they were waiting for some three hour lecture on the Cold War and he said, my strategy is simple, we win and they lose. Is there some element here of we win?

[Ted Cruz]

So there is. And let me suggest, I mean, look, you invoke Reagan and Reagan has been my political hero my whole life.

[Michael Knowles]

Mine's cincinnatus.

[Ted Cruz]

You look. Well, you're going back a little further than I am. You look at Reagan and let's take Reagan came in in 19, elected 80 came in in 81. You know, in Washington there's a little bit of a folklore which is that Reagan and Tip O'Neill who was the Democratic speaker of the House, they were good old Irish Pauls and they'd sit around and they'd have a drink and they'd yuck it up and they were friends and they reached common ground. And that's usually told in contradistinction to the horrible crass sobs we have today. That was always a bit of a rose colored glasses telling, you know, go back and read what Tip O'Neill said about Ronald Reagan. I mean he unloaded on him bare knuckles. And so let's take for example the Reagan tax cuts. So Reagan passed major tax cuts in 81, 86. He came back with major tax simplification. Both of them were overwhelmingly bipartisan. How did they get done? The way they got done is Reagan made the case to the American people. And he directly went to the American people and said if we cut taxes, we need to get the economy moving. Under Jimmy Carter it was stagnant. If we cut taxes on families and small businesses and job creators, we're going to get jobs back at the economy moving. And what happened was he persuaded millions of Americans who proceeded to pick up the phone and call their congressmen, call their congresswomen and a bunch of Democratic House members bolted, crossed over and voted for the tax cuts because it was overwhelmingly popular with the people. And I think the most powerful tool in all of politics is the bully pulpit of the presidency is the ability Ronald Reagan would go on TV and he wasn't mean about it. And in fact, maybe this is a good thing because we've gone a little bit long, but a good story to wrap up one of my favorite Reagan stories. He was doing a press conference. So a bunch of reporters were there, and one of the reporters was Sam Donaldson. And Sam Donaldson was the kind of tough ABC reporters, you know, kind of mean. And Donaldson goes, Mr. President, Mr. President, you have blamed the problems in this country on everybody else. You blame them on Tip O'Neill. You blame them on Democrats in Congress, you blame them on everybody else. But you are president of the United States. Don't you bear any of the responsibility for the problems we have in this country? And Reagan smiled and he leaned forward with a twinkle in his eye and he said, well, Sam, yes, yes, I do. I bear considerable responsibility because for many years I was a Democrat. Ladies and gentlemen, on that note, I want to to thank our friend Liz.

[Michael Knowles]

Wheeler, host of the Liz Wheeler Show. You can bring her to your campus with Young Americas Foundation. Head ON over to yf.org thank you, Liz. I want to thank Senator Cruz, and I mostly want to thank all of you. Thank you for being here. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.