← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
Afghanistan Withdrawal NOT Orderly & Peaceful, plus Crime In America & SCOTUS On Trans Athletes
01:00:35
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- [00:01]
Ben Shapiro
Senator, nice to be with you. And the Biden administration is really excited. They think they nailed it on Afghanistan. They're very proud of what they did. They came out with this paper that they said proves how good the withdrawal was from Afghanistan. And that's apparently the history books, how it's gonna be remembered. If you listen to this administration, your reaction?
- [00:23]
Ted Cruz
Look, I think it's really sad. We've talked before in this podcast about how this White House treats national security and foreign policy as public relations. It's all a communications effort. So they put out this 12 page white paper that is just designed to say everything's perfect, everything's fine. And they're hoping that the media will bleat like sheep and go along with that. The disaster, the debacle of Biden's surrender to the Taliban and withdrawal from Afghanistan will be forgotten. I think that's disrespectful to the 13 servicemen and women who were murdered there. I think it's disrespectful to the Afghans we left behind, who were tortured, whose lives who may well have been murdered as well. I think it's disrespectful to all of those who shed blood, who lost limbs fighting in Afghanistan, that this administration cares so little about their sacrifice. They're not even bothering to worry about what went wrong.
- [01:34]
Ben Shapiro
You and I talked about this on a previous podcast not that long ago that one of the individuals on the ground there that was trying to save lives told his story finally. That he believed he had the suicide bomber in his sights.
- [01:47]
Ted Cruz
Yes.
- [01:47]
Ben Shapiro
There was no chain of command. There was no orders allowed, basically, for them to take out this perspective suicide bomber. And then all of a sudden he. And he's blown up and survived it. Many others did. Not that you just mentioned, but for them to come out with a white paper. White paper, supposed to be non political, serious documents. This was political propaganda at its best.
- [02:08]
Ted Cruz
So let me say that the podcast we did several weeks ago, if you didn't listen to it, let me encourage you to go back and listen to it, because it really is. It's a powerful. This young Marine testified before the House of Representatives and he told his story. He told the story that the suicide bomber, they had intel about who he was and they spotted him and they had him in their sights and they could have taken him out. They could have taken him out before he committed the suicide bombing. And the political higher ups in the Biden administration wouldn't allow them to do so. And the result was 13 servicemen and women were Murdered. And this young Marine was horrendously injured. He wasn't killed, but he told his story. And I got to say, the reason I would encourage you to go back and listen to that podcast is because the media won't cover it. They won't cover it at all. There are facts that don't exist, because if you listen in that pod, we played almost the entirety of his congressional testimony because it was so powerful. And it's a story that in any sane world should be the lead story on the 6 o'clock news. And yet when we have journalists that refused to tell the truth, refused to cover news, refused to cover facts that view their job as propagandists for the White House, it's terrible. And look here you've got John Kirby, the. The appointed spokesperson, just standing up. And he was offended that the media.
- [03:45]
Ben Shapiro
Even questioned him and this administration's response in Afghanistan. He got animated. Like, not animated that Americans died and that he was frustrated about what happened with the Taliban. Animated that how dare you think we didn't do this perfectly? Take a look.
- [03:59]
John Kirby
And so, for all this talk of chaos, I just didn't see it. Not for my perch. At one point during the evacuation, there was an aircraft taking off full of people, Americans and Afghans alike, every 48 minutes, and not one single mission was missed. So I'm sorry, I just won't buy the whole argument of chaos.
- [04:16]
Ben Shapiro
He's right. They were taking off. They were taking off with Americans and other people that were trying to clamor and some that lost their lives hanging on, trying to be stowaways in an airplane.
- [04:25]
Ted Cruz
Yeah. And let's be clear, hanging on to the wheels as the planes were taking off, he said he didn't see it. He didn't see the chaos. Look, that's offensive. I got to tell you, if it were my spouse, my brother, my sister who died in that suicide bombing, listening to that, I'm going to speak nicely. That individual saying, I didn't see any chaos. Say that to the 13 coffins that came back with American flags on them. He didn't see any chaos. Say that to the Afghan interpreters who risked their lives to help us, only to be abandoned by these clowns to be tortured to death by the Taliban. He didn't see any chaos. Well, what about abandoning the Bagram airfield, a secure military airfield that we spent billions building and abandoning it before the evacuation happened? For him to say he didn't see any chaos, I believe him, but that's because he's deliberately looking away. They don't want. They don't. They're like the monkey. See no evil, hear no evil. Let me tell you something, that's evil because their screw up cost people lives. And if he didn't see any chaos, it's only because he refused to look.
- [05:42]
Ben Shapiro
Historically, white papers have usually been serious documents, not propaganda like this. And when they have tried to use these kind of big synopsis of historic events that have gone wrong for political reasons, usually the media will throw down on that. They're not doing it this time. Is that how far we've lost the media, in your opinion? I mean, anyone that sees us, and there are a few, there were a few that did call them out on this. But by not calling them out, aren't you basically going along with the narrative? Because there's something that can say, okay, I'm not gonna report on it. I'll just be silent. That'll be my way of protesting it.
- [06:17]
Ted Cruz
Look, there is a theme across the board of this administration and this White House. They lie for a living. Whether it's John Kirby lying about Afghanistan, whether it is Mayorkas lying in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, whether it's Karine Jean Pierre standing up and lying over and over and over again. People aren't just walking across the border. She says, well, that's a lie. Yes, they are. They are today. The amazing thing about that lie of hers, it is a lie every day of the year, 365 days a year, because there has not been a day when Joe Biden was president when there were not people walking across the border. And the brazenness of it. He can stand up and say, I didn't see any chaos. Because he knows that the number of journalists remaining in America is vanishingly small, that they might as well have pom poms and miniskirts and be chanting, go Biden. Because that's where they are. Look at the next thing Kirby said.
- [07:19]
John Kirby
Nobody's saying that everything was perfect, but there was a lot that went right. And a lot of Afghans are now living better lives in this country and other countries around the world because of the sacrifices and the work of so many American government officials. So, yeah, there's a lot to be proud of.
- [07:34]
Ben Shapiro
Peter, he's mad. How dare you question us.
- [07:38]
Ted Cruz
And he's proud. There's a lot to be proud of, really. You want to tell those widows that how proud you are of the incompetence of this administration? And by the way, at the time this happened, everybody knew it was incompetent. Remember Afghanistan when the disaster happened, this White House was caught flat footed because up until that point, the press had just been cheering them on. And it was the first criticism they got because it was so bad. People turned on the TV and saw human beings clinging to the wheels of planes as they took off.
- [08:12]
Ben Shapiro
They saw people being people falling from.
- [08:14]
Ted Cruz
The planes that nobody could defend it at the time. See, what's really shameless about this also is this is revisionist history. This is trying to go back and say, don't believe your lying eyes when you saw it happen. I'm telling you what the official government story is. He's proud of the job they did. You know what is shocking? Nobody lost their job. Secretary of Defense wasn't fired. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs wasn't fired. John Kirby wasn't fired. John Kirby's like Baghdad Bob. He stands up there and just spins. No chaos, everything great. You should be proud. Nobody lost their job. The commanding officer that refused to give the order take out the suicide bomber before he murders those servicemen and women. As far as we know, that commanding officer didn't lose his or her job. Zero accountability. And the Biden White House doesn't want any accountability. This white paper is designed to cover up and to tell an alternate history. Everything's fine. You know, it's reminiscent of during the Antifa and Black Lives Matter riots. Fiery but mostly peaceful protests.
- [09:30]
Ben Shapiro
That's there as buildings are burning behind reporters. Mostly peaceful out here as a building's burning behind them.
- [09:36]
Ted Cruz
That is what John Kirby is doing and he thinks the American people are either stupid or lazy.
- [09:44]
Ben Shapiro
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- [11:01]
John Kirby
Once you turn it over, it's just like what we're doing in Ukraine. We give Ukraine artillery, ammunition, Stinger anti air missiles, Javelin anti tank. It's their stuff at that point, not the Americans. It's their stuff. That stuff belonged to the Afghans. And so this idea, this argument is just ludicrous that we left millions of dollars of stuff in Afghanistan. We didn't. We turned it over, as the previous administration would have done too, because part of their thinking was they were going to have to turn this material over. It was turned over appropriately and carefully and deliberately with the Afghan National Security Defense Forces.
- [11:38]
Ben Shapiro
It wasn't done carefully. I think we can agree on that. It wasn't done appropriately, in an orderly fashion the way that he described it. And it wasn't turned over to the Afghanistan forces the way he implied because we saw this stuff pop into the hands of actual terrorists instantly on social media.
- [11:54]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, so he left out kind of the most important context. It's true that we gave the Afghan military weapons to kill the Taliban. What the Biden administration screwed up and did is they let all those weapons fall in the hands of the Taliban. So literally, we gave them these weapons to shoot the terrorists. Now the terrorists have the weapons that were given to shoot the terrorists. And by the way, among other things, what all has been lost. So the Taliban are believed to control More than 2,000 armored vehicles, including U.S. humvees, up to 40 aircraft, potentially including Black Hawks and scout attack helicopters and Scan Eagle military drones. Between 2002 and 2017, the United States gave the Afghan military an estimated $28 billion in weapons, including guns, rockets, night vision goggles, and small drones for intelligence gathering. Between 2003 and 2016, the United States provided Afghan forces with 208 aircraft. And since 2003, the United States has provided Afghan forces with at least 600,000 infantry weapons, including M16s, including 162,000 pieces of communication equipment, and including over 16,000 night vision goggles. And the night vision goggles, when you talk to Special Forces troops that have been deployed there, the night vision goggles actually Concerned them maybe more than anything else. Because one of the great advantages our military had in dealing with, with the terrorists is that we had the ability to see at night and to wage warfare at night and the terrorists couldn't see us. Now thanks to these guys incompetence, the terrorists are equipped like a US Military battalion. And for him to claim, well, gosh, it was theirs, no, the weapons were given to kill them. These are Taliban terrorists. And the sad thing is we know Americans are going to lose their lives with those M16s, with those weapons, with those night vision goggles. We know that Americans will die and this administration will wipe their hands and say there was no chaos, it was their equipment and they're proud of handing billions of dollars of military weapons over to the Taliban. Does Kirby remember September 11th? Does he remember the planes flying into the World Trade Center? Does he remember the plane flying into the Pentagon?
- [14:45]
Ben Shapiro
I don't.
- [14:46]
Ted Cruz
These are the same bastards that now have billions of dollars of US military equipment. Those guys killed over 3,000 lives with a couple of box cutters. Now they've got armored vehicles and M16s and Black Hawk helicopters. To say this is a catastrophic screw up is an understatement.
- [15:07]
Ben Shapiro
Oh, he says it was organized, though.
- [15:09]
Ted Cruz
I agree it was an organized screw up. It could not have been screwed up more if they tried. And look, part of the reason I mentioned before Bagram Airfield, listen, at some point we were going to pull out of Afghanistan. I think it made sense. I'm not a believer in forever wars. I'm not a believer in staying there forever. But when you are doing a drawdown, it makes sense to have a serious competent plan for drawing down. Number one, to get all the Americans out. Number two, to get your allies, the Afghans who risked their lives out. Number three, to vet the Afghans who are coming to make sure you're not bringing terrorists. What was amazing about what Biden did is it was utter chaos on a couple of fronts. Number one, the White House set an arbitrary political deadline. They said, okay, troops must be drawn down to 2,500 or fewer. And their goal was they wanted to be out on the anniversary of September 11th. It was a political deadline. It was set by the White House. We want to trumpet this political objective. Look, we got out of this war. So we're setting the date 9, 11, so we can have a big victory. You know, mission accomplished. This is George W. Bush landing on the aircraft carrier. This is Joe Biden saying mission accomplished. And listen, the military told, told the White House we can't secure Bagram Airfield and also the embassy and the airport in Kabul. And the White House essentially said, we don't care. We've set a goal. It's a political goal, never mind the military problems. And so they forced the military to abandon Bagram Airfield. Now, the problem is if you're going to do a withdrawal, you want to do it from a secure airfield where people can't come in with suicide bombers and kill people. When they abandoned Bagram and handed it to the Taliban, they were forced to do their withdrawal from a crowded commercial airport in the middle of a dense urban environment that didn't have a secure perimeter. They had a secure airport. They gave it away. And their withdrawal of Afghans was both over inclusive and under inclusive. It was under inclusive in that they left a great many people behind who had risked their lives to help the American military. And it is grotesquely immoral that we know that at least some of those have been tortured and perhaps even murdered by the Taliban as a result of their helping America. But it was also over inclusive in that at the end, it seemed like they were just grabbing up anyone who showed up. And so we don't know how many terrorists the Biden administration flew to America. What we do know is that included among those that they evacuated were adult men with child brides. Because, look, you'd have a family that was desperate to get their little girl out of Afghanistan. And so they'd take a little girl, a young 10, 11, 12 year old girl, and hand that child over to a grown ass man and say, have her as your wife.
- [18:28]
Ben Shapiro
And you asked about this. I want to play this because this is that moment where, again, this administration doesn't want to admit this happened across.
- [18:37]
Tony Blinken
The entire government, everyone involved in the evacuation effort, whether it's at a transit point in one of the countries that we negotiated with, whether it's here in the United States at Dulles or Philadelphia, or the military bases, we have all of our officers at extreme vigilance to look for and to deal with any cases or concerns that arise.
- [19:03]
Ted Cruz
Did you receive the urgent guidance? And how many child guides have you seen?
- [19:06]
Tony Blinken
I don't know the specific guidance you're referring to. I'm happy to look at it.
- [19:10]
Ted Cruz
So is there not urgency to discover if being abused? Absolutely.
- [19:14]
Tony Blinken
Time of the senator has expired. We could detect and deal with any cases, and there have been, to my knowledge, a limited number of cases where we have separated people because we were concerned that they were the cases. I'm aware of a handful.
- [19:31]
Ted Cruz
So, look, you See, the Secretary of State blithely, unconcerned. A handful. The guidance I was describing was guidance the Biden administration put out to personnel on the ground because they were getting planes landing from Afghanistan with adult men and little girls. The little girls they were saying were their wives. And these little girls were being sexually assaulted and raped by grown men. And the Biden administration was facilitating child sexual assault and child brides. This guidance was within the Biden administration saying, wait a second, we got a problem. We're putting people on planes and not.
- [20:10]
Ben Shapiro
Moms with daughters, dudes with little girls.
- [20:12]
Ted Cruz
Yes.
- [20:13]
Ben Shapiro
That should be red flag number one.
- [20:14]
Ted Cruz
Yes. So at the hearing, he hadn't read the guidance. I had the guidance in front of me. I'd read it. But beyond that, I even asked him, how many? How many have you found? Listen, if you're Secretary of State and you just finished human trafficking little girls into the country that are being sexually assaulted by grown men and you're responsible, you know what a competent Secretary of State would say, here's exactly how many we found. Here's what's happened to them. They're going to jail. Here are the safeguards we're putting in place to protect against it. But all of this is intertwined. Look, people ask me, why is the Biden administration so bad at this stuff? Why are they so incompetent? Part of the reason they're so bad, part of the reason Afghanistan was such a mess is because they live in an environment where they don't expect the press to ever ask a hard question. So Tony Blinken doesn't think anyone's going to ask him about the child brides that he's responsible for. For trafficking into America.
- [21:16]
Ben Shapiro
You don't have to worry about a 60 Minutes piece on it and the disaster of what has happened. They know they've got him in their.
- [21:22]
Ted Cruz
Back pocket, and it produces incredibly poor execution. By the way, these are the same people who were incredibly condescending and arrogant during the Trump administration. And then when they came in, one of their favorite lines was, the adults are back in charge. Well, these adults don't know what the hell they're doing. And as much as John Kirby tells you there is no chaos, he's proud of what happened. Anyone who was awake during the disaster of the surrender to the Taliban and the withdrawal in Afghanistan knows what an utter catastrophe it is. And I gotta say, it's not just you and me. We've been unloading on the press. But here's a little bit of a man bites dog Sometimes even the press can't stand it. Watch this. CBS News calling out John Kirby's garbage.
- [22:14]
CBS News Anchor
But this is they called in or National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said they were going to do a hot wash, which is a fancy bureaucratic term for a deep dive into what went wrong. This 12 page document is a whitewash. It is narrative. It is light on specifics, it's devoid of citations and it is in essence their version of events.
- [22:36]
Ben Shapiro
I gotta say, it's almost like he knows so much about what really happened in Afghanistan that he's insulted personally. Like, how dare you expect me to walk out here and carry this pail of garbage with me to the American people. I deserve more respect than that. And I'm glad to see some journalists actually coming around to this.
- [22:55]
Ted Cruz
Yes. Look, good for him for being angry because that was genuine.
- [22:59]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah.
- [23:00]
Ted Cruz
He was pissed at having read a document that that was utterly divorced from reality. That was crafted not by national security experts trying to examine how did we screw this up? What did we do wrong? Who's at fault? Why didn't we give the order to take out the suicide bomber before he murdered 13 servicemen and women? It's none of that. That white paper is a PR document. It is a political spin document. It is talking points for the obedient mandarins in the press to echo. We should be proud of the job Joe Biden did in Afghanistan. There was no chaos at all. It was perfect.
- [23:46]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah.
- [23:47]
Ted Cruz
And at least on CBS News and I'll say that the anchor who's there when he says it was a whitewash, she laughs out loud.
- [23:54]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah.
- [23:56]
Ted Cruz
Good. On CBS News for a moment, journalism erupted. I hope it's contagious that we actually have others willing to do their job.
- [24:06]
Ben Shapiro
I want to get to another issue and that's crime in America. There was a very famous individual who was brutally murdered, stabbed to death in San Francisco this week. The founder of Cash app. But first I want to tell you about our friends over@chalkchoq.com they are helping men gain back their masculinity. If you're getting a little older, you feel like you're losing an edge, Chalk male vitality stack can help you get back 20% of your testosterone in just 90 days. So if you're feeling like you're complacent, try chalk and see what they can do for you. Chalk is here to help you on a simple issue of focus on getting your way of life back that you feel like you may have lost that edge online. Chalk choq.com use my code Ben, you'll get 5.35percent off any chalk subscription cancel anytime. I've been taking the chalk male vitality stack now for I think almost two months. It works. You can get that testosterone level up to 20% more than it is right now in just 90 days. Choq.com that's choq.com use promo code BEN for 35% off center. Talking about crime in America, it's very interesting. Lori Lightfoot, for example, lost in Chicago.
- [25:18]
CBS News Anchor
Lost.
- [25:18]
Ben Shapiro
A lot of people thought that was kind of the end of the road for the insanity of not prosecuting criminals, being weak on crimes, giving this bail reform and everything else that's happened. We're seeing some pushback in places like New York and Baltimore. Then all of a sudden they elect an actual communist in Chicago. Head scratcher there. You look at San Francisco, they've got major problems with crime. And now you see this brutal stabbing that's so bad that we can't even show you the video that's come out here. I just don't think it's appropriate of a man who has said some things about San Francisco. He doesn't feel safe there. He'd actually moved. He came back for a meeting. He's in the street, gets stabbed there to death in San Francisco. And yet Democrats are still standing by these initiatives of bail reform, prison reform, and not actually getting tough on crime. More than 500 police officers are missing in San Francisco right now. And people there are leaving in droves and they're sick and tired of living in this insanity.
- [26:24]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, look what happened here. Bob Lee, who was a. Was the founder of Cash App. He was a tech gazillionaire, very wealthy man, very successful man. He had left San Francisco. He had left San Francisco because of the out of control crime. And he was back in San Francisco for a work meeting. And on the street he was stabbed. He was stabbed multiple times in the chest on the street. He was in San Francisco's Rincon Hill neighborhood, which is where Nancy Pelosi lives. He was not in the hood. Yeah, he was not. This is where rich people gather. And he's stabbed multiple times. There's security, security video of it. And you and I debated before the show, do we air the security video? We both watched it. We decided not to air it because it's really troubling. It is footage of this man losing his life. It is footage of him staggering after he's been stabbed. The footage shows him trying to flag down passing cars. Passing cars ignore him.
- [27:40]
Ben Shapiro
And probably because they're thinking about safe, their own safety.
- [27:43]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, they may be afraid for their own lives. They see someone staggering towards them. Crime is so bad they may not want to be injured themselves. But they drive off. And he staggers to the window at the front of a building and he collapses. And he had called 911 and the officers arrived, but by the time they got there, it wasn't in time to save him. And a kitchen knife with a 4 inch blade was found in the parking lot across the street. But they haven't caught anyone. There haven't been any arrests so far this year. And we're not very far into this year. We're in April. There have already been 39 murders in the city. 39 murders already. And the San Francisco Police Department right now has a shortage of 541 officers.
- [28:31]
Ben Shapiro
Totally insane number when you think about the population the size of San Francisco. You're 500 plus officers down.
- [28:38]
Ted Cruz
Look, it is the policies of the left attacking and demonizing police officers, trying to defund police officers, trying to abolish the police, combined with putting into place George Soros. DA's like Alvin Bragg in New York who release violent criminals onto the street, who don't prosecute criminals on the front end. And when they do get in, they let them go. That's what produces this chaos. You know, I've got a friend of mine who used to live in Northern California, lived in Palo Alto, he's been very successful, he's in the tech business. And he moved from Palo Alto down to Miami. And he and I had breakfast a while back and he was telling me that he said friends of his from Palo Alto come down to Miami to visit him and he'll take them out to dinner. And you know, he drives a very nice, very fancy sports car. You like his car and he'll drive out to dinner and park it on the street. And he said, his friends from Northern California freak out. They're like, what are you doing?
- [29:44]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah.
- [29:45]
Ted Cruz
And what he said was, in Northern California, if you park a car on the street, even in a nice, nice neighborhood, that car is gonna get broken into, it's gonna get keyed, it's gonna get stolen, it's gonna get vandalized. And what an amazing statement that just being able to park your car is considered a flex. Like his friends would freak out, how could you park your car? And he's like, look, I live in America. Like normal people can park their car and not have to worry. It is tragic what is happening. And I think a lot of the residents in these cities believe it can't get any better. In New York, a lot of the residents there, just few. That's part of life. Look, in dc, this man, Bob Lee was stabbed to death. By the way, at least one of the stories, I think it was the AP story said tech entrepreneur died in San Francisco. Died.
- [30:43]
Ben Shapiro
Died just right.
- [30:43]
Ted Cruz
Not murdered, not stabbed to death. Died because the press is not actually reporting the facts, because the facts would not be convenient for their political narrative. Look, last week in D.C. a staffer for Rand Paul was stabbed on the street multiple times. It was like 5 o'clock in the afternoon in a busy D.C. street, he gets stabbed. When you have these left wing mayors, district attorneys, police chiefs, when they undermine the cops and they let violent criminals go, the results are horrific. And I'll tell you, this is occurring at the same time. So the U.S. sentencing Commission has just proposed to allow district judges broad discretion to grant what's called compassionate release for prisoners who haven't served their full sentences under, under federal law. When you're convicted of a federal crime, you get a sentence, a sentence under what's called the sentencing guidelines that were passed. Congress passed them into law to provide uniformity and predictability so that people who committed the same crimes would serve similar sentences that there wasn't. There had been massive disparities. If you got lucky and got a soft on crime judge, they'd let you go. If you got a really tough on crime judge, they'd lock you up. So the sentencing guidelines were passed to give some consistency, uniformity, predictability. Well, Joe Biden has managed to appoint new people to the Sentencing Commission and they just proposed taking the compassionate release provision which was designed to be really narrow. Someone has give an example of where that would have been used, compassionate release. Someone has cancer and they're about to die and say, okay, all right, we'll let you go for the last couple of months of your life so you can be outside of prison with your family, with your family, you know, circumstances that are narrow and exigent. But under these revisions, it's opening the door. Look, Joe Biden has been filling the courts with soft on crime. Left wing activists with criminal defense attorneys, with people who worked as George Soros, district attorneys with people who have been advocates of abolishing the police. They're becoming federal judges. And with this change in the sentencing Commission, you're going to see these Biden radicals teaming up with the Obama radicals that are already on the court releasing more and more violent criminals. And I gotta say, Ben, look, in the normal world of political back and forth, there are things conservatives and liberals can disagree on. All right? High taxes, low taxes. You and I both like low taxes. I understand people that like higher taxes, like reasonable people can disagree on that. You know, a question like abortion. Abortion is a difficult issue. I'm pro life, you're pro life. But there are many people who are genuinely and passionately pro choice, and reasonable people can wrestle with that issue. I genuinely don't understand these leftists that see a murderer and think the answer here is let the murderer go. I don't get the reasoning. I don't know how to articulate the argument how society is better, how anyone is better off letting violent criminals go out on the streets. And yet that's what these radicals are doing, and it's what the Biden administration keeps leaning in further and further on.
- [34:23]
Ben Shapiro
Last question on this. And I think the shock for me seems to be how many cities are dealing with violent high crime numbers, and yet when their elections come up and they have a chance to change course, they don't do it. I mentioned Chicago earlier. My hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, out of control violent crime right now. Carjackings through the roof, rape through the roof. 45 cars are stolen every 24 hours right now in my hometown. And this is because of an activist DA that came in.
- [34:53]
Ted Cruz
Yep.
- [34:53]
Ben Shapiro
And has said, we're gonna let them all go all the time. They have prison reform, bail reform. They had a guy that was accused of murder the other day that got out on no bail because he was poor.
- [35:03]
Ted Cruz
Yeah.
- [35:04]
Ben Shapiro
And you see this and you think, all right, well, surely at some point they're gonna be voted out. And then you see Chicago, they get rid of Lightfoot, they put in someone that is even more radical. Why is that happening? And are we gonna just lose these cities forever? Because people that have the means to get out, this is my theory, are getting out as fast as they can, regardless of the Republican or Democrat. If you're sane and you have the means, you run as fast as you can for safety, for you, your kids, your grandkids. And then there are just activists left that get to decide how this is gonna go for the rest of their lives with all this chaos.
- [35:37]
Ted Cruz
Look, if you wanna understand the pattern of the lawless left, if you wanna understand the George Soros prosecutors, and by the way, let me say something, folks online say when you refer to a George Soros prosecutor, that you're anti Semitic because George Soros is Jewish. How dare you blame him? Look, it has nothing to do with the fact that he's Jewish. What it has to do with is he spends tens of millions of dollars electing district attorneys who come into office promising to let violent criminals go. And part of the way the Marxists operate is when you point out what they're doing, they scream racist at you for daring to point out what he's doing. I don't know. If we had George Soros as a guest on this show, I, I don't know how he would defend that. I legitimately do not understand what his reasoning is, that he thinks the world would be better if we let murderers and rapists go to commit more murders and more rapes. My mind doesn't comprehend that logic. If you want to know more though, you ought to buy my latest book, Justice Corrupted. Justice Corrupted explains in length. There's an entire chapter on the George Soros DAs. There's an entire chapter on the antifa and Black Lives Matter riots and how this is deliberate, how it's systematic, and it lays out the facts. It's not hyperbole, it's not rhetoric, it's not invective. Justice Corrupted lays out the facts. Alvin Bragg, before Alvin Bragg was a household name, he was in your book. He is in the book Justice Corrupted because that's who he is. It's what he promised to do, to weaponize the legal system. Going after Donald Trump is entirely consistent. There's an entire chapter in Justice Corrupted about the deep state being weaponized to go after Donald Trump. And so this is a consistent pattern. And I gotta say, in Chicago, you're right. Lori Lightfoot, number one, presided over out of control crime and shootings and horrific misery. She was also, I think, incompetent at it. And so the voters voted her out. And for a moment you thought, wow, maybe there'll be a moment of Chicago, of people saying, gosh, I'd like to live in a safer city. And then they elected someone who's a left wing radical who has spent years advocating for defunding and abolishing the police. And I don't know if he's more competent or not than Lori Lightfoot.
- [38:09]
Ben Shapiro
Time will tell.
- [38:10]
Ted Cruz
But everything he said up to this point is that he is going to hurt the police more, weaken the police more, and empower the criminals more. And when you elect radical Democrats like this, people die. You know, the left is good.
- [38:31]
Ben Shapiro
People flee the city and then there's even more carnage.
- [38:35]
Ted Cruz
The left is fond of the slogan Black Lives Matter. They don't actually believe it because the consequence of electing Left wing radicals who undermine law enforcement is that more black lives are lost. There will be African American children, there will be women, there will be men murdered in Chicago because of the consistent assault of left wing Democrats on police officers. And I gotta tell you, as I travel around, you've flown around the country with me quite a bit.
- [39:05]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah.
- [39:06]
Ted Cruz
Inevitably, when I see police officers, I make a point of stopping, of shaking their hands, of saying, thank you, thank you for what you're doing. And I tell them, I say, look, a big part of my job is to have your back. And I talk to cops all over the country. I gotta tell you, the most striking place to fly into is Chicago. I land at Chicago O'Hare Airport. I am, with some regularity, met by 10, 12, 15 uniformed police officers who come, they shake my hand, they give me patches I've got in my office, patches of the Chicago PD that are displayed in my office because those cops are so under assault. Joe Biden with the COVID vaccine mandates was saying, fire half the police in Chicago if they won't get Covid vaccines. The left's assault on cops and law enforcement is dangerous. And you want to know why people are stabbed in the streets of San Francisco or Washington D.C. it is because of these policies. They have a very real and a tragic consequence.
- [40:15]
Ben Shapiro
I want to get to one other subject that's really kind of exploding this country and it's women's sports. How do you protect them? Men masquerading as women, also known as trans men in women's sports. Before we get to that, let me tell you about our friends over at Patriot Mobile. If you've got a cell phone and your cell phone is with big tech, big mobile, there's a very good chance you may be paying your bill every month and not realizing they're actually fighting against your values. That's where Patriot Mobile comes in. Now, I have been using Patriot Mobile for years and they're the only Christian conservative cell phone provider in the country. Now why does that matter? Well, when you pay your bill every month at no extra cost to you, they take a percentage of that bill and they give it back to conservative causes and organizations that are fighting for first or second amendment rights, rights of unborn children, even helping with adoptions in this country. I love paying my bill to Patriot Mobile because I know I'm making a difference with a bill. I was going to pay somewhere anyway. If you're ready to have your dollars, go to places that value your values, check out patriot mobile patriotmobile.com verdict. Patriot mobile.com verdict call them 878 Patriot. That's 878 Patriot. Use the promo code. Verdict. You'll get the best deals of the day. You keep your same cell phone number when you switch. And if you have a small business column as well, they can help you with all those lines getting switched over. 878 Patriot Senator lastly, we have seen a lot of arguing and fighting in this country over men and women's sports. We saw in Australia last week outrage at a man who won a women's golf tournament, made big bucks doing it. We see colleges now with these grand debates over men being in women's sports. And then there was a confusing. I say confusing because the headline doesn't really match the facts here. Ruling from the Supreme Court on this issue with women and men's sports and men playing as women. Break this down, what the Supreme Court actually said this past week.
- [42:20]
Ted Cruz
Well, let's start with the Supreme Court, then we'll talk about the broader issue. So the Supreme Court had before it a case that came out of West Virginia. West Virginia passed a law that protects girls sports and women's sports and that says that biological males, people who are born male, can't compete in girls sports. That's a law. It's a similar law that's been passed in many states across the country to protect girls athletics. In this instance, there was the family of a 12 year old child who was born biologically male but who now identifies as a girl and wants to compete in girl sports. That family filed a lawsuit arguing that the law West Virginia passed conflicts with either Title 9 of federal law which establishes and protects girls sports, or conflicts with the equal protection clause of the U.S. constitution. Now the case is in the fairly early stages. The district court, a federal district court, initially enjoined the law's enforcement and did so in July of 2021. So to enjoin the law's enforcement means the district court issued an order. This West Virginia law has no force in effect. That injunction was in effect for almost 18 months, almost a year and a half. The state didn't fight the injunction. So they let the law be enjoined. They didn't fight it any further while the injunction was in effect. They were in the district court. They were battling over the lawsuit. The district court ultimately ruled for the state of West Virginia, so rejected the plaintiff's claim that the West Virginia law was unconstitutional or contrary to federal law. And it's interesting, the judge clearly didn't like ruling that way. The judge wrote that, you know, even if you don't like this law, it's clear under federal law in the Constitution that you can separate boys sports from girls sports, and there's not a legal impediment to doing so. So the district court rules for the state of West Virginia, the plaintiff appeals, and the fourth Circuit, the court of appeals, entered a new injunction in joining the law while the appeal was pending. Court of appeals didn't issue an opinion, just entered an injunction while the appeal was pending. This is the appeal of that emergency injunction. So what happened is the state of West Virginia went up to the supreme Court and said, will you reverse the injunction that the court of appeals put in place? The Supreme Court said, no. The full Supreme Court didn't issue an opinion. So there's no opinion at all. They just denied the application. Two justices, Justice Alito, joined by Justice Thomas, dissented. Now, Justice Alito's dissent is very short. It's two pages long. I have it right here. Justice Alito walks through the facts of what I just described, the procedural history of the case. Justice Alito and Justice Thomas say I would grant the state's application. But even Justice Alito and Justice Thomas acknowledge, and I'll read from this dissent, it is true that West Virginia allowed the district court's injunction to go unchallenged for nearly 18 months before seeking emergency relief from a second identical injunction. And it is a wise rule in general that a litigant whose claim of urgency is belied by his own conduct should not expect discretionary emergency relief from a court. In other words, a big part of the reason that the Supreme Court did not vacate this injunction is because West Virginia essentially acquiesced to it for a year and a half, did nothing for 18 months. And emergency relief, either granting an injunction or vacating an injunction is exceptional relief. It's provided because it's an emergency, and.
- [46:29]
Ben Shapiro
18 months later, it's not an emergency anymore.
- [46:31]
Ted Cruz
It is very hard to say it's an emergency when you didn't do anything for 18 months. And so there have been lots of headlines saying, oh, the Supreme Court said that biological males can compete in girls sports.
- [46:44]
Ben Shapiro
And that's not what they said.
- [46:45]
Ted Cruz
They didn't address the merits. They might at some point, and I hope that they. I hope that they rule in a way that protects girls sports and follows the law. But in this instance, I think this was a procedural ruling. I wish they'd vacated the injunction.
- [47:03]
Ben Shapiro
Referencing. It's just two pages long. The opinion there tells you it was more of A procedural thing, not a policy.
- [47:09]
Ted Cruz
And even Justice Alito and Justice Thomas are acknowledging, hey, wait, there's a real problem here, because they sat and acquiesced. But they went on and said, well, even so, it's a state law and the Court of Appeals didn't write an opinion and we shouldn't enjoin it with no explanation whatsoever. So, look, that has some force. But I wouldn't read this Supreme Court decision as foreshadowing that the Supreme Court 72 is going to rule that biological males have a right to compete in girls sports. I. I don't think they're going to, and I don't think that's what this case means.
- [47:47]
Ben Shapiro
One other thing that happened this week is there's a swimmer, Riley Gaines, who's become very famous and a lot of support from conservatives and Christians because she came out, was one of the very first in women swimming to come out and say it is unfair. You're asking me who. I'm one of the best swimmers in women's sports, if not the best in certain aspects of women's swimming, to compete with biological men. When she did this, the world, of course, erupted. The left went after to attack her. She's now doing events at campuses. You and I talked about this before the show. She was gonna be doing an event in San Francisco to university there. That event didn't get to happen because the left started to attack her physically. A man hit her, apparently twice. Police had to barricade her in a room as they basically rushed her from the stage. She was held in that room, barricaded with the cops for about an hour. And the student body that was coming after her said some of the most horrific things to her as a woman. And if we wanted to bleep it all out, you wouldn't hear anything but a big, long bleep. We decided we're going to let you see this. I wanted to warn and you wanted to as well. If you have kids listening, kids watching, they don't need to see this. But I do think that parents and grandparents need to understand this has become what's normal on college campuses. If you are a conservative speaker or even a conservative student or someone standing up for yourselves as an athlete saying, I shouldn't have to compete with men when I'm a woman.
- [49:26]
Ted Cruz
So look, that's exactly right. And I'll say a couple of things. Number one, Riley Gaines was a very successful female swimmer competing, competing against, among others, Lia Thomas. Lia Thomas. Born a biological male, Lia Thomas decided that he was A she that he was a woman more than halfway through.
- [49:48]
Ben Shapiro
College, competing as a man, as a.
- [49:49]
Ted Cruz
Male swimmer, and as a male swimmer was thoroughly mediocre, was not winning meets regularly. And once Leah became Leah the woman, Leah Thomas won the NCAA national championship in swimming. Now, there are biological differences between men and women. There are biological differences in strength, in body mass. There's a reason why these controversies only emerge one way. You know what? If a biological woman wants to compete against men, nobody would care if someone from the WNBA wants to compete in the NBA. Great. That'd be amazing to watch. There's a reason we have a wnba. Because there is no woman on the face of the planet who can stop LeBron James. There may not be a man on the planet, but there is a reason there are real and material differences between the genders. And so Riley Gaines was on campus, and she's at San Francisco State University, and she's there to speak. And there's a violent protest, and she says that she was physically hit twice by a biological man who now claims he's a woman. So you have a man physically assaulting, beating a woman because she dares to say it's unfair to girls, it's unfair to women to force them to compete against people who are biological males. And this video is right after she was assaulted. This video is her being pulled out of the room by the police officers. This video is her being chased by the activists. And I want to underscore for our listeners, you know, Ben and I, we actually debated whether or not to air this. The profanity in this is bad. Every other word is an expletive. And look, we try to make this podcast, a family podcast that is suitable for listeners of all ages. If we tried to bleep out the profanities, it would be. You couldn't hear anything that would be saying. But I actually think it's important. Look, if you have kids, and it's not appropriate for the kids to hear, shut off the broadcast at this point. But I think it's important for people to hear this one. And actually, for this episode, if you're listening, this is a particularly good episode to go on YouTube. This is one of the three we do each week that's on video. You're gonna hear it, but you need.
- [52:21]
Ben Shapiro
To see the anger in the faces of the intolerant left. And this is now normal on college campuses.
- [52:28]
Ted Cruz
It is so much worse and so much more powerful to see it. So I'd encourage you for this one. Go onto YouTube while you're there. Subscribe on YouTube, but play this portion in particular, because if you see it, this is where your kids are gonna go to school or are going to school. This is where your grandkids are. Are going to go to school or are going to school. And you want to understand the radical, angry, violent left. What happened to Riley Gaines illustrates it perfectly. Let's play it.
- [53:00]
Protestor
Translated trans rights. This way. Yeah, you fucking translated, bitch. I fucking see translators.
- [53:09]
Ted Cruz
It's just me. I'm good. I'm trusting. I'm good.
- [53:12]
Protestor
I'm good.
- [53:21]
Ted Cruz
I'm coming. I'm good. I'm good. Trust me, I'm good. Go ahead.
- [53:35]
Protestor
You crying? You, You. You.
- [53:43]
Ted Cruz
You.
- [53:44]
Protestor
Trans rights are human rights. Trans rights. Trans rights are human rights. Fine. Fine. You're dressed like a communist. Women. Trans women. Trans women are women. Trans women are women. Trans women are women. Trans women are women. Trans women are women. Trans women are women. Trans women are women. Trans women are women. Trans women are women.
- [54:25]
Ted Cruz
God help us.
- [54:27]
Ben Shapiro
I don't know how the university can watch that and not hold some of those students accountable, and I doubt they will.
- [54:33]
Ted Cruz
Look, for all we know, there were administrators there. I mean, this podcast talked about Stanford Law School and how you had an administrator siding with the mob, screaming expletives at a sitting federal court of appeals judge. And mind you, these are students studying to be lawyers who don't know actually how to deal with a judge without screaming and cursing at him. Look, those students, presumably either they or their parents, are paying the university to teach their kids to get an education. This is what they're being taught. You know, when I watch that video, it's why I encourage people to watch the YouTube of this. When I watch the video, the hate in the eyes of those children. It's hate.
- [55:22]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah. It's indoctrinated.
- [55:23]
Ted Cruz
It is rage. One of the most disturbing moments is a young woman who screams at Riley Gaines. You crying? So she's just been physically assaulted. I don't know if she was injured. I hope she was not. But the mob, the bloodlust. Look, there's a reason in San Francisco, the police officers take her out. Those officers are moving with dispatch because they're concerned for her safety. They're concerned that that mob, if they don't get her out, she didn't have a chance to speak. But if they don't get her out, they're concerned that that mob will continue to physically assault her and seriously injure her. Now, it says something about the university that they don't protect the safety of a Speaker. That they don't stop the violent mob, that they don't discipline the students, that they don't arrest people, engage in violence. The university in all likelihood, condones this activity. You know, a week ago, Tucker Carlson had a monologue where he talked about in the wake of the horrific shooting in Nashville, he talked about the rage of many of the radical activists in the transgender community, the rage that they have to Christians and people of faith. And that part of the essence of faith, and Christianity in particular, is recognizing that man is a fallen creature and that we need God's grace and that God is sovereign, not us. It's not my will, but it's a higher will. And one of the points Tucker made is the essence of the radical activist proposition is whatever I believe is the truth, that I am God, I can decide. And it is. You know, I just saw this week a movie premiere for the movie Nefarious.
- [57:42]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah.
- [57:43]
Ted Cruz
Now Nefarious is coming out. Coming out next week. Nefarious was written by my good friend Steve Dase, and it's a terrific movie, and the premiere was in Dallas, and it's about a murderer on death row who's getting ready to be executed. And a psychiatrist comes in to interview the murderer to determine whether the murderer is sane, whether he is competent to be executed. And the murderer believes that he is possessed by a demon. And so the entire movie is back and forth between the psychiatrist and the murderer and the demon. And it is a Christian movie, but it's not a Christian movie in the sense that it beats you over the head with a sermon. It's actually. It's a thriller. It's a horror film, and it's powerful. It's very well done. Unfortunately, some Christian movies are not very good. Yeah, this is a good movie and with an amazing performance. Actually, both of the two lead actors are really, really good. But one of the exchanges of the demon where he says, look, what did Lucifer say? Lucifer said, I am God. Do what thou wilt. That that's the essence of rebellion to God, is do what thou wilt. I thought Tucker's monologue, I actually texted him that night, and I said, listen, what you said tonight was really powerful and in today's environment, was courageous, because that kind of angry mob is becoming the norm. Look, I'm an optimist. I believe in our country, but when I see things like that, I fear for our country. We've got to rediscover sanity, and we've got to learn to talk to each other. We've got to do something about this rage, this rage and hatred that divides this country apart. This is what our kids are being taught on campuses. This is what the Marxists who are professors, the Marxists, who are administrators, are teaching our children. And if we don't teach them a.
- [60:05]
Ben Shapiro
Better path, we're in serious trouble.
- [60:08]
Ted Cruz
Yeah.
- [60:09]
Ben Shapiro
Senator, always a pleasure to chat with you, my friend. Don't forget, if you're getting to watch this on Facebook or on YouTube, make sure you download our audio version. We do this show three days a week. There are two others that are just audio only. If you're just listening today, go back and watch that last segment on YouTube or on Facebook. It'll be there. You can see this interaction with Riley Gaines, and we will see you guys back here in a couple of days.