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- [00:00]
Michael Knowles
The senator has been back in D.C. all week. There is some bombshell news that's just come out about Mike Flynn and the Russia investigation. But best of all, we are gonna be taking your questions live on this special Ask Us Anything episode of Verdict. So send your questions in now. We're gonna be taking them from Twitter using the hashtag Verdict. This is Verdict with Ted CR. Welcome back to Verdict. How many times can I say verdict in one minute? I guess we'll find out. I'm Michael Knowles. I'm joined, as ever, by the senator. Senator, before we begin, I gotta tell you, your hair today looks excellent. Have you done something new with it?
- [00:45]
Ted Cruz
Well, as it so happens, I got a haircut this morning. I got on a plane first thing this morning and flew to Dallas and went to Shelley Luther, who, as you know, she has a hair salon. And she was sentenced insanely to seven days in jail for daring to open a hair salon during the coronavirus crisis. And she spent two nights in jail. And then yesterday, thankfully, the Texas Supreme Court unanimously ruled that she be released. And so I got on a plane and flew up there today to get a haircut.
- [01:19]
Michael Knowles
Well, she obviously did a very good job. The hair looks good. And more importantly, I think it's good to send that message. Have been a lot of oversteps during this whole lockdown, pastors getting arrested and things like that. But I think Shelley Luther, she might take the cake. You know, she just dares to try to put some food on the table for her kids, and some judge in Dallas decides she's gotta go to the slammer for seven days.
- [01:45]
Ted Cruz
Well, you know, it really was outrageous. And if you haven't seen it, I'd encourage folks watch the video of her sentencing. I watched that when it came down. And the judge, who is an elected Democrat in Dallas, he demands of her, he says, apologize to the elected officials who issued these edicts, and if you apologize to them, I won't send you to jail. And to her credit, she says, I can't apologize. I can't apologize for wanting people, wanting the people who work for me to be able to feed their kids. I can't apologize for that. And, you know, it was impressive. She was not angry. She wasn't disrespectful. She was just very matter of fact saying, look, these folks, they need to feed their kids. They're hurting. And I gotta say, it is ridiculous. Elected officials don't have the right to demand of the people apologize to me. That's not the way it works in the United States, we work for the people, not the other way around. And the arrogance of our benevolent overlords demanding an apology from the citizenry. It was ridiculous. I tweeted that out a couple of days ago, how absurd it was. And I was really glad to get a chance to meet her in person. I never met her. And now my dad and my cousin, they had spoken to her boyfriend on the phone when she was in jail. They had actually prayed with him on the phone. And my cousin talked with Shelley just right when she got out of jail. But I wanted to be there just to say, look, we stand with you, and it is wrong. Particularly, you know what? You've got local officials that are releasing violent criminals from jail because they say coronavirus. We don't want it to spread. So they're releasing murderers, they're releasing rapists and child molesters. But God forbid you have a hairdresser. Well, we need to lock her up because she's not properly kissing the asses of the politicians that are issuing decrees. I was a little pissed off. You can tell.
- [03:51]
Michael Knowles
Fair enough. I think you should be. I think it sends a great statement. If we had a whole country full of Shelley Luther's, I think probably the culture would be a whole lot healthier. Speaking of unfair sentencing, there's another.
- [04:02]
Ted Cruz
And actually, hold on, before we shift to that, I wanna make one other point that I made. We did a press conference afterwards, and it's a point I made, but I haven't seen in any of the coverage. And it doesn't strike me as entirely accidental, which is, listen, I hadn't had a haircut. As, you know, we've been doing this. I hadn't had a haircut in three months.
- [04:22]
Michael Knowles
Yeah, I was getting to be that mullet kind of tiger King.
- [04:26]
Ted Cruz
Heidi said I was bringing mullets back. And, you know, look, I was going more for a Bee Gees thing, but Joe Dirt is an underappreciated look, so I'll go either way on that. But, you know, it was interesting this week. We were back in D.C. in the Senate, and I couldn't help but look around at my colleagues, and it sure looked like most of them had gotten a haircut. And it's just kind of interesting. For those who are defending people's freedom, fine. But we're seeing some politicians posture how terrible it is, and it was a good thing that she should be locked up. Well, it's just an interesting question, who's gotten a haircut and how.
- [05:15]
Michael Knowles
Right. Haircut's for me, but not for thee. Is the prevailing wisdom, I think.
- [05:20]
Ted Cruz
Well, what was it Bill de Blasio said when he went to the gym after shutting down the gyms? Well, I've gotta stay healthy. Oh, okay. Not the people. And look, it's also easy to mischaracterize this. Nobody is saying that everyone should just behave business as usual and ignore the epidemic, ignore the crisis. You know, Shelly at her hair salon, when I got my hair cut, I was wearing a mask. I was wearing gloves. She was wearing a mask. All of the stylists that worked for her were wearing masks. They used disinfectant. They wiped down the seat before I sat down. The stylist used disinfectant on her hand. They're trying to be safe. They're trying to use common sense measures to mitigate the spread of the virus, but they're also trying to. Trying to let these stylists be able to feed their kids.
- [06:10]
Michael Knowles
Right, right. Yeah. Being able to feed your family is important to public health as well. And you had the Shelley Luther case. That was obviously this gross miscarriage of justice. And then luckily, it got overturned. Yet another one on the national level, which just came out yesterday. This was the case of Michael Flynn. He was selected by President Trump to become the national security adviser. He was then, we were told, a traitor to his country. He colluded with Russia. He was gonna go to jail, people told us. And then the DOJ dropped the case yesterday. And Michael Flynn, from what we can tell, totally exonerated. Obviously don't have a law degree. What was going on here? What does this mean for the doj, for the Obama administration, for politics?
- [06:55]
Ted Cruz
Look, there are a couple of things at play here. One, Michael Flynn is a decorated general, and he was a leader until he was fired by the Obama administration because he had the courage to. To resist some of their willingness to just whitewash and cover up radical Islamic terrorists and be apologists for Islamism. He lost his job for that. But it's interesting that, you know, there's been a lot said about the Deep State. The Deep State despises him for that. And what has come out recently about the prosecution has really been disgraceful. How the Department of Justice, the FBI, I mean, they were politicized at a level under Barack Obama that's never happened before. They were turned into political weapons. And I gotta say, the notes that have been released of the senior folks going after Flynn, where they say the objective was to get him to lie so that we can either convict him for lying or get him fired.
- [08:03]
Michael Knowles
Right, get him fired.
- [08:05]
Ted Cruz
I mean, it was. I got to say, I commend Bill Barr. What Bill Barr has done, frankly, takes backbone because the media is savaging him because he came in as Attorney General and said he was going to follow the law and there was going to be accountability. And he directed a U.S. attorney to review this case. And all of these records that had been hidden were suddenly made public. And Barr made the determination, DOJ made the determination that there was not sufficient evidence. What this was, was a fishing expedition.
- [08:39]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [08:40]
Ted Cruz
Where they wanted to get rid of Flynn and, you know, they were getting ready to close the case until Peter struck this hard. Partisan Dem, who has all of these, you know, nasty partisan text back and forth with a woman with whom he was having an affair. Peter Strzok said, keep, keep the case open. And what's interesting about it, when they went to interview Michael Flynn, you know, Comey's been bragging about how he convinced them, oh, no, no, you don't need a lawyer. You don't need a lawyer. You don't need to tell the White House counsel, no, no, no, we're just chatting, no big deal. You know, just hanging out. And it was an old fashioned game of entrapment.
- [09:21]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [09:22]
Ted Cruz
And by the way, the alleged predicate for this is the Logan Act. Now, look, most people don't know what the Logan act is. I'll tell you, the Logan act is utter and complete garbage. It is a bill that is ostensibly in the US Code that makes it a crime for a private citizen to interact and conduct foreign policy with foreign leaders. Here's the problem. In two centuries, it has been enforced zero times. And there's a reason for it. There's no constitutional basis for it. And it is something that is routine. I guarantee you today, Michael, I guarantee you John Kerry violated the Logan Act.
- [10:07]
Michael Knowles
Certainly he did, by the letter of.
- [10:08]
Ted Cruz
The Logan act is a crime because John Kerry runs around bragging about how he's telling the Iranians, don't worry, we'll come back to the deal. Ignore, ignore President Trump's foreign policy. You have Democrats all the time who run around and engage in foreign policy and folks out of office. And let's be clear. So the alleged violation for Flynn, it's important to understand this. He's a retired general. He's just been named the incoming national security adviser for the new president. This is after the presidential election. So the incoming National Security Advisor is putting his team together to come in and lead the President's national security team. And what they were allegedly investigating him is that he talked to the Russian ambassador. I guarantee you every single national security adviser going back to the staff of George Washington was talking to our allies and our enemies. That's actually what you want leaders in government to do. And so it was an asinine fishing expedition based on a laughable claim. And it was all the entire game was, well, let's get him on tape, and then let's interview him and see if he says something that contradicts what he says on tape. And I gotta say, look, prosecutors have played that game all the time. There's a reason entrapment is not allowed, because you're just trying to. You're trying to set up what's called a perjury trap. And it was obvious that these partisans who were at the helm of DOJ and FBI, that was the game they were playing, and it wasn't law enforcement. And I think Bill Barr showed a lot of courage for saying, we're gonna follow the law and not let this be just a partisan hammer.
- [12:06]
Michael Knowles
Right. The way you can tell in the notes that were released from the FBI, the way you can tell that this wasn't just a regular investigation or entrapment is that phrase. Or get him fired. It wasn't just, we're gonna see if we catch him in a lie or we'll get him to admit it was that or get him fired. They had a political interest in getting this appointee removed. So it's great that this is coming to light. I know that.
- [12:30]
Ted Cruz
And there's an old grudge. There's. I mean, remember, he had been fired from the Obama administration. They didn't like that he was outing what the administration was doing, and they were. They were mad at him. And that. That was evidenced by the partisan attack.
- [12:44]
Michael Knowles
That's right. So we're.
- [12:46]
Ted Cruz
And of course, the irony of all of this is that the media and the Democrats are savaging Barr.
- [12:54]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [12:55]
Ted Cruz
For being partisan. I mean. I mean, it is the biggest case of projection because he says the Department of Justice is not going to be a partisan cudgel. They accuse him of being partisan. And it's a game, and I think a lot of people are sick of that game.
- [13:10]
Michael Knowles
Absolutely. So we've got about a million questions here from the viewers. Obviously, this is live, so send your questions in now on Twitter with the hashtag verdict. First one is from Rhinodino. I don't think that's his name at birth. I think that's the Twitter name. When does an executive's emergency power.
- [13:27]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, there's some colleagues of mine that.
- [13:28]
Michael Knowles
Go by that from Rhino Dino. That is true. It's a little long in the tooth in that institution. When does an executive's emergency power overstep the Constitution? Are there any rights that are absolute regardless of circumstance? Should there be a way for the legislature of the state or federal government to end a state of emergency or a lockdown? I suppose.
- [13:53]
Ted Cruz
So. Look, that's a complicated question. And even the question of executive. There's a difference between the president, a governor, a mayor.
- [14:02]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [14:04]
Ted Cruz
In times of emergency, the constitutional law has always given some degree of discretion and some degree of deference to emergency powers that are short term, that are temporary, that are designed to address the emergency. Now you can go too far. So, for example, there's the famous steel seizure cases where the federal government tried to seize steel mills and the Supreme Court said, no, you can't do that. That's going too. You know, when it comes to pandemics, there is the authority to quarantine people. And that's actually got a long history and pedigree. Now you think about it. In an ordinary case, the government can't come along and say, michael, we're gonna lock you in one place and not let you go for something that you didn't do. Like normally to be locked up, you gotta do something. You gotta break the law to be locked up. Quarantines are an are an accepted exception to that if you have a contagious disease and are a threat to others. But you know what we're seeing where it crosses the line? We're seeing it every day in the course of this crisis. We're seeing it with Shelley Luther locking someone up seven days in jail for cutting hair. That's ridiculous. We're seeing it in Colorado with the dad who was playing softball with his six year old daughter in a public park and they threatened to give him a ticket there. Pennsylvania, where they gave a woman a ticket for driving a car. She didn't violate any laws, by the way. She was driving a car alone, she posed no public health threat to anyone, and yet she got a ticket. We saw the governor of New Jersey, a Democrat, who said, well, figuring out the Constitution, that's above my pay grade. Well, no, actually, as governor of New Jersey, the oath you take is an oath to uphold the Constitution. It's not above your pay grade. So there are exceptions. And for example, in times of war, a president can suspend habeas corpus, but in limited circumstances.
- [16:05]
Michael Knowles
Right.
- [16:06]
Ted Cruz
And what the Supreme Court has said is that the power of the government is at its height when the Executive and the legislature are joined together because they're a check on each other.
- [16:18]
Michael Knowles
Right?
- [16:18]
Ted Cruz
And so that doesn't mean it's unlimited, but it is at its highest point when they are working together and you have multiple branches of government together, they are at the lowest point at the federal level, when the executive is on one side and the legislature is on the other, because those two are in conflict. And what's interesting, look, this crisis reveals character. And there are just a lot of petty authoritarians running around.
- [16:46]
Michael Knowles
Right.
- [16:47]
Ted Cruz
Many of them are Democrats, but not all. And they just like power. You know, California, I sent out a video of that. You know, they pulled out bulldozers and filled a skate park with sand to stop teenagers from skating. And I took the chance to tweet out and said, okay, skaters, this is what big government lefties want to do. They want to take away your freedom. And this is stupid. And by the way, it would have been perfectly fine for them to insist on social distancing. Say, listen, we're in the middle of a public health crisis. You need to spread out a little bit. But the idea that you can't go outside, that you can't go to the beach, that you can't paddle board, that you can't go jogging, all of that is an overreach. And it's an overreach because people are. Statists are going to status. That's what they do. And it's not right.
- [17:41]
Michael Knowles
And there's. I guess the question a lot of people are asking is, is there some hard and fast rule? So, you know, the government is allowed to fill the skate park with sand, but it's not allowed to stop the paddle border. I mean, obviously, there's no way you could control for all of these details. So how do we know when the government's gone too far?
- [17:59]
Ted Cruz
Listen, there is no magic rule on it. You've got the Bill of Rights. And so, for example, all right, let's take religious liberty. Yeah, Religious liberty is a hard question in this circumstance, because, for example, churches. Heidi and I go to First Baptist Church in Houston. It's a big church. My pastor is a good friend. Our church hasn't met in person for two months. It's really strange. I mean, we do. Our family, we do church on Sunday mornings where we. I log on to my phone and put it on the TV and we watch it in our living room. Now, the church is planning to start meeting at the end of the month, and I've talked with our pastor about it. He doesn't want to spread the disease. He doesn't want to contribute to people getting sick or losing their lives. I think that's a reasonable common sense judgment for pastors to make. We've seen Bill de Blasio where he threatened, if a church or synagogue dares meet, I will shut you down permanently. Who the hell are you to shut a church or synagogue down permanently? And by the way, de Blasio also, you know, he showed up at the funeral of a revered rabbi to personally disperse the crowd and then sent out this tweet threatening the Jewish community. You know, why exactly is he singling out the Jewish community again? I mean, that you start to reveal the willingness to persecute people because of faith. Yes, you can. You can work to protect public safety, but when you start signaling it, singling out faith and religious exercise or speech and punishing what you don't like, that's when you clearly cross the line.
- [19:47]
Michael Knowles
Right now, speaking of some maybe clearer steps we could be taking, this comes in from Aunt Betty. What actions are being taken right now to remove Chinese Communist Party sponsored programs in higher education and public schools? Confucius Schools and Jiangsu. I don't even know what those are. I do know that the Chinese government has infiltrated some educational institutions. Are there steps to remove them?
- [20:12]
Ted Cruz
So there are. So Confucius Institutes have been established at universities all over the country, and they're typically funded by the Chinese government. And they serve as propaganda arms. They serve as efforts that they offer universities help on Chinese language instruction. And China's approach is they use their vast economic resources a little bit like a drug dealer going to a junior high, where they say, you know, hey, kid, let me give you a free sample. So Chinese Communists go to universities and say the same thing. Hey, we'll give you really cheap or even free Chinese language instruction. Isn't this great? And all you have to do is let us conduct espionage on your campus and let us push propaganda. So Tiananmen Square. Nope, never heard of it. There is no Tiananmen Square. So the question is, is there anything we can do? Yes. So several years ago, I introduced and passed legislation on the Senate Armed Services Committee, got bipartisan support and got it written into law. A restriction and a prohibition on Department of Defense funding if a university has a Confucius Institute on campus. And it was like, look, we're not going to send you DOD money if you've got an outlet for the Chinese government right there. And that legislation that I authored and passed into law has resulted in over a dozen of those Confucius Institutes shutting down, I'll give you another example, is actually legislation I just introduced this week, Phoenix tv. It is a TV station owned by the Chinese government. Do you remember the exchange? It was a couple of weeks ago at a White House press conference.
- [21:53]
Michael Knowles
There was that reporter where this reporter.
- [21:56]
Ted Cruz
And she was questioning the President. And I gotta give President Trump credit here, he said, you know, who do you work for? China? She goes, no, no, no, Hong Kong. And I don't know if he had been briefed beforehand or if he just had good instincts on the moment, but it turns out, yes, in their name, it's Hong Kong, but it's controlled by the Chinese government and it is a propaganda outlet. And in the U.S. so that same company, Phoenix TV, purchased a radio station in Mexico which has a huge transmitter pointed north, pointed at the United States, and they changed it from a Spanish language station to a Chinese language station. And they put in an application at the FCC to broadcast into the U.S. now, two years ago in 2018, I sent a letter to the FCC saying don't let a propaganda station owned by the Chinese government broadcast propaganda into the US and the FCC denied them their license. Now, unfortunately, the way it works under the FCC is they, even though they'd been denied, they appealed and they got a provisional license while the appeal's pending. So right now you're in California. This TV station is broadcasting saturating Southern California and at times it makes it all the way up to Northern California, Chinese language propaganda through the radio waves. And so I introduced legislation to eliminate the provisional appeal and say, look, if it's controlled by a foreign government broadcasting in a foreign language, we're not going to be simple patsies and let them pump propaganda into our country. And so that's legislation I just filed this week.
- [23:45]
Michael Knowles
Right? That's actually some concrete work that's being done. You know, sometimes everything's been so vague in this lockdown, but those are real steps that are being taken and hopefully there's more on the horizon. This question from Magoo asks about another concrete step. Do you think there will be another stimulus to help those who are waiting for unemployment? I'd much rather be working though. Verdict? Do you think there's another gonna be another infusion of cash in people's bank accounts?
- [24:15]
Ted Cruz
Maybe. So we've passed a total of four different bills in response to this, major bills in response to this crisis. They were numbered. Bill 1, Bill 2, Bill 3, and then kind of Bill 3.5 that was supplementing the Paycheck Protection Plan, the big one was Bill 3, the CARES Act. All told, all four of those bills had been nearly $3 trillion, a whole lot of money. Wow. We're now back in session. The Senate is back in session. We were back this week. I was in D.C. all week. And it is being vigorously debated what Congress should do next. And I gotta say, they're wildly different views. So the Democrats want to spend trillions more. And they've got a couple of things they're pushing to do. One, they're trying to do their whole partisan wish list that they tried to do on all the past legislation. Things like codifying the Green New Deal, things like changing election standards nationally to benefit Democrats at the polls. They're pushing that hard. But their biggest priority seems to be bailouts for big blue states that have huge pension liabilities that long preceded this crisis have nothing to do with coronavirus. But the Democrats want to use that to bail the states out. Anyway, what I've been arguing and what a fair number of Republicans have been saying is slow down here. We spent $3 trillion. And by the way, it's not like the money's sitting there in a vault. We're just borrowing it, right? We're borrowing it and racking up the credit card. We're not going to get out of this crisis through debt. We're not going to get out through borrowing. The only way to get out is to restart the economy. And to do so, I think the next bill should be a recovery bill. It should focus on tax reform and regulatory reform as small businesses are starting to open up, small businesses like Sherry Luther's Hair Salon. We ought to be lessening the tax burden, the regulatory burden, making it easier for those businesses to survive and thrive. That's the only thing powerful enough to actually turn this around. We can't borrow enough money in Washington and spend enough money to get there. And so at this point, I think it's very much in flux what Congress will do. But this debate is live and raging right now.
- [26:41]
Michael Knowles
Well, especially because the country that we most often borrow from happens to be China. And one of the consequences of this pandemic is we're now trying to decouple ourselves a little bit from China. You can't do that if you keep taking all of their money. You know, I also wanna take a moment just to thank all of the listeners. I just saw this number come across the screen. We have now had 5 million, more than 5 million audio downloads alone. Just the audio from the podcast. I don't think, Senator, I felt confident going in, but I didn't feel that confident. I don't think either of us thought that the show would go that big and be listened to by that many people. So thank you so much. You can always subscribe at Apple Podcasts or Google Play or Stitcher, or if you ask us nicely, we'll send an audio cassette with a carrier pigeon to your house. Get it anywhere on the Internet. And please send your questions in with verdict. This question comes in from Mahi. Is that like the Hawaiian fish? I don't know. How do you feel about Andrew Cuomo's handling of the situation? It seems to me like other states suffered as a result of Cuomo's and de Blasio's handling. And I'm from the Bronx, by the way.
- [27:53]
Ted Cruz
Look, I don't know Cuomo personally. I do think New York has had a incredibly hard run of it. What's happening in New York City is horrific. I think Cuomo has been markedly better than de Blasio. That's not a very high bar. But de Blasio has been so overeager, so willing to put the jackboot on that it's really been dismaying. I've seen a fair amount written about Cuomo's decision to send people to nursing homes and to force nursing homes to take people with coronavirus. And obviously, many of the deaths that have occurred nationally have occurred in nursing homes. More than half of the Deaths in the US from COVID 19 have occurred in New York and New Jersey. And so that. That really is the locus of it, and it's horrific. I don't want to throw rocks at Cuomo in the midst of a crisis like this. I do think there will be serious questions asked, especially about the nursing home issue. But in a time of crisis, we ought to be coming together and solving the public health crisis and also solving the economic catastrophe that has come hand in hand with that.
- [29:16]
Michael Knowles
Yeah, I agree. I think that's probably a good impulse to try to bring people together. I just think a lot of people, it's not even that they're upset with Andrew Cuomo specifically. It's that they're upset at the double standard, the hypocrisy. You know, Andrew Cuomo, who. Maybe he did an okay job, maybe he didn't. I don't know. There's some evidence that he didn't. He's being hailed as the great hero of coronavirus. And yet other governors or the president who have done at least as good a job as Cuomo did are being pilloried for, you know, destroying the whole country, it's that double standard. I think it's very difficult for people to swallow.
- [29:48]
Ted Cruz
Well, listen, I think one of the biggest shifts in the age of Trump is the utter fraud of the media has been exposed.
- [29:58]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [30:00]
Ted Cruz
You remember three, four years ago, people used to argue, oh, the media isn't biased. Nobody argues. That seems like forever ago. Even lefties, you can't watch the media, they hate Trump so much. I mean, Trump derangement syndrome. I mean, they twitch and foam at the mouth and anything he does, look, there are things that Trump does that I wish he didn't do. There are things he says I wish he didn't say. But when the media is just, the only thing they can do is scream orange man bad. Orange man bad. It starts to get ludicrous. And when the media is just a willing shill for Chinese communist propaganda. So it pisses me off every time I see the media saying, oh, so and so country has a worse case of coronavirus than China. Well, that's only because they're doctoring their numbers and lying to us. And the story that was the most ridiculous was CNN did a story. So the Chinese government, their military propaganda site, put out a story that says the Chinese military is dealing with coronavirus much better than the American military. And CNN wrote a whole story saying the Chinese military is doing a better job than the American military with coronavirus. Source the government website from the Chinese communist government. And it was literally their repeating Chinese communist propaganda. And it so of course the media bestill my beating heart. These Democratic governors are wonderful. And every Republican governor, the president, you know, apparently they were all in the wet market in Wuhan. And Donald Trump is personally responsible for this virus. As the media tells, look, I mean it's the double standard in hypocrisy is a little ridiculous.
- [32:03]
Michael Knowles
Sure. And I think you're probably right. I think a lot of people are tuning them out. This from Cheyenne the Wolf, who I think is a person, but that's the Twitter name. How do we get the churches open again? I think that frankly, from my perspective, that's the question on top of my mind. I think that's true for lot of people.
- [32:21]
Ted Cruz
So I, I, I did last weekend I went and did an interview, did a podcast with my pastor and I actually feel kind of bad, Michael. I feel like I'm confessing infidelity to you.
- [32:33]
Michael Knowles
Yeah, what the hell.
- [32:33]
Ted Cruz
That I went, did another podcast. I, I, you know, I, so I'm, I, I hadn't admitted that to you, but anyway, my pastor said Come to the church. And we did. We. We did probably 45 minutes, an hour. We talked back and forth. And, you know, it's interesting in our church what the pastor did. He sent an email to all the members and said, what do you think? Where. What's the right balance of when are you comfortable coming back? Look, we've seen. I think it will vary geographically. It needs to be based on sound science and medicine. So, for example, New York City, the infection rate and the fatalities there are horrific. And I think it makes sense for people to have much more rigorous standards trying to enforce social distancing in New York City right now. There are other parts of the country where the numbers are much less. We've seen local officials abusing their power. So Tennessee and Mississippi, both instances you had people that are actually Kentucky and Mississippi, both instances you had people who went to church, went to church in their cars, were listening to the pastor over the radio. So they didn't get out of their cars. They were all parked together in the parking lot listening to the service over the radio, but they wanted to be parked together, and the politicians sent in police to ticket them all. Now, that's just absurd. That's just abusive. But let me give a different encouragement, which is, the church is not a building. The church is not bricks or mortars. One of the things, when I did the podcast with my pastor last week, I was saying, look, this is an opportunity for the church. An opportunity for the church to show the love of Jesus, show. To show care and concern and to help others, to help, you know, elderly people who are alone, who are isolated. They need love. They need people to reach out to them. Maybe not physically, but they need to not feel alone and scared. There are so many people who are understandably scared of their own mortality. And this is an opportunity for the church, I think, not to worry about the physical building, but to worry about the community we're in and to be the church, to be the body of Christ and show that love. That I think is much, much more important than the exact date and time we're able to gather in large groups.
- [35:27]
Michael Knowles
Again, sure, that's true. And that date and time will be different, as you say, for different places and as it should be. Maybe if we could all take a little note of federalism out of this pandemic, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.
- [35:40]
Ted Cruz
Absolutely.
- [35:41]
Michael Knowles
From the seer, this might be the most important question yet. What number guard do you use for your beard? I assume that question is to you, not to me.
- [35:53]
Ted Cruz
I don't know is the short answer. So I bought this beard trimmer. So I first grew the beard Thanksgiving, not last Thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving before. And I just went on Thanksgiving break. And I usually on holiday don't shave. And at the end of vacation, I usually shave. And I just came back and decided, all right, what the heck? I'm not going to. And I'd like to say it was some profound statement or anything, just kind of. I hadn't grown a beard since law school, and I figured, all right, this would be fun. And I gotta say, my campaign manager sends me this email when he sees this picture of me circulating around with sort of the wispy beginnings of a beard. And he's just like, worst decision ever, really. He was anti beard, hard anti beard. And so I kind of taunted him. And we. I am not surrounded by yes men. Let me say that it is. We all hold our own pretty well. So the beard started growing in, and then it started getting fairly unruly. And I was doing some press interview. It was a Sunday show at my house. And, like, the. The team started getting upset that the beard was a little too Duck Dynasty for their taste. And so they asked a young guy to run over to the house and buy a beard trimmer and be like, here, trim that damn thing. And I'd never trimmed a beard. I'm like, I don't know. So I just. I got a beard trimmer, and they have different clips that you clip on the thing. And so I just clipped on whatever the biggest one is. So the longish. Whatever the longest clip is, that fits on the beard trimmer. That's the one I used. And cut it down some.
- [37:48]
Michael Knowles
And, you know, I'm imagining Senator.
- [37:51]
Ted Cruz
So I don't know what number is the short answer.
- [37:53]
Michael Knowles
I'm imagining. If you hadn't trimmed it by now, you'd look like one of those Russian Orthodox priests. And then some crook at the FBI might accuse you of colluding or something. I don't know. I mean, I think it's probably lucky that you were able to trim that beard.
- [38:06]
Ted Cruz
So. Have I ever told you, a good friend of mine who used to be on my Senate staff, He had right about when I grew the beard. He had left and was living in Jerusalem and was at yeshiva. Yep. And he sent me an email. He said a friend of his was a rabbi who had seen a picture of the beard. He said the beard has a rabbinical and talmudic look to it that will bring peace to the Middle east and put the Fear of God in the enemies of Israel. I, like, cracked up. This is a real email. So I actually literally cut and pasted it and I tweeted it out. I'm like, okay, this may be a bit much. I'm not sure about. I'm glad you like the beard. But it did at least make me laugh.
- [38:59]
Michael Knowles
Wow, that's great. I would probably put that line in my Twitter bio. That's very, very good feedback nevertheless, from John James. With $30 trillion in debt, $200 trillion in obligations, and $100 trillion in state debts, how will we ever get our finances in order when the GOP as well as the Democrats keep kicking the can down the road?
- [39:23]
Ted Cruz
Look, it is a massive problem. It was a massive problem three months ago, and now it's even worse. We've spent $3 trillion in just a couple of months. And the problem is, it's a bipartisan problem in the Senate. In ordinary times, for any trillion dollar spending bill, you get all the Democrats and you get half to two thirds of the Republicans. There may be 20 of us that try to hold the line and try to push back, but those votes are usually about 80, 20. The only way you will get that is with presidential leadership. And there are areas where the President has been vigorous and aggressive. He didn't run in 2016 promising to cut spending. He didn't run campaigning against debt. And so when the President is supporting it, that makes it easy for a whole bunch of Republicans to support it. And all the Democrats always support spending. The answer in terms of how we turn it around, I'd say a couple of things. One, you need presidential leadership that's willing to take it on. But two, you've got to have economic growth. So if you look at the numbers, you look at all the variables that go into our federal budget, there is only one first order variable, which is there's only one variable that has just a dramatic impact, and it is economic growth. If we are at anemic levels of growth, if we're at 1 and 2% growth, which is what we had for the Obama administration for eight years, with anemic growth, you can't solve this problem, right? With robust growth, 3, 4, 5% growth, the debt becomes much easier to solve. If you look at the last time the federal deficit went to zero and we actually had a surplus, it was after 12 years of Reagan, Bush, it was after 12 years of cutting taxes, reducing regulations, and the economic growth was such that when it got to Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton inherited a $4 trillion surplus that wasn't that long ago. And it was the incredible economic growth that came from tax reform and reg reform. A little bit of a Johnny One note. Growth, growth, growth.
- [41:51]
Michael Knowles
Right.
- [41:52]
Ted Cruz
And you get it from tax reform and reg reform. Now we're in a situation economically this country hasn't seen since the Great Depression. It's frightening. This is 33 million Americans have lost their job in two months. We had strong growth until three months ago. Yeah, we've got to turn it around. I will say as we start shifting the conversation into a growth conversation, look, when you're shoveling cash out the door by the trillions, that's kind of naturally the Democrats playing field. If you're a statist, if you're a socialist, shoveling cash, you love to do. If we start shifting into the recovery debate, which is where I think we should be, how do we bring growth back? How do we bring those jobs back? That then is a conservative or a libertarian's battlefield where the only way to do it is tax reform and reg reform. And so if we can get growth up. And for someone who says, well, gosh, it seems hopeless, I mean, things are so bad. Is it just. Are we doomed? From World War II to the present, GDP growth has averaged about 3.3% a year. From 2008 to 2012. Under Barack Obama, it averaged 0.9% a year, less than 1% over four years. The last four year period before that where GDP growth averaged less than 1% was 78 to 82. It was coming out of Jimmy Carter.
- [43:36]
Michael Knowles
Yep.
- [43:36]
Ted Cruz
And what happened then? What happened then? And by the way, what produced it in both instances was high taxes, high regulation, strangling small businesses, and growth becomes anemic. Now Reagan comes in in 81, cuts taxes, simplifies the tax code, repeals job killing regulations. We go from four years of GDP growth less than 1%. Do you know what GDP growth was in 1984?
- [44:04]
Michael Knowles
I don't remember.
- [44:07]
Ted Cruz
7.2%.
- [44:10]
Michael Knowles
Man.
- [44:12]
Ted Cruz
Those are crazy numbers. And we did that. That's what fueled the incredible growth. By the way, JFK. JFK campaigned on 5% GDP growth and then he cut taxes and repealed regulations and we got 5% GDP growth. You want to turn the debt around? The only thing strong enough to do it is the incredible engine of the American free enterprise system and its growth. Growth. Growth has got to be our focus.
- [44:38]
Michael Knowles
Right? And we're not going to be able to get there if we're locked down for two years. So I think that's another reason to be eager to start to lift some of these lockdowns from Joe. Joe wants to know, do you think central banks issuing digital cryptocurrency will lead to the government keeping us from buying and selling?
- [44:58]
Ted Cruz
Hmm.
- [45:00]
Michael Knowles
It's a question I know absolutely nothing about.
- [45:03]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, I gotta admit, I don't know much about that question either. Look, when it comes to the Fed, I am nervous about the Fed. I'm nervous about unchecked power. I've long been a co sponsor of audit the Fed legislation. I think we need to audit the Fed. Right now the Fed is doing a lot to provide liquidity to all sorts of players in the economy. I'm glad if that helps our economy make it through this, but I suspect there are going to be some ugly components there that will come out later. And so the cryptocurrency world, bitcoin. I have to admit I have some friends that have gotten into the bitcoin world and I'm quite libertarian, so I'm like, great, knock yourself out. And a couple who are like, hey, you ought to put $1,000 into this. And I don't entirely understand it. They've tried to explain it to me and I'm like, okay, I'm not sure. And so I don't, look, I don't have that much money to invest to begin with, but, but I don't like to put. Put what money I have in something that I don't. Don't fundamentally understand. Yeah, and it seems to be very volatile and some people, it's gone way up. And then usually things that can go way up really fast can go way down really fast. So I don't know. I will say, when it comes to policymakers regulating things like cryptocurrency, I think most of the federal government doesn't know what it's doing yet is not sure what the right answer is. I don't doubt there's some big government folks that want to take over everything with it. Is there a role for combating fraud and money laundering and. Sure, but I don't know. Is the short answer sure?
- [47:10]
Michael Knowles
Well, no, I'm basically with you, Senator, including on the investment front. I spoke to George Gilder, who I think he was the most cited writer by Ronald Reagan during his entire presidency. George Gilder, very, very insightful guy. And he wrote this whole book about how blockchain, the essence of bitcoin and cryptocurrency, blockchain is the future of the Internet. And I have no doubt that he's right. But I don't understand it either. It Certainly doesn't appear to be happening right now. And so, obviously, the government is gonna weigh in on this more as it develops. And in the meantime?
- [47:44]
Ted Cruz
Well, there's a tendency. You know the famous story of the emperor's new clothes where the emperor's riding naked down the street because some unscrupulous tailors convinced him they had invisible thread? And everyone was afraid to say, this guy's naked. He's not wearing anything. Like, groupthink can be really dangerous. And you look at, like, Holland's, the tulip bulbs that, like, there was an investment mania where everyone wanted tulip bulbs. As it so happens, I bought Heidi some purple tulips yesterday. And I don't know why I thought of the tulip bulbs, but they became incredibly valuable. Like flower bulbs. Like, why would you be spending tons of money on flower bulbs? I don't get it. But it became. Everyone was afraid to say, the emperor has no clothes. And so everyone wanted tulips. And then they went way up, and then they collapsed. And I do think there are tendencies. People are scared to say they don't understand something, and that could be a very dangerous place to get involved.
- [48:46]
Michael Knowles
I'm still waiting for my Beanie Babies to shoot right back up through the roof. I'm going to be a wealthy man when that happens. Probably just right around the corner. That and the tulips as well. This question from CB I am a waitress. My governor's orders are a slap in the face to me. Mr. Cruz, what is the most effective way, in your opinion, to end these restrictions? I've heard people say, call the doj. The Supreme Court refused to hear the Pennsylvania case. I'm not quite sure what that's referring to for people who can't work at all. Like, a waitress simply cannot work during this. Obviously, it's much more urgent to restart the economy than for people who can work from home. Should they write to their congressman? I mean, what is best for them to do right now?
- [49:35]
Ted Cruz
So did CB Say where she was? No.
- [49:39]
Michael Knowles
What she.
- [49:41]
Ted Cruz
Okay, look, I mean, it's harder because it's varying state by state, and some of it is depending on the facts and circumstances. If the infection is really bad and widespread, then the restrictions will probably be around for a while. I think there's also a pretty sharp difference here between Republicans and Democrats. So if you're in. She mentioned Pennsylvania. Look, if she's in Pennsylvania, they have a Democratic governor.
- [50:05]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [50:06]
Ted Cruz
And you're seeing part of the messed up thing about where we are today is everything in life seems to be defined based on what you think about Donald Trump.
- [50:19]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [50:20]
Ted Cruz
And it's weird. I mean, it's so. For Democrats who hate Trump, everything is about Trump. And it's just. And so this virus, this pandemic, it's all his fault. And their view is everything's gotta stay shut down forever. And we're seeing Democratic politicians that are saying, until there's not one case.
- [50:45]
Michael Knowles
Yeah, right.
- [50:46]
Ted Cruz
We'll just shut down everyone forever. Look, that's a little nutty. And okay, I'm sorry you don't like Trump, but that doesn't make any sense.
- [50:54]
Michael Knowles
It's just impossible.
- [50:55]
Ted Cruz
Look, to be fair, on the flip side, there are folks who love Trump who I think are too quick to dismiss this pandemic as it's a hoax. It's not real. This thing's real. It's dangerous. People are dying, and we need to treat it seriously. And I gotta say, where I am and where I think most Texans are is, let's use common sense. Let's treat it seriously. Let's do what we can to slow and stop the spread of the virus, but let's not at the same time strangle small businesses and destroy people's livelihoods. So Texas, we just rolled out. So, for example, CB said she's a waitress. We've now, Texas has laid out guidelines that has allowed restaurants to reopen. Now they're reopening at 25% capacity. So Sunday night, Heidi and I and the girls, we went out to dinner for the first time. We hadn't been out to dinner in, I don't know, two, three months. And so we went out. We went out to sushi, which.
- [51:59]
Michael Knowles
The.
- [51:59]
Ted Cruz
Girls love, Heidi loves. I actually like sushi, too. Although a friend of mine was laughing and went, your first meal. You went out for bait. But. Well, yeah, but now, look, we wore masks into the restaurant. You had to take them off. You obviously can't eat with a mask on. But all the tables were spread apart pretty far apart. And it's at 25% capacity. And the plan, hopefully, if the numbers supported in Texas, what the governor's laid out, is to shift to 50% capacity and then keep going till you get up. That varies state by state. I gotta say, if CB is in a blue state with a Democratic governor who is focused on I hate Trump and want to stay shut down forever, my advice might be move somewhere where you don't have politicians who are as crazy.
- [52:52]
Michael Knowles
I've been thinking about that every day. Senator from Quinton, do you think that China should just Cancel the debt that we owe them. Since they've cost the US trillions, that seems like a simple answer to the debt. Why can't we do that?
- [53:07]
Ted Cruz
Oh, look, if I had a magic wand, sure. They're not going to. We need to deal with them, seriously. But there's some folks saying, okay, let's seize Chinese assets. Okay, but look, when you're dealing with foreign policy, all right, we seize a bunch of Chinese assets, you know what they're gonna do? They're gonna seize a bunch of American assets. Like, you know, that is a dangerous road to go down. So would I love it, you know, if I'd also love it if my mortgage company forgave my debt? That'd be nice. So. Yes, but would I love it? Of course I would. Do I really have any ability to make it happen? No. When it comes to China, I think of it in phases. Number one, we need a real accounting. We need a real accounting of their responsibility. You and I have talked at length on this podcast. We were among the first to talk about how the preponderance of the evidence is this virus likely came from one of the two Chinese labs in Wuhan that was studying coronaviruses derived from bats. One of Those labs was 300 yards from the wet market in Wuhan where this outbreak occurred. By the way, the nearest bats we know of that have. Have comparable viruses are 1,000 miles away in caves in China.
- [54:33]
Michael Knowles
Right?
- [54:34]
Ted Cruz
Not only that, we know that the Chinese government demanded of these labs they destroy their samples. Now, when you destroy evidence, that raises an inference. And by the way, courts do this all the time. If you destroy evidence, you're in litigation. You go destroy evidence that raises an inference that the evidence would have revealed something damning to you, something that shows your responsibility. The fact that they destroyed those samples does a lot. And let me say something also. So there are lots of people pretending to be learned, saying, oh, the evidence is all circumstantial. That's actually true. Most people, Michael, who are not lawyers, don't know the difference between circumstantial and direct evidence. Direct evidence is, let's say, an eyewitness. If I see you point a gun at somebody and shoot them, and I testify, I saw Michael shoot so and so that's direct evidence, circumstantial evidence. Let's say you've gone to the opera and you're watching the opera, and suddenly you see a man. You hear a gunshot. You see a man leap from the balcony holding a gun, saying, sic semper tyrannus. And run off. Now that's all circumstantial evidence that you just saw John Wilkes Booth shoot Abraham Lincoln. But if you didn't see it, that is circumstantial. By the way, people get convicted on circumstantial evidence all the time. It is simply looking to the circumstances and drawing reasonable inferences. The evidence we have suggests the most rational assessment. Is this lab, one of these two labs, or both, was studying this virus and presumably it escaped accidentally. And the media fact checkers that try to refute this, what they keep saying is there's no evidence this was a bioweapon released deliberately.
- [56:41]
Michael Knowles
Well, duh, that's not what we're saying.
- [56:43]
Ted Cruz
Even as bad as the Chinese are. Okay, maybe. Look, anything's possible, but I agree that there is not evidence that they released a bioweapon to kill their own people. But we do know that they were studying bat coronaviruses in these labs right there where the outbreak occurred. Let's start with a real accounting. Was the novel coronavirus in those labs? What were the safety protocols? We know also the State Department had two internal wires before this crisis raising concerns about the shoddy security protocols and actually warning that the security was so shoddy it could lead to a global pandemic of coronavirus. That sounds kind of relevant.
- [57:29]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [57:30]
Ted Cruz
We also know for a fact that the Chinese government covered it up, that they suppressed it, that they hid it. And so I think we should start with a serious accounting driven by us, driven by third parties, driven by other countries to ascertain it's clear China is directly responsible. We need to get the facts. The harder question will be then therefore, what? Yes, they should pay how they should pay. To be honest, we're going to be battling with them. I don't think they're going to pull out a checkbook willingly anytime soon. So we're going to have to figure that out back and forth. And one of the things that will make us more able to be vigorous in solving that is decoupling from China. So much of our supply chain right now is dependent on China. So many of our life saving medicines are manufactured in China. I am fighting hard to bring that manufacturing back to the US so that they don't have the ability to do what they threaten to do during this crisis, which is cut off life saving medicines and kill Americans. As long as we're intertwined with them, the ability to lean in is constrained and dangerous. But let's start with the full accounting and at the same time, let's be Decoupling.
- [58:48]
Michael Knowles
That's such an important point. It seems like common sense. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Right.
- [58:53]
Ted Cruz
So I've lost audio.
- [58:55]
Michael Knowles
You've lost me. I wonder if the rest of the audience can hear me.
- [58:59]
Ted Cruz
But it's a good thing that Michael, you're such a good actor because the next question is gonna have to be mime. I don't know if you can hear me, but can you do a box?
- [59:10]
Michael Knowles
Yes, I would say for the next question.
- [59:14]
Ted Cruz
Okay, I'm still. I have zero audio.
- [59:17]
Michael Knowles
I will learn sign language before the next episode, but until then, I will take that as a providential sign either from the heavens above or from the Chinese government that's tapping into our streams or anything in the middle. That that will have to be the end of this episode almost at one hour on the dot. I'm back, Senator.
- [59:38]
Ted Cruz
You're back.
- [59:38]
Michael Knowles
You know, I have a theory that it was the Chinese government hacking into our streamline cuz they didn't like all the things that you were saying.
- [59:46]
Ted Cruz
I think that's right. By the way, could you hear me?
- [59:48]
Michael Knowles
Yes, I could hear you. And I guess you couldn't understand my sign language and my miming.
- [59:54]
Ted Cruz
I must say, you know, for someone that makes a living in Hollywood as an actor, that was an exceptionally poor box.
- [60:05]
Michael Knowles
Listen, Senator, you say you don't surround yourself with yes men. Clearly I don't surround myself with yes men either. I take your constructive criticism. You know though, what's amazing is that audio cut out almost exactly at one hour. So I think we've exhausted not even one tenth of the questions. But we'll have to save the rest for the next episode. In the meantime, Senator, I look forward to hopefully seeing you in person one of these days sometime soon. We'll have to wait and see as we reopen. I'm Michael Knowles, this is Verdict with Ted Cruz.