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- [00:00]
Michael Knowles
It has been a tough couple of weeks for freedom. New threats to our freedom of speech, free elections, freedom of movement, the freedom to defend ourselves, even the freedom of nations to oppose woke corporations. Thankfully, Senator Cruz is finally back from meeting with Bibi Netanyahu. He's back from Israel. We can hash all of this out. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles. Senator, welcome back to the States. I'm glad you're back, Michael.
- [00:39]
Ted Cruz
Good to be with you.
- [00:40]
Michael Knowles
So I want to hear all about Israel. I want to hear about this meeting with Bibi Netanyahu. You were with him on actually rather an historic day. But I don't want to talk about that right now. I want to be very selfish and first get to things that directly affect me. Namely, there is a new rule being passed by the atf. That's the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Three of my favorite things. We were warned that the new ATF picks were on the radical side, but the headlines I'm seeing is that there are new threats to very popular weapons and the Second Amendment. What is happening?
- [01:16]
Ted Cruz
Well, so the ATF put out a new rule today that prohibited stabilizing grips on pistols. So shoulder stocks on pistols and under the law, what? Basically they say if you attach a shoulder stock to a pistol, you turn it into a short armed rifle. And short armed rifles under the law have to be specially registered. Now, why does this matter? Well, it matters because according to the Congressional Research Service, there are anywhere between 10 million and 40 million of these stabilizing grips that are out there that Americans own. And so by the flip of a pen, ATF may be making anywhere from 10 million to 40 million Americans into felons unless they suddenly go and register their firearms. And all of this is being done by arbitrary fiat.
- [02:14]
Michael Knowles
Now, is there any legitimacy to the argument? I mean, I see your point, the political point, that this is going to basically just take a ton of guns off the table, which seems to be the ultimate goal of the Biden administration. But is there any legitimacy to the argument that. Well, actually, when you put this sort of stabilizing grip on, actually it does kind of turn it into a rifle. Or is it just an excuse?
- [02:38]
Ted Cruz
So if the objective is preventing crime, there are no data to suggest that adding a grip to a pistol suddenly makes it more dangerous, suddenly leads to more crimes, that those are not the weapons that tend to be used in crimes. The most common weapons that are used in crimes are revolvers. You know, you go to the city of Chicago, where you have gang members shooting each other, they're not using stabilizing grips, they're just shooting each other with handguns. This is. Look, you could debate what the rules should be on the front end, but this is worse than changing the rules on the front end because it's arbitrary under the fact, after the fact. If you've got 10, 20, 30, 40 million people that have pistols at home, have these stabilizing grips at home, yesterday they were perfectly legal. Now, you know, presumably those 40 million people, not all of them know that the ATF suddenly issued this new rule. And it's really dangerous when the government can turn you into a felon without your knowing, you know, you're doing something that was perfectly legal when you bought it, but suddenly the Biden administration decided they don't want it to be legal. And the problem is, are they going to arrest all 40 million people? Probably not, but you can count on them using it as an arbitrary club that if they want to go after you, suddenly you've committed a crime that you had no idea about it. And it doesn't accomplish anything. It's not actually stopping crime. It's just with the stroke of a pen, turning people into criminals.
- [04:13]
Michael Knowles
That's a point I had not considered because I could see this quibbling over, well, now it looks more like a rifle. And in a way it kind of. And what is a rifle really? You know, I could see all of that as a way to obscure the issue. But your point is, the point of these regulations is to prevent crime. And we know that. Forget this particular kind of alleged rifle. But rifles of all kinds are really not the guns that are used in most crimes. It's really just revolvers or it's standard issue semi automatic pistols. So I think that does tip the argument. It's actually good ammo to use in a debate, if you'll, if you'll pardon a labored metaphor.
- [04:54]
Ted Cruz
Well, and I'll point out, Michael, you know, you mentioned the nominees for atf. So the nominee to be the head of ATF is this guy, David Chipman. We had his hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee a couple of weeks ago. And this guy is extreme when it comes to gun control. He works for one of the major gun control organizations in this country. And it was interesting at the hearing, I asked him if he wanted to ban AR15s, which are the most popular rifles in America, and he said unequivocally, yes, he wants to ban them all. And the leading Senate legislation to do that is Dianne Feinstein's. Legislation that would ban some 2,000 different types of rifles that she specifies. And Chipman made the argument. He said he thought Feinstein didn't go nearly far enough and he would go much further. So Feinstein would ban the sale of new AR15s. Shipman wants to make it illegal for anyone to own one, which sets up the same scenario we're talking about, which is the federal government being able to knock in your door and confiscate your guns or declare you're a criminal otherwise. And it's striking. Number one, this is who Joe Biden has picked to lead atf. But number two, this new rule on the stabilizing grips didn't come from Chipman. He hadn't been confirmed yet. So this is just the career folks at DOJ at atf, listening to the political folks at doj, that it's really ominous for the direction the Biden administration is going in terms of arbitrary power and hostility to law abiding gun owners.
- [06:37]
Michael Knowles
Right. This isn't even the entree. This is just the appetizer. This is the amuse bouche to the kind of radical rules we're gonna see.
- [06:44]
Ted Cruz
Okay, I'm sorry, I don't know what a nmuz bouche is.
- [06:47]
Michael Knowles
Well, putting the bouches aside here, yes, this is a terrible announcement. We'll see when this rule actually goes into effect. Hopefully it does not, but not looking good. Senator, if you wouldn't mind. Now that we've dealt with our freedom of self defense, I'd like you to disappoint me on another aspect of our freedom. These vaccine passports seem to be cropping up on the international stage. And there are a lot of politicians in the United States pushing for them here at home as well. Now, actually, I should say there is a little glimmer of hope here. And it came out of you. You introduced a bill to ban this stuff.
- [07:27]
Ted Cruz
So I did. I introduced a bill that would ban mandatory vaccine passports. Would ban the government issuing vaccine passports. Now listen, my view on it, I support vaccines. I think vaccines are a good idea. I've gotten the COVID vaccine. Heidi's gotten the COVID vaccine. My parents have gotten it. Her parents have gotten it. I think it makes sense for most people to get it. We've not given it to our girls. Our girls are 10 and 13, actually, 10 year olds. There isn't a vaccine that's recommended for kids that young. And I'm not sure the cost benefit analysis makes sense for a teenager. But I think whether you get the vaccine or not should be a question of individual choice. It should be up to you as an individual to look at your own health situation and decide, do I want the vaccine or not? For me, I wanted it. I wanted the peace of mind. I wanted the freedom that comes from getting it. But you're right, there are a whole bunch of politicians that are wanting, number one, the government to issue a vaccine passport, an official thing like your passport, like your driver's license. But number two, for that passport then to be mandatory for certain activities. So, for example, a lot of people are, I think, understandably concerned about airlines. Are they gonna not let you get on a plane unless you can prove you've had a vaccine employment. We have seen instances across the country of people being terminated if they don't get vaccinated. And my view is that's wrong, that should not be permitted. And so what my legislation does is prohibits the federal government from issuing a vaccine passport, prohibits the government from requiring proof of vaccine status. It protects the privacy of your healthcare information. And you think about everything else in your healthcare information, that privacy is protected by law. And then it adds whether or not you're vaccinated to the list of federal civil rights protections that are protected in the course of employment. So just like you can't be fired from your job because of race, because of ethnicity, because of gender, because of religion, it likewise says you can't be fired from your job because of whether or not you've chosen to be vaccinated. And on this piece, essentially what the legislation does is it incorporates the framework of the Americans with Disability Act. So there may be some jobs for which being vaccinated is an employer could reasonably conclude that that is necessary for that particular job. You know, maybe dealing with patients who may or may not have Covid and may be immunocompromised. That might be one example where you could conclude it was reasonable to want care providers to have to be vaccinated. But the way the Americans with Disability worked. The way the Americans with Disability act works is if you have a disability, your employer has to make a reasonable accommodation. And likewise, if you choose, as a matter of personal choice, not to get the vaccine, if my bill passes into law, the employer would have to make a reasonable accommodation for that individual choice you made.
- [10:40]
Michael Knowles
I was so pleased when I saw this headline. I really. I'm not flattering you in any way, because we've seen some moves to ban these things at the state level, but we hadn't really seen anything at the federal level. And I just thought that the way this issue is being presented, you have to either insist that everybody get the vaccine immediately, tomorrow, regardless of circumstance, or you have to say that the vaccine is gonna cause you to grow a third eye and a tail and it's the worst thing in the world. And what you're bringing into this conversation, two very important things. Choice, that you have faculties of reason, you can kind of figure some of these things out yourself. And prudence, which is a related virtue. The idea that for certain people it might make a lot of sense to go out and get this thing right away, and for other people, the risk is just lower and we're free people and we should be able to make that calculation ourselves.
- [11:31]
Ted Cruz
Well, and look, I can say in my family, my dad was pretty skeptical about the vaccine. He didn't want to get it. And I spent probably a month arguing with him, saying, look, dad, you know, you're in your 80s. You have been staying home mostly. You've been social distancing. You want to get out. He's a preacher. He wants to be back out with people. I said, you know, you'd be much happier if you get the vaccine and you can go out and interact with people and return to some semblance of normal life. And ultimately, he was persuaded. But I think families can work through this. And consider the pros and cons. Are there risks to any experimental drug? Of course there are. And that's where rational adults can make their own cost benefit analysis and decide what makes sense for them.
- [12:17]
Michael Knowles
Now, this issue, I suppose it's more on the conservative side of things. I've noticed the left and the Democrats tend to be much more. Well, they're more in favor of government mandates generally, but certainly with regard to this, is there any way to pry some Democrats over to come and support a federal ban on the vaccine passports?
- [12:35]
Ted Cruz
I don't know. I'll confess I'm skeptical. I have not seen any Democrats in the Senate expressing concern about vaccine passports. Now, the most promising aspect is actually the Biden administration. Jen Psaki at a White House press briefing said the Biden administration would not be requiring vaccine passports and would not be issuing them. That the federal. The administration wouldn't be issuing them. That's good. And so part of what I'm saying is, well, look, if Joe Biden is saying this, then we ought to be perfectly willing to codify it, to put it in a statute, and more importantly, to provide some protection so that you can't be fired arbitrarily if you choose in your own life. Not to get a vaccine. And in a normal circumstance, there would be Democrats willing to protect health. Privacy, that often is a bipartisan issue. Sometimes protecting civil liberties is a bipartisan issue. With COVID I don't know that I'm all that optimistic that Democrats are gonna be interested in doing so because they're really vested in the authoritarian state when it comes to Covid. And so I'm certainly gonna try. I hope Democrats will agree. But, you know, if you ask me, I'm gonna hold my breath on this. No, I'm not gonna hold my breath on this one.
- [13:56]
Michael Knowles
Well, there may be some hope here, I suppose, because of the timing of this all. You know, I know how much you hate to say I told you so. You, you know how much I hate to say I told you so. However, we told you so on this program, we raised a lot of questions about the prevailing narrative on the coronavirus, on the lockdowns on China, on all of these things well over a year ago. And people called us kooks and conspiracy theorists and rubes and all sorts of things. And it turns out that we, and not just us, there were other people too, were completely right. And that seems to have been proven this week with the release of Dr. Fauci's emails. 3,000 emails obtained through an ordinary Freedom of Information act request. Does the release of the Fauci emails change any of the political situation on Covid in Washington?
- [14:48]
Ted Cruz
Well, let me point out, as a matter of logic, just because we were right doesn't mean that you and I are not kooks and conspiracy theorists and a bunch of rubes.
- [14:57]
Michael Knowles
Good point.
- [14:58]
Ted Cruz
As the old line says, just because you're paranoid does not mean they're not out to get you when it comes to the origin of the vaccine. I actually went back and looked, and this podcast in March of last year, we were one of the very first podcasts, news outlets kind of outlets anywhere. So we had two different episodes, one in March, one in April of last year, where we went through it in real detail, the evidence that we knew at the time about COVID about where it came from. And we walked through how Wuhan, their two different labs, Chinese government labs, studying coronaviruses, studying coronaviruses from bats, that one of the labs is 400 yards away from the wet market, that the odds were statistically really slim that this was a coincidence. And we said on this pod in March of last year that the preponderance of the evidence supported the conclusion that this escaped from a Chinese lab. Now, I'm amazed We haven't been banned yet so far. Verdict is still out there. And I say that midway through this episode and suddenly I may stop mid. Mid sentence. So I don't know. But you look at these Fauci emails, I gotta say, this. This Fauci guy is a piece of work, you know, smuggler, condescending, willing to control people arbitrarily. And the emails. So you have emails where scientists are raising with him in the spring of last year, hey, this virus looks like it may have been manufactured in a lab. And actually, when we talked about it, we broke it down into two aspects of the theory. One was, did it escape from a lab, in other words? And two, was, was it manufactured in a lab? And what we said a year ago is we said on the latter, the evidence supports the conclusion. Yes. We don't have. We don't have direct evidence. We need an investigation to determine if that in fact happened. But the preponderance of the evidence we have suggests that it escaped from the lab. On the first question, was it manufactured in a laboratory? You recall there were several. There were Washington Post fact checks and others that had scientists saying, we've looked at the virus and concluded that based on the characteristic of the virus, it's naturally occurring. It wasn't made in a lab. And listen, you and I aren't biologists. I don't know how to look at a virus. So I was like, okay, if the scientists say that, I guess that sounds so we said at the time, okay, I'm not maintaining that it was manufactured in the lab. Well, unbeknownst to you and me, at the exact same time, all of the press was orchestrating these stories, scientists within the NIH were saying, gosh, looking at this virus, it looks like it may have been manufactured in a lab. Right? And there's something called gain of function research. And I think it's worth Michael pausing and reflecting on that because people are hearing that term and they don't necessarily know what it means. I mean, that's kind of a weird term, particularly if you're not a virologist, to know what it means. And my understanding, kind of a layman's interpretation of gain of function research is that you take a virus and you alter the genetic code in it, and you alter the genetic code to make it more deadly, to make it more contagious. You change it to basically turn it into a super virus. And it's a very controversial type of research. It is research that Fauci and congressional testimony insisted. No, that wasn't going on in Wuhan? No, the federal government wasn't funding it. The US Federal government, and we now know from the Fauci emails and other sources, yes, it was going on. There was gain of function research going on. Yes, the federal government was funding it. Yes, Fauci was funding it. And we now know from the emails there were scientists raising at the time that it appeared this may be a virus genetically modified by the Chinese labs to make it more contagious among humans. If that's true, look, it's one thing if sloppy security at the Wuhan Institute for Virology resulted in an accidental leak, that's really bad. And China bears culpability for the millions of deaths and trillions of dollars of devastation that have come from this. But if on top of that they made the virus and then screwed up and let it leak it, it is a level of responsibility that is really, I don't think earth shattering is too strong a term for it. And that Fauci was getting emails suggesting at the time, and then he would go out publicly and adamantly conclude, no, this wasn't manufactured in the lab. We know that. It occurred naturally. I'm sorry, that's not science, that's propaganda. And the most disturbing aspect of these Fauci emails is his consistent willingness to be a propagandist, that he has a political message and his decision making is not driven by the science, not driven by the evidence. He's not going, oh, well, that would be highly concerning. If it was gain of function, how could we examine the virus? How could we examine what the science tells us? That's not his concern. His concern was this is a bad political story. So let's make sure we quash it. And I gotta tell you, on top of that, Michael, I don't know if you read a story that came out a few days ago in Vanity Fair.
- [20:35]
Michael Knowles
I try to avoid Vanity Fair, but I did not see it.
- [20:37]
Ted Cruz
No. So I'm not a reader of Vanity Fair. I don't believe I've ever actually held a copy of the magazine Vanity Fair. That being said, there is an investigative journalism piece in Vanity Fair that is jaw dropping that goes through the massive cover up that was occurring within the federal government, within the State Department, within nih, of essentially deep state bureaucrats trying to cover up information about gain of function research, information about federal taxpayers funding it. Information about this might be a lab leak. And one of the stunning things is, is the individual, Peter Daszak, who received the grants from the NIH to do this research, Vanity Fair revealed he is the one that organized the list of scientists that wrote a letter in Lancet denouncing this theory. And he literally was covering his own ass. He was organizing a bunch of scientists to put out a statement that all of the press treated as conclusive and that Facebook went so far as to ban anyone who disagreed. This is propaganda of an Orwellian nature and it's really, it's corrupt, it's frightening.
- [21:56]
Michael Knowles
And it's wrong to be fair to Vanity Fair and other outlets too that are left wing outlets. Every now and again you will get a really great piece in there. And now we can see the emails for ourselves. Also worth pointing out on this question of.
- [22:10]
Ted Cruz
And Michael, how damning is it to the Washington Post and the New York Times and the self declared arbiters of news that vanity frigging Fair kicked their ass like that? They actually went and did journalism year and a half late. But it's a really good, carefully researched story. And are you telling me there's no reporter at the New York Times that could do this and they just, they didn't care because the political narrative didn't suit what they wanted to say? And every one of these self declared arbiters of journalism who have stacks of Pulitzers on their shelves ought to be embarrassed. And they ought to, fundamentally, they ought to have a public discussion about why they didn't investigate this, why they didn't ask these questions, why they accepted the government propaganda. I don't believe any of them will, but if they had even the tiniest shred of journalistic integrity, that's what they should do.
- [23:08]
Michael Knowles
I won't hold my breath on that, of course, but worth pointing out too, before we move on, not only is there this issue of the sort of research that was going on at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, not only is there the issue of the total cover up by parts of the government and by the media, but you have Dr. Fauci on record defending this type of research. This is very dangerous research. He, he acknowledged it was very dangerous research and he said it was worth the risk. He said the potential benefits outweighed the risk. So I agree. It seems like we're all being distracted here. We're all being told we have to talk about the passports and all of our measures of how we're gonna protect ourselves. I want accountability. I want accountability from China. I want accountability from the political operatives in our own government who knew about this, who covered this up. Hopefully we'll be seeing more of that, Senator, before we get to Israel. I actually have to take a detour on our way, maybe to Israel, take a detour down to Nigeria because there was a very strange political story that came out there. Twitter is, at the moment, for all intents and purposes, banned in Nigeria because Twitter took down a post from the president of Nigeria. And the circumstances of this post involved various conflicts and factions and all sorts of accusations of terrible things. That's not really what I'm interested in. I'm interested in it generally. We can talk on some other episode. But here, from the Big Tech aspect, you have Twitter going in and saying, we're gonna censor the president of Nigeria, and if you don't like it, build your own Twitter. And Nigeria responds and says, well, we're gonna censor Twitter, and if you don't like it, build your own Nigeria. Where is the freedom here? What is the argument? I mean, what can we learn from this in our own situation? Because we faced something very similar a few months ago in our own country.
- [25:02]
Ted Cruz
Well, you're right. And there's actually. There's a third and fourth iteration to this. So once Nigeria banned Twitter, Twitter came back and put out a statement denouncing Nigeria and saying that communicating on social media is an essential human right in modern society, which I read, and it's from Twitter itself. And I couldn't help but retweeting that, ironically on Twitter and pointing out that in Twitter's own words, they have willfully denied the former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, what they characterize as a, quote, essential human right in modern society. So that's their terminology. And today, I don't know if you saw Trump put out a press statement praising Nigeria's decision and saying he wished he'd done the same thing when he was president, which I don't actually think the President of the United States can ban Twitter. So I'm glad he didn't do that. But it does highlight the abundant hypocrisy of Big Tech.
- [26:17]
Michael Knowles
Of course. And I do. I love the sentiment that President Trump put out there.
- [26:22]
Ted Cruz
Yeah.
- [26:23]
Michael Knowles
If it is not workable in reality, I think the sentiment is something that we all agree with. Now, finally, Senator, you have answered all of my questions on this individual freedom stuff. I have to hear about your trip in Israel. We have not spoken in a couple of weeks.
- [26:38]
Ted Cruz
You.
- [26:39]
Michael Knowles
You were hanging out with cooler, more impressive friends. That's fine. Notably Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, who I believe is now about to. Is about to leave power. He's holding on to power. I have no idea.
- [26:52]
Ted Cruz
So last weekend I flew to Israel and spent about two and a half days there. And in Israel I went the first day, went down to examine where the war fighting had been, and so went down to the border of Gaza, went and met with IDF Israeli Defense Forces soldiers, met with General Harris, the military attache of the United States army that is down there in Israel, went to an Iron Dome battery, which the Iron Dome is this amazing missile defense system that Israel has developed with the United States assistance that shoots down rockets. And it has over a 90% intercept rate. It's an incredible piece of technology. And so the first day was visiting all of these locations. The second day I was there, I met with various government leaders and so met with foreign minister, met with the Defense Minister, met with energy minister, met with the President of the Knesset. But the most interesting meeting was the meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu. And part of what made it interesting is the circumstantial timing. So I booked the trip just because Israel had just had over 4,000 rockets raining down upon it. And I wanted to go and show my support for Israel and to hear firsthand what they needed and what their assessment of the situation was. But the day we're there is the day it's announced that essentially there was a revolt. And as we sit here today, at least it looks like there's going to be a new government in Israel. So what happened while we were there is there's this guy named Naphtali Bennett who leads a small party, just has six seats in the Knesset, so very small that is ideologically to the right of Netanyahu. It was announced while I was in Israel that he was forming a government with the left wing parties. And among the left wing parties, he's also forming a government with the Arab parties who are sympathetic to, if not actually Muslim Brotherhood. That is, it's a little bit like maybe a US Analogy would be you could say Mitt Romney forming a government with Bernie Sanders because they both hated Trump. That might be an analogy, but it's actually starker than that because it would be Naftali Bennett is considered, as I said to the right, a Bibi. So it would be almost like, I don't know, a Jim Jordan forming a government with Bernie Sanders. I mean, it's just weird. So they announced they were going to do so. Now to do so, they had to get a letter to the President of Israel by midnight Wednesday night. So my meeting with Bibi was scheduled for 2pm on Wednesday. So it's the day that, that the opposing government is supposed to file. And so we go ahead and go to the meeting with Bibi, and I actually told him, and I. I have gotten to know Bibi quite well. I consider him a friend. He's a remarkable guy. I told him at the beginning of the meeting, I said, look, I recognize today as a wild day and a consequential day, potentially. I mean, it was the day he may well have lost power, could be the end. And I said, if we need to cut this meeting short, if you need to be on the phone working the votes and talking to people in the Knesset, I'm a big boy. My feelings won't be hurt. It's good to see you. We've got your back. But if we need to end after five minutes, I get this day's a big deal. Right.
- [30:49]
Michael Knowles
Totally understood. Yeah.
- [30:50]
Ted Cruz
And he actually. He was fine. He said, no, let's sit, let's talk. I spent an hour and a half with him on what may prove to be the last day of his prime ministership. And so the meeting. And I was there with Bill Haggerty, who is a senator from Tennessee, a Republican, who I invited to come with me. So the two of us were there, and then Beebe senior leadership. And we're in the conference room, and we have a discussion about Israel, about Iran, a lot of discussion about Iran, and a lot of concern that the Biden administration is going to go back into the Iran deal and give the Ayatollah billions of dollars, and that's going to be really dangerous for both Israel and America. And I'm very worried about that. But then afterwards, Bibi does what he's done before. He says, hey, Ted, come on back to my private office. And Bill Haggerty came with us, too. So the three of us just went. We left all the staff and just went back there. You and I have talked about how previously I went back and smoked a cigar with him. We didn't smoke cigars this time, but we just went and talked. And look, he's pissed. It is not complicated that he's pissed. And he expressed frustration. He said, listen, the people voted for a majority on the center right, and they're about to not get that. And he further said he's been pushing for a direct election of prime minister. He said, you know, if the voters in Israel could vote for prime minister, just vote for. Do they want me to lead or not? He thought he'd get north of 60%. He said, it's not even close. The voters are strongly with me. But more broadly than that, and there are some parallels to the United States. What he is very worried about is if this new government comes in. And the final step for the new government to come in is the Knesset has to vote, which is expected to in the next week or so. Once it votes, if there are 61 votes, there's a new government and he's not prime minister anymore. If that happens, Bibi is very concerned that their first order of business is going to be to change the law in Israel so that Netanyahu can never run again. That as he put it, they can't beat him at the ballot box. So they're going to rig the game so he could never get elected. And it's reminiscent of what we're seeing the democrats doing with S1, the corrupt politicians act, trying to change the law, rig the game so that they can't lose an election. He was very unhappy about that.
- [33:21]
Michael Knowles
This brings us to this mailbag question from Christian. Hello, Senator Cruz. There's been a lot of attention put on Senator Joe Manchin and to a lesser degree, Senator Senator Kyrsten Sinema about blocking the Biden agenda, specifically S1, HR1 with the corrupt Politicians act because of their unwillingness to end the filibuster. Do you think that they will hold strong in their beliefs despite the pressure?
- [33:49]
Ted Cruz
I would bet that they cave. Right now they're both holding the line. So as best we can tell, there are 48 Democrats prepared to end the filibuster. The two who are outspoken against it are Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona, Joe Manchin from West Virginia Cinema is an unusual character. She had been a left wing activist at times. She wrote a book called Gucci Socialist. She wears bright pink and bright purple wigs on the Senate floor. But she also fancies herself a centrist and has at least so far said she intends to behave like a centrist. And so she has said she doesn't want to end the filibuster because it promotes bipartisanship. Manchin Look, Joe is a really nice guy. He's an affable guy. He's from West Virginia. He was governor of West Virginia before he was a senator. He was the, the college football quarterback. I mean he's a, you know, good looking jock. Everybody likes Joe. You, you can't not like Joe. He's just an easygoing guy. He actually has a, a boat, sort of a small, I guess a yacht, although that you could sort of laugh at calling something a small yacht, but a boat that he has in the Potomac that he periodically invites Senators to come out and to go like on a cruise up and down the Potomac and have a glass of wine. And so I've gone out with him on it and he tries to get bipartisan. Senators very hard to dislike Joe Manchin on a personal level. In the nine years I have served with him, he has never once stood up to Chuck Schumer on any issue that matters, where he's the deciding vote. If Republicans have 51 votes, Joe will give you a 52nd. He'll make it bipartisan. I hope they do the right thing. Will they? I don't know.
- [35:53]
Michael Knowles
A little pressure might help. A little gratitude and a little pressure. Before we go, Senator, we have mere seconds left, but I really need your answer on this question. I'd be curious to see how you answer. This is from Patrick says for either of you to answer. Do you recommend going to an Ivy League school? Given the woke takeover that has happened? What are the alternatives? If you want to jumpstart a career, would you. Would you send someone to if you had to do over or you, you know, for a child, would you send your kid to an Ivy League school?
- [36:21]
Ted Cruz
You know, I would listen. Just about every college and university right now is messed up. I went to Princeton for college. I went to Harvard for law school. I really enjoyed both of them. What I generally advise people is go to the best school you can get into. I still think that's good advice. That an awful lot of what you get in either college or grad school is credentialing. Is credentialing to get a job, to do something going forward. So I was very much purchasing the diploma and I learned and the relationships actually, as I ordered, what I was the commercial transaction I was engaged in, in going to school. The credential was number one and number two was the relationships. The people, the other students who were there, the other professors that were there, which are very beneficial. They can open doors. It can make my best friend in the world other than Heidi was my roommate at Princeton. And Harvard's guy named David Panton is Jamaican incredible guy. And he was best man at our wedding. And I think those relationships are valuable. That being said, the schools are worse than when you and I were there. And I don't know that I would survive at an Ivy League school today. I don't really have a great feel for just how whacked out the cancel cultural culture is. Let me ask you, Michael, what would you advise? You're a new father, so this is not theoretical. You may be get a little while to make that decision. But what would you advise?
- [38:04]
Michael Knowles
Well, just like you, my best man was my best friend in college, and I'm the best man at his wedding. And I totally agree. The credentialism is a reality, and that's true. And the relationships are good. And you can get an education, though it seems increasingly tricky.
- [38:20]
Ted Cruz
Yeah.
- [38:21]
Michael Knowles
Actually, going back to the Brooklyn schoolyard guy who was a professor of mine, Don Kagan, when he was dean of Yale College, I think he said something to the effect of, it's getting increasingly more difficult to graduate from Yale with a liberal education. You used to have to have a liberal education to graduate. Now there's the question of whether or not you can even get one. I think there are schools, a handful of schools in this country, you know, but there's only a handful of Ivy League schools. And I think there are, there are schools where you can get or where you are more likely to get a better liberal education than at the Ivy League. And, you know, the question I would ask my son is one ties right in with what we're talking about. I'd say, what do you want to do? What do you want to do? What do you want to do with it? What is the purpose of this? And it's a question that I guess, increasingly we're not allowed to ask. And a lot of those rights and liberties and traditions are under threat. Hopefully we can hold onto them a little bit longer, but we've got to leave that there today. Senator. See you next time. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict WITH Ted Cruz.
- [39:22]
Ted Cruz
Foreign this episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security pac, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations and candidates across the country. In 2022, jobs, freedom and Security PAC plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.