Nina Jankowicz (3:36)

Today's episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is brought to you by IP Vanish. Did you know that browsing online using incognito mode doesn't actually protect your privacy? Without added security, you might as well give all your private data away to hackers, advertisers, your Internet service provider, and who knows who else. IPVanish helps you securely and privately browse the Internet by encrypting 100% of your data. This means that your private messages, passwords, emails, browsing history and other information will be completely protected from falling into the wrong hands. IPVanish makes you virtually invisible online. It's that simple. Just For Verdict listeners, IPVanish is offering an insane 70% off their annual plan. That's like getting nine months for free.

Ted Cruz (4:16)

You.

Nina Jankowicz (4:16)

You have to go directly to ipvanish.com cactus to get this 70% off discount. IPVanish is super easy to use. Just tap one button and you're instantly protected. You won't even know it's on. You can use IPVanish on your computers, tablets and phones, whether you're at home or in public. Don't go online without using IPVanish. Don't forget, Verdict listeners get 70% off the IPVanish annual plan. Just go to IPVanish.com Cactus to claim your discount and and secure your online life. That's I P V A-N-I-S-H.com Cactus welcome.

Ted Cruz (4:48)

Back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. For now, until the Disinformation Governance Board gets its way, you can subscribe to Verdict over on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, stitcher, Google Play, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. For now. Senator, how much time do we have left?

Liz Wheeler (5:07)

Well, I don't know, but I just got an order from Big Sis that from now on, this podcast must be done entirely by singing Broadway show tunes.

Ted Cruz (5:19)

That is a fate worse than cancellation. Big Sis I suspect you're referring to is Nina Jankowicz, the Biden pick to lead the Disinformation Governance Board, about whom I know only two things. One, she spread misinformation about the Hunter Biden laptop. And two, she loves singing show tunes on camera.

Liz Wheeler (5:40)

And to her credit, she's actually a pretty good singer. It's a little bizarre and creepy what she sings, but she, I don't know, is a professional or semi professional singer, but she's this hard, knee jerk leftist and watching number one Secretary Mayorkas who has presided over the most lawless cabinet agency in the history of our country, which the Department of Homeland Security has decided. We don't enforce the border, we let 2 million illegal aliens come in. The law means nothing to us. So now he's created this misinformation board in charge of fighting misinformation. And you know, you pointed out he did it literally within hours of Elon Musk's buying Twitter. It is stunning. Listen, the left's ideas are crap. They cannot defend them. They don't want to defend them. They want to silence everyone who disagrees. Let me show you something amazing about Elon buying Twitter, which is Twitter accepted Elon Musk's offer to buy Twitter on April 25th. The very next day, literally the next day, April 26th, my new Twitter followers skyrocketed. So I'm just gonna read you the daily count of it because it's stunning. So on April 19, I gained 1,713 followers. April 24, 1486. April 25, the day Twitter says yes to Elon Musk. 1,214. So consistently, day after day, I'm between 1,000 and 2,000 new followers. The next day. What's your guess as to how many new followers I got the next day?

Ted Cruz (7:32)

I'm gonna say it doubled.

Liz Wheeler (7:33)

At least on April 26, 51,405. Oh my gosh. On April 27, 61,251. On April 28, 70,584. The level of shadow banning. It's as if. And by the way, this is true for conservatives across the board, that they're seeing their numbers. Mine literally went from 1 to 2000 a day to 50, 60, 70,000. I've gone from 4.8 million followers to 5.1 million followers in a week. And all it took was Elon buying it.

Ted Cruz (8:18)

The same thing has happened with me. I am not a United States Senator. I have not run for president. I am but a humble podcaster. I've gained at least 100,000 followers in the. What is it, a week since Elon took over? It's been something like a clip of 20,000 per day. So either that means that they've unleashed the bots, which I don't think it is, by the way, because my engagement on Twitter is up. I'm seeing new people, new blue check mark. People who are ostensibly verified human beings. It seems as though, because don't forget, this deal hasn't even gone through yet. So it's just the threat that Elon is gonna buy it. It seems as though this has lifted a major shadow banning of conservatives.

Liz Wheeler (9:00)

It's like they're sitting there running the shredders, going, crap. They're gonna find out all the stuff we've done, shred it all, turn the algorithm off, and then within hours, the Biden administration announces we have a new board to fight misinformation. I got to tell you, I had. So this week, I've had two hearings where I've asked Biden officials about this. First of all, I had a Foreign Relations Committee hearing with the Deputy Secretary of State because, okay, so Mayorkas got popped on Sunday about this, and he says, no, no, no. This is not to go after American speech. This is all about foreign speech. This is foreign disinformation. Only now, mind you, this office is not at the US Department of State. It's at the Department of Homeland Security. It's directed at Americans in the homeland. But their talking point is, no, no, no. This is only foreign disinformation. So I asked the Department of State today, the Deputy Secretary of State, I said. It so happens there actually is a longstanding office at the State Department whose statutory mission is to fight disinformation abroad from foreign governments. And it's funded. Congress just funded them $150 million. Its statutory mission is exactly what these clowns are claiming the new office is gonna do. So I asked the State Department. Gosh. Did anybody talk to you about this? No. Do you know anything about it? No, I have no idea. Is it concerning to you that they've announced a new office that they're claiming is doing the same thing your existing office is doing? I have no idea. Nobody consulted us. We know nothing. So that was lie number one. Number two, we also had Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, testifying before the Senate today. And I asked him about this, and I said, look, I read a quote from the presidential campaign where he gave. He waxed poetically about. Free speech is wonderful. It's incredible. It's what makes America America. I value free speech. When I was a soldier fighting for America, the flag on my shoulder, it represented. It was. You know, he's a pretty eloquent guy. And I read the whole quote. I said, you know, gosh, I agree with every word of that. That's beautifully stated. Do you still agree with that? Do you still agree with free speech? Yes. Well, then why did the Biden administration announce an office, the Ministry of Truth. To silence people who disagree with you. And he immediately backtracked. He's like, well, well, well, I don't know. I don't know. Like, well, come on. I mean, you're aware of this, right? And he's like, well, well, well, I don't know, but it's to stop disinformation, to stop Russian disinformation. I said, really? Like Hunter Biden's laptop? Is that what you mean by disinformation? And he's like, well, I don't know anything about Hunter Biden's laptop. It's like, oh, really?

Ted Cruz (11:59)

Nobody seems to know anything about Hunter Biden's laptop, do they? Well, and in this case, the woman who's going to be running the Ministry of Truth here for Biden used that specific example. So this is not just a hypothetical. She said the Hunter Biden laptop was a case of Russian disinformation. And so presumably this board would have completely wiped away that news story had big tech and the establishment media not already done that for them two years ago.

Liz Wheeler (12:26)

No, that's exactly right. And as you know, the talking point, there were 50 former leaders from the intelligence community that put out a letter when Hunter Biden's laptop broke that said, this has all the classic signs of Russian disinformation, which we've learned now is code for, this is really bad for the Democratic presidential nominee. But we now know that letter was an outright blatant lie. We know the talking point that. I don't know whether we should call Nina the Minister of Truth or the commissar. I'm kind of on the fence as to what her totalitarian title should be. But she was out there pushing this is Russian disinformation, and that's an utter lie. And leftists define as disinformation anything that is inconvenient for them, anything they disagree with, and especially anything that is politically damaging, they call disinformation. And this is the Biden administration nakedly getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar. To mix my metaphors pretty badly, I'm gonna upset my Yale colleague here with that rather mangled allusion.

Ted Cruz (13:43)

That is exactly the kind of thing that the new censorship board is going to censor. The mixing of metaphors. And that's a wonderful thing. There's a little silver lining in that storm cloud, Senator. The White House has given two examples of the kind of thing that the board is going to shut down. That is calls to violent extremism and as you say, foreign disinformation, specifically Russian disinformation. And the problem, it would seem to me, is that the White House accuses everything that Republicans say of being a call to violent extremism or Russian disinformation. So we're joking about it. It's absurd and it's funny to make fun of this power hungry lady and the whole Biden admin, but what are they gonna do? And what are we gonna do about it?

Liz Wheeler (14:31)

Look, it is so bad that this week Jake Tapper from CNN was forced to go on TV and acknowledge, yeah, she does really seem to be a partisan where she echoes the Democratic talking points and she's skeptical of everything Republicans say. And there's a clear political bias in her take on things. Now, when Jake Tapper, who has become a mouthpiece for the hard left, he didn't used to be, but he's become that when even he says that, like, holy cow. So what are we gonna do about it? Listen, I think one thing we're doing about it, we're doing right now, which is just shining enough of a light on it that it prevents them from going forward. I do think you're seeing the Biden administration backpedaling. There's been enough of a blow pack. I actually think labeling it the Ministry of Truth is really powerful because, look, obviously there are communist regimes that have ministries of trut truth and that throw you in the gulag for daring to speak other than the government line and calling this out for what it is. My hope is that we, you know, cut it off right at the beginning. If not, then there's a reason why I asked about it twice this week to two different Biden officials, because I want to keep the pressure on. I want to keep the light on. I want to force them to defend. Defend this ridiculous abuse of power. And if they continue to try to go forward with it next year, I believe we're gonna have majorities in both the House and Senate. We ought to use the majorities in the House and Senate to cut off the funding and to shut it down because the government has no business silencing what the American people say.

Ted Cruz (16:23)

I don't think the timing is coincidental. It's just too perfect. Right after we've been joking about it, but I think it's legit. Right after Elon Musk announces this, you get announcement from the White House. So then turning to Musk, do you think this deal is going to go through? One and two, what does that mean for conservatives on social media? Whether we're talking about how the other big tech platforms are gonna react or whether we're talking about how the government is going to react? Joe Biden is already talking about clamping down on Twitter the minute they free up speech for conservatives.

Liz Wheeler (16:56)

Yeah. And by the way, the European Union is rattling its swords and reminding Twitter we have rules to follow. Look, I think the deal is going to go through. I don't know for sure. I don't know the inside details of the deal, but Elon seems very committed and certainly vocally committed. The board has accepted it. According to the public reporting, he had financing locked down. The financing may change in terms of the mix of debt and equity. That wouldn't surprise me, but it certainly seems like it's going forward. You know, I will say there is an irony that Elon Musk has suddenly become the champion and the defender of conservatives. Elon vocally supported and voted for Barack Obama not once, but twice. You know, Joe Rogan, the other person who's become. They may be the two most important people concerning free speech in the entire country. Joe Rogan endorsed Bernie Sanders. So neither one of them meets the standard definition of a conservative. But they both appreciate liberty. They both value free speech. You know, it spoke volumes. I don't know if you saw last week a journalist at Time magazine and I put journalists in scare quotes, said that free speech is an obsession of rich white guys like the Today's corporate media wants to silence everybody except themselves. They want to have a monopoly on speech. Only the corporate media and only big tech. And I know you've seen the meme that Elon tweeted out, which I think is incredibly accurate, that it showed him previously where you had the right, the left, the center, and it had him left of center. And then what it showed was the left running full speed to the left and suddenly the center moved. So he was right of center. But in the mean, he hadn't moved an inch. It's just the crazies had taken over the Democratic Party. By the way, Bill Maher is in the same boat where these are old school liberals that just happen to believe in actual liberty and that in today's Democratic Party, that is not only not the mainstream anymore, that is a heretical view that must be demonized and quashed.

Ted Cruz (19:21)

What do you think the electoral politics of this look like? Do you think that this plays for Democrats? Do you think this Ministry of Truth is gonna help them in the midterms, whether through the operation of the agency or just through the public perception of it? Or are they stepping on a rake here?

Liz Wheeler (19:38)

I think they're stepping on a rake. But a word you use there that is important and that we don't know yet is operation. Like whether this board will actually have any legal power or authority if they engage how they intend to engage. If it's just a look. An example. An example we've talked about early on when it happened on this podcast was Dr. Fauci in emails asking Mark Zuckerberg to silence and censor any discussions of the origins of COVID 19, and in particular discussions that it had escaped from a Chinese government lab in Wuhan. And we talked about two years ago. This podcast walked through exhaustively the evidence that suggests, and suggests overwhelmingly, that COVID 19 escaped from a Chinese government lab in Wuhan. Zuckerberg was more than happy to comply. He said, yes, we will censor it. We will keep it silent. I could see this board playing a similar role. And for example, emailing Zuckerberg and Facebook going along. I don't know whether there are media outlets that will go along. I feel confident Elon Musk won't go along. And it's why his buying Twitter is so important, because it creates a significant avenue. By the way, one thing people may not realize as to why Twitter matters so much, so. So a tiny percentage of Americans actually listen, follow Twitter, and those that do skew pretty heavily left. If the world were the Twitter sphere, we'd all be screwed.

Ted Cruz (21:21)

We'd be sunk.

Liz Wheeler (21:22)

Yeah. You know, AOC would be president, so. So I'm glad that the world is not the Twitter sphere now. Some of that is amplified by the shadow banning and practices. So we may find out that the Twitter sphere is not as left as it appears, but most normal Americans are not on Twitter. The reason it matters, one of the reasons it matters so much is every reporter in the universe is on Twitter. And so I could tell you, in politics, frankly, the way you get out a statement and get it out quickly is you go to Twitter and you put it out, and it's an amazing thing. Look, Donald Trump pioneered this in 2016, and I was on the opposing side, and he captured how to use Twitter and just dominate the news within instances. And it is a wild thing that I will pull out my phone and I'll send a tweet, and within minutes I can turn on the TV and see my tweet on the news, driving the news and driving messaging. That's part of why free speech on Twitter matters, because it influences everyone that has outlets of communication that is potent for the overall public discourse.

Ted Cruz (22:35)

Right. I agree. It does set the news in a way that Facebook and YouTube and Google don't. I think that's why they are absolutely losing it, that Elon is promising conservatives a little more freedom on this question of political speech. I am ashamed to say that I have neglected our verdict listeners, but I will do that no more. There's a question I really want to get to here in the mailbag. You, of course, can join Verdict over on locals, the Verdict plus community, and you can subscribe to Verdict wherever you get your podcasts. This question comes to us from Al, who says, senator Cruz, how do you think the court will rule on Ted Cruz versus fec, a question not only about political speech, but about a case that you are heavily involved in?

Liz Wheeler (23:20)

Yeah, no, it's a case I care a great deal about. It is a case challenging. And I'm the name plaintiff. I brought the lawsuit. It is challenging an element of McCain Feingold, which is the big campaign finance law. It's a terrible law. One element of the law limits the ability of a political candidate to pay themselves back for loans they make to their campaign. And so it caps it at paying yourself back at $250,000 is the most you can pay yourself back from funds received after the campaign. And so, you know, you have lots of candidates who put their life savings into a campaign, and they may put 500,000 or more into a campaign. And McCain Feingold says, well, tough. You're not allowed to pay yourself back. You've just basically given a gift to democracy, and doesn't it suck to be you? And by the way, the reason that Congress passed it, if you go look at the debates. It's an incumbent protection plan because one of the ways incumbents avoid being beat is their challengers can't raise any money, and they don't have the name ID to raise money. And so what happens often is someone will invest their own money into the race. And it is how challengers get the initial oxygen to get their message out. Well, if you make it that, you know, Michael, you put your money into the race, and even if you win, you can't get it back, and it's gonna cost you. You might be willing to do it, but a lot of people are not. And so it's designed to protect incumbents from challengers taking them on. So I brought a constitutional challenge to this provision. I won a unanimous decision in the lower court. So a three judge district court struck down this provision of McCain Feingold. The appeal is pending at the Supreme Court. It's been briefed, it's been argued. We're waiting on the decision. I think the decision will be very soon. It could literally be any day now. I think we're in the sweet spot of when the decision's gonna come down. I am cautiously optimistic. I think the chances are good that we prevail if the court addresses the merits. In other words, if the court answers the question, is this provision of law unconstitutional? I think the odds are extremely high we win. I think it is on the merits. We are very, very likely to win. There is some chance that we lose on a procedural ground. The Biden Justice Department had a procedural ground that was a technicality, that was based on a factual mistake. But I will say, at the oral argument, it sure seemed like John Roberts was fishing around, trying to get some justices to basically throw the lawsuit out on the procedural ground. I don't know if he will succeed with that or not, but that's how the argument came across. So if they get to the merits, we are very, very likely to win. But there's some chance they punt it and avoid the merits altogether.

Ted Cruz (26:22)

Perhaps I will be nicer to Chief Justice Roberts on this show for just the next couple of weeks to make sure this thing doesn't get thrown out on procedural grounds, because that will be an interesting free speech case and we'll look forward to seeing it. Last question also has to do with the court. This is from Michael, who says, how do you believe the leak of the Alito opinion in the Dobbs case? How do you believe the Supreme Court leak will affect the midterm elections? And he has two hashtags. He says, hashtag verdict. Cruz2024 I'm just reading the whole message.

Liz Wheeler (26:59)

So I don't know that the leak itself has a significant impact on the midterms. I do think the leak is a manifestation. Manifestation of how the Democrats are destroying our institutions, trying to burn them down. And in particular, the degree to which the leftists are cheering it on and literally saying burn it down. I think that is beneficial for the midterms in terms of people realizing the radicals really are in charge of this party. It's not unlike the Antifa riots in terms of just showing that these guys are extreme and crazy in terms of the underlying decision. I think what is likely to be more consequential in the midterm is the decision itself. And if the majority opinion continues to be the majority opinion, and if the outcome is that the court does strike down Roe vs Wade, I can tell you Democrats in Washington are holding onto that as their Hail Mary chance to save the midterms. They believe that people will be horrified and that'll help them. And I gotta tell you, more than a few Republican senators are nervous. That's the case. There are several of us who are conservatives who've been trying to make the case to the nervous Nellies in our conference, it'll be okay. This is gonna be fine. And I actually think it probably will not have much of an effect on the midterms. And to the extent it has an effect, it will be a positive effect. Here's why I think it will have less of an effect than the Democratic strategists think. Because the people who are most dismayed about that are hard leftists that are clustered in bright blue states like New York, California. Nothing's going to change in those states, at least for the immediate term. California is going to continue to allow unlimited abortion on demand. Roe versus Wade, if it struck down. California ain't changing their laws until we get new elected officials in California. And so I think the kind of angry leftists, many of whom are pretty ignorant and don't even know what overturning Roe means, I think a month afterwards are gonna be surprised. Wait. Nothing about my life changed in other parts of the country that are not bright blue in redder states. In states like Tennessee, states like Texas, you're going to see some meaningful restrictions on abortion. And it's gonna vary state by state, how extensive those restrictions are. That was the framer's view in the Constitution, is to let the rules in each state reflect the values of the citizens of those states. But in the redder states There are fewer people that are gonna be horrified by that. And I think you're gonna have a positive effect of people in the pro life community who have been fighting for this for 50 years being energized and hopeful that that being energized is gonna cause them to turn out and vote at the polls. And I think that could lead to an even bigger majority in the House and the Senate next year.

Ted Cruz (30:08)

Right. That's a great point. Because not only is nothing going to change in terms of abortion law in the most pro abortion places, but even if something did change and the Democrats were irate and steam were coming out of their ears, nothing's going to change about whom they're electing. Nothing's gonna change about the members of Congress or the senators or any. That is a hopeful note to end on, Senator, that this case might not only come out with a good end for the pro life movement, but also might not hurt us at the polls. Frankly, it might even help us. Before we go, we've got to bring on our friend Liz Wheeler, because you're not done yet, sir. We've finished our episode. But you've got an episode of Cloakroom coming up. Liz, what are you gonna talk about?

Michael Knowles (30:50)

Hi, Michael. Hi, Senator Cruz. I know that we've been talking about this leaked draft majority opinion from the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, or at least it does in this draft opinion. You guys have talked about it a lot, we've heard about it a lot. But there are more details that need to be discussed. So we are going to do a little investigative dive into who exactly might have leaked this opinion, how this might have happened, and whether the Supreme Court actually will overturn Roe v. Wade. So join us on the cloakroom on Verdict. Plus, you can go to Verdict with Ted Cruz.com, if you use my promo code, which as always is Cloakroom, you can watch for free for a month on your annual subscription. That is verdictwithtedcruise.com/ and your promo code is Cloakroom. It's going to be quite the discussion. I hope you'll join us.

Liz Wheeler (31:42)

So, Michael.

Ted Cruz (31:43)

Yes, Senator?

Liz Wheeler (31:44)

In honor of Big Sis, will you close us on a show tune?

Ted Cruz (31:50)

Senator I absolutely will. And do you know why? Because I feel pretty and I feel witty. I feel pretty and witty and gay. And I pity any podcaster who isn't me today. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

Nina Jankowicz (32:17)

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.