A (4:38)

Yeah.

B (4:38)

Where the Supreme Court upheld religious liberty, in particular with a post office employee who wanted to observe the Sabbath, and the post office said, no, you can't. And the Supreme Court 6, 3 ruled in his favor and protected his religious liberty. Mike and I teamed up for the amicus, winning that. And then Mike and I also teamed up at an amicus together on Gonzalez versus Google, which is a case where we were urging the court to take on big tech censorship and to defend free speech. And so I think Mike's job's not gonna be easy being speaker of the House with this incredibly narrow majority, just four Republicans, if any, five Republicans go run for the hills, you're in trouble. It is an unbelievably difficult job, but I'm confident in Mike, and I'm optimistic. And I've already reached out to him and said, hey, congrats. I said, it is a big frigging deal, and I look forward to you and me working together, because we got a lot to do delivery on our promises for the American people.

A (5:40)

You know, one of the things I think is so cool about him, is his mentor is actually Jim Jordan. He also served as legal defense for Trump during both impeachment. He voted against all Ukraine spending after the initial bill. And he also, I think this is really cool. He clearly cares about his faith. He was very open about that as he took that gavel and, and also was seen praying beforehand during that vote. And this is a guy that I, I don't guess really he had an ambition to be the speaker per se. It was more like, all right, I'm going to serve if you want me to serve. And, and, and everybody got behind him. He got every Republican except for one that, that didn't vote. This is pretty awesome, I think, for a, a happy ending to a tough.

B (6:29)

Three weeks overall, you know, it is. And I'm reminded of one of my kind of key political advisors right when the battle over Jordan was happening and I was asking, what do you think? Do you think Jim can pull it out? And as I said, I was publicly endorsing him and this member of my team said, I think the next guy who gets nominated will become speaker. And there was some wisdom to that. You had hurt feelings. The battle over McCarthy, it was rough and people's feelings were hurt and they were angry. And then the battle over Scalise, and that was rough and people's feelings were hurt and then they were angry. And then in the middle of the battle over gym where a lot of people were engaged, again, it was rough and I think Mike had the advantage of coming next. There was a moment with Tom Emmer, but Trump came out hard against him and I think that torpedoed his run. And then Mike was seen as a consensus choice. He's a conservative, so conservatives were willing to support him, but yet his temperament is mild mannered enough that the moderates were not scared of him. Now, this is not gonna be an easy job. I do not envy him the choices because he's going to be. To say herding cats is a massive understatement to the job he has to do. So I, I'm sympathetic to how difficult it is, but I think he's a good and capable man and I'm, I'm proud of him going forward because Lord knows our country is in crisis and we need strong conservative leadership in the House.

A (7:58)

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B (10:14)

Well, the Wall Street Journal has broken this story and it's a bombshell. The Journal reported, quote, in the weeks leading up to Hamas October 7th attacks on Israel, hundreds of the Palestinian Islamist militant groups fighters received specialized combat training in Iran. According to people familiar with the intelligence related to the assault, roughly 500 militants from Hamas and an allied group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad participated in the exercises in September. Now it's October, right now, September's last month, which were led by officers of the Quds Force, the foreign operation arm of the Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Senior Palestinian officials and Iranian Brigadier General Esmail Kwani, the head of the quads cuts force also attended. Now this is a huge damn deal we've talked about before, how the Journal has reported that Iran planned this attack, they funded this attack, they directed this attack. And by the way, the Biden administration has been furiously spinning against this. They've been saying, no, no, there's no evidence Iran was involved. This was not Iran. This was not Iran. This is not Iran. And you can understand why, because these idiots have flowed nearly a hundred billion dollars into Iran. And so they, they are desperate to say Iran is not involved. I gotta say, even though I was not surprised that Iran had planned and directed this, the fact that 500 plus of the Hamas death squad terrorists trained in Iran last month, you know what that means? That training was effectively paid for by Joe Biden. So Joe Biden and the Democrats who have been the Iran appeasement squad for two and a half years, they can take credit. We trained the mass murderers who killed over 1400 Israelis, who killed 31Americans, who raped women and young girls.

A (12:18)

Connect those dots, by the way, because you know what's going to happen? Some, some psycho fact checker is going to sit here and go, oh, I can't believe that Senator Ted Cruz said this. Let, let's connect those dots so people truly understand why you're saying this.

B (12:32)

Okay, so assuming the Journal reporting is accurate, I have no reason to doubt that it is. Over 500 of the terrorists who committed these acts of mass murder trained physically in Iran by the CUDS forces just last month. That's the training of a military invasion that, that is preparing people to commit the greatest act of mass murder against Jews in a single day since the Holocaust. Iran trained them. Now, we've discussed on this podcast at great length, nearly $100 billion has flown. It flowed into Iran from Joe Biden and the Democrats. Six billion in the ransom for five American hostages. Ten billion from Iraq that they flowed several weeks earlier. And over 80 billion because Joe Biden, the Democrats refused to enforce oil sanctions. And they're allowing Iran even today to be selling 2 million barrels a day of oil, mostly to Communist China. That money. What do you think it went to? Listen, I'm going to start with two really damn simple principles. Stop giving money to terrorists who want to murder us.

A (13:48)

Number one, Amen.

B (13:50)

And number two, stop letting into this country terrorists who want to murder us. This combination is horrible. They're flooding cash to psychopaths who want to kill us and who want to kill Israelis, and they're letting them into this country, and they are inviting something really, really bad. Ben. And, and, and, and what, by the way, is the Biden administration's answer to this. Immediately after this terror attack, what do they say? We want to send another hundred million to Gaza because it's worked so well sending money to terrorists. Let's send them some more money because surely they won't use this more money to kill yet more Israelis and more Americans. It is insanity.

A (14:30)

I have to ask you another question about the intelligence breakdown here. We spend a lot of money center on intelligence. Obviously Israel does as well. I have a concern that everyone seemed to miss 500 people training in Iran for this type of invasion. But what concerns me even more is if we missed this and if the best intelligence services in the world missed it, combined Israel and the U.S. what could we be missing when it comes to Iran getting a nuclear weapon? That's the reason why I'm asking the question.

B (15:07)

It's a very good question. Or for that matter, what could we be missing about say, Iran training 500 terrorists in Mexico to invade our southern border and carry out a mass murder just like the kind they carried out in Israel? Look, that's a question that's horrifying to ask, but we have seen the Ayatollah chants death to America. And it is a strange thing. Today's Democrats don't seem to want to believe him when he says that. I believe him. I believe if he could murder a thousand Americans tomorrow, he would. If he could murder 10,000Americans tomorrow, he would. If he could murder a million Americans tomorrow, he would. If he could murder 100 million Americans tomorrow, he would. And what is particularly terrifying, look, we've seen mass murdering despots before, but it is relatively rare to see a mass murdering despot who is driven by a theocratic urge, a theocratic urge that, that celebrates death and suicide. And so listen, if Iran launched a massive terror attack in the United States, even a commander in chief, as other utterly weak and impotent as Joe Biden would be forced to respond and presumably many Iranians would die. The problem is the Ayatollah, I think might be perfectly happy to let many Iranians die if he could murder Americans and he could murder Jews. That's when you have a theocratic radicalism. Ordinary cost benefit analysis doesn't work.

A (16:45)

Senator, I also got to ask you about our focus, and I'm talking about specifically the priorities of the Biden administration. We have spent a hell of a lot of time or this administration has focusing on quotas and kumbaya ism and having men that dress like women be in military and all these, you know, key roles. We've seen them Be obsessed with going after anyone that was in around the Capitol. On January 6, there was a video that came out of a guy's home being raided that didn't even go into the Capitol. And this has been going on now for a couple of years. Is my concern is, and I want to know if it's your concern is that they're not focusing on the right issue here. And they have all of these, these people they've weaponized for political purposes, staring down at Americans instead of looking at terrorist activities, whether it be here or around the world.

B (17:40)

Look, unfortunately, you're exactly right. Joe Biden and the Democrats are fundamentally unserious about national security, about protecting America from the very real enemies we have. You know, if you look back at this Wall Street Journal reporting on what happened here, I want to read you some more details. Quote, Hamas attackers used aerial drones to disable Israeli observation posts and high tech surveillance equipment. Some used paragliders to fly into Israel. Others rode on motorcycles commonly used by Iranian paramilitary groups, but not by Hamas. Until October 7, US officials said Iran has regularly trade militants in Iran and elsewhere, but they have no indications of a mass training right before the attack. U.S. officials and the people familiar with the intelligence said they have no information to suggest Iran conducted training specifically to prepare for the events of October 7th. On Wednesday, Israel's military offered some of its most blunt comments yet on Iran's role in aiding Hamas and other militant groups. Quote, before the war, Iran directly assisted Hamas with money, training and weapons and technological know how, said Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the military's chief spokesman. Even now, Iran is helping Hamas with intelligence. And while this is going on, can.

A (19:02)

You say that again? Even now? Wait, let's go back to that because that's a really important point that people need to make sure they understand is the White House has been running away from this fact. You just said even now, as Iran is helping Hamas right now with intelligence.

B (19:17)

That's the quote from from Israel's chief military spokesman. Even now Iran is helping Hamas with intelligence. And even now, Joe Biden and the Democrats are still not enforcing oil sanctions. So they're allowing Iran to sell 2 million barrels of oil a day and they're using that money to fund their military, to fund their intelligence, to fund their terrorism, to fund Hamas, to fund Hezbollah, to fund terrorists that are trying to murder former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, that are trying to murder former National Security Adviser John Bolton, that are trying to murder former Assistant Secretary of State Brian Hook. All of this is being Funded by money the Democrats are allowing to flood in. And that doesn't even begin to touch the security threat from our southern border. Democrats treat national security as political pr. Everything is about politics. Look, go back to the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Joe Biden and the apparatchiks in the White House decided we want to pull out of Afghanistan by September 11th. Why? Because we want to hold a big press conference and say, see, on the anniversary of 9, 11, we're out of Afghanistan. Now, the military said, well, hold on a second. We need sufficient forces there to evacuate people safely. We don't want our soldiers to die. We don't want Americans to die. We don't want the Afghans who assisted us to die. And the White House said, nope, tough luck. Get out. We got a political deadline to happen. And so we abandoned Bagram Airfield. We ended up doing the evacuation through Kabul International Airport, a commercial airport in a dense urban environment. And 13 servicemen and women were murdered as a result of it. It's the same approach. It's a cavalier approach that. It's all about politics rather than a seriousness. Listen, we know tomorrow and the next day and the next day, Israelis are going to be murdered by Hamas. And what is Joe Biden proposing? Let's send another hundred million to Gaza. Gaza's controlled by Hamas. Let's send them another hundred million because that's clearly what the terrorists who are at war with Israel need is more. And I pray to God that the attack doesn't come here at home. But I believe every day the responsibility lies on the head of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Merrick Garland and Chris Wray and this entire administration that is too busy focusing on their own political agendas rather than defending the American people.

A (21:42)

Final question on this before we get to the Biden crime family and the shocking news of FBI informants. Does America have an obligation if everything that the Wall Street Journal is saying comes out to be 100% factual, we have no reason to believe that it's not. But does the United States of America, does Joe Biden's administration have an obligation to respond to Iran militarily if this is all, in fact, solid?

B (22:08)

Well, in addition to everything we've been discussing, Iran has been regularly attacking and Hamas has been regularly attacking American military targets. We have seen multiple servicemen and women, American servicemen and women injured. And to date, the Biden administration has done not a damn thing.

A (22:25)

And let's explain this more. This is over the last couple weeks, people. This has not been covered by the news, so we probably need to explain this real quick. American military targets have been being hit in the Middle east, particularly in Iraq, particularly Iraq over the last couple of weeks since this attack on Israel happened.

B (22:42)

And multiple servicemen and women, American servicemen and women have been injured and Joe Biden hadn't said anything about it, hadn't done anything about it. Look, these guys still want a grand Iran nuclear deal and so they're terrified to actually criticize Iran. They've gotten up to saying Hamas is bad and all it took was them murdering 1400 Israelis and 31Americans for them to say Hamas is bad. But the people who funded it, who trained it, who brought them to Iran, who gave the training sessions, who taught them how to do this, this administration still won't take them on it. It is insanity.

A (23:18)

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B (25:39)

Well, that's exactly right. The. The evidence against Joe Biden and the Biden crime family has extended for a long time. According to the Fox News reporting, the confidential human sources providing criminal information to the FBI relating to Joe Biden, James Biden and Hunter Biden, those confidential human sources were managed by multiple FBI field offices across the nation, including the FBI's Seattle Field Office. But and this is something also that my colleague Chuck Grassley has learned and reported an FBI task force within the Washington field office sought to and in some cases successfully shut down reporting and information from those sources by falsely discrediting the information as foreign disinformation. That effort caused investigative activities to cease. So understand, they're getting confidential human source after confidential human source after confidential human source saying, these guys are crooks. These guys are selling favors from Joe Biden to foreign nationals, to foreign oligarchs, to corrupt Ukrainians, to corrupt Russians, to corrupt Chinese, to foreigners. And the response of the top brass at the FBI is, nope, nope, we don't want that. Shut it down. Don't talk about this. This is foreign disinformation. The disinformation was coming, all right, but sadly, it was from the FBI.

A (27:01)

And Senator, your colleague Grassley alleges, in essence, that, look, the FBI and the DOJ were in essence, part of a cover up here. They sought to shut down the investigations into the Biden while knowing that the FBI had received this criminal information from over 40 confidential sources. Now, to be clear, 40 sources, Senator, is a hell of a lot of confidential sources when you're talking about people that are telling you about illegal activity they believe they're witnessing on Hunter Biden, on James Biden, on Joe Biden. And then they're like, yeah, yeah, we know about this. We just want to shut it down. That's not normal.

B (27:42)

So. That's exactly right. The only thing that I disagree with you is you said that Grassley alleged this is in essence a cover up. No, he didn't say in essence a cover up. He alleged it was flat out a coverup. Let me quote from Chuck Grassley, quote, based on the information provided to my office over a period of years by multiple credible whistleblowers. There appears to be an effort within the Justice Department and FBI to shut down investigative activity related to the Biden family. Such decisions point to a significant political bias infecting the decision making of not only the attorney general and FBI director, but. But also line agents and prosecutors. And I gotta say, the politicization of the FBI, particularly under Joe Biden and the politicization of DOJ is. Is one of the worst and most damaging legacies of this administration.

A (28:35)

Put your lawyer hat on for a second. Explain this terminology used. It says the confidential human sources, quote, provided criminal information to the FBI relating to Joe Biden, James Biden, and Hunter Biden. Those confidential human sources were managed by multiple FBI field offices across the nation, including the FBI's Seattle Field Office. So when. When they use words like provided criminal information, what does that mean?

B (29:02)

That means you've got individuals, informants who are coming forward saying, hey, I have an evidence of a crime, evidence of a crime committed by Joe Biden or Hunter Biden or James Biden. Now, some of them may not have been telling the truth. Some of them may not have been pointing to actual crimes. But when you have 40 different sources coming by, coming up saying, I've got evidence of a crime that's unusual, that doesn't happen. You know, ordinary public servants don't live a life where you have 40 people coming forward saying, hey, I've got evidence of a crime. And by the way, there are millions of dollars flooding into them from communist China and Ukraine and Russia and everywhere else. Like, that's. That is not typical. Look, I serve in the United States Senate. My colleagues are not getting millions of dollars from communist China or Russia or Ukraine. That is exceedingly unusual. And to have 40 different sources coming forward, a normal law enforcement process would say, hey, this is really concerning. We need to investigate this. What's going on? And what Grassley is alleging is that the evidence is the FBI field office in D.C. shut it down and said, nope, ixnay on the iden bay investigation. A like. Like. Like they just did not want to look into crimes committed by Joe Biden. And. And I gotta say that.

A (30:21)

Well, and they also use the words they wanted to shut down, or they did. The Washington field office, in some cases, successfully shut down reporting. So they were saying, see no evil, hear no evil. If you have something that deals with the Biden last name, we don't even want you to report it, much less give us the information that we would receive. We don't even want it to come in the door.

B (30:45)

Well, and this is part of this is the consequence of the whole Russia, Russia, Russia nonsense. And we saw for years the FBI and DOJ wage war on Donald Trump, alleging Russia, Russia, Russia. And we now know the vast majority of that was nonsense. It was made up, it was fabricated, included. Actually an assistant general counsel at the FBI literally fabricating an email, creating a false email and submitting it to a federal court, which is a felony, because they hated Donald Trump so much that they wanted to go after him. But the danger of the Russia, Russia, Russia narrative is when you had the Hunter Biden laptop, the FBI could just say, well, this is Russia disinformation. Never mind that at this point, Hunter Biden's lawyers have essentially admitted, yes, it is his laptop. By alleging all evidence of criminality is Russian disinformation, they convinced law enforcement to ignore what is enormous evidence of corrupt conduct by Hunter Biden, James Biden and Joe Biden.

A (31:45)

Well, and one of those critical FD 1023s we talked extensively on Verdict about was first reported earlier this year. It was that form that included the reporting from a, quote, highly credible, confidential human source who alleged a criminal bribery scheme between then Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, and the founder and the CEO of that Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma, where we know that Hunter Biden was on the board. If, if that's one example of what we were getting from these 40 plus informants, what other intel do we do we not have? And is there a way to go to the FBI and for you guys and send to even get it?

B (32:29)

Well, we don't know there should be. But unfortunately this FBI and this DOJ believes that they are not accountable to the United States Congress. They're not accountable to the American people. So when you ask them, their standard answer is piss off, go jump in a lake. We will not answer your questions. And there's an arrogance, there's a contempt look we had, and we talked about this in a previous podcast, a deputy director of the FBI, where I was questioning him and as I asked questions, he said, well, I don't want to answer that. He said, I asked why not? Because I don't want to. Like, who the hell. What do you mean you don't want to? This is not just a chat at a coffee house, dammit. You're giving testimony in front of the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate and you have an obligation. You're giving testimony on behalf of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But there is a hubris on the part of These individuals, these partisans who are at the senior career positions that they believe. How dare you question what we're doing? And I gotta say, look, I'm an alumnus of doj. I respect and revere the institution and they have corrupted it to a point that it is heartbreaking and it is dangerous for the rule of law and it's dangerous for liberty in the United States.

A (33:39)

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B (35:22)

A lot. But I will say even to our beloved listeners at verdict, I'm not going to give a preview of the questions I'm going to ask. We'll figure that out probably the day before and the day that Merrick Garland arrives. It will be time sensitive, but it but it will be driven by all of these issues because I view my responsibility. Listen, when I'm sitting there, it's not just me asking questions. You know, I'm elected to represent 30 million Texans. And so I'm trying to do my very best to ask questions on behalf of 30 million Texans to ask questions that Texans have a right to know. And sometimes I do it well, sometimes I do it less than well. That's, that's the, the blessing and curse of being human. But I'm trying to fulfill my responsibility to the people of Texas of defending the Constitution and the rule of law. So you can be assured the next time Merrick Garland testified in the Senate Judiciary Committee. We're going to be talking about it on Verdict afterwards, and I'm going to do my very best to ask the questions that 30 million Texans want asked.

A (36:25)

Yeah, great point. Don't forget, we will keep you updated on this. I can promise you that. Make sure you hit that subscribe, follow or auto download button wherever you're listening so that you don't miss an episode of Verdict. We also have our weekend review some of the things you may have missed deeper in the podcast that we put together for you on Saturday so you can have that on the weekend as well. And also please make sure you share this podcast. It helps tremendously when you write us a five star review wherever you're listening and share it on social media, on Twitter, on Instagram, Facebook, wherever you are on social media. And the Senator and I will see you back here Saturday for our weekend review.