← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
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- [00:01]
Ben Ferguson
Welcome. It is a special POD verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you, and also Senator Cruz's book, Unwoke how to Defeat Culture, Marxism, America. Congratulations, Senator. It's at number one in multiple categories right now on Amazon. If you haven't grabbed the book yet, get it. It's incredible. It is a special pod because it's the GOP debate. And I want to get your first overall thoughts on the night. Senator, I watched it. I didn't really there was any big shock or anything that's going to catapult somebody out of this debate. I found parts of it a little fatiguing and just kind of boring. Your reaction?
- [00:43]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, I basically think that's right. We're sitting here right now. It's 10:30 at night. The debate just ended and I didn't see anything this evening that fundamentally changed the race. We are seeing the field start to winnow some. The last debate there were seven candidates on the stage. This time there were five. And so you had Mike Pence has dropped out of the race and you had Doug Burgum, who didn't make the threshold for this debate. And so the field winnowing is significant. I think you're seeing more and more that the battle for who is the principal alternative to Trump, it is shrinking down to DeSantis and Nikki Haley. You saw the other candidates on the stage. Chris Christie continues, just, just throwing, throwing bricks at Trump but not, not getting, as I see it, any significant traction. Tim Scott, I like Tim a lot. He's my colleague, he's my friend. But, but he has been having real trouble getting traction in this race. And Vivek, look, Vivek had some, some colorful moments, some fiery moments. But, but at the end of the day, most of the dynamic tonight seemed to be a battle between DeSantis and Haley. And you could tell they, they were both throwing some hard, hard shots at each other, trying to knock the other off and say, okay, I'm the lead person to take on Trump.
- [02:13]
Ben Ferguson
You've, you've obviously done this, been in a presidential debate, quite a few of them. And as that stage gets smaller and smaller, there is a per voter and that is much more of a substantive debate. There was one part of this debate that dealt with the border. It was a part where DeSantis, I think, was really trying to make himself be the front runner on border security issues. And it dealt with the issue of going after drug cartels and actually using special ops to take them out. Here's part of what he had to say on the debate stage.
- [02:45]
Ron DeSantis
Well, first I was speaking to a dad who lost a son to fentanyl overdose. Son wasn't a drug addict. He had taken some pill that happened to be laced with fentanyl, and it was a fatal overdose. And when he told me, obviously, the pain of losing a child is as bad as it gets. But he said what was salt in the wounds is that these elites in D.C. don't give a damn about what's going on in this country. They don't care that we have tens of thousands of opioid deaths, that the fentanyl is pouring in. They are not taking the type of action we need to. We're declaring it a national emergency. On day one. I'm sending U.S. military to the border. I'm going to stop the invasion cold. I am going to deport people who came illegally, and I'm even going to build the border wall and have Mexico pay for it like Donald Trump promised. How are you going to do it? Yeah, Mexico is not going to fork over money. We're going to impose fees on the remittances that foreign workers send to foreign countries or raise billions of dollars. I'll build the wall. But we are going to designate the cartels to be foreign terrorist organizations or something similar to that. And we're going to authorize the use of deadly force. We're going to have maritime operations to interdict precursor chemicals going into Mexico. But I'll tell you this, if someone in the drug cartels is sneaking fencing all across the border when I'm present, that's going to be the last thing they do. We're going to shoot them stone cold dead.
- [04:01]
Ben Ferguson
We're going to shoot them stone cold dead. The audience absolutely erupted to that line, saying, hey, we treat them like terrorists. I want your reaction to that.
- [04:11]
Senator Ted Cruz
So, look, I think on the fentanyl question, the answers from the candidates were all fine. To be honest, many of the answers felt like talking points. There was very little done in terms of an indictment of Joe Biden. In fact, it was really hard to hear Joe Biden's name. Even tonight. It was really striking that the candidates didn't say Joe Biden's name and they didn't say Donald Trump's name very much. Both of them. You know, it's kind of ironic right now. I think most people think the most likely nominees are Biden and Trump, and yet the five on the stage rarely mentioned either name. I think that was a strategic mistake on the border. You know, I think it would have been more effective to See, someone really vigorously, passionately litigate the case against Biden. This is a man made disaster. Joe Biden created it. Joe Biden inherited the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years.
- [05:09]
Nikki Haley
And.
- [05:10]
Senator Ted Cruz
And he came in and deliberately screwed it up. And he screwed it up by ending Remain in Mexico. He screwed it up by reimposing catch and release. He undermines the Border Patrol. And the President can fix this. And I gotta say, I didn't hear any of the candidates really explain it. I don't know if they understand it or not, but they didn't explain it, that this is one of the issues on which a president can fix it and can fix it immediately. And that was not clearly articulated. I have to say, the several of the candidates talked about using the military to go into Mexico and kill the cartels. I gotta say, I think that position is loopy. Our military doesn't invade sovereign nations, and we should not start. We shouldn't be invading Mexico or Canada or anyplace else. Now, what I do think we need, I've talked about this before, is something like Plan Columbia, which happened under George W. Bush when you had the Medellin cartel, when you had a massive wave of drugs coming in. And President Uribe in Colombia asked for America's help, said, please come in and help us get rid of the drug dealers. And we did. We sent the military in and eradicated much of their leadership. I think that would make enormous sense. But I didn't hear anyone point out that to do this, you would need the Mexican government's approval that we should not be in the business of invading Mexico. And I think, fundamentally, the reason people are saying, let's send the military in and invade Mexico is because they're not explaining what has caused this crisis. It is a deliberate, deliberate choice by Joe Biden, by Kamala Harris, by Alejandro Mayorkas, and by the Democrats in Congress to open up our borders. And that choice could be reversed immediately by a president who understood the problem and was prepared to say, if you are apprehended, you will be deported. We will put you on a plane, we will send you back. The numbers would plummet. Both the numbers of illegal immigration and the numbers of drugs coming into this country would plummet. I'll mention something else also, which is on immigration. Vivek talked about our northern border. And he said another thing that I thought was really kind of odd. And he said, we need to build two walls. One on our southern border, one on our northern border. I don't know what the guy's talking about the idea that we would build a wall on our border with Canada. Number one, it would be a massive wall that's a much, much bigger wall than our southern border. And number two, there is nowhere near the traffic to justify building a massive wall across what is in many cases open wilderness between Canada and very sparsely populated parts of the United States. That was an odd policy recommendation, but I think, look, people are looking for something that sounds catchy and sexy to solve this problem rather than explaining and articulating what really caused it.
- [08:17]
Ben Ferguson
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- [10:46]
Senator Ted Cruz
Look, could a president do that? A president's commander in chief, you could order the military to go in, but ordinarily, if you invade other country, that's considered a declaration of war. And listen, I would love to send the military after the cartels if, if, if the Mexican government asked for our help. And to be clear, Colombia did. But it took. It took the situation getting bad enough that they recognized they needed our help. And one of the problems is under Joe Biden because he's opened up the border. The cartels in Mexico have, have increased their profits by 2,600%. Back in 2018, they made roughly $500 million profits from human trafficking. Last year, they made $13 billion from human trafficking. The consequence of that is the cartels have become one of, if not the dominant player in Mexican society. We've seen crime rates skyrocket. We see murders and kidnapping and disappearing all across Mexico. It is tragic. We see Mexican politicians, Mexican journalists, we see prosecutors, judges threatened at massive numbers. I sat down with the mayor of Reynosa, a major American city right across from McAllen, just a few weeks ago for lunch. Along with Several others in McAllen, he was describing how in Reynosa, they've had roughly 6,000 people disappeared by the cartels. These are horrific numbers. And so right now, at least, Amlo, who is viciously anti American and has become more anti American with a weak president like Joe Biden, would never, ever, ever invite the military in to take out the cartels. Now AMLO's going to be out of office. The next president, we'll see what happens. But, but I think the answers on illegal immigration were fine, but, but, but none of them expressed a deep understanding of what in fact is happening.
- [12:43]
Ben Ferguson
It was interesting as I was watching it, and I want to get your take. I was looking at these answers and almost like they were saying, I'm with Trump too. And then Ramaswamy's like, I'm with Trump and then I'll build even more wall in Canada. It was like, then overreach. There. There wasn't any sense of. Of, like, ownership of their own ideas on how to deal with fentanyl, how to deal with China and how to deal with the cartels and how to deal with the southern border. It was regurgitating what I think it's like they'd all already heard that was popular. That concerned me as a Republican.
- [13:14]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah. And remember, look, every one of these candidates is theoretically running to be the alternative to Trump. Having an immigration debate where nobody mentions the name Joe Biden and nobody mentions Donald Trump is just kind of weird. Like, it's sort of missing the point. It's people reading a few kind of, like I said, talking points without acknowledging, number one, this is an area Trump had very significant success and he negotiated the remain in Mexico deal. That was a big damn deal. It was a game changer. It was unbelievably successful. And then Biden, on his first week in office, ripped it to shreds and caused this crisis. And to have that discussion without acknowledging that context, I think. Let me put it this way. I don't think any of those candidates, in discussing illegal immigration, moved a single voter. And that, from their perspectives, is a problem.
- [14:16]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, it certainly is. There was also a grand debate over pro Hamas propaganda on TikTok. Now, we've had debates about TikTok before. Should it be banned? It's been banned on government devices and many states have banned it from state government devices. Is it a spying apparatus and is also in a sense of mind control, where they're pushing propaganda in the face of young people, in the face of people on TikTok 24. 7. What we saw after what happened with the attack on Israel is a massive, and there's data to back this up, a massive onslaught of pro Hamas propaganda that was being pushed into the feeds, into the scrolling of people that are on TikTok. This is the reason why I don't use Tick Tock. I believe it is nothing more than a Chinese Communist Party spying apparatus and propaganda machine. This was part of the debate. I want you to hear it and I want to get your debate, your reaction to it as well.
- [15:15]
Chris Christie
We're going to stay on China and we're going to talk specifically about Tick Tock. Last week, Congressman Mike Gallagher, who is chairman of the House Bipartisan Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, published a long essay on TikTok following the flooding of pro Hamas propaganda onto TikTok accounts across the United States. Chairman Gallagher called it shocking. He called the app predatory controlled by America's preeminent Adversary one used to push propaganda and divide America. Its spyware, he said, in means of surveillance. Governor Christie, do you agree with Chairman Gallagher, and if so, would you ban or force the sale of TikTok?
- [15:52]
Vivek Ramaswamy
I agree 100% with Chairman Gallagher. And let me say this. TikTok is not only spyware, it is polluting the minds of American young people all throughout this country, and they're doing it intentionally. And when you saw what happened in the last few weeks with all of this anti Semitic, horrible stuff that their algorithms were pushing out at a gargantuan rate. This is China trying to further divide the United States of America. And this is one of the big failings among many of the Trump administration. He Talked tough about TikTok. I heard him do it many times. But when it came down to it, he did not ban them when he could have and should have. And now, since then, we've had an additional nearly six years of this type of poison being put out throughout the United States, even putting aside the spine, which we know is going on in the theft of American personal data and information. So in my first week as president, we would ban TikTok. They want to go ahead and sell it, let them go ahead and sell it. But I'll tell you another reason we would do it. Facebook's not in China. X is not in China. They're not permitting a free flow of information to the Chinese people from our social media companies yet. We just open the door and let them do what they're doing. TikTok should be banned because they are poisoning American minds. And I would do it week one.
- [17:25]
Chris Christie
Thank you, Governor.
- [17:27]
Ben Ferguson
Senator, you hear those talking points that came there from a guy that actually, I think is a pretty good debater. And it probably hit with a lot of Americans the way that Chris Christie described them. And I think the compare and contrast with China is brilliant. He's like, look, they ban our stuff all the time. They don't let X in there. Twitter, they don't let Facebook in there. Why are we so shy as a nation to get rid of TikTok or force the sale? Your thoughts on that?
- [17:55]
Senator Ted Cruz
Look, I think you're right. I think Chris's answer there was quite good. But at the same time, one of the things that was striking is, as I saw it, there was basically complete agreement on TikTok across the debate stage that immediately after that, Hugh Hewitt asked DeSantis if he agreed. He said he did. He asked Nikki Haley and Ramaswamy Vivek said that he agreed, although he said more Broadly, that other tech companies are sharing information with China. We need to crack down on that. He's right on that. And then he asked Nikki Haley, and Nikki Haley used it as a chance to punch back at other candidates on the stage who had attacked her on China generally. So I didn't hear her answer the question. But look, the answers were good. And what you just played from Chris was well articulated. Again, I don't know that any of these answers are differentiating. When you get everyone on the stage agreeing, it's difficult to see what votes are being moved. If they're all saying the same thing, it's status quo. And I will say, you know, Chris, they're saying, if I were president, I would ban it. You know, I would have liked to actually have seen a follow up from the moderator. Well, under what legal authority would you ban it? Look, Xi and China can ban whatever the hell they want because it's a dictatorship, but to actually ban something in America takes some legal authority. And it's one thing to say I would go to Congress and push legislation to ban it. That's. That's a position. That is a reasonable position for a presidential candidate to make. But, but I have not seen an effective argument that the president has the unilateral power to wave a magic wand and suddenly say TikTok is banned in America. And if Christie has an argument for that, he certainly didn't articulate it.
- [19:44]
Ben Ferguson
How would you ban it? I mean, explain to people how that would work legally. If you, if. Let's, let's say that any one of these people magically could do this instantly tomorrow. It's not as simple as you just described it. Right. This is one of those empty promises in a campaign that people make which drive voters insane. But what would actually take to get rid of TikTok or force a sale?
- [20:07]
Senator Ted Cruz
Oh, look, you could have, and there was discussion under Trump of trying to force a sale. And there are existing laws. There's a process called CFIUS that deals with foreign investment in the United States. I'm not saying it is impossible to come up with an argument of executive power to do this, but Christie did not present any argument under that. And I haven't seen a persuasive argument that it can be done as an executive matter. If it's not done as an executive matter, then it would take legislation and you'd have to actually get. Get that to move through Congress. And it certainly has not moved yet. I do agree. Look, TikTok, the Chinese government has, has control of TikTok the ability to monitor what's happening on TikTok. They are pushing very harmful messages. I think they are deliberately harming the United States. I think they are targeting our kids, they're targeting our kids with garbage, they're targeting our kids with self harm messages, they're targeting our kids with, with substance abuse and drug use messages. And on Hamas, it has been horrific, the pro Hamas propaganda that's being pushed on, on TikTok. Now I will say that we saw, we saw a back and forth where Nikki Haley slammed Vivek because he's on TikTok. And he came back with a pretty good response and said, well look, you know, all the lefties are on TikTok and we need to actually have some positive messaging there. I understand that argument. I'm not on TikTok myself but because of the Chinese control. But it worries me at time that if all conservatives abandoned that platform and so many kids are following it that we're leaving it to be almost entirely negative. And so I thought Vivek's response there was pretty good until he went too far and he had a nasty shot at Nikki Haley where he said, well, your daughter's on it and you're a hypocrite. And, and, and Nikki quite rightly got pissed off at that. Yeah.
- [22:10]
Ben Ferguson
And this was, this was that response for this point. It was a great back and forth and if you missed it, here's what it sounded like.
- [22:17]
Mike Gallagher
Well, I, I want to laugh at why Nikki Haley didn't answer your question, which is about looking at families in the eye. In the last debate, she made fun of me for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time. So you might want to take care of your family first. Leave my daughter, adult daughter. The next generation of Americans are using it. And that's actually the point. You have her supporters crapping her up. That's fine. Here's the truth. The easy answer is actually to say that we're just going to ban one app.
- [22:45]
Senator Ted Cruz
We got to go further.
- [22:46]
Mike Gallagher
We have to ban any US Company actually transferring US data to the Chinese. Here's a story.
- [22:53]
Ben Ferguson
Most people, I'm going to jump back in there because you heard the back and forth where she even says you're just scum.
- [22:59]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah, look, I think that was a very, very bad moment for Vic when you're attacking someone's kid. She was exactly right to pop back at him. And I just think that's out of bound. Don't attack people's kids. You Want to criticize the candidate, great. But going after their kid. I think Vivek lost votes and lost support on that. And I think a lot of parents are like, leave the kids the hell out of it. And her reaction, the disgust she had, I think that was real. And that was, I think, one of the most consequential moments of the debate.
- [23:36]
Ben Ferguson
I want to move to Israel real quick and get your reaction. This obviously has become a presidential election cycle that is heavy in now foreign policy. Ron DeSantis was asked the question about Israel. There's an obsession now, you and I talked about this yesterday. There's an obsession by the left for a ceasefire. Now the White House is pushing for a ceasefire. Bibi has made it very clear, no, if you want a ceasefire, then release all of the hostages. Otherwise we're moving forward and we're not stopping until we get rid of Hamas. And, and now there's new warnings coming from the UN and even the White House about Israel. If you go too far in their words, they're now turning Israel into the bad guys. Also what you predicted. They had a few weeks to do what they need to do and after that they were going to. People are going to turn on them very quickly. But DeSantis said this when he was asked about America's foreign policy and, and Netanyahu.
- [24:30]
Ron DeSantis
I would be telling Bibi, finish the job once and for all with these butchers. Hamas, they're terrorists. They're massacring innocent people. They would wipe every Jew off the globe if they could. He cannot let live with that threat right by his country that Hamas should release every hostage and they should unconditionally surrender. I'm sick of hearing the media, I'm sick of hearing other people blame Israel just for defending itself. We will stand with Israel in word and indeed in public and in private. And I can tell you as governor, I actually did something about it. Biden's neglect has been atrocious. We had Floridians that were over there after the attack. He left them stranded. They couldn't get flights out. So I scrambled resources in Florida, I sent planes over to Israel and I brought back over 700 people to safety. There could have been more hostages had we not acted. And I'll tell you this, I met the first plane load when they came to Florida and one of the mothers pointed to a six year old daughter and she said, my daughter had been saying the last two nights, mommy, I don't want to hear any more bombs, no more rockets. I just want to get back to Florida. So there's a difference between words and deeds. We acted and we save lives.
- [25:45]
Ben Ferguson
I thought that was a strong point, not just about American leadership and how we should make sure that we get people out of countries when we can. This is, I think, a clear indirect shot, in essence, at the present for what happened in Afghanistan and also what's happening now. But also him saying to Bibi, you can't expect him to do anything but what he's doing now to keep his people safe. He cannot live with terrorists next door.
- [26:08]
Senator Ted Cruz
Now, that was an excellent answer. It was one of, if not the strongest moment of the night. It was excellent both on substance that he was calling out the need to support Israel in destroying Hamas. He called out Biden. So unlike the other points I made where they were reluctant to call out Biden, he went very directly at Biden. And part of what made that answer so strong is that DeSantis acted decisively. He had something to say there. Because as governor of Florida, sending those planes to bring Floridians home from Israel, that was a big deal. That was well done. That showed initiative, that showed leadership. It's part of why Ron has such a strong record as governor of Florida, as an executive, he's able to act unilaterally in a way the other candidates can't. It's not something. It's not like Chris Christie could suddenly send planes to take people to New Jersey. He does not have that capacity. Ron, as governor, did, but no other governor did that. There are 50 governors in America, and only one did that. And so it was a combination of substantively strong combined with a unique moment in his record that Ron was able to capitalize on. And look, this is one of the things that I've been emphasizing. Debates are all about one of a couple of things. Number one, are you moving votes? Are you moving votes and moving them from whom? They've got to come from somewhere. So if you are adding to your vote total, you're taking votes from somebody else. For the candidates on that stage, if they're adding to their vote total, they're either taking votes from one of the other candidates on that stage or from Donald Trump. And you do that through points of differentiation. If you all say the same thing, nothing changes. Well, that's an instance where what DeSantis was saying was different. And I think that was a differentiating moment. There needed to be more of those in the debate for the candidates. I do think the field is shrinking. I think it is more and more becoming between DeSantis and Haley, I think Nikki had a good and effective night. She's articulate, she defended herself well. There were lots of shots coming at her. But I think all of the candidates would have been better off by having more differentiators between themselves and the other people on that stage, and critically between themselves and Trump and between themselves and Biden.
- [28:32]
Ben Ferguson
Do you think, lastly on the debate, that there will be this many candidates on the next debate stage, or do you think there will be more that fall off and it goes to, as you mentioned earlier, that DeSantis, Nikki Haley, you know, kind of two people.
- [28:45]
Senator Ted Cruz
So. So I don't know. I have read the press speculation. So the RNC has increased the threshold for the next debate, and at least the press speculation is that Tim Scott is unlikely to clear that next threshold. I don't know if that's right and we'll see where things are. But I do think falling off the debate stage is. Is effectively fatal in this race, that if you're not there, it is difficult to see how a candidacy survives if it can't make the debate stage. I don't know if Christie makes the debate stage or not. I just. I have not looked at his numbers closely enough to see if he would make the stage. It would be a very different debate if it were down to three people. I think the three that will make it for sure are DeSantis, Haley, and probably Vivek. His numbers are strong enough, and I will say so. In 2016, when I was doing debates, and this is true of every debate that I do, you try to think in terms of moments. Do you have a moment that catches fire, that goes viral, that results in fundraising? So if you have a really good moment that catches fire the next day, and even that night, your fundraising can explode. I had debates where within 24 hours we'd raise millions of dollars because you had a moment that really just. Just resonated it, and it can move votes. You know, when we had a great debate, it was striking where we'd go to events and events that used to have 300 people would have 2,000 people. And it was an immediate effect of a really strong debate. And so you can feel it.
- [30:19]
Ben Ferguson
I mean, it's no joke. You can really feel like, wow, we really did well last night because the people showed up for.
- [30:25]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah. And so there were not a whole lot of moments like that. Now I will say Vivek had a good moment in his opening. And his opening, he blasted the rnc and it was memorable. And he blasted the debate moderators. And if you have that clip, you ought to play that because that was one of the more striking moments of the debate.
- [30:47]
Chris Christie
Mr. Ramaswamy, let me turn to you. Please make your case. Why would you, why should you be the nominee and not the former president?
- [30:55]
Mike Gallagher
I think there's something deeper going on in the Republican Party here and I am upset about what happened last night. We've become a party of losers. At the end of the day was a cancer in the Republican establishment. Let's speak the truth. I mean, since Ronna McDaniel took over as chairwoman of the RNC in 2017, we have lost 2018, 2020, 2022. No red wave that never came. We got trounced last night in 2023. And I think that we have to to have accountability in our party. For that matter, Ron, if you want to come on stage tonight, you want to look the GOP voters in the eye and tell them you resign, I will turn over my yield my time to you. And frankly, look the people there cheering for losing in the Republican Party. Think about who's moderating this debate. This should be Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan and Elon Musk. We'd have 10 times the viewership asking questions that GOP primary voters actually care about and bringing more people into our party. You think the Democrats and we've got Kristen Welford here. You think the Democrats would actually hire Greg Gutfeld to host a Democratic debate? They wouldn't do it. And so the fact of the matter is, I mean, Kristen, I'm going to use this time because it's actually about you in the media and the corrupt media establishment asking the Trump Russia collusion hoax that you pushed on this network for years, was that real or was that Hillary Clinton made up disinformation? Answer the question.
- [32:12]
Senator Ted Cruz
Go. Mr.
- [32:16]
Mike Gallagher
This is how we get our country back. We need accountability because this Media rigged the 2016 election. They rigged the 2020 election with 100 Biden laptop story and they're going to rig this election.
- [32:27]
Chris Christie
Your time is up.
- [32:28]
Mike Gallagher
Accountability.
- [32:29]
Chris Christie
Let me turn to Governor, Governor Christie. Why you.
- [32:35]
Ben Ferguson
By the way, I love how fast he jumped in there to take those blows, which by the way, his attack on that debate moderator is accurate. She did in fact push the Russian hoax for years on the network.
- [32:50]
Senator Ted Cruz
So listen, I will say that that was a striking opening. I mean that that is unusual. That may be unique in the history of presidential debate openings and it will be memorable. I'm not sure that it moved a lot of votes, but it's the sort of thing that will go viral online. It's the sort of thing there was fire flowing. Now it also feels a bit performative. So, for example, unloading on Ronna McDaniel. Listen, I'm frustrated. We're all frustrated at the election results last night and that we've had multiple elections with results that were subpar. And we can have long discussions about why that is. I gotta say, it is a bit of a weird argument to say it's Ronna McDaniel's fault. Like, I'm sorry, the head of the RNC is not winning or losing national elections. And so what I felt that was is really Vivek has run his whole campaign never, ever, ever criticizing Donald Trump. So he didn't want to blame Trump. And so Rana was kind of a convenient whipping boy for that. But the sort of solution he was pointing to is, you need to resign, I thought was less effective. And you could point to Trump, you could point to Mitch McConnell, you could point to candidate selection as to why we lost. You could point to messaging. But targeting Rana on there, I thought was odd. Look, going after the media is pretty much always a good strategy in a Republican debate. And I will say his substantive point is exactly right and something I've called for for a long time. I believe Republican presidential primary debates should only be moderated by people who will vote in a Republican primary debate. If you look at Democrat primary debates, you have media journalists, all of whom are Democrats, who moderate the debates. And every one of the moderators wants one of the Democrats on the stage to win. If you look at many Republican debates, they're moderated by journalists. Often all of them are going to vote in the Democrat primary, and they want every person on the stage to lose. And so tonight, the only person on that stage who's going to vote in a Republican primary is Hugh Hewitt. And I thought Hugh did an admirable job. I like Hugh. He's a smart guy. He's very knowledgeable on foreign policy and national security. I thought he did an admirable job. And I did think Vivek's point about Welker pushing the Russia hoax was really it scored. I will say it would have been more effective if the moderators had been more blatantly biased. And I will say I did think that Welker and Lester Holt did not do a bad job tonight. There have been debates where we've seen moderators do horrible, horrible jobs and make it all about themselves. And here I thought the moderators were fairly restrained and did a good job of not making it about themselves. And it's striking there, even at the end after he blasts Welker, where she doesn't engage, she just says, okay, you know, moving on. And you know, when it comes to authenticity, I mean, that whole riff felt to me a bit like a performance piece because he was resolved to blast the moderators before they'd done anything. I think it would have been more effective in response to demonstrated bias. And I didn't see nearly as much bias from the moderators as we've seen in other debates.
- [36:30]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, great point. It was like you said, when sometimes you have lines that you get ready for and you look for. And he played that hand before they showed their bias in this debate. And it may have looked like you said too pre planned there. I want to tell you about Augusta Precious Metals. You may have noticed that gold prices have gone up significantly over the last few weeks and that is because of uncertainty that's going on around the world, whether it's in the Middle east, whether it's with our debt in this country, Wall street and how it's reacting, interest rates and inflation. And if you're like me and you've wanted to buy gold for years, there are lots of commercials out there. But who can you really trust? Well, I want to tell you about Augusta Precious Metals. They give you information, they give you knowledge and they will talk to you about how if you have an IRA or a 401k and you want to buy physical gold and eliminate fear and uncertainty from the process, you can do that with Augusta Precious Metals with the new Gold IRA Company Integrity Checklist. It helps you evaluate and choose the best gold IRA company. Now I used it personally to vet Augusta Precious Metals and I bought gold from them myself. You can use this checklist to choose the best gold IRA company. So check out Augusta Precious Metals right now. Go online to AugustaPrecious Metals.com or you can get the Integrity Checklist today by texting the word BEN. That's B E N to 68592. Text the word BEN to 68592 or you can call them 877, the number 4 Gold IRA. That's 877, the number 4 Gold Ira or Augusta precious metals.com Last question for you. A little comedy and congratulations, Jimmy Kimmel is promoting your book. Senator, I'm very excited about this. I also am waiting for the restraining order because he's absolutely obsessed with you. Your new book that is out Unwoke how to Defeat Cloud Cultural Marxism in America. He gave it A prime time promotion on his show last night. Here's what it sounded like.
- [38:40]
Nikki Haley
Ted Cruz has a new book. It's called Unwoke.
- [38:43]
Ron DeSantis
It's.
- [38:44]
Nikki Haley
He's, you know what, he's so cool. He's. You can tell it's Ted's book because the dust jacket doesn't quite fit. It won't, won't button in the front. But this is Cruise's fifth book. The last one was called Ted Cruz A Time for Truth. See him there without the beard. He also wrote Ted Cruz Head Ooze. He wrote Glued Pubes, the guy for.
- [39:07]
Ben Ferguson
Guys who Can't Grow a beard.
- [39:08]
Nikki Haley
Of course, the New York Times bestseller A Partially Digested Rat and Other Things I Found in My Chin Pouch. There are many interesting musings and revelations in the books. He says the Princess Bride is his favorite movie and he's seen it hundreds of times, which is definitely not true. No one's seen anything hundreds of times. And apparently he's not a big fan of late night television. This is an excerpt real excerpt he wrote. Late night TV is virtually unwatchable. I love comedy, but watching angry leftists scream about how much they hate Donald Trump isn't remotely funny. It's pitiful. Well, all I'll say is it's an honor to be called pitiful by a man who abandoned his dog in an ice storm to go to Mexico. But congrats, Chad. And seriously, I do want to say, you know, writing, writing a book like this is a huge accomplishment, especially for him. You know, it's very difficult to type with hooves.
- [40:02]
Ben Ferguson
I, I mean, sender, it doesn't it prove your point that you just wrote in your book? That was the part that made me laugh is as he's forcing this comedy on the audience and there's some awkward laughter. It's like, yeah, thanks for proving the point of what you just wrote about in your book.
- [40:17]
Senator Ted Cruz
Sure. Look, I mean it was when, when he did that last night. I actually tweeted his monologue out this morning and I said, hey, thanks for pitching my book. You forgot the link to where you can buy it. And I sent the link and I did something that is fairly obligatory also, which is Kimmel regularly blasts me in his late night monologues and every time he does, I respond and I point out that ever since I whipped Jimmy Kimmel's ass in one on one hoops, it seems that I'm living rent free in his head. And so I sent a video of me scoring on him and blocking him just to remind him of that moment that I think he probably still wakes up in tremors about. But I thought it was hysterical what he read there was an actual excerpt from the book and then he put put up the book cover and I think that's fabulous. But I do wish the substantive point that late night humor I wish was actually funny. I love comedy. I grew up watching snl. I like real comedians who are funny and they used to be funny and now it's one of the many examples and I discuss it at length in the book Unwoke How Trump broke the Media, Trump broke the Democrat Party and Trump broke late night comedy because they just it's a partisan primal scream instead of good comedy. Makes fun of both sides. I'm perfectly fine with making fun of me, but they never ever make fun of the Democrats. It's purely a I am leftist. Hear me roar.
- [41:54]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, it's great point. Don't forget, grab the book especially, you know, now that Jimmy Kimmel's promoting it. Unwoke how to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America. Congrats Center. It's number one in multiple categories right now on Amazon. You can grab it right now on Amazon. Will get to you really quick. Quickly. You can grab a copy for a great Christmas gift as well or wherever you get your books. It is out now. Unwoke how to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America. And there's also another liberal book, by the way, that you're beating earlier today. Just a little side note, Rachel Maddow has her new book out and you were ahead of that, which made me just grin a little bit, Senator.
- [42:30]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, that is a good thing. And beating the lefties is a great American pastime.
- [42:38]
Ben Ferguson
There we go. Don't forget the show is Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Hit that subscribe, auto download or or Follow button because if you don't, you'll miss special pods like this one when we give you debate reaction on a normal night where we don't do it. So make sure you hit that subscribe auto download button as well and give us a five star review. And the center and I will actually see you back here tomorrow for our regular episode on Friday and we'll see you then.