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- [00:00]
Michael Knowles
For decades, politicians in the United States on both sides of the aisle have cheered along as China has grown in prominence. Now, as they're exerting more and more influence over our economy, over Hollywood, over our universities, amid a global pandemic that they unleashed, we are beginning to ask how to fight back. This is verdict with Ted Cruz. Senator, before we get into everything today, Hollywood, the economy, the media, I have to ask you, is Kim Jong Un alive or dead?
- [00:41]
Ted Cruz
Who the hell knows? I've seen media reports on both sides. For all I know, they're propping him up like Weekend at Bernie's, about the same as the Democrats are doing with Joe Biden.
- [00:52]
Michael Knowles
That's true. I guess I could ask you the same question about the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. Senator, you have said that. That we need to fundamentally change our relationship with China. You have been leading the fight in the U.S. senate. From what I can see on this. Specifically, how are we going to push back against a China that now seems to exert massive influence on our country?
- [01:17]
Ted Cruz
Yeah. The most significant change that I think is gonna come out of this pandemic is, I hope, a fundamental reassessment of the United States relationship with China and the world's relationship with China. And I've been saying for a long time, China is the single most important, the most significant geopolitical competitor to the United States for the next century. They've got 1.3 billion people. They're governed by a communist government that lies, that murders, that tortures its citizens. They invest billions in their military, billions in expanding their economic influence. And I think this pandemic really illustrates just how dangerous that repressive regime of lying is. I've been saying that a long time. What's interesting now is a whole lot of other people are suddenly noticing, hey, wait a second. These Chinese Communists are not good guys.
- [02:14]
Michael Knowles
Right. And we're now seeing. I mean, I just read a report that there's a Chinese propaganda radio station that is now broadcasting into the United States. We're allowing that to happen. I mean, is there legislation right now going on to try to stop some of these activities now?
- [02:31]
Ted Cruz
That's exactly right. It's the Phoenix TV station. You may remember this Chinese reporter who was at the White House who asked the President a question, and the president had the wherewithal to ask, where are you from? You're from China. And she says, no, no, Hong Kong. And it turns out, well, yes, they're nominally Hong Kong, but they're owned and controlled by the Chinese Communist government. And that same company, that same Phoenix TV station set up a broadcast TV station in Mexico right over the border. It's more powerful than any broadcast stations we have in the US and they're broadcasting into California right now. You've got those waves since you're in California, going through you in Chinese language. So the Chinese government is controlling the contents on Chinese language radio throughout Southern California. I've got legislation to stop the FCC from allowing them to do that. They applied for an FCC license. I wrote a letter to the FCC two years ago asking the FCC to block them, block the Chinese propaganda from coming in. The FCC did so. So they agreed with me. But they got a license on a provisional appeal. They've appealed it. And during the appeal, they're able to saturate the airwaves with propaganda. We gotta take these threats seriously. And I think what's going on right now illustrates why.
- [03:54]
Michael Knowles
Well, I hope that that bill becomes a law and I hope that that actually goes into force. Because the problem, Senator, here in Southern California, it's a lot worse than just the Phoenix TV station broadcasting. One thing I've noticed living right here in Hollywood is that China basically owns Hollywood at this point. There is such a financial tie between our media apparatus, entertainment, and suppose news media and the Chinese government. Is there any way to break that apart? Or are the ties just too deep at this point?
- [04:27]
Ted Cruz
So Hollywood is almost entirely bought and paid for by China. It's such a big part. If you're making a movie, you don't want to tick off China because it's too big a part of your global revenues. And so the great free speech warriors of Hollywood are perfectly happy to let China edit out portions of their movie they don't like. You know, you look at Bohemian Rhapsody. Wonderful, wonderful biopic of Freddie Mercury, but fantastic portrayal. When they released it in China, they edited out anything to illustrate that Freddie Mercury was gay. Like, what in the hell are you talking about? It's Freddie Mercury's life story. Yeah, the guy's gay. I mean, but you know what? Hollywood was perfectly fine to say, just erase it. We are the Chinese communist government. This does not exist. And Hollywood went along with it. It's dangerous. I'll give you another example. Top Gun, the sequel to Top Gun.
- [05:23]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [05:24]
Ted Cruz
Is coming out, expected later this year. Top Gun, the original may be the greatest Navy recruiting film that ever came out. Also was pretty, pretty awesome for beach volleyball in terms of the numbers after that. So Maverick, the jacket that Maverick wears on the back of it, it has the Taiwan flag and The Japanese flag, the new Top Gun. They edited them out because they didn't want to piss off the Chinese overlord. And God knows, if you acknowledge Taiwan's there, or even Japan. And what the hell does it say, Michael, that Maverick is terrified of the Chinese Communists? I mean, this is garbage. And Hollywood kowtowing is wrong. I also introduced legislation, actually just this week called the Script act that says if any Hollywood producer, if any movie maker, lets the Chinese Communist government censor or edit a film, that they can't have access to our military, to our ships, to our planes, to everything they use to film movies like Top Gun. They don't get access to that if they're going to hand over the censorship power to the Chinese Communist government.
- [06:33]
Michael Knowles
See this? I'm so pleased to hear that, because this seems like a proper use of government. When you've got another foreign hostile government exerting a huge amount of influence on your own country, then it's incumbent on us to try to push back against that. So I'm glad that there are actually some concrete steps that are being taken here to push back on China. I know that you sat down again with our friend Nigel Farage. We had him on the show, and. And then you spoke with him separately, and he spoke about some other concrete ways that we can push back on China, specifically as it relates to Huawei, the Chinese technology giant, which is building a lot of telecommunications, software and hardware out there. Let's just play a quick clip of Nigel speaking on this and then I wanna get your reaction for how it relates to the U.S. yes.
- [07:22]
Nigel Farage
I mean, when you and I were talking about this a couple of months back, criticism of China was kind of a bit of a minority sport because the establishments had, all across the west, had accepted China and seen China as being an opportunity, not as a threat. And there's now a completely different conversation going on. I have a feeling, hope at least, that when Boris Johnson is back at his desk, you know, he will realize that public opinion is deeply unhappy with the role that China has played in this coronavirus crisis from the very beginning. And I think we've now got a very good chance, a very good chance, an odds on chance of getting that decision reversed. And I hope so, because it was doing huge damage to our relationship with Australia, our relationship with Japan, indeed our relationship with the United States of America, and all the implications that has for NATO, for trade, for everything else. And so I'm now beginning to think that the wind has changed and I think this decision can be reversed.
- [08:30]
Ted Cruz
Well, there Nigel and I were following up on what you and I and he discussed a couple of months ago, which was he told the story of Brexit, which was fabulous on this podcast. But we were also talking in particular about the UK Government's decision to allow Huawei, the giant telecom company that's owned and controlled by the Chinese Communist government. And that is essentially a global surveillance outfit. It's designed to help them monitor and surveil your communications. My communications? The UK government announced plans to allow them to build some of their 5G telecom infrastructure. About 30%. They said it was just civilian. But the consequence of that is in building that hardware, they were giving the Chinese Communist government the ability to intercept communications. And the UK is part of what's called the five Eyes intelligence sharing networks, which are five close allies in America. We share our intelligence with them. We share our most sensitive intelligence with them. And the problem is, if we're sharing that intelligence with them and they're building Huawei equipment, the odds become very high that the Chinese Communist government can intercept that intelligence. And so what I said on this podcast with you and with Nigel is that four Eyes are better than six. In other words, if they're going to set up infrastructure that lets the Chinese government intercept our intelligence, maybe we'll have to exclude the Brits from that intelligence sharing. And they are among our closest allies on the face of the planet. Well, I'm pleased to say that since that discussion, one of the consequences of this pandemic, there have been multiple reports now out of the UK that the government may be shifting its decision and not allowing Huawei to build that infrastructure. I hope that's the case. Cause there are conflicting media reports on this. But I hope Nigel is right that they're gonna step back from Huawei.
- [10:27]
Michael Knowles
Well, this is, I think, the key problem, this is what makes this whole issue of China so difficult is Huawei goes out there and they say, hey, we'll build you guys telecoms equipment for cheap. You know, you will save you a lot of money. I mean, China invests heavily in Hollywood. China buys up a lot of our debt.
- [10:43]
Ted Cruz
Right.
- [10:44]
Michael Knowles
China sends us a lot of cheap goods and services that we're all addicted to. And we like the money, we like the cheap stuff. But now we're seeing that there actually might be a hidden cost to all of that. In your discussion with Nigel, I know you touched on the topic of this dependency that comes along with globalism. Let's play that clip.
- [11:01]
Nigel Farage
Yeah, No, I think there's a really good chance of that. Happening. And I think there is a much broader debate now happening amongst British people about the fact we've become so reliant upon China. We're reliant upon China to provide us with medical equipment. We're reliant upon China for so many of the drugs that we take, for a whole range of medical conditions. And I think one of the things that comes out of all of this is we realize that globalism was a means of leaving each nation state unable to stand up for its own interests, all in the favor of the Blairs, the Clintons, these kind of politicians, the big companies, some of the big banks that supported them. And I think what you're going to see is quite a big cultural change coming after this horrible virus. And that is countries will say, do you know what? We need a much bigger degree of self sufficiency. And I can see that debate happening in the British people right now.
- [11:59]
Michael Knowles
So, Senator, is Nigel Wright, is globalism on the ropes?
- [12:04]
Ted Cruz
Look, I hope so. I hope our dependency on China is on the ropes. You know, if you look at what China does, they employ a host of strategies. Number one, they lie. They lie and they lie shamelessly, repeatedly, over and over again. Number two, they murder and torture. They've got over 1 million of their own citizens, Uyghurs, a religious minority in concentration camps right now being tortured. Number three, they steal. And in the scope of human history, we have never seen a nation state with trillions of dollars of resources use intellectual property theft as a state strategy. They steal on a widespread level, on a military level, on a commercial level, on an academic level. They censor and they also extort, they use access to their market. There's a reason Hollywood's terrified of ticking them off. There's a reason the NBA is terrified of ticking them off. There's a reason just about all of the Fortune 500 is terrified of ticking them off. Because they'll close off their market to anyone who does. And you know, I gotta say, a lot of folks have been oblivious. You know, I'm reminded of Winston Churchill wrote a very famous book While England Slept that talked about how the free world sat there as Nazi Germany built up its military power. Jfk. His senior thesis at Harvard was While England Slept. He published a book of the same title laying out the case, how the World Let this Happen. Well, a whole lot of people in America have been sleeping on the danger that China poses. And you know, last fall, last October, I did an Asia tour. I went to Pearl harbor, then I went to Japan, then I went to Taiwan, India and Hong Kong. And that was designed, Michael, really, as a friends and allies tour. Those are all countries surrounding China, every one of them. Meetings and discussions there were, what do we do about China? What do we do about the military threat, the diplomatic threat, the economic threat in Taiwan? I was there on Taiwan's National Day, was the first US senator to be in Taiwan on National Day in 34 years. Wow. In Pearl Harbor, I met with our Pacific Command leadership there that were describing how militarily. One of the threats we face is that they've stolen a lot of our military technology. They don't have to pay for R and D because they steal it from us. And they're implementing much of our technology against us. In Hong Kong, I met with the protesters, the pro democracy protesters there. You may remember, I did a Sunday show from Hong Kong dressed in all black in solidarity with the protesters, the protesters dressed in black. And something I've said many times is Hong Kong is the new Berlin, just as Berlin was the outpost of freedom against the Soviet Union, against communism when Reagan said, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. Hong Kong is where we're seeing the touch points of this battle against China. And I hope that Americans are waking up. I do think for a long time when I would lay out the harms of the Chinese Communist government and the need to fight against it, the need not to be dependent on China, you would get almost crickets in the Senate from both Democrats and Republicans. There was not a whole lot of support for that proposition. They're lying. Their cover up on coronavirus has now taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and cost trillions of dollars in poverty and suffering. I hope that really causes people to open their eyes to what the danger is here.
- [15:53]
Michael Knowles
Well, the analogy that you're drawing here is to the Cold War, right. And the Cold War, luckily, was mostly cold, but there were a few moments there where it seemed to get pretty hot. After all of this, after this pandemic, after China's repeated deceptions, after their aggression on some of our interests, do you think there's a chance that we could be headed for a direct confrontation?
- [16:16]
Ted Cruz
I hope not. But of course there's a chance. It is the number one question. When I was on the Friends and Allies tour, as I talked with our allies about what? When I was in Taiwan, I said, look, what would y'all do if Chinese ships began an amphibious landing on Taiwan? I talked in Japan about that. I talked in Pearl harbor about that. The threat of military aggressiveness from China is enormous. You know, there's another threat. The supply chain is one of the things Nigel and I were talking about. So much of the US supply chain has gone to China. And in some ways it's more dangerous than the Cold War because we didn't have all our manufacturing based in the Soviet Union.
- [16:57]
Michael Knowles
Right.
- [16:57]
Ted Cruz
In this instance, not only is China dangerous militarily, but you look at the pharmaceutical industry. China systematically laid out a strategy to monopolize the production of pharmaceuticals, to go after American production, put American factories out of business. By the way, US companies were more than happy to oblige to move pharmaceutical manufacturing to China. So now we're dependent on China for antibiotics, for blood pressure medicines, for heart medicines, for anti anxiety and depression medicines. They're moving more and more into cancer medicines. And in the midst of this coronavirus pandemic, one newspaper in China that's owned and controlled by the Chinese Communist government threatened to cut off life saving medicines to the United States as a weapon. Now in that instance, if they did that, that's not just economic warfare, that's real warfare that is literally threatening the lives to kill Americans. And we have willingly, happily handed them that degree of power. We've got to change that and make sure critical infrastructure is not under the control of the Chinese government.
- [18:14]
Michael Knowles
Of course. And so we're seeing action on that front. We're seeing action, thanks to you, on the Hollywood front and on the news media front. There is one area though where China's influence has, has gone basically without any consequence. And that would be at a certain disreputable institution that I believe you received your law degree from. America's oldest university, Harvard, which seems to be sucking up to the Chinese Communist Party. Dare you defend your alma mater?
- [18:44]
Ted Cruz
It is shameful. I do not. I never like to see a Yalie be able to gloat. But you have reason to gloat. Although your alma mater ain't much better.
- [18:54]
Michael Knowles
Yeah, it's not true.
- [18:55]
Ted Cruz
Sadly, most of the big academic institutions are train wreck on this. But Harvard has been particularly problematic. There's an article came out just this week that I tweeted out from the Harvard Crimson from their own publication that details how Harvard, how a senior official at Harvard Law School asked a Chinese dissident to cancel a speech at Harvard. Why? Because the president of Harvard was in China meeting with President Xi and they didn't want to offend, they didn't want to embarrass the Chinese Communist government. So forget academic freedom, forget courage, forget standing for dissidents. They wanted to Kiss up to the big bucks of China. And I got to say, this article from the Harvard Crimson, I recommend reading it because it talks about how for decades Harvard had greater leverage over China, that China felt they needed more from Harvard than Harvard needed from China because they wanted access to the university, so the research, to everything there. And it talks about how that balance of power has shifted and now Harvard depends more on China and it really is dangerous. And our academic institutions as a whole are so subject to espionage to faculty members, literally on the payroll of the Chinese Communist government. This has been another area I've been very active in pushing legislation trying to prevent espionage at our universities. And it. The self censorship, it's just. It's the same thing the NBA did. You don't want to piss off Daddy Warbucks. You don't want to piss off the market whose billions of dollars you're dependent on. That is really, really dangerous. And I think Harvard is very much a canary in a coal mine here. And there are a whole lot more canaries in that Chinese coal mine.
- [20:46]
Michael Knowles
Well, this is the whole equation, right? If it's the case that we're getting more than China is getting, if we're benefiting more than China is, if they need us more than we need them, then it seems like an okay situation. And that's been the situation apparently for my whole lifetime. Basically. Now it seems that we're at this tipping point where the relationship with China is no longer working for us. So do you think on all of these fronts that we're now at a point where we have to distance from China, or is there still a push to keep that tight relationship and keep cheering on a rising China?
- [21:22]
Ted Cruz
Look, I think there's a massive push. There's enormous money to be made in China and big business remains all in in that regard. Hollywood is terrified to tick them off. Universities are terrified to tick them off. But. But I do think so. I introduced legislation last week that is focused on the censorship regime in China. China has a comprehensive censorship regime. And we used to think about it in terms of human rights. So I've given multiple speeches on the Senate floor highlighting dissidents in China. As you know, and you and I have talked about this before. I hate communists. My family was imprisoned and tortured by Communists. I find nothing cute about the Chinese Communists. They're evil bastards. Communists are bad. That is a simple proposition the media and the academy seems unable to understand. We used to think about their censorship in terms of human rights. We now understand it's not just human rights. It's national security and it's public health. Because this coronavirus pandemic, their censorship regime covered it up and they punished the whistleblowing doctors who try to draw attention to it. If they had behaved like any other responsible country, if they'd sent in doctors and public health professionals, there's a real chance we could have contained this as a regional outbreak and not had a worldwide pandemic. But because of their censorship, they cared more about saving face, about protecting the image of the Chinese Communist government, than about saving hundreds of thousands or even potentially millions of lives. And that. So the legislation I introduced would sanction every official in the Communist government involved in censoring that public health information as a way of starting to ensure real accountability for their responsibility here.
- [23:19]
Michael Knowles
You know, it's such common sense. It's something that conservatives have always known about the world, and I guess a lot of other people forget it. There's no such thing as a free lunch. You know, it's great to get the cheap goods from China. It's great to get their investments. It's great to have the cheap manufacturing. But the bill comes due, and I think we're seeing the costs of that now. Senator, before we go, we've gotta get to some mailbag. Obviously, people still have a lot more questions than answers when it comes to this whole shutdown. So let's try to go through here from Norman. Do you think governors should take their cue from Trump's federalism and subsidiarity? The things he said about the states deciding when they wanna reopen delegating authority, therefore, over the coronavirus lockdown to city mayors. Should we push these decisions even more local?
- [24:07]
Ted Cruz
Look, I think that makes sense. Generally speaking, I think the role of the federal government is what Trump has done, which is to lay out guidelines, to lay out principles, to bring to bear the resources and the assets of the federal government. Things like cdc, that kind of expertise is valuable, and it's valuable to provide to the states with the pandemic. The response we need to engage in is. Has to be based on the facts on the ground. I gotta tell you, one of the things that drives me crazy about this crisis is so much of the reaction to the coronavirus pandemic is politicized. Yeah. And the way people react depends upon whether you hate Trump or you love Trump. And so the people that hate Trump, the only reaction they seem to have is they hate Trump. And so everyone must lock down, everyone must stay home, shut everything down forever and ever. And I gotta say, that's Nutty, you know, hydroxychloroquine. I don't know if that works or not. Right. But you saw lefties who hate the President saying, well, we gotta prohibit any doctor prescribing it, cuz Trump said it's good. Now let me be clear on the flip side. Both sides are doing this. The people who love Trump, I think too many of them are too quick to say, oh, it's not real, it's all bogus. It's made up by the media. Everyone needs to go back to work right now. Well, look, I gotta say, neither of those positions makes much sense to me. It seems the right position that makes sense is be guided by the science, protect public health. That means in reopening, it should vary geographically. Listen what New York City and New Jersey are facing. Over half the deaths in America have been in New York and New Jersey. Nobody in their right mind would say New Yorkers should go back to work right now. That doesn't make any sense. But there are other parts of the country. The state of Texas, the governor of Texas laid out guidelines to start reopening, to start going back to restaurants and stores and movie theaters with reduced capacity for social distancing. I think that makes sense. But even within Texas, it'll vary geographically. So a dense urban city like Houston or Dallas will be different than more sparsely populated rural areas. So yes, as much as possible, these decisions ought to allow people to get back to work, get the economy moving, but do it based on the facts and science actually on the ground, of course.
- [26:32]
Michael Knowles
And look, if the coronavirus pandemic can teach people a lesson about federalism, I suppose every storm cloud has a silver lining. And you know, also, Senator, you made this point about the media going back to work. I'm perfectly happy with the mainstream media remaining shut down in perpetuity and never going back to work. But I guess we'll have to see how that turns out from the.
- [26:53]
Ted Cruz
By the way, as an intersection of that. We've also seen the media acting as shills for China. One of the most stunning examples, CNN put out as a story, literally a story that came from the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party put out a propaganda story. Chinese military does better with coronavirus than American military. And CNN just dutifully reported that the Chinese website says their military's doing better than ours. Well, get your head out of your. I mean.
- [27:26]
Michael Knowles
Right, yeah, that's my reaction.
- [27:31]
Ted Cruz
That would be my detailed refutation of their simply repeating propaganda stories from the Chinese government.
- [27:37]
Michael Knowles
You took the words out of you took the scream out of my mouth. This question, last one we'll get to is from, I guess a Twitter account because it's called the Panda Tribune. I assume that's not somebody's name. Does Ted Cruz think that Joe Biden will be the Democrats nominee by Election Day?
- [27:54]
Ted Cruz
Probably. But I gotta say, I think a lot of Democrats are getting nervous. I mean, he is. You know, I joked about Weekend at Bernie's, but it seems like he's in witness protection. I mean, where's Waldo? Where's Biden? And they're just, they're terrified. Look, the Democrats are making a gamble that they. That the economy will collapse, that more and more people will lose their jobs, and that people will throw Trump out because they'll get mad at him. And that gamble could work. That's that. I worry about that risk. I don't want to see that happen, and I worry about it. But I also think there are a lot of Democrats that are really getting nervous that Joe doesn't seem remotely up to this challenge. And we'll see what happens. I think Joe probably has to stumble a little more in the next month or two for Deez to pull the rip cord, but they're definitely nervous, which is why they're hiding him. Here's a great principle in politics. If your political team is hiding you and trying to avoid anyone hearing what you have to say, it ain't good.
- [29:06]
Michael Knowles
You're not in a good spot then. Well, I remember, Senator, you made this point during impeachment during one of our 3am recording sessions. You said that it seemed like the winds in the Democratic elites were turning against Joe Biden, which is why they were allowing some of the allegations about Hunter Biden and Joe's possible corruption to start coming out. I can't help but notice now we're a little bit of ways away from the Democratic Convention, and some new allegations have come out about Joe Biden. It does raise that question and that observation you made. Have the Democratic elites decided they need a new guy?
- [29:41]
Ted Cruz
Well, and media is terrified about even covering the allegations against Biden. And, you know, you go back to Hunter Biden. Listen, we went in great length through Barisma and the Ukrainian issues with Hunter Biden. There's a whole other set of issues with China. And you better believe if Joe Biden is the nominee, we're going to be talking about Joe Biden's direct financial benefits from China as well. That's going to be a major issue in the election. It's one of the reasons some Democrats are nervous and want to jettison Joe.
- [30:11]
Michael Knowles
That's why the details matter. That's why the specificity matters. And I can't tell you how happy I am to know that at least you, hopefully some other people, too, but at least you are taking specific action on China, a specific action on how to make sure that something like this doesn't happen into the future and make sure that we're not continuing to be so vulnerable. So much more to get to, but as usual, we've run out of time. Thank you, Senator. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict WITH Ted Cruz.
- [30:45]
Ted Cruz
This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz.
- [30:48]
Michael Knowles
Is being brought to you by Jobs.
- [30:50]
Ted Cruz
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.