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- [00:00]
Michael Knowles
Remember civil liberties? With all the Obamagate spying and due process under attack and the endless lockdowns, they might seem like a distant memory. We will get into all of it. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles. Senator, the last time that we spoke, the biggest story of the day was the exoneration of Michael Flynn, President Trump's first national Security advisor. The DOJ dropped the case into him. The FBI set him up. This was a huge miscarriage of justice, but thankfully the case was being dismissed until I just read a headline that the judge is not letting go of the case even though the prosecution said that they were pulling out of it. Can you explain to me how that's even possible? What's going on?
- [00:54]
Ted Cruz
It is ridiculous. This federal judge was. We've seen too many judges on the bench behaving like they're members of the resistance and signing up to really the partisan objective of attacking the President and this administration. Listen, everything about this Michael Flynn investigation and prosecution stinks from the get go. And what has come public in the last couple of weeks is stunning. What we now know is, number one, Attorney General Bill Barr, when he came in, assigned a U.S. attorney who is a longtime experienced veteran with the FBI and the Department of Justice to go and invest, go look at this case and make sure nothing untoward happened. And he went and investigated and they were horrified by what they found. They found that the FBI agents going after Michael Flynn, number one, the FBI was going to dismiss the case because they didn't have any evidence. And then Peter Strzok, who we've seen is a rabidly partisan Trump hater, stopped it from being closed and said how lucky they were that their incompetence, that's his word, was such that it saved them from closing the case. And they decided, all right, let's go interview him and see if we can somehow entrap him in a lie in order to. And this is the FBI's own notes. Get him fired. Get him to lie so we can get him fired. That's not the FBI's job. Why are they trying to get the National Security advisor for the newly elected president fired? So that came out initially, but it gets worse. And by the way, James Comey bragged, the old FBI director bragged in an interview how essentially he suckered General Flynn, who's a decorated three star general, by the way, who spent his whole life fighting to defend this country. They suckered General Flynn into this interview where they said, you don't Need a lawyer? No, no, no. You don't need to tell the White House counsel about it. We're just coming to chat, just to chit chat. And he was. And actually Comey said something to the effect of, you know, a White House that knew what they were doing would never have fallen for this. Of course they did this right after Trump was elected, right when they're getting started, when they're getting their team in place. But. But it's worse than that. What's come out in this last week are two things that are beyond stunning. One, we know that there was a January 5th meeting in the White House with President Obama. That President Obama was directly part of the meeting where it was discussed with senior law enforcement intelligence. They were targeting the National Security Advisor for the incoming president. Not only that, we know that Joe Biden was at that meeting. And stunningly, that Joe Biden personally directed the unmasking of General Flynn. Let's unmask his name. Normally, the intelligence reports, the intercepts come around with names blocked out. Joe Biden personally said, unmask him. Let's see his name. And then on top of that, in the last week of the Obama administration, Susan Rice, the National Security Advisor, sent an email to herself and to the intelligence community saying, under the directions of President Obama, and she made this clear, this was coming from Barack Obama himself. You may not be able to share certain aspects of national security information concerning Russia with the incoming president. What in the hell? Like this has never happened in the history of our country. An outgoing administration launching a political investigation, a political persecution, and telling all of the deep state bureaucrats, when the new president comes in, he's not your president. You don't have to tell him what's going on. Just go after him, target him, and trap him, set him up. I mean, it was stunning. And in more than two centuries of our nation's history, I am not aware of any outgoing administration that ever so much as tried to do this to the new administration. It is wrong, it is offensive, it is grotesque. And so the Department of Justice came in and said, we shouldn't have brought this case. We don't have the evidence. Let's dismiss it. Now, here's what happens when the prosecutor does that. The judge says, case dismissed.
- [05:24]
Michael Knowles
Right?
- [05:24]
Ted Cruz
Prosecutor's not going to prosecute you. The case is dismissed. But this judge apparently has, has, has strapped on his little pink hat and he's decided he's part of the Resistance. So number one, he, he, he issued this call to Amiki, to friends of the court you guys tell me if this prosecution should continue even though the prosecutors aren't prosecuting it. And then he appointed another judge who happens to be a Democratic appointee as well.
- [05:51]
Michael Knowles
Coincidence.
- [05:51]
Ted Cruz
Go assess whether. Whether he should charge Michael Flynn with perjury. All right, well, let me give you a clue, Judge. You or your buddy who you've appointed, don't charge anybody with anybody. Go read that document that you may have put away a long time ago. It's called the Constitution. There are three articles, Article one, Article two, and Article three that set up our Constitution. There's seven altogether, but three that set up our government. You're in Article three. You're the judiciary. It is the executive that charges. It is the judiciary that tries the case. It is. And so this is grotesque. It is a violation of civil liberties. And of course, all the left wing partisans don't care cuz they hate Trump. It is offensive.
- [06:38]
Michael Knowles
This is a very bizarre case. I'm glad you could lay that out because I've had trouble trying to relate how the Michael Flynn part of it relates to this January 5th meeting, how it relates to Susan Rice and Barack Obama and now Joe Biden. We've learned this is being called Obamagate. The mainstream media are denying that Obamagate exists, just like they denied all the rest of Barack Obama's presidential scandals. You're saying this is possibly unprecedented? This is historic. This is an egregious abuse of power.
- [07:10]
Ted Cruz
I don't know of any history. There have been administrations that didn't like each other before, that shifted from one to the other. Yeah, but one of the hallmarks of our Democratic system, of our constitutional Republican, is the peaceful transition of power from one party to another. We're not a banana republic. We don't go try to prosecute those we disagree with because of political disagreements. We enforce the law regardless of party. That's what our tradition is. You know, the closest I can think of is when the Clinton administration was leaving and the George W. Bush administration came in. Well, we knew that the Clintons did steal the silverware from the White House residents, some of the furniture that was uniquely characteristic of them. But the outgoing Clinton White House staff, they did, on a number of the keyboards in the White House, they pulled the letter W off of, and you know, it's George W. Bush. And that was sort of a juvenile prank. But they didn't unleash the Department of Justice and the FBI and the intelligence community to set up, to entrap, to prosecute, to target the incoming administration. The National Security Advisor to Unleash wiretaps on the incoming administration's campaign to base it on a bogus dossier compiled by the opposing. By, I guess, the outgoing administration's own party, paid for by the dnc, paid for by Hillary Clinton. What a grotesque abuse of power. And let me tell you something. The Senate needs to do something about it. The Senate needs to have every one of these clowns that abused their power brought in front of us and testify under oath the entire array of them, the ones that were sitting in that White House. I'm talking James Comey. I'm talking Yates. I'm talking Susan Rice. I'm talking Joe Biden. I'm talking Barack Obama. Every one of them should testify about their weaponizing and politicizing law enforcement and the intelligence community to prosecute, target, and wrongfully go after the next. The incoming President of the United States.
- [09:30]
Michael Knowles
That's right. And it's so corrupt. And even if you're a Trump hater out there, even if you're glad, you know, that the outgoing administration was going after the incoming administration, all of that, it does come down also to a question of civil liberties. And it's not just being attacked by government thugs who are spying on people. We're also seeing this in other places. You had a great tweet earlier today. This was in regard to Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, who said that Betsy DeVos has now issued these policies that will protect the accused on college campuses. But the ACLU is now going after Betsy DeVos for protecting civil liberties, even though the ACLU is supposed to be the American Civil Liberties Union. So you tweeted out. ACLU moves to delete the C and the L from their name. Hereafter it shall be the adpu, the American Democratic Party Union. They are for all criminal defendants unless they're Republicans, and they are for all sexual assault victims unless they are accusing Democrats. Can you just tell us a little bit about the. The Betsy DeVos decision, what that means on campus, and how on earth the ACLU now opposes civil liberties?
- [10:42]
Ted Cruz
Look, it is crazy. Let's start with Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. The Obama administration, when it came to college campuses, they really got radicalized. And sexual assault is a horrific evil. I've spent a lot of my life in law enforcement prosecuting those who commit sexual assault. It has been a lifelong passion of mine. It is a grotesque evil that should be punished. But criminal defendants have rights. We have due process. We have a bill of rights. We have where people are. An accused is entitled to the presumption of innocence. What the Obama Department of Education did is they used the federal education dollars to try to coerce, frankly, a bunch of radicals on campuses who were happy to do this anyway into creating these star chambers where if there's an accusation of sexual assault, the accused is presumed guilty and has little or no rights, can't confront their accuser, can't even know what the charge is. In some cases, I mean, it really is, it's Kafkaesque. Where you have been charged, we will not inform you what the charge is, we will not inform you who's raising the allegations. You can't call witnesses in your defense cuz you don't know what you're charged with. But here are the consequences. Okay, that's not fair, that's not right. That's not just. But in the radical leftist world, it was politically expedient. The Department of Education said, no, we're gonna follow federal law. And that means we're not gonna force colleges just to immediately summarily execute anyone who's facing an accusation. Instead, there should be a fair fact finding proceeding that respects due process. Now, in any ordinary circumstance, you take the aclu. Aclu, I disagree with a lot of the things they do, but they were formed to protect civil liberties and in fact to protect civil liberties of those who have been charged with something. Those who have been accused with something, many times, they're guilty. And if they're guilty, they should be punished. But you're entitled to have due process protections. Here's the problem. The aclu, like most of the left, Donald Trump, has driven them nuts. I mean, they're just that, they're in straight jackets, babbling like Bugs Bunny. I mean, I mean they just, they don't make any sense anymore. And so ACL used to support all criminal defendants. Okay, I understand that. Sometimes I don't like it. If it's mass murders, they've taken it too far. But okay, that's at least a coherent position is I'm gonna support criminal defendants against government prosecution, defend their rights. ACLU isn't doing that anymore. Where is the ACLU and Michael Flynn?
- [13:23]
Michael Knowles
Right?
- [13:23]
Ted Cruz
Show me the ACLU coming in and saying, judge, if the prosecution is dismissing the case, you can't become judge, prosecutor, and presumably executioner. I don't know if the judge is going to lock him in his own jail cell too. Any reasonably coherent ACLU would be standing alongside Michael Flynn, but God forbid he's a Republican and worked for Trump. Oh no, no, no, no. ACLU's got nothing to do with it. On the flip side, you know, they want a virtue signal. On sexual assault, where's the ACLU on the allegations against Joe Biden? I don't recall the aclu. And by the way, you remember the sitting lieutenant governor of Virginia.
- [14:02]
Michael Knowles
That's right.
- [14:03]
Ted Cruz
Who had pretty serious allegations of rape against him. But he's a Democrat. Of course you've forgotten him. Has any media outlet covered that for six months? It's disappeared. Why? Because he's a Democrat. Where's the ACLU on that? And so it is, at this point, so shamelessly partisan that it ought to be possible to defend principles. Defend the Constitution, defend the Bill of Rights with coherency and fairness. Look, when there's a sexual assault allegation, I believe the alleged victim should be treated with respect, should be listened to, should the allegations should be treated seriously. But it still depends on the evidence. The accused deserves a presumption of innocence, and you should look to the facts. That's actually a fair and neutral way to apply it. It's not the way these hardcore lefty partisans are treating.
- [15:00]
Michael Knowles
That's right. We have kangaroo courts on college campuses that are trampling over the due process rights of the accused. And that for some reason, these panels of professors are dealing with one of the most serious crimes you can commit. Not our criminal justice system, but for some reason, these random professors and deans. You got the kangaroo courts there. You got the kangaroo courts at the federal level now trying to continue the persecution of Michael Flynn. We're looking around, we're saying what happened to our civil liberties? And I think for most Americans, the way it really affects our lives is we were told 15 days to slow the spread. We're gonna give up some of our civil liberties because obviously there's this epidemic going around and we wanna keep everybody safe. Now, you know, I think a lot of states are being very reasonable about this, reacting to evidence. Some states, some cities are becoming downright arbitrary in their power grabs. They're saying that these power grabs are gonna go on indefinitely. Have those places just simply lost our civil liberties?
- [16:00]
Ted Cruz
Well, let me make two points. One on sexual assault, and then one more generally on individual liberty and civil liberties. Yeah, on sexual assault. Look, I have argued and won numerous cases dealing with, prosecuting and in some cases seeking the death penalty for child rapists and those who committed sexual assault. I think it needs to be punished very seriously. I have also been leading the fight, along with New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand, to change the way sexual assault is prosecuted in the military the military, unfortunately, has been a long problem where the decisions, charging decisions, right now are made by the commanding officer. And the problem is you get conflicts of interest, and victims of sexual assault in the military don't feel confident to come forward with those allegations. So I've long been an advocate of changing the charging decisions from the commanding officer to a military career prosecutor. So keeping it within the military, but not in the immediate change of command, so the prosecutor can fairly evaluate the evidence, be credible, and decide whether or not there's sufficient evidence to charge sexual assault. The reason I bring that up is all of the virtue signaling lefties. For eight years, Barack Obama was president. He could have changed it any day. He could have changed how sexual assault in the military is prosecuted. And Barack Obama for eight years refused to do it. That actually would make a difference, and it needs to be done. So your second point about individual liberties, we are seeing in any crisis. You remember the movie Wall Street? Yes. There's a great scene where Lou, the old broker, says to Charlie Sheen, I'm gonna paraphrase this and mess this up, but something to the effect of, there comes a time in a crisis when a man stares into the abyss, and in the abyss is where he finds his character, and that is what saves him from the abyss. That's close to it.
- [18:07]
Michael Knowles
That's a good rendition.
- [18:08]
Ted Cruz
Look, in a time, in a time of crisis, you see someone's character. Yeah. And we are seeing the character of these petty, authoritarian tyrants who are running around stripping away civil liberties. You know, just earlier today, I saw a video of a woman in New York, an African American mom, who was walking with her son. He's, I don't know, maybe three, four years old, young child, walking through the subway. And she committed, apparently, the cardinal sin of she wasn't wearing a mask. And she was surrounded by police officers who threw her to the ground, wrestled her to the ground, pushed her into number one, the nasty, dirty subway station floor, which I can't imagine anyone laying down and handcuffed her. And her little son is sitting there watching this. By the way, where's the ACLU you want to talk about? Okay. And I'm not saying it's so easy for people to embrace extremes. I'm not saying never wear a mask, ever. I wear a mask when I'm on an airplane, I wear a mask. When I go to the grocery store, I'm wearing a mask. I want to respect public safety. But it could have been really different if they had given her a mask, if they hadn't you shouldn't be throwing young moms to the ground in front of their little kids and handcuffing them for not wearing a mask. That's just stupid. But these authoritarian tyrants, they believe in government power. They hate liberty. It's the same numbskulls. It's different numbskulls, but the same type of numbskulls who sent in bulldozers in California to fill a skate park with sand. Like what? I mean, that video, if you haven't seen it, you ought to watch it. And by the way, I think it would be perfectly reasonable for the local officials to have a police officer there and say, kids, you guys need to socially distance. Don't all gather together, spread apart and be safe. But look, if a kid wants to go skateboarding, it's only malicious tyranny. Yes, that fills a skate park with sand. That's just dumb. And it's the same malicious tyranny that throws a mom on the floor and handcuffs her in front of her little kid.
- [20:28]
Michael Knowles
And of course, the people who filled that skate park should have known that teenage skateboard punks are not exactly known for following the rules. So they were obviously going to dig the sand out and go right back to skateboarding. More power to them. I really enjoyed it.
- [20:40]
Ted Cruz
And last I checked, if skateboarders are loners, certainly all the skateboarders I've known. And by the way, for anyone who's sort of young and hip and rebellious, remember, it is the lefty Dems that are trying to strip away your freedom. Remember who's doing it. Remember the tyrants. And by the way, you're in California right now. I don't see actually the monitors watching you. Although I kind of expect a Skynet drone to come in any moment now and find you. But I gotta say, there are a lot of Californians looking to flee, including some pretty prominent players.
- [21:22]
Michael Knowles
You know, I noticed Elon Musk was. It is. I mean, he's one of the wealthiest guys, one of the most successful guys in California. I think he's put his houses on the market. He said he's gonna move to either Nevada or Texas. You're seeing a number of other people, Senator. Is this an invitation? Should we all just go down to Texas now?
- [21:41]
Ted Cruz
Yes, with a caveat. So you're all invited, but there needs to be an entrance exam if you're gonna vote for the sort of lefty commies that screwed up California. Please stay where you are and enjoy what you voted for. If you're willing to come for freedom, we would welcome you. And so Elon Musk, look, his Tesla factory, he wants to open, his workers want to open. And the petty tyrant said, no, you can't work. And by the way, there was a Democratic state legislator who sent out a tweet that was fu. Elon Musk, what on earth is going on that elected officials are tweeting expletives at their constituents. These are the same clowns who last week we talked about the elected Democratic judge in Dallas that demanded of Shelley Luther the hairdresser, apologize to your elected officials. You guys are not friggin overlords. Get off your power trip and don't curse at your constituents. And so I sent out a tweet to Elon Musk saying, come to Texas, we welcome you. We love jobs, we like making cars and trucks down here. We'd love to have Tesla, by the way. I gotta say, Tesla's. I don't have a Tesla. I have some friends who have it. They're amazing drives. And my girls desperately want us to get a Tesla because so the coolest thing is on the giant TV screen in the middle, I guess there's a button that makes a fart noise from each of the seats, which to a 9 year old and 12 year old, and even to a 49 year old, really damn funny that is.
- [23:14]
Michael Knowles
I didn't know about that. Wow.
- [23:17]
Ted Cruz
And you know who also was talking of moving to Texas is Joe Rogan.
- [23:21]
Michael Knowles
That's right.
- [23:22]
Ted Cruz
Now, Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan said, all right, I can't stand it. I may move to Texas. I said, joe, we'd welcome you here. Now, you and I know Joe had been the number one podcast until Joe Rogan was dethroned by yours truly. And this podcast here.
- [23:39]
Michael Knowles
That's right, Yes, I do remember that. Well, I hope he didn't take it so hard that he realized that really that huge podcast is in Texas. It's at the Cruz residence. So he's gotta go see where the magic is.
- [23:52]
Ted Cruz
And look, Joe Rogan had his flirtation with Bernie Sanders. And if he thinks that big government status are the way to go, then stay where you are, Joe. We don't want you if you wanna bring that kind of totalitarianism to us. But if this has made you realize people like to be free, leave me the hell alone. That doesn't mean anarchy. It means respect civil liberties, respect freedom. If you're willing to stand for freedom, come to Texas. We want you.
- [24:22]
Michael Knowles
And you know, the Joe Rogan move and the Elon Musk move are both interesting Because I know that Joe was a Bernie bro for a while, but he really is a sort of independent thinker. You can't always nail him down on one political party or the other. And the fact that the effect of this government overreach has been to tell people who like Elon Musk or like Joe Rogan, who are a little more independent minded.
- [24:42]
Ted Cruz
Hmm.
- [24:43]
Michael Knowles
Maybe the left is really not where the future is. Maybe the left is not where your interests are. That could have some serious effects for November. Obviously, there are a lot of variables.
- [24:53]
Ted Cruz
Profound. Well, am I remembering right that Joe Rogan had an episode that he had Elon Musk on where they both smoke pot? I believe he did on the podcast.
- [25:05]
Michael Knowles
I don't know if he inhaled, but they did both smoke potatoes.
- [25:09]
Ted Cruz
So I don't know if maybe there's sort of a libertarian streak that's coming out. That's okay. You're welcome to come here, too. You and I might have an episode in which, you know, I was asking you before if you owned a smoking jacket. I can see you pull it out like a Sherlock Holmes pipe or something.
- [25:24]
Michael Knowles
That's true. We could. I guess that's one thing I could bring from California to Texas. Well, we'll have to save that for a future episode, obviously. Before we go, we gotta get to some mailbag questions. There are a lot of people who have questions all over the place. So let's get right into it. From Nick. Senator, what do you think? If you think anything at all about that video that came out of Georgia, the shooting of the man, Ahmaud Arbery, by those two guys in the truck? Do you have any take on this? This is being. On one hand, people are saying that these were crypto Klansmen and it's a modern day lynching. On the other hand, people are saying even possibly it was justified. I think most people are not taking either of those extreme positions. What is your take?
- [26:07]
Ted Cruz
Look, I saw the video, the shooting, I think it's really troubling. And so I'm glad to see that the prosecution is moving forward. Based on what I've seen, what happened seems wrong. Now, look, this whole theme of this show, we focused on civil liberties. And so the defendants have a right to presumption of innocence. They have a right to due process. And so the trial ought to go forward. They ought to look at what the actual evidence is. We don't know all the evidence. But I gotta say, you know, anytime you have two people driving up in a truck and shooting an unarmed man, that's really problematic. And certainly with the tragic history of race in our country, it raises. It's messed up. So I'm glad that the prosecutors are moving forward. Based on what I've seen, there's certainly enough evidence to move forward. But the process needs to play out and we need to find out the truth.
- [27:05]
Michael Knowles
That's too reasonable, Senator. That has no place on Twitter or anywhere else on the Internet. You have to have a very extreme position or else you're not allowed to voice it on the Internet. From Vince, Is there any legislation planned or being proposed to curtail the suppression of content on social media platforms? Or could or should this be a private citizen endeavor to sue where needed or where possible?
- [27:27]
Ted Cruz
All of the above, yes. As you know, a huge focus of mine has been the power of Big Tech and Big Tech is engaging in censorship. It's a handful of Silicon Valley billionaires who frankly are too often petty tyrants and authoritarians themselves. And then they feel unchecked. You know, I chaired a hearing a number of months ago on censorship of Big Tech where we put up an internal PowerPoint from Google and it was entitled the Good Censor. And by the way, that's Google's own term. That's not my term. That's how they entitled it. And they described how the Internet used to be believe in laissez faire free speech.
- [28:09]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [28:10]
Ted Cruz
But instead Big Tech, they said, had made a decision to move towards what they called a European style censorship model. And they identified Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter as the kind of major players. That's exactly right. And I think it is a profound threat to democracy. I'll give you a recent example. YouTube, which has been. Google and YouTube have been the worst offenders, by the way. I mean, Google, they used to have their motto be do no evil. Now I think they've just deleted the first two words. Now their motto is just evil. They're just shameless. You know, Google's gone after Prager University. One of the more absurd examples, they restricted as adult content Prageru's episode on the Ten Commandments. You really can't make this crap up. The Ten Commandments because it discussed murder.
- [29:02]
Michael Knowles
I mean, I guess it does really.
- [29:08]
Ted Cruz
You know, you would think that these techie autocrats would actually pause and say, okay, maybe we're beclowning ourselves too much here, let's stop. But YouTube's latest. In the midst of the pandemic, they said they're gonna block and pull down any video that disagrees with the health recommendations from the World Health Organization. Now the who, as you know, has really disgraced itself. Yeah. By its willingness to be a puppet for the communist government in China to repeat Chinese Communist lies. To repeat, in January, the WHO was loudly saying that the Chinese lie. There is no human to human transmission of coronavirus. Okay. If YouTube followed that plan, if you were one of the communists, the Chinese physician whistleblowers who heroically stood up against. Stood up and pointed out the coronavirus. If you made a video on YouTube, apparently under YouTube's policies, they'd pull you down. Cuz the WHO says coronavirus cannot pass from person to person. What utter garbage. And so we need to do much more to go after Big Tech. That includes potentially repealing section 230 of the Communications Decency act, which gives them a special protection from liability that Congress has passed. Nobody else gets. I've been leading the edge on that. It also includes looking at antitrust litigation or a case from the Department of Justice. These are monopolies that are abusing their monopoly power. I think we've got to do more, and I think it's a profound threat to our democracy. It is.
- [30:51]
Michael Knowles
It's an urgent threat. It does happen a lot on YouTube. Maybe they'll take this episode down. I don't know. I hope they don't. And if they do, I bet the ACLU will be nowhere in sight to defend us so much more.
- [31:02]
Ted Cruz
No, no, no, no. The ACLU will be with Big Tech saying, yes, we're all for silencing speech because we are partisan lefties. It's sad. It's a sad thing to see.
- [31:16]
Michael Knowles
That's the aclu, the adpu, as you say. That will be the next one. We'll probably be even further into the Upside down by then, but we'll just have to wait until next time. That's our show. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
- [31:36]
Ted Cruz
This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security pac, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations, and candidates across the country. In 2022, jobs freedom and Security PAC plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the.