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- [00:00]
Ted Cruz
How many children have been in the Biden cages in calendar year 2021? Senator, I respectfully disagree with your use of the term cages. Fine, you can disagree with it. How many children have been in the Biden cages? I've been to the Biden cages. I've seen the Biden cages. How many children have you detained at the Donna Tent facility and the cages you built told kids. How many children have been in those cages? Senator, I can provide to you the following. Figure that when. And let me. Let me say that when a child. I don't. It's a simple question. How many children have been in those cages? I respectfully. I'm not familiar with the term cages and to what you are referring. There are enclosures in which they are locked in, in which I took photographs and put them out because you blocked the press and didn't want people to see the Biden cages. Secretary Mayorkas, you're not answering my question. So let me ask you this. In the past year, has Joe Biden been down to see firsthand the Biden cages? Senator, I will again. Has Joe Biden been down to see this facility? Yes or no? The President has not been down to. Okay, no. Yes or no, Has Kamala Harris been down to see these detention facilities? She has not been down. Has any Democratic senator on this committee been down to see the Biden cages? I will once again disagree with your use of terminology. These facilities. Has any Democratic member of this committee given a damn enough to see the children being locked up by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris because of your failed immigration policies? Senator, I cannot speak to the members of this committee. You don't know if any Democrats have been down there to. Oh, I believe Democrats have been down to see this facility. Yes or no on a facility. Whether they are members of this committee, I do not know. Foreign.
- [01:58]
Michael Knowles
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- [05:32]
Liz Wheeler
Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles. Wonderful to be joined now by the Senator. Unfortunately, our friend Liz Wheeler is on the road. She will not be joining us. And I suspect next week the Senator won't be joining us and Liz will be because the Senator will be indicted for murder. That was Zodiac strikes again. Senator, how could you do that to the poor Secretary of Homeland Security?
- [05:58]
Ted Cruz
God bless this administration's cabinet officials. Their testimony really is terrible. You know, we had Merrick Garland a couple of weeks ago. Now we've got Alejandro Mayorkas and they really do follow the sergeant Schultz line of defense, which is I see nothing, I know nothing. And Mayorkas, you know, talk about half assed. You know, there was another portion of that hearing where Mayorkas was asked how he would grade himself and he said he would give himself an A for effort. I gotta say, this guy grades on a serious curve. If that's an A for effort, it really is striking. And frankly, listen, the fact that he did such a half assed job is indicative that this administration doesn't care care about what's happening at the border. At a different portion of the cross examination, I asked him a whole series of questions. I asked him, all right, how many gotaways have there been this year? How many people have escaped and gotten away and haven't been apprehended? He said, I don't know. The estimates are about 400,000. But he said, I don't know. I asked him, how many deaths have there been? How many illegal immigrants crossing over by human traffickers? How many of them have died in the process? He said, I don't know. I said, how many of the women have been sexually assaulted by the human traffickers bringing them in? He said, I don't know. I said, how many of the children have been sexually assaulted by these human traffickers? He said, I don't know. I asked him, how many illegal aliens have you released who were COVID positive? He said, I don't know. I know, just issue after issue after issue. He didn't have an answer on any of those, you know, on the gotaways? I said, oh, you just didn't think that was relevant for this hearing? He said, no, no, it's very relevant. I just don't have an answer for you. And listen, I think part of it is he understands the Democratic senators don't care about any of this. So none of the Democrats asked any of these questions. They don't care about the kids in the cages. They don't care about the children being sexually assaulted, about the women being sexually assaulted. They. They don't care about the illegal immigrants being released with COVID And if they did, they would actually go and see the Biden cages. None of the Democrats have been down there. If they did, they would demand answers from the Biden administration on this. But I gotta say, it's one of the most stunning examples where partisan politics trumps everything. Because, you know, I have friends who ask, who say, well, why would they be doing this? Why would they be allowing this absolute disaster to unfold? And the best answer I can come up with is they've made a political judgment that every person who comes here illegally they believe is likely over time, to become a Democratic voter, and they just want the maximum number of Democratic voters. And if the consequences are that people die in the desert, abandoned by coyotes, well, that's perfectly fine. That's a risk to be taken. If the consequences are sexual assault, if the consequences are children being violated, that's a risk to be taken. And the degree to which politics trumps reality, facts, humanity, substance, public safety, public health, the whole combination is pretty stunning.
- [09:26]
Liz Wheeler
I agree. They're certainly playing the long game. I do think it's cynical. I'm with you on the A for effort answer. First of all, I don't care about mayorkas effort. I care about the results, and he isn't showing results. And time and time again, he had no answers. The part, though, that I found actually the least plausible of the entire grilling, and his answers to that grilling was when he said he didn't know what you were referring to when you mentioned the kids in cages. Where has he been for the past four years? Where that was the number one Democrat talking point.
- [10:03]
Ted Cruz
You know, he's just willing to be a partisan shill. He's not actually there to testify about substance. As you know, I put up a picture of the kids in cages. I said, all right, how about that one right there? And he just, you know, I'm sorry, I know nothing. It was sergeant Schultz.
- [10:24]
Liz Wheeler
Yeah.
- [10:24]
Ted Cruz
He knows exactly what cages I'm talking about. And it's not accidental. You remember when Kamala Harris, after she took months and months of grief for not going to the border, she finally did, and she went to El Paso. El Paso is 800 miles away from the Rio Grande Valley, 800 miles away from the Biden cages. It's not that they're dumb. It's not that. They just like, oops, we went to the wrong place. The reason she went to El Paso is if she'd gone to McAllen, she'd have to go see the Biden cages. And if she went to see the Biden cages, the TV cameras would follow her. And they don't want to admit that they exist. And, you know, it's stunning to me. I mean, I think back, you know, you may remember a couple of years ago when Heidi and I and the girls were in an airport. We were at LAX out in la, and these group of it was actually union activists from the University of California system saw us in the airport, surrounded us, chased us to our gate. And I'm there with two little girls screaming and yelling. And they were screaming about kids in cages. Kids in cages. At the time, I told them, I said, look, I am very concerned about the kids in cages. What you're not acknowledging is Barack Obama built the cages. They said, we don't care. And I guarantee you those activists don't care at all that under Joe Biden, the cages are more full, they're bigger, they're packed. It doesn't matter anymore. And the amazing thing is every Democrat, every corporate media talking head who went on incessantly about kids in cages, if they don't care about the Biden cages, then they were just full of crap. Then they were just hypocritical, partisan, cynical liars. And sadly, apparently, that is a hat they're more than happy to wear.
- [12:17]
Liz Wheeler
Well, I agree with you on the substance of the issue, but I have to ask you a kind of political nerd question here. I have to ask you about the way the grilling went down, because I noticed in it you never let Mayorkas control the language. This is a topic near and dear to my heart. He kept trying to weasel out of this phrase, kids in cages. He kept trying to deny that and use his own language. And you wouldn't let him do it. And you forced your terms, which I think are fair terms, especially after four years of the Democrats using them on him. And I think the testimony was very effective. Is there a lesson here for other conservatives when they're having these debates? Maybe we'll be having some of these debates at the Thanksgiving table next week.
- [12:59]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, look, I think language matters intensely, and the Democrats are very good at doing it. We're usually terrible at it. A good example where on the Republican side on language, we actually did it right, is the death tax. So for years, the death tax was Referred to as the estate tax. And the estate tax makes you think of the Rockefeller estate and sitting there sipping sherry on the back of your estate state, whereas the death tax people are like, you're frigging kidding me. You're telling me when I die, the IRS shows up and seizes half my stuff? And just that change in term which happened to be accurate, changed the dynamic of it really powerfully. Usually Republicans are terrible at this, and I'm a big believer in using the other side's terminology against him. So, you know, on the question of vaccine mandates, the phrase I keep using, the hashtag I use is your body your choice. Which lefties, their heads explode. They're like, you get that out of your mouth. You're not allowed to say that. I'm like, look, I believe that very strongly. Do whatever the hell you want with your body. Now, of course, as you know, they immediately try to come back and own you. Ahaha. So you're pro choice and pro abortion. I'm like, nope, you can do anything you want to your body. Just don't hurt the child's body. If the child is fine, don't mess with his or her body. You wanna cut your foot off? I hope you don't. That's really bad for you. Don't cut your foot off. I would urge you not to, but if you want to, you got a right to do that. If you wanna get a bunch of ugly tattoos. Your body your choice. And it oughta be your body your choice, whether you stick a needle in it and take a vaccine too.
- [14:45]
Liz Wheeler
Well, Senator, speaking of people who have made very bad choices in their life, speaking of people who use language in a way that I think is pretty diffic dishonest. Speaking of incompetent Democrat politicians, I've got to bring up your old rival, Robert Francis Beto O'Rourke, the next possible governor of Texas.
- [15:10]
Ted Cruz
I do like how Beto O'Rourke there, you had a leprechaun lilt and I was waiting for you to do the lucky charms just naturally comes out.
- [15:19]
Liz Wheeler
I can't stop it.
- [15:20]
Ted Cruz
Well, look, Beto has powerfully managed to go 0 for 2 to lose his last two elections. And apparently that wasn't enough and he really wants to get his ass kicked a third time. And so he jumped in and of course bestill my beating heart, the media groupies are all excited now and it's all a partisan game when, when Beto ran against me. And by the way, I always refer to his name as Beto, so his name is Robert Francis. He uses the nickname. There is a Spanish nickname for Robert, which is Beto, and he likes to pronounce it Beto. My view, some Irish dude is not Beto. Now, I didn't really want to call him Beto because that was a bit much. That was a bit in your face. So Beto is a nice, like, Texas version of. All right, if you're going to make a up a name and by the way, a dishonest name. Because the reason his whole signs just say Beto is he wants Texas voters to think he's Hispanic. I mean, it is very much designed to do that. But look, his campaign, when he ran against me, we were outspent three to one. It was the most expensive Senate race in hard money in the history of the country. I actually joined a club that is a very small and exclusive club. It now has four members, and that is me, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and Susan Collins. And we're the only four Republican senators on the face of the planet to have ever survived an election where we were outspent by $30 million or more.
- [17:12]
Liz Wheeler
It's a lot of money.
- [17:13]
Ted Cruz
And the onslaught was massive. I mean, to give you a sense, in that campaign, the 2018 campaign, my campaign team had 17 paid campaign staffers. Beto's campaign had 805. Whoa, whoa.
- [17:31]
Liz Wheeler
I knew he outspent you, but I didn't realize the asymmetry was that great.
- [17:36]
Ted Cruz
We had 17 against 805. It was massive. They more than doubled Democratic turnout. They took it from 1.8 million all the way up to 4 million. And we saw this coming. We did a statewide barnstorming tour. We did a bus tour, went 50 stops in the last six weeks. And we drove Republican turnout from 2.8 million all the way up to 4.2 million. And the difference, that 0.2 million was our margin of victory. Now, I'll tell you some. Some inside stories about the press. So during that campaign, the press refused to cover anything negative about Beto. They just wouldn't do it. They. Every press story was this glowing. All right, the adjective of choice was Kennedy esque.
- [18:24]
Liz Wheeler
Yeah, that's right.
- [18:25]
Ted Cruz
They say, oh, the hair, the smile, the teeth. Oh, Kennedy esque. Kennedy esque. Kennedy esque. And we would have all of these hits on him. Now, mind you, these are policy hits. These are bad votes he took. These are policy positions that are radical, left wing and out of step with Texans. And the press refused to run it. We'd bring it to them. They said, nope, nope won't cover it. Won't cover it. Won't cover it. So after we beat him, shortly thereafter he launches his presidential campaign. And we had a reporter from, I think it was the New York Times who called our comms director and said, hey, you know all that oppo you had on Beto that we didn't want to run? And we said we weren't interested in. Can we have it all now? Now we're interested now that he's running against Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris. Now it was really worthwhile and it showed the just naked partisanship that they weren't pretending to be journalists covering the news. They wanted any Democrat to beat me, or frankly, probably any person on planet earth to beat me. But then once Beto was in the primary, they preferred a full on socialist to be the nominee as compared to him. And so they savaged him. And I gotta admit, part of me in the presidential felt a little sorry for Beto. Yeah, because he was so shell shocked. It was his groupies turned on him. So in the Senate race, when he did a press interview, it was like the Rolling Stones talking to like teenage girls throwing panties at him. I mean, that was. And then suddenly in the presidential, he was doing the exact same thing. And they stopped swooning and started attacking him. And he had no idea what to do. And now he's running for governor. Listen, I think Greg Abbott is going to beat him like a rented mule. He is not gonna do well in this race. Now he's formidable. I will say there are Republicans laughing. Ha ha ha. Beto. Beto. Beto.
- [20:28]
Liz Wheeler
No, this is. We all make jokes about Beto and he is a Jack Kerouac reading skateboarding joke of a man child. We can all laugh about that. But he is persistent and persistence worked for Richard Nixon. Persistence worked for Joe Biden. We know that Beto can raise money. Beto. By Democrat standards, he came pretty close. Not that close, but he came pretty close in Texas. And so is there a chance that he wins this? Do Republicans have something to be worried about?
- [21:00]
Ted Cruz
Sure, there's always a chance. Last time he raised $80 million. You want to talk about a monster email list? He's got donors all over the country. Most of that was small dollars to give you a sense of the financial imbalance. Q3 of 2018. So third quarter of 2018, we announce our fundraising and my campaign has raised $12 million in the quarter. That was the most money any candidate for Senate had ever raised in the history of the state of Texas. It was pretty, you know, we were impressed with that $12 million, that's a lot of people who went to TedCruz.org, who contributed and gave the money. That record lasted three hours. Three hours until Beto announced his fundraising. What do you think Beto's fundraising was that same quarter?
- [21:50]
Liz Wheeler
I'm gonna say, you know, I wanna be cautious and say 13 million. Something tells me it's more than that.
- [21:57]
Ted Cruz
38 million. More than three times as much. So 12 million was the record, more than anyone in history and he shattered it with 38 million. So he will have the access to a ton of money. The press will return to adoring fangirl. There will be no more criticism of him. They will be rooting for him with all their might. And listen, he is a charming, affable guy. That is a potent thing. Conservatives make fun of him, the sort of skateboarding cool punk rocker, but that for voters who are not paying that much attention, being affable is a potent tool. Now, at the end of the day, I think 2022 is gonna be a really good Republican year. I think it's gonna be a red wave like 2010 was. And that's one of the reasons I think Abbott is going to beat him significantly. Because it's going to be such a good Republican year that no matter how charming Beto is, I don't believe a Democrat is winning statewide in Texas this time around. But I do think that the folks on the Republican side that make fun of him are underestimating how skilled this guy is. Not skilled in the policy sense. He's got a very light resume. He did almost nothing in Congress. He spent six years in Congress. Basically was a backbencher. I had never met him. Do you know when he launched for Senate against me? I mean, I know the Texas delegation, all the Ds and Rs. I never met the guy. I mean, he was such a backbencher as to be non existent. But what he is skilled in is being a likable guy. And when surrounded by the puffery of the media, that's a potent combination and I don't think we should dismiss it. I don't think he's gonna win, but I am glad that he's gonna suck a ton of money away from Democrats and races in other parts of the country. That's good and a public service to the rest of the country. We just gotta make sure we beat him.
- [24:14]
Liz Wheeler
That's a good point actually, that there is a real benefit for Republicans if Beto can attract a lot of money, especially a lot of Hollywood money and the big Democrat donors. Now one of the reasons that the poll numbers are looking terrible for Democrats right now, one of the things that if there is a Republican wave is going to be impelling this is inflation. We're seeing inflation. We're all seeing it. I very rarely go to the grocery store. My wife does most of the grocery shopping. I went in the other day and even I, I barely pay attention to this stuff. I was shocked at how the prices have gone up. I was just back in California, we're seeing it everywhere at the gas pump, but especially in California, shocked at how the prices have gone up. The Biden White House has said they do not bear responsibility for inflation. This is just natural coming out of COVID long term economic forces and that it's a cheap Republican talking point to blame Biden for inflation. I don't know anything about economics. What's the reality of it?
- [25:13]
Ted Cruz
Well, what's interesting is the Biden White House can't figure out what to say on this. So they're talking points. Let me make a substantive point, but before I do it, let me make a broader political point. Why is it that a mayorkas is so terrible at a hearing? Why is it that a Merrick Garland is so terrible at a hearing? Part of it is Democrats. Why is it that Abedo does so terribly in the presidential race? Democrats are used to the corrupt corporate media shilling for them. You know, you think about it, if you're a media flack for a Democrat, basically you type up some talking points, you email it to a reporter and the reporter writes it as their story. That's what being a flack is. It's just okay, here's what we want you to say. The media goes okay and they say it. They're not used to any scrutiny. It's one of the reasons, for example, why Biden, when Afghanistan went south, the Biden White House was so terrified because they're used to the toughest questions he gets being, you know, what's your favorite flavor of ice cream? And so they don't know how to handle scrutiny. You know, Merrick Garland, Merrick Garland was a judge for 24 years. Nobody asked him questions. He got to ask the questions. No one scrutinized what he said. Everyone around him kissed his behind every waking moment of the day. And so when he's suddenly in front of the Senate and the Senate is engaged in oversight, he's flabbergasted that anyone would dare criticize him. It reminded me of, if you remember in the Democratic debates when Michael Bloomberg was standing there and Elizabeth Warren took a chainsaw to him over the sexual harassment charges against him. And Bloomberg is worth what, $37 billion or those are probably outdated numbers. For 50 years, nobody has dared to say, no sir to Michael Bloomberg. He's been surrounded by sycophants with their lips planted on his derriere. And he was just flabbergasted that she would criticize him. Well, you fast forward to the Biden White House on inflation. They can't figure out their message. So their first message, you know, Ron Klain, the chief of staff, says, well, it's a high class problem, right? Their next message was, well, inflation is a good thing. Msnbc, of course, the standard pattern Biden White House says inflation is a good thing. And like clockwork, MSNBC puts out a story why inflation is a good thing. They actually retreated, retracted the story within minutes because I think the reaction was so resoundingly filled with ridicule and laughter at the end of the day. So their latest argument is, if you wanna stop inflation, we need to spend trillions more dollars on the Bernie Sanders socialist budget. That's the way to fight inflation. And it's reminiscent of I'm drowning, please give me more water. Right? This, at the end of the day, is not rocket science in terms of the economics. Inflation. Inflation is caused when you print a bunch of money and you spend a bunch of money from the government, that causes inflation. Inflation prices are simply the way we make relative valuations of one good versus another. And if you inflate the currency, if you have lots more dollars, so if a gallon of milk is worth $2 and you double the number of dollars in the world, and this is simplified, but the principle is the same. That same gallon of milk is suddenly $4 because it is relative. It's how you value a gallon of milk versus an automobile.
- [29:12]
Liz Wheeler
But what of the Democrats who say, well, no, the reason that the milk is more expensive now is not because we've doubled the money, but because we've reduced the supply of the milk, that it's all a problem of production and the supply chain. And so if you're gonna blame anyone, actually you should blame Donald Trump and pay no attention to our own policies. You hear this a lot on the left wing news channels. Do they have any point?
- [29:38]
Ted Cruz
Well, look, there are certainly supply effects that are driving up costs as well. And many of these supply effects are being driven by the Biden administration. So you have, for example, vaccine mandates, you know, you're firing doctors, you're firing nurses, you're firing truck drivers, you're firing airline pilots, you're firing air traffic controllers. You're threatening to do it with all of those. And the supply is shrinking. Price at the end of the day is economics 101. It's the intersection of supply and demand. So if demand rises or supply drops, it drives the price up. In this instance, yes, we're seeing demand rise. Why? Because last year idiot politicians had shut the entire economy down. So yes, people are going back to work, that's a good thing. But supply is reduced because of things like the supply chain where you can't get the goods you need. So. So for example, I was talking to a contractor who was putting in some irrigation pipes at our house and a 90 degree elbow PVC pipe that's probably, I don't know, four or five inches in diameter. Contractor told me, he said that used to cost, that piece of plastic used to cost 20 bucks. He said, now it cost me 70 bucks. That is a massive shift in prices from 20 bucks to 70. And we're seeing that across the board. Look, gasoline, the price of gasoline's gone through the roof and the Biden administration's. So supply and demand both play an impact in prices, but also monetary factors play a role in prices and in particular the number of dollars that are out there. If there are more dollars, you have more inflation. You know, you look at the Weimar Republic, the predecessor to Nazi Germany. So you know, you had hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic. You literally had people bringing a wheelbarrow full of cash to buy a loaf of bread. And the wheelbarrow was worth more than the cash that was in it. They were printing money like crazy. And the more money you print, the higher prices go. Democrats. Jimmy Carter discovered this and it took Reagan coming in to get everything under control and to pull the inflation down. And Paul Volcker at the Fed played an important part in that too. But I gotta say there's a whole generation of young people. Do you have like real live in your life memories of inflation?
- [32:18]
Liz Wheeler
No, this is the clearest, the only real experience of inflation that I have had in my conscious life.
- [32:26]
Ted Cruz
So late 70s, early 80s, we had significant inflation. So I was born in 1970. So you know, late 70s, I'm 8, 9, 10 years old. And I mean I remember when you had inflation rates that were soaring, when you had double digit home mortgage rates. I think I believe my parents home mortgage was at 14% if I remember correctly, although I was a kid. So it's in that neighborhood, you know, now Heidi's in my home mortgage. I think we paid 2.65%, right. And, you know, we sort of grumble that we couldn't get it for 2.6. Like, it's. We've been in this weird holiday from history for the last 20 years where inflation has been largely nonexistent. Last week, the Labor Department put out the latest numbers. The price inflation in the month of October was 0.9% on an annualized basis, it was 11.9% annualized. And the thing about it is inflation. You know, Biden promised, said, I'm not going to raise taxes on anyone making under 400,000 a year. Inflation impacts low income people the hardest. So gazillionaires, you know, Bloomberg, Zuckerberg, they don't care. So does their Lamborghini cost another $50,000? Probably. But they don't care. It doesn't make a difference to them. Okay, fine, you know, Scrooge McDuck, just, you know, throw a few more gold coins on it and the problem's solved. You know, if you're a senior citizen, if you're living on a fixed income, you know, seniors, by and large, they're not out in a job. They don't have an enormous ability to alter their income if they're no longer working. And they suddenly see the cost of everything go up. They see the cost of their food going up, the cost of milk, the cost of eggs, the cost of chicken. They see their rent going up, or they see their gasoline going way, way up. They see their electricity going up. They see their heating oil going up. And on the energy side, energy is a big piece of where we're seeing inflation. The Biden administration wants energy prices to go up, and they want them to go up even further because they believe in the Green New Deal. So the suffering, the cruelty's the point. They want the prices to be so high and they don't really care. The people that are getting hurt on the receiving end of it. And I think inflation. I remember the 1980 election really well. It was the first political election I paid attention to as a kid. And the inflation. And we had what we called stagflation. Cause the economy was stagnant. And you had inflation, which was a really nasty double whammy. I think Joe Biden is heading into very similar territory of ideological extremism combined with just incompetence and that mix. That's part of the reason I think both 2022 and 2024 are gonna be such good elections.
- [35:42]
Liz Wheeler
Now, the way that you explained that, because economics, for a lot of people, I just think our eyes glaze over. I'm speaking myself included here, but that does make sense to me and the Democrats. It sounds sort of conspiratorial, but they have said, yes, we do want energy prices to go up because, yes, we do want these alternative forms of energy, and we want to incentivize people to develop that. Okay, that's all well and good. I think you might be so talented at explaining those sort of things, putting them into really simple terms, because you apparently are the mayor of Sesame Street. Senator, before we go, we can't go without recounting this. If you watched Saturday Night Live this past week, and I know that basically no one did, but if you did, or at least you saw the clip going around, then you saw that Sesame street is now really run by Senator Ted Cruz because of your fight with Big Bird.
- [36:39]
Ted Cruz
So the Cold Open this week was instead of Sesame street, it was Cruz Street. And the whole Cold Open was focused on me and Big Bird. And you know, I have to admit, I did show it to my girls who thought it was pretty damn funny that like, the opening skit of Saturday Night Live is like pounding their dad. But it was. And you had Big Bird, whose feathers are falling out because he got the COVID vaccine and it made him sick. And you had cameos from, among others, Joe Rogan. Although it was Pete Davidson playing Joe Rogan and Britney Spears. And I have to admit, I laughed and I tweeted it out to everyone and I said, wow, so Cruz street has Joe Rogan and Britney Spears. Sounds pretty damn awesome to me. Like, okay, cool, we've got. It's where they're coming from.
- [37:34]
Liz Wheeler
This is the thing that struck me about it. I'm not saying they couldn't have made a funny sketch out of it. I'm not saying that the premise is not kind of funny. But so many of the lines fell completely flat. You've got the Joe Rogan character is talking about how he's eating horse dewormer, which was this lie pushed by CNN about Ivermectin, which was completely untrue. Or, you know. So I guess the thing that struck me about it as unfunny was that whereas ordinary comedy, you know, comedy that we've all understood, haha, kind of comedy is subversive attacks. The power speaks truth to power. This comedy was all just pushing the same old talking points of the ruling class itself.
- [38:22]
Ted Cruz
Look, I think that's exactly right. And one of the things I mourn, I grieve in. Our woke politically correct cancel culture is the death of comedy, like good comedy. And you think of the traditions. You go back to the Lenny Bruce or you go back to George Carlin or you go back to Richard Pryor, you go back to Eddie Murphy. I mean, they were subversive. They were taking on power, they were using. They were ridiculing the powerful. And it's incredibly potent. If you look at SNL now, SNL is the power. And they're. When they go after Joe Rogan, they're basically all the blue check mark lefties. Everyone that has a little blue check mark next to them on Twitter were giving the golf clap. Yes, yes, yes. Silence. That pesky little troublemaker. Which is how they view a Joe Rogan. Right? You know it. And it's not funny. It's not funny for the same reason that late night comedy isn't funny anymore. You know, Stephen Colbert or Jimmy Kimmel, they're unwatchable. And both of those guys are funny guys. Colbert, when he was on the Jon Stewart show, was funny as all get out. But they've just become a hard partisan F you. That's basically their whole monologue is like an angry Bernie Sanders cursing at everyone who disagrees with him. And it's like, okay, that's just not funny.
- [40:01]
Liz Wheeler
Well, unwatchable and unwatched, I think, you know, the ratings have plummeted for all of those guys. And I have to tell you, let me know if maybe my theory is too out there. When SNL was going after Donald Trump, I'm not saying it was funny. Occasionally it would be funny, but at least they had a target. At least you kind of knew what the joke was and where they were coming from. Now they don't have old Trump to kick around anymore, and so they're going after you. So what does that say? I mean, maybe it's not pleasant to be the butt of their jokes, but maybe it is. I mean, maybe you're the one that they're afraid of.
- [40:38]
Ted Cruz
Now, look, what I can say is I laugh at it. You know, today someone tweeted it. Oh, no, I laugh at it hysterically. You know, today someone tweeted out a picture of four women dressed as Big Bird and other characters of from Sesame street and said, retweet this and you'll make Ted Cruz's head explode. So I retweeted it. And it's just kind of the left can't laugh at themselves if you can't make fun of Yourself, I think it's pretty hysterical.
- [41:19]
Liz Wheeler
And there is a kind of tone deafness. I mean, this actually gets back to what we were talking about at the very top of the show with Mayorkas. In order to tell a joke, in order to give relevant testimony, in order to have a story that resonates with people is true, you need to have some connection to reality and you need to have your feet held to the fire every now and again. And you need to know what ordinary people are saying. And if you're the Secretary of Homeland Security and your answer is, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I'll circle back. If you are Saturday Night Live and Joe Rogan is too extreme for you, Joe Rogan, the most popular podcaster in the country. Maybe, maybe you're the one with the problem. Maybe you're the one who's a little bit divorced from reality, and maybe that's reflected in your poll numbers.
- [42:05]
Ted Cruz
So let me say two things. Number one, I don't want to get you in trouble with your colleague Ben Shapiro, who would argue on the Joe Rogan title. And so, by the way, did you see the bit with Ben where he was at some college campus and some smarmy little twit stood up and said, you know, how come you say you're 59 when you're actually 55 and you're lying? And Ben handled it beautifully. He kind of chuckles and he says, well, how tall are you? And the guy's like, I'm five nine, actually. And Ben says, well, here, come on upstage. And he comes up on stage and they're exactly the same height. And the guy, as soon as he sees it, he kind of laughs and surrenders. That kid was a total planner.
- [42:52]
Liz Wheeler
That kid was five foot five. I am taking that to my grave. It was a great bit. It was a great bit.
- [42:59]
Ted Cruz
It was that I had fun with. I saw that today, maybe during one of the boring moments of the mayorkas hearing. But I'll say something. About a year or two ago, the New York Times was doing a big feature piece on Texas. And they periodically do these pieces where they're like, this was on how Texas is changing the new Texas. And so the reporter who interviewed me is a guy named Jonathan Martin, who's a longtime New York Times reporter I've talked to many times. And he's interviewing me. And I shared a lot of thoughts. And I gave him. One of the quotes I gave him is I said, Texas is no longer just home to oil and Gas wildcatters. We're now also home to Tesla and Joe Rogan. So he uses the quote, and in fact, it's the ending quote of his story. But the ending quote of his story in the very last paragraph, it ends with, texas is no longer just home to oil and gas wildcatters, period. And he cuts off the second half of the quote. And so I actually, I saw the reporter, his nickname. Everyone calls him J Mart. And I'm like, j Mart, what the hell was that? That was a money quote. I mean, seriously, that was a quality quote. Why didn't you use it? And here was his answer, Michael. He said, well, New York Times readers don't know who Joe Rogan is. And I thought that was revealing on so many levels. And I don't know this for sure, but how I interpreted the conversation, I think he actually included the full quote. And I think his editor cut out the second half and said, nobody knows who this guy is. And it shows just how out of touch they are that they view most Americans as the dirty, unwashed masses.
- [45:08]
Liz Wheeler
I agree. It does sound like an editor move. This has always been one of the issues at these legacy establishment news places is often they'll have decent reporters, but the editors are shaping public opinion. They're keeping the story in their own narrative. But then sometimes the narrative gets out, whether that's because the Secretary of Homeland Security needs to face a question, whether that's because people are shopping for Thanksgiving and they see the prices. Ultimately, reality is going to reassert itself in the end, and the fabulists are gonna have a hard time dealing with that. We've gotta leave it there, Senator.
- [45:42]
Ted Cruz
So we're not gonna do Mailbag on this episode. We'll do it on the next episode. But we're also gonna do some more Mailbag on Verdict Plus. So head on over there and you can see mailbag there. So I think that's it, Michael. At least until next time.
- [45:55]
Liz Wheeler
I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
- [46:06]
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 across the nation.