Senator Ted Cruz (3:12)

Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary she obviously, and this is when you know it's a coordinated and orchestrated effort by talking heads, former White House Press here, Terry, people in the media, people at the State Department, people in, in social media circles on the left and celebrities and others. This is what she had to say on Israel on msnbc. Well, and Jen, it's very easy for people to say the president should do a, the president should do. See, there is also the very real possibility, and they understand this, if the president turns on Netanyahu, if the president says we're going to stop sending weapons, that Netanyahu actually uses that to gain more power inside of Israel, saying, see, we have been abandoned even by the United States. We have to fight on.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (4:10)

That's right, Joe, and I think that's important, too. Look, clearly the strategy that the United States is implementing at this point is not working to change the behavior of Prime Minister Netanyahu. It is not working to end the war. So obviously something has to change. And I think it's pretty clear they're discussing that. I think in the White House, and I hope in the White House in this Situation Room at this point in time, the question is what that will be. And there's a number of allies of President Biden's in the Senate, Democratic senators and others who've been pretty outspoken about the need for conditioning aid, at least as a consideration. That's obviously something that is being considered, should be considered. The question is, will that change the behavior and what additional leverage needs to be put on Prime Minister Netanyahu at this point in time to change the trajectory. But you're right, there's a calculation, if you're discussing this, if you're the president, if you're the national security team, about what would prompt Prime Minister Netanyahu to be more aggressive, what would prompt him to be less aggressive. Obviously, nothing has worked to date, but it's, it's not as easy as it sounds to make that determination.

Senator Ted Cruz (5:15)

Senator, not one time did she say anything about putting pressure on Hamas, the terrorist organization, or the Palestinian that are supporting the, the terrorists to stop them. They're talking about Israel, like Israel is the terrorist organization that started all this. They were the ones that were attacked.

Ben Ferguson (5:33)

Look, that they Treat Israel is a client state. They treat Israel as the oppressors and understand the base of their party believes Israel is their oppressors. And also get, you know, there's some folks, there's a popular media narrative that, hey, Joe Biden is really pro Israel, but he's just got a political problem that his party is not. That's actually not accurate. Joe Biden has been undermining Israel for more than 50 years. Let's go back to 1982. 1982 was a long time ago. 1982, Joe Biden was on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He had a private meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. And Joe Biden decided to do what he's doing now to threaten Israel. To threaten, we're going to cut off US Aid if Israel did not stop, quote, settlements in Judea and Samaria. So frankly, the same thing he was saying in 82 as what he's saying now, we don't like Israel. You don't have any right to settle the land of Israel. And if you do, we're going to cut you off. And here's what Begin responded to, and this is one of the most famous responses by any Israeli prime minister. And it was in 1982. So a long, long time ago, here's what Begin said to Joe Biden, then a senator, quote, don't threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jewish with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it, we fought for it, we died for it. We will stand by our principles, we will defend them, and when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid. That's what the Prime Minister of Israel said to Joe Biden over 40 years ago. You know what? The Prime Minister of Israel is still saying that to Joe Biden. But sadly, the entire Democrat Party is with Biden undermining Israel and effectively forming a protective shield around the Hamas terrorists who committed the most unspeakable acts of modern times that we have seen.

Senator Ted Cruz (8:06)

Senator, last question for you, and it's a really important one. If the Elizabeth Warren's of the Democratic Party and if the AOCs and Rashid Tlaibs and others are able to flip the script the way it seems like we're going with the help of the media, what happens if, in fact we don't give the aid needed and the military weaponry needed that Israel is willing to buy from us because this president caves and blocks it. What happens to Israel then?

Ben Ferguson (8:36)

Well, listen, the Biden administration and the Democrats in the Congress hope that Israel will give in, that, that they want to, number one, undermine Benjamin Netanyahu. And I'm not, listen, I'm not being partisan in this. I'm not intuiting or supposing this. Chuck Schumer said it on the Senate floor. He said he wants Netanyahu to be forced out of office. He wants Israel to have a new election and for them to elect a prime minister whose views he likes. And apparently the voters of Israel don't have a right to choose their own leader, that it's going to be the Democrats in Washington who choose that. But look, the White House and the Congressional Democrats, they hope that by attacking Israel relentlessly, by threatening to cut off money, by undermining their international support, that Israel will get cold feet, that they will get weak knees, they will stop attacking Hamas and in particular Rafah. Look, the Hamas leadership, the Hamas terrorists are all gathered in Rafah. Now. I'll tell you, I sat down doing a zoom call two weeks ago with Prime Minister Netanyahu. He joined all the Republican senators at our lunch. I can tell you, two weeks ago, he was unequivocal. He said, we will go to Rafah, we will enter Rafah, we will engage in a military campaign, and we will utterly eliminate Hamas. And if America is not there, we'll do it on our own. To be honest, what Netanyahu said, it was almost word for word what Menachem Begin said, that has not changed. It's one of the reasons. Listen, as a Texan, I've explained, people have asked me a lot of times, they've said, how is it? How did it come to pass that a Cuban, Texan, Southern Baptist became the leading defender of Israel in the Senate? And there are lots of reasons for that. But I'll tell you, one of the biggest is the attitude of Israel. Israel is surrounded by nations that would drive it into the sea, that would murder every Israeli, every Jew, if they could. And the only reason they don't is because Israel is strong enough to defeat them all. I gotta say, that is an incredibly Texan foreign policy. It is a national security policy. I have more than once wished that American foreign policy could have the clarity and strength that Israel's does. And so I'm not surprised that Netanyahu is saying the same thing. Menachem Begin said, forty plus years later, which is Israel only survives because they can survive. They are not dependent on the largesse, they, the welfare from Democrats who are condescending to flick breadcrumbs from their table. But I really do wonder, Ben, is there one Democrat in Congress with the guts to stand up to Biden and say this is wrong, we stand with Israel, we stand, we stand against Hamas and all of the rest of this is garbage. If they have, I haven't seen it.

Senator Ted Cruz (11:34)

Now if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week. Now on to story number two. Senator, finally I want to talk about our RFK Jr. CNN decided to have him on and they thought they were giving him a softball question that was going to be easy and he's going to rip on Donald Trump. Tee it up from there because it didn't go the way they thought it was going to go at all.

Ben Ferguson (12:03)

Well, that's exactly right. CNN tossed RFK Jr. A question that they thought RFK would say, oh yes, Trump is clearly the manifest threat to democracy and so you really should vote for Joe Biden instead. Well, RFK did not play along and listen to this exchange because CNN was astonished at what RFK had to say.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (12:24)

Eyes on too many issues. While I admire his high minded ideals, his suggestion that there is no difference between Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush is irresponsible. A moment ago you said you, you essentially see Trump and Biden as the same, different, different issues. But do you really believe that when people talk about the threat to democracy that Trump poses, do you really think that that is, is an equal evil to Biden?

Jen Psaki (12:46)

Listen, I can make the argument President Biden is a much worse threat to democracy and the reason for that is President Biden is the first candidate in history, the first president in history that has used the federal agencies to censor political speech so to censor his opponent. I can say that because I just won a case in the federal court of appeals and now before the Supreme Court that shows that he started censoring not just me, 37 hours after he took the oath of office, he was censoring me. No president in the country has ever done that. The greatest threat, democracy is not somebody who questions election returns, but a President United States who use the power of his office to force the social media companies, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter to open a portal and give access to that portal, to the FBI, to the CIA, to the irs, the sizer, the nih to censor his political critics. President Biden for the first, first president, history used the Secret, his power over the Secret Service to deny Secret Service protection to one of his political opponents for political reasons. He's weaponizing federal agencies. Those are really critical threats.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (14:01)

Donald Trump, of course, tried to overturn a free and fair election. He tried to overturn one.

Ben Ferguson (14:07)

Right.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (14:07)

Is he still fighting court? He said, how is that not a threat to democracy?

Jen Psaki (14:13)

Well, I think that is a threat to democracy if him over trying to overthrow the election clearly is threat democracy. But the question was, who is a worse threat to democracy? And what I would say is, I, you know, I'm not going to answer that question, but I can argue that President Biden is. Because the First Amendment, Aaron, is the most important. But Adams and Hamilton, President Madison said, we put the guarantee of freedom of expression in the First Amendment because all of our other constitutional rights depend on it. If you have a government that can silence its opponent, it has license for any atrocity.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (14:50)

So just to be clear, you're saying you could make an argument that President Biden is a worse threat to democracy than.

Senator Ted Cruz (14:55)

You listen to that Senator. And it's like, they're like, whoa, hold on.

Jen Psaki (14:59)

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Senator Ted Cruz (15:00)

This is not what you're supposed to say. Say, this is not this. You were supposed to say, Donald Trump, Orange Man's bad and a threat to democracy. Obviously you weren't supposed to say, Joe Biden's actually a bigger threat. And by the way, explain exactly how he is.

Ben Ferguson (15:15)

Warning Will Robinson. Warning Will Robinson. Danger, danger, danger. Abort. Run away. Run away. That's what CNN is saying. They're losing their minds. No, no, that's not the message. The only message we allow on CNN is, is Trump bad. Trump bad. Trump bad. You're RFK Jr. Your dad was RFK, your uncle was JFK. You're supposed to echo our message. Trump, Orange man bad. Orange man bad. Look, I gotta say, listening to that, I agree with every single word Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Said right there. When it comes to a threat to democracy, number one, Joe Biden, and for that matter, Congressional Democrats are perfectly happy to use government power and big tech to censor you, to silence you, to prevent you from engaging in political speech, prevent you from disagreeing with them. They want to use force to silence you. Secondly, he pointed out Joe Biden is disgracefully denying Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Secret Service Protection, that despite the fact that he is clearly polling at the thresholds that would merit that protection, that he is facing significant threats of political violence against him and the tragic family history his father was assassinated when he was running for president. His uncle was assassinated when he was president. And Joe Biden and the Democrats are cynical enough that they're willing to risk, well, okay, if RFK Jr gets assassinated, that's a risk Joe Biden's willing to take. It is disgraceful. And we've called that out on this podcast before. That, of course, Joe Biden should give RFK Secret Service protection. That's following the law. That. That is consistent with the law. It's consistent with precedent. And the only reason not to is pure partisan politics. Let me say something else. Look, I have conversations with people all the time. I have conversations with people today where they make comments about, gosh, I'm worried if Trump wins. He's an authoritarian, he's a dictator. I'm worried what he will do. And, you know, my standard response is, listen, I understand that. And sometimes Trump has rhetoric that can be used to suggest that. That being said, we don't have to hypothesize what Trump will do as president. He was president for four years. And if you look at the time he was president, he didn't abuse his power. He followed the law. If you look at the policies he implemented, and I worked hand in hand with Donald Trump, the policies he implemented worked. We saw the lowest unemployment rates in 50 years. We saw the lowest African American unemployment ever recorded. We saw the lowest Hispanic unemployment ever recorded. We saw peace and prosperity. We saw the border secured. We saw peace breaking out in the Middle east and the Abraham Accords. All of that played out. And if you look at what Trump did, he didn't defy the law. He didn't ignore the law. He didn't issue lawless executive orders. He followed the law. Now, he demonstrated courage. He made decisions that were bold, but they were within the law. Contrast that to Joe Biden. Joe Biden, number one, is responsible for profoundly politicizing the Department of Justice and the FBI. Number two is responsible for the greatest assault on democracy we've ever seen, which is the four indictments of Donald Trump. The abuse of the legal process design. Mind you, Trump is not the target. The voters are the target. They're terrified the voters will vote for Trump, and they're trying to prosecute, for the first time in history and the second time in history and the third time in history and the fourth time in history, a former president and a leading presidential candidate, because they want to stop democracy from playing out. To be clear, also, these are the same Democrats that in Colorado, in Illinois and Maine, threw Donald Trump off the ballot because you know, nothing says defending democracy like stopping the damn voters from voting for the person you don't want them to. This is Democrats. And let's be clear, also, Joe Biden, when it comes to being a dictator, to being lawless, look at what he's doing on the southern border. He's utterly ignoring federal immigration law. He's releasing people into this country. He's releasing criminals into this country. He's endangering this country. 10.4 million illegal immigrants. It is lawless. No president has ever done this. Barack Obama didn't do this. Bill Clinton didn't do this. Jimmy Carter didn't do this. Only Joe Biden is brazenly lawless. Let's be clear. Also, when it came to student loans, Joe Biden, trying to buy votes, tried to give away a trillion dollars, a trillion dollars just in an effort to buy votes and win elections. Now, a president can't give away a trillion dollars without Congress passing legislation to do so. Joe Biden knows that. The lawyers and his administration know that. They didn't care. They wanted to lawlessly be political. And so of course, what happened? The Supreme Court struck it down and said, no, the president doesn't have the ability to give away a trillion dollars just to buy votes. By the way, same thing happened with COVID vaccine mandates. Utterly lawless, abusive, trying to force people to get Covid vaccines. The president had no authority to do it. Biden administration did. So anyway, what happened, The Supreme Court struck it down, said, this is lawless. This is not the federal law. You look at who actually has been lawless and dictatorial. And I agree with rfk. There's a powerful argument the answer to that is Joe Biden and not Donald J. Trump. And that makes CNN and every other corporate media entity, their heads explode.

Senator Ted Cruz (20:54)

As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and download the podcast from earlier this week to hear the entire thing. I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed. Finally, Senator, I want to ask you about something that happened this last week. And, and it was a story that was. I, I was even shocked by it. The former RNC chairwoman was hired by NBC News to become a commentator, slash NBC News. She was hired, it came out. And what ended up happening was virtually every name that was a host of a show, a big talent at NBC, including Meet the Press, said, we're not gonna work with her. She's a radical Trump extremist January Sixer. We're not going to work with her. And they, they, they literally ripped her on air in a way that I didn't even think they would do. But they did it. And here's a montage of just how bad it was, joined by former RNC.

Ben Ferguson (22:01)

Chair Rhonda McDaniel in her first interview.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (22:04)

Since stepping down as party chair. In full disclosure to our viewers, this.

Ben Ferguson (22:08)

Interview was scheduled weeks before it was.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (22:10)

Announced that McDaniel would become a paid NBC News contributor. This will be a news interview and.

Ben Ferguson (22:16)

I was not involved in her hiring.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (22:19)

I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation. And look, there's a reason why there's a lot of journalists at NBC News uncomfortable with this. Because many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting, have been met with character assassination.

Senator Ted Cruz (22:34)

We weren't asked our opinion of the hiring, but if we were, we would have strongly objected to it.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (22:38)

NBC News, either wittingly or unwittingly, is teaching election deniers that what they can do stretches well beyond appearing on our air in interviews to peddle lies about.

Ben Ferguson (22:49)

The sanctity and integrity of our elections.

Senator Ted Cruz (22:52)

But that they can do that as one of us.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (22:54)

As bad carrying employees of NBC News.

Jen Psaki (22:58)

There is an easy way to avoid.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (23:01)

The controversy NBC News has stumbled into.

Ben Ferguson (23:06)

Don't hire anyone close to the crimes.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (23:10)

She literally backed an illegal scheme to steal an election in the state of Michigan. That is the type of experience that Ronna McDaniel brings to the table. And that experience does not get us to a deeper understanding of anything in the public debate. I want to associate myself with all my colleagues both at MSNBC and at NBC News, who, who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company putting on the payroll. Someone who hasn't just attacked us as journalists, but someone who is part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government.

Senator Ted Cruz (23:46)

Senator, that was clearly orchestrated by the talent. They were not going to work with her and they were going to ruin her career before it even started.

Ben Ferguson (23:54)

Well, look, NBC News, sadly, is a joke. MSNBC News. It would be a joke if anyone watched it, but it's just sort of a left wing primal scream and the utter hypocrisy of everyone. So much of this was started by Chuck Todd. And Chuck Todd had this whole screed, this self righteous, holier than thou screed that he did on Meet the Press. Now here's an interesting bit you may not know. Do you know how Chuck Todd got his start? How is that as a staffer in 1992 for the presidential campaign of Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat. So Chuck Todd was a Democrat staffer on a presidential campaign, mind you, not just in passing, but let's go back to Chuck Todd's predecessor, Tim Russert. Tim Russert, the gold standard of Meet the Press, the gold standard of NBC News. Do you know what Tim Russert did before he went to NBC?

Senator Ted Cruz (24:54)

I'm going to go out and limit, say, a Democratic staffer.

Ben Ferguson (24:57)

He worked for US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat from New York. He served as special counsel to Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He served as chief of staff to Daniel Patrick Moynihan. And then in 1983, he became a top aide to New York Governor Mario Cuomo, also a Democrat. So he was a senior Democrat staffer over and over again for multiple Democrats. And then he went to NBC News. Let's fast forward George Stephanopoulos. Where did George Stephanopoulos make his name as a senior press hack for the Clinton White House? He was a political staffer his entire life. By the way, he's the premier political commentator at ABC now. And, and, and let's not forget Jen Psaki, happily ensconced at msnbc. She was, of course, Joe Biden's White House press secretary. She stood up there and spin, baby, spin, baby, spin. And she got hired basically straight from the White House, where she continues to do the same job. She is still, as far as I'm concerned, the White House press secretary. She's actually a much better press secretary than Karine Jean Pierre. Why? Because Karine Jean Pierre is not very good at her job. All she does is lie. To Psaki's credit, she actually rarely directly lied. She just pivoted, she circled back, she spun. But she rarely made flat out demonstrably provable falsehoods, whereas Kareem Jean Pierre seems to do so on an almost daily basis. But the entirety of that, understand the position of NBC is essentially, we cannot tolerate an actual Republican who works for us. And by the way, there were a few folks who, who got online and they said, no, no, no, that's not true, that's not true. That's not true because Nicole Wallace is on MSNBC and she was a Republican staffer and Joe Scarborough, he was a Republican congressman. Well, that's true. They were in a prior life Republicans. But both Nicole Wallace and Joe Scarborough voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. So the position of NBC News is we cannot actually hire anybody who voted for Donald Trump as Long as you vote for Democrats. You could have been a Republican long in your distant life, but you must have abandoned half of the country and decided they're evil deplorables. Those are the only people we are willing to hire.

Senator Ted Cruz (27:23)

Welcome to MSNBC and NBC News as you described it. And again, I'm not a big person advocating or supporting reporting like oh, sue somebody. But I hope she gets a big payday the way they treat her. And apparently she found out she was fired through media reports, not even from a phone call from NBC News. I, I hope that she gets a huge payout from this. She deserves every dime after watching her colleagues run her name through the mud the way they did and treat her the way they did so.

Ben Ferguson (27:53)

And let me make an important point on this. So MSNBC has a niche as a hard left network. That's why they have so few viewers. But they're hard left. Now let me ask you something. Why does NBC, I mean NBC pretends to actually be a real journalistic outfit. Why do they have a subsidiary that is just a hard left platform? By the way, they all decry Fox News, but MSNBC is hard left, unapologetically so. And by the way, you know what the Ms. Stands for? Microsoft. Why exactly is Microsoft funding hard left propaganda? Why is NBC, why are they okay with a network that has an explicit ideological agenda? And one of the points to understand it was NBC News that, that hired Ronna McDaniel. And, and, and I'm going to make the case to you, there is no difference between MSNBC and NBC. They are one in the same. NBC no longer pretends to be journalists. They are advocates. They are msnbc. They are the left wing of the Democrat Party. There's a reason, by the way, in, in the last presidential cycle they were thrown out of moderating because they're so hardcore and partisan. Now I guess somebody in their corporate leadership decided they wanted to at least have a nod of, have somebody on the staff who had voted with half of the country. But, but let me ask you, Ben. So, so you actually have been a, a paid conservative at a left wing network at cnn you were paid for a number of years. What was that like then? And give us your perspectives from having been in Ronna's shoes, although at a different time.

Senator Ted Cruz (29:41)

It's funny that you asked this because I was doing Outnumbered hosting, Outnumbered on, I think it was Wednesday when this story broke and they came to me, they're like, look, you've got an interesting perspective. I said, yeah, I was hired for our, my Contract was extended. When I was at cnn, I was there a total of seven years. But the last year was just. And this is how much it even changed at cnn. They used to want, when they, when Jeff Zucker took over, a grand debate, they wanted conservatives to have people that they thought were, well, representing them so that conservatives wouldn't, you know, basically immediately skip over the channel. Once Donald Trump won in 16, the wheels came off at CNN. They hated him. They hated. And they yelled and screamed and tried to turn you into bigot, racist, homophobe, xenophobe, everything they could and try to ruin your career when you were on because they couldn't yell at Trump, but they could yell at you and you were supporting Trump or defending Trump. But in the last year that I was there, they hired me just to have my name on a piece of paper as a get out of free jail card. When someone said, you guys have no conservatives, and they would say, no, no, no, no, no. Look over here we have Ben Ferguson. In my last year, I did two appearances on cnn. Now, that's absurd from a financial standpoint. If you were a financial person, why would you hire a guy, give him a salary, and only have him come to work two days out of 365 days in a year? One of those two appearances was after the Hollywood Reporter did a story about me being benched. And then they put me on the next day on a Saturday for four minutes just to say, no, C's not benched. We just used him today. And then never used me again. And with Ronna McDowell, I have to say, with her, I think that's part of what they wanted. They wanted to go into this election cycle saying, we've got a token concern. This lady just ran the rnc. We see we're not biased. We've got her on the air. As always. Thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. Don't forget to download my podcast. And you can listen to podcast every other day. You're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards. I'd love to have you as a listener to again the Ben Ferguson Podcast. And we will see you back here on Monday morning.