Ben Ferguson (4:38)

It's an issue of proof for many people when you give emails like this and information like, okay, prove it to me, right, prove it to me that you have access to what you claim you have access to. We've seen this when it comes to even our sources of overseas, where it's like, you know, they claim they have access to X, Y or Z or to this terrorist group and they have inside knowledge. And you basically say, okay, show me something that can verify that you're not just full of it. And that's what this email certainly would have done. It's not just impressing them, but showing you, hey, I can give you stuff that no one else can.

Senator Ted Cruz (5:16)

And look, there is no reason, there's nothing in Hunter Biden's background to suggest that he has the geopolitical expertise to write an email like this. Unless he's cribbing on what daddy has. And it's one thing if he's getting a briefing from his father or his father's team, that's not impermissible it's Hunter Biden selling access. But you know, to be honest, the Biden family has been selling access for decades. That's been the family business. It is qualitatively different if the access includes access to classified materials for which Hunter Biden does not have security clearances. And we don't know. But on the face of it, I think the odds are incredibly high, north of 90% that Hunter Biden was reading and may well have cut and paste from an official briefing his father received. And the outstanding question was, did that briefing include classified materials or not? Ordinarily, the Vice President getting ready to travel to a foreign country would get a classified briefing. So typically the Vice President's briefing would have classified information. I think there needs to be a careful examination of what was the source of this, including quite literally searching. The special counsel should search the classified briefings given the Vice President in that period of time in the period preceding that trip and compare the language and, and, and I'm going to posit a guess that there is language that is word for word on Hunter Biden's email. I don't know that, but it sure doesn't read like something Hunter Biden wrote. And, and that is worthy of a serious investigation. But if Joe Biden did in fact allow his son access to classified materials, then they both would have committed a federal crime.

Ben Ferguson (7:11)

I have to ask the question about classified documents and how long do they keep classified documents around? Because I know there's people they're going to be saying, well let me guess, they're going to say we can't find these anymore. Before I get you to answer that question about how that the storage classified documents work, I want to tell you about our friends at Patriot Mobile. If you have not checked out Patriot Mobile, they are an amazing company. A conservative Christian cell phone coming. So if you have a cell phone right now in your hand, you can keep your same cell phone, you can keep your same cell phone number and you can use the same towers that you're on right now. Except this time when you pay your bill, you're going to be supporting first and second amendment causes. You're going to be supporting protecting the rights of the unborn children and even helping with adoptions. Patriot Mobile is a company where when you use your phone, you're standing up for what you believe in. Check them out. Patriot mobile.com verdict. That's patriot mobile.com verdict. Or you can call them 9 or 878- Patriot. That's their new number. 878-PATRIOT. Make sure you use the promo code verdict for the best savings. All right, Senator, the question I know everybody's going to be thinking themselves is, all right, let's say we asked for these classified documents from this time period. What do you know? They're not gonna be able to find them, or they're gonna say they're destroyed or they're gonna have an excuse. Call us paranoid, but a lot of people expect that's how the government works now. Every time you need to see something, you can't find it. So how does it work with classified documents? How long do they keep them before there's no more, no longer a record of them? Is there a chance these documents are saved somewhere and still exist?

Senator Ted Cruz (8:55)

Well, it so happens there's a federal statute that answers that question, and it is the Presidential Records act, which requires, as a matter of federal law, that all of the president's records and all of the vice president's records, including any classified documents, must be turned over to the archives by the end of their terms. So assuming that the vice President's office complied with that federal law, the archives should have every classified briefing Joe Biden received. And so those records, you would need, obviously, clearance to read them. But I think the special counsel needs to read those briefings and compare them to Hunter Biden's email to see if the language is identical or substantially similar, because there's a very strong inference from the face of it that they are.

Ben Ferguson (9:53)

Last question on this. There does still seem to be to many of us a disconnect between the prosecution in Delaware, the prosecutor in Delaware with the Hunter Biden, and some of the tax issues and everything he's looking into. And now what's happened with the special prosecutor that is looking into these classified documents they keep finding of the President, the former Vice President Joe Biden. When you start looking at these connections here, the way that you're describing them is how are these two individuals not going to interconnect at some point and say, here, I have something you need to see, or you have something I need to see?

Senator Ted Cruz (10:30)

Well, you know, when you play poker, sometimes people have what's called a tell, and they do something that illustrates whether they have a good hand or a bad hand. Maybe they twist their ring, maybe their eye twitches, that they have something that gives away their hand. The tell from this Department of Justice as to whether it is trying to be political and protect Joe Biden and Democrats on these issues is very simple. If they are trying to keep Hunter Biden and Joe Biden altogether separate, they are engaged in politics, not law. If they're trying to say they're totally different, they're totally separate. If they want the Hunter Biden investigation to be about, well, did the guy do drugs? Did he violate his. The tax laws? Did he do things that affect a poor, troubled guy with a serious substance abuse issue? Anyone focusing on that is doing it for a reason, and that is to insulate the big guy. To insulate Joe Biden. Look, my interest in Hunter Biden is not his personal demons. The reason this is an issue of public concern is the extent to which Hunter Biden implicates his father, Joe Biden, the president, and then the vice president in official corruption. And so it is the connection between the two. When they're examining Hunter Biden, they need to be examining, what was it that Hunter Biden sold to Burisma for a million bucks a year? What was it that Hunter Biden sold to the Chinese Communist for millions of dollars a year? And when they're examining Joe Biden. Now, to be clear, the special counsel's mandate is to focus on the classified documents in Joe Biden's home. The special counsel can put blinders on and say, well, we're just looking at these documents. We're not asking who might have contacted them. We're not asking who might have examined them illegally. We're not asking if Hunter Biden, who has a long pattern of corruption, was selling access to these documents. If the special counsel, from the other side of the issue puts blinders on and refuses to examine the connections to Hunter Biden, that would raise the very strong implication that the special counsel is trying to politically protect the White House. What is a matter of public concern is the intersection between the two that, on the face of it, screams corruption.

Ben Ferguson (13:06)

Yeah, it certainly does. And this is gonna. It's gonna see how long they can keep these two at bay and how long they can try to disconnect them. But it looks like even the White Houses have a hard time controlling this story now at all. I want to move to something else.

Senator Ted Cruz (13:19)

By the way, before we move to this topic, I will say I feel kind of bad that this podcast may have played a role in getting Karine Jean Pierre yanked from the podium. You saw that her answers were so bleedingly bad, as we've talked about on previous pods, that they ended up putting John Kirby up there. Because there are only so many times she could say, good morning. What time of day it is. Talk to the White House counsel. You know what. What. What color is the sky? Talk to The White House counsel, they finally got John Kirby, who can at least answer a simple and straightforward question. You know, if this podcast played a role in that.

Ben Ferguson (13:58)

Well, I think it definitely did. When they start quoting you and the show, you know it's a good day, you know it's a good day, and you know it's a bad day for that White House. There's another big fight center that's happening in, and it's, it's an important fight in Washington, D.C. and a lot of people may not realize this is even happening because it's not being covered, in my opinion, the way that it should. And this comes down to the no Vaccine Passport Act. There are multiple aspects of this that I want to go through, because part of its no Vaccine Passport act, among its many provisions, the no Vaccine Passport act would stop the federal government from establishing COVID 19 passports or working with third parties to establish their own vaccine passports. This is a really important fight that's happening, and there's several different aspects of it. It's also no Vaccine Mandates act, the no Mask Mandate Act. This is not just one thing. It's several different big fights happening.

Senator Ted Cruz (15:00)

Well, let's, let's start out at a broader level, at a meta level, and then we'll get down to the specifics. The broader level. The question for the federal government is, is Covid over or not? Now, Joe Biden, famously walking along in an interview, said the pandemic is over. And the political voices in the White House that want to portray sunny optimism and look at the great job Democrats are want to say, okay, we've cured Covid. We solved the pandemic. Now, that happens to be largely accurate. I think the pandemic is over. It doesn't mean that people, particularly very elderly and very vulnerable people, can't get sick and dangerously sick from COVID But we are not in the midst of the pandemic anymore, and most of us have moved on with our damn life. And that's, I think, the vast majority of America. I will say, by the way, when you go to an airport, this is an aside. Isn't it fascinating? I think it's now about 10% of the people who still persist in wearing a mask. And it's almost like self identifying. And I really do. I walk through an airport and I look at them and I'm like, okay, you're crazy people. Now, look, maybe you're someone who's severely immunocompromised or there's some reason you might have a personal health reason that you need to do so. And I certainly respect that. But I just look around at what appear to be young healthy people that are masked or parents that put little kids in mask and you're just like is it a spirit of fear? Is it a spirit of ideology? Is it. Are you just so woke that you've got a virtue signal? But it is a fascinating self identification and the numbers are dwindling. It's only the hardcore that keep with it. But the meta issue for the federal government is is the pandemic over or not? And the reason it matters is Democrats and Biden in particular wants to cling to all the power the pandemic gave them. The the pandemic was an excuse for a massive expansion in the size of the federal government and government spending and government debt and in the power of the federal government. We saw abuses. We saw abuses at every level of government, but especially the federal government. And I got to tell you, I have been now for over two years leading the fight in the Senate against these abuses. And so I've introduced legislation after legislation after legislation to stop these abuses. So as you noted, I have one bill to ban vaccine passports to say you cannot require vaccine passports of any individual dealing with the government. I have another bill that that band bans vaccine mandates that says you cannot require a COVID vaccine. You can't require it in the military. You can't require it in the federal government. You can't require it at DOJ or the FBI or the border patrol. You can't require it a private business. I have another bill that ends mask mandates to say you can't force mask mandates on people. I have another bill that ends discrimination in Covid treatments. I have another bill that ends the D.C. school vaccine mandate where they are claiming they're going to throw 40% of the school kids, 40% of the African American kids out of the D.C. public schools. All of these are bills that I am fighting actively right now in the federal government. We just won a big victory on military vaccines where for two years I've been fighting to end Biden's vaccine mandate in the military. Last month we succeeded. We passed it into law where the kick drag Joe Biden kicking and screaming to sign that into law. But it is only prospective. The Democrats price was that it is only applicable going forward. It doesn't provide relief for the thousands of servicemen and women who were terminated because they declined to get the COVID vaccine. I've introduced legislation called the Americans act to give them relief to reinstate them in the military. If they want to go back at their original rank to give them the benefits they're due, and if they choose not to go back into the military to ensure that they have an honorable discharge and not merely a general discharge, so that they receive the benefits they've earned by fighting for our country, Are.

Ben Ferguson (19:17)

Democrats still digging in on that? I know that. And so they're just not wavering. In other words, they're saying, forget taking care of these people. They didn't bow to our demand with the vaccine mandate. They don't deserve to have health coverage no matter how long they were serving their country. If we get rid of them this way, there is no movement from them, no remorse, no compromise, no spirit of compromise. Or forget that. Let's just bring it down to spirit of, Of. Of humanity, spirit of, of compassion for many men and women in the military that have lost their health benefits that were desperately needed for chronic conditions for them and their children.

Senator Ted Cruz (19:54)

Well, look, I'm not going to speak to the. To the hearts of Democrat senators. I will speak to their votes. Their votes are consistently against the servicemen and women who were unjustly terminated. We don't even know the numbers. The Biden administration won't answer. I've repeatedly tried to get answers. We know it's in the thousands. It may well be in excess of 10,000. But they won't answer the question. And I will commit, and I have committed unequivocally that I am going to keep fighting for every soldier, every sailor, every airman, every Marine, every Coast Guardsman who was wrongfully terminated, who was wrongfully demoted. And I'm going to keep fighting for them until they get justice. What they did is wrong. And I'll tell you, Ben, I mean, I've. When you talk with Navy seals as I have, when you look in their eyes and they're angry, look, I'm not remotely bad enough to badass enough to be a Navy seal. I couldn't survive. Buds I dropped drown in the seashore. I respect what those guys do. They're American heroes and they go in harm's way without blinking. And for these partisan hacks to just throw their service in the waste bin, not care about it at all, say you're terminated, you're out of luck, it doesn't matter. And mind you, we've got a shortage of new recruits. It's hurting, hurting military readiness at the same time. But what I believe is happening is I think the Biden administration is using vaccine mandates politically to purge the federal government of conservatives and of troublesome people, I think they're doing it in the military. I think they're doing it at doj. I think they're doing it the FBI. I think they're doing it the border Patrol. Throughout the federal government, they view it. It's actually the mirror image. I talked before about how in airports, wacky lefties self identified by wearing their pink masks walking down the aisle. Yeah, well, it's the flip side, which is in the federal government, a lot of conservatives self identify by saying, I ain't getting this vaccine and you're not gonna make me. And I think the Biden Dems are thrilled and saying, okay, good, you're fired. We're gonna purge you out of the federal government. I think it is a shamelessly political objective. And whether any Democrat feels something in their heart for them, they certainly are not willing to vote for them. But I think we can still get more done the way we repealed the COVID vaccine mandate in the military, which is using leverage on must pass legislation. And so I'm going to keep pressing to do that. And mind you, the Biden administration is utterly schizophrenic on this. They want to have it both ways. So they. On the one hand, Joe Biden trumpets the pandemic is over. Yay. We solved it. On the other hand, the Biden administration is actively appealing in the federal court of appeals to have the authority to reinstate the mask mandate on planes, while at the same time, they are trying to end the use of Title 42. And they say Covid exists everywhere on earth except our southern border. And we have. Last month we had over 250,000 encounters with illegal immigrants in December. It is the worst month at the border in the history of our country. Let me repeat that. December of 2022 was the highest level of illegal immigration ever recorded in the history of the United States of America. Over 250,000 illegal encounters. And it's the 10th consecutive month with encounters over 200,000. And yet the Biden administration is saying Covid doesn't exist at the border. Just in every kindergarten, in every hospital, in the federal government, everywhere they want to have their. Their tentacles of power. Except when it comes to securing the border.

Ben Ferguson (24:07)

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Senator Ted Cruz (25:53)

I believe the answer is yes. I believe the House of Representatives will impeach Alejandro Mayorkas. I think they will do it this year, likely in the first half of the year. I will be shocked if they don't go forward. It is, I think it's extremely likely and I think it is important. We have never had a cabinet secretary so utterly refused to do his job and in fact instruct his employees to actively defy federal law to frustrate federal law. Federal immigration law requires that people here illegally be removed, be deported. Instead, what Mayorkas has done is directed Homeland Security to facilitate and expedite people breaking the law. To that, he wants the turnstile to move more quickly. He his entire objective is to have even more people come here illegally. It's not to stop them, it's not to deport them, it's not to secure the border. He wants to make it even more efficient that when you cross illegally, Joe Biden's travel agent will take you wherever you want to go and set you up. It is there has never been a Cabinet officer devote his entire time to, number one, abdicating his entire statutory responsibility. But number two, even worse, if he simply abdicated and didn't do his job, that would be terrible. But he's doing even worse. He is directing everyone in his control to actively facilitate lawbreaking. And I believe the House will impeach him. And then in the Senate, Chuck Schumer will do everything he can to sweep it under the rug and have nobody pay attention. But we need to focus the American people on the tragedy that is unfolding every day on the southern border that the media ignores and that. And that the Democrats have caused.

Ben Ferguson (27:48)

Finally, you talked about this on the last episode and it was, it was a pretty funny conversation from my perspective, saying you. And we showed the old tweet you predicted. And if you missed this, guys, go back and listen. The last episode of Verdict, you predicted that there was going to be hell to pay for kicking Republicans off committees when Nancy Pelosi allowed that to happen, saying, if. If you're going to do it to Republicans, it's probably going to be done. Right back to you. Now the media is trying to say do everything they can to save people and act like they're somehow a victim of the exact same thing that they were doing to Republicans. Eric Swalwell. And I guess this is like rehab 101. I'm talking about rehab on TV, trying to rehabilitate him as some great congressman he was on State of the Union. Dana Bash set him up with this question and I just laughed. And I want to get your reaction to it.

Dana Bash (28:48)

Congressman, you were also removed by Republicans from the Intelligence Committee. What the speaker said about you is that beginning in 2012, a suspected Chinese spy developed ties to you and to your office, even put an internal there, raised campaign funds for you. You say very clearly you cut off ties with this person back in 2015 when you found out you cooperated with the FBI. But the bottom line question is this. Did you put yourself in a vulnerable position in any way so that this alleged Chinese spy could have benefited or even learn American secrets? Absolutely not. But, Dana, don't take my word for it. Take the FBI's word for it. They never talk about ongoing investigations. And former Chairman Schiff knows this. As a member of the Gang of Eight, three different times they came out and said two things. All I did was help them. And also, I was never under any suspicion of wrongdoing.

Senator Ted Cruz (29:47)

So I gotta say, Ben, I can't.

Ben Ferguson (29:50)

Even keep a straight face. Senator. Like, it's just like I watched this. And I was like, you've got to be kidding me. They're all sitting there like, this is a serious, like, like alibi.

Senator Ted Cruz (30:00)

All right, so. So you and I both know Dana Bash. Well, you, you worked for years at cnn. You, you've been in the belly of the beast. I have done many an interview with Dan. I actually like her personally. She's, she's less of a whack job lefty than many of the people at cnn. That being said, that question is one of the funniest things I've ever heard in my life. I actually wrote down a couple of the phrases she used. They threw you off the Intel Committee because they alleged you, quote, developed ties to an alleged Chinese spy. And then she goes on to say, but then you cut off ties to the alleged Chinese spy. And then she said, did you put yourself in a vulnerable position? Now all of those are really side splitting euphemisms for you were sleeping with a Chinese spy. You weren't developing ties. She's not asking if he was into S and M and if he tied her up or not, but the phrase, she doesn't want to say, were you having a sexual affair with a Chinese spy while she was working for the communist government of China? Instead, CNN is suddenly very sensitive. No, there is no sex on cnn. It's just developed ties. It's just cut off ties. Did you put yourself in a vulnerable position?

Ben Ferguson (31:28)

Yeah.

Senator Ted Cruz (31:28)

You know what? A, going to bed with a Chinese spy is not developing ties. And by the way, that Chinese spy, in addition to having sex with Eric Swalwell. And I will say, boy, talk about a Chinese spy willing to do anything for the communist government. I mean, that is commitment.

Ben Ferguson (31:50)

That's commitment right there.

Senator Ted Cruz (31:51)

Look, Fang Fang, I may not like who she works for, but I, but I do have to commend her that she's willing to take a bullet.

Ben Ferguson (32:00)

Yeah, that's tenure on a whole new level when she got home.

Senator Ted Cruz (32:03)

But did you ever know CNN to be so fragile and sensitive to.

Ben Ferguson (32:08)

No, Never.

Senator Ted Cruz (32:08)

To spin for the politician. Can you imagine? All right, just, just, just engage in a thought experiment. Imagine if everything were the same, but instead of Eric Swalwell, it was Donald Trump. Remember the whole stormy Daniels thing? CNN 24 7.

Ben Ferguson (32:26)

And then they even said the lawyer.

Senator Ted Cruz (32:29)

They wanted to be president.

Ben Ferguson (32:30)

The guy in jail. Yeah, you should be present. They said that on tv. He was a serious contender for the White House because of, quote, his presence on cable news. He was on the View. He was on every channel talking about Stormy Daniels, the porn Star Donald Trump and all of that. They ran it wall to wall prime time, but now they're gonna be PC about how they talk about an actual Chinese spy actually sleeping. I mean, literally sleeping with the enemy. This is the definition of sleeping with the enemy.

Senator Ted Cruz (32:59)

Can you imagine CNN interviewing Donald Trump about Stormy Daniels and just saying, well, the allegation is you developed ties with an alleged movie actress. That's the equivalent of this.

Ben Ferguson (33:16)

Yeah.

Senator Ted Cruz (33:16)

And then you cut off ties. I don't remember their squeamishness. And it's very simple. CNN views its job in that interview is we are the public relations firm for the Democrats. And so as you mentioned, it was a rehabilitation tour. But it is so screamingly funny because they're bad at it. They're not subtle, they're naked. And, you know, they might as well just wear. I think CNN should issue blue T shirts to all of their reporters that just have DNC and a picture of a giant donkey on it. Because like nascar, you know nascar, like nascar.

Ben Ferguson (33:56)

This is who we're sponsored by.

Senator Ted Cruz (33:58)

Exactly.

Ben Ferguson (33:58)

Yeah. It would actually be brilliant. I love it. Senator, always a pleasure. Don't forget, if you're listening to this podcast, we do two others during the week as well. We publish Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Hit that subscribe or auto download button. Make sure you tell your family and friends about this podcast as we literally break news here, as we talked about the beginning of the show, that is making major headaches for this White House. And please write us the five star review as well so that more people will find this podcast. The senator and I will see you back here on Wednesday.