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- [00:01]
Michael Knowles
The first day of President Trump's impeachment trial has just come to a close. And we are joined here by one of the jurors to help us break it all down. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. You may have noticed that I am not Ted Cruz. I am Michael Knowles. I am joined here by the man himself, Senator Cruz. Senator, busy day?
- [00:31]
Ted Cruz
Pretty much business as usual.
- [00:33]
Michael Knowles
It was a nice business as usual 13 hour day during the first full day of the impeachment trial. You know, we all know the arguments we've been hearing about impeachment now since about five seconds after Trump got elected. Did anything change today during these debates?
- [00:50]
Ted Cruz
You know, I don't think anyone's mind was changed. I think anyone who came in as a yes is still a yes. Anyone who came in as a no is still a no. I think that's true for the 100 senators, but I think that's also true for the people at home. We're sitting here right now. It is 2:42 in the morning.
- [01:06]
Michael Knowles
You've come here straight from the Hill to this studio to do a podcast. I'll ask you why maybe in a little bit, but you're coming right on the heels of this debate. And yet nobody's mind was really changed.
- [01:20]
Ted Cruz
Well, we saw 11 motions from the Democrats, one after the other after the other. This was all a battle of pretrial motions and sort of the early battles in a trial. And the weird thing was those 11 motions, it was the same thing over and over again. So I have to admit, I expected the first one and maybe even the second one. I didn't expect them to keep filing basically the same motion, keep making the same arguments over and over again. It was like Groundhog Day, except they'd get up and have a different House manager stand up and make the same damn arguments. And you saw like the senators in the chamber, just their eyes glazing over. And I'll tell you, Michael, what was revealing. So when we started at 1 o'clock, the Senate gallery was packed. There were lots of reporters up there with the people sitting there as it went on. Within a few hours, the reporters had cleared out. Half the reporters were gone. And by 8, 9 o'clock at night, the gallery was empty. Like everyone had left and said, okay, I don't know what's going on here, but I'm bored out of my mind.
- [02:25]
Michael Knowles
This is what I was wondering the whole time because I wasn't really surprised by much of what was going on. We knew what to expect other than the time. What Are they thinking, I mean, what is the end game here for these Democratic House impeachment managers?
- [02:38]
Ted Cruz
Look, they're trying to drive a message, but I'm not sure what's gained by just droning on over and over and over again. What exactly they thought was beneficial about talking at 1:30 in the morning.
- [02:54]
Michael Knowles
Right.
- [02:55]
Ted Cruz
Who was listening? And, you know, it was interesting also, I thought the House managers. Look, I'll say at the beginning, at the beginning, I thought the first couple of hours, the House managers were doing a pretty good job. They sounded more reasonable, they sounded less partisan than they, than they were during, during the House proceedings.
- [03:17]
Michael Knowles
It was good political theater.
- [03:19]
Ted Cruz
It was that. There were some good moments. I'm sure MSNBC will be clipping little segments of it and saying, oh, this was powerful and wonderful. But then it got, number one, really redundant. But number two, it was striking to see, especially Adam Schiff and Nadler just lecturing and condescending not only to the senators, but to the American people. It was a harangue by the end of it. It wasn't designed to convince.
- [03:51]
Michael Knowles
Yes. And I want to ask you about the theatrical side of it, because it seems to me there are two theories on impeachment. And on the one hand, you've got guys like Alan Dershowitz who are on the president's legal team and actually was a professor of yours in law school.
- [04:07]
Ted Cruz
He taught me criminal law.
- [04:08]
Michael Knowles
Well, what Professor Dershowitz has said is that there is a legal requirement for impeachment. So it's not just all political theater. There actually is a legal threshold you've got to meet for an impeachable offense. Then on the other hand, you've got guys like former President Gerald Ford who said impeachment is pretty much whatever the Congress says it is. And high crimes and misdemeanors are however we want to define it at the time. You are not only a senator, you are a constitutional lawyer, one of the brightest legal minds in the country. Which is it? Is there a legal requirement for impeachment?
- [04:43]
Ted Cruz
Look, there absolutely is. The Constitution specifies what's required for impeachment. And the framers, if you look at the standard, you can impeach a president for treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. That's what the Constitution specifies. And if you get to the heart of the problem with the House Democrats case here, it's that they haven't alleged treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors. That their disagreement. We heard a lot of this today is they Just don't like the guy. They hate President Trump, in case anyone missed that point. And they disagree with him. They disagree with him on foreign policy, they disagree with him on politics. And you know what? They're entitled to have that view. That's the beautiful thing about our democratic process. But disagreeing with someone politically or on policy is not sufficient grounds to impeach them. You've got to demonstrate treason, which they haven't alleged. You've got to demonstrate bribery, which they haven't alleged, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. And it's interesting, if you look at so what is a high crime or misdemeanor? You can actually learn a lot from the history of the Constitution. When the Constitutional Convention began, the text of the Constitution just said, treason or bribery. So those were the only two grounds. And then at the convention, George Mason, who's one of the more respected of the Founding Fathers, said, look, treason and bribery are too narrow. We need to be broader. So Mason proposed adding the word maladministration.
- [06:10]
Michael Knowles
So you're just no good at governing. You're no good at your job of being president.
- [06:14]
Ted Cruz
And he argued, look, there are circumstances we'd want to impeach a president that are broader. And so let's add this. And James Madison, who, you know is often referred to as the father of the Constitution, he stood up and he disagreed. He said, look, maladministration would be a mistake. What it would mean is you would have a president impeach anytime the Senate disagrees with him.
- [06:33]
Michael Knowles
Right.
- [06:33]
Ted Cruz
Anytime there's a disagreement on policy or politics, they'd be impeached. And so it was Madison who proposed, instead of maladministration, other high crimes and misdemeanors. And that was, in turn what was adopted in the Constitution.
- [06:47]
Michael Knowles
This is why I want your historical perspective here as well, because we're joking about how absolutely tedious and boring these impeachment proceedings were. This is an historic event. This is the third time that we've done this in American history. You know, we managed to make it almost 80 years in our country before we impeached a single president. Then we made it more than 100 years after that before threatening to impeach another president. Now we've impeached two out of the last four. It seems like this is speeding up. It seems like we're getting into a situation where the Congress is just going to throw out presidents that they don't like. Are we doing this too much? Is this a bad sign for the country?
- [07:27]
Ted Cruz
I Think it's very dangerous. I think if the House Democrats standard this time, if that's what holds going forward, anytime you have a president of one party and House of a different party, they're gonna impeach him. We're just gonna see this as a standard tool of political warfare. You know, you look at the two articles of impeachment the House voted out, Neither one of them alleges a crime, Right. Like on their face, they don't allege any violation of criminal law. They don't allege any violation of civil law. Well, if you don't allege the law was broken, it's not a high crime or misdemeanor. And that what was interesting about today. So this was all about whether to call additional witnesses. Now, look, the house had 17 witnesses. They only called prosecution witnesses. They didn't let the defense call witnesses. But getting here, House managers wanted to call a whole bunch more witnesses. They wanted to go on a fishing expedition, right? And sort of.
- [08:25]
Michael Knowles
And why did they, by the way? Because they were trying to call. They called all these witnesses and they. They heard them out, and then they took the impeachment vote. If they wanted more witnesses, why didn't they call them before the impeachment vote?
- [08:36]
Ted Cruz
Because they haven't proven their case.
- [08:38]
Michael Knowles
Right.
- [08:38]
Ted Cruz
And they know they don't have the evidence. You know, rewind. Go back a month or two. You may remember during the House proceedings, there was a time when suddenly all the House Democrats began talking about bribery. And actually news stories explained why they did it, which is the dccc, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, did focus grouping and polled it and discovered bribery is really bad. People don't like bribery. They're mad when their president's bribed. And just about every House Democrat, like flipping a switch, began saying, bribery, bribery, bribery. Well, you know what? Bribery is an impeachable offense. If you can prove bribery, you got him. But the articles of impeachment don't allege bribery.
- [09:23]
Michael Knowles
They considered doing it, right? And then they pulled it back.
- [09:26]
Ted Cruz
And that's their problem right now is they heard this witness testimony, they heard all this evidence, and they can't prove their case. So what they want to do is they want to try to bring in as many witnesses as they can and go fishing, try to find something to back up their case. What the Senate ended up doing today is we adopted a procedural order, basically a way of proceeding. And it is very, very similar to what the Senate did in the Bill Clinton impeachment. Bill Clinton impeachment had two phases. Phase One was opening arguments and questions from senators and there were no witnesses. There was no consideration of witnesses in phase one. And then after that, the Senate debated and fought about should we have additional witnesses. They end up calling a few additional witnesses for depositions. So what we did today, what Senate Republicans did is took an order very, very similar to the Clinton order. By the way, that order was approved 100 to nothing. It was bipartisan. It was unanimous. Every Democrat, every Republican.
- [10:27]
Michael Knowles
But Senator, that was then, this is now. That was when it was a Democratic president. And now, obviously I say this somewhat jokingly, but there is a lot of hypocrisy that's going around between these two impeachments.
- [10:41]
Ted Cruz
There is massive hypocrisy. Now, look, I will recognize hypocrisy is a problem on both sides of the aisle. Sure, it's not like Democrats have a monopoly on that. But it is striking the recency of the hypocrisy. You know, there was one moment where Pat Cipollone, the President's White House counsel, led the defense team. He quoted from Jerry Nadler, who just a few months ago had said a partisan impeachment from just one country would never work. It would be bitter and divisive and rip the country apart from just one party.
- [11:13]
Michael Knowles
If you had just one party pushing this as the Democrats have in this impeachment.
- [11:17]
Ted Cruz
And what's interesting is that wasn't Jerry Nadler talking during the Clinton impeachment, although he said that back then. That was him last year.
- [11:24]
Michael Knowles
Right.
- [11:24]
Ted Cruz
That was him trying to push back the far left in the Democratic Party saying, no, no, no, we can't impeach this guy.
- [11:31]
Michael Knowles
Right.
- [11:31]
Ted Cruz
Because it can't be partisan. Unfortunately, that's, that's where we are. And I think the way it's going to work going forward is we're going to have opening arguments. It's going to start with the House managers. They got 24 hours initially. By the way, our scheduling order provided for two days. 24 hours over two days. The Democrats were screaming all day. Two days is terrible. We can't possibly do it in two days. You guys are at a cover up, trying to give us 24 hours.
- [12:03]
Michael Knowles
It's not a trial, it's a cover up.
- [12:05]
Ted Cruz
By the way, the Bill Clinton Impeachment order, 24 hours, exactly.
- [12:08]
Michael Knowles
That's an inconvenient fact. But okay, sure.
- [12:10]
Ted Cruz
So it's actually one of the things actually that Senate Republicans said, fine, we'll give you three days. So instead of 24 hours over two days, 12 hours a day. We'll give you 24 hours over three days, eight hours a day. I really hope that doesn't mean that the next three days we're going to listen to eight hours of them repeating the same arguments. You know, it was interesting today. This was supposed to be fighting over pretrial witnesses, but the Democrats basically gave their opening argument.
- [12:37]
Michael Knowles
Yes. And that that actually was somewhat unexpected. But right out the bat, Adam Schiff seemed to be making the argument on impeachment, not on these questions of whether they're going to call John Bolton or some other relevant witness.
- [12:50]
Ted Cruz
Well, and I think that's actually what House Democrats did most effectively today for the first several hours is they told their story. They treated this pretrial fight as an opening argument. They were talking to the American people. I thought the first couple of hours they were pretty effective. And then it just started getting. They just started repeating it and getting angrier and angrier as the day went on. You know, as I look at the White House defense team, I think they've got some very talented lawyers. I think they made some good arguments today, but I also think they got too mired down in process. There was too much being lawyers and making lawyerly arguments. And what I hope we see in the days to come from the President's defense team is, number one, that they get more into the substantive arguments. Not just the process, not just the minutiae, but the fundamental substantive argument that this was not, this was not a high crime or misdemeanor, that it is always within a president's authority and a government's authority to investigate corruption. I mean, to address the substance and also to tell a story. That's something. Look, you could see that the Democrats are trial lawyers. They're telling stories not just to the hundred senators in the room, but to the folks at home watching. I think we need to do a better job telling a story as well. And it's especially needed because the President hasn't had a chance to tell his story. The whole House proceeding, they shut down the minority, didn't allow minority witnesses. So we need to tell the basic narrative. That's what the President needs to tell. I think that's what the Senate needs to tell, is focus on the facts and substance. Not a lot of rhetoric, not a lot of anger and emotion.
- [14:35]
Michael Knowles
I want to ask you about a specific story that Congressman Adam Schiff, one of the House impeachment managers, was telling today, really, because I think most people have no expertise on it at all, including myself. Adam Schiff seemed to suggest that There is pretty much no role for the judiciary in impeachment proceedings. He said, we gotta get the courts out of it. We gotta get the judges out of it. And I thought it was a very odd thing to say. While Chief Justice John Roberts was presiding over the impeachment, as per the Constitution, did Schiff just get it wrong? I mean, what is the balance of power here?
- [15:09]
Ted Cruz
So look, if you look at the role of impeachment, impeachment itself is a combination of the two branches. If you look in the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton writes in the Federalist Papers about how the framers struggled with to whom to give trying impeachment. And they wanted a body that was independent. They wanted a body that had credibility, and they chose the Senate. They considered the Supreme Court. So they considered maybe we should have the Supreme Court try impeachment. They said, no, let's give it to the Senate, but let's make the Chief justice preside. And so it was sort of a hybrid of the two. If you look at privilege questions, so all of the debate about witnesses comes right down to privilege and executive privilege. Executive privilege is something every president has had. It's the ability to have your closest advisors, your national security advisor, give you candid advice without being hauled into Congress and put on national television. Now asserting privilege. Look, we're all familiar with attorney client privilege. You talk to your lawyer, your lawyer can't be brought in and put in the stand as a general matter to tell them what to tell everyone, what you said to your lawyer, there's spousal privilege. You know, you tell your wife or your husband something at night that they can't force your wife to come into court and testify against you. Now, there are exceptions to it, but privileges are commonplace and courts routinely litigate privileges. Those are questions courts are used to considering. In this case, the House Democrats, frankly, I think, are playing games. And the best way to understand it is look at John Bolton. A lot of the argument today was about John Bolton, John Bolton's national security adviser to the president. So House Democrats said, we want John Bolton to testify. And John Bolton did something very interesting and I think very clever. John Bolton's lawyer went to a federal court in D.C. and filed a pleading that said, judge, my client has two conflicting obligations. House Democrats have asked him to come testify, but the White House has asserted executive privilege has said he can't testify. And John Bolton's lawyer said, look, my client doesn't know what to do, so your honor, he'll do whatever you tell him to do. We Put herself at the mercy of the court. You, judge, tell John Bolton what he should do. The next step is remarkable. You know what the House Democrats did? They said, never mind. They literally backed off. So there was another guy, Charles Cooperman, who was John Bolton's deputy, who they'd issued a subpoena for. They withdrew the subpoena from Cooperman, and they told the court, we're not going to subpoena John Bolton. Never mind. We're not going to call him as a witness. We're not going to subpoena him. We're not going to fight him. And then they get to the Senate, and the first thing they want to do is subpoena John Bolton. And they literally passed on it in the House. Contrast that to the impeachment of Richard Nixon. Now, Nixon ultimately resigned, but if you remember, there was a lot of litigation.
- [18:05]
Michael Knowles
Oh, yeah.
- [18:06]
Ted Cruz
Concerning Nixon. And you had a grand jury subpoena for the White House tapes. Remember the Oval Office? Nixon had a tape. Tape recording system.
- [18:14]
Michael Knowles
Bad idea, but he did it.
- [18:16]
Ted Cruz
Very bad idea. By the way, as an aside, I don't understand all the people who have Alexa in their House, like, why exactly, you want to bring a tape recorder into your home 24 hours a day?
- [18:25]
Michael Knowles
They were just masochists, glutton for punishment.
- [18:28]
Ted Cruz
You know, it really would be different if they renamed Alexa like Tricky Dick. People would be much, much more nervous about it. But, okay, right, set that aside. In that case, the litigation went all the way to the U.S. supreme Court, and the Supreme Court issued an order to the White House. Hand over the tape. And it was, I think, two days later, Richard Nixon resigns.
- [18:49]
Michael Knowles
Right.
- [18:50]
Ted Cruz
That's actually the right way to do it. Look, if the House Democrats wanted to get John Bolton's testimony, they should have subpoenaed him and they should have fought for it. And the claims of privilege are real. They're serious. You don't laugh about them and dismiss them. You fight about them and litigate them and resolve them. And that can be done relatively quickly, as we saw with Nixon in this case. They're not interested in that. This is ultimately about a political attack on the President more than anything else.
- [19:17]
Michael Knowles
Well, what I want to know is what lunch was like today in the Senate dining hall. By that, I mean, is the Senate taking this seriously or does everyone. Everyone's just made up their mind and they're dragging it out because. I don't know. You tell me.
- [19:34]
Ted Cruz
Well, look, number one, when we have lunch in the Senate, we don't have lunch together all the Republicans have lunch together, all the Democrats. I mean, it's sort of like the Crips and the Bloods. I mean, it is a much geekier, much older version.
- [19:47]
Michael Knowles
Yeah, you're making the senators end really cool. I don't know. Very dangerous.
- [19:53]
Ted Cruz
You know, Brill cream is a really popular product. It's. And that's true every day in the Senate. But the way it's working now during impeachment, we're starting every day at 1pm under the Senate rules. That's when the trial starts.
- [20:08]
Michael Knowles
Right.
- [20:08]
Ted Cruz
So the Republicans were having lunch, meeting 11:30 or noon each day. So we went and had lunch and we're having a vigorous discussion about the upcoming trial. And it's actually where. So Mitch McConnell had drafted, I mentioned earlier, had drafted that each side would get 24 hours over two days. And the Democrats had been screaming, that was a massive cover up. But it was actually Republican senators who said, you know what? If they want an extra day, give them an extra day. Same 24 hours. But if they want three days instead of two, fine, let them have. That's not the end of the world. I thought that was a very. I agreed with that. I thought that was a reasonable thing to do. And of course it didn't stop the complaining at all. You give them what they want and they still say it's a massive cover up. But that was most of the discussion actually at lunch today going forward. So we're going to have opening arguments from the House. Three days. Opening arguments from the White House, three days. Although I guarantee you they're not going to go three days. I think they will be much shorter than that. We've then got 16 hours of questions from senators and the questions are a little bit weird. It's not going to be individual senators asking questions. As much as I would love to cross examine these House managers and I promise you, I would love, love to go at it.
- [21:24]
Michael Knowles
I'm looking forward to it.
- [21:26]
Ted Cruz
Senate rules don't allow it. So our questions have to be written. I gotta write them down. And then the Chief justice asks them and it's 16 hours and it alternates typically Democrat, Republican, Democrat, Republican. So by the way, anyone listening to this, let me say if you have a question that you think needs to be asked, needs to be asked to the House managers or needs to be asked to the White House team, use Twitter, I'm TedCruz and just use the hashtag verdict. And we're gonna be watching Twitter to get ideas from you.
- [21:54]
Michael Knowles
I have to say, as absolutely tedious as the hearings were today. I was so excited to wait until three in the morning to come here because it is not possible to get closer.
- [22:04]
Ted Cruz
You really need to get more.
- [22:05]
Michael Knowles
I need to get, I need a hobby. I need. It's really not possible to get closer to this impeachment trial than you. I mean, then one of the jurors, who is there, who is enduring all of these tedious arguments all the time, and who's seeing this truly historical event happen. What I want to ask you though, is you put in a 13 hour work day, not exactly, probably the most pleasant day you've had in the Senate, and then you decide to come immediately here to this studio and do this podcast. What are you thinking? Why on earth are you doing that?
- [22:37]
Ted Cruz
Look, substance matters. This is a time when our country is divided. I mean, is angry. I mean, we see emotion, we see bitter anger. I think truth and substance matters. I think facts matter. I think the Constitution matters. And so this podcast during impeachment, we're going to do it each night coming and just talking about what happened that day.
- [22:58]
Michael Knowles
We will be covering this every single night as the impeachment trial unfolds. And then of course, there will be a whole lot more to talk about as well.
- [23:05]
Ted Cruz
But, but on issues going forward, I, you know, if you turn on cable tv, you get people in five, six minute snippets that are yelling at each other, that are engaged in just political rhetoric. We need to be talking the actual. You know, when you ask me about high crimes and misdemeanors, I could just say this isn't it. Why? Because my party is the one in the White House. Well, that's not the right answer. Let's actually talk about what the constitutional standard is. And that's true of on issue after issue, whether it's free enterprise versus socialism, whether it's gun control versus the second Amendment, every issue. I think we need to engage more, we need to win people's hearts and minds. And so what I hope to do is have conversations really talking about issues that matter. And that's what this podcast is all about.
- [23:52]
Michael Knowles
Right? They don't necessarily get a hearing on tv, unfortunately, they often don't get much of a hearing in the Senate. But we're hoping to flesh that out here and we'll be able to speak, of course, to all of the listeners. So definitely they should send those questions in. It would also be great, of course, if all of the listeners could subscribe to Verdict with Ted Cruz and leave a five star review. You know, unfortunately I was just getting excited for us to get into the really important public policy matters like Mexit, you know, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. We were going to touch on things that matter, but we've run out of time. And you need to get back to the Hill and get back to the Senate within, I don't know, three or four hours or something like that.
- [24:32]
Ted Cruz
It's tomorrow, 1:00. Presumably, we start with opening arguments, although I don't know if we will see House managers try to do more delay tactics. I hope not. I hope they actually dive into the merits. And I'm looking forward to the president's defense team having a chance to lay out the substantive merits. They need to get into that more. I think it's important for the American people to hear it.
- [24:53]
Michael Knowles
And we haven't seen it yet. And maybe we'll see it tomorrow, certainly whatever happens tomorrow. And all we can expect is the unexpected. We will be right back here breaking it down with as insider review as you can possibly get on the Senate on the impeachment trial and of course, on the Constitution. Be sure to tune back tomorrow. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
- [25:22]
Ted Cruz
It.