← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
Epstein Docs: Bill Clinton "Likes Them Young" and Media Ignores! Plus Mayorkas Impeachment Finally
00:38:33
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- [00:01]
Ben Ferguson
Welcome. It is verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. Senator, we've got a lot to chat about, obviously, with what's going on at the border and specifically something that you have been calling for, and that is the impeachment of Mayorkas that now looks like it could become a big reality on the House side. We're going to deal with that. But before we deal with that, I do want to get your initial reaction, because this has been such a big story with the list and the names and the Epstein documents. A lot of it has come out. We're still waiting for more things to come out. The media has played this as, oh, nothing, nothing to see here. Yes, Bill Clinton's name was in there. Yes, Donald Trump's name was in there. And acting like it's just a bunch of names. Give me your initial reaction to what you so far have seen and what you've heard and what you think, well.
- [00:55]
Senator Ted Cruz
I'm glad it's finally coming out. It's taken too damn long. All of this needs to be public. At this point, We've had roughly 40 documents released by the Federal District Court. There are around 250 documents in total the district court has, that the court has indicated they're gonna release. So there'll be more information that comes out. But look what. What is of real public interest is who participated with Jeffrey Epstein in sex crimes and in abusing young girls, underage girls. And if they participated, if they're guilty of those crimes, they should be prosecuted. We should have the client list. We should have the list of the people who went to his island where he committed these crimes and committed these crimes, according to the testimony, over an extended period of time. And the media has expressed an amazing lack of curiosity on this. And I think the reason is that Jeffrey Epstein palled around with Democrats. One of the interesting things in the documents, you know, the media desperately wants to blame Epstein on Trump, but there's one passing reference to Trump in the documents that essentially, when Epstein's plane lands in Atlantic City, he says, oh, we should call Trump. And so that's the lone reference. You want to talk about the most damning thing, the most damning thing is the quote from a 2016 deposition about Bill Clinton where the quote was, he said one time that Clinton likes them young, referring to girls. Now, I gotta say, Ben, can you imagine if the document said the exact same thing, but if it just replaced the word Clinton with Trump, if there were a document here that said Trump likes him young, the media would go nuts. The New York Times would have a banner headline in 42 point font, Trump likes him young. But of course it didn't say that. It said Bill Clinton likes young girls. And suddenly it's crickets. The media, what? No, nothing to see here. Nothing at all.
- [03:12]
Ben Ferguson
It was interesting that you mentioned that because I was talking with my producer and our producer this show, Diaz this morning. We went to CNN.com live on My Morning show and some of the headlines that they had above the article that even dealt with Epstein included TGI Fridays, the restaurant abruptly closes. 36 restaurants. See the whole list. Another one, two stray dogs caused more than 350 in damage at a car dealership. World's most punctual airport is in the US Kelly Clarkson says walking in her new home of New York City helped her lose weight. These were the stories that they had above and countless others before you actually got to the Epstein story that also mentioned Bill Clinton likes them young, referring to young girls. That is your media for you in America right now.
- [04:04]
Senator Ted Cruz
And also the documents show that Bill Clinton flew repeatedly on the plane. We don't know how many times. And we also know, and this is something we've discussed at length on Verdict before, we know that Dick Durbin and Senate Democrats are going to extraordinary lengths to prevent a subpoena from issuing to get the flight logs of Epstein's planes. So the Senate Democrats don't want the public to know who was on that airplane. And that when you put it in that context, suddenly the media's utter lack of interest in this makes a whole lot more sense because the media wants to protect the Democrats and the Democrats desperately don't want people to know. Look, as we've talked about, Jeffrey Epstein had a painting of Bill Clinton in a blue dress with red pumps hanging in his house in New York. It's bizarre, but that's what he put on the wall. And the media doesn't want you to know it.
- [05:06]
Ben Ferguson
Well, and there was also another story that came out that said that there apparently were emails that were going around that were talking about apparently Bill Clinton going into Vanity Fair and threatening them not to write the sex trafficking articles about his good friend Jeffrey Epstein, according to an email from Virginia Gifra. And Senator, if you had that same shocking emails come out tonight and it was Donald Trump walked into Vandy Fair and threatened them not to write a sex trafficking article about his good friend, quote, unquote, Jeffrey Epstein. And you had this in emails, this would also be wall to wall coverage. Yet tonight, as you and I are taping this still crickets on that story of the influence that Bill Clinton had over that story at Vandy Fair.
- [05:55]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah, look, it's a complete and obvious double standard. And the corporate media is thoroughly corrupt. They are part of the Democrat Party, they share the same left wing agenda and they behave in unison to protect each other.
- [06:08]
Ben Ferguson
Last question on this I want to ask you. And that is, I still am angered by the aspect that there's really been virtually no justice here. There has been, yes. Maxwell, who's in prison. Yes, yes, Jeffrey Epstein was in prison. But if you go back to his first conviction, that was a slap on the wrist down in Florida, I think it was back in 16. One of the things you notice here is the federal government has not gone after any of those that were involved in this horrific abuse of young girls, underage girls, but they did seem to go out of their way to actually protect the mighty, the powerful in this country from prosecution or even investigations. How concerning is that to you?
- [06:58]
Senator Ted Cruz
Look, I think it's deeply concerning. And anyone involved in the trafficking or sexual abuse of underage girls should be prosecuted. And you're right, there's a complete lack of interest on the part of the Department of Justice to go after the clients, to go after the other people that were involved in this. There's a complete lack of interest in the media on reporting on it. They are protecting the powerful. And I'll tell you another component of this. I don't know if you saw the story that broke last week that there was reporting that the arrests that were made of two brothels that were in Boston and outside of Washington D.C. and Virginia, that it appears there's evidence that they were in fact honeypot schemes potentially funded by a foreign government that included prominent politicians who were clients of these houses of prostitution and then that was used to blackmail them. And this is a story that suggests that this was being funded by a foreign government. And it's not clear who, whether China or Iran or who it was. But it also raises the question with Jeffrey Epstein about, with powerful people and politicians, people like Bill Clinton, what influence did Jeffrey Epstein have over them? And was any of this material used for blackmail? And given the story that just broke, I think it puts an additional urgency on answering that question.
- [08:39]
Ben Ferguson
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- [11:52]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, let's be clear what the constitutional standard for impeachment is. The Constitution lays out that impeachment lies for for bribery, treason, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. So in your question, you said that Mayorkas should be impeached for dereliction of duty. Actually, dereliction of duty alone is not enough for impeachment. And there was a debate among the framers when they were writing the Constitution. And in fact, one of the earlier drafts of the Constitution, it was suggested that impeachment lie for maladministration. And the framers decided against that. They didn't want a process simply to remove someone for maladministration. They wanted it to be a higher standard of high crimes and misdemeanors. But in this instance, what Mayorkas has done is far greater than negligence, far greater than maladministration. It's not just that Alejandro Mayorkas is bad at his job. It's not just that he's ineffective. It's that he's openly, brazenly, deliberately defying the law, ignoring the law, flouting the law. He is facilitating. He is aiding and abetting an invasion of this country. What is happening at our southern border is such a disaster that, you know, you asked why, why should Mayorkas be impeached? The simple reason is the strategy of Joe Biden and the Democrats on the border is very simple. They want to ignore it. And they know that the corporate media will be complicit in ignoring it. This is one of the many instances where the corruption and politicization of the media, the destruction of of journalism, it ends up producing the extremism with elected Democrats. Their strategy is simply ignore it and cover it up. And so the most important value of impeachment of Mayorkas is to put the facts of the utter disaster that is happening at the border before the American people. So let me give you some of the facts. In all of fiscal year 2023, the Biden administration deported 142,580 people. 142,000 more than twice that number came across our border just last month in December. So that's 142,000 out of roughly 3 million. You look at the month of December that we just finished, 302,000 illegal alien encounters, the highest single month ever recorded. First time it's ever been over 300,000. There have now been since October 1st, more than 785,000 migrant encounters at the southern border. 785,000 since October 1st. That is the highest first quarter of the year. The way the fiscal, the federal government fiscal year measures, the first quarter is from October 1st to December 31st. That's the highest first quarter ever recorded. 785,000 people is larger than the city of Seattle. And that's what crossed the southern border in the last three months. And despite all of that, what does the White House say? Karine Jean Pierre describes the situation on the border as, quote, not unusual. It's record shattering, horrific. And it is producing a line of body bags of dead illegal immigrants abandoned on Texas farms and ranches. It is producing thousands upon thousands of children, horribly abused, brutalized women, thousands upon thousands sexually assaulted, drug overdoses. The value of this impeachment is to overcome the media blockade and to put the facts before the American people.
- [16:12]
Ben Ferguson
You know, what's even more shocking is their excuses for why this is happening. And one of them, I just have to play it for you because I have to get your reaction. You talk about Mayorkas and moving forward, this impeachment, it's long overdue. But listen to what Mayorkas said about what's happening at the border and more importantly, why it's happening at the border. Take a listen from MSNBC.
- [16:37]
Alejandro Mayorkas
As you know, Mr. Secretary, Border Patrol in the month of December processed more migrants entering the United States illegally than any month in the history of that agency. Why is that happening? How do you explain it? So we are seeing the greatest number of displaced people, not only at our southern border, not only only in the Western hemisphere, but across the globe. You know, I am involved in bilateral and multilateral meetings with my counterparts from foreign countries in Europe, in Asia, in the Indo Pacific, all over the world in migration. The challenge of displaced people is a subject that comes up in every single conversation we have. The effects of climate change, poverty, increasing level of authoritarianism, the very many challenges that are at the root cause of the displacement of people around the world.
- [17:39]
Ben Ferguson
Climate change. So now that's why.
- [17:42]
Senator Ted Cruz
Garbage.
- [17:43]
Ben Ferguson
I mean, I heard it and I almost laughed. Like, he didn't just say that. Did he really just say that? And he did.
- [17:50]
Senator Ted Cruz
Look, Ben, that just pisses me off because that man is utterly full of. He is just lying. He's brazenly lying. Climate change. You know what? Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas inherited the Lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years. It changed literally the month Joe Biden became president. Now, even under their idiotic ideology, did climate change suddenly occur once Biden was president? And I guess there was no climate change when Trump was president. I mean, what he's saying, it is such a brazen lie. It demonstrates why he should be impeached. He's not trying to do his job. He's defying the law. So I'll give it. Give you an example. Fiscal year 2020, 23, 137,275 unaccompanied minors, little boys, little girls, arrived at the southern border. 137,275. How many do you think ice removed in that year?
- [18:59]
Ben Ferguson
Honestly, no clue because the numbers are so insane.
- [19:03]
Senator Ted Cruz
Out of 137,275, ice removed, 212.
- [19:09]
Ben Ferguson
Wow.
- [19:10]
Senator Ted Cruz
So 137,000 plus remained. And by the way, and look, you and I talked about this on the podcast when I was last down at the border a couple of months ago, where we encountered a group with a lot of young children. A very significant percentage of those children are physically assaulted. They are sexually assaulted, and they are being trafficked and put into sex slavery. And so I get angry when I hear Mayorkas say that, because he's saying he does not care about those children being raped. And the reason he's saying that is because if he cared, he would do something to stop it. And he not only won't do something to stop it, everything he's doing is trying to increase the illegal immigration. His focus is on processing illegal immigrants faster and getting them on planes and on buses to every city in America. And so he is deliberately causing this problem and making it worse day after day after day.
- [20:25]
Ben Ferguson
You know, Speaker Johnson took a delegation of congressmen down to the border and was in Eagle Pass, a place the President won't go, a place that, you know, the White House press secretary won't go. The place the Vice President Kamala Harris won't go. Democrats won't go to where the actual crisis is. And I was on Outnumbered, and they were showing the video of illegal immigrants from different countries yelling out and their native languages. Help. To the congressman saying, we're trying to get through the razor wire. I want you to hear this. It was amazing.
- [21:04]
Unnamed GOP Delegate
A GOP delegation went down to speak to Border Patrol about the unfolding crisis, only for it to unfold around them. Look, you can't make this up. You can see migrants entering our country illegally. This is just feet from where Speaker Johnson was. As he spoke with reporters and as he spoke with them, there were illegal immigrants yelling ayuta, which means help in Spanish. And take a look there at the barbed wire.
- [21:34]
Unnamed White House Press Secretary
Venezuela.
- [21:40]
Unnamed GOP Delegate
So that's razor wire stopping the migrants from entering our country. But it doesn't keep Corrine Jean Pierre from saying this at the White House podium yesterday.
- [21:49]
Unnamed White House Press Secretary
Governor Abbott's razor wire does not prevent. It does not prevent non citizens from unlawfully crossing. That's not what it does. If anything, it puts at risk. It puts the lives of the Border Patrol at risk.
- [22:02]
Unnamed GOP Delegate
Except we just saw that it did prevent. She also previously said walls don't work. And she had a rather interesting reason why.
- [22:09]
Unnamed White House Press Secretary
Instead of providing the needed resources for more border security technology and asylum officers and judges, it would waste taxpayer dollars on an ineffective wall. Again, an ineffective wall that can't even withstand heavy winds.
- [22:25]
Senator Ted Cruz
So.
- [22:25]
Unnamed GOP Delegate
That's right. It's.
- [22:27]
Ben Ferguson
I mean, you hear the White House's talking points, Senator, and then you go down there and you see this. And the media did criticize Johnson and the White House criticized Johnson. They said they should be in Washington doing their job and passing a budget and spending. They shouldn't be doing a photo op and a publicity stunt at the border. It's not a publicity stunt. If you don't go to the border and you don't see it with your own eyes. You don't understand how bad it is when you have a delegation of congressmen and women and the speaker of the House and a bunch of media and these people are yelling, help. Help. Venezuela. Venezuela.
- [23:05]
Senator Ted Cruz
Help.
- [23:05]
Ben Ferguson
Help. You understand that the border is in fact wide open and no one that's coming across the southern border thinks they shouldn't be doing it or shouldn't be trying to turn themselves into Americans.
- [23:16]
Senator Ted Cruz
Look what Karine Jean Pierre said. She doesn't give a damn about Border Patrol agents. And in fact, she and Joe Biden regularly demonize Border patrol agents. I spend a lot of time with border patrol agents. I go down there. I go out on midnight patrol with them. I join them for their midnight muster. These men and women, they are heroes. They are undermined daily by their political leadership who makes their job impossible to do. And she claims, oh, you know, put it, putting, putting barbed wire, razor wire, it endangers Border Patrol agents lives. You won't find a Border Patrol agent telling you that, that, that is a pure political lie. And you know, Joe Biden was asked this week about the border and he again with. It's gotten to the point that where the dictionary Defines chutzpah. They ought to have a picture of Joe Biden and Karine Jean Pierre and Mayorkas because he said it's Republicans fault. The crisis of the border is Republicans fault because they won't fund his request for funding at the border. Now, number one, understand the money Joe Biden is asking for is not to secure the border. It is to process illegal immigrations faster and to bring in more illegal immigrants. He wants money to make the problem worse. And if you want to understand that, you know, I encourage you, go back and listen. You and I did, I think, a little over a year ago, an interview that we did at the southern border where we interviewed a very good friend of mine, Brandon Judd, who is the head of the National Border Patrol Union.
- [24:59]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah.
- [24:59]
Senator Ted Cruz
And he sat down with us and he talked about the cause of the problems. And one of the very interesting things that Brandon Judd said is he said, to secure this border, we don't need an additional penny. We don't need more money. What we need is a change in policy. And here's what matters. If you want to secure the border, the single most important question is the following. What happens when someone is apprehended? And it's essentially a binary choice. If the answer is you put them on a plane and you fly them back to the country they came from, the numbers plummet, and they plummet immediately. We have seen there's an instantaneous cause and effect. On the other hand, if the answer is that when you apprehend them, you let them go and they get to stay in America, the numbers skyrocket. When I was last down there, we had the group of illegal immigrants that came and turned themselves into us while we were on midnight patrol. It was mostly women and children. We asked them, how many of y'all believe that you'll get to stay in America? Every one of them, yes. Yes, absolutely, we get to stay. And they laid out all the cities that they wanted to go to. They all knew where they wanted to go. And as long as they believe they will stay, the numbers keep rising. And you have to understand part of the reason it's instantaneous. Virtually every illegal immigrant who comes shows up carrying a plastic baggie. They typically have in the plastic baggie they have some form of identification. A birth certificate, a passport. They have usually a cell phone, and they have a name and number of somebody in the U.S. unfortunately, often it is traffickers who are bringing them in that they're calling. When we were talking to the kids, all of the young girls said they were Calling their tos to Spanish for uncle. And yet they wouldn't tell us anything when we asked any questions about who these tos were. But the cell phone is what makes it instantaneous, because when people get here and get released, they immediately text or call their friends and their families back home and they say, hey, if you come, you get to stay. If, on the other hand, if they've gone through a horrendous journey and they've been horribly abused and they get here and they get deported, they get put on a plane and sent back right where they started again, they text their friends and families and they say, don't come. They won't let you in. And so the reason those illegal immigrants are calling ayuta, calling for help is because they believe, and they believe quite rightly, that under Joe Biden, the Biden administration views its job as helping illegal immigrants come into this country and invade this country. We're now upwards of 10 million illegal immigrants under Joe Biden. It is unprecedented.
- [27:56]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, it is. And the other part, I think, that's also so disingenuous from this White House is the fact that they try to act, as you mentioned, it's about the money. But the executive actions that the president could take instantly could change so many of the policies that are allowing for this crisis, which was created by design by the Biden administration, and that wouldn't even take Congress. It's one of the things that Donald Trump did so brilliantly when he was in office. You could just go back to his same policies and you could do it literally with the swipe of a pen.
- [28:30]
Senator Ted Cruz
Three decisions that Joe Biden could implement tomorrow. Number one, resume building the wall. Number two, end catch and release. Number three, reinstate the remain in Mexico agreement. All of those. He did the opposite his first week in office. That's what caused this border crisis. Joe Biden could solve it at an instant. He does not want to. And he's going to do, I believe, everything he can to prevent it. It's why impeaching Mayorkas should have been impeached over two years ago. I have been calling for it for virtually the entirety of his tenure because it has been. We have never seen a cabinet member so utterly defy federal law the way Mayorkas has done.
- [29:14]
Ben Ferguson
I want to move to something else that is obviously important and significant. We've talked about it, and it's a big win on the border to secure the enactment of a streamlined permitting process for new and expanded bridges across of Rio Grande, in Brownsville, Laredo and Eagle Pass Texas. It is something that you were a part of and led on. It's now actually become law. You were down in Laredo. And I want to play for people part of what you had to say at this very, very big moment.
- [29:48]
Senator Ted Cruz
We're here today to celebrate bipartisan legislation that was signed into law and decided December of last year that will expedite building new bridges and expanding bridges between Texas and Mexico. We're here at the World Trade Bridge, the largest land port in the United States. Every year, Texas and Mexico have roughly 800 billion in trade and commerce that comes across this border. That's jobs in Texas. That's jobs in Mexico. That's the lifeblood of South Texas.
- [30:35]
Ben Ferguson
This is obviously significant not just from the standpoint of security that you talked about an orderly commerce coming across the border in a safer manner, but it's also a really big deal from the fact that, as you mentioned, it was bipartisan talk about how significant this is gonna be for this country and for Texas.
- [30:54]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, the audio you just played was for a press conference that I did in Laredo yesterday morning, and it was right at the World Trade Bridge, right on the southern border. And I did that alongside Henry Cuellar, the Democrat congressman who represents Laredo. And Henry and I worked hand in hand in this, and it was a huge victory. The Texas Business association that was down there with us, and there was a large group of people celebrating this legislative victory that we had just two weeks ago, described the legislation that I introduced and passed as the biggest positive step for jobs and commerce in Texas since the U.S. mexico, Canada Agreement was negotiated. It is literally billions of dollars of additional trade and commerce and tens of thousands of jobs. And real quickly, what happened? So there are four bridge projects that have been proposed in South Texas. Two in Laredo, one in Brownsville, one in Eagle Pass. And the Biden administration had put bureaucratic barriers. They were delaying every one of these bridge projects. The World Trade Bridge that I was at yesterday morning, that bridge right now is eight lanes. They have proposed to expand it to 18 lanes to more than double the size of it, which enables commerce to move much more rapidly. That benefits farmers. That benefits ranchers. That benefits manufacturers. That benefits small businesses. That benefits consumers by lowering prices at the grocery store. It also benefits national security by making it easier to bring manufacturing back from China either back to the United States or near shoring it, bringing it back to Mexico, where we could have trade and commerce with Mexico rather than China. So all of those are good outcomes. And what happened. So in order to Build a bridge. Ordinarily, you have to do what is called Federal environmental NEPA review. It's to go through a process of reviewing the environmental impact of a bridge. That's true for any bridge. If you're building a bridge across an international border, there's an additional legal requirement. You need a permit from the President of the United States. Now, the way this used to be done is the President would grant that permit contingent on the completion of the NEPA review. And what that did is accelerated the process, enabled it to move through, through quickly. When Joe Biden became President, he announced they were reversing that policy and Biden was going to grant zero presidential permits for cross border bridges unless and until the NEPA environmental review was fully completed. The effect of that was to add 2, 3, 4, 5 years to these bridge projects to delay them all. It also made it harder for them to get funding because the banks were reluctant to commit capital until the presidential permit had been granted. So there was a chicken and egg problem and the Biden administration dug in. And so what I did is, number one, unified the congressional delegation in South Texas. And so I brought together a coalition of myself and John Cornyn, the other Texas senator, along with Henry Cuellar, a Democrat, Monica Dela Cruz, a Republican, Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat and Tony Gonzalez, a Republican, all of the South Texas congressional delegation. We jointly pressed the Biden State Department, reverse this idiotic policy. This is hurting Texas and hurting America. The Biden administration dug in, they refused to change. And so I authored legislation mandating that they expedite the process. Got bipartisan support in the Senate, passed it out of the Senate, and then passed it out of the House. And Joe Biden signed it into law on December 22. It was actually my birthday that he signed it into law. And so it was a pretty great birthday gift because it's a huge victory for jobs in the state of Texas. And it's an example of, you know, I gotta say, it's also an example of the bizarre hypocrisy. I mean, let me ask you seriously, Ben, explain to me the mind of a whack job liberal that you want totally open borders and 10 million people invading this country illegally, including human traffickers and drug traffickers on the one hand, but on the other hand, you want to put bureaucratic roadblocks in the way of legal trade and commerce from farmers and businesses while you're allowing illegal immigrants to flow with no, with no restraint?
- [35:56]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, it makes no sense. Especially when every year, Texas and Mexico, as you mentioned, have roughly 800 billion in trade and commerce that come across this border. And this does it in a, in a more orderly fashion, but also with the issue of national security involved in it, keeping it orderly with safety and security, especially with all the drug trafficking, fentanyl and everything else coming across the border, it makes no sense.
- [36:20]
Senator Ted Cruz
Look, that's exactly right. And we ended up building the bipartisan coalition to pass this into law. And so the way the law works is December 22nd is when Joe Biden signed it into law. On that date, which was the date he signed it, the legislation starts a shot clock of 60 days. And the State Department has a 60 day time limit to submit its recommendations to the White House as to whether he should grant the permit for these four bridges. After that 60 day period, a second shot clock starts and the president has 60 days to make a determination on the permit. If the President does nothing after that second 60 days, the permit is deemed automatically granted by operation of law. What that means is because it was signed on December 22, that by April 20, we will have these presidential permits which will expedite these bridges going forward. That is an enormous victory, despite the Biden administration putting roadblocks in the way every step of the way.
- [37:31]
Ben Ferguson
Well, congratulations. And like you said, it's awesome that it was done in such a bipartisan manner. And it's great for commerce, great for the country, great for Texans. This is a huge win, especially when you're having to deal with an administration like the Biden administration. So congratulations on that. Job well done. I'm glad the President didn't know it was your birthday the day that he signed that because they probably would have delayed it, but they would have said, we're not giving Cruz that birthday gift. So well done on there. Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Hit that subscribe or auto download. And if you're listening on Apple on an iPhone, make sure you hit that follow button Right now, the algorithms have changed. A lot of people that follow this show. You weren't following it anymore. So if you make sure you click that follow button and you're gonna have to check back pretty regularly from what we understand now with these new algorithm changes so that you continue to hit every episode. Also, if you'd write us a review, a five star review, it helps us on the charts reach new people that may not have listened to the show before. And the center and I will see you back here for the weekend review on Saturday.