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- [00:01]
Ted Cruz
Very serious allegations about Joe Biden's Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson accusations that she has gone soft on peddlers of child pornography and has a track record of going soft on them, and accusations that she supports critical race theory. But you don't need to take my word for it. We can get the expert advice of a man who is in the room and doing a lot of that grilling today on Capitol Hill. He's just come from the Capitol now in the studio with us. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
- [00:38]
Michael Knowles
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- [01:52]
Liz Wheeler
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- [04:16]
Ted Cruz
Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles. Senator, this is bringing me back to the earliest days of Verdict. Fortunately, it's not two in the morning right now though you have been at the Capitol all day you have been in the confirmation hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson, and you've been doing a lot of the grilling of Ketanji Brown Jackson. So where does it stand?
- [04:41]
Senator
Well, you're right. This is reminiscent of when verdict first started, and we did all day long of the impeachment trial in the Senate and then headed over to the studio late at night to record verdict today. I've spent all day long in the confirmation hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, and it's the end of the day and so headed over to the studio to record this tonight. So it's Tuesday night that we're recording this, and there were a lot of fireworks today. I'll say it started off fairly quiet, but it didn't stay quiet. I had the opportunity to question Judge Jackson this afternoon, shortly after lunch, and there were two main topics I raised, both of which I think are concerning. The first is critical race theory. Now, we've talked a lot about critical race theory, and Judge Jackson had given a speech at a law school where she described how sentencing involves lots of factors, including critical race theory. So she'd laid it out as part of, presumably the job of a judge in imposing sentences. So I started off by asking her, you know, what is critical race theory? And her initial response was essentially, I have no idea.
- [05:55]
Ted Cruz
Well, critical race theory also began at the law school that the two of you went to.
- [06:00]
Senator
That's exactly right. It was born at Harvard Law School. It grew out of Harvard Law School. It grew out of critical Legal theory, which came from Harvard Law School. And that in turn was a Marxist movement. She knew all that. She just didn't want to admit it. And so her answer was, well, that has nothing to do with my job as a judge. At which point I turned to her quote that she apparently had forgotten about, where she said, sentencing involves lots of things, including critical race theory. And I said, well, can you explain to us, apparently you think it's relevant to your job, so tell us what it means. And again, she just kind of dodged and said, well, well, it's not relevant to my job as a judge. It's a policy question in sentencing that critical race theories is relevant to. And I said, okay, well, that's fine. In addition to serving as a judge, you were the vice chairman of the Sentencing Commission, which sets sentencing policy. So, okay, if you're saying it was one of the jobs you had versus the other that it was relevant to, then tell us how it was relevant to that job. She completely dodged, refused to answer the Question, at which point we had an interesting discussion because Judge Jackson is on the board of trustees of a private school here in Washington, D.C. that's called Georgetown Day School, and it is a wildly liberal school. She is on the board of trustees, and she had said in the school magazine, and I read the quote at the hearing, I don't have it in front of me, but she said something to the effect of, I love Georgetown Day School, and I love their progressive policies and commitment to social justice. And she said. So I asked her, okay, so you love that about the school. You're on their board. And by the way, Amy Coney Barrett was asked extensively about being on the board of a private school. So this was the Democrats, and the press thought it was fair game when she was nominated. And I asked her, what do you mean by social justice? And she filibustered for a while about segregated schools. And the school was founded to integrate and not to discriminate. And I was like, okay, look, that's great. We all agree that discrimination is wrong. We're all on the same page there. But I asked her, I said, is critical race theory taught in schools? Is it taught in K through 12 schools? Democrats and the press have repeated ad nauseam, it is taught nowhere. My understanding is that critical race theory is. It is an academic theory that is about the ways in which race interacts with various institutions. It doesn't come up in my work as a judge. It's never something that I've studied or relied on, and it wouldn't be something that I would rely on if I was on the Supreme Court. Well, the school she's on the board of teaches critical race theory at every damn grade from pre K all the way to 12th grade. And so we spent quite a while walking through some of the specifics of that.
- [09:08]
Ted Cruz
I'm also a little bit confused about her stance because she's saying critical race theory is a really good thing, and I don't know what it is. And it's not being taught anywhere. I think in. It may have been in the same speech to the University of Michigan Law School, may have been in other speeches. She's expressed admiration for Derrick Bell, who's one of the founders of Critical race Race theory. So this is, I think, exposing that she knows a thing or two about it. If you know who Derrick Bell is, if you know who Kimberly Crenshaw is, then you know something about the intellectual origins of it. And even beyond that, she's expressed admiration for the 1619 project by Nicole Hannah Jones, a completely made up thesis that the American Revolution was fought to defend the institution of slavery peddled in the New York Times. Even the Times had to admit eventually that it was bogus. This would be a sort of derivation of critical race theory. So it seems to me like the evidence is there. She knows what this is. So is she a liar?
- [10:05]
Senator
Well, I actually asked her exactly what you're saying. I said, look, you gave another speech at a law school where you were praising the 1619 Project and praising Nikole Hannah Jones and the 1619 Project was revisionist history. It is wildly dishonest. It has been denounced by multiple respected historians. So much so, as you noted, that the New York Times had to rescind the central thesis, which was that a principal reason that the colonies fought the revolution was to defend slavery. That's nonsense. It's garbage. It's false. I asked her if she agreed with that proposition. She wouldn't answer. I asked her if she was aware that it had been roundly condemned and the New York Times had withdrawn it. She said, nope, didn't know that. So she just pleaded complete unawareness. And on crt, I actually had a number of the books that are on either the required reading list or recommended reading list at Georgetown Day School. And so one of the books that I pulled out, it really was quite a remarkable book. It's a book called Anti Racist Baby and this thing. And it's by Ibram Kendi, who is one of the most vicious advocates of critical race theory. He explains, I just actually it's very short. It starts off with anti racist baby is bred, not born. Anti racist baby is raised to make society transform. And then I asked her about this. Babies are taught to be racist or anti racist. There is no neutrality. And at Georgetown Day School this is taught in pre K through second grade. So four year olds through seven year olds. And so I asked her, I said, look, do you think babies are racist? She said, well, no, I don't think babies are racist. Which is nice of her to say. But she doesn't explain why the school that she's on the board of that she praises for their social justice progressive policies are teaching four year olds that babies are racist.
- [12:09]
Ted Cruz
Now, I don't know if babies are racist or not. I do know babies are sexist because my sweet little boy is very pro mommy, he's very anti daddy. I do consider this to be discrimination on the basis of my sex. But this is the sort of stuff that, as you point out, it's not just that it's available. This Stuff is being assigned. It is being encouraged for people to go read these. Not merely anti racist baby, but lots of these kind of texts from the youngest grades all the way to the highest grades. But what the left has said here is, oh, Senator, you're just pulling out some crazy example. How on earth is Judge Jackson supposed to know about the books that are being taught in the schools that she's on the board of?
- [12:51]
Senator
Well, another book that was there that I talked about is another one by Ibram Kendi called Stamped for Kids. And this thing, this is assigned to third graders. And it's really stunning. I mean, it goes through number one. It starts with a very humble proposition. This is a quote. This is not a book of my opinions. This is a book about America and about you. This book is full of truth. It's packed with absolutely true facts of the choices people made over hundreds of years. So it's not opinions, they say. So what all does it say? Well, there's one portion that I read in the hearing where it asks, can we send white people back to Europe? This is being taught to third graders. It goes through and explains how, in Kendi's view, Thomas Jefferson was a racist, Abraham Lincoln was a racist. Goes to explain, W.E.B. du Bois, one of the founders of the NAACP, was a racist. Wow. It goes on to explain that Booker T. Washington was a racist. It goes on to explain that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were racists. It goes on to explain, so the following movies are racist. King Kong, Dumbo, Peter Pan, lady and the Tramp, the Cat in the Hat, many books by Dr. Seuss, Swiss family Robinson, the Jungle Book, Little House on the Prairie, Curious George, Aladdin and Pocahontas, all of those are racist. And let's see, what else does it say? Oh, here he says, and there were black people who rejected Du Bois racist ideas. That's W.E.B. du Bois, one of the founders of the NAACP. So I mean, and W.E.B.
- [14:42]
Ted Cruz
Du Bois, by the way, is considered to be the more left wing of the early 20th century. Civil rights advocate Booker T. Washington, generally considered more conservative. W.E.B. du Bois, the lefties, until about five minutes ago, really exalted. And now even he is too racist for them.
- [15:01]
Senator
So he blasts both of them. Another quote in chapter 17, Math, Science, Art. Each has been used as a weapon against black people. I asked Judge Jackson, what do you think about Dr. King's I have a dream speech? And in particular that he dreams of a nation where we can be judged not by the color of our skin, but by the content of our Character. And she said at the outset she agreed with that. Well, here's what this book says. It says the idea that we should pretend not to see racism is connected to the idea that we should pretend not to see color. It's called colorblindness. Here's what's wrong with this. It's ridiculous. Skin color is something we all absolutely see. So to pretend not to see color is pretty convenient if you don't actually want to stamp out racism to begin with. And let me read you the last paragraph of the book. You're a little stunned I didn't read this at the hearing. So this is. I just ran out of time. From the beginning, racist ideas have been stamped into the United States, into the Constitution, laws, policies, practices and beliefs of segregationists and assimilationists. And he calls assimilationists anyone who believes in integrations, that white people and black people should work together. They are assimilationists, which in his view are almost as bad, if not as bad, anti racists continue their work in helping us become tied to anti racist ideas and to use them to lift people up, turning potential into power. And here are the last two sentences of the book. People like Angela Davis and Patrisse Cullors, and perhaps like me and you. So the book ends with a call for children to stand with two communists as the only way to defeat racism.
- [17:05]
Ted Cruz
You know the left's response to your pointing out all of these books, right? It's not just one. There are a lot of these books that are being peddled in these schools. The left's response is, oh, come on, give me a break. She's just on the board. She doesn't read these books. But. But the simple fact is she has embraced and exalted and publicly admired the very ideologies that are expressed in all.
- [17:29]
Senator
Of these books repeatedly. Not only that, her college roommate, Professor Fairfax, who introduced her yesterday, so came to the Judiciary Committee to introduce her. She's the chairman of the board of the trustees of this school. So she and her college roommate are both on the board together. And look, afterwards I had a lot of reporters rushing up and saying, why is this relevant? How dare you ask about this? And I made clear, listen, we're not going to. In this confirmation process. We're not going to go into the gutter. We're not going to engage in the kind of political circus that Democrats did with Brett Kavanaugh. We're not going to slander her character personally. But we have a responsibility to examine her actual record and what her views are as the record demonstrates. Insofar as it is relevant to the job she would do as a Supreme Court justice. And if Judge Jackson believes in the vicious racist divisiveness of critical race theory, that I believe would be a serious impediment to carrying out the responsibility of a Supreme Court justice because it is the opposite of. Of a colorblind constitution. It is an explicitly racial divide constitution that embraces racial discrimination. That's right at the heart of CRT is that we have to discriminate. And she didn't want to answer any of those questions.
- [18:58]
Ted Cruz
Well, it's actually much more relevant than any of the attacks on Brett Kavanaugh. The Democrats, as you pointed out, I think, quite well during these hearings, the Democrats dragged a bunch of people who were not credible before the Senate, including a man who's now a felon. Michael Avenatti was representing.
- [19:17]
Senator
No, no. CNN told me he was gonna be a Democratic presidential frontrunner.
- [19:21]
Ted Cruz
Yes, the former future President Michael Avenatti. He was representing this woman who had never met Brett Kavanaugh. There was no evidence of any of the allegations against him, but the allegations all basically amounted to. He groped me. He was creepy with me. We were at a party and he drank too many beers. Here are. This woman believes the Constitution is fundamentally broken, flawed, unjust. This is an evil country founded on upholding white supremacy and attacking black people. That is much more relevant and much more radical when we're talking about someone who's going to be interpreting the Constitution on the Supreme Court bench.
- [20:00]
Senator
Well, that's right. And the basis for my questioning was based on her public speeches and her public record. What she has advocated praising the 1619 Project celebrating CRT, saying it is part of what one does in sentencing. And the second half of my question got very into sentencing. And I got to tell you that Judge Jackson has a troubling pattern that extends for three decades of advocating for lighter and more lenient sentences for sex offenders, for those who commit violent sexual crimes, for those who sexually assault children, and for those who. Who possessed child porn. And when she was in law school, her law review note. So when you're on the law review, you write a note, which is sort of your big academic piece that you publish. Her law review note was examining the laws the states have passed to deal with sexual predators. And she examined, number one, sex predator registries, which all 50 states require. If you're convicted of a sexual offense, you have to register. She examined DNA databases, which many states require, that if you have a sex offense, you put your DNA in. So if there's a subsequent crime, you can be caught. She examined public notification statutes which say if a sexual predator move into your neighborhood, you have a right to be notified. And then she examined civil commitment statutes, that is, for people who are sexually violent predators, who have behavioral abnormalities, who have a psychological condition. Many of the states have civil commitment for them after their sentence is over. And her note, and this is a little academic and a little wonky, but I tried to walk through it in my questioning. There are two ways the courts have analyzed these types of laws as either punitive or regulatory. And the sort of short answer is if they're regulatory, they're permissible, and if they're punitive, they're unconstitutional. So the divide is really consequential. Her note argues that they should all be viewed based on their effects, and most, if not all of them are punitive and therefore unconstitutional. Now, she says it in some legal gobbledygook, but that's what she argues. And so I walked her through that, and she insists that's not what she argued. But I'll tell you, Michael, I've got some experience in this because Texas has a law, the Texas Sexually Violent Predator civil commitment law, that a Texas court of appeals in Corpus Christi struck down as unconstitutional. And the reason it did so is it concluded just like Judge Jackson's note suggests, although it didn't cite her note, but it concluded that the statute was punitive and therefore it was unconstitutional. And I was the Solicitor General of Texas. So I argued the appeal myself in the Texas Supreme Court and ended up winning unanimously. It was a case called Henry Fisher, where the Texas Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Court of Appeals and upheld the statute. And so I feel very strongly about the importance of protecting people, and particularly children from sexually violent predators. And it wasn't just her law school note. She has a consistent pattern going forward to today of advocating leniency for sexual predators.
- [23:24]
Ted Cruz
So what is the explanation of this? What is the argument here? I mean, to steel man her side of it, assuming she's not a pedophile or something, what is her take on the law that would defend this? I mean, it seems so abhorrent to pretty much anybody.
- [23:43]
Senator
So, look, I think there are some people of the left that reflexively defend criminal defendants and defend criminals. And that's just how they're oriented. You see them defending murderers, defending rapists. And that's just, you know, she came out of law school, she clerked. She clerked for Justice Breyer, but then she became a public defender. And so her job was to defend criminals every day. And you know what? At least with sex offenders, I mean, she writes in her law school note about how there's so much vindictiveness, people want to punish sex offenders. And she says, it's our job to take the side of the sex offenders. That's what she writes in law school. Fast forward to her being vice chairman of the sentencing commission. And she has this hearing where she raises. She's asking a witness. She says, well, are there people who have child pornography who are not pedophiles, who are not sexually aroused by child porn? They're just collectors, you know, like, you might collect art or stamps. Like, are they collectors? Or maybe they like technology and they're just into computers now. Look, you may like computers, but kitty porn, like, it is a bizarre question. And the White House's talking point that they put out is, well, people are cherry picking what she said. So I put up a chart with the entire quote and I read the entire quote of what she said. And her response was, well, I was just asking a question. Yeah, you were asking if people with kiddie porn are not into kiddie porn. Like, it's a weird question. And then you look at her sentencing. So I put up a chart at the hearing of the child porn cases she's had. And there have been a couple where she had no discretion in sentencing. Either there was a mandatory minimum that she had to sentence, or there was a plea agreement that both the prosecution and defense agreed to, and so she implemented it. So if you look at the cases where she had discretion and where the prosecution made a recommendation, every single one, she sentenced the defendant to way, way, way below the sentencing guidelines and way, way, way below what the prosecutor asked for. So I walk through United States v. Chazen. The sentencing guidelines were 78 to 97 months. The prosecutor asked for 78 to 97 months. She sentenced Chazin to 28 months. So that's 64% less than the prosecutor asked for. United States versus Cooper. Sentencing guidelines was 151 to 188 months. That's 15 years. Prosecutor asked for 72 months. So substantially less. She sentenced him to 60 months, but that was the mandatory minimum. She didn't have discretion. That was a 16%, 17% reduction. United States versus Downs. Prosecutor asked for 70 months. She sentenced to 60. That was the mandatory minimum. She couldn't go below 60. That was a 14% reduction. United States versus Hawkins. Prosecutor asked for 49 months. Sorry. United States versus Savage. Prosecutor asked 49 months. She sentenced him to 37 months. That was a 24% reduction. United States v. Stewart. Prosecutor asked for 97 months. She sentenced him to 57 months. And then United States versus Hawkins. I want to pause on this one. The guidelines were 97 to 121 months. So that's 10 years. This was an 18 year old kid. It was a young adult who had multiple graphic videos of child pornography with children as young as 8 years old. Children, 8 children, 10 children, 11 engaged in sexual acts with adults and engaged in sexual acts with each other, in one instance being violently raped. So these are videos of children, young children, being violently raped. The guidelines said 97 to 121 months, 10 years. The prosecutor asked for 24 months. She sentenced him to three months, three months for having multiple videos of children, young children as young as eight engaged in explicit graphic sexual acts. And at the hearing today, we asked her about it and she just responded with platitude. She said, well, child pornography is horrible and it's terrible and I despise it. And she said, I'm a mom, I love my kids. I don't doubt she loves her kids. And at the sentencing hearing, she said, well, this 18 year old, he was young and he's not a pedophile. She apparently determined he's not a pedophile. He just had videos of children engage in explicit sexual acts and young children too.
- [28:58]
Ted Cruz
It's not as though he's 18 and it's videos of a 16 year old. Right, it's 18 videos of an 8 year old.
- [29:05]
Senator
And she said at the sentencing hearing, well, he was curious and these were his peers near his age. And so the point you said, we asked her about, I said, look, he was 18. An 18 year old is not a peer to an 8 year old. Yeah, and I'm sorry, if you are in possession of multiple videos of young children being violated, she may say he's not a pedophile, but in my book, look, this is not a victimless crime. You can get three months for a damn speeding ticket. And yet in this case, and the problem is child porn, because there's a market for means that children are violated. These were kids. This was not virtual porn. This was not fake. These were real children who were horribly violated. And at the sentencing hearing, she apologized to the criminal defendant and said, I'm sorry this happened to you. And it is stunning. I don't know how to explain it. She keeps getting indignant and saying these are heinous, egregious crimes. But then she won't explain why she provides such light sentences.
- [30:18]
Ted Cruz
And even to this point of, I'm so sorry this is happening to you, there are people, there are plenty of people who argue this is a victimless crime. If the person who's consuming it is not actively producing the pornography, then it's just another digital image. It's just zeros and ones. But as you just alluded to, Senator, the point is there's a market for this. And so if you are feeding the demand for child pornography, then you are incentivizing the producers to, in some cases, kidnap, to violate children. You are participating in that.
- [30:53]
Senator
No, that's exactly right. And you know, it's interesting, the Democrats are bending over backwards. They're engaged in incredible gymnastics trying to defend it. When these concerns initially became public a few days ago, the White House responded hysterically. A bunch of the corporate media outlets fact checked it and said it's all wrong. And their justification is they said, number one, the quote from the Sentencing Commission is cherry picked. That's why I provide the entire quote, said, all right, you take the whole of what she said. I think it's on its face, absurd. But secondly, this is their talking point. They say the guidelines are too high. And there are many federal judges across the country who depart downward from the guidelines. So what I did in my questioning is I didn't focus on the guidelines. I focused on what did the prosecutor ask for. And this is in D.C. where you've got liberal prosecutors and her defense is, well, in sentencing, I have to apply all the factors and balance them, and I'm just following the law. Well, if that were the case, presumably there'd be some cases where she would sentence the defendant to more than the prosecutor asked, some cases where she'd sentence them to less, some cases where she'd sentence them to the same. In 100% of the cases where she had discretion, she sentences them to less, on average, 48% less than the prosecutor asked for. And that is a clear demonstrable pattern that is consistent with what she's been advocating for for 30 years.
- [32:26]
Ted Cruz
Okay, so I've got two questions then that come from this. One on the scope of radicalism, qualifications, threat to the Constitution and the Republic, compared to other Supreme Court nominees from Democrats. Where does Judge Jackson rank? And two, do you think that these concerns that you raised today, that seem to be really significant concerns, will they affect the nomination?
- [32:53]
Senator
So I think on the question of criminal law, it is likely that if she's confirmed, Judge Jackson will be the furthest to the left of any of the nine justices, in other words, the most likely to strike down the death penalty, the most likely to vote to release criminals. And, you know, one of the cases that I talked about is a case that came out of Kansas where the Supreme Court upheld Kansas's sexually violent predator civil commitment law. That was a 5, 4 decision. And so you have to assume she would vote consistent with what she's advocated for, which, if she were able to get four other justices to agree with her, would result in thousands of sexually violent predators who are currently in civil commitment being released. And it could potentially result in striking down DNA databases and striking down sex registries. I mean, the consequences are breathtaking. And I'll tell you one indication of how concerned Democrats are about this. So most of their questioning has been trying to rebut or prebut these. So among other things, they focused on other cases. So there are cases where someone actually sexually assaulted a child, where she did impose tough sentences. So they focus on those. Okay, fine, look, I mean, that's good. But child porn cases where there's not the direct assault of a child by the defendant, she has a very clear pattern here. But this evening, Maisie Hirono, who's a very liberal Democrat from Hawaii, she was talking about these cases. She was trying to rehabilitate Judge Jackson. And she says, you know, well, in 5 of the cases, if you look at the probation report, what she did was consistent with the probation report. Now, I'm sitting there listening to this questioning, and at the end of Mazi's questioning, I ask of the chairman of the Committee, Dick Durbin. I said, Chairman Durbin. Senator Hirono just referred to the probation reports. There are no probation reports in this record. We've looked. They're not there. I haven't seen them. My staff hasn't seen them. We are highly interested in seeing what the probation reports say. They're not in the record. Senator Hirono said she's seen five of them. So my question to you is, do the Democrats have access to evidence in this confirmation that Republicans don't? Is the Biden White House giving aspects of Judge Jackson's judicial record only to Democrats and not to Republicans? So Durbin said, I don't know. No, I'm sure not. I don't know, and gaveled the hearing shut.
- [35:42]
Ted Cruz
Senator Hirono, ixnay on the obation reports, pray. Right.
- [35:46]
Senator
Look, she, I think, didn't realize she was letting us know she had them. And it just happened. I was paying attention to what she said. So Durbin's like, no, no, no. Shut up, shut up, shut up. We took a 20 minute break when we walked back. So as we're walking in, Durbin gives us this piece of paper. Now, this piece of paper, you can't see it, but that's okay. It's a chart. And it's a chart that lists what all the probation offices recommended in each of these cases. And he hands it to each of the Republicans as you walk in or his staff does. And so Durbin and I had an exchange. As soon as the hearing gaveled back in, I said, chairman Durbin, your staff just handed us a piece of paper. This piece of paper is not in the record. It has never been put before the Judiciary Committee. Your staff handed it to us. Your staff told us the Biden White House gave it to you earlier today. Why is it that Republicans are just getting it now? And what else do Democrats have for the Biden White House about Judge Jackson's record that Republicans don't have access to? And I said, and Chairman Durbin, let me ask you, if the shoe were on the other foot, if this were, say, Justice Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing, how would you have reacted if the Trump White House had given elements of Judge Kavanaugh's judicial record to Republicans and not to Democrats, you would have lost your mind and you would have been right to do so. Durbin said, well, we got it earlier today and it was available to everyone. You just had to ask for it. At which point John Kennedy jumps in and says, now wait a second, are we supposed to be clairvoyant? How are we supposed to know to ask for it? And he said, well, if you'd only asked for it, you would get it. And so I asked him directly, is there anything else the Democrats have been given by the White House that Republicans have not? He said, not that I know of. Which is a heck of a non answer. And I'll tell you how I ended it. I said, well, in each of these cases, there's what's called a psr. It's a pre sentence report. It's a detailed report on the defendant. We don't have the PSRs, the pre sentence reports. I said, we should get them. Because Judge Jackson, in defending her pattern of light sentences, said, well, I was following the recommendations of probation. We need to see what those presentence reports are. I said, for example, the Hawkins case, the one we talked about a minute ago, I just found out that the presentence report recommended 18 months and she sentenced him to three. So that was dramatically lower. We need to read. This is centrally an issue. And I said, you know, Mr. Chairman, if these presentence reports were good for Judge Jackson, if they exonerated her, you'd have made them public already. The fact that you don't want us to see them, that leads to a very strong inference. As of now, we don't have the presentence reports. Cuz I don't think they want the American people to know what's in them.
- [38:52]
Ted Cruz
So what you're saying is Judge Jackson, we don't know what she did at some parties at Georgetown Prep in the 80s with PJ and Squee? You know, there are no personal, real questions here, no questions about her credentials. She even went to that school, I can't even name it up in Cambridge that you went to. But. But she has a record of radicalism. And now we know the Democrats have a record of covering up that radicalism in the confirmation hearings.
- [39:21]
Senator
Well, they certainly don't want anyone focused on the facts. And they're doing all they can to try to distract people. I gotta say, watching her explain why with these people with child pornography, she gives them a slap on the wrist. To me it was very concerning and we have not heard remotely a sufficient answer to it.
- [39:44]
Ted Cruz
All right, well, that doesn't make me feel great about the future of the Supreme Court. But I am glad at least that the truth is starting to come to light. We're running late as usual. But before I let you go, we've got to get to at least a couple of mailbag questions. There's a question on tactics from Count Demonnet who says, why don't Republicans fight as dirty as the Democrats? They already call us every bad name in the book anyways, so why not?
- [40:09]
Senator
Look, it's a good question and I don't think fighting dirty is the right way to go. So let's take Brett Kavanaugh, for example. I mean, they went nasty with personal aspersions, with claims that were obviously bogus, that were ridiculous. That's not the right thing to do. I think we ought to behave with integrity, but I think we ought to fight hard. So I agree with most of the premise of the question, which is we ought to fight as hard as the Democrats, but just not nasty. We ought to fight on substance. All the questions I had for Judge Jackson were about her record, her beliefs, her substantive suitability to be a Supreme Court justice. And look, the underlying sentiment. Democrats fight tooth and nail. They crawl through broken glass with a Marine dagger in their teeth. Republicans treat a lot of these fights like we're playing croquet in the backyard and we need to actually behave like we believe what we're saying. And a lot of times Republicans don't do that.
- [41:08]
Ted Cruz
Right. We don't wanna do immoral things. We don't stand for injustice, so we don't wanna do that. But frankly, I think the line of attack on Judge Jackson, where you're actually going after her record, to me is much more persuasive than anything they ever thought they had. On the summer of 82 with Brett Kavanaugh, a final question, perhaps the most profound one we've had in weeks. This is from David. Does the passage of time feel like the passage of time where the passage of time is significant and a passage.
- [41:42]
Senator
All right, I'm going to have to punt to our resident Yali because I'll confess I don't understand the question and I'm quite certain that seems very navel gazing. So, Michael, how do you answer that question?
- [41:55]
Ted Cruz
Well, Senator, clearly you have not been studying up on your Kamala Harris. I think it speaks to your intellect and character that you were not able to answer that question. But I, having recently listened to the speech from our esteemed vice president, I know exactly what he's talking about and I have no idea what she's talking about, as I usually don't. So I guess we'll have to punt it to her.
- [42:18]
Senator
So my follow up question that's intimately related is how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
- [42:25]
Ted Cruz
More coherent than the vice president, actually, Senator. So you will be in these confirmation hearings. We look forward to hearing much more about it. In the meantime, though, you will be on the Cloakroom, the series for Verdict plus members with our friend Liz Wheeler. Liz, what are you gonna be talking about?
- [42:41]
Liz Wheeler
Hi, Michael. Hi, Senator. I have to admit, standing here in the wings while you guys were talking, I did chuckle when he said how much wood would chuck Chuck? We have a good topic to talk about tonight. We are going to talk about the Babylon Bee. The Babylon Bee was suspended, suspended by Twitter this week for a tweet about the transgender individual that serves in the Biden administration, Rachel Levine. This is a satirical website. This is a comedy group and they were kicked off of Twitter for making a joke about a transgender individual. We're also gonna talk about Leah Thomas, the transgender who, born a biological male, competing in the women's category, won the NCAA championship. We're gonna talk about the cultural implications of this and what can be done at a policy level to protect women to protect women's sports. It's gonna be great. You can join us at verdictwithtedcruise.com plus that's verdictwithtedcruise.com if you use my promo code, cloakroom, then you get your first month free on your annual subscription. That is vedictwithtedcruise.com plus I can't wait.
- [43:40]
Ted Cruz
I can't wait to see it. That's all for me, though. So in the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
- [43:53]
Michael Knowles
This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom, and Security pac, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations, and candidates across the country. In 2022, jobs, freedom, and Security PAC plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.