Michael Knowles (5:16)

Could I just ask, not asking for you to tell any tales out of school here, but what was the objection to? I mean, this seems like a sort of common sense piece of legislation.

Ted Cruz (5:26)

Listen, I'll let Rand speak for himself. He is very skeptical of sanctions generally. He often opposes efforts to use sanctions against foreign countries, including sometimes our enemies. I actually think sanctions are a very effective tool, and they're a tool far short of warfare. Look, Rand and I agree at times in that we're both, as does the President, that We should be very hesitant to use military power and only use it when critically necessary to defend the nation. But I think sanctions are an effective tool of power short of military force. So. So when Rand objected, I had to find another way to pass this. And in 2019, the National Defense Authorization act, which is the big bill that passes every year authorizing our military defense, that was moving forward. And I've been an active part of passing the NDAA year after year after year. And so we decided, all right, let's try to attach this bill to the ndaa. Now, to do that, we had to get a lot of sign off. To do that, I had to get, number one, the chairman, a Republican, and the ranking member, a Democrat of the Senate Armed Services Committee to sign off because the Armed Services Committee passes the ndaa. So we did that. I had to get the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to sign off because since that's the committee that had jurisdiction over my bill, Foreign Relations could have vetoed it and said, no, we're not gonna allow it to go onto the ndaa. So was able to do that, got both the chairman and ranking. And then I had to do the same thing on Senate Banking. The Senate Banking Committee, because sanctions often go through banking, Banking could have vetoed it also. And so I had to get the chairman and ranking member of Senate Banking to sign off on. And then I also had to get Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer to shine off on the majority and minority Leader. So we managed to do all of that. It got attached to the NDAA and it passed through the Senate. Then I had to do the exact same thing in the House. So get the chairman and the ranking on Armed Services, on Foreign Relations, on banking and majority leadership. So we're talking phone call after phone call after phone call. As I'm talking to multiple members. Jeanne Shaheen is helping with the Democrats. She's talking to multiple members in the House. We almost had it derailed from a completely unrelated education provision. I don't remember what it was, but it was threatening to derail it the House. So I had to be on the phone to Kevin McCarthy trying to like navigate through that and stop the objectives. December 2019, we get it passed. Okay, so once we get it passed, then the question is, well, is the pipeline gonna stop? Cuz they were building the pipeline and the pipeline was 90 to 95% complete. Wow.

Michael Knowles (8:30)

Right. Cause we're, I mean, I think it's easy as we think about this legislation going through the Senate and then the House. We as Americans like to think that whatever we say goes, but that's only getting the American response set. But obviously Germany can do whatever it likes. So the question is, are these sanctions gonna work?

Ted Cruz (8:48)

Yeah. And let me pause for a second and point out what was truly miraculous. December 2019. Can you think of anything else that was going on then?

Michael Knowles (9:00)

You know, I seem to recall it was a busy political time.

Ted Cruz (9:04)

The House was literally impeaching the President and impeaching the president over Ukraine. Now, mind you, stopping Nord Stream 2 benefits Ukraine. It is a frigging miracle, is a Christmas miracle on 34th street that we got this done. We passed bipartisan legislation through both houses of Congress that concern Ukraine. I didn't mention Ukraine at all. Every time I talk to people, I said Germany, Russia, Ukraine. Never heard of it. I don't know where it is. Don't have it. My map doesn't have Ukraine on it. Don't know anything about it. Like in the midst of that partisan mess, to get this national security win was miraculous. But then once it happened, there was a company, a Swiss company called All Seas, that was actually building the pipeline. It was almost done. And so they're rushing to just finish the pipeline. So it was like, well, tough luck, we're done. So what I did then is drafted a letter to the CEO of All Seas. And it is a letter that says, this is to put you on formal notice that your company is in direct jeopardy of facing crushing economic sanctions on your shareholders and your senior employees. That will effectively put your company out of business. And there were a couple of questions that could arguably be ambiguous. Number one, the way the statute was written, the State Department had to do a report. I think it was 60 days later. And so you could say, oh, well, we got 60 days to get this done. And number two, the statute allowed what was called a wind down period. So you didn't just stop immediately and cause environmental damage. Our letter explained, although the report is due 60 days later, under the terms of the letter, your liability attaches instantaneously and the sanctions are mandatory. The executive has no discretion over whether to impose them. And so what I wrote in the letter to the CEO, I said, you need to be aware the instant the President signs this bill, your company faces exposure and your only reasonable option is halt construction instantaneously. And before the bill is signed.

Michael Knowles (11:19)

Yeah.

Ted Cruz (11:19)

Now both houses of Congress have passed it, there's a big lobbying press in Washington. Suddenly All Seas hires a lobbyist. They're reaching out. So suddenly there's word that at the NSC there may be an effort to try to undercut these sanctions. So I pick up the phone and I call Robert O'Brien. The National Security Advisor is a close friend of mine. Robert was headed to a Christmas party. I said, look, Robert, I need you to come out. And I talked to him about it and said this would be. Don't listen to this dumbass lobbying effort. This is a huge national security win for the country. Thankfully, nsc. Robert's a great guy and NSC didn't bite. We then had a fight, an interagency fight between the State Department, the Treasury Department and the Energy Department. So I'm on the phone with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. I'm on the phone with Energy Secretary Dan Brillette. Mike Pompeo was in Europe. I forget where he was, but I'm texting Mike on my phone. All three of them, State and Energy, were in the right place, which is wanting these sanctions to be robust. Treasury, unfortunately, was pushing on the other side. And so it was a big fight. So I'm talking to all three, leaning in hard. At the end of the day, State and Energy and National Security Council won that interagency battle. And so the sanctions remained tough. The President signed that bill. I believe it was a Thursday at 7pm, if I'm remembering the time correctly, about 15 minutes earlier. Thursday, 6.45pm All Seas puts out a press release. We are lifting anchor and leaving, and we have immediately halted all construction of Nord Stream 2.

Michael Knowles (13:13)

So where does this put the pipeline now? I mean, so after there's a sort of Herculean effort, it finally gets through all the various, the chambers of the Congress and then gets through the departments and it goes into effect. Where does that leave the pipeline?

Ted Cruz (13:28)

So for several months, it just left. It stopped. So it's 95% built. But remember, a pipeline that is 95% built is zero percent built. The pipeline doesn't work until you connect both ends. So right now it's a hunk of metal on the bottom of the ocean. It's not doing nothing. So Russia was then scrambling, all right, how do we build it? And they didn't have the technology to do it. They're trying to do it using a Russian ship called the Akademik Chersky. Now, to do that, they had to get a new environmental permit from Denmark. So I was on the phone to the Danish ambassador, pressing on the Danish ambassador saying, don't grant the permit. Unfortunately, Merkel and Germany are on the phone with Denmark Leaning on them hard. Please grant the permit. They ended up granting it. By the way, there's serious environmental risks to how Russia wants to do it, among other things. One of the ways they're looking at doing it is dragging an anchor on the sea floor. And there are actually unexploded chemical munitions on the sea floor from World War II that if you hit them, you could have an environmental complete mess. Wow. And it's not like the Russians are very good at this. They don't know how to do this, which is why they had to hire a Swiss company to build it initially.

Michael Knowles (14:43)

Well, Senator, you mentioned the world wars here, and maybe this is a stupid question, but just knowing the little I do of history, the Germans and the Russians have not always had a wonderful relationship. And I'm just wondering, why is Germany so hell bent on getting this pipeline and this relationship with Russia, is it just money?

Ted Cruz (15:02)

You know, Michael, I don't have a great answer. I think it is not in the German people's best interest. Merkel is leaning in really hard. The European Union actually voted, I think it was about a year ago, to condemn Nord Stream 2 as harmful to Europe. And the vote was something like 400 to 100. I mean, it was an overwhelmingly lopsided vote condemning Nord Stream 2. And so the Russians have been scrambling to move forward. I have been since then. And by the way, all of the naysayers who were trying to stop our legislation, what they kept saying was, it'll never work. It won't actually stop the pipeline. There's no chance of it succeeding. And of course, it worked like a charm. It stopped it in its tracks. Now the Russians are trying to retrofit their ship to be able to finish it. And so what I've done, I've been working very closely with State and Energy still and treasury, but I introduced a second set of sanctions that is even. It's a tougher set of secondary sanctions that basically says anyone else who's affiliated with it, you're getting sanctioned too. Like, if you touch this project, you're screwed. Yeah. Again, I did it with Jeanne Shaheen. It was bipartisan, Republican and Democrat, and we passed it through the Senate, attached to the next ndaa. And so we got that through. It's pending. It hasn't been signed into law, but we got it through the Senate again. And I'll tell you, I recently joined with a couple of other senators and sent a letter to the German port where Russia is retrofitting the academic Chersky and trying to. To lead Its efforts to finish this pipeline. The German port's name. I'm sorry, it's a German name, a long German name that I can't remember, but it had a whole lot of consonants in it.

Michael Knowles (16:55)

They usually do.

Ted Cruz (16:56)

So I sent them a letter pointing out, look, under the terms of these sanctions, you are facing serious sanctions under what Congress has passed. I gotta say, Germany is. The German government is flipping out, is losing their minds. They're very upset. Russia's very upset. Now, other players in Europe, like I spoke two weeks ago to the Polish ambassador, Poland thinks, you know, Europe has seen the danger of Russian aggression. You know, for Poland, Soviet tanks in the streets are real memories. They know what that's like. And part of the reason you don't want Europe to totally dependent on Russia for energy is because Putin's demonstrated he'll shut off the energy in the middle of a brutal winter in order to extract concessions from people he wants to get concessions from. And so he uses it. You know, it's a little bit like saying, you know, I'm gonna make myself dependent on the Mafia, on the mob. Vito Corleone, I'm gonna put him in charge of air and water for my house. That's a really bad idea because Vito will come to you sometime and ask for a favor. That's right. And Putin has a lot of Vito Corleone. Apologies to Marlon Brando. Somewhere he's rolling over in his grave for.

Michael Knowles (18:23)

It was like I was watching the film.

Ted Cruz (18:27)

But. So this battle is ongoing right now. Here's the bottom line. I don't believe this pipeline will ever get constructed. But we are literally fighting both Merkel and Putin right now, who billions of dollars are at stake to complete this pipeline. We have managed to keep a bipartisan coalition throughout the government, in Congress and the executive branch, Republicans, Democrats, all the other issues we're fighting about. We've managed to keep this coalition together on national security. And if we continue to stop the pipeline, which we've done so far, it hurts Putin, taking billions of dollars out of its pocket. It helps Europe by making it less dependent on Russia. And it helps America because if Europe, because Europe, it would be much better for Europe for them to be importing energy from America, creating jobs in the United States of America rather than enriching Putin. And so this is a win, win all around. And it's an active diplomatic battle that is ongoing right now.

Michael Knowles (19:37)

And I think that's an important point. First of all, it serves American interests. Second of all, it serves European interests. And third of all, this hearkens back to something that we talked about very early in the podcast during impeachment, which is, I think a lot of our focus now is on China. Obviously, we're living in this pandemic and these lockdowns that were caused by China. And so people are saying, okay, China's the real threat. You know, Russia was the threat during the Cold War, but now China's the real threat. This doesn't have to be an either or here. It's not the case that just because China is now threatening us in a way that we hadn't seen before, that all of a sudden Vladimir Putin is our best friend. Surely he does not have our interests at heart.

Ted Cruz (20:15)

No, that's exactly right. Listen, in terms of magnitude of threats, China is the far bigger geopolitical threat. I think it's the biggest threat we have over the next century. But Putin and Russia remain dangerous, and we need to be vigorous against them. And for that matter, a nuclear Iran would be profoundly dangerous. North Korea is dangerous. So there are lots of dangerous places on earth. China, strategically, their economic might makes them, I think, a different level of magnitude than every other player for the next century. But Russia is dangerous, and putting billions of dollars in Putin's pockets to use against us is a really bad idea.

Michael Knowles (20:57)

Well, moving from the realm of foreign policy to touch on domestic affairs here in our last few moments. Want to get to the mailbag? Rob asks. He says, I would like Ted's thoughts on the recent comments by Dems that a Trump landslide on election night could be a mirage. That basically you could get Trump winning on election night, but then some mail in ballots come in weeks later, and all of a sudden, the election goes to Joe Biden.

Ted Cruz (21:23)

Well, look, I think it is a moment where the Democrats actually said out loud the things that they meant to keep quiet, which is they're admitting, from a Democratic perspective, there are one of two outcomes. Either they win in November, or they're gonna scream the election is illegitimate. They're gonna file litigation in every state and jurisdiction they can, and they're gonna do everything they can to steal the election that they. The outcome of Trump winning, there's so much rage at him that I. And you can see them setting the predicate for them. You can see them already setting the stage to challenge the legitimacy of the election. And, you know, it's interesting. There have been prominent Democrats, Hillary Clinton asking, you know, would Trump accept it if he lost? And there's an odd thing that a lot of Democrats do. I mean, it's a Freudian projection, which is they accuse the other side of doing what they're doing. Look, it's the Democrats that still haven't accepted they lost in 2016. You know, it's Stacey Abrams who still thinks she's governor of Georgia. And I am very concerned that they are. Unless they win, in which case it will be Hosanna. Hosanna income, the socialists. But if there's any outcome other than their winning on election night, hold on tight, cuz they're gonna do everything they can to dispute the outcome.

Michael Knowles (22:54)

Right. It's very funny because Hillary Clinton said in 2016 that Donald Trump is threatening not to accept the results of the election. This is a threat to democracy. She then went on to dispute the election for four years and now she's saying Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances. You know, if there were self awareness on that side of the aisle, I'm sure we could all laugh about it. But sadly there seems not to be.

Ted Cruz (23:17)

So Michael, let me jump in actually on a mailbag topic, and this is actually a correction from prior mailbag.

Michael Knowles (23:24)

Hold on, Senator, I've gotta stop you right there. I'm shocked. I'm edified, but shocked that you would correct something on the air. Because if this were the New York Times and you had said something wrong, you would bury the Correction in page 3050 of some supplemental book that no one would read. But you are going to make a correction right here on the show.

Ted Cruz (23:42)

I am. And I'm gonna shine a light on it. Which is several episodes ago, we were doing a mailbag and we had a question from one listener whose handle on Twitter you and I both referred to as Balaam's donkey.

Michael Knowles (24:03)

Yes.

Ted Cruz (24:04)

And we were talking about it going well, you know, and we were sort of, we made some jokes. Well, I gotta tell you, afterwards, a dear, dear friend of mine, guy named Willie Langston, who's one of my closest friends on earth, and Willie is a deep, devout Christian, a godly man, and he knows the Bible through and through. And I gotta say, Willie had a little bit of fun making fun of you and me.

Michael Knowles (24:31)

Yep, I know, I know where this is going.

Ted Cruz (24:33)

For our lack of biblical literacy, because what it actually was referring to is Balaam's donkey. And who is Balaam? And I had to be reminded I didn't remember this. And Willie laughingly recounted. So if you look in the Book of numbers, chapter 22. So Balaam, he wasn't an Israelite. He was with the Mennonites and the Moabites, but he was someone to whom God spoke and the story in Numbers 22. And I actually wanna the story because I remembered it, but I didn't remember it when we were talking about it. And it's worth remembering. So numbers 22, starting with verse 22. But God was angry because Balaam was going. And the angel of the Lord took his stand in the way as an adversary against him. Now he was riding on his donkey and his two servants were with him. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand, the donkey turned off the other way and went into the field. But Balaam struck the donkey to turn her back into the way. Then the angel of the Lord stood in the narrow path of the vineyards with a well on the side and a wall on that side. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she pressed herself into the wall and pressed Balaam's foot against the wall, so he struck her again. The angel of the Lord went further and stood in a narrow place where there was no place to turn to the right hand or the left. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she lay down under Balaam. So Balaam was angry and struck the donkey with his stick. And the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, what have I done to you that you have struck me these three times? Then Balaam said to the donkey, because you have made a mockery of me. If I'd had a sword in my hand, I would have killed you by now. This is the guy talking to his donkey. The donkey said to Balaam, am I not your donkey on which you have ridden all your life to this day? Have I ever been accustomed to do so to you? And he said, no. Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with the drawn sword in his hand, and he bowed all the way to the ground. And the angel of the Lord said to him, why have you struck your donkey three times? Behold, I have come out as an adversary because your way was contrary to me. But the donkey saw me and turned aside from me these three times. If she had not turned aside from me, I would surely have killed you just now and let her, the donkey, live. And so our listener Balaam's donkey was a wonderful biblical reference that as a graduate of Second Baptist High School, I am embarrassed that I did not recognize immediately. But, Willie, I'm fessing up and fessing up for all to hear.

Michael Knowles (27:31)

You know, it's so funny you mention it, Senator. I did have this thought. I was thinking about bay lamb. What is that? And after the episode I thought, oh my gosh, I actually did read numbers probably two years ago. I had never read all of numbers. It was two or three years ago. And you know, it's a little bit dry as far as books of the Bible go. But I thought, oh, gosh, this is very bad. And I, unlike Balaam's donkey, I deserve to be struck three times. We do on this show for our biblical ignorance. We've really covered a lot of ground. We've not only gone to modern day Russia, we've gone to the ancient Mideast. We've covered everything in between, all the way from heaven to earth. We'll have to stop it there. And we will see one another next time. And I'm going to catch up on my Bible in the meantime. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

Ted Cruz (28:29)

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 nation.