Harris Steals a Gratuity from Trump, Media Trashes Musk Interview w DT & a Palestinian Bomb Enthusiast at the Border Week In Review

Summary

The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson Episode: Harris Steals a Gratuity from Trump, Media Trashes Musk Interview w DT & a Palestinian Bomb Enthusiast at the Border Week In Review
Release Date: August 17, 2024

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Overview

In this episode of The 47 Morning Update, host Ben Ferguson delves into three major stories shaping the political landscape: Kamala Harris's alleged appropriation of Donald Trump's policy on taxing tips, the media's critical response to an interview between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, and alarming developments at the U.S. southern border regarding the apprehension of a Palestinian individual on the terror watch list. The discussion is rich with insights, controversial claims, and pointed critiques of the current administration and media practices.

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1. Kamala Harris Appropriates Trump's Tip Tax Proposal

Summary:
Ben Ferguson and Senator Ted Cruz discuss Kamala Harris's recent move to implement a policy similar to one previously proposed by Donald Trump regarding the taxation of tips. They argue that Harris has taken credit for Trump's original idea without acknowledgment, framing it as her own initiative.

Key Points:

• Origin of the Policy:
  Donald Trump introduced the idea of exempting tips from taxes during a rally in Las Vegas, inspired by a conversation with a waitress frustrated by the current IRS enforcement on tip reporting. He detailed this backstory during a lunch with Republican senators in D.C. (02:22)

• Legislative Action:
  Following Trump's proposal, Senator Cruz introduced legislation in the Senate to exempt tips from taxes, emphasizing the Republican Party's commitment to blue-collar workers like waiters, bartenders, and other service industry professionals. Notably, two Democratic senators from Nevada, Jackie Rosen and Katherine Cortez Masto, co-sponsored this legislation, recognizing that 25% of Nevada's workforce comprises tipped employees. (03:53)

• Kamala Harris's Involvement:
  Kamala Harris echoed Trump's proposal on August 10th, merely a month after Trump introduced it on June 9th, without acknowledging its origins. This move by Harris is viewed by Ferguson and Cruz as an appropriation of Trump's idea, undermining transparency and credit. 05:00

Notable Quotes:

• Ben Ferguson [02:00]: "Trump announced it at the Vegas rally. And I think the next week he was in D.C... there was a waitress who came up who complained about the really oppressive enforcement from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris of their efforts to tax tips."

• Kamala Harris [04:42]: "To office, we are going to not charge taxes on tips. People making tips."

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2. Media Misrepresentation of Musk-Trump Interview on Nuclear Power

Summary:
The episode critiques the media's portrayal of an interview between Elon Musk and Donald Trump discussing nuclear power. Ferguson and Cruz argue that mainstream outlets like CNN selectively edited the conversation to paint Trump and Musk in an unfavorable light, misrepresenting their views on nuclear energy.

Key Points:

• Original Discussion:
  In a full-length interview, Musk and Trump discussed the benefits of nuclear power, highlighting its safety, reliability, and low carbon emissions compared to other energy sources. They aimed to dispel common fears and misconceptions about nuclear energy, advocating for its potential as a sustainable power source. (16:04)

• Media Editing:
  Ferguson criticizes CNN for airing only a small, out-of-context segment that makes it appear as though Trump and Musk trivialize the atrocities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This selective editing, according to Ferguson, creates a misleading and damaging narrative about their stance on nuclear energy. (14:34)

• Impact of Disintermediation:
  The hosts emphasize the growing trend of bypassing traditional media channels, with figures like Musk and Trump directly communicating with the public via platforms like X (formerly Twitter). This shift reduces the media's control over information dissemination, allowing for more authentic and unfiltered conversations. (21:17)

Notable Quotes:

• Ben Ferguson [14:34]: "If you didn't listen to the Elon Musk Trump interview, if you just heard that little segment... CNN is being deliberately when they cut out that tiny snippet... to create a false and misleading impression."

• Ben Ferguson [18:46]: "CNN knows that they listen to the same interview you and I listen to, but they are being deliberately... to mislead you and lie to you about whether it's JD Vance or they lie to you about Kamala Harris."

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3. Border Crisis: Palestinian on Terror Watch List and Mismanagement of Unaccompanied Minors

Summary:
Ferguson and Cruz turn their attention to the U.S. southern border, highlighting the arrest of Omar Shaheda, a Palestinian on the terror watch list, and the administration's failure to effectively manage unaccompanied minors entering the country. They assert that Kamala Harris, as the border czar, is responsible for these ongoing issues.

Key Points:

• Arrest of Omar Shaheda:
  On August 12, 2024, Omar Shaheda, a Palestinian from Judea and Samaria accused of explosive and arms use, was apprehended at the Santa Teresa Border Patrol station in New Mexico. Shaheda matched a terror watch list record and is categorized as a high-risk individual for explosives and arms involvement. (23:31)

• Pattern of Terrorist Apprehensions:
  This arrest follows similar instances where suspected Palestinian terrorists were caught at the California border, underscoring a pattern that Ferguson and Cruz attribute to Harris's open border policies. (25:30)

• Crisis with Unaccompanied Minors:
  The administration's handling of unaccompanied minors is under severe scrutiny. Over 80,000 children have entered the country without proper oversight, leading to a significant number being lost track of after being placed with non-family guardians. Internal memos reveal systemic failures in screening and monitoring these minors, resulting in potential abuse and trafficking. (26:37)

• Lack of Congressional Action:
  Despite significant issues, Ferguson laments the lack of action from the Democratic-controlled Senate. Hearings on the plight of unaccompanied minors and related abuses have been neglected, with a focus instead on broader immigration topics like amnesty. (31:07)

Notable Quotes:

• Unnamed Guest 2 [26:37]: "The administration has just been busted handing kids over to non family members... and lost track. Within a month, a third of the kids are handed over to their, quote, sponsors who are non family members with no response and no follow up from the federal government."

• Ben Ferguson [31:06]: "Kamala Harris has zero interest in finding the answer to that. She will never talk about it, mind you. She was the border czar. She still is... losing 80,000 children apparently doesn't concern her at all."

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Conclusion

Ben Ferguson's in-depth analysis on The 47 Morning Update provides a critical perspective on current political maneuvers, media practices, and border security issues. By highlighting the alleged appropriation of policy ideas by Kamala Harris, questioning the integrity of mainstream media, and exposing severe shortcomings in border management, Ferguson and Cruz present a narrative that calls for greater accountability and transparency in governance and media reporting.

For listeners seeking unfiltered insights and a deep dive into the pressing issues facing America today, this episode serves as a compelling resource, urging the audience to question mainstream narratives and seek out the full stories behind the headlines.

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Notable Timestamps:

• Policy Appropriation: 02:00 - 09:26
• Media Misrepresentation: 12:10 - 23:17
• Border Issues: 23:29 - 33:43

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Transcript

[Ted Cruz]

What a week. Welcome. It is Verdict with Ted Cruz, the week in Review. Ben Ferguson with you as always. And there were some major stories this week that you may have missed that we talked about that. I want to make sure you heard exactly what happened here on Verdict. First up, Kamala decides to steal intellectual property from Donald Trump, you know, like his ideas, and act like they're her own this time, claiming that she is the one that is going to not tax tips, even though it was actually her idea. And she broke the tie in the Senate with her vote to actually have the IRS go after people that were not reporting, quote, all of their taxes on their tips. Up next, the media continues its massive billion dollar in kind donation to Kamala Harris by smearing this week Donald Trump and Elon Musk because they couldn't control the interview. They did.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah.

[Ted Cruz]

They sat down, had a nice conversation and the media lost their mind over it. And finally, more terrorists on the watch list coming across our southern border. This time the border czar didn't stop a Palestinian bomb maker. And then she acts like nothing's wrong. It's the Weekend Review and it starts right now.

[Unnamed Guest 1]

Donald Trump seized on something that was very authentic and organic. He was out in Vegas. He was having a conversation with people in the service industry. He had an idea, apparently wrote it on a napkin. We shouldn't tax tips help people survive, help people make a living. And it, and he said it at a rally and it just worked and it stuck. And people loved it because he was a guy looking out for the little guy. He was advocating for these hardworking people that rely on tips as part of their income. And it obviously played well with many people in this country. Fast forward to a few days ago. Kamala Harris says the same thing.

[Unnamed Guest 2]

Well, and let me give a little.

[Ben Ferguson]

More narrative on that. So Trump announced it at the Vegas rally. And I think the next week he was in D.C. and I had lunch with him. He had lunch with all the Republican senators. He was actually telling us the backstory of it. And he said, well, this was not an idea that came from a bunch of policy experts that had a bunch of white papers. He said he was in Vegas right.

[Unnamed Guest 2]

Before the rally and he said he was having, I think lunch or dinner. I think it was lunch.

[Ben Ferguson]

And he said there was a waitress who came up who complained about the really oppressive enforcement from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris of their efforts to tax tips and how it was really burdensome, the record keeping, it was really hard. And Trump says at dinner pulled out a piece of paper and just wrote down no taxes on tips. And then he said, he went to the rally and he just said it and he said. And they went wild. They went wild. I gotta say, there are moments I.

[Unnamed Guest 2]

Think of political genius, and I think.

[Ben Ferguson]

That was one of them. So the next week, I introduced legislation in the Senate to exempt tips from taxes. Because I heard that idea and it's exactly right. And the reason I introduced legislation is there are a lot of reasons, but one right at the heart is for over a decade, for as long as I've been in the Senate, I have been advocating that the Republican Party, we should be a blue collar party. We should be the party of waiters and waitresses. We should be the party of bartenders. We should be the party of hairdressers and nail salon workers and taxicab drivers and everyone who has calluses on their hands because they're working hard and is a policy. The contrast is night and day. That's who we should be fighting for. And, you know, it's striking. I introduced that legislation. It's got a number of co sponsors, you know, who also joined it.

[Unnamed Guest 1]

Who's that?

[Ben Ferguson]

Both Democrat senators from Nevada.

[Unnamed Guest 1]

Really?

[Ben Ferguson]

Jackie Rosen and Katherine Cortez Masto both joined my legislation because about 25% of the workers in Nevada are tipped workers. And I gotta say, my reaction when I heard him make that proposal, I said, donald Trump will carry Nevada on that policy issue. By the way, the culinary union has come out emphatically in support of Trump's proposal, emphatically in support of my legislation exempting tips from taxes. And so this week, here's Kamala Harris. I want you to give a listen first to Trump in Nevada announcing the policy proposal and then Kamala just shamelessly copying him. Give a listen, because when I get.

[Kamala Harris]

To office, we are going to not charge taxes on tips. People making tips.

[Unnamed Guest 3]

Eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers.

[Unnamed Guest 1]

I mean, that's just straight up stealing. But I do think so.

[Ben Ferguson]

June 9th is when Trump said it. August 10th is when she said it. And she didn't have the dignity to say, you know, I actually would have respected it more if she says, look, there are lots of areas where I disagree with Donald Trump. I'm a left wing Democrat kook. He's not, however, he had an idea. That's a really good one. And I'm here to tell you right.

[Unnamed Guest 1]

Now, I would do the same thing.

[Ben Ferguson]

I would do the same that I could respect. But she doesn't acknowledge it. And the irony is she also doesn't acknowledge what prompted it, which is that her administration, the Biden Harris administration, she was the tie breaking vote on the legislation that provided millions for the IRS to go after waiters and waitresses and, and, and, and, and everyone who's, who's making tips and to enforce it vigorously and to hammer on them. And yet she doesn't acknowledge any of that. This is Gaslighting 101.

[Unnamed Guest 1]

This is why, by the way, I love doing this show. And I will say to everybody right now, listening or watching, this is when I ask you share it. And here's why. Know when the media is gonna tell you this in February. Cuz what you just said is not something 10 years ago. And then she had a change of heart. Okay. It's not like it was a policy 10 years ago and there was some negative effects came out of it that you didn't realize. And, and then you're like, hey look, that was a long time ago, decade ago. In February of 2023, it came to light that Biden's IRS plan to crack down on the service industry's reporting on tips. The Service Industry TIP Compliance Agreement program was to be a voluntary TIP reporting system in which the IRS and the service industry companies cooperated, which is where they would crack down on the actual workers. The program was meant to, quote, improve TIP reporting compliance, reduce administrative burdens and provide more transparency and certainty to taxpayers. Again, going after the little guy here. And the program feature included, quote, monitoring of employer compliance based on actual annual TIP revenue. So big brother watching you and, and charge TIP data from an employer's point of sale system. So now the computer's tracking you and allowance for adjustments in tipping practices from year to year to protect the employer from getting in trouble by turning in, in essence, their employees. And who did this? Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. And now she's out there saying, I want you to not have to pay taxes on your tips. When again, 2023, February wasn't that long ago.

[Unnamed Guest 2]

Yeah.

[Ben Ferguson]

And look, this is a standard practice and pattern of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris siding with the big guy, siding with giant corporations, whether it's big tech or giant corporations against the little guy.

[Unnamed Guest 2]

You know, there was an interesting story.

[Ben Ferguson]

The same lunch where Trump was telling us the backstory of this proposal. The day before the lunch, Trump and Lindsey Graham had played golf. And Lindsey told everyone, he said, look, the two of us were playing golf.

[Unnamed Guest 2]

And they're both big golfers.

[Ben Ferguson]

And you know, look, your son is one of the best golfers in the world. But Lindsey described how midway through the golf game, he said their two caddies came up and hugged Donald Trump because he had just made the proposal of no taxes on tips. And listen, golf caddies, like barbers, like bartenders, there are all sorts of professions where a big chunk of their revenue and many of them are just barely making ends meet. They're just starting to climb the economic ladder. And they literally came and hugged him for that proposal. And so Kamala Harris is now trying to pretend, Look, I'm glad she's supporting my legislation. I gotta say, this is a first. I do not believe Kamala Harris has ever before publicly endorsed legislation that I filed. And in the lead author of now, she didn't mention it was my legislation. She didn't mention it was Trump's idea. And to be clear, I took the idea from Trump. It was his idea.

[Unnamed Guest 1]

And you ran with it.

[Ben Ferguson]

I just had the sense of saying, that's a good idea. Let's do it. And so I went and put pen to paper to actually draft it to make it happen. But. But. But I readily credit it was Trump's idea. Kamala could not be bothered to acknowledge anything other than pretending this has always been her view.

[Unnamed Guest 1]

Finally, Senator, there's also something else that's been happening over the last couple of weeks, and that is the media is trying to make Harris and her running mate look like they're moderates, like they're not extremists, they're not rad, even though their entire history says that's exactly what they are.

[Ben Ferguson]

Look, I want you to listen to two clips that really sums up just how extreme they are. The first is from Tim Waltz, and he's talking about his fellow Minnesotan, Ilhan Omar. And to be clear, Ilhan Omar is one of the founding members of the squad. She is a radical, anti Semite.

[Unnamed Guest 2]

She hates Israel. She is extreme.

[Ben Ferguson]

Listen to what Tim Waltz thinks about her.

[Unnamed Guest 4]

Something I'll never get tired of saying. I think all of you. Congresswoman Omar, wonderful.

[Unnamed Guest 2]

Doesn't that sound.

[Unnamed Guest 4]

When I'm having a tough day or I'm out on about my mile five of my run and I'm feeling kind of down and the world's pressing on me. I think Ilhan Omar is a congresswoman, and it just brightens you up.

[Unnamed Guest 3]

So.

[Unnamed Guest 4]

Thank you.

[Unnamed Guest 1]

I just wonder, like, mile three, is he sitting there thinking about. That's the same congressman that said that the terrorists that attacked us on 911 were some people that did some things.

[Ben Ferguson]

Look, Ilhan Omar is a congresswoman and.

[Unnamed Guest 2]

That'S something that just brightens you up. That's what he said.

[Ben Ferguson]

This is. Everyone will acknowledge one of the most radical and extreme zealots. And that brightens his day.

[Unnamed Guest 2]

That tells you who he is.

[Ben Ferguson]

Now, if you think that's bad, I got something worse. Do you like Christmas?

[Unnamed Guest 1]

Love Christmas.

[Ben Ferguson]

Okay, well, you're not Kamala Harris.

[Unnamed Guest 2]

Give a listen to Kamala.

[Unnamed Guest 3]

When we all sing happy tunes and sing Merry Christmas and wish each other Merry Christmas, these children are not gonna have a merry Christmas. How dare we speak Merry Christmas. How dare we?

[Unnamed Guest 1]

I haven't seen somebody get that crazy about hating Christmas in a long time.

[Ben Ferguson]

And understand what she's saying there in context. She's talking about illegal immigrants and she's saying illegal immigrants are having a lousy time. So how dare we say Merry Christmas when illegal immigrants. I mean, it is. This is a woman whose entire career has been siding with criminals and with illegal immigrants. And in her mind, even saying Merry Christmas is unacceptable as long as there is one illegal immigrant who is not backs basking in luxury.

[Ted Cruz]

Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week. Now on to story number two. We've seen this happen now multiple times over the last couple of weeks. We saw them say that J.D. vance is weird, right? And everybody. We played that montage of the media saying it over and over again, every outlet. Then we had this, the same montage with Kamala Harris's campaign, except it was positive news for her. That she's surging. Surging, Surging. Everybody used that word over the weekend. Clearly it's coming, I think from the Harris campaign. And now you have the Same headlines written 50 different ways of Sunday with this conversation between Trump and Mus. That wasn't true and a lie. How is this not an in kind donation? The Harris campaign?

[Ben Ferguson]

Look, I think it's worse than that. It's not even an in kind donation. They are the Harris campaign. Understand there is a political strategy, a decision that has been made to hide Kamala Harris, to lock her in the basement. I don't know if she's in the same basement with Joe Biden or not, but she does no media interviews. It's been three weeks that she's been the presumptive nominee. She hasn't done a single media interview. She doesn't answer questions. She reads from a teleprompter, and she doesn't ad lib on anything. And the reason they're doing that, what is their campaign Their campaign is the media. Those headlines, they are the media. And I want to play in particular one excerpt from CNN because it reveals just the lengths they will go to lie. So play initially how CNN covered a small segment of the Trump Elon Musk interview. Play.

[Unnamed Guest 3]

I want to play one exchange that was kind of classic. Well, there were a lot of exchanges that were exchanges that were classic Donald Trump, but this one really stuck out to us.

[H]

And Nagsaki were bombed, but now they're, they're like full cities again. So it's really not something that, you know, so it's not scary as people think, basically.

[Unnamed Guest 3]

So that was more Elon Musk than Donald Trump talking about sort of suggesting that what happened almost 80 years ago, I think 80 years ago next year, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, now it's okay, kind of trying to blow off the impact of that.

[Ben Ferguson]

So let me say a couple of things. Number one, let's, let's start with, with CNN's perspective that, that apparently they think America winning World War II was a bad thing and that are bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They're not crediting that that saved enormous number of lives and the war, World War II would have gone on for much, much longer without those bombs. CNN takes it as a given that America was in the wrong. And that is horrible. But that being said, look, if you didn't listen to the Elon Musk Trump interview, if you just heard that little segment, if all you get your news from is cnn, I understand you're being a little startled going, huh, that's weird. Trump is like going out of his way to say, hey, no big deal that, that, that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked. That, that's a wonderful thing that the natural inference from that little segment is apparently Trump, if he's president, is going to nuke other cities. That, that, that's, it's not, not a big deal, no problem. Let's just, let's just drop atom bombs all over the world. That's, that's clearly where, where CNN wants your inference to go. Now I want you to listen to the full conversation in context because it is wildly different from the little segment CNN played. Listen to the full conversation in context.

[H]

Yeah, actually there's the bad side of nuclear, which is a nuclear war, very bad side. But there's, there's also, I think nuclear electricity is underrated.

[Kamala Harris]

You're right.

[H]

And it's actually, you know, people have this fear of, of nuclear nuclear electricity generation. But, but it's actually one of the safest forms of electricity. Generation. It's, it's just a huge misunderstanding. And if you look at the injuries and deaths, you know, caused by, say, I mean, I'm not trying to pick on coal mining, but just any kind of mining operation and there's a certain number of injuries and deaths per year. And you compare that to nuclear. Nuclear is actually way better. So it's underrated as an electricity source. And I think it's something that's worth reconsidering. But there's so much regulation that people can't get it done, so that, you.

[Kamala Harris]

Know, maybe they'll have to change the name. The name is a rough name. There are some areas like, yes, like when you see what happened, you have to rebrand it. We'll have to give it a good name. We'll name it after you or something. You know, hey, it has a branding problem. You know, when you see what happened.

[H]

It does have a branding problem when.

[Kamala Harris]

You see what happened in Japan where they say you won't be able to go on the land for about 3,000 years. Did you ever say that? And in Russia, where they had the problem, where they, you know, the, there's a lot of bad things happened and they have a problem, and they say that in 2,000 years, people will start to occupy the land again. You know, you realize it's pretty bad, but there's. You're right about it.

[H]

It's actually not that bad. So, like, after Fukushima happened in Japan, like, people were asking me in California, you know, are we worried about like a nuclear cloud coming from Japan? I'm like, no, that's crazy. It's, it's actually, it's not even dangerous in Fukushima. I actually flew there and, and, and ate locally grown vegetables on TV to prove it. And, and I donated a, A solar water treatment. Yeah, a solar powered system for a water treatment plant and.

[Kamala Harris]

Yeah, but you haven't been feeling so well lately and I'm worried about it.

[Ben Ferguson]

No, no, but I mean, I'm only getting mine.

[H]

You know, it's, it's like, you know, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, but now they're, they're like full cities again. So it's really not something that, you know, it's not as scary as people.

[Ted Cruz]

Think, basically, but not even close to how CNN presented their conversation and clearly edited to make it seem like that Elon Musk and Donald Trump were basically insane when, if you put the conversation in context, the way that we just played it right, unedited, you know, now CNN just straight up lied to you. They Said, hey, find something in there and we'll just make crap up and tell everybody that this guy's unhinged. By the way, he wasn't slurring his words there. I think everybody heard Donald Trump and he sounded just like Donald Trump always sounds.

[Ben Ferguson]

Well, and the whole conversation was about nuclear power. And the point they were saying is that nuclear power is very reliable, that it is safe, that you have fewer fatalities, fewer accidents than other sources of power generation, that if you care about the environment, nuclear power has by far the least emissions, the least carbon emissions, the least pollution. And that point is absolutely right. And the left, and it's one of the points, you know, the radical left, the climate alarmists, they talk about carbon emissions, but then they're rabidly anti nuclear because they give in to alarmist fear. And in that point, Elon Musk was making the context that even when you have cities, he said, first of all, Fukushima, where they had a nuclear accident in Japan, yes, it was an unfortunate accident, but the fallout has not been that severe. They also were talking about Chernobyl and in, in Russia. But, but, but the, the point he made about Hiroshima and Nagasaki is even there, there are now people living, and it's come through. He's obviously not advocating for nuking cities. He, he, he's saying that the risks of nuclear power generation are overstated by alarmists. Now, CNN knows that they, they, they listen to the same interview you and I listen to, but they are being deliberately, when they cut out that little tiny snippet, and notice they only played what, like 15, 20 seconds of it. They cut out that tiny snippet with the deliberate purpose of creating a false and misleading impression because they're not engaged in news. They are propagandists. And it's the same thing the Kamala Harris campaign would have done, because cnn, like the rest of the corporate media, is effectively the communication arm of the Kamala Harris campaign.

[Ted Cruz]

Senator, finally, let me ask you, and if you put all of this show into context, especially if you look at what they're having to do to lie about this conversation with Musk and Trump, is this just what we can expect from now until eternity with the media when they lose control, they have a meltdown, they lie to you about whether it's JD Vance or they lie to you about Kamala Harris and what she actually does at the border and she's not the border czar, or they lie about President Trump slurring his words and saying, hey, that worked with Joe Biden getting him out of the race. Maybe we can attack Donald Trump the same way. Is this the reality of the world we now live in?

[Ben Ferguson]

So I don't think it is. And we are seeing in America and across the world massive disintermediation. The mediators, the middlemen, are being removed.

[Unnamed Guest 2]

From the transmission of ideas.

[Ben Ferguson]

We saw that powerfully this week with Elon Musk and Donald Trump going directly to a billion people on X without the reporters being able to block it. But we see that on this podcast. Listen. Why do you and I do the podcast often at 11 o'clock at night or midnight or even one or two in the morning? Why do we do it three days a week? We do it because if your only source of news is the corporate media, if you only watch CNN or MSNBC or abc, NBC, cbs, you do not know what is happening. They are lying to you. And the reason this podcast, we've got roughly a million unique listeners is because people find it valuable. We give you facts that CNN will never air. We play the full segment of what Elon and Trump said about Hiroshima and Nagasaki instead of their dishonestly edited snippet that was designed to mislead you and lie to you. And this podcast goes right around the corporate media. And in fact, just about every podcast we put out drives stories in the corporate media that is going to accelerate. People are going to podcast, people are going to social media, people are going to X. Elon's buying Twitter remains, I think, the single most important step for free speech in decades. And I think that's only going to accelerate. And you're going to see a panic as the corporate media, they want a monopoly on what we know, what we hear, what we understand, and they're losing their monopoly. So I predict more and more frantic panic, but also more and more power to the people, which is a very good thing.

[Ted Cruz]

As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and download the podcast from earlier this week to hear the entire thing. I want to get back to the big story number three of the week.

[Unnamed Guest 1]

You may have missed.

[Ted Cruz]

I want to switch to another topic center that we mentioned earlier. And this is another cautionary tell a warning. And the border czar doesn't seem to give a crap. A Palestinian on the terror watch list was arrested on the southern U.S. border.

[Unnamed Guest 2]

That's exactly right. It's an individual named Omar Shaheda who is accused of explosives and arms use and was caught in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. Omar Shaheda is a Palestinian from Judea and Samaria and he is on the terror watch list for alleged prior use of explosives at arms. He was arrested, the New York Post reported. And let me read from the memo that has been leaked showing the arrest notification of the suspected Palestinian terrorist. The arrest notification says on August 12, 2024 Border Patrol agents assigned to the Santa Teresa Border Patrol station encountered a person with a terror screening. Data sent record. At approximately 1:10am Agents apprehended a group of seven individuals who illegally entered the United States from Mexico near Santa Teresa, New Mexico. During processing, research revealed that Omar Nawaf Issa Shaheda was a possible match to a terror watch list record. Border Patrol agents at the National Targeting center generated an NTC event. Shaheda was confirmed to be a positive match and his watch listed as a category 15 used explosives slash arms. Global APIs revealed that Cheda traveled from Madrid, Spain to Bogota, Colombia on a flight with a connecting flight to Panama City and that Shaheda arrived in San Salvador, El Salvador on a flight. And Shaheda is currently being held. He was encountered as a single adult. Now this is a pattern. Weeks earlier, three other suspected Palestinian terrorists were caught at the California border. Those, and we talked about those three on this podcast previously, one of them had a photo on their phone including pictures of a masked man holding an AK47 rifle. Kamala Harris, the border czar, is responsible for an open border that continues to be a magnet inviting terrorists to come into this country. And in fact, an alert that was issued by the Border Patrol said, quote, individuals inspired by or reacting to the current Israel Hamas conflict may attempt to travel to or from the area of hostilities in the Middle east via circuitous transit across the southwest border. This is what Kamala Harris's open border is doing to us.

[Unnamed Guest 1]

You look at this and you put it together with the fact that they say she's not the border czar. And then she says, oh, I'm doing everything I can to protect you at the border. It doesn't match up.

[Ted Cruz]

It's just lie after lie after lie after lie.

[Unnamed Guest 1]

And you look at these gang leaders.

[Ted Cruz]

That are arrested, you look at the.

[Unnamed Guest 1]

Children that are being assaulted. Unfortunately, now it's on a weekly basis. We also know, and I think we should just remind people that the system is so broken now that the administration has just been busted handing kids over to non family members. Okay, non family members. And lost track. Within a month, a third of the kids are hand over to their, quote, sponsors who are non family members with no response and no follow up from the federal government. So in other Words. They hand a child over to a non family member. They call 30 days later to check in. No one answers. No one's talking to them. And they can't find the kid. And that's apparently happening with at least a third of the kids that they're bringing into this country. That is pure evil.

[Unnamed Guest 2]

It is pure evil. And I'll tell you, the New York Times is even reporting on this. And they're reporting Javier Becerra, who is the Secretary of Health and Human Services, he has no background in health care. He has no background. He's not a physician. He doesn't know anything about health care. But what he is is a radical left wing lawyer who was the Attorney General of California. And that's who Joe Biden and Kamala Harris wanted in charge of hhs. And HHS is the one that deals with unaccompanied minors. And we've seen an explosion of unaccompanied minors coming into this country because Joe Biden, Kamala Harris opened up the border and it ended up with a lot of little boys and a lot of little girls being trafficked in by human traffickers, being abused, many of them physically, many of them sexually. But then when they get here, the Biden administration had a problem. And they had a problem because they wanted to avoid kids in cages. They had made a huge deal of it under Donald Trump, never mind that the actual cages were built by Barack Obama. But they wanted to avoid the bad optics of having kids in cages under Joe Biden. So what they did is they began releasing young people and releasing them to adults who, who couldn't pass basic background checks. And when people in the system said, wait, we don't know who these adults are. We don't know if they're bad people. We don't know if they're looking for kids to work in child labor and slave labor. We don't know if they're violent. We don't know if they want to abuse the kids. You know what Javier Becerra said? Shut up and release them faster. And so let me read from the Wall Street Journal. This is an article on July 8th in the Wall Street Journal. In 2021, when the new Biden administration was struggling to cope with a sudden influx of unaccompanied migrant children at the US Mexico border, the government repeatedly overrode the concerns of lower level workers who warned about placing them in certain households. Documents and interviews show, quote, it does not appear safe for the minor to be released to a home environment that was not fully assessed A caseworker wrote about a child slated to live in a hostel like home in Florida with at least three adults. A few days later, an official dismissed the recommendation to reject the proposed guardian, according to internal government memos. At another facility in Pomona, California, about 30 miles east of Los Angeles, more than 100 children that summer were sent to temporary guardians who were issued denials early in the process by case coordinators, according to a review of internal government data that tracks on accompanied children, emails and other communications, and interviews with caseworkers. About two dozen more denials were overturned because of clerical errors or issues such as missing fingerprints that were resolved, records show. But many of the others were approved, with scant details explaining why. And stunningly, the Wall Street Journal couldn't determine what happened to the children after they left the facility. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have lost over 80,000 children that came as unaccompanied minors to this country.

[Ben Ferguson]

They don't know where they are.

[Unnamed Guest 2]

They don't know who has them. They don't know what has happened to the kids. And you know what? Kamala Harris has zero interest in finding the answer to that. She will never talk about it, mind you. She was the border czar. She still is. And yet losing 80,000 children apparently doesn't concern her at all.

[Unnamed Guest 1]

Yeah, and there doesn't seem to be.

[Ted Cruz]

Accountability for this either. Is there anything that Congress can do now, knowing what we just learned in that report?

[Unnamed Guest 2]

There's a lot Congress can do, but in the Senate. The Senate will do none of it. And the reason is the Democrats who are in the majority in the Senate do not care. I've raised this issue repeatedly in the Judiciary Committee. You know what? Democrats in charge of judiciary. We have not had a single hearing in four years on the crisis at our southern border. We've had multiple hearings on the Democrats desire to grant amnesty to illegal aliens. We have not had a hearing in Judiciary on the 80,000 kids that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris has lost because the Democrats want to cover it up. And listen, we know that some significant number of those individuals are in child labor work sites, are being abused, are being physically abused, are being sexually abused. If you look, for example, I'm going to go back to the Wall Street Journal article that says following an internal investigation, the inspector general for the US Department of Health and Human Services, which oversaw a network of shelters caring for unaccompanied minors, found gaps in the process to screen temporary guardians. It's it said in February that 16%, 16% of records for children who were released to sponsors in March and April 2021 lacked evidence that a required safety check was conducted. Quote Although well intentioned, these sites were unregulated and unsafe, said Neha Desai, the senior director of immigration at the national center for Youth Law. There was enormous pressure placed on the sites to rapidly release children from custody, and the Biden Harris administration pressed them to release at these emergency shelters, caseworkers were told to discharge children within 10 to 14 days. And so they released kids without knowing if the people they were giving them to were dangerous, without knowing what was happening. And yet, tragically, the result is many kids suffered horrific mistreatment.

[Ted Cruz]

As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. Don't forget to download my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day. You're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards. I'd love to have you as a listener to again the Ben Ferguson Podcast and we will see you back here on Monday morning.