Michael Knowles (3:35)

This is the problem. And it's why I like the idea of you, Senator, on the Supreme Court, because, you know, we've had a lot of conservatives go squishy once they get onto. But of course, we also need you in the Senate. We also need you in the political fights.

Ted Cruz (3:49)

I like being in the political fight. I like being. And the court's the wrong place to do that. If I were a Justice, I'd stay out of political fights. I'd stay out of policy fights. A principled judge doesn't engage in that. You simply follow the law. That's what I'd do if I were a justice. I don't wanna do that. I wanna be right in the middle of the fight. And I gotta tell you, I look at the Senate, I look at the political scene, we need fighters right now. I think what we're doing on this podcast I hope makes a difference. Engaging on issues that matter. And so I hope to be part of nominating and confirming 2, 3, 4, 5 great principled constitutionalist justices. But I don't wanna be one of them myself.

Michael Knowles (4:34)

All right, so I will stop for now pressuring you to accept a potential Supreme Court nomination. I do wanna get to one of those fights that you're involved in now, which is this issue of Cuties. Cuties is this French movie that sexualizes 11 year old girls and it's now on Netflix. Netflix is promoting this thing like crazy. The poster is nauseating. The movie is nauseating. You came out very strongly and called for a Justice Department investigation into whether this is what, child pornography or exploitation. Can you lay down the legal aspect of this?

Ted Cruz (5:07)

So last Week I wrote a letter to Attorney General Barr and to the Department of Justice asking the Department of Justice justice to investigate whether Netflix has violated any of the criminal laws prohibiting the distribution of child pornography. And you know, it's an interesting thing. So this movie is all about 11 year old girls. And the actresses, as I understand it, are 11 year old girls who are dancing suggestively, dancing like strippers engaged in sexually explicit conduct on screen. And Netflix, a US company, is promoting it and pushing it. And that's not okay. Sexually exploiting. Look, I'm the dad of two little girls. Abusing kids is not okay. And just because Netflix is now one of the Hollywood elite, everyone treats it as perfectly fine to take out to produce a movie and distribute a movie where kids are being sexually exploited. And that is a federal crime to sexually exploit children.

Michael Knowles (6:15)

Well, here's what Netflix is saying. Netflix says this is completely misunderstood. A lot of prominent left wingers are saying this too. It's completely being misunderstood by right wingers who haven't seen the movie. And this puts conservatives in a terrible box because from everything we know about the movie, we don't wanna watch it. Right, but then you are told that, well, if you haven't watched it and you can't have an opinion on it, I had no intention of watch this movie. But you know, I work for a news outlet. I was told by my editor that I had to watch the movie. I said, I don't want to watch this. It's disgusting. I don't want to. They said, no, you have to watch it to give a review of it. So I was on vacation for a week. I was there with my wife and two of our friends. So we say, okay, put the movie on. It is as bad as they say. It is true that one of the messages of the movie perhaps is that it's bad to sexually exploit kids. The problem is in conveying possibly that message. The movie sexually exploits kids. I mean, there are moments you have to look away. My friend's fiance, when we were watching this, stormed out of the room in tears. It was that nauseating. How do we fight that?

Ted Cruz (7:20)

So look, I haven't watched the movie. I'm not going to recommend the movie. And I get, and it's an odd thing, the sort of Twitter world of the blue check mark journalists that are all defending kitty porn. The law matters. And there actually is. So my letter to Attorney General Barr explicitly cites the federal statute. Let me tell you what the federal statute provides. So it's 18 USC section 2252 and it says that any person who knowingly transports or ships using any means or facility of interstate or foreign commerce, any visual depiction, if the producing of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit content.

Michael Knowles (8:10)

So this is the question, because when I watch it, I mean, the one good thing I can say about the movie is they're not nude. Right. But it is licentious. There is no question it is exploitative.

Ted Cruz (8:22)

So. And the statute doesn't require that they mean nude. It prohibits distributing materials that have children engaging in sexually explicit content is the language of the statute. And the punishment under the statute for violating it is that you'll be fined under this title and in prison not less than five years and not more than 20 years. But here's something interesting, Michael. There's actually an aggravator in the statute that says if the child or children in question have not attained 12 years of age, that the punishment is actually increased to a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of 20 years. So in this case, we know they're 11 year old children. There's no dispute about that. I haven't seen the movie. I don't know if the depictions satisfy the requirements of the statute for sexually explicit conduct. But you know what? It's not my job as a US Senator to investigate that. It is the Department of Justice's job. So I asked them, look, I don't know if this violates the law or not. There's certainly a prima facie case. We know they're children. The ads they're putting out are explicitly sexual on the face of it. And there was one professor who tweeted back at me and said, well, Cruz doesn't understand this is a French film.

Michael Knowles (9:46)

That's the excuse.

Ted Cruz (9:48)

Well, it was kind of interesting a, because my letter explicitly references that it's a French film. So the professor, and this says something about the state of our academy, hadn't bothered to read my letter, but instead was happy to criticize it.

Michael Knowles (9:58)

Of course. Yeah.

Ted Cruz (9:59)

But number two, it actually. The child pornography laws in the US don't give you a blank pass if it happens to be produced overseas. It doesn't matter where child porn is produced. If you're distributing it, it is a felony. And by the way, Netflix is a multibillion dollar corporation. These guys are getting rich. This is a major for profit endeavor. And you know, one of the people who has been completely silenced on this is Barack Obama, who has a deal with Netflix. And not a small deal. I mean, according to the public reporting, he's been paid, what, $50 million from Netflix, at least.

Michael Knowles (10:38)

Yeah.

Ted Cruz (10:39)

So he is literally making tens of millions of dollars and is completely silent on is he okay with a company that is distributing at a minimum sexual exploitation of children? That's kind of the bare minimum. And there are a couple of reasons. Look, it is a reasonable question to say, all right, what is permissible, what.

Michael Knowles (11:03)

Is art, what is free speech, what is pornography?

Ted Cruz (11:06)

Those can be complicated questions. And listen, on the question of free speech and sexual conduct, what consenting adults do is their business. You know, consenting adults wanna do something, knock yourself out. You got a right to do whatever you want.

Michael Knowles (11:25)

Well, on this issue of consenting adults, actually this ties in with another very, very creepy thing that's going on now being pushed by Democrats in California. It's called SB145. Gavin Newsom just signed it into law. This basically says that if a 24 year old man has sex with a 14 year old boy, he does not have to register as a sex offender. What is going on? I mean, what is that about and how is that legal? Because obviously the 14 year old is not a consenting adult.

Ted Cruz (11:55)

Well, today's Democratic party and this was pushed by the Democratic supermajorities in the California legislature, It was signed by the Democratic governor of California. To the best of my knowledge, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been utterly silent on it. If they said anything on it, I certainly haven't seen it. Yeah, but it is normalizing child abuse and what it's saying. Listen, a 24 year old having sex with a 14 year old is not okay. And under the law, 14 year olds, young children are not permissibly allowed to consent. You have two adults, they can consent to whatever they want. But children don't by definition don't have the legal ability to consent. And the problem is the left, they're normalizing. It's why you see the media, they don't want to be critical of this Netflix movie because it suggests there are any standards or lines that can't be crossed. But when you produce a movie like this, cuties movie number one, it. Look, you gotta think every pedophile in America is gonna watch this movie, that this is titillation that will encourage and drive more pedophilia. But it also, we know of at least some children who were directly harmed by this movie. And those are the child actresses, the 11 year olds who are being asked by their producer, asked by the director, to engage in sexually explicit conduct. And under the law, there is no first Amendment, right to film kiddie porn, to distribute kiddie porn. That when you're abusing a child, the usual response is that you're prosecuted and locked up in jail. And that's designed to protect kids.

Michael Knowles (13:44)

But here's what they say, right? They'll say, well, it's not pornography. It might be sexually explicit, it might be exploitative, but it doesn't rise to the level of pornography.

Ted Cruz (13:55)

And the federal statute is not a pornography statute.

Michael Knowles (13:57)

Well, this is the key.

Ted Cruz (13:59)

And actually, this is not something I talk about in the book. One vote away. But look, the Supreme Court for years, engaged in the world of what is pornography, what is obscene and what is not.

Michael Knowles (14:10)

I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.

Ted Cruz (14:12)

That was Potter Stewart's famous test for it, which is, I can't define it, but I know it when I see it. And there are great stories. I think Bob Woodward talks about it in the Brethren, where they used to have. In the 70s, they would have airings of porn movies that had been challenged on whether they were obscene or not. And the court would have to watch it to figure out. And it would be, I think, in a basement, they would air them. But I think it's. Woodward tells the story of, like, the clerks would be sitting in the back going, I see it. Yep, that's it. I know it, I see it. And that's definitely it, as I recall.

Michael Knowles (14:49)

I hope I'm not telling tales at a school here. Did you watch a porn movie once with Sandra Day O'Connor?

Ted Cruz (14:55)

I did. It's one of the things. I talk about it in the book as well. And it was as awkward, you know, look, you're 26 years old and you're with a woman in her 70s watching, like, graphic depicting. And you're like, wow, okay, this is really awkward. But you know what was even, I'm sure, weirder and more awkward? William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O'Connor dated. That's right, in law school. They were classmates at Stanford. He was number one in the class. She was number three. I've always said, you know, I wonder what happened to the poor, poor schlub who was number two. He's got to feel like a total.

Michael Knowles (15:26)

Loser, forgotten by history.

Ted Cruz (15:27)

But not only did they date, so Rehnquist actually proposed to marriage to O'Connor in law school. Now, she turned him down. She married. She was Sandra Day. She married John O'Connor. And it ended up for 50 years, Justice O'Connor and her husband and the chief and his wife were good Friends. They socialized together. But imagine for a second you're in your 70s and your 80s and you're standing in a room with a woman you dated 50 years earlier, and there's porn on the screen. That was a weird and awkward moment.

Michael Knowles (16:01)

And you know it when you see it. And I think this is the key here.

Ted Cruz (16:05)

Regardless, listen, by the way, I'm glad the Supreme Court is out of the business of assessing whether a particular film is or isn't obscene. That sort of amorphous judgment didn't make any sense for the court to be in it. I think the First Amendment protects a lot of speech, but what it doesn't protect is abusing kids. That kids are aligned. That is just qualitatively different from adults.

Michael Knowles (16:32)

Right. And even if the Netflix argument is right, that this doesn't rise to the level of pornography, actually, frankly, I mean, who knows? The parts that I shut my eyes to, who knows? But it doesn't seem that it does. It's degenerate filth. It is exploitative. And I think it meets the criteria of that statute.

Ted Cruz (16:50)

The test of the statute is whether it's a visual depiction that involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

Michael Knowles (16:58)

Yeah.

Ted Cruz (16:59)

So look, they could do a documentary on child abuse, on child trafficking. That would actually be quite valuable. A lot of kids, you know, one of the many problems with child porn is many of the kids are trafficked. They're kept against their wishes. Not only can they not consent, but in far too many instances, these are kids who are kidnapped and trafficked and forced to engage in these acts. And I think the Department of Justice should investigate whether this violates the law. But I think it speaks volumes that Hollywood thinks it's immune from the law, that the standards that apply to everyone else Hollywood is exempt from.

Michael Knowles (17:37)

There is something going on here. You know, there is something in common with the promotion of this movie cuties with SB145. I remember when.

Ted Cruz (17:47)

And let me stop for a second on SB145.

Michael Knowles (17:49)

Yeah.

Ted Cruz (17:50)

So the argument that the California Democrats give in the legislature is they say this is a gay rights issue because.

Michael Knowles (17:57)

It'S already the case that if it's a heterosexual relationship 24 to 14, then the offender doesn't need to register as a sex offender.

Ted Cruz (18:05)

It's whether someone registers as a sex offender. And as I understand it, California law, if it's heterosexual, says they don't have to. And this law said if it is homosexual, they don't have to. My view is, okay, the first law is a Little bit crazy if you want to address that and have parity. Okay. How about if you abuse a child, you register?

Michael Knowles (18:26)

Yeah. This did remind me of an issue that hit Bernie Sanders, your colleague in the Senate, back in 2016 and 2020, which is he wrote some very odd essays in the late 1960s, early 1970s. In 1969, he wrote an essay called The Revolution is Life versus Death, something to that effect, in which he implies that we should normalize child sexual behavior. And it wasn't just Bernie who said this. This goes all the way back to a strange figure named Wilhelm Reich on the left, who in the 1930s, he developed this theory of the universe that the whole life force is something called an orgone and war, cancer, disease, it's all caused. I feel embarrassed even saying this in front of a US Senator. It's caused by people not having enough orgasms. Seriously, this is what he said. And basically you needed something called an orgone accumulator. Woody Allen later parodied this as the orgasmatro. Very prominent leftists owned these weird boxes. Norman mailer had one, J.D. salinger had one. And this very kooky theory pervaded some leftist thought, radical thought, all the way up through the 1970s. And that's what Bernie Sanders was writing about. And frankly, I think it's what we're seeing today.

Ted Cruz (19:39)

Can I ask you a question, Michael?

Michael Knowles (19:40)

Here it comes.

Ted Cruz (19:41)

What the hell do you guys study at Yale? Like, I'm sorry, I don't know.

Michael Knowles (19:45)

It's mandatory curriculum. Who?

Ted Cruz (19:47)

This schmuck, Schmidt, whatever his name is. I'm not familiar with his writing.

Michael Knowles (19:52)

Professor Reich.

Ted Cruz (19:53)

Yeah, well, okay. Whatever it. Yeah, okay. That's weird stuff.

Michael Knowles (19:59)

Well, in the remaining couple minutes we have, we've touched on Hollywood and the left broadly in all this kind of creepy sex issue. But let's not forget about the creepy totalitarian issue, because while you've got Netflix not just hosting this creepy movie, but promoting it, you've simultaneously got Disney coming out and thanking the Chinese government, groveling to the Chinese government, even as they say that they might not be able to work in Georgia because Georgia passes a pro life law.

Ted Cruz (20:29)

Yeah. So this is the movie Mulan, which Disney filmed and did a live action version of the animated film. And they filmed it in the region in China where the Uyghurs are held in concentration camps, where they're being tortured, where they're being murdered. And we're talking, most estimates are more than a million Uyghurs. Uyghurs are an ethnic and religious minority in China. They're Muslims and the Chinese government viciously persecutes them. So Disney goes and films presumably right next to the concentration camps and the police agency. And when I say police agency, I mean the Communist Party stormtroopers, the police state who are abusing and torturing the Uyghurs. Disney thanks them. I mean, it truly is. So I just joined a group of, I think it's 20 other senators, bipartisan group, in writing a letter to the CEO of Disney asking a whole series of questions about why they were filming in China, what concessions they had to make to the Chinese government, what they knew about the torture and murder of the Uyghurs, and why they are thanking the totalitarian government engaged in that torture and murder. And we also asked for what communications they had about them. And look, we'll see how Disney responds. But it's not complicated. The answer is because of money. I mean, look, we saw a similar story with the NBA that had a basketball camp in this same region and they actually had Uyghur teenagers, 14 and 15 year old boys being physically abused. NBA coaches knew about it, the NBA knew about it, and they were just fine. And whether it's Disney or the NBA, you've got a lot of American companies that in pursuit of the almighty dollar are more than happy to kiss up to jackbooted thugs in the Communist Party in China.

Michael Knowles (22:38)

Well then, just to play devil's advocate one more time in the last minute or so that we have left, what the left is doing right now is saying on the issue of cuties and on the issue of Mulan, that conservatives are hypocrites because conservatives, we talk a good game on free speech, but then we don't like the sexually explicit movie and we don't like Disney, a private company doing what it wants to do in the pursuit of the dollar. So are we hypocrites or not?

Ted Cruz (23:03)

Well, no, the laws should apply and the standards should apply fairly and evenly to everyone. So in the world of child exploitation and porn should be obvious, that is a unifor standard. Doesn't matter what your politics are, you're not allowed to engage in child exploitation and porn when it comes to doing business with China. Look, I mean there are, number one, there are U.S. sanctions against certain Chinese entities that Disney needs to be sure it hasn't violated U.S. sanctions law because that can have real and crushing financial implications. But, but look, there is an element. There are lots of people in the media, there are lots of people in the academy that will be apologists for the Chinese Communists. And you know what? They got a First Amendment right to do it. I will happily defend their right to speak out. But you know what I will also do? Happily condemn the garbage. They're saying free speech doesn't mean you're immunized from being criticized for what you say.

Michael Knowles (24:07)

It means you still get to say things.

Ted Cruz (24:09)

You get to say things, and the rest of us get to say, why are you supporting and praising and apologizing for and condoning jackbooted thugs? And why are you making money on it? By the way, it's the same point I raised about Barack Obama. Why is Barack Obama making $50 million for Netflix when they are distributing materials that are exploiting children? Now that he can make the money from Netflix. But people are entitled to ask that question about what you're choosing to support and in particular, whether it violates the federal criminal laws, as in this instance, it may well have.

Michael Knowles (24:45)

At the same time that these studios are removing Gone with the Wind, one of the most celebrated movies in American history, removing cop shows because it's politically incorrect now from streaming platforms, they're promoting cuties and they're promoting peons to the Chinese government. That is a major cultural problem. And I don't think there's anything hypocritical about raising.

Ted Cruz (25:04)

But, you know, they do have new standards for the Academy Awards now, and they have explicit racial quotas now that you have to have a percentage of disadvantaged populations to be eligible for Best Picture. So I don't know if they're gonna have to go back and remake the Godfather movies. Apparently, too many Italians. You and I are both. You have more Italian blood than I have, but we both have some Italian. Apparently too many Italians in the Godfather. So you need to. I'm not even sure what they're gonna do to make it comply.

Michael Knowles (25:39)

Are we sufficiently persecuted? I mean, that's a question, too. Can we maybe win an Oscar? I mean, these are. This brave new political world is really raising a lot of questions. And maybe, Senator, in one of these episodes, we can do it live from the Academy Awards, hopefully.

Ted Cruz (25:54)

As long as you promise never to pose as Oscar.

Michael Knowles (26:01)

That I can promise you. I think that would be exploitative and explicit. Nobody wants to see that either.

Ted Cruz (26:05)

Indeed.

Michael Knowles (26:06)

That is our show. Senator, thank you very much. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

Ted Cruz (26:19)

This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack, 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.