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- [00:00]
Ted Cruz
The Olympics are on and nobody is watching. The Olympics have reached a record low in terms of ratings, down 43% over the Winter Games in 2018, down 20% over the previous lowest rated Olympics all the way back in the 1980s. So nobody is watching the Olympics. Nobody wants to watch the Olympics. And even more distressing, our own athletes don't seem to want to play for the American teams. What has happened to America's role in the world? This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
- [00:41]
Michael Knowles
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- [03:04]
Liz Wheeler
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- [04:16]
Ted Cruz
Back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles. Senator, have you been watching the Olympics?
- [04:22]
Unnamed Senator
To be honest, I have not turned it on even once. I have seen the snippet, frankly, on Twitter of the opening ceremonies where they had a Uyghur athlete light the torch. And it was so obnoxious. The Chinese Communist party literally has 1 million Uyghurs, more than 1 million Uyghurs in concentration camps right now. They are being tortured, murdered. They are working in slave labor. And for the propaganda of the Chinese Communist Party to use this Uyghur athlete to Say everything is great. And I gotta say, NBC, Savannah Guthrie said, well, critics accuse China of doing this. Well, no, okay. It is a genocide. Those are the facts. They are literally trying to exterminate the Uyghurs. But NBC wants to apologize for the Chinese Communist atrocities. And given that, I can't bring myself to watch it. It just is. These games never should have happened in China. It's wrong that the International Olympic Committee allowed China to host these games.
- [05:42]
Ted Cruz
Now, what do you think is at play here? Because there are a couple of dynamics going on. One, you have Communist China doing all sorts of heinous, horrible things in their own country and around the world. So people just don't want to tune in for that. Two, you've got this strange dynamic where an American athlete, born and raised in San Francisco. Though, frankly, maybe that explains it. An American athlete choosing to compete not for America, her country, but for China, the country that her mother is from, to compete for the Chinese Communist Party. It seems so shocking, so disgusting to me that an American would ever wanna compete for any other country, to say nothing of China. What is. Is it a revulsion at China? Is it a revulsion at America? Or is it just that people are tuning out of the mainstream media?
- [06:30]
Unnamed Senator
So, look, I don't know. I mean, I don't know this athlete. I was certainly saddened by those headlines. You know, I want to be a little bit careful throwing rocks, I guess. She has renounced her citizenship. She's decided she wants to be a Chinese national. Okay. That is an unusual choice. That's not a choice many people make. Most people don't go from freedom to tyranny. Most people don't choose to subject themselves to the oppression of a communist dictatorship. I don't know what her reasoning was. I don't know what her thinking was. I will say I am saddened whenever anyone gives up on America. That is an unfortunate thing. It reminds me, this is not exactly the same, but another guy from the San Francisco area, I remember. What was his name? John Walker Lynn. The American Taliban who was in Marin county and decided he wanted to go be a Taliban. Now, I'm not suggesting she's a terrorist, so I don't want that to be a false equivalency, but it was. Someone born and raised in America deciding to pledge their allegiance to a foreign power and to an oppressive foreign power, to a foreign power that commits atrocities. We don't know the whole story there, but it's certainly a dismaying development.
- [07:54]
Ted Cruz
And it speaks, I think, to a deeper problem. Not Just this one girl or a handful of athletes who wanna compete for other countries. But you're seeing on the left a disavowal of American power and influence because they say America's immoral and unjust and a terrible place. And wherever it goes, it just oppresses people. But you're also seeing on the right, a sort of disappointment with America looking around and saying, what are we doing when we go overseas? Are we fighting to, I don't know, raise the pride flag over Kandahar? What does it even mean? I think you're seeing a little bit, certainly in certain aspects of the right, a demoralization there as well. Are we just in a national malaise, Senator, the likes of which we might have seen in the 70s?
- [08:43]
Unnamed Senator
Look, some people are and some are not. And unfortunately, this really does follow a political polarization. The left, it is proudly and brazenly anti American. Whether it is Nike celebrating Colin Kaepernick and pulling the Betsy Ross flag off their shoes, which actually truth in advertising is what they followed. Nike would put the Chinese flag on their shoes because that's where their shoes are made. And in fact, they would put Chinese children on their shoes because it's Chinese children who sadly are forced far too often into slave labor. But the left generally, you know, ESPN covering the Olympics, there was one clown on ESPN who did this moral equivalency and says, well, yes, they're Chinese concentration camps, but, you know, who are we to judge? Because America has faults also. And Michael, he literally says, well, states like Georgia and Texas pass voter ID laws. So apparently requiring a driver's license to vote is equivalent to creating a concentration camp, putting a million people in them, torturing them, raping them, murdering them. That's exactly like requiring an ID to vote.
- [10:02]
Ted Cruz
Makes sense. Yeah.
- [10:03]
Unnamed Senator
It's the most asinine moral equivalency. And I do wonder if people that grow up surrounded by that leftism, they're incapable of making judgments. You know, is America perfect? Of course not. But the idea that we are literally the Biden administration is the number one customer for slave labor coming out of Communist China. John Kerry, when he was asked about the slave labor camps, he says, well, that's not my department. You know, I joked, but it's not really a joke that John Kerry should be named the customer of the year for the Chinese Communist slave labor. Several months ago, I introduced an amendment on the floor that said it should be illegal for the US Government to purchase products and in particular, electric cars, electric batteries, solar panels made with slave labor in China, Right? Every single Democrat voted no, except Joe Manchin. Joe Manchin was the one Democrat who voted yes. Everyone else voted no. The amendment failed. And, you know, it is stunning. We are literally, you know, if you look through history, at times when there have been concentration camps, without exception, those are shameful, deplorable, disgusting times that history is not kind to. And we are funding concentration camps right now by purchasing the fruits of that slave labor. It's grossly immoral. And today's Democrats don't care.
- [11:45]
Ted Cruz
This raises my next question, because a lot of people are suggesting. Well, it's ideological. You know, the radical left, they hate America, and they do hate America, and they protest the flag. And so there's no question there's an ideological element here.
- [11:59]
Unnamed Senator
Well, and they're taught that America is evil and that the evil is at best equivalent and in many ways worse than really evil stuff globally. And no, they're not the same. No, George W. Bush was not Adolf Hitler. No, Donald Trump was not Adolf Hitler. And the nuts who say that are nuts.
- [12:20]
Ted Cruz
Right. But then this raises this question. How does China keep getting away with it? Is it just because we're all brainwashed, or is it because of cold, hard cash? Is it because China owns a ton of our debt? Our businesses in America are totally in bed with the Chinese. They make all of our goods. I mean, is it an economic problem?
- [12:41]
Unnamed Senator
It is massively an economic problem. And by the way, the political problem is an economic problem. So one of the things to understand about the Democratic Party today, they are structurally pro China. Now, what does that mean? That means that their leading supporters are all completely in bed with China. So who is today's Democratic Party funded by? It's funded by big Tech. Big Tech are monster supporters of the Democratic Party. It's funded by big business giant corporations, almost all of which are overwhelmingly Democrat right now. It's funded by big Hollywood and it's funded by big universities, all four of those. Big tech, big business, big Hollywood, big universities are up to their eyeballs with the Chinese Communists. They have billions of dollars depending on the Chinese Communist. And so the people who write the checks that keep Joe Biden in power, that keep Kamala Harris in power, that keep Chuck Schumer in power, that keep Nancy Pelosi in power, they have billions of dollars at stake with keeping us intertwined with communist China. So the Democratic Party does not want to decouple, does not want to delink. They may occasionally have a little bit of tough rhetoric because they realize that the Chinese Communists poll badly Right, but they are opposed to actually doing anything about China.
- [14:07]
Ted Cruz
Well, he who pays the piper calls the tune. But then the next question would be, how do we fix that? If this is not merely the ideological whims of some kooky leftist politicians, but this is really a structural issue, as you say, I think quite persuasively. Then what's the answer to that? How do we fight back?
- [14:25]
Unnamed Senator
Well, I do think the debate has changed, and it's changed a lot. You know, when I got to the Senate a decade ago, I was arguing then in 2013 that China poses the single greatest geopolitical threat to the United States over the next century. That I believe this. I think it is a massive. The goal of the Chinese Communist dictators is global domination. And they are playing the game not on the short term, but over decades and over the next century. And I gotta say, when I got to D.C. and started saying that that was a lonely view. Almost all of Washington thought that view was nuts. Every Democrat did. Every Democrat, remember Joe Biden used to say, come on, man, come on, man, they're our friends. Come on, man. But back then, most of the Republicans believed that also. Most of the Republicans, you know, you go back to 2013, 2014, the Republican Party was, in a very significant way, the Chamber of Commerce Party and the Chamber of Commerce looked at China and saw big bucks. And the Republican enlightened view was, well, we can make a whole lot of money in China. And eventually that human rights and democracy stuff, well, we'll worry about that another time.
- [15:47]
Ted Cruz
You know, there's a clip that makes the rounds now of Joe Biden way back when, this was 10 years ago now, saying that a rising China is good for America, it's good for the whole world, and we should encourage a rising China. And one of the reasons why it's a little tough to use that clip against him is because many, if not most Republicans at the same time were saying the exact same thing.
- [16:08]
Unnamed Senator
No, that's exactly right. And it was. There were a handful of us that were calling out the threat of China, and we were. We were lonely voices in Washington. I will say two things have really changed that. And they both, you know, you asked, how do we deal with this in the long term? Two things have changed that for the better. Number one is Donald Trump. And Trump changed the discussion on China fundamentally. Trump came in, talked about China, China.
- [16:38]
Ted Cruz
He changed the pronunciation.
- [16:39]
Unnamed Senator
Really. He did. I don't do a very good Trump impersonation, but he. But by force of will change the focus to China considerably. And I will say in the Republican Party that made a real difference. But then secondly, what really changed it was Covid and Covid, the Chinese Communist government's complicity in covering up Covid. And now the overwhelming evidence suggests complicity in Covid likely being released from a Chinese government lab in Wuhan. And the very real possibility that it was the Chinese Communist government that developed Covid through gain of function research and that culpability in something that has taken so many lives in America and across the world, that has destroyed trillions of dollars in jobs and productivity and savings, that has changed the fundamental view of the Chinese communist here at home and abroad. And I think that is potent now. As long as the government in the US is controlled by Biden, Schumer and Pelosi, they're not gonna do a damn thing about China. But I'm hopeful when the election happens in November and we see new Republican leadership in the House and Senate, we'll see, I hope, leaders willing to stand up and take on China directly. And then in 24, we need a strong Republican president who's willing to take on China. Cuz it's not gonna happen from today's Democratic Party.
- [18:13]
Ted Cruz
So you've got the China issue seems clear enough at least today. Republicans against China, Democrats very pro China, really bought and paid for by China. Then there's another issue which is Iran. And for a much longer time Republicans have opposed Iran and Iran's attempts to get a nuclear weapon and Iran's attempts to grow. And the Democrats just keep coming back to Iran. Barack Obama signed the Iran nuclear deal. Donald Trump comes into office, rips up that deal. Now again, Joe Biden seems to be trying to revive it, as far as I can tell, without any input from the US Senate.
- [18:50]
Unnamed Senator
Yeah, no, it really is incredibly dangerous and it is a story the Democrats history in Iran is horrific. You go back to Jimmy Carter where the Shah of Iran was a US ally, supported America. And then they had an Islamist revolution led by the Ayatollah Khomeini, which among other things took Americans hostage and held our Americans hostage for 444 days. And Jimmy Carter, who had undermined our ally the Shah and then sat there helplessly while the revolution that displaced the Shah held Americans hostage. Now Jimmy Carter was even worse than sitting there helplessly. He sent a rescue team in to try to rescue the hostages. This is before you were alive, Michael.
- [19:41]
Ted Cruz
Just a glint in my father's eye.
- [19:43]
Unnamed Senator
Yeah, indeed. The rescue team crashed in the desert. The helicopters crashed with no opposing fire. They weren't even confronting the enemy, I mean, it was the incompetence of the Carter administration had not been met until we got the Bidens today. But before we do that, let's go in between. Let's go. And by the way, the Ayatollah Khomeini released the hostages the day that Ronald Reagan was sworn in. Literally, as Reagan put his hand on the Bible, raised his hand on the oath. January 20, 1981, is when the Ayatollah released the hostages because he understood there was a new sheriff in town and Reagan was gonna blow the crap out of them if they didn't let the Americans go. You couldn't ask for a better demonstration of weakness and appeasement versus peace through strength, Right? All right, fast forward to Obama Obama first term. Big domestic agenda is Obamacare and Dodd Frank Obama gets reelected in 2012. Obama's second term, major agenda was a nuclear deal with Iran. And in fact, Ben Rhodes, who was the deputy National Security Adviser in the Obama White House, he described an Iran nuclear deal as the Obamacare of the second term, which I think he meant as a compliment. You look at the Obama Iran deal. John Kerry negotiated it with Iran. It is absolutely catastrophic. The Iran deal on its face was a total capitulation to Iran, and it is dangerous. The Obama Iran deal put Iran unavoidably on a path to having a nuclear weapon. I led the opposition to the Iran deal in the Senate. And in fact, you know, it was interesting. As the presidential campaign started getting going in 2015, I helped organize a huge rally on the steps of the Capitol. Thousands of people in opposition to the Iran deal. I invited Donald Trump to the rally. And it was interesting. He was like, why would you invite me to your rally? You're running against me. He was like. And I just said, well, Donald, because when I invite you, every TV camera in the universe follows you. And I want to stop this deal because I don't want a theocratic lunatic. Now, there's a different Ayatollah. The old one was the Ayatollah Khomeini. The new Ayatollah is the Ayatollah Khamenei.
- [22:23]
Ted Cruz
Just when you think the Iran issue can't get more confusing, the two guys have almost the same name.
- [22:29]
Unnamed Senator
Look, there's an easy solution. Call him the Ayatollah. He's a bearded jihadist who wants to murder us. And by the way, the Ayatollah Khamenei, like, the Ayatollah Khomeini literally chants death to America and death to Israel. And he was doing this. This is not hyperbole. While John Kerry and the State Department were negotiating the Iran nuclear deal, the Ayatollah was leading mobs in Iran chanting, death to America. They actually have. Every year they celebrate Death to America Day. And it's the anniversary of, of the revolutionaries taking Americans hostage. And there's a great political cartoon that came out about that time, I think it was 2015, that had the Ayatollah and it had John Kerry, and it had the Ayatollah saying, death to America, and it had John Kerry saying, can we meet you halfway?
- [23:27]
Ted Cruz
Could we just be mortally wounded in some way? Well, so this is what the left says. Because if you look at the facts on the face, it seems absurd that the left would continue and Democrats specifically, and Kerry and Biden specifically would try to get this deal. But what they have said is, look, forget about that. That's all just PR from the mullahs. They don't really believe it. Don't listen to the Republicans. This deal is not only not going to give Iran a bomb, but it is going to prevent Iran from getting a bomb. And on an issue like Iran, as we've just said, it's hard to keep track of the guy's name. It's difficult to know who to believe.
- [24:05]
Unnamed Senator
So you're right. Those are the talking points. And I will say a couple of things. So I actually met today with a Biden nominee to be an ambassador to the Middle east. And we were talking about Iran and the nuclear agreement. And he made a comment. He said, I think everyone agrees with the foreign policy world that Iran must never get a nuclear bomb. And I sort of stopped him. And I laughed and said, let me be clear, I don't think everyone agrees with that. I think the Biden White House is perfectly okay with Iran having a nuclear weapon. And I said, look, go back to the Obama White House. So when Obama was newly elected president, one of the very first speeches he ever gave was in the Middle East. He went to the University of Cairo and he. At the University of Cairo, he gave a speech and he said that Iran has a right. And he used that word, right to nuclear technology. Now, that is absurd. I'm familiar with the right to life, to liberty, to property. There is no right to nukes. And if you're a crazy theocratic lunatic who wants to murder millions of people, you especially don't have a right to nukes. Fast forward. There was an article that got a lot of attention during the Obama administration by, by a writer in the Atlantic. And what got all the attention was a senior White House official in the Obama White House. In fact, a lot of people speculated it was Obama himself, but that was never conclusively confirmed. But this senior Obama official referred to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, as chicken shit. And it was sort of a startling. It got a lot of attention. My view was always that that actually wasn't much of news. It was obvious that the Obama White House viewed Netanyahu with contempt. They treated him like crap. Like the fact that they directed that epithet to him was not surprising in the slightest for anyone who watched how they treated them. What was interesting in that same quote, senior Obama White House official said, the good thing is, and I'm paraphrasing, but this is pretty accurate, the good thing is we've delayed Israel from acting for so long that they're no longer capable, militarily capable of acting to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear arsenal. And those are chilling words. Where listen, I think Obama and Biden, they're leftists that it's the same we were talking a minute ago with respect to China about the anti Americanism of the left. They view American leadership in the world as illegitimate. They think we have no right. What right do we have to deny to these peaceful little Iranians a nuclear bomb? That's just American arrogance. Well you know what? People that want to murder us, I want to keep the weapons that they can use to murder us out of their hands. The left doesn't believe this.
- [27:10]
Ted Cruz
I totally agree with that. But then Senator, what do you say to. Look, this is a long standing Democrat held belief. Even if they won't admit it publicly, they'll at least admit it on background. And they've obviously been working toward a world in which Iran will have an easier time getting a nuclear weapon. Okay, what do you say to those who tell you, look, Iran talks a big game on destroying Israel? They're not gonna destroy Israel. Iran is not gonna come over and detonate a nuclear bomb in the United States. They have no reason to do it, no incentive to do it. A lot of countries have nuclear, we for goodness sakes, Pakistan, North Korea, a bunch of places we don't wanna have nuclear weapons. They've got em, A lot of more people are gonna get them. What's the big deal? This does not pose an existential threat to the United States.
- [27:53]
Unnamed Senator
I think these are people that do not understand evil and they don't understand if history teaches anything, it is that if somebody tells you they want to kill you, you should believe them.
- [28:04]
Ted Cruz
Believe them.
- [28:06]
Unnamed Senator
I'll give one example. The so called father of the Iranian nuclear program. An Iranian scientist who has since meet his maker, many say at the hands of the Israeli Mossad, he had written in his last will and testament that he wanted the following words written on his tombstone. Here lies a man who sought the annihilation of Israel.
- [28:32]
Ted Cruz
Not loving father, you know, good husband.
- [28:35]
Unnamed Senator
No, no, Just soldier, sailor, tinker, tailor. No, no. It's. Think about just how much hatred you have to have. That's what you wanted to be remembered for. I want to murder as many people as possible. That's like I'm a vicious racist bigot who wants to commit mass murder. And look, you talked about North Korea. North Korea with nukes is incredibly dangerous. Kim Jong Un is a megalomaniacal, narcissistic dictator. It was a catastrophic mistake for the Clinton administration to screw up and allow him to develop nuclear weapons. Now that he has them, there is some chance possibly of something resembling rational deterrence. Because the one thing that Kim wants is to stay in power. And he does know if he used a nuclear weapon, that that would be the end of his regime, that the imbalance of power, he would be destroyed. Right. The danger with the Ayatollah, and this is where religion is particularly dangerous, is that he's a theocratic zealot. It's not just if he were an ordinary dictator, you may be able to have some real cost benefit analysis. But when you have a zealot who embraces death and suicide, it's like the math of suicide bombers when you have people that are willing to strap dynamite to their chest and walk into a bus or walk into a shopping mall. Ordinary deterrence doesn't work if they're willing to blow themselves up. The Ayatollah knows if he detonated a nuclear weapon, that the consequences would be hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Iranians killed in a war. I mean, the consequences would be devastating. The danger for a religious zealot is that he just might be willing to make that cost benefit analysis. If I get to murder, he might say millions of Jews, it's worth it that I will be rewarded with 72 virgins. What they didn't mention were that the virgins were Gomer Pyle, but that's different.
- [30:40]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, they don't put it in the fine print. Yep.
- [30:43]
Unnamed Senator
That is profoundly dangerous. And I think if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, the odds are unacceptably high they would detonate it in the skies of Tel Aviv or Jerusalem or New York or Los Angeles. Now, what are those odds? I don't know.
- [31:02]
Ted Cruz
Right.
- [31:03]
Unnamed Senator
I don't want to find out. That's not a roll of the dice. I'm interested in finding out. Let's suppose Iran gets a nuke, and that doesn't happen, they don't use it. The best case scenario, well, if Iran gets a nuke, every other country in the Middle east suddenly will feel the urge to get nuclear weapons as well. The Saudi Arabians will want nukes. The UAE will want nukes. Qatar will want nukes. They'll all want nukes to defend themselves against the Iranians. It's actually one of the ironies. I joked that amazingly enough, Barack Obama inadvertently deserved the Nobel Peace Prize they gave him because he actually brought the Arabs and the Israelis together. All he had to do was negotiate a deal that would give the Iranians nuclear weapons. And the Arabs and Israelis said, are you frigging nuts?
- [31:55]
Ted Cruz
Let's put aside our differences.
- [31:57]
Unnamed Senator
Yes, because, look, they understand that in Iran with nukes. Iran today is the leading state sponsor of terrorism. Even if they don't use the nukes, every other country in the Middle east gets nukes to counter Iran. Talk about a tinderbox that you're just like throwing gunpowder into. And on top of that, if Iran is willing to fund terrorists murdering Americans across the world today without nuclear weapons, how aggressive do you think they would be with nuclear weapons? Where they feel they have impunity. And by the way, that's the best case scenario. So Obama, Iran deal, disastrous deal. They gave over $100 billion to the Ayatollah. On the face of it, the deal was obvious. It would end up with a nuclear weapon. Why? Number one, it sunsetted after a decade, it went away. So on the terms of it, Obama's like, yeah, 10 years from now you can have a nuke, no problem. Secondly, the deal gives them $100 billion. Counts on them, to be honest. It provided that any inspection of nuclear facilities, you had to give Iran 21 days advance notice just to tidy up the place. Yeah. You know, I've suggested. Imagine a law that said before a search warrant is executed on a drug dealer, you've got to give them 21 days advance notice of the place to be searched. You think you would find anything?
- [33:29]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, probably not.
- [33:31]
Unnamed Senator
Not only that, the deal, on the face of it, says there are certain sites, sites designated as military sites, that are exempt from inspections. Now, if they're sites that are exempt from inspections, gosh, where do you think it is that they will develop the nuclear weapons, Right? This was a deal. As radical as the Obama folks were, as Kerry were, no one can look at this deal and conclude anything other than Iran will get a nuclear weapon under this deal. They were okay with it. Then Trump ended the deal. Most important national security decision Trump made. I spent enormous amount of time with President Trump urging him to end the deal. Well, now Biden wants to reenter the deal. And it is, I think, his top foreign policy objective to reenter the deal. Biden is desperate to enter a deal that will be worse than the Obama deal. It is an ideological commitment. So I brought together a group of 33 senators, wrote a letter to Biden making clear that under a law that we passed, that was the Iran review legislation, that no deal can have force without being submitted to Congress, first of all, for review and a vote, the Biden administration's going to ignore that law. They intend to defy that law. And by the way, the right way to do any deal is submit a treaty that takes two thirds of the Senate to ratify, but they can't get the vote, so they're gonna ramp through a bad deal.
- [34:58]
Ted Cruz
Can they do that, though? I mean, if the Constitution says the Senate's gotta ratify treaties, then how can the White House just go in and say, well, no, this isn't a treaty. It's just. It's a fun compact between friends, between nation friends.
- [35:14]
Unnamed Senator
So that's basically what Obama did. And I and others made clear, in order for this to have force, it has to be a treaty. And actually, here's a way to illustrate it is actually go back to the Trump administration. We're sort of jumping in the timeline. But let's go to the beginning of the Trump administration. Both the State Department and the Defense Department under Donald Trump wanted to stay in the Iran deal. Rex Tillerson was Secretary of State. He said, we need to stay in the Iran deal. Jim Mattis, who's a Democrat, was Secretary of Defense. And he said, we need to stay in. Mattis used to say, and he said this both public and private. He said, america gave our word. We need to keep our word. And I told him, General and later, Mr. Secretary, no, America did not give our word. Right? There are two ways and only two ways, that we give our word in a binding international context under the Constitution. Number one, through legislation that passes both houses of Congress and is signed into law, that is a formal commitment, is a legal commitment. Or number two, the typical way for an international agreement is a treaty negotiated and signed by the president and ratified by two thirds of the Senate. Those are the two ways America can give our word that are binding. This deal was neither. And we made absolutely clear to Obama that the Senate rejected it. And thankfully, Trump ended up agreeing with me. He overruled his own Secretary of state, his own Secretary of Defense, and ended the deal. And it was the most important foreign policy decision. Now Biden's trying to negotiate it. The reports are they're close to a deal. The one thing that save us from a deal so far is the Iranians are so extreme, they see so much weakness with Biden that they're demanding an even bigger sweetheart deal than Obama gave him. Their unreasonableness may delay this a little bit, but what the Ayatollah is holding out for is he's saying to Biden, what I want is a commitment that will last and will last beyond this administration. And what I've said repeatedly is Joe Biden can't give you that because the next Republican president who comes in is going to rip this deal up just like the last Republican president is. This is disastrous, but Biden wants to sign it anyway.
- [37:30]
Ted Cruz
Well, speaking of acts of violence, I think our listeners are going to commit acts of violence potentially with nuclear weapons on me if we don't get to at least one mailbag question. So I want to get to that before we go. There were a number of great questions that came in. This one, though, is completely out of left field and it ties in with a little bit of a news story. So I wanted to bring it up from Spac says, what is Ted Cruz's view regarding the legality of illicit drugs? Love the show. I've been a fan from episode one and it ties into the news because Joe Biden might not be able to give us very much in this economy, but he is promising to give out free crack pipes. So it's a topic at the top of people's minds.
- [38:13]
Unnamed Senator
It's a great question. But let me stop Michael. How is that not a headline from the Babylon Bee? It literally is the case that the Biden administration is giving out free crack pies. Cuz this will be good for America if everyone's smoking crack. You know, talk about a great crime policy. As many people on crack as possible. These are your Democrats.
- [38:32]
Ted Cruz
He actually went further. He said that crack pipes were important for racial equity, which seems extremely offensive to me to say that.
- [38:38]
Unnamed Senator
But so not only extremely offensive, if you were to come up with a conspiracy theory, this would usually be attributed to Republicans if you were to say racist and the media conspiracy theorists always claim them to be Republicans. The CIA, so this is another one. The CIA wants to give crack pipes to minorities to destroy minority communities. That sounds like a conspiracy theory, except Biden is saying that's what he wants to do. It's like, holy crap, you wanna fight for minority communities? Get the kids off crack. Don't give them crack pipes.
- [39:12]
Ted Cruz
All right, That's a good rule of thumb. Get the kids off crack. Yes, reasonable people can disagree on lots of questions here, but I think we can all agree. Don't give the kids crack pipes.
- [39:23]
Unnamed Senator
Amen.
- [39:24]
Ted Cruz
Not a great idea.
- [39:25]
Unnamed Senator
Just say no.
- [39:26]
Ted Cruz
Just say no. Because we're high on life. We're high on all of this. We're high on all this great content that we're trying to bring to our Verdict listeners. So if you haven't subscribed already, you should go, go and subscribe. You can get your merch@verdictwithtedcruise.com shop. You can sign up for Verdict on locals. There's a whole other series right now on Verdict hosted by our friend Liz Wheeler. It is called the Cloakroom. And I think we have Liz with us right now.
- [39:55]
Michael Knowles
Hi, Michael. Hi, Senator. We do indeed. We are now, believe it or not, on episode three of the Cloakroom on Verdict Plus. So if you haven't joined us at Verdict with TedCruz.com/, please do. We're actually going to do a deep dive into the Democrat crack pipe controversy. There's, I mean, I guess I should be used to saying sentences like that since we've had to deal with Hunter Biden for the last however many years at this point.
- [40:19]
Ted Cruz
It's a low blow.
- [40:20]
Michael Knowles
I know. I couldn't resist. I couldn't resist. But this is a good conversation. This is about the philosophy of the thing, right? Whether the libertarian version or the conservative version of the war on drugs is not only the most effective but the most constitutional. So we are going to dive into this. This is a topic, as you know, that creates a little discord among the Republic among members of the Republican Party. So that's always fun to dive into that again. The Cloakroom is a brand new series on Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz. It's co hosted by me, Liz Wheeler. Basically, I'm going to pick the senator's brain like I would in a strategy session. It's a behind the scenes peek into the details of what goes on in D.C. just like the actual cloakroom of the Senate. So you can join us at verdict with TedCruz.com/plus to join us, use the promo code cloakroom for a one month free trial on your annual subscription. You don't wanna miss it. We have talked about many different things. Stacey Abrams, not wearing a mask. We've talked about foreign policy and how to create a foreign policy philosophy so that when things like China happens or things like Russia and Ukraine happen, you know how to apply that foreign policy. It's verdict with TedCruze.com/ promo code Cloakroom for a one month free trial on your annual subscription.
- [41:32]
Ted Cruz
Sounds wonderful, Liz. I intend to raise a glass to the new series. I intend to raise a cigar. I will not raise a crack pipe. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. See you next time.
- [41:51]
Liz Wheeler
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.