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- [00:00]
Michael Knowles
We have just wrapped up the Republican National Convention and I have to tell you, it is really refreshing to see American flags that are not on fire after the past several weeks and months. Nice to see a little bit of patriotism. I don't think there could have been a starker contrast between the two parties as we head into November. And we will get into all of it with someone who knows all of the players, knows all of the issues, and is deeply involved in, in everything that we're looking forward to, not just in November, but moving forward afterward. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict. I'm Michael Knowles. This is a very special episode. We simply could not wait to get this stream out tonight. So this one is going live. It occurred to us with everything that's going on, we hadn't even been able to cover the DNC and obviously the RNC took place. Senator, I have to tell you that I accidentally spread fake news earlier today. I told people on our previous stream when I was on Daily Wire. I said that you were in Washington right now, but your schedule is so hectic that turns out you're not even in Washington.
- [01:17]
Ted Cruz
Well, that's true. I'm in the great state of Texas, although when I woke up this morning, I didn't know where for sure I would be. We obviously had a hurricane late last night that made landfall right at the Texas, Louisiana border. And so I had been planning this morning to fly up to Washington and be at the White House for the President's acceptance speech. But we were obviously monitoring the hurricane closely. And so I got up this morning about 6am and talked to my team. The hurricane had made landfall late last night and we were assessing where the damage was. And we made the decision, which frankly I thought was pretty likely, but we made the decision that I needed to go and survey the damage and meet with the local officials. Officials and so went down and jumped on a Coast Guard helicopter and flew to East Texas, flew to Orange, Texas, which is right near the border with Louisiana, and then went up and did a tour of the areas that were impacted by the hurricane. And you know, I gotta say Texas, at least we are blessed. We were really spared what could have been much, much, much worse. At about 2 or 3 in the morning last night, the hurricane shifted course and moved east about 30 miles and it ended up hitting Louisiana much, much worse. But it had the effect also of sparing much of Texas. And so there was some wind damage in far east Texas. There was some flooding, but it was really Louisiana that took the Brunt of the hit. And I have to say, having been through multiple hurricanes, including, obviously, Hurricane Harvey, which was the most devastating, certainly, of my lifetime, I think everyone was grateful that this was not nearly as bad as it could have been.
- [03:13]
Michael Knowles
I'm so pleased to hear it, because, obviously, we've all been focused on national politics and this issue and that issue and these rioters that you forget that a natural disaster can strike and kind of puts everything on pause. So you certainly did the right thing by going down, surveying the damage, even if it might have been more fun to be at the Republican Party in D.C. but you were able to watch some of the convention, so I was.
- [03:39]
Ted Cruz
And it did lead to. Right now we're revisiting what was really the birth of verdict, which is we're doing an episode at nearly midnight, you know, for the same reason, because all of Washington was going late, late into the night. And the president just finished his speech not long ago. And I jumped in the car and drove over to the studio, and now we're live.
- [04:02]
Michael Knowles
And I have to say, this is something that maybe people don't know about you, but I have seen it up close many times. You're nocturnal. You never sleep. You seem to have more energy at 2 in the morning than you do at 2 in the afternoon.
- [04:15]
Ted Cruz
I am a night owl, and I hate mornings. Like, if I ever had to do a morning show, I think it'd kill me. Yeah. But, you know, a midnight show, I'd be all on board with that.
- [04:27]
Michael Knowles
Yeah. Maybe we'll just set it there all the time. I don't know how happy my wife would be about that. But that's okay. We'll do it for the show. Actually, speaking of that, speaking of the origins of verdict, our first question in from Laurel is a simple question, but I think a lot of people maybe don't know the answer. What is a verdict?
- [04:47]
Ted Cruz
So a verdict, in the legal sense, obviously, is the judgment of the court. And it's the judgment of a jury, typically of guilt or innocence in a criminal case or the judgment of whether the plaintiff or defendant prevails in a civil case. And it is. Well, no, I'm not gonna intrude on you. I was gonna say what it's from. In the Latin. But let me not step on the great Michael Knowles toe. So tell us, what is it in the Latin, Michael?
- [05:19]
Michael Knowles
Well, in the. Since you bring it up, senator, it means a true saying. Ver, like for truth and dict, like dictum. You know, a saying. And so we try to, obviously, speak the truth on this show. And Senator, you know, in our absolutely populist appeal, every so often we have to get into Latin etymology. We have to cover everything, everything on.
- [05:41]
Ted Cruz
The term E pluribus unum, baby. Yeah.
- [05:44]
Michael Knowles
So, you know, as you know right now, if you are watching this on YouTube, send your questions in, you put your questions into the live chat. We will of course answer them live. We've got another question. This is from Stephen, and I don't know that I know the answer to this. How does an average citizen go about proposing legislation to their elected representatives?
- [06:11]
Ted Cruz
Well, there are lots of avenues of communicating. What one can certainly do is call either your representative or you can call your senator. You can go by and try to visit with their staff. And typically, either a representative or senator will have staff both in D.C. and in the home district. You can write something. You can write an op ed and suggest it. You find some way to come up with a good idea. And I'll give an interesting example of that. Look, we know actually how legislation gets proposed. You remember the Schoolhouse Rock. I'm just a bill sitting on the steps of Capitol Hill and I will not injure anyone's ears by trying to sing it because I can't carry a tune to save my life. But an interesting story of a bill that was proposed by some New Jersey high school students and it somehow came to the attention, and I don't remember exactly how, of Alabama's Senator Doug Jones, a Democrat. And it was a bill to take the records from cold cases, civil rights cases from the 1950s or 60s, so a church bombing, a Klan murder or something, but a case that had never been solved. And the idea of the New Jersey high school students was to put these records, make them public, and let citizen journalists go try to solve the case 50, 60, 70 years later. And somehow Doug heard about this and so he was giving a floor speech on the Senate floor. He's a brand new freshman. He was talking about that he'd introduced a bill to do this, that he'd heard that idea, he liked the idea. And I was presiding. And so the way it works in the Senate is the majority party gets to preside and it typically rotates between the more junior senators, either first term or second term senators. You typically preside for maybe an hour a week. So I just happened, I was in the chair and Doug was standing there and he was talking about this idea. And I try to listen when people give floor speeches. By the way, a speech on the Senate floor usually is to an empty, cavernous Room and C span and no one's listening. But I listened to what Doug was saying, thought it was an interesting idea. And so I went down afterwards, said, hey, let's do this together. We teamed up together, worked together, and passed the bill into law. So it started with New Jersey high school students, and it ended up being a good idea and getting passed into law.
- [08:49]
Michael Knowles
So this is a hugely important aspect of it. And then I know some people have asked about the deep state, you know, or the administrative state or the bureaucracy, which seems like it makes a lot of laws for people, but they're not accountable. You can't call your senator, you can't call your congressman. And I know this is an issue you've talked about quite a lot.
- [09:09]
Ted Cruz
Well, yeah. I mean, it's one of the massive problems of the administrative state and for that matter, judicial activism.
- [09:15]
Michael Knowles
Right.
- [09:16]
Ted Cruz
You have government officials that are completely unaccountable. Federal judges have life tenure. And so if they're enacting policy, you don't have a constraint over them. Bureaucrats, many of their views is they will outlast every elected official. They're the permanent government, and whoever's coming and going is just sort of a temporary irritant.
- [09:37]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [09:38]
Ted Cruz
And it's one of the great virtues of our Constitution is accountability. And so I think it's really important to have as much decision making as possible in the elected parts of government. And also, I mean, that's really separation of powers at the federal level, but also as much decision making and policy at the state or local level. Because all of that increases accountability. It empowers the people.
- [10:07]
Michael Knowles
Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Question in from Daniel. Could you guys explain the Hatch Act?
- [10:16]
Ted Cruz
Somewhat, although I'm not an expert in it. The general principle on the Hatch act is it restricts many, many federal employees from engaging in politics. And so there are some exceptions to it. Some are allowed to do so. But as a general matter, the kind of run of mill, run of the mill federal employee, the Hatch act bars them from engaging in politics because the idea behind it is they don't want to politicize our government. It also prohibits using official assets. So, you know, I can't do a political thing in my Senate office. I'm not allowed to do that. That would be a violation. It's actually, I think, not technically the Hatch act for Congress. It's the Senate ethics rules, but it's the same principle. Yeah. And the reason everyone is asking is there's lots of chatter about the President's speech tonight on the White House and whether that violated the Hatch Act. The short answer for me is I don't know. I haven't studied that question. The argument that it doesn't violate the Hatch act, as I understand it, is there are portions of the White House that are considered the President's residence that are separate from the official part. So, as I understand the argument, he would not have been able to give that speech in the Oval Office. But the South Lawn is essentially his residence. It's also Covid. And so these are extraordinary times. But. But to be fair, I haven't studied the legal arguments on either side, so I don't know who has the better of that argument.
- [11:52]
Michael Knowles
Right. And there was a moment during the President's speech where he said, this is the White House. Really, though, I think of it as a home. And perhaps that was a nod at this controversy that Democrats are cooking up. Question from Nitza. Nitsa says, hello, I'm a young conservative and plan to open up a business later in my life, then use that money to campaign for Congress. Wow. It's a full plan. So my question to Senator Cruz is, what are your best campaign suggestions?
- [12:24]
Ted Cruz
Get involved in an issue you care about and fight for it. Rather than just run for office and have all these ideas, go fight for something that matters and build a record. And so that when you do run, you can point to what you've done and you've said, look, you want to know what I believe? Look at what I've been fighting for. And so you can be engaged in whatever issue motivates you, get your blood boiling. Go and build a record on that. Yeah.
- [12:53]
Michael Knowles
Yep. From Paul. What is the deepest reason why the Democrats won't disavow Antifa or the rioters? What philosophical hangups keep them from taking a stance against political violence?
- [13:07]
Ted Cruz
You know, I gotta say, for Paul, that is a great question. I don't know for sure. You know, a couple of weeks ago, I chaired a hearing on antifa violence and mob violence. And we heard really chilling testimony about all of the assaults, the assaults on police officers, the violence. Seven Democratic senators participated in that hearing, and not a one of them was willing to denounce Antifa. And there's. It's interesting, the Democrats, they have a message discipline to them. I mean, look, part of it is Democrats believe in government. They're collectivist. And so when they have orders, they follow orders. I mean, it's, yes, comrade. And they all say the same damn thing. You know, Republicans, we can barely agree on what time of day it is. I mean, we we bicker like crazy. And look a little bit is that you've got some individualists. So you've got, you know, any party that has Susan Collins and Rand Paul in it is a party with a lot of diversity because they, and, and everyone else, there's a lot of disagreement. So for whatever reason, at that hearing it was clear the Democratic talking points had gone out that whenever antifa or BLM violence is raised, simply attack and say it's right wing violence. That's a problem. That was their talking point. And so they'd say, well what about the Klan? What about Nazis? And look, of course my response is the Klan and Nazis are ignorant, bigoted racists and if they commit violence, we should lock them up in jail. Like I don't have a problem denouncing them. How about you? How about antifa, Right. And crickets? I don't know how much of it is fear that right now the Democratic Party, it's driven by angry voices and maybe they're scared to take them on. I don't know how much of it is in the Democratic Party. There's kind of a, a glorifying of 1960s protests. And you know, it's sort of part of the self narrative of a lot of Democrats is we're back at Berkeley and we're, you know, protesting against Vietnam. You know, his famous story of Reagan when he was governor, driving through Berkeley during protests and there were a bunch of hippies who were yelling and screaming in a protest and they, they either held up a sign or they chanted we are the future. And Reagan grabbed a pad of paper and he scrawled on it and held it up to the window and said, I'll sell my bonds. So maybe that's some of it that they identify with protesters, but I also think some of it is there's a woke identity politics that particularly because much of this violence arose in the context of questions of racial justice. I think Democrats are terrified to say anything criticizing someone who they perceive as a racial justice warrior, even if they're committing horrific and organized acts of violence. So I don't know what's driving it, but some combination of those factors. I do know the end result, which is, you know, we went through a Democratic convention last week where we've got cities on fire, police officers being attacked, being murdered, and the Democrats are unable or unwilling to bring themselves to condemn it.
- [16:37]
Michael Knowles
Yeah, that's right. And I think you make a great point. It hadn't really occurred to me in all of this madness, but this glorification of the 1960s protests and rioting and violence in some cases is still there, even with these boomer Democrats who don't ever seem to have really left Berkeley. Maybe they did physically, but not mental.
- [16:58]
Ted Cruz
You know what's weird, Michael?
- [16:59]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [16:59]
Ted Cruz
Even though they glorify protesters, leftists today don't believe in free speech. Right, right. It's a very weird. You know, look, I'm passionate about free speech, and I believe you've got a right to advocate any view you want, no matter how idiotic. Look, I defend people who attack me because you got a right to do it. What you don't have a right to do is violence. And what's strange about today's left is when it comes to someone speaking on college campus or speaking in their job or speaking anywhere else and saying some view that is inconsistent with their orthodoxy, they'll get you fired. They'll silence you. I mean, they're perfectly happy to stifle free speech, but when it comes to. You know, there was a CNN still shot that was making the rounds on Twitter today of a building just totally in flames. And the chiron at the bottom was. And I may be getting this slightly wrong, but was something to the effect of, although fiery, largely peaceful protest. And it's literally all on frigging fire. Like, fire is not peaceful. This is not a complicated concept. If you light someone on fire, you're not being peaceable to them. And this didn't used to be a controversial notion.
- [18:23]
Michael Knowles
This is also the second time the mainstream media have done this. We now have screenshots on MSNBC and CNN of reporters standing in front of whole buildings on fire. And they say it's mostly peaceful, it's mostly ignore. There's nothing to see here. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
- [18:38]
Ted Cruz
Just for the sake of argument, let me ask you, the phrase burn it all down, Is that ever a peaceful notion? Why does one burn things down? And it's. Look, we just see CNN as a propagandist. We see much of the mainstream media as propagandists right now.
- [18:55]
Michael Knowles
Right? That's right. And, you know, speaking of burning, I mean, I think the Democrats are caught in this issue, which is that they've encouraged the protests, they've encouraged the riots in some cases. And when you play with fire, you might get burned. And I think they're seeing that probably in the polling. Speaking of polling, Dean wants to know. This is an important issue. It keeps coming up as people talk about the election. How does the GOP win over more suburban Women voters.
- [19:24]
Ted Cruz
Look, it's a great question. We've talked a lot on Verdict about what I think are the two broadest demographic trends in the US Politically, which is, number one, blue collar voters moving right, that's moving Midwestern states, more Republican.
- [19:39]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [19:40]
Ted Cruz
And number two, suburban voters, especially suburban women, moving left, that's moving big suburban states like Georgia, like Texas, like Arizona, are all getting more purple. You know, it's interesting. I think there's a very real possibility this week and last week we may look back on them as a real turning point in this campaign. And I don't mean it for the traditional reason. Look, we kind of expect conventions to have a bounce. I mean, that's sort of traditionally, one side has their convention, they get a bounce, the numbers go up in the polls. The other side has their convention, they get a bounce, their numbers go up in the polls. I'm actually not focused on the conventions as much, although I think the Democratic convention was very ineffective last week. And I think the Republicans did a very good job with our convention this week. But I actually think it was a broader turning point. The violence we saw in places like Kenosha. And I think as we've seen this violence continue, not just in the immediate aftermath of George Floyd's death, but continuing week after week after week. I do think there are a lot of folks who may not even be all that political who are seeing this and understandably saying, this is a little scary. You know, I know you've seen. And our viewers are really engaged. So I suspect a lot of our viewers have seen the video of these angry leftist mobs screaming at people having dinner. You know, there's one of this woman having dinner, and they're demanding, put your fist in the air for black power. And it's. I mean, it's screaming angry. If you don't salute what we demand, we're gonna berate you. And there's a real threat of. Or worse. There's a. I mean, the threat of violence is in the air. And I do think, and you know why I think it may be something of a turning point is we're suddenly seeing Democrats react like they touched a hot stove. They suddenly realized, oh, crap, people don't like it when their cities are on fire and, like, people are threatening violence to them. And it's. It's been even the past couple of days where it seems like we may have reached a little bit of a tipping point on this. We'll see if we have. But I do think the angry radicals are getting more and more extreme. And I feel confident the Joe Biden campaign is sitting there right now saying, what the hell do we do about this? This is dangerous.
- [22:23]
Michael Knowles
That's right. And, you know, it's good in some ways to make wonk arguments about tax rates or trade policy or what have you. There is a place for that. When the country's on fire, that's not what people are thinking about. They're thinking about who's burning down the country, who's trying to put water on those fires, who wants to tear down George Washington, and who wants to look forward to an American future that resonates with people, even if you don't have your nose in white papers from think tanks and that sort of thing.
- [22:53]
Ted Cruz
Question from, people wanna be prosperous, but even more fundamentally, people wanna be safe.
- [22:58]
Michael Knowles
Yes.
- [22:59]
Ted Cruz
Yes. You know, and I do think that the basic contrast between the two conventions, on the Republican side, the kind of core message is, we'll keep you safe and we're gonna fight for you to have a job. And the Democratic side, not promising to keep anyone safe. And on the economy, they don't really have a message either, other than we hate Trump. And so we're gonna raise taxes and have massive regulations, but trust us, it'll be great for the economy. And I think a lot of people are pretty smart and realize, well, that doesn't sound like it's great for the economy.
- [23:39]
Michael Knowles
Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And when you have Democrats led by the future of the Democratic Party, as DNC chairman Tom Perez calls AOC talking about the Green New Deal, this $93 trillion plan by. By some estimates. I don't think people look at that and say, this is gonna lead to prosperity now on this.
- [23:59]
Ted Cruz
So let me actually disagree with Perez on one thing. I don't think she's the future of the Democratic Party. I think she's the present.
- [24:06]
Michael Knowles
I think you're right.
- [24:08]
Ted Cruz
You know, a couple of weeks ago, I was up in Alaska, which, by the way, was very cool. Yeah. And Heidi and I and the girls went up there. And I went up there to campaign for Dan Sullivan, who is the senator from there. He's a good friend, and he's up for reelection. And I was campaigning for him. And one of the. We did several events for Dan. And one of the things I said at each of the events is I said, you may not realize it, but AOC is on the ballot in Alaska. And, I mean, people were really kind of puzzled and startled. What do you mean she's on the ballot in Alaska? I said, Listen, if this is a bad election, if Democrats win and if they take the Senate, and that's a real possibility, Chuck Schumer will be majority leader. But as a practical matter, Chuck Schumer has seen all of these Democrats being primaried from the left and losing. And Schumer is up in 2022. And if he becomes majority leader, he is going to be utterly terrified of being primaried by aoc. And for all intents and purposes, that will make AOC effectively the Senate Majority Leader. Because whatever she demands, he's gonna be so scared of that primary challenge that I think he'd be more than happy to jump to her tune. And it was kind of an interesting point for Alaskans to think about. And I was saying, look, Alaska's a great bellwether where if Sullivan loses and Alaska has elected both Democrats and Republicans, it's a state that has shown it can vote either way. If Alaska loses, and there are a number of states for which this is true, there's a real possibility Schumer's majority leader and AOC is driving the train and setting the agenda in the Democratic Party today, not tomorrow, in the future.
- [25:53]
Michael Knowles
You know, as a native New Yorker, I'm not even an Alaskan, I have no excuse. That hadn't occurred to me. But there has been chatter that AOC could primary Chuck Schumer. And you're right. Effectively, what that means is AOC is gonna be calling the shots even more than she already is. And she obviously is already wielding a lot of influence.
- [26:11]
Ted Cruz
And Schumer is a political being, which means, like, his only objective will be to stop that. And so just as a practical matter, that means he's going to be terrified. He does not want to let her outflank him to the left in any respect. If you're a minority leader, that's much less of a problem. But if he actually controls a Senate majority, that could be very dangerous.
- [26:35]
Michael Knowles
They do have a saying in New York, I think even still with the riots and all the mayhem, that the most dangerous place in the state of New York is between Chuck Schumer and a television camera. So I think that is the issue.
- [26:47]
Ted Cruz
I have heard that, although I will confess a affinity for TV cameras is not a unique sin in Washington among Chuck Schumer.
- [26:59]
Michael Knowles
That's true. I can imagine it's maybe an occupational hazard down there. A question from Matt. Hey, guys. Love your work. How do we know that the right is correct and that true political reality doesn't lie somewhere in the middle of the political scale? I guess what Matt's asking is, you know, as you Senator, you're probably one of the most conservative guys in all of Washington, D.C. why should we be strong conservatives and not squishes?
- [27:30]
Ted Cruz
Well, look, I would say don't accept my word for it. Don't accept it on faith, Test the propositions, read both sides, study both sides, spend time listening to what the left says, listening to what the right says. And even how do we know the right is correct? One of the things, and we talked about this before, there's a lot of diversity on the right in terms of what is even, whether you're a paleo conservative, a neoconservative, a libertarian. Half these things, I don't even. I barely know what they mean. But there are sharp differences of opinion when it comes to foreign policy within the whole world on the right. When it comes to the role of government within the whole world on the right, what I would say is take the time to think through and analyze the issues. One side, the left, though, right now, doesn't want you to do that. The fact that they're willing to use coercion to silence views that contradict. Look, I mean, you know, you look at college campuses where they won't allow conservative speakers to come. When I was in school, when I was in law school at Harvard, there were more openly Marxist professors on the faculty than there were Republicans.
- [28:53]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [28:53]
Ted Cruz
And it wasn't even close. There was one open Republican on the faculty, Charles Freed, who worked in the Reagan administration as Solicitor General. I worked as a research assistant for him. And by the way, Charles Freed, who at the time was the lone Republican on the faculty, voted for Barack Obama. So even he ended up voting Democratic. There were and are multiple open Marxists. And, you know, it's interesting, one person who listens to our podcast, Michael, is Heidi. And look, you and I are both married. The fact that my wife actually listens to what we say a is complimentary. But I'll tell you, she kind of chewed us out recently and said, you guys are getting too dogmatic and preaching to the choir too much. And the reason she listens to it is she says, listen, I'm really busy. And what she said, and it's the same thing we've heard a lot on this show is she says, I learn things from the show but spend a little more time. And she actually brought up like, you know, you talked about several of the organizers of BLM or Avowed Marxists. She said, a lot of people don't know what Marxists are. And it reminds me we spent a lot of time early in impeachment, kind of tapping the brakes and saying, okay, what is this? What does this mean? And look, Marxism is a philosophy. It was propagated by Karl Marx. Obviously, it's the foundation of communism, but it advocates. It views history through a lens of class warfare and a battle of the proletariat versus the bourgeoisie, the working people versus the property owners, and it calls for a revolution. Marxism, it's an approach to history, it's an approach to government, and it advocates socialism as its economic system. So socialism is just the economic arm of Marxism. But Marxism also consistently says we need actually a phrase, I think it was Lenin used, a dictatorship of the proletariat, which is inevitably, to get to Marxism, you have to have a totalitarian government come in and take the property from the people who have it. And what happens every single time is the Marxists who have power live like kings and everyone else lives in misery. And so when someone is a Marxist, they are advocating for the principles reflected in the Communist Manifesto that Karl Marx wrote that advocated for Marxism. Anyway, so I give. I'm not gonna necessarily tell you the right is always correct on everything. What I am gonna say is that I believe if you look at the evidence, free enterprise is much more successful than socialism in terms of lifting people's economic welfare, combating poverty, producing prosperity. And I also believe that our constitutional liberties are important, and that includes the pluralism and diversity of thought that free speech and religious liberty and all the rest allows that. If you don't agree, go make your case and convince your fellow citizens.
- [32:32]
Michael Knowles
That's right. And look at the evidence. You know, as you say, these socialists never seem to get to that Marxism where everybody's free and equal. I was reminded of an expression I once heard. Someone asked the difference between socialism and communism. And they said, well, Christians go to heaven and socialists go to communism. And the problem is you don't get heaven on earth, so it never seems to materialize. I do also want to.
- [32:57]
Ted Cruz
I'd give a simpler answer, which is the difference is in AK47, it's more visual. Socialism is the economic system, but inevitably it gets enforced in communism with brute force and oppression.
- [33:11]
Michael Knowles
I also want to remind all of our viewers right now, we have a lot of viewers right now live, to click that subscribe button, ring the bell. We really appreciate it that way. You will get notifications so long as Big Tech does not shut us down, which I'm sure is always a possibility. You can also head over to Apple Podcasts. And if you would like, if you were so inclined, leave a five star review. We would really appreciate that. Helps us get over a little bit of the hurdle that is sometimes imposed on non leftist outlets out there. We're also on Google play, stitcher, probably MySpace, I don't know, we're just all over the place on the Internet for now. We really appreciate it. We've got a lot of views at this point. You know, the show hit number one unexpectedly in the first couple weeks of it and we just appreciate all of our listeners sticking around. A question from Venrae Lal. Something tells me that's not the name that your parents gave you. Venrae, but I like it anyway. Hey, Senator, why do you think it took tonight's speech to mention David Dorn on the mainstream media despite the mainstream media's support for Black Lives Matter?
- [34:20]
Ted Cruz
Because the media are hypocrites and they are pitching an ideological message. Ann Dorn's speech was incredible and powerful. So Ann Dorn is the widow of David Dorn, a retired St. Louis police officer who was murdered in the riots. And he is African American. And when you have people screaming Black Lives Matter, apparently David Dorns is not included because he was murdered in the violence by the rioters and his wife. Her speech, it's one of the things I think the RNC did better than the DNC is it told real stories. I'm actually glad they had a lot fewer politicians on the rnc.
- [35:07]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [35:10]
Ted Cruz
I think listening to an Ann Dorn or a Clarence Henderson or the stories that were told were really powerful. And her story, now she's a police sergeant as well, and she told the story of waking up and finding out he'd been murdered, that he'd gone, he was retired and was working security at a pawn shop and the alarm went off and he went to the pawn shop and was murdered by the rioters and looters. And in any sane conversation, we ought to be talking about the victims of this violence and those that have been murdered. But the media doesn't want you to know that. Part of it is. We've talked about this before. Donald Trump has broken the media.
- [36:08]
Michael Knowles
Yeah, that's right.
- [36:10]
Ted Cruz
You used to see the media, CNN's a great example where they try to be balanced. They're not anymore. You know, it's interesting. I watched the president's speech tonight at home on cnn. I don't know why, but that just happened to be what I turned on. And did you watch it on CNN or do you remember what Network you watched?
- [36:31]
Michael Knowles
I do. Well, no, Senator, I assume you must live in an airport if you were watching it on cnn. That's the only place I ever see CNN Live. No, I was actually watching it on C Span because we were doing the stream. But sometimes I will click on just to see the left wing commentary on it.
- [36:46]
Ted Cruz
So what was fascinating on CNN is when they were airing the President's speech, when he got to talking about coronavirus and COVID 19, they put up at the bottom a chart of the number of cases of COVID 19 in the US and the number of people who've died on COVID 19. And then they began doing a real time what I guess they were pitching as fact checking of the President's speech. And so it was denominated facts first. And they just did this during the COVID 19 portion of the speech. I mean, he spoke 70 minutes. And it was just during the, you know, kind of, I don't know, eight, ten minutes that he was talking about the pandemic. And so the first one said something like, for months, you know, facts first. For months, the President dismissed the seriousness of this crisis. So the first one was really tendentious. It was political. It was, and I don't remember, the second one was equally political. And so like the first, I almost turned it off. It was really ticking me off. Like, have you ever seen a network covering either political party's nominee putting at the bottom what they call fact checking, disputing what he said? Like, it was really like, who in the hell do they think they are? Like, you're literally listening to the nominee's speech and they're going to put under him. But, you know, it was fascinating. So that's in part an answer to why they don't want to say the name of David Dorn. They don't like telling that story. They don't like telling the story of the other officers assaulted, attacked and murdered. But an interesting flip side, they did include one, I guess you'd call it a pro Trump fact check. And I guess somebody felt like, okay, we can't only put fact checks saying we disagree with the President. And the pro Trump one they put up was fascinating. It was when the President was talking about Joe Biden's gonna shut down the entire economy. And they said facts first. Joe Biden said he would shut down the United States if scientists recommended it to him. And I gotta say, that fact check, I don't think CNN realizes how devastating that fact check. And it's true. But you rarely get journalists acknowledging Things that are true. I mean, Biden did say that, but I think that is an absolutely devastating omission that, yes, Joe Biden wants to shut down the entire economy and take away your job. And they're like, yep, that's what he said. So it was an interesting. I don't know how that slipped through. I'm wondering if some CNN intern got fired for it. Maybe, but somehow they put it up on air.
- [39:37]
Michael Knowles
That is amazing. Although I do wonder if it was just so obvious. It was undeniable. The man said it himself and so they have to get that out there. But just the whole idea of the fact check, which is very rarely factual. It's always just based in political opinion. The left always points to Fox, which as far as I can tell, has left wing voices on it. It's much more balanced than CNN or msnbc, even though it certainly tilts rightward. But you wouldn't ever see Fox having a running chiron just contradicting a candidate of either party.
- [40:13]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, and look, I think there are reasonable criticisms one can make of Fox. Earlier, the question was given, how do we know the right is right? I certainly would not advise someone, go listen to Fox News and whatever they say, believe it. Certainly, go educate yourself, Go read on the other side. You know, I try to. Unfortunately, anything resembling objective journalism has almost disappeared. And so you have to view things almost through the lens of, all right, let's get partisans on both sides. So for years I used to read every day. I would read the Washington Post on politics and I'd read National Review and the two side by side would give you some modicum of that. Sorry for like, Daily Wire is a great place to do so. I don't mean to be pitching competitors, but, you know, read folks on both sides. And to be honest, the truth is usually somewhere in the middle that people are pitching something. But getting educated on both sides helps then to assess what's right and what isn't.
- [41:22]
Michael Knowles
No, that's right. Of course. I mean, of course the Daily Wire is the one news source in all of history that is perfectly balanced. I'm joking. I would get this question, often they'd say, how do I get an objective perspective? And I said, forget about that idea. Just read both. You want to read the Daily Wire? It's good. And then go read, I don't know, the Huffington Post or Vox or something and figure out where their truth lies.
- [41:42]
Ted Cruz
Have I ever told you my idea for running a newspaper?
- [41:46]
Michael Knowles
I don't think so.
- [41:48]
Ted Cruz
So I've thought about this for A long time. Like if I woke up one day and they made me the editor of the New York Times and, you know, they just fired the New York Times. So you know me soon. Yeah, but actually they fired the editorial page editor in the New York Times. More on the news side, I think. Oh. If I was editor of either, I think what I would do is rather than purport to be objective, I would consciously try to frame a dialectic. I consciously try to frame and say, you know what? We're gonna have conservative voices and liberal voices. So on our op ed pages, they're gonna battle it out and you're gonna get to listen to both. And by. Actually, the Post used to do that. They used to have some pretty good conservatives, and they still do it more than the Times does. But instead I would just embrace the dialectic and say, you'll be smarter and more informed if you listen to smart conservatives and smart liberals and assess it. And here's the piece on the news media side, I do the same thing on news stories. And where a lot of the bias of journalism comes in is what stories get greenlit, what gets decided. This is news and this isn't.
- [42:57]
Michael Knowles
That's right.
- [42:58]
Ted Cruz
So frankly, if I owned a newspaper, if I was the editor of a newspaper, I'd probably have a conservative news editor and a liberal news editor, both with the authority to greenlight stories. And I'd allow some of that same dialectic and have real conservatives and liberals. So they would. And you would get. Hopefully in that clash, you'd get somewhere closer to truth.
- [43:24]
Michael Knowles
That's a great idea. And it's funny you mentioned that the Washington Post used to be a little more balanced back when it was. I would read the Washington Post, certainly much more than I do now. It's a great idea, but certainly no one in the mainstream media is gonna take that advice. It's too good. It's too insightful.
- [43:40]
Ted Cruz
Now, Michael, let me do something that will surprise you. And this is connected to the last two questions we've gotten.
- [43:46]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [43:47]
Ted Cruz
I'm going to defend the owner of the Washington Post and defend Big Tech, which is.
- [43:52]
Michael Knowles
Excuse me, sir, where have you put Senator Cruz? We gotta get Senator Cruz back here.
- [43:57]
Ted Cruz
I don't know if you saw, like, protestors set up a guillotine outside of the home of Jeff Bezos. And look, I've got lots of criticisms of the Washington Post. I think Bezos, Big Tech, I have lots of criticism. Amazon has been less noxious than some of the other players, but there are lots of reasons to Criticize Bezos. Yep. But setting up, and I'm not talking a mock guillotine. I mean, if you haven't seen the video of it, it is chilling. It is by all appearances, a full working guillotine with a razor sharp blade. And you know, that's just deranged. I mean, that is a terrorist threat. And this is outside, as I understand it, his personal home. This is another manifestation of the mob that we're seeing. You know, you don't get to threaten people with murder when you put a guillotine in front of someone's house. You're not saying, I disagree with your views. You're saying, I'm going to murder you. The reason you're putting it there is you're threatening to put their head and neck into it. And that. I just think that was deranged.
- [45:16]
Michael Knowles
It absolutely was. And it's funny, I had the same impulse, I suppose, that you had. Nobody has been tougher on Big Tech than you have, Senator. You've really gone after them when a lot of your fellow Republicans have not. But you look at that and you say, guys, what are you doing? I can't believe the left is now making me defend Jeff Bezos and Amazon Washington Post. But that's where they've put us. It's a strange moment right now. No one who is alive has lived through a political moment like this. A question comes in from Tyler specifically about the election results. Right now, an estimated 80 to 100 million people are going to vote by mail in the election. I assume a huge number of them are not going to make their ballots hit the deadline, so they're gonna come in late. We are very likely not going to know who won the election on election night. So his question is, what happens if the election results are delayed beyond January 20th? President Pelosi, or does Trump remain in office, or what are we looking at?
- [46:22]
Ted Cruz
There's a lot of uncertainty on that. I think, number one, on Election Day, if the race is at all close, you're going to see delays because of mail in voting, but you're also going to see litigation. Bush versus Gore. Look, I was very involved in litigating Bush versus Gore 20 years ago. I was a young campaign staffer, young lawyer working for the George W. Bush campaign in 2000. So I was down in Tallahassee as part of the legal team during Bush versus Gore. Yeah, I think there's a very real chance this year we'll see a Bush versus Gore in 10, 20, 30, 50 jurisdictions. Wow. It's been reported that Biden has already hired 600 lawyers to contest elections. And what that means is if it's at all close, there's a very good chance we don't know the answer. If you get to January 3rd, it could be thrown. If there is uncertainty, it could be thrown to Congress, which means the House of Representatives chooses the President and it means that the Senate chooses the Vice President. Now, here's what's interesting. It doesn't work by simple majority in the House. So it's not whoever has the majority chooses the president. It's rather each state gets one vote. So each congressional delegation gets a single vote. So California gets one vote. And right now, in the current Congress, I think the number is that there are 26 Republican states that Republicans have a majority that have delegation, 20, two that Democrats have a majority, and two that are tied. I think it's Pennsylvania and Michigan are tied. The reason Dems can still have a majority is they rack up huge numbers in states like California and New York. So they have more than 218, but they don't have a majority of the states.
- [48:22]
Michael Knowles
Right.
- [48:23]
Ted Cruz
What that means is there's a real incentive if Democrats have the majority to prevent it from going to the House. And there is an argument that come January 20th, if Congress hasn't exercised its authority to select the president, select the Vice president, there is an argument that they are putting forward that on January 20, Donald Trump and Mike Pence cease being president and vice president, and third in line of succession is Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House. And if they would lose otherwise, I fully expect the Democrats to do everything they can to prevent any constitutional mechanism for having a Republican president. So I fully expect them to try to delay to January 20th and argue that Nancy Pelosi has now become president, that is. And we are in such uncharted legal territory, constitutional territory. These questions, if we get there, are going to be hotly, hotly contested.
- [49:36]
Michael Knowles
Senator, when I saw this suggestion of President Pelosi floating around social media, I thought, this is just one of those hokey, crazy things that goes around social media. I kind of dismissed it. And now you've made me feel so much more worried about this election in November.
- [49:56]
Ted Cruz
Well, I will say if we get to Congress choosing the president and Vice President, we will be doing verdict live every night, just as we did in impeachment. And I hope and pray that does not happen. I don't wish this to become a nightly midnight report from insanity, which is what that would be. So let's hope we don't Find that out. But look, Democrats are already setting the foundation for, in their view, one of two outcomes in this election. Either they win, which they might, or the election is illegitimate.
- [50:30]
Michael Knowles
Yes.
- [50:31]
Ted Cruz
Yeah. If Donald Trump wins, if Republicans win, the odds are now 100.0% that Democrats in the media are going to say the election was stolen from.
- [50:42]
Michael Knowles
Yes, that's right.
- [50:43]
Ted Cruz
And you know, you saw recently, Hillary Clinton said under no circumstances should Joe Biden concede. I mean, this is the political equivalent of the rage mob. It's, we will not accept the will of the people. We won't accept the outcome of the election. And you know, there's a weird Freudian projection. Remember a couple of weeks ago, there was a little news boom, let of all these Democrats and reporters saying, will Trump accept it if he's lost?
- [51:14]
Michael Knowles
Right, right.
- [51:15]
Ted Cruz
And the absurd thing is, look, the ones who still don't accept it, Hillary Clinton still thinks she's, she's president.
- [51:21]
Michael Knowles
Yep.
- [51:22]
Ted Cruz
They haven't accepted the last election. And they're, they're making very explicit they don't intend to accept this one either. And so. And their tell is they accuse the other side of doing it.
- [51:32]
Michael Knowles
And I think that Hillary Clinton is actually just saying out loud what a lot of Democrats are thinking, because do you remember in 2016, she said Donald Trump said he might not accept the results of the election. This is a threat to our democracy. And then what happens? Hillary is the one who doesn't accept it. And it's not just her. Stacey Abrams still thinks she's the governor of Georgia.
- [51:53]
Ted Cruz
That's Governor Abrams to you, Michael.
- [51:55]
Michael Knowles
He is governor. I want to be respectful. Former President Al Gore still believes he won in 2000 on that recount. This seems to be a trend with Democratic politicians.
- [52:08]
Ted Cruz
Well, if there's no such thing as truth, and this is actually a Marxist concept, then you can dictate truth as what you say it is. And that when you have a compliant media. Let's go back to the CNN image of buildings on fire and they call fiery yet peaceful protests. That's like hot yet cold, like, I'm sorry, those are antonyms. You don't get to have two things directly contradictory, other than one of them is your political narrative.
- [52:50]
Michael Knowles
Yes. Yeah, that's right. And there's also this idea that they know the science of history, actually another Marxist concept, that they're on the right side of history. And so if you know how history is supposed to go and something happens to get in the way of that, well, clearly that's illegitimate by definition. This actually Raises a question from Daniel. And maybe we'll end on this question because it will give us so much to stew on until our next episode. Do you think that the Democratic Party has become so radical that the party will split into two completely separate parties? The BLM organization is behaving in some ways like a political party. He asks, will there be one party of the liberals and one party of the leftist socialists?
- [53:38]
Ted Cruz
So I actually don't think that. I think what we're witnessing is a leftist takeover. The Democratic Party. Yeah. And there are no. There are no moderate Democrats left. They've been driven out of the party. There used to be. There used to be conservative Democrats. I mean. I mean, point me to a conservative Democrat today. And look, some of it is. We talked about this before, how Democrats are collectivists. They believe in government power. They believe they are. I mean, there's a herd discipline. When do you see Democrats disagreeing on a vote in the Senate? Yeah, Pretty much never.
- [54:20]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [54:22]
Ted Cruz
Whereas Republicans, we do all the time, for good and for ill. Sometimes we're frustrated. How come we can't have the discipline and cohesion they do? I'd rather our problems of individualism. The Republican Party splintering is always a potential threat.
- [54:38]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [54:39]
Ted Cruz
The Democratic Party, I think one of two things will happen if they win. I think you will see the leftist take over the party completed that essentially, Joe Biden has ceded the party to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and aoc. You look at President Trump did a nice job tonight about talking about the Biden Bernie manifesto that they wrote together laying out the most radical socialist agenda of any major party nominee in modern times.
- [55:10]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [55:12]
Ted Cruz
So. So I think the. If the Democrats win, the left completes its takeover. And by the way, one illustration of that, and this goes back again to the. The sort of origin story of verdict when we voted on impeachment in the Senate, every single Democrat voted to impeach. And you remember when I, in particular, when Joe Manchin. So people will point to Joe Manchin or Doug Jones. Doug Jones from Alabama, Joe Manchin from West Virginia. They're both pointed to as. Oh, they're conservative Democrats. Well, both voted to convict the president. And I had interesting reactions. I had different reactions to both of them. So when Doug Jones voted to convict, that didn't surprise me, actually, because I think Doug Jones knows he's gonna lose. Tommy Tuberville, the Republican nominee, is gonna beat him. And I think Doug's decided he's gonna go down in a blaze of glory and be a liberal hero back home. And If Biden wins, he'll be in the Cabinet.
- [56:09]
Michael Knowles
Right.
- [56:09]
Ted Cruz
And so he knows he ain't winning in November and he's just, let's go. Manchin is different. So Manchin, you recall, voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh?
- [56:25]
Michael Knowles
Yeah, that's right.
- [56:26]
Ted Cruz
And it was one brief moment of apostasy and it probably reelected Joe. He got reelected that cycle and that vote may have saved his bacon when he voted to convict the president. My reaction, I sit next to David Perdue on the Senate floor. I turned to David and said, huh, Manchin's not running again. He's done. And that's how I interpreted that vote is Manchin. And Joe's never really liked the Senate. He was governor before. He liked being governor a lot more than being in the Senate.
- [56:58]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [56:59]
Ted Cruz
But I think when he voted there, the sort of last vestiges of dissent in the Democratic Party, he just decided to heck with it. I'll vote with the rest of them. Because, look, in West Virginia, impeaching the president is extraordinarily unpopular. If you're actually looking to get reelected in West Virginia, that's a dumb vote. And the different scenario in terms of the future of the Democratic Party if the Democrats lose, if Trump is reelected, and I think there's a real possibility of that, obviously. I hope that happens. Yeah, I think Democrats will lose their mind even more than they have now. I think the press will lose their mind even more than they have now. But you might see in the wake of a Trump reelection, some sort of reassessment in the Democratic Party and a resurgence of more reasonable voices. There will at least be some Democrats that will have the thought, holy crap, being wild eyed socialists and standing with the mob, burning our cities to the ground may not be the most appealing electoral platform. If they win, they're not gonna say that. But if they lose, they might say that. But I don't think it's gonna be a splintering party. I think it's gonna be a battle for who controls the party.
- [58:19]
Michael Knowles
That's right. You always hear, this is the most important election of our lifetimes. And in some ways it's always true because, you know, things progress down a certain path and certain dangers can become more pronounced. But, you know, we've talked on this show on an earlier episode about what could happen if the Democrats win, particularly if the Democrats take the Senate. You know, you could have Puerto Rican statehood, you could have D.C. statehood, you could have the end of the filibuster. You have a real surge of a Democratic power grab. Really puts the stakes into perspective. Really puts the conventions into perspective. And Senator, I know that you could stay up all night and keep talking and then show up for work at 7am I am not like that. I cannot do that. So I have got to, I think, end it here. We will have another episode soon. I hope that all the people who are watching right now on YouTube please head on over. First of all, ring that bell. Subscribe on YouTube, then go over to Apple Podcasts. Subscribe to the Verdict podcast. You can get on Google Play, Stitcher on everywhere. You can get it everywhere. It's on Spotify. So go. Please subscribe. We so appreciate it. Be sure to write into the mailbag. You can do that on Twitter by tagging either the Senator or me with Verdict. You can do that by writing in to mailbagrdictpodcast. Thank you for the excellent questions, Senator. Thank you for staying up and giving us insight into all the questions that I can't answer. Pleasure as always. And in the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
- [59:56]
Ted Cruz
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.