← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
MAJOR VICTORY, Nancy Pelosi Is No Longer The Speaker Of The House, Plus We Talk GOP Investigation Into Joe Biden Business Deals!
00:43:08
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- [00:01]
Ted Cruz
Welcome. It's Verdict with Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. We've got a lot to talk about, including the big, exciting news. Nancy Pelosi is out. Also, the leadership fight in the Senate. We're going to get into that. Plus a big vote on gay marriage. And finally, Republicans paying off, ready to rock and roll as they've taken the majority in the House. They are now going to be looking into the Biden crime family. What does this mean moving forward? That is going to be on today's podcast. Now, Senator, I want to get to this big, exciting moment and we should enjoy it because you fought hard for this. The bus tour was. It was part of this mission to make sure we could get the House out of the hands of the leadership of Nancy Pelosi. It is official. The Republicans control the House. Nancy Pelosi retiring from leadership today. That was obviously a massive story.
- [00:53]
Ben Ferguson
So I just want to say one very simple thing. Nancy Pelosi is gone. Nancy Pelosi is gone. Nancy Pelosi is gone. Hot diggity damn. Nancy Pelosi is gone.
- [01:05]
Ted Cruz
Isn't it amazing? I mean, it really is. Like when this happened today, I was sitting there hosting Outnumbered, and no one knew if she was going to resign from leadership or not. We were sitting there on set and I was sitting there with Kayleigh McEnany and we were like, all right, what's the over under? And apparently, Senator, she went home last night with two different speeches. One if she was going to stand leadership and one if she wasn't. And there was zero leaks. No one knew what she was going to say. And she finally said it. I am no longer going to be in leadership. And the entire set just was a gasp.
- [01:36]
Ben Ferguson
Look, that's incredible. I had not heard that. I will tell you, as you know, when we did the month long 17 state national bus tour, the closing of my speech at every single rally, and you were at a bunch of them. Ben was. I said, I and whoever I was campaigning with, whatever House member or Senate member, Senate candidate I was campaigning with, I said, you know, I and JD Am gonna be walking down the hallway in the Capitol and we're gonna bump into a little man wearing overalls, carrying a screwdriver, coming to change the sign on Nancy Pelosi's door. And inevitably the crowd would go wild at that point. And then I would say, and Nancy is gonna get on her broom. People would laugh and I'd say, okay, that's not fair. That's not right. Nancy is gonna get on her private jet. The USS Broom and she's gonna fly back to San Francisco. And for her sake, I really hope that her husband doesn't pick her up at the airport. When I said that, the crowd went crazy. In one state, two state, three state, four state, five states, 17 states, the crowd went crazy. And listen, we're all bummed that last week's election wasn't much, much better. It should have been phenomenal. We should have had a big majority in the Senate. We should have had a massive majority in the House. We don't. But let's take a moment to celebrate and say we did something that really mattered, which is we want a majority, the House of Representatives and Nancy Pelosi is out of a job and America is better off. Our liberty is safer. Our, our lives are more secure because the most radical, demagogic, socialist, left wing speaker of the House in the history of America is now out of a job.
- [03:51]
Ted Cruz
Let's, let's talk about how meaningful this would have been over the last two years. For example, to put it in comparing contrast, Senator, if the Republicans would have had the House, yes, people are bummed we don't have the Senate, where, yes, people are upset that he's still the President of the United States of America. But having the ability to say no in the House is so significant to stopping so much damage that had been done just over the last two years. For example, if we would have had one of those chambers.
- [04:19]
Ben Ferguson
So what does it mean? What does having the House mean? It means, number one, we'll have real oversight. We'll have meaningful oversight. We'll have House committees issuing subpoenas, engaging in oversight of the abuses, the ridiculous, ridiculous policies from this administration. That's a big deal. Number two, it will mean we will not have the disastrous legislation of the last two years. If Democrats have a massive tax increase, it ain't going to pass a Republican House. If Democrats want to make the District of Columbia a state and add two new Democrat senators, it ain't going to pass a Republican House. If Democrats want to pack the U.S. supreme Court and add four left wing justices to take the Supreme Court from nine justices to 13, it ain't going to pass a Republican House. That's a big deal. And I'm happy for that.
- [05:14]
Ted Cruz
One other thing that I think people look at when they see the fact that Nancy Pelosi is out is it also comes back to accountability now. And I want to spend time on this a little bit later, but before we get to that, I want to tell everybody about our amazing sponsor, Patriot Mobile. If you've got a cell phone and 99% of Americans do, how would you like to know that with every phone call you make, you're supporting conservative causes? Well, that's what Patriot Mobile does. And they use the same cell towers that you're on right now, meaning you get the same exact coverage that you're getting right now. Patriot Mobile is America's only Christian conservative mobile phone provider. They are a force for conservative values. Why? Because they take a portion of every bill that you pay and they fund conservative causes, candidates and organizations that believe in the sanctity of life, freedom of speech and the Second Amendment. And they're winning. If you're ready to have your dollars matter when you're paying a bill, switch to Patriot Mobile. They can save you money over what you're paying right now. They can save you and your family money, and they even can save your business or small business money because they have an entire section of the business that's just dedicated to businesses. They offer the same nationwide coverage as all the other major carriers. But the difference is you actually get to stand up for what you believe in every time you pay that bill. So go online to patriotmobile.com verdict patriot mobile.com verdict. You'll get free activation and other major offers. And you can call them 972-PATRIOT. That's 9-7 2-PATRIOT. Use the promo code. Verdict. The accountability. The Republicans seem to have their act together on the House side to really look into some of the corruption not only within our government, but the FBI and also with the Biden family. And that is one of, I think, the payoffs to campaigning on the issues that, that so many conservative Republicans ran on. And they looks like they're going to pay off on it right away.
- [07:17]
Ben Ferguson
Well, we need to do that. I was encouraged to see Jim Jordan and James Comer come out and say they're going to investigate, for example, the corruption with Hunter Biden. Now, as everyone who is a regular listener of this podcast knows, we've been talking for a long time that the issue with Hunter Biden is not his personal challenges. He is a troubled soul. It's clear he's had an anguished life where he struggled with substance abuse his entire life. If that were it, if he was some sad SAP with substance abuse issues, it would not be an issue of public concern. What matters about Hunter Biden is the official corruption of Joe Biden. Joe Biden is the target of these investigations, whether it's Burisma, the Ukrainian natural gas company that paid Hunter Biden $1 million a year. And all of the evidence suggests that was essentially payola to get protection from Joe Biden or whether it's Communist China paying Hunter Biden millions of dollars a year with 10% for the big guy. Again, to Joe Biden, what the House is focused on. I was very pleased they had a press conference Tuesday morning where they said, we're focusing not on Hunter, but on Joe Biden's corruption, on how much Joe Biden has been for sale, being sold to the enemies of America, being sold to foreign governments, being sold and engaged in corruption. Literally millions of dollars into the Biden family bank accounts. That's important. And I got to say I was really encouraged. The press conference yesterday morning that Jim Jordan and James Comer held was exactly on the themes that you and I have been talking about on this podcast for months, which is the focus is Joe Biden, not Hunter Biden. And Hunter is just the conduit for the corruption that goes straight to the president of the United States.
- [09:36]
Ted Cruz
It's not only that, but there seems to be a real comfort level now, Senator, with whistleblowers. Jim Jordan mentioned this, and I want to play this because it seems that people now feel safe to come out of the woodworks and risk their careers by whistleblowing on the corruption, the deep state, the FBI. And here's how Jim Jordan described it at that press conference you mentioned a moment ago.
- [09:59]
Ben Ferguson
Report two weeks ago, Judiciary Committee, a report that talked about the political influence and the political shenanigans going on in our justice department based on 14 FBI agents who come talk to our office as, as whistleblowers. One of those agents said, and this is a term he used, he said, at the highest levels of the FBI, specifically the Washington field office. He said it's rotted to the core. Not talking about rank and file agents. They're doing good, good work. Talking about the top people at the Washington field office.
- [10:28]
Ted Cruz
I mean, he says rotten to the core. And the whistleblowers in Washington, D.C. are coming to him with this. And I think that's where once it takes one or two brave people to come forward, Senator, as whistleblowers. And now it looks like the floodgates have just opened now that the Republicans have the majority in the House. And that may be the biggest blessing out of all of this.
- [10:48]
Ben Ferguson
Well, I think that's exactly right. Jim Jordan is a close friend of mine. He and I have been in the foxholes, battling against the forces of darkness over and over and over again. I got to tell you Just like Jim Jordan, I've had multiple FBI agents and multiple DOJ prosecutors come to me, come to my office as whistleblowers and say the politicization, the corruption at DOJ and the FBI is enormous. As you know, the book I just wrote the last couple of weeks, Justice Corrupted how the left has Weaponized the Legal System is entirely about how the Democrats have turned the DOJ and the FBI into political weapons to attack their enemies. This is a real and important problem and one of the great benefits that we have a majority in the House, we're now going to have chairman willing to investigate this corruption. And when you twist and pervert the Department of Justice and the FBI, it is an incredible danger to the rule of law and to our individual liberty. Now, Ben, I'll tell you, some people on the right say, abolish the FBI. And I understand that sentiment. They're so corrupt. I get it. I'm not in the camp of abolish the FBI. Why? Because they do a lot of work that is really important. Fighting terrorists, fighting bank robbers, fighting child predators who kidnap and sexually assault kids. All of that law enforcement work. God bless the FBI. Go catch the bad guys. Go catch criminals. Go catch terrorists trying to murder American citizens. But what Obama and now Biden have really endeavored to do, and sadly with real success, is direct them away from nevermind the next Al Qaeda 911 terrorists who want to fly a plane into a building. Don't focus on that. Go focus on moms and dads speaking at school boards. Go focus on soldiers in Israel and the idf. As DOJ has recently announced, the FBI is going to be trying to target our friend and ally, the nation of Israel. Go target pro life activists who dare to speak up in favor of life. And that politicization, it's what my book Justice Corrupt is all about. It is incredibly wrong. And I believe we need to use whatever levers of power we have to stop it.
- [13:15]
Ted Cruz
You know, one of the things that Representative Comer said on the Hunter Biden probe, he said, and I said this again today. You and I have talked about this. This is no longer about Hunter Biden. This is about the president.
- [13:25]
Ben Ferguson
Yes.
- [13:25]
Ted Cruz
And he said today the Bidens became millionaires. And I want to play this clip. By simply offering access to the family and the United states government president.
- [13:37]
Ben Ferguson
Four different pictures.
- [13:38]
James Comer
Committee Republicans have identified over 50 countries the Biden family sought businesses in on the international side of the Biden family business. The deals were often led by Hunter Biden. And that map there behind clay shows all the countries where the Bidens had a footprint in international business dealings. The investigation reveals a family that engaged with some of America's most powerful adversaries, planning to sell one of the largest sources of cobalt for electric vehicles in the world. To the Chinese, for example, the Bidens flourished and became millionaires by simply offering access to the family. Among the dozens of shell companies the Biden set up, there were millions of dollars of wire transfers, flights on Air Force Two to conduct personal business, and meetings with heads of state. All while Joe Biden was aware of what was happening. All the while, he turned a blind eye. Many transactions related to these businesses have raised red flags at US Banks. A Suspicious Activity Report, or sar, is a document a bank must file with the Treasury Department when a transaction is suspected to be related to money laundering or fraud or other types of criminal activity. According to media reports, the Biden family accumulated over 150 SARS. One SAR, generated by an American bank to the Treasury Department connects Hunter Biden and his business associates to international human trafficking, among other illegal activities. The money that was being made from foreign principles in the same room as Joe Biden was increasingly spent on furthering illegal activity. The SAR show that Hunter Biden was conducting business with suspected human traffickers.
- [15:17]
Ted Cruz
I mean, Senator, this is not just. And this was breaking news. More than 50 countries involved in human trafficking involved with the worst people in the world in China and trying to sell American resources. I mean, when you think about 50 countries, this was very clearly a mafia style enterprise where the kingpin, the big guy, is Joe Biden, who's now our president. Then he was the Vice President when much of this was going on as well. But apparently none of this has stopped. And all these suspicious activity reports of Democrats have been blocking us from being able to get those. Will we be able to see those now the Republicans have control of the House?
- [15:55]
Ben Ferguson
Look, I hope so. And I have confidence in the House chairman that are leading these investigations. I've got to say, you think about it. In over two centuries of our American history, we've had 46 presidents. We've had vice presidents under every one of them. We have never had a Vice president, not once in over 200 years whose family made millions of dollars selling access to the Vice President. That is the very essence of corruption. And by the way, not selling access to the Vice President to Americans, to lobbyists that we've had before, we've had sort of the domestic access, corruption, selling access to foreign adversaries, selling access to the communist Chinese government, selling access to Burisma, the corrupt Ukrainian natural gas company. The degree to which it was brazenly. You know, it feels like an episode of the Sopranos where literally they'd show up with Hunter Biden with a paper bag full of cash and say, here's 10% for the big Guy. Like, that should not be reality. That should be bad fiction on hbo. But it is reality. The Democrat majorities in Congress desperately want to cover it up. And I do think one of the real consequences of House majorities is that we're going to see serious oversight testimony hearings, subpoenas. We're going to get the facts. I think that's important.
- [17:33]
Ted Cruz
I want to move to the Senate side. And there's been this fight for leadership in the Senate. We've talked about this. Mitch McConnell, 7% approval rating among Republican voters right now. He walked out, made it clear. He said, I have the votes. I have the votes. I have the votes. Whether it's decided today, tomorrow, the next day, I have the votes. In other words, I dare you to challenge me or to come after me or to try to find someone else to do this job. You better just get back in your positions. I am the leader. Even in the minority, I have the votes. Where are we now with all of this?
- [18:10]
Ben Ferguson
Well, dare accepted. So the last podcast we did Wednesday morning, I was walking into the leadership elections, and when that occurred, the very first thing that happened, literally, we sat down. So I want to paint the picture. The leadership elections for the Republican conference are held in the old. The historic Senate chamber. So it's not the Senate floor today, it's the old Senate chamber, it's the Senate chamber, where in the Civil War, one senator beat another senator almost to death with a cane. It's small, it's intimate. You're on top of each other. So we're in there. The very first thing it's done, it's called order. And the first thing that happened is I stood up and I made a motion. I said, I move that we delay this vote until after the Georgia runoff. What proceeded was a couple of hours of debate where many senators stood up and argued on both sides. My argument was simple. Number one, we don't know who's going to be in the Republican conference in this next Senate. And Herschel Walker deserves a say in who the next Republican leader is. But number two, more fundamentally, we need a debate and a discussion about how we're going to lead. Are Republicans going to fight? What are we going to fight on? Is there any issue on which we're willing to fight. We had a vigorous debate. Now, I'll tell you, I've been in the Senate 10 years. In the 10 years I've been there, Mitch McConnell has never been challenged. We've never had a vote on leadership. There's never been even a discussion or debate about what the agenda will be. At the end of a couple of hours debate, we took a vote, and I got 16 votes. Now there are 49 Republicans, so my motion failed, but 25 was success, so I got 16. We were nine short of the 25 it would have taken to delay the election. Ben, that is a big damn deal. That's never happened before. It was the first serious leadership challenge in the 16 years that Mitch McConnell has been the Republican leader. That's a big deal, and I think it's justified because we had an election where we should have had a massive victory, and we didn't. And, you know, as we talked about in prior podcasts, if you have a football team that's the number one in the nation and it loses big game after big game after big game, you fire the coach. We didn't have the votes to fire the coach, but we came very, very close. And I hope it will lead to Republicans in the Senate now being willing to fight in a way that they haven't been the last two years.
- [20:59]
Ted Cruz
What is the mentality? I mean, you come back to D.C. right after election, everybody knows where we are with the House. Everybody, your colleagues know where we are now with the Senate. I mean, you're obviously angry and pissed off. That makes sense. And it makes sense with you because you care about this country. You wanted the Republicans to win. You want a majority. You worked hard to try to get it. We came up short. But are other senators angry, or is it just businesses usually like, oh, it is what it is. We're in the minority for another two years, and we'll see what happens then.
- [21:32]
Ben Ferguson
So it varies. Look, I think everyone's frustrated. I mean, you'd have to be dead. You'd have to be blind and oblivious not to be frustrated.
- [21:40]
Ted Cruz
Is leadership frustrated? Maybe that's a better way of saying it.
- [21:43]
Ben Ferguson
Not really. Leadership is engaged in the blame game. They are trying desperately to blame the results of the election on Donald J. Trump. And so that's their message, is, Trump did it, Trump did it, Trump did it. And listen, this was enough of a cluster that there is blame to go around everyone. I'm not saying anyone is immune from blame, but leadership is trying so hard to paint the blame on Trump that they're Pretending that their actions, the case I made to my colleagues, I stood up and said, listen, for the last two years, over and over again, we have passed Democrat priorities with all of the Democrats, every single Democrat, all 50 Democrats and 10 to 15 Republicans. We do that over and over and over again. And I said, listen, the Democrats never do this. When we had a Republican majority in the Senate, there were no cases, zero, where you had all 50 Republicans and 10 or 15Ds. They don't do it because from their perspective, their only focus is defeat the Republicans agenda. To hell with you on our side. Our guys are chumps. They're like, oh, okay, the Democrats want to do something here, let us help. And so the question that I asked, and in that historic Senate chamber, I asked Mitch McConnell, Tell the conference, is there any issue, even one on which you are willing to fight? Maybe we should fight. We're going to be taking up very shortly the National Defense Authorization Act. That's a great avenue to fight. The Biden administration is trying to fire thousands of soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines. I think that is asinine, it's idiotic, it's indefensible. Those servicemen and women declined to take the COVID vaccine. And the Biden administration is saying, we don't care that you've defended our nation, that you've dedicated your life to keeping our country safe. If you don't knuckle under and take this vaccine, you're fired. I think that's grotesque. So I stood up and argued to my colleagues, stand and fight. Grow a pair. Like actually fight for real. And the only way you can fight is to deny cloture on the ndaa. What is the NDA? The National Defense Authorization Act. It will not pass unless 60 senators vote for it. You'll get all 50 Democrats. So are there. If 10 Republicans vote for it, it's passed. And guess what? Those fighting men and women are fired. I said, all right, if you don't want to fight on that, how about fight on the 87,000 new IRS agents?
- [24:34]
Ted Cruz
That's what I was going to literally ask you is that question. Because there's a lot of speculation now that if Republicans are smart on this coming out of the House into the Senate, that this could be the opportunity where the President actually has to veto, use a veto to get rid of things, which would be a very interesting moment, especially going into the presidential election. How do Republicans play this to get rid of these agents? But look, you know, the White House is going to stand up.
- [25:02]
Ben Ferguson
So the Question I asked leadership is are we willing to fight in a way that uses actual leverage? So what leadership is fond of is let's schedule a vote on the floor, everyone votes and then we lose and we can go home and tell our constituents, look, we voted against, it's not our fault. But oh way the country, oh well, the country's screwed. If you want to stop it, you actually have to use the levers of power you have. If you want to stop the forced vaccination of servicemen and women, you block the NDAA because Democrats want to pass that. So that's using leverage next year. There are two and only two major lever points. One is the government funding bills, either either the continuing resolution or the omnibus funding bill. The other is the debt ceiling, if both of those the Democrats desperately want to pass. So historically, if you exert leverage on those, the minority has been able to get concessions over and over and over again. Now let's say you stand up on the government funding bill and say we're not going to fund the government if the funding includes 87,000 new IRS agents, which is what I think we should do. Here's what Joe Biden is going to say. He's going to bellow the demo. The Republicans are shutting down the government. All of the Democrats in Congress are going to bellow. The Republicans are shutting down the government. The corporate media, which is utterly corrupt and a Democrat mouthpiece is going to bellow. The Republicans are shutting down the government. And what I asked our leadership is, are you, the friggin Republican leadership, going to echo the message of the Democrats in the media that the Republicans are shutting down the government? If you do, we will lose. The short answer, Ben. Mitch McConnell didn't answer those questions. But I will say we got 16 votes to delay the election. And then Rick Scott ran against Mitch McConnell. I voted for Rick Scott. I'm tired of Mitch McConnell's leadership. I don't think he's done it right. We had 11 senators who did not vote for Mitch McConnell. That is a big damn deal. Mitch McConnell's been the leader for 16 years. In 16 years he has had zero senators vote against him. This year, 11 senators didn't support him. That's a step forward.
- [27:33]
Ted Cruz
Your usual suspects either. I mean it was a pretty wide ranging group of 11. And I want you to mention just some of those names. People need to understand this wasn't just kind of a core group that is, you know, you know, that you're good friends with. I mean this was across the spectrum where you got these 11 from.
- [27:50]
Ben Ferguson
So we don't know exactly who voted. The vote was 37 Republicans voted for Mitch. 10 Republicans voted for Rick Scott. I was One of the 10, and one Republican voted present, which is really weird. I don't know who that was. So 10 voted for another leader and one didn't vote for Mitch. So it's a total of 11. About half of the people have self identified.
- [28:18]
Ted Cruz
That's. And that's what I wanted to get to was, I mean, there were some people that were open saying, hey, I'm just going to be honest about this. I think he should, he should not be in leadership.
- [28:26]
Ben Ferguson
And by the way, if we had a functioning press corps, they ought to ask every damn Republican, how did you vote? Like this should be public. A lot of my colleagues, the reason they voted for Mitch is he's the single largest donor to almost every Republican in the conference. He stood up there and said to Senator after senator, he pointed at them and said, you, I gave you $30 million. You, I gave you $40 million. You, I gave you$50 million, by the way, for me, he gave me zero dollars. For Mike Lee, he gave him zero dollars. For Ron Johnson in Wisconsin six years ago, he gave him zero dollars. Now, I will say to Mitch's credit, this cycle Ron had a vigorous reelection campaign and Mitch put 30, $40 million into it. So I'm glad of it this time. But historically in the conference, there have been three Republicans willing to stand up and fight against Mitch McConnell, me, Mike Lee, and Ron Johnson. Now, in more recent months, Rick Scott has joined that group. But the maddening thing is almost nobody else does. And a huge factor in why that's the case is because Mitch McConnell, every cycle spends between 3 and $400 million in his super PAC supporting virtually every Republican. So the fact that we got a third of the conference to vote with me to delay the leadership election is shocking. It's stunning. And I hope that it begins to change leadership's willingness to fight. I don't know if that will be the case, but I think this week was a big, big deal.
- [30:10]
Ted Cruz
It was a big week because I think it also made it clear that there's a lot of conservatives out there, voters that are paying attention and expecting more of their elected officials. And they're paying attention to what you're going to do with the majority in the House and what you're going to do to stop the Democrats in the Senate or at least fight them. As you mentioned at the very beginning. And this brings us up to this big gay marriage vote. You know, there was no time wasted by Democrats coming back and making sure that they could get as much stuff done as they possibly could get done as quickly as they can before they lose this power. And this is a very important vote. What happened with that?
- [30:50]
Ben Ferguson
Well, a lot of what we discussed in the leadership election is that for two years we passed bill after bill with all the Democrats and 10 to 15 Republicans. And the case I made, I said, how come the Democrats manage over and over again to unite all of the Democrats and to divide our party in a way that screws us? But that's not the case. Obergefell was the Supreme Court decision where the court struck down the marriage laws all across this country and mandated gay marriage all across the country. Now, the predicate for the Democrats taking this bill up is the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe vs. Wade and returned decisions about abortion to the state legislature so the voters could decide. In Obergefell, Justice Thomas wrote a concurrence where he suggested that the court might want to reconsider all of its substantive due process decisions, including Obergefell. The left lost their mind and they freaked out. Now, importantly, it's worth understanding the majority opinion in Dobbs. The case overturning Roe said, not once, not twice, but three times. We are not going to revisit Obergefell. We're not going to revisit the question of gay marriage. The third time, Justice Alito, writing for the majority, said, I don't know how to say this more clearly. No, no, no. So the whole predicate for this bill is Democrats scaremongering saying, oh, the Supreme Court's going to strike down the gay marriage ruling. It's not, and it's told us it's not. But this bill is Congress embracing gay marriage. Now, folks listening to this might agree with that, might disagree with that. There's a lot of disagreement across the country. And gay marriage is one of the issues on which public opinion has been changing dramatically. But the consequences of this bill are much more than Congress acknowledging and passing into law gay marriage. Because I believe this bill, if it becomes law, will set the stage for the Biden IRS to target churches, to target religious universities, to target religious schools, K12 to target religious social services like Catholic Charities that do adoption services, to target schools like Brigham Young. Anyone that believes in a biblical definition of marriage, anyone that believes that marriage is the union of one man and one woman, whether they're Christian, whether they're Jewish, whether they're Muslim, whatever faith they are, any organization that does not accept gay marriage, I think faces an enormous risk of the Biden DOJ and the Biden IRS targeting them, suing them and revoking their 501c3 tax exempt status. And that is the real risk of this bill. And I got to tell you, it is sad and unfortunate because we had a vote on it and all the Democrats voted yes, of course. But sadly, 12 Republicans voted yes as well. Susan Collins of Bain, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rob Portman of Ohio, Mitt Romney of Utah. Those four are not terribly surprising. But here are the next eight. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Richard Burr of North Carolina. Richard is retiring. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Joni Ernst of Iowa, and Todd Young of Indiana.
- [34:54]
Ted Cruz
Wow.
- [34:55]
Ben Ferguson
Those are the 12 who voted yes. I got to say, I'm frustrated doesn't begin to describe it. I am beyond upset. So we had a lunch on Wednesday right before the vote. It's the steering lunch. Mike Lee is the chairman of steering. I'm on the steering executive committee. So that's the lunch where we discuss policy issues. We talked about this bill. Virtually every single Republican who voted yes skipped the lunch. So of those 12, I think three or four of them were there. So they didn't discuss, they didn't hear how the Biden IRS is going to go after Christian grade schools and strip their 501c3 status, is going to go after Christian universities and strip their 501c3 status. This bill provides a private right of action. So you're going to get left wing radical litigants suing Christian or Jewish or Muslim charitable organizations or even churches. If your church doesn't accept gay marriage, get ready to be sued. And I gotta tell you, I find it utterly insane that 12 Republicans agreed with this. And by the way, Mike Lee has an amendment that would explicitly prohibit the IRS and the government from, from discriminating against people because of their religious beliefs on marriage. And yet the Democrats who support this bill said, hell no, we won't take Mike Lee's amendment. And the Republicans who support this bill said, who's Mike Lee? I'm sorry, we don't know what you're talking about. Why do you think we lost on election day? Well, rolling over to Democrats is a big part of it and damn it, Ben, we need to stop it.
- [36:54]
Ted Cruz
It's, it's amazing how, how can people that are listening have an impact on, on this issue specifically? I mean, is it, is it basically the damage is done. Or should you still be reaching out to your senators, especially those that you mentioned?
- [37:09]
Ben Ferguson
No, we're going to have another vote. We'll have another vote the Monday after Thanksgiving and it's a 60 vote threshold. So of those 12 Republicans who voted yes, if three of them says, say we're not going to support this unless Mike Lee's amendment protecting religious liberty is added, we can stop this travesty. And by the way, why are Democrats ramming this through now? Because they know in January there'll be a Republican House and they can't get it done. So this is the lame duck. This is their last gasp where they're saying to the electorate, screw you, we don't care that you voted a Republican majority. Now I get Ben. If you're Chuck Schumer, if you're Nancy Pelosi, screw you. To Republican voters. I understand where that comes from, but why are Republican senators supporting that? That makes zero sense to me.
- [38:08]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, it really does. It's asinine. At least there's this, as you said, this vote after Thanksgiving. So reach out. One last thing I want to ask you about, Senator, and that is this. Oh, by the way, we want to give out amnesty to every illegal immigrant in the country and we need to do it. The new Democratic line is because we need workers and Americans aren't having enough kids, so therefore we should give out amnesty. I didn't think Democrats could be so transparent in a moment when they're asking for amnesty, but they were. They basically said, we've been screwing you, undermining your family, undermining traditional households. It's work. We've been aborting children left and right. It's worked. And now we're going to say because of a lack of population, this is their argument, that therefore we now need to give out amnesty to every single illegal immigrant that's in this country. Your reaction to that play by them? That was again, right away, clearly they're going to make this an issue for the presidential election.
- [39:06]
Ben Ferguson
So a bunch of Democrat senators who were up for reelection this year, they ran millions of dollars of ads saying, we are fighting to secure the border. Now, it was fundamentally dishonest because every single time they've had an opportunity to vote, they voted against securing the border, but that's what they claim to the voters. And some of them, like Mark Kelly in Arizona, got reelected lying to the voters. What happens after election Day? The Democrats immediately come back and they say, what do we want to do with the lame duck? Not secure the Border. Apparently all of their ads had no bearing on reality. What do they want to do? They want to grant amnesty. Joaquin Castro, who's a left wing Democrat congressman from Texas, he's leading the charge saying let's grant amnesty to the so called dreamers. That's their priority. Mind you. He represents a South Texas district that is feeling the pain of illegal immigration. But Joaquin Castro doesn't give a about the children being physically assaulted, being sexually assaulted by human traffickers. He doesn't care about the women being raped by human traffickers. He doesn't care about the dead bodies left on the farms and the ranches of Texas farmers and ranchers. He doesn't care about the hundred thousand Americans who died last year of fentanyl overdoses from Chinese fentanyl flooding across the border. He doesn't care about any of that. What is his priority? Hey, let's grant amnesty to the people here illegally today. That's today's Democrat party. And I got to say, Joaquin Castro represents them perfectly. They are radicals who do not care about you, your safety, your family, your liberty, your life. That's what this fight is all about.
- [41:04]
Ted Cruz
You know, I gotta say, Senator, the other great part about this show today is the fact that we got to have and give some good news and end the show by reminding everybody Nancy Pelosi is no longer the speaker of the House. That is what this midterm election was all about.
- [41:22]
Ben Ferguson
Ben, could you repeat that again?
- [41:24]
Ted Cruz
Yeah. Nancy Pelosi is no longer the speaker of the House.
- [41:28]
Ben Ferguson
All right, one more time. I just, I just need to hear those words.
- [41:31]
Ted Cruz
Nancy Pelosi has resigned from leadership. Right. She's just, she's almost a commoner now. I love this. I don't know how much that's going to affect her insider.
- [41:40]
Ben Ferguson
All right, let me ask you a question, Ben.
- [41:42]
Ted Cruz
Yeah.
- [41:42]
Ben Ferguson
What's the over under on how long till Nancy Pelosi retires to Florida? And as a constituent around Desantis?
- [41:50]
Ted Cruz
Oh, I think it'll be well within. Let's go. I say seven months.
- [41:56]
Ben Ferguson
All right. Seven months.
- [41:57]
Ted Cruz
Seven.
- [41:58]
Ben Ferguson
Okay, listeners, I want you to hold Ben accountable. Seven months. So we're in November run forward seven months from now. Ben, I'm going to trust you to bring this up on the show. And we're going to ask, is Nancy Pelosi a Florida voter?
- [42:13]
Ted Cruz
I think she'll be bored out of her mind. I think she's going to try to shepherd the Democrat young new leadership through. And I think it, at some point she'll say, all right, screw it. I'm out of here. I don't think she finishes her. Do you think she'll finish her term? I don't.
- [42:25]
Ben Ferguson
Absolutely not.
- [42:26]
Ted Cruz
Yeah. There, I see we're in agreement, by.
- [42:28]
Ben Ferguson
The way, on the over. Under. I'm taking the under.
- [42:30]
Ted Cruz
Really? Okay. I like this. I like this. All right, we got. We got a little wager here. I like this, Diaz. Mark that we're going to have. Save this audio. We'll play it back one day. One of us is going to be right, one of us is going to be wrong, and that's going to be really fun. Senator, it's always a pleasure.
- [42:46]
Ben Ferguson
And by the way, Diaz, if I'm wrong, delete the audio.
- [42:48]
Ted Cruz
That's. I love it. I love it. See, now you know whose show it really is. We'll see you guys back here on Monday morning. We will also have a video podcast that we will put out on Monday as well, so you can watch that on social media, on YouTube as well. Center, I know you're traveling next couple days. Be safe on the road, and we'll see everybody back here on Monday morning.