← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
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- [00:01]
Ted Cruz
Mr. President, in 1887, Lord Acton wrote a series of letters to Bishop Creighton, letters that would echo down across the centuries. Lord Acton wrote, I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge pope and king, unlike other men with a favorable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way. Against holders of power increasing as the power increases, historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt. An absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost exclusively bad men, even where they exercise influence and not authority. Still more, when you super add the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. Mr. President, those words were true in 1887, and they're true today. If you want to understand how power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, look no further than the other chamber in the United States Capitol. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is drunk on power. The orders that Speaker Pelosi is issuing are abusive and unprecedented. Speaker Pelosi has decreed to members of the House of Representatives elected by the people that if you dare walk onto the floor of the House of Representatives without a mask, I, Speaker Pelosi, shall fine you. Who the hell is she to be fining members of the House? But you know what? She's not done with that. She's not done with disrespecting our Constitution, disrespecting our democratic system that elects leaders. She goes further to the good men and women who work here in the United States Capitol. We are surrounded by men and women who have chosen to come work for the public good. And here's what Speaker Pelosi has decreed. If you dare walk in the hallway without a mask, I, Speaker Pelosi, will arrest you. I will put you in jail. I will fine you. That is an absolute and complete abuse of power. She has no authority to disrespect the men and women who work here, to threaten you with physical harm, to threaten you with imprisonment. And why does she do so? She does so for one reason. Political theater.
- [03:27]
Michael Knowles
Welcome to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles. Senator, I have to compliment you. You have now very famously read and quoted Dr. Seuss and Lord Acton on the floor of the Senate. That is a very broad spectrum of reading. And I think the Lord Acton quote was absolutely apt. We have now passed the 500th day of 15 days to slow the spread. And we are seeing the reinstitution of mask mandates, even for the vaccinated. We are seeing the threat of lockdowns around the country. Is it Just deja vu all over again. Is there any way to break out of this cycle?
- [04:05]
Ted Cruz
Well, I do not like green eggs and ham, but I do not like absolute power being abused even less. This has been a bad week for Liberty. This has been a bad week for science. It's been a bad week for common sense. And it is frightening because we're seeing, you know, two decisions I'd highlight, both of which came this week. Number one, as you know, the CDC revised its guidance. So a couple of months ago, the CDC acknowledged what people knew already, which is vaccines work, that actually science operates. If you're vaccinated, the vaccine has a very high likelihood of being successful. And so the cdc, acknowledging that reality, said people who are vaccinated don't need to wear masks. That was right then, it's right now. But as of this week, the CDC magically changed its guidance and now said, even if you're vaccinated, you need to wear a mask. That wasn't science, that was politics. And it was cynical politics at that. And I think people are frustrated with the hypocrisy from the CDC and they're frustrated with how Democrats are behaving. We're seeing now Democratic jurisdictions imposing new mandates, imposing new mask mandates. The CDC decreed that when school starts this fall, that every person in a school must wear a mask regardless of whether you're vaccinated or not. That's not remotely based on science. That's based on the politics of the fact that the teachers unions demanded that. And the CDC is basically acting like it's part of the dnc. It is a political arm in the Biden administration. And then also this week, Nancy Pelosi issued a decree that anyone in the House must wear a mask even if you're vaccinated. She said that if you're a member of the House and you walk onto the floor without a mask, that she will find you. And even worse, she said if you're a Hill staffer and you are caught without a mask, that you will be arrested, that you will be potentially put in jail, sentenced to jail and fined if you dare not wear a mask. And I gotta say, that's just nuts. I mean, that is an abuse of power that has no link to anything resembling medical science.
- [06:41]
Michael Knowles
Well, you know, even a CNN anchor pointed out the other day that the CDC has a big credibility problem. And there's no question we've covered it on this show, that the public health officials have flip flopped on everything. Dr. Fauci told us the masks don't work. Then he told us we all need to wear the masks. We were told the vaccines are absolutely wonderful and they work very, very well to stop infection and transmission. Now we're being told, well, maybe they don't. So the vaccinated need to wear the mask anyway. We've been told so much conflicting information. There was no question. I think the right and the left, if they can agree on anything, it's that the CDC has some issues. But the question is, what is the political end game here? I suspect that you're right that this is not about science and it is about politics. But what's the politics?
- [07:25]
Ted Cruz
You know, it's hard to understand the politics. Other than that, Democrats, particularly now, they like power. They like arbitrary power. They like controlling your life. You know, listen, when it comes to masks, I've never been one that's a zealot on either side. I've never really understood some of the folks who say, never wear a mask, no matter what. I certainly didn't fall into that camp, Particularly in the height of the pandemic, I wore a mask. I thought we should do reasonable steps to slow the spread of a disease. It's a dangerous disease. But I also never understood the purist who would ostentatiously wear a mask as a symbol of their nobility and purity and virtue. You know, let me take folks inside the Senate for a minute to understand the dynamic in real time. So early this year, January, they made vaccines available to members of Congress. Number of members of Congress got the vaccines in early January. I didn't get the vaccine then. And the reason I didn't get it then is at that point, it was not widely available. Most Americans hadn't gotten it, and I'm a relatively young and healthy person. I didn't think it was right that just because I was elected to represent Texas in the Senate that I should cut in line, that I should get a vaccine before seniors did, before people with serious immunocompromised issues did, before frontline responders did. And so I didn't get the vaccine in January. I waited a couple of months, and then after tens of millions of vaccines had been distributed and the people with the highest need had gotten it, then I got the vaccine. I said, okay, enough time has passed that I think it is fair and reasonable. I'd like to get the vaccine. I'd like to be protected against the disease. So I did get the vaccine, and I waited a couple of weeks till the vaccine's fully effective. So I had both. I got the Pfizer Shot. And I got both of them and I gave the requisite time that they said you had to wait before it's effective. And then I decided to stop wearing my mask on the Senate floor because vaccines work. Like, that's the whole science of it. The whole point of getting the damn shot is to give you protection against catching the disease. And so on the Senate, it was kind of interesting. The first person not to wear a mask was Rand Paul. And Rand never wore a mask. And look, I love Rand, but he just said, to hell with it, I'm not wearing a mask. And Random had Covid and he never wore a mask. And so, okay, that was his choice. For a long time, it was just ran with no mask and 99 senators with masks. The second senator not to wear a mask was me. And after I'd gotten the vaccine, after a couple of weeks, it passed, I said, all right, I'm gonna stop wearing the mask. The same time I did that, Roger Marshall, who's a Republican senator from Kansas, he's also a medical doctor, he made the same decision. So Roger and I both, right about the same time, stopped wearing. Wearing our mask. We were numbers two and three in the Senate, and for several weeks, the three of us were the only ones not wearing a mask. And I gotta tell you, the peer pressure is interesting. Like when you stood on the Senate floor and everyone's wearing a mask, I mean, you felt like you were like a rebel on the fringe, and it was interesting. Then the fourth person to stop wearing a mask was Jim Risch from Idaho. And he, he said, all right, I'm joining the no mask caucus. Cuz he'd been vaccinated. Now, what was bizarre is we'd gone a couple of months with everybody wearing masks, even though they all, or virtually all were vaccinated. If you remember Joe Biden's pseudo State of the Union address where everyone was wearing a mask and almost every person in that chamber was already vaccinated. It was political theater then. But then what happened is the CDC issued its ruling and said, if you have a, if you're vaccinated, you, you don't need to wear a mask. And it was the funniest thing. Within about two days, everybody took their masks off. 100% of the senators. Chuck Schumer took his mask off. Bernie Sanders took his mask off. Mazie Hirono took her mask off. Look, I joked for some of the Democrats, I'd be much happier if they kept their masks on. And you know, really my criticism was their mask needed to Be tighter. You know, we could still hear them talk. So clearly their masks were not attached sufficiently firmly. But listen, the fact that everybody took off their mask indicates what we all knew, which is if you're vaccinating, wearing a mask is stupid. Everyone knew that. All the Democrats immediately knew that. Now, when that was happening in the Senate, Nancy Pelosi was still fining House members who didn't wear a mask on the House floor. And so I know a number of House Republicans who were fined 500 bucks a piece even though they were vaccinated because they didn't wear a mask, literally on the very same day that Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders and every Democrat has no mask on. So people understood the difference between reality and performance theater. All right, let's fast forward to this week. This week, Monday we started out this week, 100% of senators had no mask on. Every Republican had no mask. Every Democrat had no mask. Then the CDC issues their magical new ruling. Suddenly vaccines don't work. Suddenly if you're vaccinated, doesn't matter, you gotta put a mask on. Why? Because we decree it to be so. And it was a very funny thing. They issue the order and the Democratic Party, I don't know, they're like docile sheep. They want to follow the orders of whoever the dictator is and they want to demonstrate self righteously how pious they are. And so a day after the CDC acted, you had, oh, I don't know, maybe a third of the Democrats wearing masks. You had people like Brian Schatz from Hawaii who was wearing masks. You had people like Cory Booker wearing masks. But still at least half the Democrats weren't wearing them. This was a day or two after the cdc, but the sort of peer pressure of elected Democrats kicked in. And by today, virtually every Democrat is wearing a mask. Kyrsten Sinema wasn't wearing a mask. She may have been the only Democrat not wearing a mask. But what's funny is even those Democrats wearing them, they know it's a crock. Look, yesterday, the day before, I was in an elevator in the Russell Senate office building. I walked onto the elevator, there was a senator, he was there with two of his staff. Two of his staff had masks on. The senator didn't have his mask on. So he's standing in an elevator with no mask. He sees me and like, ooh, reaches in his pocket and quickly puts on the mask. It's not like he suddenly became contagious. The guy's vaccinated. The mask does nothing. But he had to put it on because he had to show I am obedient to the government decree. And it's really stupid. And it's. I think it diminishes. Number one, the CDC is letting itself be politicized. It's behaving like a political institution. I mean, Michael, let me ask you, has there been an institution that has done more to damage their credibility in the last year and a half than the CDC has? A year and a half ago they were one of the most respected medical and scientific organizations on the face of the planet. And now we've seen Fauci do 19 backflips be on every side of every issue. And we understand he's a political player, he's not a scientist in terms of what he says, he says what's politically convenient at the moment. And the damage to the credibility of the CDC and to the scientific pontificators, I think has been really enormous. The CDC's credibility, I think, is in tatters.
- [15:21]
Michael Knowles
Well, as you see, just even on this issue of the vaccines, either way, either the vaccines do work and the decision is political and the CDC loses credibility or the vaccine vaccines don't work. And what we've been told is not true. And so everyone needs to wear the masks again and the CDC loses credibility. But it seems that as the credibility collapses, the liberal establishment, you know, and that includes not just the elected people, but the bureaucrats and the technocrats and the other institutions, they seem to be getting more aggressive. And I think this is what a lot of people are worried about, speaking of peer pressure, is you've got the White House now saying that they may move into another lockdown. They're looking at potential federal vaccine mandates, for goodness sakes. Even as we're being told that the vaccines allegedly are not working as well as we were told they were. So anyway, there's obviously a lot of confusion here, but if Nancy Pelosi is gonna throw staffers in jail, they seem to mean the threats that they're making.
- [16:15]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, I mean, you think about that. Nancy Pelosi is saying to someone who's a 20 something, 30 something, Hill staffer is working on Capitol Hill that if you dare not wear a mask, even if you're vaccinated, she's going to put you in jail. I mean, that is a level of dictatorial. I don't give a damn. That's really frightening. And you're right. You combine it with Joe Biden, who's saying he wants to mandate federal employees all get vaccines. He wants to mandate the military all get vaccines. Listen, my view, number one, I think vaccines are good. I am a supporter of vaccines. I'm a supporter of science. I. I've been vaccinated. Heidi's been vaccinated. My parents have been vaccinated. Heidi's parents have been vaccinated. I was quite glad to get vaccinated. I want to get the damn mask off. I wanted to be able to go out in crowds of people and interact again without being concerned about catching or spreading a dangerous disease. But I also believe in individual liberty. I believe in individual choice. The fact that I chose to get a vaccine doesn't mean you need to make that choice. You're an adult. You can make your own choice. You should talk to your doctor. You should educate yourself. You should think about the pros and cons. And I believe in that individual responsibility. And it's amazing. The Democrats, they don't want to give you that choice. They don't want you to be able to make your own choices about medical treatment that you're receiving. They want the government.
- [17:46]
Michael Knowles
But, you know, Senator, the argument that they're making. The argument that they're making is that when it comes to a pandemic, and I guess, you know, the term is being redefined and is a little bit loose right now, but when it comes to a pandemic, you lose your individual rights. Because your decision, I mean, not your decision, but someone else's decision not to be vaccinated is a direct threat to me because you could spread the virus to whomever. And so what is the conservative answer to that?
- [18:12]
Ted Cruz
There's a logical flaw in that argument. And it's really important to break it down because you're right, the left is making it. By the way, the press is making this argument like crazy. It's very funny. On Capitol Hill, the press, reporters, almost all of them, have dutifully put their masks on. There was one poor guy running around with two masks. Hey, if you've got virtue, I can have twice as much virtue and have two masks on. And it just. There were only a couple of reporters who dared take their mask off. And again, they were almost like Mel Gibson and Braveheart or something. But let's go to this argument about the unvaccinated or endangering others. And this week, I think the person who said it most offensively was Geraldo. So Geraldo was on Fox, and Geraldo went on this rant on the Five where he said, if you're unvaccinated, I'm gonna paraphrase, but this is basically right. He Said, if you're unvaccinated, then you're arrogant, you're rude, and you're inconsiderate, and you're jeopardizing everybody. And he was quite bombastic. I know that's hard to believe, Geraldo being bombastic, but just.
- [19:18]
Michael Knowles
I just can't imagine on this.
- [19:20]
Ted Cruz
Here's the logical flaw. Geraldo presumably is vaccinated. If not, he's a remarkable hypocrite. So I assume he's vaccinated. If he's vaccinated, the risk to him of getting Covid is extremely small, depending on which vaccine you got. If you got Pfizer or Moderna, um, the risks are somewhere in the neighborhood of 3% or maybe 5%, but they're very small. And if you do catch COVID there's some percentage, some small percentage of people who are vaccinated can catch COVID If you do catch COVID the risks of it being serious, of you being hospitalized or dying are very, very small. That's why people get the vaccine. They want to dramatically reduce the risk of getting. Getting the disease, and even more so, reduce the risk of getting it seriously. That means for anyone who's vaccinated, the risk of people who are unvaccinated is negligible. It's very small. Now, is there some possibility that someone who's unvaccinated will pass the disease on to someone else who's unvaccinated? Yes. But you know what? That someone else who's unvaccinated, they made their damn choice. Like you're assuming that risk if you say, I'm not gonna get the vaccine, okay, you're a big boy. You can adult. You're an adult. You can make that risk. But at the same time, the left jumps up and down and says, those evil, unvaccinated people are jeopardizing me. No, if you're vaccinated, they're not. They're jeopardizing each other potentially. And you know what? The same thing is true of smokers. If you smoke, you may die of lung cancer. Look, you and I are both cigar smokers. You know what might happen? Our lips and tongues might fall off. That would suck. I really don't want my lips and tongue to fall off. But I believe adults have the ability to make choices and bear the consequences of your choices. And the left doesn't agree with any of that. They want you to be subjects and obey their decrees.
- [21:21]
Michael Knowles
Yes. I mean, we can certainly assess risk, make prudential judgments. We, as conservatives, think that the left Seems less inclined in that direction. But this gets back to that abstract absolute PowerPoint, the point that we opened up with in the Lord Acton quote, which is just as a practical matter here, we're past day 500 of this. This should have been over by now. We were all told it was gonna be over by now. They've moved the goalposts every single time that we hit one of them. It was slow the spread, then it flattened the curve, then it was find a cure, then it was. And it just keeps moving. So how does this end? I mean, how do we make sure that we don't go from 500 days to slow the spread to 1,000 days, that we're not here again in another year and a half?
- [22:06]
Ted Cruz
Look, if it's up to the Democrats, I don't know that this ever does end. Because it's an excuse for power. It's an excuse for trillions of dollars of new spending. It's an excuse for trillions of dollars of new taxes. It's an excuse for everything they want to do anyway. They want power. You know, you look at these Democratic politicians, for example, who shut down churches, who declared it was illegal to go to church during the pandemic. They are just statists and authoritarians. They don't like people who go to church. They were quite happy to strip your religious liberty. And by the way, anyone with a triple digit IQ or even a double digit IQ could see the high double. Yeah, the rank hypocrisy that you would have the media, you'd have Democratic politicians, you would have these self declared scientific experts who would opine that thousands of people crammed into the public streets protesting Black Lives Matter. Zero risk of COVID transmission, there's no chance of it. But if you go to church and sing Hallelujah, everyone's gonna die. And look, that was on its face absurd. Everyone knew this is crap. You have a political preference and you're claiming that the virus and the infection just happens to perfectly match your political preference. Let me make a couple of other points. Many people, certainly the cdc, certainly Democrats, certainly the press, but a lot of people, a lot of Republicans too rightly say we should be encouraging people to get vaccinated. I agree with that. I'm encouraging people to get vaccinated. Ironically enough, what the CDC did this week may be the single biggest disincentive to get vaccinated we have seen since the vaccine was introduced. So when the CDC initially issued its common sense ruling that once you're vaccinated and it's Effective. You can take your mask off. That was a really good incentive to get vaccinated. It encouraged people to get vaccinated. Cause they wanted the freedoms. And by the way, this is not hypothetical in my family. So Heidi and I were both eager to get the vaccine. My mom got it, her parents got it. But my dad didn't want to get the vaccine. I mean, you know, my father, he's 82 years old. He's a pastor. He is stubborn as all get out. And I spent probably a month arguing with my dad about getting the vaccine. He's like, I don't trust it. It was developed too quickly. There might be side effects. And you know what, there may be risk. It was developed very quickly, and often with medical innovation, you don't anticipate all of the effects of it. And I went round and round with my dad. I really wanted him to get it. And it probably took me about a month. And eventually he agreed to get it. And what was really compelling for him. So he's a pastor. He had been holed up at home for a lot of this pandemic. It was really hard on him to be alone. And I said, listen, you want to get out, you want to be preaching again, you want to be in crowds, you want to be talking to people. And at 82, you want to do so safely. We've seen with this virus that for people who are your age, the risks are pretty significant. And I'll actually take you inside an argument with my dad. He said, well, I don't trust the vaccine. It might be bad. And I said, well, look, here's the vaccine everyone in Congress is taking. Why don't you take that vaccine? He's like, no, no, no, no. I don't trust Pelosi and Schumer. I said, look, I don't trust Pelosi and Schumer either, but do you think they're, like, trying to poison themselves? It is what they're taking. He finally did it. But it was his choice. No one had to make him. He finally did it because he wanted to get out again. And now my dad is back preaching in churches. He's back giving speeches, he's traveling. He's very happy because getting the vaccine gave him freedom that he cared about. When the CDC gave that guidance, you get the vaccine, no mask, it incentivize people. Hey, I want. I want that freedom. What the CDC did this weekend is implicitly said vaccines don't work. Said, even if you get the vaccine, doesn't matter. Do everything, have all of Your liberties curtailed just like you did before you got the vaccine. That's terrible. It's stupid. And by the way, they relied on no science or no data to base it. What they said, it was really quite ironic. They said, well, we have scientific studies that back this up. We're just not gonna tell you what they are. We have data, but it's double super secret, and no one actually gets to see the data. But trust us, because we've shown we're such apolitical, credible scientists that we just say whatever is politically convenient and then change it tomorrow. And it's. Listen, here's what I think, Michael. I think we should have no government mandates on Covid, period. That means no vaccine mandates. That means no mask mandates. That means no vaccine passports, that means no shutdowns. That means schools being open. What does the left think? What do the Democrats think? They want to see all those things mandated. And what people I think are most concerned about is they're going to drive us off the cliff again of shutdowns and shutting schools. And that did massive damage. I think it is now abundantly clear that the politicians who ordered shutdowns committed a catastrophic mistake, a mistake that I hope people study for decades never to make again. Because they destroyed lives, they destroyed businesses, they hurt children profoundly. And the problem is Joe Biden and the Democrats are eager to do it again.
- [27:48]
Michael Knowles
I mean, just even the economic effects were so catastrophic, which does bring to another. Another issue here, which is while Nancy Pelosi is busy throwing staffers into jail, the other topic that the legislators are taking up on Capitol Hill is this infrastructure bill that, you know, it's not quite as sexy as the coronavirus lockdowns and the mandates, and it's not pulling at people's interest quite as much. But this is a major piece of legislation, and it's very unclear, at least from my read on the reporting, how this is being built and where it's gonna go.
- [28:25]
Ted Cruz
So this gets complicated, but let me try to explain some of what's going on. So Joe Biden and Pelosi and Schumer want to spend a crap ton of money. That, by the way, is a technical term. They're looking to spend somewhere 6, $7 trillion, which even in federal government terms is a staggering, terrifying sum. They've already spent 1.9 trillion in their first bill that they called the COVID relief bill, of which you'll recall, only 9% of that was healthcare spending on Covid. And that was a long left wing special interest spending list. So the Next bill they're trying to take up is what they call an infrastructure bill. And the Democrats have proposed $3.5 trillion. Now, the COVID relief bill, only 9% of it was healthcare spending. On Covid, they decided, okay, that was too much. So their $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill, only 5% of it is roads and bridges. Like, the reason they call it infrastructure is because infrastructure is popular. People like roads and bridges. People think we ought to spend some money to have highways that don't have potholes in them, that have bridges that don't fall down. We ought to have airports that work. We ought to have ports that we can have commerce. So infrastructure spending is popular. It's popular with Democrats, popular with Republicans.
- [29:49]
Michael Knowles
But what you're saying is the infrastructure bill is not an infrastructure bill.
- [29:54]
Ted Cruz
Correct. It is purely a label because it polls well. And it's a whole series of things. Of childcare, subsidies of senior care, subsidies of expanding Medicaid. Now, listen, expanding Medicaid, you might think that's a good policy. We can debate about whether that's a good policy or not. But the one thing you ought to agree, it ain't infrastructure. Like, it's not a frigging road.
- [30:18]
Michael Knowles
Well, but, Senator, this brings up one of the most prominent talking points right now among the Democratic Party, which is that everything is infrastructure. And they've actually said this. I don't think I'm misrepresenting them. They'll say healthcare is infrastructure, weightlifting is infrastructure. That might be a little hyperbolic, but they said basically anything that they want.
- [30:38]
Ted Cruz
They now reclassify as infrastructure because infrastructure polls well. And they know the media will not drill into anything they say and will just repeat their talking points. And so the media are their propagandists. So they're. And by the way, this $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill is. Is paid for by trillions in new taxes. They want to have massive new taxes. So it's a terrible bill. If and when it's taken up and voted on, it'll get zero Republican votes. No Republicans. Even the squishiest Republican is not going to vote for or trillions in new taxes and just out of control spending. So what did we do this week? Well, unfortunately, there was a group of 10 or 12 Republicans who really, really, really wanna cut a deal, like desperately wanna cut a deal. And so they've been negotiating with Democrats what they're calling the bipartisan infrastructure bill. And listen, on the face of it, the bill that they're negotiating, it's not a terrible bill. On the face of it, it's about $1.2 trillion. So it's a lot of money. But it is directed. Much of it is directed at real infrastructure. Much of it is directed at things like roads and bridges and airports and ports. Not all of it. There's some garbage in it, but there's a much higher percentage of the bill that is actually infrastructure. And it doesn't have the massive tax increases that the Democrat proposal did. And so these Republicans, they met on and on and on and on and were dancing the hokey pokey with the Democrats. And we've spent the last several weeks, if not the last month in our Republican lunches with these self declared bipartisan negotiators reporting to us on a regular basis about what's happening. Now, my view on it is if they could actually negotiate a bipartisan deal, which was, let's do the $1.2 trillion bipartisan deal instead of the $3.5 trillion monstrosity, that might be a good deal, like if they did the one instead of the other, I think it would get a lot of Republicans, I might even support it. We actually haven't seen the details of the so called bipartisan bill. So I would want to actually see the details before I decided if I would support it. But if it were that instead of the other one, that could make some sense. What are the Democrats doing? They're saying, hey, let's pass this 1.2 trillion and then we're gonna do the 3.5 trillion on top of it. So it's 4.7 trillion minimum, and we're just gonna do everything we want, massively blow out the budget, massively increase taxes, and we'll get a whole bunch of Republicans to get their fingerprints on at least part of this. So Joe Biden can go around the country and say, hey, look, this was bipartisan, these Republicans are part of it. And by the way, among other things, we're seeing inflation going up in a very troubling way. We're seeing the price of gas going up, we're seeing the price of food going up. We're seeing the price of lumber going up a lot. We're seeing the price of homes going up a lot. And that inflation's being fueled in very significant part by this massive spending and debt spree that the Democrats are doing right now. It's 100%. The Democrats, it's all Biden and Schumer and Pelosi. They've done 100% of it. Not a single Republican supported it. With this Bipartisan bill. Suddenly Republicans have their fingerprints on this inflation bomb that is exploding. And so I gotta tell you, Michael, at our lunches, we have had, you know, the term of art in Washington is candid discussions. The sort of less BS way of putting it is we've been yelling at each other and there have been Republican senators yelling at these, the bipartisan negotiators. Why are you giving the Democrats everything they want? Like, what do we get in this deal? If you sign on to part of their package and they get every other terrible part of the package and tax increases and trillions in debt, like, what are we getting out of this? Unfortunately, we have anywhere from a third or more of the Republican conference that's so eager to cut a deal that they're willing to embrace at least part of the Democrat spending agenda. I think that's really unfortunate and a bad mistake.
- [35:09]
Michael Knowles
Well, I think this is a very important tie in that has not really been publicized, I think, which is, yes, the Democrats are gonna spend a ton of money. Yes, Republicans don't have very much power right now. Yes, some moderate to liberal Republicans are gonna wanna cut a deal on anything. But it's not just pie in the sky. This is not just, oh, well, we're spending money, but so what? The debt's a little higher now. This is directly tied to inflation, which is a major threat. It's not just a threat. It's actually happening right now. And it is affecting people's bottom lines on gas, on. On food. And it's about to affect us on a lot of other things, too.
- [35:44]
Ted Cruz
That's right. And inflation is a automatic tax. That hurts. It hurts working families, it hurts seniors. Seniors who have saved their whole lives for retirement. But maybe on a fixed income, when inflation kicks in and prices go up, it really hurts low income and moderate income people and seniors on fixed incomes. And look, this is where, Michael, you're in. My age differential kicks in a little bit. You don't remember Jimmy Carter. I do so. I was born in 1970. My first political memory was the election in 1976. And in particular, it was the fight that my parents had because my mother voted for Jimmy Carter.
- [36:35]
Michael Knowles
No, you're. Oh, my gosh, I would never have guessed.
- [36:38]
Ted Cruz
Well, she just thought Ford was an idiot. She's like, the guy is a bumbling moron. I don't like him. And Jimmy Carter seems like such a nice guy. And my dad. My dad at the time wasn't a U.S. citizen. He was a Canadian citizen at the time. And so he didn't have a vote. And so my father viewed my mom's vote as like the family vote. And I remember my dad just apoplectic. How could you vote for Jimmy Carter? And when I tell this story now, my mom gets upset. She's like, I'm sorry, I was wrong. Like, she is not a Jimmy Carter fan. But look, with Jimmy Carter, we saw the same failed policies we're seeing right now. And we saw something called stagflation. What is stagflation? Stagflation is when the economy is stagnant, so there's not growth. Plus, you have super high inflation. And it's a vicious. Like, it was ugly under Jimmy Carter, and inflation got so high. I mean, you were seeing home mortgages that were going up 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19% on home mortgages. You know, we just refinanced our home mortgage. I think we pay 2.65%. People have gotten used to insanely low interest rates. Imagine your home mortgage at, let's not even say, 18, 19%. Imagine your home mortgage at 10%. You know what it means? It means you can buy basically a third as big a house as you can right now. It triples the cost of your mortgage, just going from 3% to 10%. That is a massive cost. And for seniors, it destroys their savings. I think Biden and Schumer and Pelosi, they're repeating those same mistakes. And it's really hard to get out of when you've got inflation roaring. And by the way, one of the big problems with inflation, also a huge part of our federal budget is interest on the debt. Now, we are living in sort of the magical time, the land that time forgot, because interest is so low that the cost of interest on the debt, it is still massive in the hundreds of billions of dollars. But if interest rates go up a lot, interest on the debt will become the single biggest element on the federal budget. And so it becomes this spiral where it keeps getting worse and worse and worse. And I think it's crazy that Republicans are complicit in it in any way. And that's certainly what I'm arguing to my colleagues, and most of my colleagues agree, but a significant chunk of them do not.
- [39:15]
Michael Knowles
Well, this is an important point because even forgetting the merits of the bill or the infrastructure spending or what have you, just the political ramifications here, it seems that a number of centrist Republicans think that they're gonna get political pats on the back for looking as though they're compromising and conciliatory. But this could be a huge liability. Forget that it's a bad idea in the first place. This could be a huge, huge political liability. Before we go, Senator, I do have to get to the mailbag. There are some great mailbag questions here. First one is very simple from Michael, not me. Do you intend to wear a mask in the Capitol?
- [39:52]
Ted Cruz
Hell, no.
- [39:54]
Michael Knowles
I had a feeling I knew the answer to that simple question. Simple answer, and absolutely a correct one. Matthew asks a tougher question, but it does get to what we're talking about.
- [40:05]
Ted Cruz
And by the way, let me throw a caveat on that. So I do still wear masks on airplanes because they make you. They'll throw you off the plane if you don't. And I filed legislation to end that stupid policy. It makes no sense to require masks on airplanes. And it is the Biden administration being unreasonable that is putting that requirement in. And by the way. All right, so just a couple of weeks ago in the Commerce Committee, we had a vote on an amendment to end the requirement that you wear masks on airplanes. And there was an argument back and forth between Republicans and Democrats, and every Democrat on the Commerce Committee voted no. Now, at the time, one of those Democrats, Brian Schatz, who's a Democrat from Hawaii, he's a nice guy. He and I get along well. We played hoops together. I mean, he's a nice enough fellow. He said at the hearing, he said, you know, if it didn't mandate that they change the policy, but if the bill was simply a sense of the Senate that the FAA should change the policy and not require masks on airplanes, he said, then I would support it. And I stopped and said, okay, if we did a census of the Senate, it has less teeth, but you'd support. I'd be like, look, if we can actually get this done and get rid of the ridiculous mask requirement on planes, that'd be a good thing. He said, yes. And unfortunately. So it was Rick Scott's amendment. And I asked Rick at the hearing, I said, would you be willing to change your amendment to do what Shots wants to do? Because that would get Democrats and it would pass. Rick said, no, he didn't want to do that. He wanted to vote on the one with full force. I said, okay. So we voted on it, and it failed. Afterward, Shots approached me and said, hey, let's do a bill. That is the sense of the Senate, that we should end masks on airplanes. I said, great. So I said, I'll have my staff drafted. We'll get it to you tomorrow. Let's do it. This could be a big deal, you and me together, bipartisan. Let's end this ridiculous requirement. And by the way, the poor guy had just gotten off an airplane from Hawaii, which he would fly every week. And that's a long way to fly with a mask when you've already been vaccinated. So we drafted it. I showed it to him. Long and short of it is he declined to sign on because when he talked to Democratic leadership, basically they cracked the whip and said, you must obey and we don't want you to do this. So he bailed. I filed it anyway, but I filed it with just Republicans. Now, by the way, I had even like Susan Collins as a co sponsor. There are not a lot of things that have me and Susan Collins together. But it was supposed to have Democrats and none of the Democrats would do it. So fast forward to this week. One of the very first Democrats to be docilely wearing his mask was Brian Schatz. And I just kind of had the laugh @, wait, two weeks ago you knew this was ridiculous. You still know it's ridiculous. But now the Democratic Party is such that you must obey and so you meekly do.
- [43:09]
Michael Knowles
So you gotta get in line. Well, so these tactical issues I think motivate this next question from Matthew. Trying to talk facts and logic with the left doesn't seem to be working. And being a jerk doesn't help either. What's another approach we can use to get along and have useful discourse? Or is the era of bipartisanship and common ground deader than disco?
- [43:33]
Ted Cruz
The only way to move forward is to beat them, is to beat them at the ballot box. And you know, let me answer that by making a reference to a series of books that I read as a kid. So when I was a kid, I was a big fan of. It's a seven book series that's called the Great Brain. Did you ever read the Great Brain?
- [43:53]
Michael Knowles
No. No, I didn't.
- [43:54]
Ted Cruz
Okay, so it's. So it's by a guy named John D. John D. Fitzgerald. And it is about a family in Utah in the late 1800s. So at the turn of the century, and their three brothers. John D. Fitzgerald, who's the youngest brother, Tom D. Fitzgerald, who's the middle brother, and Swendy Fitzgerald, who's the oldest brother and the middle brother. Tom D. Is the great brain. And he's a little con man. He's basically a swindler and, you know, sort of like Tom Sawyer, but it's sort of clever cons. And I read these when I was. I Think in junior high, I read them. They're great kids books. I unfortunately haven't been able to get either of my daughters to read them, but they're great kids books. But the opening chapter to the first book is John D. The little brother, is the author of all of them. And he's telling the stories about his con man middle brother, Tom D. And he said, you know, we're growing up in Utah in the late 1800s. And he said, virtually everyone in the town where we live is Mormon. And he said, we're not Mormon. And he said, but they're very tolerant and it's okay. And he said it was simply a matter of me learning to whip every boy my age and Tom D. Learning to whip every boy his age, and Swendee learning to whip every boy his age. And he said, they're very tolerant of us now. It's amazing how tolerant someone can be when you can whip them. And that statement, there's enormous wisdom in it. It's always. I've always thought of that statement when I think about Israel's foreign policy, it's amazing how tolerant Israel's neighbors are when the fact is Israel can beat them militarily. In terms of dealing with the Democrats, we're not going to persuade Nancy Pelosi. What we will do, and I believe we will do it in 2022, is we can persuade the American people and we can beat them at the ballot box and retire Nancy Pelosi by taking the House back, and we can retire Chuck Schumer as Majority leader by taking the Senate back, and we can retire Joe Biden, although I'm not sure he would know it, by winning in 24. But the only way they will not stop the angry socialist crazy left will not stop until they get trounced at the ballot box. And if and when they get trounced, then I think there's some realistic prospect that at least some reasonable Democrats will say, well, gosh, maybe we shouldn't have gone so crazy far left. Maybe we should recalibrate. But that takes some time to have happen, and they ain't gonna do it until they lose, if they haven't lost. The chances of them shifting away from this radical agenda, I think, are zero. The only way they shift is after they lose, and hopefully lose resoundingly.
- [46:58]
Michael Knowles
Right. And it's not just because they're no good, awful, rotten, terrible Democrats. I mean, we could talk about that at great length, but it's. It's because they've got all the power. They've got all the power. And so it actually doesn't even make sense for them to try to give in on these things.
- [47:12]
Ted Cruz
Didn't Lord Acton say something like that?
- [47:14]
Michael Knowles
You know, there is this strange coincidence here. It reminds me of a quote from Lord Acton. And absolutely I am with you, Senator. The only way that we are going to reconcile and come back together is if we pull some of that power back from the people who have taken all of it. We've got to end it there. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. We are going to be taking Verdict on the road. We are partnering with the Young Americas Foundation. We're going to multiple schools. I think we're going to six schools and universities with YAF. You can go to yaf.org verdict right now to request that we come to your school. The deadline is August 18th. Senator, should we go to the really nice, wonderful, conservative schools with the Young America's foundation, or should we go to the crazy, leftist, insane schools that are gonna run us out of town on the rail?
- [48:14]
Ted Cruz
Well, it seems to me that should be up to the listeners, a verdict to decide. And so you tell us, if you're a student right now, you might be at one of the few havens of sanity and you say, hey, come cheer us on and reach out to us. On the other hand, you might be behind enemy lines surrounded by Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and looking for a Berlin airlift. My guess is we're open to doing a little of both. But it's really the incredible listeners of Verdict who are gonna make that decision.
- [48:48]
Michael Knowles
We want to free the students on campus. We want to free all of us here in this country. So make sure you get Those names in yaf.org August 18th is the deadline.
- [48:58]
Ted Cruz
We're sitting here right now. It is 2:42 in the morning.
- [49:01]
Michael Knowles
You've come here straight from the Hill.
- [49:05]
Ted Cruz
Senator Ted Cruz has a nightly podcast called Verdict.
- [49:11]
Michael Knowles
AOC says, I'm happy to work with Republicans, just not Ted Cruz. And then she called you a murderer, apparently.
- [49:18]
Ted Cruz
I will continue my murderous rampage down in Miami.
- [49:21]
Michael Knowles
Can you just take us through this process a little bit?
- [49:23]
Ted Cruz
Those rules are designed so you don't have senators screaming at each other. The House has a lot of that. I still remember when they pulled up porn on the screen. Justice O'Connor just went, oh, my. You're saying Ukraine and not Russia, that logical construct, X and not Y. They're engaging in lawyerly sleight of hand. The fact checkers declared it a lie. If you said Biden wasn't going to ban fracking.
- [49:47]
Michael Knowles
Yep.
- [49:48]
Ted Cruz
Boom. What happens? He gets elected and now the fact checkers are saying it's a lie that he ever said he wasn't going to ban fracking. The US Government was funding the Chinese research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The Senate acquitted President Trump About 4:30 in the afternoon.
- [50:06]
Michael Knowles
That's right.
- [50:07]
Ted Cruz
They're not done. This has released the hounds. What in the hell? Are you frigging nuts? This is a casino.
- [50:12]
Michael Knowles
Joe Biden was saying, I'm not against Frank fracking, I'm not against coal.
- [50:16]
Ted Cruz
Literally what Biden is doing and what Kerry is doing is screwing the environment. You guys are not friggin overlords. Get off your power trip.
- [50:24]
Michael Knowles
It still doesn't matter if there is a quid pro quo.
- [50:26]
Ted Cruz
Okay, you showed off your Latin in the early episodes.
- [50:29]
Michael Knowles
There's been a real cynicism in this whole issue of the protests. Just a week ago we were told if you go outside to do anything, you're killing grandma. You're endangering people because of the coronavirus. And then this week we're told everybody should go out to protest. The world's number one podcast and number one in news.
- [50:48]
Ted Cruz
We passed Joe Rogan. We rose to number one.
- [50:50]
Michael Knowles
We are beating the New York Times.
- [50:53]
Ted Cruz
I'm sorry, could you say that again?
- [50:55]
Michael Knowles
We're taking Verdict on the road. We will be at YAF's Freedom Conference in Miami.
- [51:01]
Ted Cruz
The number one podcast in the entire thing. What is a podcast? This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security pac, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations and candidates across the country. In 2022, jobs, freedom and Security PAC plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.