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- [00:00]
Michael Knowles
The Supreme Court has concluded its absolutely magnificent term with a major blow to the deep state. So now we are in the dog days of summer and we are looking ahead, looking ahead to the midterm elections. This is Verdict WITH Ted Cruz.
- [00:24]
Ted Cruz
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- [01:38]
Michael Knowles
Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I am Michael Knowles. So pleased to be joined by the senator who is on vacation. But there is no vacation when it comes to verdict. So, Senator, thank you for jumping off the beach for a few moments to join us on the show.
- [01:54]
Ted Cruz
Well, happy Fourth of July. And it's great to celebrate our nation's birth and independence and it's great to.
- [02:02]
Michael Knowles
Do that with the family at the beach. But sometimes you got to come back and address major issues that have come up. One of them is we've covered so much of this Supreme Court term, which seems to me certainly the greatest Supreme Court term in my lifetime, perhaps in American history. With the overruling of Roe, you had the major win for Second Amendment rights, major win for religious liberty, major win for education freedom. And now In West Virginia vs EPA, a major blow for the administrative state. But this case, probably more than any of the others, is pretty complex. I Don't know all the nuances of it and I've really tried to dig into it. The case does not overrule what is called Chevron deference, which is a major source of power for the administrative state. But it does beef up the major questions doctrine, which is to protect the power of the people to make their voices heard against the administrative agencies of the executive. What does this case do?
- [03:07]
Ted Cruz
So cutting to the bottom line, I think this case is an important victory. A for democracy, for actually having control of be in the democratically elected branches of government, and B, for jobs and our ability to pay our bills. So what this concerned was under the Obama administration, they rolled out what they called their clean power plan and it was the epa. It was a massive power grab to essentially shut down coal fired power plants across the country and force a transition to natural gas and to wind and solar. And to do so, the EPA itself admitted that its plan, the Obama epa, would cost billions of dollars in the economy, would destroy tens of thousands of jobs. This was their own estimate and would drive up everyone's cost of energy. So that was the Obama administration's big present to America. Now the plan has been litigated ever since the Obama administration under Trump, they rescinded the rule. Under Biden, they rescinded the rescission. In other words, they potentially teed it up again. Just when we've got $5 gasoline and electricity prices going through the roof, the Biden EPA was threatening to put yet more regulatory burdens driving up the cost of energy. And what the Supreme Court did is struck it down. It was a 6, 3 decision. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion. And what Chief Justice Roberts relied on is, you mentioned it there. It's called the major questions doctrine. The major questions doctrine essentially says that if there is a regulatory decision that is a big deal that has big consequences economically, politically, that Congress has to have been very clear in giving the agency the authority to do it, that the court is not gonna read in some vague, ambiguous language. In this case, the Obama EPA was relying on language that had been on the books for decades, had never been applied to have such a massive power grab. And the Supreme Court said, look, if you're looking at a regulation that is gonna have a massive economic impact, you can do that. But Congress has to be really clear that it wants to give the agency that authority that we're not gonna read in just through vague and ambiguous language. And I think that's an important decision. One of the things the Court relied on quite a bit is the Fact that Congress had repeatedly debated cap and trade, had debated putting a tax on carbon, had debated a lot of these policies, and had rejected it over and over and over again. And the court said, look, if Congress, when they try to vote on it, can't decide this is a good idea. We're not going to read into ambiguous language the ability for the agency to just circumvent Congress.
- [06:10]
Michael Knowles
So this is a big win for the conservative who want to deal. The conservatives who have for a long time wanted to deal a blow against the administrative state and against the EPA in particular. For goodness sakes, the EPA is the villain in Ghostbusters. They've been in our crosshairs for a very long time. But it doesn't seem to go all the way that many libertarians and conservatives have wanted the court to go, which is to overrule Chevron deference, which comes out of a Supreme Court decision that gives a lot of authority to the agencies to regulate themselves. Is that right?
- [06:44]
Ted Cruz
That's right. And look, I think it's entirely possible that this court will overrule Chevron deference in a subsequent case. The court didn't need to go there in this case because the major questions doctrine resolved the matter and resolved it effectively. And so it was unnecessary to consider Chevron deference and to decide it on that basis. You know what I would say. So a legislative proposal that I've long been a proponent of is something called the REINS act. And I'm a co sponsor of the REINS Act. The REINS act provides that any regulation that imposes an economic cost of $100 million or more requires an up down vote from Congress before going into effect. And the REINS act hasn't passed. I have fought hard to try to get it passed, and we haven't gotten it done yet. I tried very hard with the Trump administration for them to make it a priority and the Trump White House that it just wasn't a priority for them. I think it would have been the most significant regulatory reform we could do to create an environment where jobs are plentiful. This Supreme Court decision is a step in that direction because it is saying the way they laid out the major questions doctrine, they said if it has a big economic impact. Now, they didn't quantify what a big economic impact was. And here the Obama administration's own estimate is that they were destroying tens of thousands of jobs. So they were readily admitting that they were having a big, big economic impact. But this decision, I think, is positive for limiting executive power absent congressional authorization. And I think that's important for part of the reason why you see regulations that are really harmful to the, to jobs and businesses coming from the executive branch is because bureaucrats are unaccountable. They don't have to face the people. And there's a power to having elected officials vote on it. Because, look, if you're a member of Congress, it's not an easy vote to cast a vote to destroy tens of thousands of jobs you tend to have. The people whose jobs you're destroying get really ticked off at you and show up at town halls and yell at you. And so there's a reason even Democrats. Look, some of the crazies don't mind voting that way. But even Democrats get nervous about directly voting to destroy a lot of jobs. That Democratic accountability I think is good for economic freedom because if you have people who vote for it, it lets the voters in the next election step up and throw the bums out.
- [09:30]
Michael Knowles
Now, you mentioned crazy Democrats, and this brings up a completely unrelated issue, only related in the sense that unaccountable people are passing lots of insane regulations right now. But I do have to get your take on it because it has somehow come to dominate a lot of the political conversation over the past few days. Jordan Peterson and Dave Rubin were just thrown off of Twitter. They've been suspended. Jordan for making a comment and then Dave for reposting his comment. And the comment was that Ellen Page, the actress is Ellen Page the actress. That was essentially the comment Jordan referred to Ellen Page, who's the girl from Juneau, who now identifies as a man and calls herself Elliot. He just called her Ellen and didn't disparage her really in any way. Just pointed out that she had gone through this gender transition and used the female pronouns. He was thrown off for that. Dave was then thrown off the Internet for that. Have we really descended this far where if you call a very well known woman by the name that she was known by for most of her career that you can now be thrown out of the public square with basically no way to fight back?
- [10:47]
Ted Cruz
Look, it is true insanity and the woke rules are changing so fast you need a guide to reference it. So apparently you're not allowed to say the words Ellen Page. Are you allowed to say the words Ellen Page with reference to when Ellen was going by Ellen and starring in movies with the names Ellen Page on them? Are you allowed to say that? Are you allowed to say that Bruce Jenner was on the COVID of Wheaties or was that Caitlyn Jenner? And we didn't Know it. Even though it had the words Bruce Jenner printed on the COVID on the outside of the Wheaties box, there's a level of, you know, the term Orwellian gets tossed around a lot, but it really is big tech trying to erase. We're at war with Eurasia. We've always been at war with Eurasia. And anyone who says to the contrary shall be disappeared. Now, look, if Ellen or Elliot or whoever wants to go by whatever name they want to go, fine, go by whatever name you want. That's. But to say no one is allowed to say anything different. It's the opposite of liberty. It's totalitarianism. I think Eleanor, Elliot or whatever name tomorrow you wanna go by Moon Unit, I don't care. Call yourself whatever you want, that's fine. But nobody has the right to silence others. And to see Twitter just so casually flick Jordan Peterson off Twitter, so casually flick Dave Rubin off Twitter, I think is one of the reasons we've talked about it a lot. I very much hope Elon Musk goes through with this purchase. I think it may be the most important development for free speech in decades. And hopefully, if and when Musk buys Twitter, this sort of garbage will stop because it is idiocy.
- [12:37]
Michael Knowles
There's a kind of irony here too, because before Ellen started identifying as Elliot, she was gay, married to a woman, to a woman who identifies as a lesbian. This was after same sex marriage became a cultural phenomenon, but sort of before transgenderism became a cultural phenomenon. And it occurred to me that to affirm Ellen, who now goes by Elliot's, gender identity, is to deny her lesbian partners sexual orientation. I'm trying to see if I can keep that straight, which is to say we cannot simultaneously affirm so many contradictory things. And you mentioned Oceania being at war with East Asia. Oceania's always been at war with East Asia. The rules are changing so constantly. I think what is really scary for Americans who aren't keeping up and who don't really care what Ellen Page does is, is that you can be ostracized, you can be censored and removed from the town square, because Twitter and Google and Facebook, those are the town square now for simply saying the thing that every single person believed until about five minutes ago. If Twitter now holds that you cannot call a woman who identifies as a man a woman, well, then effectively aren't they prohibiting any disagreement with transgenderism? The vast majority of Americans who, I suspect, do not go along with a radical transgender kind of worldview, does that mean that now the people who control the public square, the flow of 90% of information around the Internet, Google, Facebook and Twitter. We're just not allowed to express our opinions.
- [14:20]
Ted Cruz
Look, that's exactly what it means that they want to silence dissent. You know, I will say, back in 2016, I actually had a person who identified herself to me as Ellen Page confront me in Iowa. So I was at the Iowa State Fair. I was actually cooking pork chops at the Iowa State Fair, and this young woman walked up to me and began questioning me on. I don't remember exactly. It was gay marriage, gay, lesbian issues. I had no idea who she was, but I had a conversation with her and it was filmed and put out there. And at the time, I later identified herself as actress Ellen Page. Am I allowed to say that that's what she told me her name was when she was questioning me, and that's what she said online. Maybe I was being questioned by Elliot and I didn't know it. There is a level of this gets pitched and it's like through the Looking Glass where they say this is all about. I guess the phrase is dead naming. You don't have a right to control what other people say. You know, if Michael, you want to go by Michelle, knock yourself out. But you don't have the right. It's like the old phrase, my freedom to swing my fist ends at the tip of your nose. You have all the liberty. You want to say what you want, but that doesn't extend to silencing someone else saying something that you don't like. And today's left doesn't believe that part of it is their rules on things like gender. And I don't know how many, 157 genders. I can't keep up with the latest fantastical distinctions. Their rules make so little sense that I think they realize they must silence anyone questioning them because they can't defend them on the merits. And that does fundamentally reflect an acknowledgment of weakness on their part.
- [16:20]
Michael Knowles
It also does seem to go along with the broader leftist ethos, which is a rejection of the past. Actually, if you read some of the literature around the phenomenon of dead naming, this phrase only cropped up about 10 years ago on the Internet to refer to the names that people have gone by their whole lives until they decide to identify as the opposite sex. A lot of the literature around that will discuss it as a rejection of the past. It didn't happen. Ellen was never Ellen. Ellen was always Eliot Oceani was always at war with East Asia, as you say.
- [16:56]
Ted Cruz
Well, and Let me ask a question on this, Michael, and this is where you're good at theoretical navel gazing, is the current theory of transgenderism, let's take it that Ellen was always Eliot. And if that's the case, then does that imply that there actually is objective truth that Ellen was in fact Eliot? And isn't that in contradiction with the other left wing tenet that you can change whatever the hell you are right now, you can become a woman, a man, and a chipmunk, all in the course of this podcast? Like, is there objective truth or not? And what I don't know is do the leftist activists, do they distinguish? Like, are they willing to say, well, Ellen may have been a woman in 2016 when she introduced herself as Ellen and said she was a woman, but now she's a man? Or do they maintain that what is today was yesterday too, and she didn't change anything? And how do you tell the difference? Is there like a guide? Some people say they changed and some didn't. Like, what's the, what is the reasoning behind this?
- [18:10]
Michael Knowles
The current view held by the people who promote this kind of ideology is that Ellen is now and always was Eliot, even when she was in that movie about being pregnant and possibly having an abortion when she was in Juneau, even then she was really a man.
- [18:27]
Ted Cruz
But what if Eliot believes that she was Ellen then is she allowed or he allowed?
- [18:33]
Michael Knowles
This, I think, is the key.
- [18:34]
Ted Cruz
Is that an acceptable thing?
- [18:36]
Michael Knowles
This is the key because on Wikipedia, if you look at Ellen Page or Bruce Jenner or any really prominent person who identifies as transgender, the way that that person will be described will always be with the pronouns that they are now using, including going back to the very moment of birth. But your question is such an important one because you're saying, well, what decides if Ellen wakes up tomorrow and says, oh, I'm Ellen again, I'm a she again. And people have done that plenty of then is she, is she again? And I think that's the case. I think what this ultimately comes down to is not that there is objective truth for the left. Obviously there is objective truth, but I don't think the contention of the left and the transgender ideology is that there is objective truth. I think what it comes down to is the primacy of the will. Whatever Ellen says is true, even if what Ellen says contradicts what Alan said yesterday. And so politics devolves from a reasoned debate that you constantly hear conservatives and old school liberals lamenting the loss of reasoned civil dialogue. Well, that has to go away. If politics really only comes down to my will versus your will and my interest versus your interest. Well, then we can't talk to each other. Then we really can't even communicate. It's just all a bunch of sounds and pronouns and new noises that don't really have any coherence to them.
- [19:59]
Ted Cruz
Well, unless they're connected to force. And you will be fired, you will be silenced, you will be blocked, you will be canceled if you don't comply with what I do demand. And that's the call of the left on these names.
- [20:15]
Michael Knowles
It also seems to me that the names are intentionally provocative. There are plenty of names that are androgynous and ambiguous. I don't know, Taylor, Schuyler, Madison. But when it comes down to this question of someone who's obviously a woman, going by, I don't know, Hank or something, that seems a little crazy as well. And I think this issue keeps getting so much play, in large part because ordinary people who are not engaging in all this kind of ideological navel gazing, who are not very online or marching with the radical leftists in the streets, who are just kind of conducting their ordinary lives, they're looking at this and they're saying, I know this is obviously wrong.
- [20:57]
Ted Cruz
Well, I will say so. I'm on a plane an awful lot. And so I download lots and lots of shows, streaming shows. And one of the shows that I've watched on Netflix is something called Umbrella Academy, about these students who have sort of superhero type powers. And for the first two seasons, Umbrella Academy starred Ellen Page. And the third season, which I just finished watching, it now, stars Elliot Page. And what's interesting is the character in the Netflix series has the same transition that Ellen Elliot has had. And in fact, the beginning of season three, the character is a woman, although the credits say it's Elliot Page playing a woman. And then the character decides that she is a he. And part of how Hollywood does this is every single person immediately just, this is reality. And it was an interesting example. Cause when I started watching season three, I was kind of curious how they were gonna handle this issue. And so they made the character completely mirror what the actor was going through as well, which I just thought was an interesting wrinkle.
- [22:18]
Michael Knowles
It's a total failure of imagination. It seems also, it seems that now, it used to be that acting was when you pretended to be someone that you were not. Now we're told that unless you're gay, you can't play a gay character. Unless you're this specific sub race of a group of people, you can't play a person of that group unless, you know, whatever happened to playing pretend? Whatever happened to the imagination that seems to be out the window right now, Michael.
- [22:45]
Ted Cruz
That's exactly right. The concept of acting has just gone away. I mean, now in order to play Michael Knowles, one must be a Catholic, conservative, Italian, Sicilian. And nobody other than Michael Knowles can play. Not Michael Knowles.
- [23:04]
Michael Knowles
That's right.
- [23:05]
Ted Cruz
And the whole concept of acting has gone. You know, there's a famous story of when Sir Lawrence Olivier was doing a movie along with Dustin Hoffman. And, you know, Hoffman is famously a method actor. And in the scene he was required to be very, very tired. So he stayed up all night and he was exhausted. And for some reason there was a problem shooting and they weren't able to film the scene. And Hoffman got upset and was like, look, I stayed up all night. I was getting ready, now we're not gonna shoot the scene. And Sir Laurence Olivier famously quipped to him, he said, my dear boy, why don't you try acting? And then the sort of meta story on top of that. Did you ever see the movie Hook?
- [23:52]
Michael Knowles
Yeah. Oh, years ago.
- [23:52]
Ted Cruz
But yes, you know, it's a great movie with Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman. And Robin Williams plays a grown up Peter Pan and Dustin Hoffman plays Captain Hook. And apparently while they were filming Hook, Robin Williams would make fun of Hoffman and he would, you know, he'd make the voice of a parrot and he'd go, caw. Try acting. Caw. Try acting. And apparently there is no acting anymore.
- [24:18]
Michael Knowles
No, no, acting is over. I do want to clarify for people too. If you do want to play me, not just any Italian will do. I don't want any northern Italian. It's got to be from the town in Sicily where my family comes from. That's how particular we're going to get. Now they say that politics is show business for ugly people. And speaking of particularity, I want to get nitty.
- [24:41]
Ted Cruz
Well, thank you, Michael. I take that personally. So thank you very much.
- [24:46]
Michael Knowles
With notable exceptions, of course, of course, obviously for the people on this podcast. But when we're looking ahead to the midterms, we got a whole lot of seats. We got all of those hundreds of congressional seats. We've got a whole bunch of senate seats up, to say nothing about the state houses. So since you're much more focused on the ground, on the nitty gritty, know the players very closely. What should conservatives be looking at? Where should we be looking? What races should we be focused on and by what margin are we going to win?
- [25:20]
Ted Cruz
So I'm very optimistic for November. I think it is going to be an historic victory. I think the chances of our taking the house are approaching 100%. I think it is virtually a certainty that we'll take the House. I think the real question is how big of a margin. And I think the chances are good that we'll take the Senate. I'd probably handicap the Senate at 65, 35 on the House side. Some of the reason why I'm so optimistic. Let me give you just some of the specific data. Because the two best predictors for elections historically have been the generic congressional ballot, which is just asking people, in the upcoming congressional election, do you intend to vote Republican or Democrat? So without a name of a candidate that is measured every year, that's a very good predictor for what's gonna happen in November and then the presidential approval or disapproval. And consistently, those two together had been very good predictors. So if you look at, for example, 2010, which was an historic year in that election, the generic ballot was Republican plus 9.4. So it was really strong generic ballot. Presidential approval was actually not too bad. It was minus 0.5. So it was just the disapproval was just slightly above approval. And we ended up picking up 63 seats, getting to a majority of 242 seats. Likewise, 2014, the generic was R + 2.4. Presidential approval was -2.10.4, and we got to 247 seats. Now, if you look at where we are today in 2022, the generic congressional is R plus 3.3. So that means by 3.3%, people say they're going to vote Republican instead of Democrat. That's better than it was in 2014, although not as good as it was in 2010. But the presidential approval is -11.5, which is by far the worst. Much, much worse than 2010. Much, much worse than 2014. Let me give you another stat that is a very interesting predictor, which is the enthusiasm gap. If you ask voters, are you very excited to vote in November, it's a really good predictor of what's gonna happen. And if you go back and look at it in 2006, Democrats who were very interested in voting in November, 69% Republicans, 56%. So the Democrats had a 13 percentage advantage on enthusiasm. They picked up 30 seats. 2010, Democrats who were very interested was 49%. Republicans was 66%. So Republicans had a 17% advantage. We picked up 63. 2014, the differential was 11%. We picked up 13 seats. 2018, the differential Democrats who were interested was 66%, Republicans 57. So Democrats had a nine point advantage in enthusiasm. They picked up 40 seats. And then if you go and look to March of 2022, Democrats 50% are very interested in voting in November. Republicans 67%. So we've got a 17% advantage. All of that is suggesting that we could see a Republican victory in the House with potentially a pickup anywhere from 30 to 60 seats. I think that's the spread that's in play, which is a whole lot of seats. What we're seeing is congressional seats that are say a D plus 6 or a D plus 8 are right now polling tied. If you look at Virginia, Virginia last year, as you know, elected Glenn Youngkin. Biden won Virginia by 10 points. So Virginia was a D plus 10. And on election Day last year it went Republican. If we're winning D + 10 congressional seats, we're looking at 60+ pickups in the House. So I think it's going to be a big, big deal. And I think the Senate is too.
- [29:46]
Michael Knowles
So there are far too many congressional House seats to track. In terms of the Senate races, you've got some big celebrity candidates. JD Vance has made a huge splash in Ohio. Dr. Oz is already a celebrity and has been for a long time in Pennsylvania. What are the races that we should really be looking at? Whether because they're bellwethers, they're going to tell us which way the winds are blowing, or just because they're so crucial for Republicans to pick.
- [30:16]
Ted Cruz
Sure. So the reason the Senate is far less certain than the House is that we don't have a great map this year. So Republicans are defending more vulnerable seats than Democrats are. And that just is luck of the draw of who happens to be up. Because in the Senate, only a third of the senators are up every two years. If you look at Republican pickup opportunities, the four most natural are Georgia, Arizona, Nevada and New Hampshire. Georgia and Arizona have historically been red states. Just a couple of years ago, they had both had two Republican Senators. Now both Georgia and Arizona have two Democrat senators. In Georgia, you've got Herschel Walker running. I think Walker's got a good shot at winning that race. I think Georgia is still fundamentally a red state. The special elections or the runoff elections that happened in 2021, Republican turnout was depressed. It was right after the election. I was on the ground, I saw it, that our base was demoralized and didn't show up in that special election. And if your guys stay home and the other guys show up That's a recipe for losing. So I think Georgia is a real pickup opportunity. Arizona is a real pickup opportunity. That's got a messy primary right now. There's several candidates slugging it out in that primary. So it's not clear who the Republican nominee is gonna be. Mark Kelly is the incumbent Democrat, and he's formidable. He's an astronaut. His temperament seems moderate. I do think Kelly has been really, really hurt by Kyrsten Sinema, the other Democrat senator from Arizona, because Sinema, on a number of issues, most notably the filibuster, has stood up to party leadership and has tacked a more moderate course. And it's made Kelly. It's revealed him. His voting record is in many ways indistinguishable from Bernie Sanders. And I think that even though he cultivates a Persona of being a moderate, his voting record now does not match up with that. I think Arizona, we got a good pickup opportunity. Nevada. Adam Laxalt won the primary. I endorsed Adam. I campaigned with him. I think Adam is a great pickup opportunity. If I were. In fact, I think Nevada. Adam is the most likely Republican pickup this cycle because I think he's done a good job of unifying the party. I think he's running a good campaign. I think we're going to win in Nevada. New Hampshire. Maggie Hassan is on the ballot. She's underwater. Her disapproval is greater than her approval. I think she's vulnerable. It's not clear who the Republican is gonna be and if we're gonna have a strong candidate. I hope we do. If we have a strong candidate. I think New Hampshire is winnable, but we've gotta get someone who is able to raise the money and be competitive. If the governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, had run, I think he would have won easily. He decided not to run. And so New Hampshire is a state where we just gotta wait and see if we're gonna have a candidate that can be competitive. Those are the four best pickup opportunities. There are other pickup opportunities that are more of a long shot. Colorado. Michael Bennett, I think, is vulnerable. He doesn't have great name id. He hasn't accomplished much of anything in the Senate. Colorado is a bluish state that in a really good year, could conceivably go red. So I think Colorado is a possible pickup. Washington state. Right now, the polling in Washington state is showing the Republican within just a couple of points of Patty Murray, the incumbent Democrat. I'll give you a long shot. Vermont. So Pat Leahy is retiring. Pat Leahy is actually the only Democrat in the history of Vermont elected to the Senate, which is really quite remarkable. The other senator is Bernie Sanders, who's not a Democrat, he's a socialist. He's not a member of the Democrat Party. You know, There's a former U.S. attorney running in Vermont, a woman who I think is in a really good year, has a shot at that race. So there are, depending on how good a year there is, there are four natural pickup opportunities, and then I think several more. Now, where are we on defense? We're on defense number one in Pennsylvania, as you noted. So Pat Toomey is the incumbent. He's a Republican. He's retiring. Dr. Oz is the Republican nominee. I think Dr. Oz can win. He just went through a tough primary between him and Dave McCormick, who's another very strong candidate. But I'm optimistic that Oz's numbers are not terrific right now. But he just came out of the primary. I'm optimistic that's a winnable seat, but we need to hold Pennsylvania. Wisconsin. Ron Johnson is the incumbent Republican. He probably faces the greatest threat for any incumbent Republican. Wisconsin's a historically purple state. I think Ron will win this year. I was just out in Milwaukee and supporting him and campaigning for him. I think he'll win this year. But history teaches that race is likely to be close. You mentioned Ohio. Rob Portman, a Republican, is retiring. J.D. vance is the nominee. I think J.D. will win that race. But Ohio has certainly historically been a swing seat. Missouri, you've got Roy Blunt, who's retiring there. You've got a crowdy and messy primary. The candidate I've supported, Eric Schmidt, who's the attorney general, I think, is the strongest conservative that can win. But whether that race is competitive will depend on what happens in the primary. One of the candidates in the primary, Eric Greitens, the former governor, resigned in scandal. I think if Greitens wins the primary, you'll see Democrats invest a lot of money in Missouri. I think they'll think that that's a seat they can steal if Greitens wins the nomination. You know, another state that could get bumpy is Alaska. So Alaska, you've got Lisa Murkowski, who's the incumbent. She's the Republican Donald Trump has endorsed against her. He's campaigning against her. Alaska also has a weird system of voting, of ranked choice voting, where you vote for multiple candidates and then you eliminate the lowest vote getter and reallocate those votes. So I don't know what will happen there. But anytime you have Republicans divided, in this case, you got Trump on one side and the incumbent Republican on the other. It's messy. And, you know, when I got to the Senate 10 years ago, Alaska had a Democrat, Mark Begich in it. I mean, Alaska is in a Senate race. It's more purple than you might think. So I think we will probably hold onto Alaska, but it's not impossible that we lose that state. So put all of that together. Put it in the blender. My guess right now, if the election were today, we'd win something like 53 seats altogether. But I think the plus minus is anywhere from 49 if things just go spectacularly bad to 56 if they go phenomenally and we win some seats like, like a Vermont or a Washington state, if it's that good a year, we could get up in the 55, 56 range.
- [38:05]
Michael Knowles
So then if you're looking at retaking the House, and especially if you're also looking at retaking the Senate, then you're setting the stage for two years of stopping Biden slowing down Biden. It's hard to slow down Biden. Biden's pretty slow as it is right now. But you stop the administration and then you look ahead to 2024. Is there, is there anything that you're seeing right now that you think in 2022 will help to determine the shape of the 2024 field?
- [38:35]
Ted Cruz
Oh, sure, number one, I think it's important that we win in 22, but then when we have majorities, we got to do something with it. And, you know, that's just the beginning of the battle to win the majorities. And if we get to January 2023 with majorities in both houses, if Republican leadership decides to play a prevent defense and do nothing and be risk averse, which is often leadership's instinct, I think that will demoralize a lot of voters.
- [39:04]
Michael Knowles
If you elect a bunch of squishes. You can't just go blaming leadership when they push squishy policies. The leadership is, one, trying to herd cats, but two, they are taking cues from their members. They're trying to operate levers of power within the confines of reality. So I love this idea. You gotta go out there, you gotta go elect the most right viable candidates, and then you're gonna have a much better shot of encouraging leadership to actually stand up and fight. Now, there is much more to talk about, Senator, before you return to your lovely family vacation that we have rudely interrupted, there's a lot more to talk about on the cloakroom with our friend Liz Wheeler.
- [39:44]
Ted Cruz
Hi, Senator.
- [39:45]
Hi.
- [39:45]
Is it Michelle? I've been waiting in the wings and I just overheard that. That perhaps you're identifying as Michelle now. Okay. Well, I just wanna.
- [39:52]
Michael Knowles
Or so I was told.
- [39:53]
Ted Cruz
I just wanna be the one to note that this is breaking national news. We have a great topic that we're gonna talk about on the Cloakroom today. We are going to talk about a very highly reported piece of the Dobbs decision. This is, of course, Justice Clarence Thomas, who said in future cases, we should reconsider all of this court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence and Obergefell. So we're going to talk about these cases and whether they should be overturned and if they were to be overturned, how that would be done. You can join us on the cloakroom. It's on Verdict Plus. Go to Verdict with TedCruz.com plus if you use my promo code, which is, of course, Cloakroom, you can get your first month free on your annual subscription. It is verdict with TedCruise.com+.
- [40:38]
Michael Knowles
I cannot wait. You were looking at the Clarence Thomas Nashville fan club over here. President and chairman. Can't wait to hear that discussion of why we need to get rid of substantive due process. All right, that's enough for me. I'm out of here. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
- [41:01]
Ted Cruz
This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz.
- [41:03]
Michael Knowles
Is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security pac, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations.
- [41:11]
Ted Cruz
And candidates across the country.
- [41:13]
Michael Knowles
In 2022, jobs, freedom and Security PAC.
- [41:16]
Ted Cruz
Plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.