← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
Outrage: Biden Admin Tells 9/11 Families They're Considering Taking Death Penalty Off the Table for KSM, the Planner of 9/11
00:43:42
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- [00:01]
Ben Ferguson
Welcome. It is verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. And this show that we are going to do tonight is one that I hope you will really pay attention to and help us explain to the rest of the world what is about to happen. And it deals with 911 in a shock that came out. And it was just a Pentagon email or a letter that went to the families from 911 who lost loved ones during that attack. And the suspected mastermind of 911 attacks, as well as four other defendants. Apparently they could all escape the death penalty under a quote, new plea deal where they would plead guilty and then it would save their lives, literally. Now, there are a lot of people that have direct connection 911 that are beyond furious over this. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in. He is the mastermind behind 9 11. He was the CEO of this 911 attack. He was the one that came up with it with Osama bin Laden. He had in his writings before we caught him. And it said publicly that his goal was to kill as many Americans as possible. And he wanted to have mass casualties, not just on 9 11, but after 9 11. He also was planning other attacks as well. That suspected mastermind now would be in essence given a deal. Now, Senator, I think the pullback that the curtain here you and I talked about this is the fact that this seems to be the department, the Pentagon and the Biden administration saying, no one wants these people. They're too dangerous. These five men, including the mastermind of 9 11. So we want to close down Gitmo. And the way we could close it down is giving these five defendants a plea deal so we can wrap up Guantanamo Bay and say, look, we closed this thing down. Aren't we great people? That is the most, I think, disgusting part of this deal is it's just for a political purpose for them.
- [02:03]
Senator Ted Cruz
This story is absolutely outrageous. And I think everyone hearing it should be shocked and should be furious. On September 11, deranged radical Islamic terrorists carried out the worst terrorist attack in the history of the United States of America. They murdered 2,977 innocent people. It was horrific. It was an act of war. It was an act of war that was planned and executed to attempt to cripple the United States. Every one of us who was alive and an adult at the time remembers where they were on September 11, remembers where they were when they saw the image of the first plane hitting the first tower in New York City and then the second plane hitting the second tower in New York City. You remember where you were when the plane flew into The Pentagon. And you remember where they were when the brave heroes took the plane down over that hallowed field in Pennsylvania. Yesterday, the Biden administration sent letters to the families of the victims of the nearly 3,000 people murdered that day saying, by the way, the guy who planned it, the guy who was the mastermind behind it, the guy who plotted it, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others who were active participants in the worst act of terrorism in US History. We may not seek the death penalty for them. If you don't seek the death penalty for murdering nearly 3,000 people in an act of war, then what the hell do you seek the death penalty for? It is outrageous and it's infuriating.
- [04:08]
Ben Ferguson
You look at these charges and I go to just to remind people of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. This is an individual that worked hand in hand with Osama bin Laden in Al Qaeda. He was the leader of Al Qaeda's propaganda operations. And that was really recruitment. He needed to recruit soldiers for jihad. He was in charge and was incredibly successful at the propaganda that brought people in, especially in the Middle east, from different countries into Al Qaeda. He did that so well from 1999 to 2001 that some described him as the number one recruiter of terrorists in the world when we captured him. Just so people remember in 2003 there were several countries that wanted him because they wanted to kill him. And what we did is we wanted intel out of him because he knew about the entire operations and he could lead us to Osama bin Laden. When we interrogated him in March 2007, he finally confessed to say to what we already knew. He was the Mastermind of the 911 attacks, the Richard Reed shoe bombing attempt to blow up an airliner. He was also the mastermind of that. The Bali nightclub bombing in Indonesia. He was involved in that. The 1993 World Trade center bombings, the murder of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter, various other foiled attacks, as well as numerous other crimes he was involved with. It wasn't just 9 11. And that's why clearly he deserves a death penalty. What he was charged with with first degree murder, 2977 counts for everyone that died on 911 attacking civilians. He was charged without attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, murder in the violation of law of war, destruction of property in violation of law of war, hijacking or hazarding a vessel or aircraft. Then he was charged with multiple counts of terrorism. And then all of the other things I just listed. Why would anyone at the Pentagon, unless it's political pressure from this White House because the White House, to be clear, Senator, could stop this, right? They could step in here and say, no, absolutely, you're not going to do this, right? You're not going to let this guy live and let him plead guilty.
- [06:31]
Senator Ted Cruz
So I think it's two things. One, I think when it comes to criminal law, this administration is populated by left wing ideologues. And in the entire time Joe Biden has been president, the Department of Justice has not authorized a single new death penalty prosecution. Under Merrick Garland, they've halted death penalty prosecutions. And in fact, Joe Biden campaigned on ending the federal death penalty. His criminal justice platform included a pledge laid out on his campaign website that said, quote, to work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level and incentivize states to follow the federal government's example. And he said those convicted of the most egregious federal crimes, quote, should serve instead. Should instead serve life sentences without probation or parole. And since Merrick Garland took office, he has not sought the death penalty. And by the way, that includes the deranged murderer in El Paso that went into the Walmart seeking to murder Hispanics on a blatant racist hate crime. And the Biden Department of Justice did not seek the death penalty there. Instead, he was sentenced to 90 life sentences. He might be executed by the state of Texas. And in fact, I have every confidence that the state of Texas is going to prosecute that monster and carry out capital punishment on him. But the Feds, the feds, you commit a horrible racist hate crime and mass murder. The Biden doj, they won't consider the death penalty. And when you're talking about terrorism, this is the worst act of terrorism in US History. And yet these left wing ideologues, they don't want to hold the mastermind of murdering nearly 3,000Americans accountable. It is so profoundly disrespectful, not just to the families of the victims, not just to the Americans who were murdered that day, but to everyone in this country. This was an act of war against America and these bastards don't give a damn.
- [08:58]
Ben Ferguson
The other part that I think is so shocking about this, Senator, is the fact that you have a man like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. We know for a fact he traveled the Philippines back in 1994. We were trying to, by the way, get him. After this, the United States government was. He worked with his nephew, another terrorist that you'll know his name, Ramzi Yousef, on a massive plot to destroy 12 commercial airliners flying routes between the United States of America, East Asia and Southeast Asia. The 911 Commission report says this marked the first time that KSM, that's what he's known as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, took part in the actual planning of a terrorist operation. This was back in 1994. The United States 911 Commission also said by his own accounts, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, his animus towards the United States stem not from his experiences because he was smart, he came to the US as a student, but rather, they said his violent disagreement with US foreign policy favoring Israel. So this is a. This is a man that wanted Israel to burn. This is a man that started being a terrorist in 1994. And this is a man who America had been trying to track down at least by 95 and 96. In fact, Muhammad returned to Afghanistan to avoid capture by US authorities in his flight from Qatar because he was told or tipped off that America was coming to get him. That was in the 1990s.
- [10:28]
Senator Ted Cruz
So he wanted Israel to burn. He succeeded in causing America to burn in New York city and Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania, murdering nearly 3,000Americans. And I mentioned it was a couple of things. One, it is the radical ideologues in the Biden administration who won't seek the death penalty for anybody. But two, this Biden White House and this president consistently systematically puts partisan political objectives above justice and above protecting US national security. It is ironic that we find this news out within a week of the two year anniversary of Joe Biden surrendering the Taliban, abandoning Afghanistan, abandoning Kabul, leaving Americans behind to die, abandoning 13 servicemen and women who were murdered in Kabul. And we discussed on this podcast, we played the testimony of, of a heroic Marine who explained that they had the intelligence about the bomber and the higher ups would not allow them to take him out before he murdered 13 servicemen and women. Why? Because this White House values politics above national security. Now why did they have such a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan? Because the President wanted to have an announcement on 9 11. On the anniversary of 911 we are out of Afghanistan. That was a political objective. And the fact that it would cause people to die, the fact that it would abandon people who had risked their lives to save us, the fact that it would empower terrorists who want to murder us, none of that mattered. The fact that it would result in chaos and catastrophe. And remember those images of the people grasping the wheels of planes as they were taking off as Biden cut and run. For them, politics was more important. You alluded when you opened this podcast to a major reason why they're doing this, which is Joe Biden wants to announce we have closed Guantanamo. Why? Because that's a partisan political objective. They want to dance around and trumpet that fact with a left wing activist who never liked that Gitmo was there in the first place. They never liked that we were fighting against the terrorists and they want to say we closed Gitmo. Now the problem is you have terrorists there and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, there are four others in this group. But KSM is by far the worst of them. He's the principal person other than Osama Bin Laden, who was behind the September 11th attack. They can't close Guantanamo because they can't move them to the United States and put them in a US Prison unless they reach some outcome. That's why they want a plea deal so they could get their political victory of closing Gitmo and, and, and do so at the expense of US national security. And let's be clear, if they cut a plea deal with this terrorist, that will only encourage subsequent terrorists. Mind you, this is right on the wake of Joe Biden sending $6 billion to Iran. The Ayatollah in Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism on earth, paying enormous sums of money to murder Israelis and to murder Americans.
- [13:58]
Ben Ferguson
To be clear, Iran to remind people, Iran killed more American soldiers, dismembered more American soldiers without firing a shot because they were the ones supplying the roadside bombs and the advanced bombs to the terrorists, whether they were the insurgents or isis, Al Qaeda, etc, and they were funneling them and giving them safe haven. And we just sent them billions of dollars to then fund more terror.
- [14:24]
Senator Ted Cruz
$6 billion for five hostages, American hostages released. So now they've set the price of an American hostage at over a billion dollars apiece. The result of that, they've increased the risk that more Americans are going to be taken hostage. They've told every tyrant, every bad guy, every rogue regime, you go grab an American and the idiots in the Biden administration will cut you a billion dollar check. And it is a consistent pattern. Elevate partisan politics above our national security interest, even if it endangers the lives of Americans.
- [15:04]
Ben Ferguson
Want to tell you about our friends at Patriot Mobile. If you are a person like me, where you have said, I've had enough of giving my money to companies that are going against my values and attacking my family values, my Christian values, my principles, then I want you to make a switch. If you've got a cell phone in your cell phone with a big mobile, you may not realize just where your money's going. Did you know a lot of big Mobile companies get big donations to Planned Parenthood. Did you know they give big donations to hardcore leftist organizations and candidates? Well that's why I want you to switch to Patriot Mobile now. For years big mobile companies have been dumping millions into these causes and we had to take it because. Because there wasn't another option. Now there is. Patriot Mobile is America's only Christian conservative wireless provider offering dependable nationwide coverage on all three major networks. So you get the best possible service in your area period. Without the woke propaganda pushed by the left that are trying to destroy this country. When you switch to Patriot Mobile not only is part of your bill going every month support free speech and religious freedom, the sanctity of life, the second amendment and our military veterans or first responders, our heroes but you also are supporting a company that supports American workers 100% U.S. based customer service team makes switching easy. Go to patriot mobile.com verdict that's patriotmobile.com verdict or call them 878patriot that's 878patriot. Save money on your bill. Keep your same cell phone number. Upgrade to a new phone patriotmobile.com or 878 Patriot. Use the promo code VERDICT. You'll get free activation. Senator I want to go back to one other thing about Khalid Sheikh Muhammad just so people understand what the many Americans I think we forget or you may not even know this if you want to know how sadistic Khalid Sheikh Muhammad was and and and this was an individual after 911 and my mentor was John Ascroft the Attorney General. After 911 I was in D.C. working in the Bush administration and I learned a ton of information about the these people that plan 9 11. I remember watching it. I was in college at the time and I also have become friends with one of the guys that actually pulled Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in the capture and having those two perspectives. The amount of reading I put into him is probably more than any other subject in the world and how they plan 911 because I wanted to understand our enemy and why they hated us so much. And Khalid Sheikh Mohammed not only did he help plan other airliner attacks but he actually worked to devise a scheme where five men in a single day and this was back in the 90s would board 12 flights two each to three of the men on each plane. They would then put bombs on those planes and they were their plan was to exit the planes leaving timers to ignite those bombs. They did a dry run on this on Philippine Airlines 434 and they used an explosive and it went off Then they were planning on doing this. But then they realized something with Osama bin Laden, this sadistic individual said, no, no, that's not enough. We need to hijack the planes with jihadists who are willing to blow themselves up right in the explosion and not just kill everybody on the plane, but hit targets to make America be fearful of us and change the course of the world. That's why they picked the Twin Towers. That's why they picked the Pentagon. That's why that other plane that crashed in that field apparently was headed towards the White House. That was its intended target. From what we understand, they understood that these planes with the right men and they found those men and they trained those men and they took care of their families afterwards. All of this was from Muhammad said, no, no, it's not enough just to blow a plane up. We have to hit American targets. That the American people will be come to their knees when it happens and we can change the course of the future of the world. That is the guy that now. And imagine if you had a family member on any one of these planes or that was killed in the Twin Towers or at the Pentagon, etc. And all these other terrorist attacks I mentioned earlier that he was involved in. You get a letter in the mail that says, we just want to wrap this up. How does anybody have faith in America's government if we do this?
- [19:30]
Senator Ted Cruz
Look, Ben, it is shocking. Now I want to do something. A lot of the folks that listen to Verdict are young. We have a lot of college kids who listen. We have a lot of high school kids who listen. We have a lot of young professionals who listen. We have a lot of people who are regular listeners to Verdict who were not alive on September 11th. And so for them, September 11th is sort of like what Pearl harbor is to you and me. It is a thing about we know about in history. We know that it was a horrific attack on America. But it's not something for many of our listeners that is part of their lived experience. And for both you and I, September 11th is indelibly marked in our minds. I was in Washington D.C. on September 11th. I remember it acutely. Where were you? Tell me where you were and how you experienced September 11th.
- [20:29]
Ben Ferguson
I was in my dorm room at Ole Miss and I was sitting there studying for a big test. And I was about to leave and my phone rang. This was like almost like cell phones weren't really big yet. It was. I remember my dorm room phone ringing. And it was a producer that I had worked with at 5, Fox News because I was commentating at the time. He said, turn your TV right now, and hung up on me. And I remember turning the TV on Fox. It wasn't even on yet. And then I went to NBC and I remember watching as they thought that it was a small plane that may have hit the building. And then I watched in real time live, that second plane hit the second tower. And I remember that whole day, the entire campus, it was like this zombie apocalypse. No one knew what to do. No one. Everybody was calling their mom and dad. Everybody was parents. I remember showing up an hour later, taking kids away from the campus because they were so afraid that this could happen on college campuses. There were rumors going around and you were. I called my dad, who was in law enforcement. I was like, what do I do? And he was like, hey, I want you to get out of your dorm. I remember him telling me that, I want you to get out of your dorm room. Go get in your car, get out of the dorm room. And then we decided that I was going to come to Memphis and everyone left because no one knew what was going to happen next. And then when I remember, you know, you hear that a bomb had gone off. There was a report a bomb went off by the White House. And then I remember watching those journalists live feeds where they're running down the street, and they called it the trail of the heels, because everybody was kicking their shoes off, running for their lives. And then the Pentagon got hit. And then we heard there was multiple other planes. It was the scariest day of my life. From a. You felt like nowhere was safe in that moment. And that's exactly what these hijackers had planned. It was their entire. The decision making. And Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who could get a deal, he's the guy that picked the target. A lot of people thought it was Osama bin Laden. It was not. Bin Laden had rejected some targets that were suggested by Mohammed. For example, the US bank tower in Los Angeles, it was one of the targets. He said, no, no, no, I want to simplify. That's too hard to fly there quickly and you can't get there from takeoff. So he said no to that one. But it was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that came up with that list. And it was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that is, that went out there and picked every single 9, 11 hijacker. Osama bin Laden didn't do any of that work. That was Muhammad who went out there and proceeded to organize the plot, met with the people, got them the training, taught them how to fly the planes, got them the flight training in America. And bin Laden, yes, he provided the financial support, but this is the guy who's still alive and the people that risked their lives to get him. There were several times that Americans died, by the way, on bad intel trying to get Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. And there are people that gave the ultimate sacrifice just trying to capture him alive because we didn't want to blow him up. We had chances, from what I understand, to blow him up and we weren't able to do that. We didn't want to do it. We were told, no, no. We want to capture him because we thought he had more intel or as much intel as Osama bin Laden. And that's why we took him alive instead of trying to kill him.
- [23:44]
Senator Ted Cruz
So I remember that morning. It was obviously September 11th of 2001, and it was the beginning of the Bush administration. And Heidi and I were newlyweds. We had gotten married in May of 2001 and we were both working in the Bush administration. The two of us had met on the George W. Bush presidential campaign the year before. Heidi was working in the White House. She was in the US Trade Representative's office, which is part of the White House complex. I was working at the Federal Trade Commission. The first plane hit the first World Trade center tower at 8:46am and within a minute or two Heidi was already at the office. She called me at home and I was walking out the front door. Our apartment was in Northern Virginia. It was less than a mile from the Pentagon. It was just south of the Pentagon. And Heidi called me as I was walking out the front door and she said, stop where you are, Turn on the TV and watch what happened. So I stopped. I didn't leave the apartment and I turned on the TV and I saw a plane had hit, hit one of the Twin Towers. Now, when the first plane hit, nobody knew what it was. And initially you couldn't tell that it was an airliner. There was a lot of speculation that maybe it was a Cessna, it was a smaller plane, maybe some pilot had gotten horrifically confused, maybe a pilot had had a heart attack, that it, that it could have been an accident. As you were first watching it, people weren't sure what happened. And then at 9:03am the second plane flew into the second tower. And at that instant, everyone watching it knew what it was. We knew that it was terrorism. And the second plane they had on video, you could see that it was a full airliner that crashed in. It was United Airlines Flight 175 that crashed into the World Trade center south tower. The north tower had been hit by American Airlines Flight 11. And when it crashed, you knew you were watching hundreds of people die in an instant. Everyone on that plane was incinerated. Everyone in the towers where the airliner crashed into was incinerated. Heidi was, as I said, at the White House at the time. And when the first plane hit, the Secret Service came through the halls of the White House, and they told everyone, stay where you are. We don't know what's happened, but just stay where you are. When the second plane hit, they realized, like everyone did, that America was under attack. And the Secret Service agents ran down the hallways and they were yelling at people, get out. Get out now. They said, run. Do not walk. Run. Get out of the building. Get out of here. So Heidi got up and ran. Her car was parked in a parking garage, and she was not able to get her car out because they were not letting anyone get their cars out. So you were mentioning people walking, walking in bare feet. Well, one of those people was Heidi Suzanne Cruz, who walked across Memorial Bridge. She pulled off her high heels and walked in bare feet from the White House to Northern Virginia. And I'm watching this in horror as it plays out. And the cell phone coverage was terrible. So I was having a really hard time getting in touch with Heidi because the towers were overloaded. Then at 9:37am a third flight crashed into the Pentagon. American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37am when that happened, one of the news networks, I think it was ABC News, reported that a plane had hit the White House because from the angle of the cameras, it looked like there was smoke coming up from the White House. You couldn't quite tell it was the Pentagon. I'm sitting there looking at it, going, holy crap, Heidi's in the White House. Like that that you want to talk about freaking you out. Seeing on the news that a plane has just hit where your wife is scares the hell out of you. I connected with Heidi shortly thereafter and realized she was okay. But I found out later that on that plane, on American Airlines Flight 77, was a good friend of mine and a good friend of Heidi's, Barbara Olson. Barbara Olson was an amazing lawyer. She was married to Ted Olson, who was Incredible guy, the US solicitor general at the time, someone I've known for 25 years. He's an incredibly talented Supreme Court lawyer. And Barbara called Ted from the plane, and her cell phone connected, and Ted answered the phone, and she said, what do I do now? I want you to Imagine you're sitting there and you get a phone call from your wife, and you are the number three official at the Department of Justice. You are watching intently what's unfolding. You've seen two planes fly directly into the World Trade center towers, and you're talking to your wife, who knows, you know, is on a plane who had actually stayed over an extra day to celebrate Ted's birthday. And her question, Barbara was indomitable. She was a fighter. She was ferocious. I loved Barbara Olson and her question to Ted when. When she called Ted. Ted knew what the hijackers intended. He knew it was not. Look, prior to September 11th, if a plane is hijacked, people assumed, okay, do what the hijackers want. And, you know, maybe they'll fly to Cuba, maybe they'll go land somewhere and demand a ransom. People didn't think. The idea of flying a jet airliner into a building and murdering thousands of people, that was not something anyone had ever done. It's not something anyone had ever thought of. But Ted is on the phone with his wife, and she's saying, what do I do? And that's the last word he heard, what do I do? How do we stop them? And the line goes dead. Now, after that happens, an hour and 41 minutes after the planes hit the World Trade Center Towers, the towers collapsed. And I have to say, the image, everyone who was watching the television in the hour and 41 minutes that led up to it, you saw the flames going up and up and up the building as the jet fuel burned hotter and hotter and hotter. You saw an image that they no longer show on the news, but we saw over and over and over again that day, which is people in the upper floors jumping to their deaths. And you could see bodies when the first one went. You're like, what is that? And you'd see person jump. You know, you're at the window, you've got flames. You have a choice between being burned to death, you're about to be incinerated, or jumping to your death. And we saw person after person after person jumping off from the upper floors of those towers. And an hour and 41 minutes later, the two collapse. And every person, I think everyone said the same words as you watch that. Oh, my God.
- [31:32]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah.
- [31:34]
Senator Ted Cruz
Like, it didn't. As you're watching it, you did not believe the towers could collapse. And as you saw them come down, you realize there are things, thousands of people being murdered all at once.
- [31:49]
Ben Ferguson
And the brave men that were going up there, taking the stairs because the elevators had locked down the firefighters who.
- [31:57]
Senator Ted Cruz
Ran in and ran in and ran in and ran towards the flames and who died and knew they were risking.
- [32:03]
Ben Ferguson
Death, they did it. And they did it because they thought they were going to save people's lives. And I go back to. If you've never been to the 911 Museum, the memorial, you should go. And I will never forget picking up. They have these phones that you can pick up and listen to the final messages and the phone calls that people left that died on those planes. And if you've never listened to them, you should. A lot of them are actually on YouTube. I would encourage you to go and listen to those. And you tell me if these men deserve to live and they don't. And the White House could stop this, but they're not trying to stop this. They're wanting this to happen because they want to close Gitmo for political reasons. The same way they don't care about anyone that was left behind that died in Afghanistan after we pulled out on the anniversary of 9 11. They don't care about any of the people that risked their lives for. For literally over a decade. Many of the translators and others that aided and abetted American soldiers and our allies from around the world that were left there to be tortured and brutalized and murdered and raped because they didn't have an adequate plan to get people out. We still are to this day. And Senator, I know you know this, there are still men that serve this country. I was in Fort Bragg a week and a half ago, and there are still people there that are trying to get their translators and others that helped Americans and, by the way, save their American soldiers lives. And when bombs went off, they risked their lives and were taking fire to help drag a man off the battlefield or from a Humvee that's on fire that has been blown up with a roadside bomb. And they're still in Afghanistan trying to get them out because the Taliban has that list. And they are hunting them down now, now and have hunted down many already. And this president says, no, no, we don't care about that. We're going to have a celebration that we got out of Afghanistan, ended America's longest war, and that'll make people love us the same way. They think, well, Gitmo is a terrible place because people are waterboarded there. We want to close that down as well. And if you are a family member and you receive this letter, I cannot imagine that you would ever have any faith in the United States of America ever again on any level. If we allow this to happen, the only way we stop it is pressure. Am I wrong?
- [34:33]
Senator Ted Cruz
There has to be public outcry. That is the only thing conceivably that can change it. And I gotta say, one of the shocking and shameful things is the national media isn't covering this. Ask yourself, did you see this on the news tonight? Was it on the 6:00 news? Was it on the national news? Have you read it in the newspaper? You know, there is an exception which at least one station in New York City, and kudos to them, covered it. And Ben, we ought to play what they covered because I appreciate at least one station covering it.
- [35:13]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah. In New York City, CBS, Channel 2, they did cover this from a local standpoint. This wasn't the national, this was local CBS News in New York City. And I want you to hear what they had to say about this.
- [35:29]
C
The suspected Mastermind of the September 11 terror attacks, along with four other defendants could escape the death penalty under a plea agreement being considered. CBS2's Dick Brennan is hearing from family members who are now outraged. Dick? Indeed they are, Christine. The prosecution of the 911 defendants at Guantanamo Bay has been delayed for years, but military process prosecutors and defense lawyers had begun exploring a negotiated resolution to the case. But a potential deal that's being floated has infuriated some 911 family members generally.
- [36:03]
D
I just think that the consensus is that it's a bad deal.
- [36:06]
C
Daniel Ballardinelli lost his uncle William cashman on Flight 93, which crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania on September 11th. He says the five defendants, including the suspected mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, deserve no mercy.
- [36:19]
D
I'm personally a very forgiving person, as is my family, but their actions are unforgivable.
- [36:26]
C
But the Pentagon sent this letter to 911 families revealing plea deals are being considered in which the five men would accept criminal responsibility for their actions and plead guilty in exchange for not receiving the death penalty. It's more heartbroken. Kristin Breitweiser's husband Ron died in the World Trade center and she can't understand why a deal would be offered. I thought I lived in the United States of America. I thought we were a nation based upon the rule of law. And obviously that's turned out not to be the case. The five men have been at Guantanamo in a kind of legal limbo with delays and disputes that have grinded the wheels of justice to a practical halt, in part because the CIA interrogations of the suspects that critics called torture. A lawyer for one of the defendants said last year a plea deal would end the Impasse.
- [37:11]
Ben Ferguson
She is willing to plead guilty, serve a long sentence at Guantanamo in exchange for medical care for his torture and taking the death penalty off the table.
- [37:21]
C
But that's not enough for Daniel Bellard Nelli when he thinks about the horror of Flight 93.
- [37:26]
D
I was supposed to be on the flight. I canceled, and I saw the photo of the field just made me think, like, oh, my God, that's where I could have died. They're taking the death penalty off the table for someone that committed a heinous crime. These are awful. They're not even human, what they did.
- [37:43]
Ben Ferguson
They're not even human, what they did. Senator, rarely does a show make me angry or frustrated. I would challenge everyone to go and to Google the mastermind of 9 11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Read his history, read who he is. Read how long you've been doing this. Look at the other four. Ramsay is another one who is a horrific human being. These people are involved, by the way, in beheadings, Daniel Pearl, and other beheadings. These are not human beings. These are sadistic people that do not deserve to live. And they are the worst people in the world, and not a single country wants them. I think that's part of what people don't understand about the reason why they want this plea deal is we've tried.
- [38:36]
Senator Ted Cruz
And by the way, Daniel Pearl, again, some of our younger listeners may not remember this. They beheaded him live on the Internet. They held his head, and with, like, a sword, a giant knife, they severed his neck and cut his head off his body. And they broadcast it to the world.
- [39:02]
Ben Ferguson
And used it to recruit people on top of that?
- [39:04]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yes, it's how they brought in other religious fanatics and psychopaths who wanted to murder Americans. And this administration does not take fighting that evil seriously. And.
- [39:19]
Ben Ferguson
You know, let me ask this. What can we do? I mean, is this where we say, hey, if you're a listener and there are hundreds of thousands of you that will hear this, do they need to all call their Congress and senators and say, hey, you need to stand up for these, the victims of 9 11, and say no to this plea deal and put pressure on the White House?
- [39:38]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yes, we need to speak out. If you care about the heroes of 9 11, if you care about the firefighters and the police officers who rushed into those towers, who rushed into the Pentagon to pull soldiers, burning soldiers out of harm's way, who lost their lives. If you care about that, speak out and demand justice. And by the way, I'm going to make a prediction as well, which is that these are not the only mass murderers that I think this administration is going to refuse to follow federal law and impose the death pen. I'm going to make a prediction right now, which is Joe Biden, before he leaves the White House, will commute the sentence of every federal prisoner on death row that he will do it for every one of them. And that includes. It includes the white supremacist and Nazi who murdered nine African Americans at the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina in a horrific hate crime. He's on federal death row. It includes the Boston bomber who murdered innocent people by exploding a bomb at the Boston Marathon. One of the two brothers is still alive. He's on death row. And my prediction right now is Joe Biden intends to spare every one of these mass murderers, every one of them. Many of them are racist, bigoted, homicidal lunatics. And I think we're going to see him commute all of their sentences before he leaves the White House.
- [41:16]
Ben Ferguson
Well, if you won't take out the mastermind of 911 and you won't give him the death penalty, is there anyone that you'll give it to? I mean, it doesn't get any worse than this. And the number of people that he killed and the number of people he killed before 911 and the number of people he killed after 911 and the number of people that he recruited to kill men. It's not just 911 that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, these other four did. It was what they did after 911 when we showed up in Iraq and Afghanistan and the recruitment that they did online to bring in the jihadists to come after and kill American soldiers and our allies. The number of people who died is in the thousands and thousands because of their actions before 911 that day and after 911 when they, in their words, they were just getting started. They wanted that catalyst. That was the firework to ignite the war with the United States of America. They wanted that war, and that was their goal. And now to give them a plea deal, I think is maybe the worst thing that Joe Biden has ever done to. If he allows this to happen, clearly it's coming from his directive. I hope everybody that's listening and I just, I don't. Look, we have commercials that we do, folks, and I'm just not going to do them anymore tonight. I don't want to do them. I think this is more important and I just don't feel comfortable doing that. We'll get back to what we have to do for the show, but I'm just going to say now it's more important that you guys share this with your family and friends. Share it on social media. No one is covering this and we need to make sure that everybody hears about this before Monday or Tuesday of next week so that there is total outrage at this administration and anyone that supports this. Call your congressman, call your senator wherever you live. Let them know that this is something as an American you're not okay with. Please put this episode up where other people see it and be activists on social media yourself.
- [43:20]
Senator Ted Cruz
Write your own and demand that the media cover this. Demand that the media actually cover the news instead of just being partisan propagandists.
- [43:29]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, I couldn't agree more, Senator. This is when I do. I hate this story but I love that we have this show to do this. Please share it with all your family and friends and we will see you back here in a couple of days.