Ted Cruz (4:35)

Have you ever spoken to the President.

Reporter (4:36)

About this investigation, sir?

Ben Shapiro (4:39)

No questions. He walked out of there as fast as he could. You see him say it this way, you can tell, he's like, I've lost control. I can't protect Joe Biden now. And if you look at a special prosecutor, they're gonna dig. And people are gonna ask you this question. So I'm gonna ask it. Who is this special prosecutor? What do we know about him? Is he part of the swamp? Or is he a guy that may actually do the job the right way?

Ted Cruz (5:02)

So let me say a couple of things for the folks who are watching this on YouTube and this is one of our video episodes. You were able to watch that. You were able to actually see Merrick Garland, see the absolute pain and agony for the folks who are listening to this in audio, I can just convey to you that I'm pretty sure the whole time Merrick Garland was actually Blinking sos. Yeah. And just take my word for it, that visual cue is there. You know, it's striking. At the end of that clip, he's asked a question, one question from a reporter. Have you talked to Joe Biden about this? And Merrick Garland turns, walks away. We don't answer no stinking questions at the Department of Justice. No interest in accountability. No interest in. That's a pretty important question. What conversation have you had with Joe Biden about this? Unwilling to answer it. Who is Robert Hur? I don't know. I suspect we're going to hear a lot of discussion about that in the next several days coming forward, the next several weeks coming forward. I've met him. I don't know him well. He was a former clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist, as was I. He clerked, I think, six years after I did. So. We didn't overlap, but the world of clerks is a pretty small, little incestuous world. Before that, he clerked for Alex Kaczynski, who was a judge on the 9th Circuit, was at the time one of the top conservative appellate judges in the country. Those are good signs. Most people who clerk for Kaczynski and Rehnquist, not liberal, are right of Center. Not 100%. Yeah, Rehnquist. There are Rehnquist clerks who are left of center. But most people, if you're Kaczynski, Rehnquist, are right of center. He's been a prosecutor much of his career. Prosecutor or a lawyer in private practice. I will say one huge red flag at the outset is Robert Hur was Rod Rosenstein's right hand.

Ben Shapiro (7:09)

And for people that forget Rod Rosenstein and how much of a figure he has been over the last several years, explain that.

Ted Cruz (7:16)

So let's walk through. Who was Rod Rosenstein? Rod Rosenstein was the Deputy Attorney General under Donald Trump. When Jeff Sessions became Attorney General, the that appointment and Trump appointed Rod Rosenstein, that appointment was a tragic mistake that visited enormous grief on the Trump White House and the Trump presidency. Rod Rosenstein had been the U.S. attorney under Barack Obama for the State of Maryland. He was the top prosecutor for the Department of Justice in Maryland in the Obama doj. Look, Rod is not a left winger, right? But he's a company man. He's a DOJ company man. And if you look at how the Department of Justice operates, all right, so number one, like most places in Washington, there's an Alphabet soup. So the AG Is at the top. The number two official in the Department of Justice is the Deputy ag. And in the Acronym world. That's called the Dagger. The DAG is essentially. And everyone calls him the dag. The DAG is essentially the chief operating officer of the agency. So the DAG runs doj day to day runs it. And the way the DAG does that is the DAG has a series of lawyers reporting to him who are what are called ADAGs, which are Associate Deputy Attorneys General. I was an ADAG in the George W. Bush Department of Justice. I was an Associate Deputy Attorney General. And each of the ADAGs is responsible for helping the DAG run the Department of Justice. Now, you have multiple ADAGs, and then you have one. This is where Washington really does get ridiculous. One, who is the principal associate of Deputy Attorney General who's known as the pay dag.

Ben Shapiro (9:15)

You can't make this up, by the way.

Ted Cruz (9:17)

I'm not.

Ben Shapiro (9:17)

I'm really only in Washington could this actually make sense to people.

Ted Cruz (9:22)

So when Rod Rosenstein was the dag, he appointed as his pay dag, in other words, as his principal guy, his right hand, Robert Herr. Now, Rod Rosenstein is the one. You'll remember. Jeff Sessions early on recused himself from the Russia investigation. So Rod Rosenstein was responsible for that.

Ben Shapiro (9:45)

Absolute garbage cluster of an investigation.

Ted Cruz (9:50)

It was. Look, as listeners of this POD know, my last book, Justice Corrupted. By the way, if you haven't bought Justice Corrupted, go buy Justice Corrupted. There's an entire chapter that will walk you through what Rod Rosenstein did with the Russian investigation, with the corruption, with the disaster. Rod Rosenstein is the one who appointed Robert Mueller. You want to talk about appointing special counsels? Rod Rosenstein is the one who appointed Robert Mueller, started the whole Russia fiasco to begin with. And Robert Herr was Rosenstein's right hand. Now, about a year into it, hur got appointed U.S. attorney for Maryland, the job Rosenstein had left. And so he succeeded him and took over as U.S. attorney. What I don't know, and this will come out in the next few days, is how involved her was in the whole Russia disaster, in the Steele dossier, in the wiretaps, in surveilling President Trump. I don't know his involvement or not.

Ben Shapiro (10:53)

But we're gonna find that out.

Ted Cruz (10:54)

We're gonna find out, and it's gonna matter a lot. The fact that he was Rosenstein's right hand is not an encouraging sign.

Ben Shapiro (11:01)

Let's talk about the documents. There's two timelines that I think are extremely important. One, the timeline of how many years these documents were not in a secure location. If you look at the timeline of when the Penn center was even created. There are gaps of years where these documents had to be in other places. I've talked to people that have said they think these documents could have been separated, Some going to his house, to his garage, some going to the Penn Center. They could have been separated multiple times. They could have been also moved multiple times. And I doubt that it was attorneys that were hired every time to move these documents that he didn't know he had, even though they claimed, even this last week, which I think is still absurd. Oh, my attorneys were packing up my office. Attorneys are not traditionally moving companies, but if they were, how many other times did they move these documents? The second timeline is how long did he have these documents from the beginning? Not just that, but also when did everybody know about this? And it was before Election Day. And there wasn't a single leak on this before the midterms.

Ted Cruz (12:06)

Yeah. So the timeline, they've laid out some of the timeline. We'll find out if that timeline is real or not. We don't know right now. But what they are admitting, they claim they first found these documents on November 2nd. Now, November 2nd, if you look at a calendar, is before November 8th, which was election Day. Now, do you think it might have been a problem if when they found them on November 2nd, they had admitted they found them on November 2nd? Sure. There's a reason they didn't tell anyone until after Election Day, because it let the press just focus on and attack Donald Trump. Donald Trump. This is terrible. Look, Biden, how could you be so irresponsible? He, you know, everyone knows you would never leave.

Ben Shapiro (12:54)

In fact, we have one of those Biden clips to remind people. Take a listen. Look at this. This is Biden grandstanding. And this is going to come back to haunt him, I think, for probably the next two years of his presidency, at bare minimum. Take a look at this.

Joe Biden (13:06)

When you saw the photograph of the top secret documents laid out on the floor at Mar a Lago, what did you think to yourself looking at that image, how that could possibly happen? How one, anyone could be that irresponsible? And I thought, what data was in there that may compromise sources and methods? By that I mean, names of people who helped or et cetera. And it just. Totally irresponsible.

Ben Shapiro (13:37)

Now you look at that before, before I get your response. Okay, now let's look at the last question he answered today on this where he was asked like, how could you be so stupid, Mr. President, to have documents literally in your garage? Here it is.

Ted Cruz (13:58)

Classified material next to Your Corvette.

Merrick Garland (14:02)

What were you thinking?

Joe Biden (14:05)

Let me. I'm going to get a chance to speak on all this, God willing, soon. But as I said earlier this week, people, and by the way, my Corvette's in a locked garage, okay? So it's not like you're sitting out in the street. At any rate. Yes, as well as my Corvette. But as I said earlier this week, people know I take classified documents and classified material seriously.

Ben Shapiro (14:28)

No, you don't. They're in your garage, man.

Ted Cruz (14:33)

Ben, all I gotta say is karma's a. Yeah. Like, the Democrats and the press have been grandstanding, have been ridiculing Donald Trump, have been going after him like crazy. At this point, it appears Biden just keeps finding classified documents, first in the Penn center, then in the garage next to the Corvette. By the way, they also said. Not just in the garage, they said, and in the room adjoining the garage. They haven't said what room that is. Now, look, most houses I've been in, what is the room adjoin the garage? A bathroom.

Ben Shapiro (15:11)

Yeah.

Ted Cruz (15:11)

Maybe the washing machine room or an.

Ben Shapiro (15:14)

Outside storage room with outside entry that's not exactly secure.

Ted Cruz (15:18)

Like, I don't know what it is, but I think they don't want to say what it is because, like, the.

Ben Shapiro (15:22)

Other room, it's almost like the basement bathroom. Server, Right?

Ted Cruz (15:25)

For Hillary it is. Maybe that's what's there. Maybe he's got Hillary servers. I don't know. There's some speculation. Look, and then Merrick Garland said, oh, yeah, and they found something else. Like they didn't say where. I don't know if it's like, you know, under his pillow, he sleeps snuggling it. Now, I gotta say, it's a little bit weird. And to be honest, it's weird that Trump has these documents, too. I'm not. Now, I will say past presidents, all of them, have had disputes with the archives over their papers.

Ben Shapiro (15:54)

Yes. They want it for the presidential library. They want it for their story. They want it for their time in office, to show their accomplishments. I, I get that. But to be clear, so people understand this, the vice President cannot declassify anything while they're in office.

Ted Cruz (16:08)

He has zero authority to declassify anything. And listen, I have served in the Senate. I've never served as president or vice president, although I tried damn hard, but I haven't. You know, Joe Biden spent 40 years in the Senate. I can tell you, in the Senate, there is a 0.0% chance that I have a classified document anywhere, because I've never Taken a classified document out of the skiff, like in the Senate, the only place you handle classified documents is in this secure room in the basement of the Senate.

Ben Shapiro (16:42)

And if people missed. Our last podcast, you talked about the scif. We talked about the rules and the regulations and the protections of classified documents so that things like this literally don't happen. Go back and listen that cuz you explained how it works for senators, how it works for people that have top secret clearance, how it works for people that work in our government. And having them in your garage is never an appropriate location.

Ted Cruz (17:05)

Look, when I was at the Department of Justice as an Associate Deputy Attorney General, I had a safe in my office, a big safe that when I had classified documents there, you would put in the safe and you would lock the safe. The executive branch, you encounter more classified documents. So it's less surprising with presidents. It's interesting that Biden as vice President seems to have these classified documents laying around everywhere.

Ben Shapiro (17:36)

One of the leaks said that these documents dealt with Ukraine. Some of these did. One of the leaks said also Iran and possibly China. There's a lot of money that came in from anonymous donors to the Biden Pen center. Forty plus million dollars were being funded.

Ted Cruz (17:50)

Funded by communist China.

Ben Shapiro (17:51)

So.

Ted Cruz (17:52)

Oh, good, you got the docs on China in the place. Funded by the Chinese. That's a good idea.

Ben Shapiro (17:57)

Yeah. And a place that, let's be clear, so people understand it was not considered a secure location. He also obviously went off script. I'm sure his staff is furious that he said, well, it's where my Corvette is and it's locked in my garage. Like, hey, that's a Biden vault here. Everybody calm down. But when. I mean, this is not a secure location. Especially before he became the President again, like there's still people around his house in Delaware now that. Because he's the president. But in this time, I was telling the two timeframes, there was years here where he had no Secret Service protection. No protection at all. Vice presidents don't get protection afterwards. Usually they're pretty much on their own afterwards. He was gone from this residency in Delaware, which means there was no one watching these documents.

Ted Cruz (18:40)

Well, but it was by his Corvette.

Ben Shapiro (18:42)

That's true. So that's safe.

Ted Cruz (18:43)

And I do hope we actually find out where exactly in the garage. Like just in a pile of.

Ben Shapiro (18:50)

Well, even as they showed a campaign ad, and now people are zooming in and there's a little pile of documents. You can see papers and these bags next to where his Corvette is. When he's Pulling the Corvette out of his garage and back in for some campaign purpose he had back in, I think it said 2019.

Ted Cruz (19:07)

So I also gotta say, why are they in his garage with this Corvette? Look, I've read lots of classified documents. I've never seen one that I've said I want to take this home. Now I'm not Sandy Berger. I've never stuffed documents down my pants. So I don't understand how Democrats deal with this. But I don't know why these documents were so special to him that he apparently is hiding them throughout his house. Now listen, let's set aside, we'll see what this special counsel does. This is going to complicate Joe Biden's life, but the person has how much.

Ben Shapiro (19:40)

Is it gonna complicate it? I mean, is this one of those where your agenda gets derailed and this could get nasty because it could connect you as the big guy and these documents. Cuz if these documents that he kept dealt with financial issues or things or decisions by our government that could have a positive impact on his son's financial dealings in Ukraine, Burisma, China and other financial things, some of these documents could have dealt with those issues.

Ted Cruz (20:11)

And if they did, the world of trouble gets vastly larger. Now look, we have no evidence, no indication right now of what's in those documents other than people have leaked that they concerned Iran and the UK and Ukraine. If they concerned Hunter Biden and Burisma.

Ben Shapiro (20:30)

Business deals in Ukraine, the whole world changes.

Ted Cruz (20:32)

If they were documents that are relevant to questions of official corruption by Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, that's a big deal. But we have no indication of that now. So that would change the situation pretty dramatically. Some of this is gonna depend on Robert her and if he is a straightforward by the book prosecutor or if he is part of the deep state that manufactured the Russia case against Donald Trump in the most corrupt way imaginable. If he goes in and his approach to this, look, the Biden Department of Justice, I talk about this in the book Justice Corrupted. They appointed a special counsel to look at Lois Lerner.

Ben Shapiro (21:18)

Yeah.

Ted Cruz (21:18)

And that special counsel was a big Democrat donor who promptly said nothing to see here, all fine. It is possible that this appointment is entirely about optics and his job is just, you know, say well he screwed up but he didn't mean to and everything's fine. Nevermind. That's possible. It's also possible. Look, anytime you have a special counsel that has the potential to balloon and get bigger and bigger and bigger. Bill Clinton learned that Donald Trump learned that there's a long history of special counsels of their jurisdictions growing. And so if that happens, that would be a big deal. But even if none of that happens, this has dramatically complicated Merrick Garland's life. It's dramatically complicated. We've talked on this podcast at length. I believe Merrick Garland wants to criminally charge Donald Trump.

Ben Shapiro (22:14)

Yeah. Does that take this off the table, in essence now?

Ted Cruz (22:17)

Well, we talked before about the reason they leaked that they were going to prosecute Hunter Biden. Now, remember, what they've leaked is they want to prosecute Hunter Biden on his personal crimes that only implicate him and don't implicate his dad. And you and I have talked about that. I think they want to do that as political cover to say, see, we prosecute Hunter Biden, we prosecute Donald Trump. Aren't we even handed. This just changed that whole chessboard. Because it ain't complicated that if both Trump and Biden have classified docs, and suddenly the Biden DOJ says we're prosecuting Trump, but not Biden, Even the lapdogs in the corporate media like that question you can't refrain from asking. And so it's why Merrick Garland looks so miserable, because he's looking down the road, and his plan of what he.

Ben Shapiro (23:11)

Thought he was gonna do just got screwed up.

Ted Cruz (23:13)

And I don't know where this goes. I mean, it really is. And by the way, at this point, it seems every day Biden keeps finding more classified documents.

Ben Shapiro (23:22)

This may not be the end of it.

Ted Cruz (23:23)

It may not be the end. It has dribbled out. Now, it's worth underscoring, Joe Biden and or his team knew about this six days before Election Day. They hid it from the American people. They deliberately hit it for the American people. Now, do I know if Joe Biden knew personally? No, but they're one of two scenarios. One, he knew, which is probably the case.

Ben Shapiro (23:48)

Sure.

Ted Cruz (23:48)

Or two, if he didn't know, the only reason he wouldn't know is if his team deliberately didn't tell him. So he could have plausible deniability and say, I didn't know. Either way, that deception to try to influence the election is really corrupt.

Ben Shapiro (24:09)

It's corrupt on a level that he will now have to be held accountable for if this prosecutor goes somewhere. Let's talk about the job of the special prosecutor quickly.

Ted Cruz (24:18)

And by the way, I will say, look, we're seeing this week, we're seeing suddenly reporters asking real questions at the White House press briefing. We're seeing and not Just reporters from Fox. We're seeing cbs, like, suddenly the corporate media, it's gotten bad enough that they're being forced to do their jobs. That's an important development.

Ben Shapiro (24:42)

Or is it that the useful idiot is no longer useful and they're saying, we really don't want him to run? Democrats clearly were kind of hoping that if there was a bloodbath in the midterms and the Senate was lost and the House was lost, that they would then say, all right, we need a new leader. Right. Don't run for reelection.

Ted Cruz (25:00)

That's a very.

Ben Shapiro (25:01)

Then it was very clear. They were like, well, all right, we gotta stick with them now because they still have the Senate. This could be their moment where they say, all right, let's take our hand off of him. And this may be our way to get rid of him. And I wonder if the Democratic Party's now kind of like, all right, we got through the midterms. We don't want to run them in 2024. We desperately want a new face. We got rid of Pelosi. We got Hakeem Jeffries. This is the makeover, maybe, and the easiest way to make that makeover happen.

Ted Cruz (25:27)

So maybe I will say, if you are a hardcore partisan Democrat, this has been a really bad week.

Ben Shapiro (25:36)

Yeah.

Ted Cruz (25:38)

And if you're a hardcore partisan Democrat who is also a corporate media journalist, which they pretty much all are, you can go after Biden to try to say, okay, it's time to ride off into the sunset. We want the next generation of Democrats to run, but that's a dangerous game. Look, if your president resigns in disgrace or doesn't run in disgrace because they're tarred by scandal, because they're facing criminal prosecution, that ain't good.

Ben Shapiro (26:05)

Yeah.

Ted Cruz (26:06)

It doesn't set well with a guy up for success. Well, to win. And, you know, by the way, all of this is on top of this week. What happened? Well, this week, the FAA screwed up and halted all flights for several hours. First time since September 11th, every fight that's ever happened.

Ben Shapiro (26:28)

But we got good data points from that. Mayor Pete. I'll play this. Mayor Pete, this week, say we got some really good data out of this. Like, this is good news. We're going to be able to overcome this. Take a look.

Reporter (26:38)

Now that the system is up and running, our primary focus is to determine that root cause. And I've directed FAA to figure out exactly how this happened. The timeline, piece by piece, about what was known overnight going into last night and then coming out of it so glitches. Or complications happen all the time. But we can't allow them to ever you to this level of disruption. And we won't ever allow them to lead to a safety problem.

Ben Shapiro (27:08)

Can you promise that? I don't think so. Like, we won't ever let this happen again. But we don't know what happened. And we got some good data points.

Ted Cruz (27:14)

It's almost like being a small town mayor is not really qualifications to run a major cabinet agency when you know.

Ben Shapiro (27:20)

Nothing about the industry.

Ted Cruz (27:21)

Look, you look at Buttigieg's tenure, his first year in office, we had a major supply chain crisis which most people hadn't even focused on what the heck a supply chain was, right? Until the Biden administration screwed it up in the middle of the biggest crisis the Transportation department has ever seen. Pete Buttigieg was on paternity leave and he wasn't at the office. Then we saw just a couple of months ago, we were on the verge of a massive and major rail strike again because the Biden administration had screwed it up. And now, oops, the FAA is not able to keep planes in the air safely. And by the way, the Biden administration, two years in, does not have an FAA administrator in place. They nominated the guy who runs the Denver airport who has no experience with issues dealing with safety and aviation. Look, running an airport is totally different. And by the way, he has major scandal issues, which is part of why the Democrats in the Senate haven't moved him forward and confirmed him, because it's not clear he has the votes to be confirmed. So two years into it, they don't have a head of the faa. That's a problem. It's a competence problem. Oh, and by the way, in the middle of all of this, they also tossed out a trial balloon. Let's ban all gas stoves.

Ben Shapiro (28:46)

Yeah, that was just some random thing initiative that came out there. Like, we don't want you cooking on gas anymore.

Ted Cruz (28:52)

Like, what in the hell? Like, this has been one of those weeks. It's like, okay, you guys, you're coming.

Ben Shapiro (29:01)

Up with some insane things and it's all virtue signaling.

Ted Cruz (29:04)

Can't wait to see what happens next week. All right, as we wrap up, I want to do something just interesting. As I was on my phone and I was looking at different doing research for this show, I stumbled across an article in Britannica that I just thought was interesting, which is the Secret Service code names for US presidents. And I didn't know this, so starting with JFK, JFK's code name.

Ben Shapiro (29:32)

I have no idea. Lancer I gotta figure that one out.

Ted Cruz (29:36)

Richard Nixon. Searchlight.

Ben Shapiro (29:40)

That actually makes sense. Watergate. I get that one.

Ted Cruz (29:43)

Gerald Ford. Pass key.

Ben Shapiro (29:46)

I don't get that one.

Ted Cruz (29:47)

I don't know what that means. Jimmy Carter. You're gonna like this one. Deacon. That's actually pretty good for him.

Ben Shapiro (29:54)

That makes a lot of sense.

Ted Cruz (29:56)

Ronald Reagan.

Ben Shapiro (29:58)

He's got. It's gotta be a good one. It better be a good one because it's Reagan.

Ted Cruz (30:01)

Rawhide.

Ben Shapiro (30:02)

That totally makes sense.

Ted Cruz (30:03)

That's just awesome. George Herbert Walker Bush.

Ben Shapiro (30:07)

41.

Ted Cruz (30:08)

Timberwolf.

Ben Shapiro (30:10)

I'm curious on that one. Does that go back to CIA days?

Ted Cruz (30:13)

I don't know. I don't know the history.

Ben Shapiro (30:15)

Yeah.

Ted Cruz (30:15)

Bill Clinton.

Ben Shapiro (30:17)

I've got a lot, but I'm sure I'm gonna be wrong on all of them.

Ted Cruz (30:19)

Horndog.

Ben Shapiro (30:20)

Okay. Perfect. God. I knew I was right.

Ted Cruz (30:22)

No. Okay. That's not right. That's fake news.

Ben Shapiro (30:26)

Okay.

Ted Cruz (30:26)

It was actually. Eagle. Bush 43.

Ben Shapiro (30:29)

Yep.

Ted Cruz (30:29)

Trailblazer.

Ben Shapiro (30:31)

I like that one.

Ted Cruz (30:32)

Obama.

Ben Shapiro (30:34)

I have a feeling they're gonna up his ante just cuz it was Obama.

Ted Cruz (30:37)

Renegade.

Ben Shapiro (30:38)

There you go.

Ted Cruz (30:39)

Trump.

Ben Shapiro (30:40)

This one is probably, I would assume, bad, but maybe they gave him something decent at the beginning of his administration.

Ted Cruz (30:47)

Mogul.

Ben Shapiro (30:48)

That's totally accurate.

Ted Cruz (30:50)

And Joe Biden document. Celtic.

Ben Shapiro (30:55)

Celtic. They should have at least got with Corvette.

Ted Cruz (30:57)

Actually don't know if it's Celtic or Celtic, but it's spelled Celtic.

Ben Shapiro (31:01)

One of the two.

Ted Cruz (31:02)

It's.

Ben Shapiro (31:03)

Maybe he's a Boston fan in Delaware.

Ted Cruz (31:05)

You know, he's leaning in on the Irish. So that's not particularly relevant to the pod today. I just saw that and thought it was interesting and I figured the folks listening to the pod would too.

Ben Shapiro (31:14)

I like it. Always bringing up the fun stuff like that. Senator, this is going to be a big story. We're going to be covering it. We'll have another pod come out on Monday. Don't forget if you have not hit that subscribe or auto download button, especially if you're watching the video version. We have two audio versions that come out every week. So make sure that you download or subscribe. It's free. You'll get all three episodes in the audio form. We do this one obviously once a week, video and audio. So if you're watching on YouTube or Facebook, make sure you listen to our other episodes and we will see you back here for the next verdict with Senator Ted Cruz on Monday.