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- [00:00]
Michael Knowles
Russian lawmakers have given Vladimir Putin the right to use military force in Ukraine. Putin has used that authority, ordering troops to break away regions from Ukraine, the independence of which he has now recognized, throwing into question the very sovereignty of Ukraine. And the best that the leader of the free world, Joe Biden, can muster is a feeble Come on man. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
- [00:27]
Ted Cruz
Foreign.
- [00:35]
Michael Knowles
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- [01:46]
Liz Wheeler
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- [04:10]
Michael Knowles
Welcome back to VERDICT with Ted Cruz. I am Michael Knowles. Senator, we often joke and say, I hate to say I told you so. And then we talk about things that we predicted on this show for weeks and weeks and months and months. I think this would be an example of actually hating to say we told you so. You have been on this issue of Russia's aggression, specifically with regard to Ukraine, specifically with regard to the issue, for instance, of Nord Stream 2 for months, really for years at this point. And things are playing out, basically exactly as you said they would.
- [04:42]
Ted Cruz
Well, tragically, that's right. I mean, we are at the outset of war in Europe. You know, a couple of weeks ago, we had a classified briefing with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, where, in the judgment of our military, Europe is in the most perilous situation since 1945. It is. We are facing. The Russian Duma has authorized Putin to invade Ukraine. Putin, in turn, has given the order to invade Ukraine. And there's a cause and effect. The direct cause of war in Europe is Joe Biden and Joe Biden's weakness twofold. Number one, Afghanistan. And we've talked on this pod a lot about the disaster that was the Afghan retreat, the Afghan surrender, surrendering Afghanistan to the Taliban, leaving Americans behind. The weakness, the chaos. And unfortunately, every enemy of America took a measure of the man in the Oval Office when that happened. They took a measure of Joe Biden, and they determined that Biden was weak and feckless and ineffective. And as you'll recall on this podcast and publicly, I said multiple times when that disastrous withdrawal of Afghanistan happened, that the odds of Russia invading Ukraine had increased tenfold, and also the odds of China invading Taiwan had increased tenfold. We're seeing the first of those two shoes drop right now. I am very concerned. We'll see the second of those shoes drop in the coming months. But let's focus on Russia and Ukraine right now. Biden's weakness, overall weakness was a major factor. But then secondly, specifically, Biden's waiver of sanctions on Nord Stream 2 is what facilitated this invasion. You know, at that briefing, it was one Democratic senator stood up and asked, why didn't Putin invade Ukraine in 2017? Why didn't Putin invade Ukraine in 2018 or 2019 or 2020? I have to admit, I and a number of other senators just began laughing because it's. And the bizarre thing is this Democrat didn't seem to realize, didn't seem to get the joke. And the answer is simple. Putin didn't do it because he feared President Trump. He feared a strong president who would stand up to him. And by the way, stand up to him doesn't mean send in troops. That's one of the frustrating things about how this is discussed is sometimes the media says, well, gosh, you know, we don't want to go to war with Russia. That's exactly right. Only a lunatic would want American troops to be in a shooting war with Russia. But there are all sorts of tools that America has short of sending the Marines that constrain Russian aggression. And the most effective when it comes to stopping the invasion of Ukraine was the sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that I authored, that I passed with overwhelming bipartisan majorities that Trump signed into law. And Putin literally stopped constructing that pipeline the day that Trump signed my sanctions legislation into law. He began building it again January 24th of 2021, four days after Biden came into power. Why? Because Biden projected weakness. And that weakness manifested last summer when Biden formally waived the sanctions on Nord Stream 2. And the reason it matters, you might be sitting here and regular folks, regular listeners of this podcast will know, but you might wonder, well, what does a pipeline have to do with Ukraine? Well, the problem is Russia's main export is natural gas and oil. And the natural gas goes on pipelines right through Ukraine. If they invade Ukraine, they risk destroying or damaging that infrastructure. That's why they wanna build Nord Stream 2 to go around Ukraine, right, so they can invade. And Biden has let Putin do that, which is why Russian tanks and Russian soldiers are on the borders and in the process of invading as we speak.
- [08:49]
Michael Knowles
And Putin is entirely reliant on exporting energy. So the pipeline really matters. This brings up two points, actually. One, as you've just pointed out, there's a real irony that Trump, who we were told was basically a KGB stooge, it was like Boris and Natasha and Trump in Rocky and Bullwinkle. Donald Trump is now the only president among the last four presidents on whose watch. Vladimir Putin has not invaded a sovereign country. During George W. Bush, he invaded Georgia and Bush repelled that. Obama, he invades Crimea. Trump, he basically just leaves things as they are. And then under Biden, now he's going even further. But then this raises this question, which is, forgive me, I am just being the devil's advocate here. Does Vladimir Putin have a point? He made his grand speech giving the pretext for war in Ukraine and he made a ton of points, historical claims, a ton of political claims, he made a ton of security claims about Russia. Those were basically the three facets of the speech. And it is mind boggling that this two bit leader of a backwater former superpower that is now just a petrol state that's just basically surviving on whether gas and energy prices are above a certain threshold, that this guy is basically eating our lunch right now here in the West. How is he doing it?
- [10:15]
Ted Cruz
Well, he's doing it because of presidential weakness. He's doing it because Biden is scared to stand up to him and Look, Putin senses weakness and he's a bully. He is a KGB thug. The speech he gave is an hour long speech and I have to say, it's ominous. I've read it, read it front to back twice. It is a speech worth examining closely because it lays out precisely what his ambitions are. You know, we've talked on the POD before about how Putin has been very candid, saying that he considers the dissolution of the Soviet Union to be the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century. This speech goes bolder than that. He actually goes back, even prior to the Soviet Union, to the Russian Empire of 1922. He goes back a century and it's amazing. He walks through and there's an enormous amount of revisionist history in this speech. But look, you have to give. Russian propagandists are very good at what they do. This is a meticulously researched speech. It is an alternative history of the world, but under the alternative history of the world, it's actually quite amazing. Putin lays out that he thinks that Lenin and Stalin are squishes. They're too soft, they're too general, that they allowed too much freedom. You know, it's really quite stunning. And going through it, he talks about the Bolsheviks, who, you know, he says, why was it necessary to appease the nationalists, to satisfy the ceaselessly growing nationalist ambitions on the outskirts of the foreign empire? And he goes on to say, at first glance, this looks absolutely incomprehensible, even crazy, but you have to understand, after the revolution, the Bolsheviks main goal was to stay in power at all costs. Lenin's principles of state development were not just a mistake, they were worse than a mistake. And this became patently clear after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. So he goes on to say the Bolsheviks, Lenin and Stalin afterwards, who he said was implementing Lenin's principles, allowed too much freedom, right?
- [12:36]
Michael Knowles
He said Stalin was a little bit better, right? He said Lenin was terrible and a big squish. Stalin was a little bit better, but he didn't change the philosophy enough. So now Putin wants to go further than Stalin.
- [12:48]
Ted Cruz
He wants to go further than Stalin, he wants to go further than Lenin and he wants to. Look, I gotta tell you, in Europe, people are freaking out about this speech and they're freaking out that these are the rantings of a madman. And it's. He wants. Putin wants to reassemble the Soviet Union, to reassemble the Russian Empire. He longs for glory, he longs for power. When he looks at Russia today, he misses that. Russia is no longer a superpower. One of my favorite phrases for Russia is what John McCain used to call them, a gas station with a country attached. That really is the case. They don't have the economic might, but what they do have is they have a military, they have nuclear weapons, and they use the revenue from Putin's being a petro tyrant to fund their military and to threaten their neighbors. And listen, what Putin lays out in this speech is a justification for invading Ukraine, but not just Ukraine. It's a justification for invading much of Eastern Europe. It's a justification for invading Poland, for invading Finland, for invading the Baltics. He longs for all the land that was ever connected in any way for Russia a hundred years ago. He longs to forcibly reassemble that. And that is really damn dangerous for Europe and for America. The Soviet Union was a dire threat, and Putin wants the Soviet Union only stronger and more powerful this time.
- [14:28]
Michael Knowles
Now, he makes the claim here, as we've been talking about. He has the first bit, which is about history, and he's getting a little creative, perhaps, with his history.
- [14:37]
Ted Cruz
Look, this is so bad, it would make the 1619 project blush. It is that revisionist look. It is literally Russian propaganda. Right? Right.
- [14:48]
Michael Knowles
But he saves, I think, the best propaganda for the third part because he moves into the second part. He points out that Ukraine is a very corrupt oligarchy. That's true. I don't think anybody really disputes that. Then he gets to the third part, and he says, the US did this, NATO did this because the United States promised. And the Russian propaganda agencies clearly have been pushing this now for a couple of weeks because it turned up in Der Spiegel, the German newspaper, and they said there was an agreement made in 1990, 1991, the United States assured the then collapsing Soviet Union that in exchange for Germany's reunification, the Soviet Union or whatever exists of it anymore, is gonna let Germany come back together. In exchange for that, the United States is not going to expand NATO eastward. And I knew it was Russian propaganda at the time when I saw it in Der Spiegel, and now we know it is because it's in Putin's speech. But Putin has a point here. If it is the case, as it seems to be, that the US Promised that NATO would not expand eastward, then as we have broken that apparent promise, does Russia have a legitimate security concern to say, look, if NATO's gonna move toward the east, then we need to go INV our neighbors?
- [16:01]
Ted Cruz
Well, number one, Putin doesn't point to any evidence for this alleged promise. There certainly is no treaty to that effect. The way America makes promises is through treaties. The Soviet Union didn't break up out of kindness and goodwill towards us. The Soviet Union broke up because we won the Cold War. The Soviet Union broke up because we defeated the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union broke up because we were bankrupting their economy. The Soviet Union broke up because Ronald Reagan had the courage and vision to stand up. You know, go back to the 70s. In the 70s you had conventional wisdom in foreign policy among all Democrats and most Republicans is that you should engage in mealy mouthed ambiguity towards the Soviet Union. That the Soviet Union was unstoppable, it was unbeatable. And there was this crazy cowboy in California named Ronald Reagan. And when Reagan became president, he referred to the Soviet Union as an evil empire. And all of the intelligentsia were shocked. He said, Marxism, Leninism will end up on the ash heap of history again. All of the educated elite said that's terrible. You can't say that all of our professors were Marxists. How can that possibly be? That I'm paraphrasing. But you know, he spoke with absolute clarity. They asked him what's your objective in the Cold War? Now remember Nixon said detente, which I've joked detente is French for surrender. You know, we just want to hold them to a stalemate because. And Reagan had the absolute effrontery to say the goal's very simple. We win, they lose. People gasped. And when Reagan stood in front of the Brandenburg gate and said, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. That clarity combined with missile defense. Reagan invested in sdi Strategic Defense Initiative called Star Wars. The American economy was so powerful the Soviets couldn't keep up and so they broke up because they couldn't stay together. We didn't give them any concessions. And NATO is the most successful military alliance in modern history. But what does Putin want? Putin wants to reassemble the Soviet Union. He wants to break up NATO. And this invasion is a major objective here is breaking up NATO. He also wants to end missile defense. And it's one of the things he talks about in the speech that America keeps installing missile defense sites and we don't want missile defense. So let's pause, let's talk about what happens next. Cuz it's important to understand what's gonna play out in the coming days and weeks. So where this fight is engaged is a region of Ukraine called Donbass. And I'm holding here a map. I don't know how clear it's gonna come through, but I'M holding up a map of Ukraine and you can see the Donbass region is the eastern portion of Ukraine and it's two different regions. One's called the Donetsk region and the other's called the Luhansk region. And if you look at those two regions, there's a portion of those regions that are controlled by Russian separatists and have been controlled by essentially Russian militia that the Russians have been putting in place. That's sort of the darker portion of this map. The lighter portion of this map is not controlled by Russian separatists. What happened was the Russian separatists in those two regions declared independence for the entire region. Once they declared independence, these are militia effectively controlled by Russia. Then what happened was the Russian Duma, the parliament, authorized Putin to go defend the independent regions. Putin recognized them and the Dumas said, you're authorized to defend them. And so Putin is calling the troops that he's sending in to invade Ukraine peacekeepers. And this is an old Soviet trick. This is not the first time he's being perfectly shameless in saying, oh, well, we're just going to defend the persecuted and we're peacekeepers. I think we will see in the coming days Russian troops invading the Donbas region. But I think there is a very real risk that they won't stop there, that they will continue throughout the remainder of Ukraine. They will continue up to Kyiv, the capital city. You know, in this speech, Putin goes on at length and says, Ukraine is not a real country. This is not. He talks about the revolution. So in 2014, there was a revolution from the people. Ukraine had as its head of state Yanukovych, who was a Russian puppet. And there were massive protests against this Russian puppet. The corruption, they didn't like Ukraine being subject to Russia's control. And what happened? The Maiden Square, which is in Kiev, you had thousands of thousands of protesters standing up and you had the Ukrainian police that were controlled by the Russians at that time, shooting them. Shooting. Over 100 people were murdered by snipers. You know, I went to Kiev in 2014 after this happened and walked through the maiden square. A 16 year old girl who had been one of the protesters led me through the Maiden Square, showed me where compatriots of hers, protestors were standing and where they'd been shot by snipers and murdered. And you could still see the bloodstains on the ground where they had murdered the protesters. But what happened? It led to a revolution in Ukraine, which Putin calls a coup d'etat because suddenly he didn't control Ukraine Anymore. Instead, it elected its own leader. So I met with Poroshenko, who was the new leader then. It was actually called the Chocolate King. My girls were very excited that I was meeting with someone named the Chocolate King, but it was because he was a candy maker, not because he was in fact Willy Wonka. But you look at this speech is laying out that all of history in Ukraine, of independent governance, governance that wants to be allied with the west, with Europe, with America, all of that is illegitimate. And Putin is the liberator and the peacekeeper. And you know, it's interesting, this speech. Why did he give an hour long, meticulously researched revisionist history speech? I will say this. Putin has learned one lesson of the Cold War, which is the intellectual foundation that Reagan laid out help lead the predicate for winning the Cold War. And I think Putin is fighting very hard to lay out a counter narrative that sadly there are useful idiots in the west who will echo.
- [23:06]
Michael Knowles
No, this is something to that exact point. It hadn't occurred to me until you said it. But he lays out that reasoning in the speech itself. Right. He says the intellectual foundation for the Soviet Union created by Lenin and then not amended by Stalin, led to our voluntary or inevitable collapse. Right. He says, you didn't beat us. It wasn't the republics, they didn't actually win independence or breakaway. It was a problem of the Communist Party logic in the Soviet Union because of that intellectual foundation. So now I'm creating a new intellectual foundation here for why we've got to gobble up our neighbors. But then this question remains, and it's for a lot of people in the west who don't know where Kiev is, who don't know where Lviv is, who don't probably don't know where Ukraine is. And really nor should they, I suppose in their day to day, they probably don't think about this that much, which is why do we care? Do we want NATO to be in these Eastern European states? Do we care if Vladimir. I mean, we care maybe at a moral level, but do we care at a, you know, politics is full of all sorts of terrible things. Do we care if Putin gobbles up his neighbors? Is this a threat to the US national interest?
- [24:14]
Ted Cruz
So it is. And Michael, it's a great question and I will say some Republicans who speak about this, when they speak, I want to jump out a window because they talk about this sort of amorphous need to protect democracy across the globe and it's complete garbage. That is not our focus should be protecting US national security, not we are not just world policemen. We are not protecting democracy wherever it occurs. But it is in our interest for enemies of America, people that want to defeat America, not to get much, much stronger and more able to inflict damage on America. The Soviet Union's collapse was one of the greatest victories for world peace, but also for American national security that we've ever seen. Russia is much, much less dangerous than the Soviet Union was. Russia is much, much less powerful than the Soviet Union was. That's why Putin's unhappy. He wants the danger. He wants the power. He wants the threat to America of the Soviet Union. That is also why we should not want that. We want to keep Putin relatively weak because he harbors. I gotta say, you read this speech, and it is reminiscent of early speeches of Hitler. And look, in politics, there are far too many analogies to Hitler. I think you always have to be cautious. But you look at Hitler when he's talking about needing growing room, needing living space for Germany, and it's the same sort of wild ambition. I mean, going back, rehashing wrongs, perceived wrongs from a century ago that, you know, repeatedly in this speech, Putin refers to what he calls the virus of nationalism, by the way. That's the Poles wanting to be part of Poland and not subject to his dictatorship. That's the people in Estonia not wanting to be subject to his dictatorship. That is simply countries wanting to govern themselves and people wanting to be free. He calls that a virus and a disease. And it is. There is a grandiosity to this that is frightening. Now, here's what there's a very good chance we'll play out, that in the coming days, Putin will invade the Donbas regions, that under the pretense of being a peacekeeper, that he will manufacture a pretense to continue invading Ukraine, to go all the way to Kiev, that once he seizes control of the nation, I expect Putin to then try to negotiate, to leave, to formally say we're going to withdraw. But the condition of withdraw is we want to put a puppet in place. They want someone like Yanukovych back in place. So they'll even say, look, there's a new Ukrainian leader. He just reports to Putin, like Belarus, which is basically a puppet state of Russia, that they want Ukraine to be the same. But I think even more than that, and Putin lays this out in the speech, he is going to want major concessions from Joe Biden and from NATO. Concessions like withdraw troops from NATO. Concessions like limit or prohibit exercises in Eastern Europe. Concessions like limit or prohibit missiles or anti missile batteries from Eastern Europe. And I gotta say, given Biden's pattern of weakness, I think there's a very real risk that Biden will surrender and literally pay Putin to withdraw after he invades and puts a puppet government in place under his control.
- [28:02]
Michael Knowles
That is a very sad, unfortunate outcome. I wish that there were more hope for the way the situation plays out, but unfortunately, you have predicted this pretty well. I really. I'm not just flattering you people can go back to the previous episodes. This whole experience in Ukraine has played out as we were discussing on this show. We should note for the listeners we're speaking right now, it's Tuesday evening. Obviously the events are changing hour by hour in Ukraine, but that would appear to be the script.
- [28:39]
Ted Cruz
So, Michael, let me do briefly say what Biden should do. You noted it's Tuesday evening. So I don't know what's going to happen tonight or tomorrow. But here's what Biden should do today. Right now, he should immediately rescind his waiver of the Nord Stream 2 sanctions. Now, one of the things that played out today is Germany announced that they were suspending Nord Stream 2. The problem is Putin doesn't believe that Germany has been so weak on this that he fully expects that as part of negotiating the withdrawal that they'll turn Nord Stream 2 on. And so that this is just a momentary delay. Biden. And he doesn't believe Biden either. Both Biden and Germany have demonstrated empty promises over and over again. So Putin is laughing at. Okay, fine, you suspended it briefly, sure, when I come in and invade Ukraine. And what, you're gonna let your people freeze to death? No, you're going to turn the pipeline on because I'm gonna have all the leverage. Biden should immediately revoke his waiver of the sanctions that would impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2AG, which is the umbrella company that owns and operates Nord Stream 2. But secondly, Congress should pass legislation that I've introduced that we voted on just a few weeks ago that I got a big bipartisan majority of Congress to vote for the Senate. The vote was 55 to 44. So six Democrats voted with me, but the Democrats filibustered it. They demanded 60, ironically, while they were simultaneously giving speeches calling the filibuster a racist relic of Jim Crow. That same day, they were filibustering to protect Russia from sanctions. But we ought to pass that legislation that takes away Joe Biden's ability to waive these sanctions. You wanna talk about the only thing that I think has a prayer of Stopping Putin, even this might not work. He's so far along that there may not be anything that can be done to stop it. But the only thing that has a chance of stopping it is imposing the sanctions right now and Congress acting to say, you know what, Biden doesn't have the ability to waive these. In other words, these sanctions are going to be a permanent factor. We're not turning on Nord Stream 2. That would be the right thing to do. And by the way, both the leadership of Ukraine and the leadership of Poland have explicitly asked us to do that. They've told us, if you want to stop the invasion, sanction Nord Stream 2 immediately. As you know, I've got holds on a bunch of State Department nominees. I've repeatedly offered to the Biden White House, if you revoke the waiver, if you impose the sanctions, I'll lift my holds. I can tell you I'm extending that offer right now. Impose the sanctions, I'll lift my holds. At this point right now, A, Putin is complaining Stalin wasn't tough enough and B, Biden is being wimpier on, on, on Putin than Germany. Both of those are absurd positions. I, I, I hope, I hope there is some reasonableness and we see the Biden White House stop this fecklessness that has produced chaos and war in Europe.
- [32:04]
Michael Knowles
I'm really glad you mentioned the second part too, Senator, because as you were telling me, listen, here's what Congress should do once the sanctions go in, let's hope we get some sanctions, then they're in place. Congress needs to go in, though, and make sure that Biden can't take away those sanctions. And this has me thinking, well, why would the Democrats go along with that? Why would Democrats willingly limit Joe Biden's power? Sure, maybe they'll have some solidarity in the Senate or something, but probably not. Probably this is gonna break down on partisan lines. The Democrats have no reason to do it. But you're offering something tangible. Yeah, you're saying you've got a lot of Joe Biden State Department nominees, you've got holds on them. You're dragging this process out ad infinitum, it seems like. And you can release those holds if we get the sanctions and, or if we get legislation that does not allow Biden to remove the sanctions.
- [32:53]
Ted Cruz
So that's exactly right. And so that's certainly a carrot that's sweetener. But there's another factor, which is almost every single Senate Democrat thinks Biden is wrong on Nord Stream 2. They've all given speeches blasting Nord Stream 2, the Senate Democrats, every Democrat has voted in favor of my sanctions twice. In 2019 and 2020. 100% of them, every single Democrat. The only difference was the president then had an R behind his name instead of a D. And so when Donald Trump was president, by the way, if Trump had been reelected and I filed my sanctions legislation, they'd all vote for it again in a heartbeat. And they'd give speeches about how Trump loves Russia. The only thing that changed is instead of a Republican, you have Joe Biden. And when 44 Democrats voted no on the sanctions, not a single Democrat put forward even one substantive defense of the waiver of sanctions. I mean, I went to the Senate floor for hours laying out the case, giving speeches. Nobody objected. They said, we don't like your holds. We don't like your tactic. Okay, fine. You don't like my tactic. I'm trying to use whatever leverage I can to stop a generational national security blunder. But privately, Democrat after Democrat, they say to me, I don't know why he's doing this. This doesn't make any sense. The political capital that they spent surrendering to Russia was insane. And I'll make two quick points on that. The day we voted on my Nord Stream 2 sanctions bill, a few weeks ago, Joe Biden personally came to the Senate, to Capitol Hill, to lobby Democratic senators to vote against sanctions on Russia. That doesn't happen. I think it's the second time since he's been president that Biden has come to the Hill.
- [34:51]
Michael Knowles
Right.
- [34:52]
Ted Cruz
It is really unusual. I had two Democratic senators who told me they were gonna vote with me, who both voted against me, who both told me. They said, ted, this was a direct ask. Biden asked, as a favor, a personal favor, would we vote with him? And we did. It was stunning. And to show you just how much Democrats realize they're wrong, all four Democrats in vulnerable states that are on the ballot in November, all four of them voted with me. So you had Mark Kelly in Arizona voted with me. You had Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada voted with me. You had Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire voted with me. You even had Raphael Warnock in Georgia vote with me. Raphael Warnock is one of the most liberal members of the Senate. What's interesting is in Nevada, Jackie Rosen, the other Nevada Democrat, also voted with me, I guess, to provide cover for Cortez Masto, because she was voting with me. I guess Rosen voted the same way. What I found fascinating was the Democrats in Georgia and New Hampshire and Arizona didn't provide cover. For their colleagues that were voting. But the fact that every vulnerable D on the ballot voted with me and against waiving sanctions on Russia shows they know Biden's wrong. And it's a facet I think. I spoke with a Democratic senator today urging this is a way out. Look, revoke the sanctions, I'll lift the hold. But one of the reasons that ought, in a reasonable and rational world that should be appealing to them is it gets them somewhat out of this mess that Biden's own mistakes have created.
- [36:41]
Michael Knowles
Senator, that is a hopeful note to end on, but there's a lot more to talk about, of course, which is why you are going to be going straight from this. You've gone straight from the Capitol, straight from the big fight that's actually going on in the Senate playing out, you know, all the way around the other side of the world to this studio here where we can talk about it and lay it out for ordinary people to make sense of what's going on. Then you're going to the Cloak Room, which is your series with Liz Wheeler over at the Verdict plus Community. Liz, what are you going to be talking about?
- [37:15]
Liz Wheeler
Hi, Michael. Hi, Senator. Yeah, we have a really interesting, really nerdy topic to talk about today on the Cloakroom. I'm actually very, very excited about this. We're going to be talking about CryptoCurrenc because of some of the events that have been happening in Canada, particularly in the UK this is maybe an underreported story, the debate that's happening in the United Kingdom right now about government controlled cryptocurrency. So we're going to dive into some of the details of this story and how that could very easily happen here in the United States and how to prevent that. As always, you can join us for this new series, the Cloak Room on Verdict on, of course, verdict. That's verdictwithtedcruise.com I have a promo code for you as well. Use the promo code Cloakroom and you get one month free on an annual subscription verdict with TedCruise.com plus come on over and join us. This is gonna be a great episode.
- [38:08]
Michael Knowles
That's really important. One, because if we go into World War iii, then I'm gonna want a more reliable asset. And two, even if we don't descend into World War three, Joe Biden has so devalued my dollar that I need alternative investment. So I wanna learn more about crypto. I really look forward to checking that out. Thank you, Liz. Senator, I can't wait to tune in. We'll see you over there. In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom, and Security pac, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations, and candidates across the country. In 2022, jobs, freedom, and Security PAC plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.