Race In America: Wesley Hunt joins us, plus Biden docs, Balloons & Immigration

Summary

Podcast Summary: The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
Episode: Race In America: Wesley Hunt joins us, plus Biden docs, Balloons & Immigration
Release Date: February 17, 2023

Hosted by Ben Ferguson on Premiere Networks, "The 47 Morning Update" delves into the latest political developments, offering unfiltered insights and exclusive interviews. In this episode, Ferguson engages in a comprehensive discussion with Senator Ted Cruz and newly elected Congressman Wesley Hunt, addressing critical topics ranging from President Biden's handling of classified documents to the intricate dynamics of race and politics in America.

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1. Investigation into President Biden's Classified Documents

Timestamp: 00:00 - 03:21

The episode opens with Ben Ferguson highlighting a significant development concerning President Biden’s handling of classified documents. Ferguson references a previous call for the FBI to investigate the storage of Biden's Senate documents at the University of Delaware. Sen. Ted Cruz elaborates on the scope, stating, "The University of Delaware has Biden's Senate documents... it consists of over 1,850 boxes of documents" (01:36). This revelation emerged after Cruz and Ferguson advocated for a thorough FBI investigation, leading to actual FBI searches of the university's archives on at least two occasions.

2. President Biden’s Admission on Classified Documents

Timestamp: 03:21 - 07:08

Ben Ferguson brings attention to a recent admission by President Biden regarding classified documents. Biden was questioned about the timeline of some documents, to which Cruz criticizes Biden’s vague response: "His word was some pages of classified documents may date back to his first years in office. That's now we're talking about a 50-year window here" (05:18). Cruz emphasizes the improbability of Biden having documents from his vast political career scattered across various locations, urging for a meticulous review of all 1,850 boxes to ensure thoroughness.

3. The Chinese Balloons Incident and National Security Concerns

Timestamp: 07:08 - 21:56

A substantial portion of the discussion focuses on the unsettling incident involving unidentified objects, presumed to be Chinese balloons, that were shot down by the U.S. Air Force. Ferguson criticizes the White House’s handling of the situation, pointing out the inconsistent statements: "We're shooting down random stuff... we're overreacting" (05:47). Cruz elaborates on the national security implications, expressing concern over the administration’s apparent weakness against China: "They're weak on China because they're in bed with China" (09:56).

The conversation includes skepticism about the legitimacy of the objects shot down, with references to amateur hobbyist balloons potentially being mistaken for espionage devices. Cruz remarks, "We're shooting down a frigging balloon, launched by a high school science club... that is bizarre" (09:48). The hosts critique the administration's public relations approach, highlighting the lack of clarity and the potential overreach in military responses.

4. DEA Hearing on Drug Trafficking and Border Security

Timestamp: 15:40 - 22:11

Senator Cruz shifts the discussion to a recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing involving the DEA Administrator, who deflects responsibility by deferring questions about border security to the Department of Homeland Security. Cruz aggressively questions the Administrator on whether the influx of drugs, particularly fentanyl, is a direct result of President Biden’s immigration policies. He asserts, "Is it a good thing for them to have tens of billions of dollars now that they didn't have? Hell, no" (18:31).

The Administrator remains evasive, prompting Cruz to label her responses as "Cold and unhelpful." The discussion underscores the administration’s perceived failure to adequately address the surge in drug trafficking and its economic ramifications for Mexican cartels. Cruz criticizes the denial of the correlation between open borders and the increase in drug-related crises, emphasizing the dire consequences for American communities.

5. Introduction of Congressman Wesley Hunt: Race and Media Bias

Timestamp: 22:11 - 34:00

The episode takes a pivotal turn as Senator Cruz introduces Congressman Wesley Hunt, a West Point graduate and one of the few black Republicans in Congress. Hunt shares his experiences navigating a predominantly Democratic media landscape that often marginalizes or misrepresents minority Republicans. He states, "This is not about race. This is an issue of public safety..." (28:41), addressing the conflation of race with policy issues by the Democratic Party.

Hunt articulates the challenges faced by black Republicans, noting the media's reluctance to highlight black excellence within the GOP. He criticizes the narrative that equates Republican positions with racism, arguing that such portrayals undermine legitimate conservative policies aimed at community upliftment and public safety. The conversation touches upon the historical context of party affiliations, with Cruz and Hunt asserting that the Democratic Party has historically marginalized minorities despite its current progressive stance.

6. Affirmative Action and Historical Party Dynamics

Timestamp: 34:00 - 49:00

Senator Cruz delves into the contentious issue of affirmative action, drawing from his personal experiences in law school where he opposed policies favoring minorities. He recounts a debate where a liberal advocate for affirmative action claimed, "If we end affirmative action, the Law Review will be nothing but white men" (57:12). Cruz vehemently disagrees, emphasizing meritocracy and the destructive nature of preferential treatment based on race.

Wesley Hunt echoes these sentiments, advocating for individual effort over systemic interventions. Both speakers criticize the Democratic Party's historical and present-day policies, arguing that they perpetuate dependency and inhibit true progress within minority communities. They highlight the shift in party ideologies over the decades, pointing out that Democrats once opposed civil rights legislation and now claim to champion minority rights, creating a dissonant narrative that confuses and alienates voters.

7. The Cadet Act and Reforming Service Academy Policies

Timestamp: 49:00 - 63:19

In a collaborative effort, Senator Cruz and Congressman Hunt discuss the passage of the Cadet Act, a bipartisan bill aimed at reforming policies at U.S. Service Academies concerning cadets who become pregnant. Cruz outlines the problematic choices previously offered to pregnant cadets—abortion, adoption, or withdrawal from the academy—and lauds the Cadet Act for allowing cadets to retain parental rights while continuing their education and service. He states, "It was idiotic policy... we could get Democrats and Republicans to come together" (60:36).

Hunt shares personal anecdotes about the negative impact of the old policies, recounting stories of cadets forced into hard choices that disrupted their lives and careers. Both legislators emphasize the importance of legislative action in rectifying institutional injustices, highlighting the transformative potential of bipartisan cooperation in addressing sensitive and impactful issues.

8. Conclusion: The Intersection of Race, Policy, and Media

Timestamp: 63:19 - End

The episode concludes with reflections on the ongoing struggle against media bias and the misrepresentation of minority Republicans. Hunt underscores the importance of representing diverse conservative voices to challenge prevailing narratives: "Black excellence is black excellence, even if you are a Republican" (33:27). Cruz and Hunt reiterate their commitment to upholding conservative values while addressing systemic issues within minority communities.

Senator Cruz praises the collaborative spirit and the significance of having new voices like Hunt in Congress, emphasizing that true progress requires confronting and dismantling entrenched biases both within political parties and the media. The discussion serves as a call to action for conservatives to actively participate in reshaping the political discourse around race and policy, ensuring that meritocracy and individual effort remain at the forefront of American progress.

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Notable Quotes:

• "The University of Delaware has Biden's Senate documents... it consists of over 1,850 boxes of documents."
  - Ted Cruz (01:36)

• "We’re shooting down random stuff... we're overreacting."
  - Ben Shapiro (05:47)

• "Is it a good thing for them to have tens of billions of dollars now that they didn't have? Hell, no."
  - Ted Cruz (18:31)

• "Black excellence is black excellence, even if you are a Republican."
  - Wesley Hunt (33:27)

• "The Democrat Party founded the Ku Klux Klan."
  - Ted Cruz (39:20)

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Key Takeaways:

1. Accountability in Government: The discussion underscores the necessity for thorough investigations into the handling of classified documents by high-ranking officials, emphasizing transparency and accountability.

2. National Security Concerns: The handling of unidentified aerial objects reflects broader anxieties about national security and the effectiveness of current defense strategies against potential espionage threats.

3. Drug Trafficking and Policy Failures: The episode highlights the dire consequences of perceived lax immigration policies on drug trafficking, calling for more robust measures to combat the rise of powerful cartels.

4. Race and Political Representation: Introducing Congressman Wesley Hunt brings to light the challenges faced by minority Republicans in a predominantly Democratic media landscape, advocating for broader representation and recognition of black conservatism.

5. Historical Context of Party Politics: A critical examination of the Democratic Party's historical stance on race issues challenges contemporary narratives, suggesting a need to revisit and reassess the evolution of party ideologies.

6. Legislative Reforms for Equity: The successful passage of the Cadet Act exemplifies the potential for bipartisan cooperation in addressing and rectifying institutional injustices, promoting fairness and inclusion within military academies.

7. Meritocracy vs. Affirmative Action: The debate around affirmative action emphasizes the tension between meritocratic principles and policies designed to address systemic inequalities, advocating for individual effort and responsibility.

This episode of "The 47 Morning Update" provides a robust platform for discussing pivotal issues at the intersection of race, policy, and media influence, encouraging listeners to engage critically with the current political landscape.

Transcript

[Ben Shapiro]

A big victory. And it involves the University of Delaware that we called for an investigation right here on this podcast. Plus, we're going to get you the latest update on the Chinese balloons and the president finally talking about it weeks later. Plus, we've got a very special guest with us. It's Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz. Senator, good to be with you today. For everyone watching this podcast, there's a reason why your comfortable chair is missing. We have a guest coming up. Wesley Hunt's gonna join us to have a very cool conversation. You don't wanna miss that. But for everybody, before they start freaking out, commenting, where are the chairs? They're coming back. Wanna make that very clear.

[Ted Cruz]

If you told me I had to give up the comfy chair, I'm not sure we would have invited Wesley.

[Ben Shapiro]

That's very true.

[Ted Cruz]

How were those connected?

[Ben Shapiro]

I know it was a conflict of where does the third chair go? We will figure that out. But I just wanted everyone to just don't worry. The cactus isn't going anywhere. Neither are the comfy chairs. They're coming back. There was a very big victory, and it's a serious victory, and I think it should be treated that way. You several weeks ago called and we made news to the point where it was asked the White House press briefing that Senator Ted Cruz was calling for the documents at the University of Delaware to be looked at by the FBI. We now know that at least on two occasions, the FBI has actually gone to the University of Delaware to look at these documents. Let's remind people of why you were calling for that. And also how many documents are actually at the University of Delaware. This may take a long time to go through them all.

[Ted Cruz]

Well, the University of Delaware has Biden's Senate documents. And after they began discovering classified documents, it seems just about everywhere Biden went, from his Wilmington house to Bias Corvette to in the room next to the garage to in the Penn Center. At some point, it started getting ridiculous, like, where doesn't this guy keep classified documents? And the biggest trove of Biden documents is at the University of Delaware, and it consists of over 1,850 boxes of documents. So it's a massive amount of documents. And listen, this podcast has always tried, number one, to make news and number two, to drive news. And in this instance, it was both of us, because several weeks ago we called in this podcast and said the FBI needs to go to the University of Delaware and investigate those documents. Go through them. Given that he's leaving them everywhere else, they need to go through them. There and well, cnn, you can see the CNN story first on cnn. FBI searched University of Delaware for Biden documents. Source said so that broke this week and apparently they've searched it twice. Now, what's not clear from the story, it said they searched them twice. It's not clear how thorough a search look. I gotta tell you, to go through 1,850 boxes of documents takes some serious time. So I don't know that they went through all the boxes. I don't know if they went through one box or 100 or 1,850. They need to do a thorough review of all the documents. And it's not clear from this story whether they have or not, but it's at least a step in the right direction that they're examining this massive cache of documents. And that's what we called for.

[Ben Shapiro]

There was a shocking admission by the president about classified documents. I want to get your take on that in just a moment, but first I want to tell you about our friends at Patriot Mobile. If you have a cell phone, you can actually have a difference in the conservative movement every time you send a text, every time you use your phone. And that is because when you pay your bill at Patriot Mobile, they're the only conservative Christian cell phone company in the country. They give back to conservative causes and organizations that you help choose to support. We're talking about organizations that support the first and the second amendment. We're talking about standing up for the rights of unborn children. We're talking about helping people with adoptions after Roe v. Wade. And what happened with that historic bill that was or the historic Supreme Court case that was struck down. This is a company that stands with our values. Now, why would you make this switch one, it's really easy. You get to keep your same cell phone number. You get to keep your same cell phone or upgrade a new one. But every time you pay a bill, you know you're standing up for what you believe in. So check them out. Patriotmobile.com verdict that's patriot mobile.com verdict. They also have a new phone number, 878-patriot. That's 878-patriot. Use the promo code. Verdict. You'll get the best deals. If you have a business or a small business, talk to their small business department as well. You can switch over all of your lines and usually you save really big money. Senator, there was a shocking admission in an interview. It was clearly something that I think the White House wishes Joe Biden wouldn't have said.

[Ted Cruz]

Well, that's never happened.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, never. Happened before. Right. You put him in front of a microphone.

[Ted Cruz]

Well, you know, he is the best communicator in the White House ever.

[Ben Shapiro]

Ever.

[Ted Cruz]

The sad thing is, given Karine Jean Pierre and the rest, he just might be.

[Ben Shapiro]

He actually might be.

[Ted Cruz]

You've got Kareem John Pereira, you have Kamala Harris, you know, Biden, you know, when he says wa fooda ba ba, that might be the most articulate thing coming out of the White House that day.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, he may have been actually too articulate this week because he was asked about classified documents in this interview and he put a timeline on his own classified documents. He may have and referred back to his first, first year in Congress saying that some documents might date back. His word was some pages of classified documents may date back to his first years in office. That's now we're talking about a 50 year window here.

[Ted Cruz]

Look, that's just bizarre. I had another classified briefing this week. That makes the third classified briefing in two weeks, all on China. As I walked out of the classified briefing this week, they asked, as they usually do, do you have any classified documents with you? We had a whole bunch of classified documents that we were going through concerning China and I laughed and said, nope, I always leave them here. I'd never taken them out. I don't have to worry if I have classified documents at home because I've read them in one place and one place only, and that is in a secure skiff in the Capitol. So if I'm not in the skiff, I don't have a classified document. I don't understand what Biden was doing if he was taking classified documents out of the Senate 40, 50 years ago. I don't know, maybe they didn't have skiffs back in the days of horses and buggies, but I don't get how he could have documents from his time as Senate.

[Ben Shapiro]

Lastly on this, there has been a lot of speculation and you can see this narrative coming out from Democrats specifically saying, well, there was different times in D.C. earlier on and I've even heard people say after 911 we got more serious about classified documents. Do you buy that as an excuse for why he would have documents for 50 years ago or 40 or 30? Because it seems like he, remember last.

[Ted Cruz]

I checked, his vice presidency was after 9 11. Yeah, most of the documents, at least according to the public reports that he has because the intel community won't tell us what he has. But most of the documents according to the press reports were from his time as VP. That was well after 911 and it was clear that he doesn't take it all that seriously.

[Ben Shapiro]

It's weird to see this White House now continue to find documents. University of Delaware, I think may be a huge explosion with this story here. And it connects a lot of dots. I also want to ask you about China and the Chinese balloon. There was another classified briefing you guys have gotten. There's been more information coming out. Seems like apparently and the President actually had a press conference on this. We're shooting down random stuff here that's shocking as well, that maybe we're overreacting.

[Ted Cruz]

So we've had the last two weeks, three all senators classified briefings. That is unusual. I've been in the Senate 10 years. I can't remember a period of time where we've had three all senators classified briefings. You know, I'm on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, so we'll sometimes have committee specific briefings. But to have all hundred senators there is very unusual to have three in about eight days. And they were all on China is striking. And look, the last podcast we were talking about, the classified briefing that I just come from, and I said it was thoroughly unhelpful and unsatisfactory. Well, what's happened since then? Since then the White House said their press conference where they stood up and said, we don't know what the hell we shot down. We don't know three things we shot in the sky. Damned if we know what they are. But the White House said we're pretty sure they weren't Chinese. And this is where that's not comforting, by the way.

[Ben Shapiro]

They should understand that from a PR perspective, it's not comforting when we're supposed to have the greatest military in the world and you literally don't know what you're shooting down. And then you say, but you think it's not Chinese.

[Ted Cruz]

Okay, but it's even worse than this. So take a look at this. This is a tweet from Aviation Week. A small globetrotting balloon declared missing in action by an Illinois based hobbyist club has emerged as a candidate to explain one of the three mystery objects shot down by four heat seeking missiles launched by US Air Force fighters. And so this particular hobbyist group, it is called the Northern Illinois Bottle Cap Balloon Brigade.

[Ben Shapiro]

We should sign up and become members of that. I think that's something that we should do with our free time.

[Ted Cruz]

So, Ben, I want you to stop for a second. We're sitting here tonight and we don't know, but the Air Force might have shot down a frigging balloon, launched by a high school science club. That is bizarre. And why they're firing heat seeking missiles from fighter jets at a high school science project.

[Ben Shapiro]

The White House's explanation was weird on this. Let's go there for a second. They actually said, well, we changed our radar and the way that we are looking for things, we basically slowed it down and looked for objects that were moving slower. So we're picking up a lot more stuff which could explain why we picked up this balloon and therefore we're justified in shooting it down.

[Ted Cruz]

So look, this is something we talked about in the last pod and it's important to understand Joe Biden and this administration. They are fundamentally weak on China. They're weak on China because they're in bed with China, because they depend on China to build the Green New Deal. It's why they are importing electric vehicles and batteries built with slave labor in concentration camps in China. Their donors, their funders are all in bed with China. Why did the Biden administration do nothing while Chinese spice balloon was over U.S. airspace for over a week conducting espionage? Because they're weak on China. Then it became a press matter and they realized, oh, crap. People realize we're weak on China. So what did they do? They waited till the mission was over and shot it down over the Atlantic once it had completed its espionage. How do you explain the rest of this? The rest of this has nothing to do with national security, has nothing to do with defending the nation. This is a press operation. For all I know, it's Karine Jean Pierre sitting there in the Situation Room going, okay, shoot that one down. Look, it doesn't comfort me that the Commander in Chief is sending up the Air Force to shoot something down and they don't know what the hell it is.

[Ben Shapiro]

Just to say, we got another one. And look, see, we're taking this serious.

[Ted Cruz]

We saw something and just figured, fire a missile at it. Like that's not a comforting. If their answer is, we don't know what we shot down, why are you shooting things down? You know what they are. And if they might be a high school science club's balloon, if Saturday Night Live came up with that, it would be dismissed as ridiculous. I think Joe Biden, it would be a great skit.

[Ben Shapiro]

It really would. It would be hysterical skit. Except this is real life.

[Ted Cruz]

This is real life.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, they were even saying on msnbc, I don't know if you saw this, but the other morning they were saying, we're getting reports that we could have shot down space trash. How do you not look at it and go, that's space trash. We don't need to blow it up.

[Ted Cruz]

You know, Elon Musk's car is in low Earth orbit. He launched his car into space. I don't know if he does that.

[Ben Shapiro]

That's right. Yeah.

[Ted Cruz]

He has, like, video of his car orbiting the Earth, which is a little bizarre. I hope they didn't shoot Elon's car down. I think it's a little bit higher than these were.

[Ben Shapiro]

But next time you talk to him, you should ask him about that. Does he know where it is? Because he might want to let him know. Because they may shoot that down next.

[Ted Cruz]

Like it is. They are giving the go order because this is a press operation. They're saying, look how tough we are. We can fire missiles.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah.

[Ted Cruz]

I'm not comforted, to put it mildly, by them allowing the Chinese to surveil us for eight straight days. But I'm also not comforted by them saying, shoot everything down. We see and we don't know what it is. Like there is actually a reasonable ground, which is if something is hostile and from an enemy and it poses a danger of some sort, including espionage, then you shoot it down. If it's a kid's science project, don't shoot down the kids. Science project.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah. The Bottleneck Club shouldn't be on the list.

[Ted Cruz]

The President owes the American people candor on this. They need to just come clean more than propaganda.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes, I agree. There was also something else happened in Washington this week. It was with you talking about drugs coming across the border. It was very interesting because the DEA was not willing to answer your questions. I'm going to play that for people in a moment. Before I get to that, I want to tell you, though, about our good friends at Augusta Precious Metals. Augusta Precious Metals is a company that has one goal in mind to help you protect your retirement account. If you have more than $100,000 that you have saved, you should talk to Augusta Precious Metals about how gold and silver can work for you to protect your hard earned dollars. The closer you get to actual retirement, you know how important it is to save and protect what you've saved. It's hard to make up losses in a short period of time. And right now people are saying, okay, what can I do to preserve and protect my wealth? You can call against the Precious Metals. They'll talk to you about how a 401k or an IRA can work for you. You also can take their seminar, and it's a great online interactive seminar. I've done it. I Also use Augusta Precious Metals. Talk to them and see if gold and silver is right for you. The number for them, 8774, Gold IRA. That's 8774- Gold IRA. Or you can visit Augusta Precious Metals.com that's Augusta Precious Metals.com. get their free guide and the web conference. You'll love working with them. 8774 Gold IRA. Senator, this week in Washington there was a unique conversation that you had that people need to hear. And it was about drugs. It was about the dea. They're involved in drugs.

[Ted Cruz]

Yep.

[Ben Shapiro]

That's their job. And then refusing to answer some very basic questions about drugs in the drug cartels, the money they're making, fentanyl and everything else going on. And it was a question that you asked that they should have been able to answer easily. And they basically were doing everything they could to refuse to answer. It was shocking.

[Ted Cruz]

Yeah. So this was a hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week and one of the witnesses was the administrator of the dea. So the head honcho of the DEA was testifying about fentanyl and other drugs coming across the border. And. Well, here's a portion of her of her testimony.

[DEA Administrator]

Senator, I'm going to defer questions on the border and the ports of entry to the Department of Homeland Security.

[Ted Cruz]

So the DEA has no view on whether drug dealers crossing the border carry drugs.

[DEA Administrator]

Senator, as I said from our investigations, what we see is that the majority of fentanyl.

[Ted Cruz]

I didn't ask the majority. I said drug dealers and got aways are carrying drugs. Many of them.

[DEA Administrator]

Senator, what we see is mostly interdict what. What we see is mostly tractor trailers and personal vehicles.

[Ted Cruz]

All right, so you're sticking to the talking points closely and congratulations, it's the Democrat talking points that the open borders don't matter, that 328,000 or 1.2 million got aways don't matter. We had 100,000 people die last year of drug overdoses. My sister died of a drug overdose just over a decade ago. This is a crisis, but it is a man made crisis. This administration made a conscious political decision to open the borders. And one of the results is they have turned Mexican drug cartels into multi billionaires. In 2018, the amount of money cartels made from human trafficking, according to the New York Times, was $500 million. Now, just from human trafficking, the cartels are making $13 billion a year. Again, according to the New York times, that's a 2,600% increase. Administrator Milgram, the single best thing that happened to Mexican Drug cartels in history. Was Joe Biden becoming president, opening the border and making tens of billions of dollars for these vicious criminals? In your judgment, is it a good thing that these cartels now have tens of billions of dollars from human trafficking and drug trafficking?

[DEA Administrator]

Senator Cruz, I really appreciate the opportunity to answer your question. And as I have said clearly and will continue to say, there are two cartels in Mexico, the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartel, that are responsible for the devastation that we are seeing on the streets of our country. It is our top operational priority to defeat those two cartels and to stop the fentanyl and methamphetamine that is.

[Ted Cruz]

Would you answer the question I asked? Is it a good thing for them to have tens of billions of dollars now that they didn't have.

[DEA Administrator]

Senator, we are doing everything we can.

[Ted Cruz]

You're refusing to answer the question. And it shouldn't be a hard question.

[DEA Administrator]

Every amount of money. If I. If I. Please. If. If I could please finish. I very much understand your point. We believe that the cartels are making billions of dollars on. Elizabeth. It is a terrible thing.

[Ted Cruz]

Thank you.

[Ben Shapiro]

Took a long time to get to. It's a terrible thing. And you would think the DEA would absolutely want to answer that question on the front end, saying, we're on your side on this one. We agree with you. Billions going to the cartels is never a good thing. It is giving them every tool they need to come out after our DA agents, to come after our resources, to come after the people that we have over there that are trying to help us.

[Ted Cruz]

So, look, there are a couple of things that were going on there. Number one, and we saw this throughout the hearing as Democrat senators would get up and ask questions. The talking point from the Biden administration and every Democrat senator is that the flood of illegal drugs across our southern border has nothing to do with Joe Biden's open borders. That, yes, last year we had over 100,000 overdoses, the highest overdoses in the history of our country. And that is apparently completely unrelated to the fact that last year and over the last two years, we've had 5.5 million people cross the border illegally. The worst illegal immigration in the history of our country. So their talking point, which all of them, they made it over and over and over again, is the two are completely unrelated. It's bizarre. It's idiotic. What was interesting there. So the questions I was asking the head of the dea. Shouldn't be hard.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah.

[Ted Cruz]

The Customs and Border Patrol agents help you stop drug dealers. Yes. Is It a good thing that Joe Biden has made tens of billions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels? Hell, no. That should have been easy. What's interesting about this administrator, when she was nominated, I sat down and met with her in my office. And I actually think she's a pretty law and order player. Like, she rose up through law enforcement. I do think she takes seriously trying to put drug dealers in jail. And part of the reason that was so painful to watch is, listen, she's now in a political job where she was appointed by Joe Biden, and she's trying to follow political talking points. And frankly, she's just bad at it. Yeah, like, she knows.

[Ben Shapiro]

You could tell by the end. She was like, okay, I admit, you're right.

[Ted Cruz]

Like, she knows going in, okay, the political marching orders, as I'm supposed to say, the drugs are coming through the ports of entry, not across the border.

[Ben Shapiro]

And that's my boss's talking point at the White House.

[Ted Cruz]

And ironically, if she were more political, she would have been better at giving that answer. But because I think she's basically a cop and she's being forced to read political talking points, it became ludicrous at the end of the day. And so she finally gets there. Is it good that they have tens of billions of dollars? She's like, no, it's terrible. Thank you.

[Ben Shapiro]

Thank you. That's all you were asking for.

[Ted Cruz]

It is you cannot defend this administration's policies on illegal immigration. The only way you can defend them is to ignore them and pretend they don't exist, which is what they are hoping the media does.

[Ben Shapiro]

We get to have a guess. This is not something that we do that often. It's actually, maybe in a weird way, history we're making. Your congressman is gonna join us and his senator is you.

[Ted Cruz]

Yup.

[Ben Shapiro]

That's not something that happens every day. Wesley Hunt. We wanna get him out here. Before we do that, I gotta tell you about something that is actually pretty cool. There is a company that is gonna help you fight back against the war on your masculinity. And I'm talking about this, especially in today's society. And that company is chalk. C, H O Q. They're here to help real American men maximize their masculinity by boosting testosterone levels up to 20% over 90 days. Now, if you've not checked them out, you should. Jesse Kelly, my good buddy, he told me about this. Like, I'm taking it. You should take it, Ben. I'm now taking it. It actually works. Chalk male vitality stack is what I've been using. And you can maximize your masculinity [e-mail], use the code BEN for 35% off. Any Chalk subscription for life. That's c h o q dot com. Promo code Ben for 35% off. Senator, I said a moment ago, this is kind of fun. He's your congressman. Wesley Hunt's with us. Nice to have you with us. I don't know if we've had this much fashion on set ever. Like, we got a little flair going over there.

[Ted Cruz]

Look, Wesley is a band with some style, with some panache. He doesn't just have the pocket square. I mean, it's.

[Ben Shapiro]

It's there.

[Ted Cruz]

It's in.

[Ben Shapiro]

There's more colors going on from here up. Now, granted, you're getting a little flashy here with these skater shoes.

[Ted Cruz]

I'm trying to keep up. I'm trying to keep up with the youths.

[Ben Shapiro]

I'm keeping it in the box. I'm sticking with my boots. I'm just, you know. But this is a lot happening, Wesley.

[Ted Cruz]

What he's not telling you is when we started doing the podcast, he shows up at a suit and tie with his tie all the way up.

[Ben Shapiro]

I did.

[Ted Cruz]

I'm like, dude, relax. Yeah.

[Ben Shapiro]

He looked at me. He's like, okay. He literally looks at me. He literally just looks. He looks up at me. He goes, we don't wear ties here.

[Wesley Hunt]

What are you doing?

[Ben Shapiro]

I was like, okay. I had to get a whole new wardrobe for this. It costs a lot of money. I went in the hole getting into this new job. Yeah, getting the new job.

[Ted Cruz]

So Wesley, his story. He's a brand new member of Congress, has been there all of two months.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yes, sir.

[Ted Cruz]

He is. My congressman represents Houston. He is a West Point graduate.

[Ben Shapiro]

Have you hazed him yet? Like, with problems?

[Wesley Hunt]

He's been hazing me for four years.

[Ben Shapiro]

Okay, good.

[Ted Cruz]

He just made fun of his pocket square.

[Ben Shapiro]

But now I'm saying, congressman, I feel like you should really.

[Ted Cruz]

By the way, in the presidential campaign, we had a guy in charge of what we called the Pocket Square Coalition.

[Wesley Hunt]

Okay.

[Ted Cruz]

Which is basically all the D.C. lobbyists. And so that. That was.

[Wesley Hunt]

What are you trying to say?

[Ted Cruz]

That was officially labeled Pocket square Coalition. So Wesley went to West Point, played football at west point, went to St. John's High School here in Houston. Played football at St. John's here in Houston.

[Ben Shapiro]

Was he good? Because he did fall down a step the other day. We can see the boot here. I just make it. Was he. Was he good? Claiming to be former athletes here?

[Ted Cruz]

I'm with a college tennis player, a college football player, and I'm a frigging debater.

[Ben Shapiro]

But at least you won. You did win debate at some level, I have no doubt in my mind.

[Ted Cruz]

You know, and that really was very effective for attracting college girls. But, yeah, yeah, you pull out your briefcase and they would swoon.

[Ben Shapiro]

Really amazing, right? They were like, that's a man going places because he has that briefcase. So you're new to Congress?

[Wesley Hunt]

Yes, I am.

[Ben Shapiro]

You enjoying it so far? Cause it's been a little spicy since you got there.

[Wesley Hunt]

We had quite the first week, to be honest with you, but it was an amazing experience to see just how our democracy works. We are not run by kings and by queens and by monarchs. We are run by we the people. And so what you saw in that first week, although it seemed a bit arduous, it was an example of how we operate as a people. And I loved being a part of that first week, to be honest with you.

[Ben Shapiro]

I think it was good for the country. You and I talked about this.

[Ted Cruz]

Well, look, I think the fight resulted in major concessions.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yes.

[Ted Cruz]

That resulted in dramatically increasing the chances that our conservative. That our Republican majority in the House will actually be a conservative majority and standard fight.

[Wesley Hunt]

That is. That is correct. And for the last few weeks, we saw that on full display. We've had some very good votes. In fact, the first vote that I took as a Congressman was to repeal 87,000 IRS agents. That's the first vote I took. I'm very proud of that. And that was actually a part of that negotiation that first week.

[Ted Cruz]

Well, and I'll tell you, Wesley, when he was brand new, right in the middle of that. That battle, his wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy that he flew back because he was a little bit premature.

[Ben Shapiro]

Everybody right now is saying you're the one that left and came.

[Ted Cruz]

No, no, he left and was there.

[Wesley Hunt]

You're the one.

[Ted Cruz]

But for his newborn son. And then he turned around and his son was doing all right. He had a couple of health issues, then he was doing all right. And then Wesley jumped on a plane and flew back.

[Ben Shapiro]

What's his name? I got to ask him. I'm a dad of three.

[Wesley Hunt]

He is named after my father. It's Willie Parrish Hunt ii.

[Ted Cruz]

That's cool.

[Wesley Hunt]

That's his name.

[Ben Shapiro]

How's he doing?

[Wesley Hunt]

He's doing fantastic. In fact, he's doing way better than me.

[Ben Shapiro]

There you go.

[Wesley Hunt]

At this point. But that kid was the most prayed over kid for 48 hours in the entire country. And I attribute the way he's doing right now, to the level of.

[Ben Shapiro]

No, it was a bit.

[Wesley Hunt]

It was huge.

[Ben Shapiro]

Everybody's like, well, they got to get this guy back. He had a baby.

[Wesley Hunt]

That one vote mattered.

[Ted Cruz]

Yeah.

[Ben Shapiro]

And that one vote mattered. Yeah.

[Ted Cruz]

And, you know, the amazing thing is you can actually match diapers to a pocket square.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes.

[Wesley Hunt]

Here we go.

[Ben Shapiro]

I cannot be honest.

[Wesley Hunt]

Based on the formula. Yeah.

[Ben Shapiro]

Be honest. Does he have baby Air Jordans yet?

[Wesley Hunt]

Of course he does.

[Ben Shapiro]

See, I knew it. There we go. Of course you have baby airports.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yeah.

[Ben Shapiro]

Your kid has $100 shoes. He's living a good life. He's living a good life.

[Wesley Hunt]

His best life.

[Ted Cruz]

So, Wesley, just a few weeks into Congress, is already at hearings, causing a bit of a stir.

[Ben Shapiro]

You've got TC Seal of approval. I know this because we talked about this.

[Ted Cruz]

And so we've got a clip from one of the. He's been there two months. This is a clip from one of the hearings in the House that's worth taking a look at.

[Wesley Hunt]

My colleague, Mr. Gooden, talked about race and using the word racism and racist. And I've been black for a long time, sir, so I get it, and I've been a minority in this country for a very long time, but this is actually not about race. This is actually an issue of public safety. And if I call this. If I call this an invasion, sir, I'm not racist. I can assure you. I'm not racist. What I can assure you is that I want to make sure that fentanyl doesn't indiscriminately kill any race, religion, color, or creed. Because fentanyl doesn't care where you're from. Fentanyl doesn't care about race. Fentanyl kills indiscriminately. This gentleman right here works his tail off every single day to stop that from happening. Now, there's been a break in the dam, and that's pretty obvious because a couple of years ago, of course, we had some problems, but it wasn't amplified to the level that we are seeing every single day. And the reason why we have to be careful with what we call and what we deem racist moving forward in the future is because we start to lose focus on what the actual problem is. This administration, the Democrat Party, unfortunately, uses race as a scapegoat to. For everything. And as somebody that wants to make sure that we do attack racist issues when they do occur, we can't be the boy who cried wolf and blame racism all the time.

[Ted Cruz]

So, look, that was very well said.

[Wesley Hunt]

Thank you, sir.

[Ted Cruz]

But it's also really important to be said. And, Wesley, you're not supposed to exist. According to the media. Neither are you. According to the media, the only people who are allowed to be Republicans are old, fat, white guys. And you certainly are not allowed to be a black man and be Republican. Actually, what was it Joe Biden in the presidential campaign said? If you're not voting for him, you ain't whack. And they believe it.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yes.

[Ted Cruz]

And you're right. Look, I'm an Hispanic man. I'm not supposed to be Republican. And even worse, I'm not supposed to be a conservative. Like, to be a conservative Republican. You actually want to secure the border?

[Wesley Hunt]

Yes.

[Ted Cruz]

Jorge Ramos on air called me a traitor to my race.

[Wesley Hunt]

Unbelievable.

[Ted Cruz]

And I actually asked him, I said, jorge, if I crossed illegally into Mexico, what would they do? And he said, oh, they deport you. Like, wait, why can they enforce their laws and we can't enforce ours?

[Wesley Hunt]

You're correct.

[Ted Cruz]

But look, I think it's important and it's interesting. You are not the only black freshman Republican West Point graduate in this Congress. So tell us about that.

[Ben Shapiro]

That's a really cool moment.

[Ted Cruz]

It's even better.

[Wesley Hunt]

The two of us. It's me and John James. And for the record, I will let you know that of all the academies in this country, and I consider them to be the leadership institutions of the entire world, and I'm going to name them in order of merit, of course, West Point.

[Ben Shapiro]

Of course.

[Wesley Hunt]

Naval Academy, Air Force Academy, Coast Guard Academy, Merchant Marine Academy. We've never seen a black congressman, senator, or president ever from any one of our academies. Eisenhower was a Republican, and Grant was a Republican, and, of course, Jimmy Carter. Naval Academy. Democrat.

[Ben Shapiro]

Democrat. Yeah.

[Wesley Hunt]

I'll let you decide how that. How that worked out for everybody. But I will tell you that we've never had a black person, a person of color, actually ascend to these ranks. And we've had two in the exact same class. The 118th Congress, and we're from the same class at West Point, and we're.

[Ted Cruz]

Both black and classmates at West Point.

[Wesley Hunt]

And. And there's We. There's three of us. There's one Democrat, and he's white. Pat Ryan.

[Ben Shapiro]

Serious question. Same class. How many articles are written about the two of you? And this is certainly breaking history. And I know you're. I know your answer, but I'm asking this to show the bias in the media. This is a historic moment.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yes, it is.

[Ben Shapiro]

It's an incredible moment. The fact that there's not but two of you and you were classmates. That's a Time magazine. That's a Newsweek type.

[Wesley Hunt]

We'd be on the View, there'd be an HBO special.

[Ben Shapiro]

This would be a standing ovation. Everywhere you go, rolling it out. It should be that story. So how many times have you guys been called for a human interest piece on that story alone? Forget politics.

[Wesley Hunt]

Us alone. It hasn't happened.

[Ben Shapiro]

There you go.

[Wesley Hunt]

Therein lies my point, too. So I'm a big fan of talking about black excellence in terms of regardless of what party you're affiliated with, black excellence is black excellence. Even if you are a Republican. Clarence Thomas. That is black excellence. And for whatever reason, it only matters when you're a Democrat. And this is the fight that we have, that we have in our hands.

[Ted Cruz]

Clarence Thomas is not black.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, he's not.

[Ted Cruz]

And you're not either.

[Wesley Hunt]

Just the most ridiculous.

[Ted Cruz]

It is. They are vicious.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yes.

[Ted Cruz]

If you dare disagree with their demanded orthodoxy. Look, this week, Don Lemon went on CNN and explained that Nikki Haley is.

[Ben Shapiro]

Pastor Prime Minister Prime.

[Ted Cruz]

Because he says women are in their prime, in their 20s or 30s.

[Ben Shapiro]

And if you disagree.

[Ted Cruz]

Or maybe 40. So he concedes.

[Wesley Hunt]

Unbelievable. Hold on.

[Ben Shapiro]

But if you disagree, what was the response? It's the best part of the whole. Just Google it. Just Google it. Yeah, Google it.

[Ted Cruz]

And it was. Look, it was blatantly misogynist.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yes.

[Ted Cruz]

But it was leftist misogyny. Because Nikki Haley is a Republican. She's not a woman.

[Ben Shapiro]

Can you imagine saying that about Hillary Clinton being pastor Prime?

[Ted Cruz]

Just plugged in.

[Ben Shapiro]

You would lose your job. You would have lost your job.

[Wesley Hunt]

You'd be canceled.

[Ben Shapiro]

Right. You would have lost your job.

[Ted Cruz]

Immediately Canceled. And as you know, there were two women sitting next to him on CNN who are just flabbergasted that he said it. They're just, you know, Poppy comes and says. You mean prime for childbirth. Yeah, like it was. But it's the same contempt.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yes.

[Ted Cruz]

She's not a woman. You're not black. You're only. They have. Look, if you look at the Supreme Court, the left never liked Antonin Scalia, but they could live with him. He was allowed to be a conservative.

[Wesley Hunt]

Sure. You can respect it. They were respected. They respected that.

[Ted Cruz]

They loathe Clarence Thomas.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yes.

[Ted Cruz]

And, you know, listen, Wesley and I have been friends a long time. He's run some.

[Ben Shapiro]

When did y'all first meet? Talk about that for a second?

[Ted Cruz]

Well, we met when he was running for Congress.

[Wesley Hunt]

Correct. A couple years ago.

[Ted Cruz]

Couple years ago. And I supported him in his first bid for Congress. He didn't win the first time. And I actually was talking to you right after the election, walking the neighborhood, walking my dog.

[Wesley Hunt]

You said, you saw my sign up. You called me.

[Ted Cruz]

And I called him, I'm walking the dog. And I said, I saw your sign. It was right after he hadn't won two years ago. And I said, wesley, you did a hell of a job. You impressed a lot of people, and mark my words, you're gonna win.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yes.

[Ted Cruz]

You don't always win your first race, but you're gonna win.

[Ben Shapiro]

Ronald Reagan would attest to that.

[Ted Cruz]

Yes, but look, part of the reason the Democrats and the media try to erase you is because you're very inconvenient for their narrative.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yes.

[Ted Cruz]

They believe that any Republican position, any conservative position is racist. And that is their go to. It's what you just went in that clip. No matter what it is, it's racist. So, I mean, let me ask you, as a black man, why are you a Republican? And I imagine you get that question sometimes from people that are confused.

[Wesley Hunt]

I'm a Republican because I don't prescribe to the soft bigotry of low expectations. My parents are people that raised us in this country. And they said. They said to us at a very early age, if you can't make it here, then you can't make it anywhere. End of discussion. Hence the reason why my sister went to West Point, I went to West Point, and my brother went to West Point. Now my brother went to Harvard Business School, and so I had to go to Cornell and get three master's degrees in four years to match his Harvard degree because we're competitive like that. And my sister was a instructor at West Point, where my brother and I were cadets. And that's because my parents had had high expectations for us. And when I look at Democrats right now that tell us that people of color and black and brown people can't ascertain an ID to go vote, I think to myself, wow, you think so little of a group of people that they can't do the menial task of attaining a government issued ID just to go vote. And I reject that holistically. And that's what makes me a conservative.

[Ben Shapiro]

I've said this for a long time, and I never backed down. When I was at cnn, we were talking about voter id and it became such a big issue. And I kept saying, it's incredibly racist. And I would always say, whoever the.

[Wesley Hunt]

Minority was, horribly racist.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah. I said to Don Lemon. We were just talking about Don Lemon. I said, it's incredibly racist to imply that an African American man or woman cannot get an ID at the same levels of any other person. Do you understand how condescending, how racist that statement is that you're implying that they're so behind the times solely based on the color of their skin that they can't be expected to have an ID at the same level as anyone else?

[Ted Cruz]

They tell me, as a Latino, I'm too stupid to get a driver's license.

[Wesley Hunt]

Exactly.

[Ted Cruz]

And by the way, if you actually talk to real people, there's a reason that roughly 70% of African Americans in this country support photo ID.

[Wesley Hunt]

Of course.

[Ted Cruz]

To vote. Yeah, it is. But the Democrat political model is based on stoking racial fear. And part of it is they try to convince people that their party is historically the champion for civil rights and the Republicans are historically the bad guys. And I gotta say, as a matter of history.

[Wesley Hunt]

Not true.

[Ted Cruz]

That's exactly backwards. Look, the Democrat Party's record on race is disgraceful.

[Ben Shapiro]

People don't know the history of it. And that's part of where we've lost.

[Wesley Hunt]

Joe Biden's is disgraceful.

[Ted Cruz]

Yes. So the Democrat Party founded the Ku Klux Klan. The Ku Klux Klan.

[Ben Shapiro]

Let's be careful and say that's a fact. And if you don't believe us, take Don Lemon's advice. Google it.

[Ted Cruz]

So google it. And in fact, here's someone you can Google. Google. An individual named Nathan Bedford Forrest. Nathan Bedford Forrest, who's the founder of the kkk. He was a Confederate general buried in.

[Ben Shapiro]

My hometown of Memphis.

[Ted Cruz]

He was a national delegate to the Democrat national convention in 1860. If you look at virtually every leader of the Klan, they were all Democrats. Now Democrats may say, okay, fine, fine. So that's the 1860s. But fast forward, the Democrats got enlightened later. Okay, let's move to the 1940s and 50s and 60s civil rights share. Let's move to the Jim Crow laws. Yes, Jim Crow laws. Who wrote them?

[Ben Shapiro]

Democrats.

[Wesley Hunt]

Democrats.

[Ted Cruz]

In the South, Jim Crow laws were written by white Democrats to stop black voters from voting white Democrats out of office and to stop them from electing Republicans. They were literally written for that sole purpose, to protect Democrats in office.

[Wesley Hunt]

That is correct.

[Ted Cruz]

Now you can Google it.

[Ben Shapiro]

By the way, if you double link it.

[Ted Cruz]

You probably can't Google it because big tech's so bad they might suppress all of it.

[Ben Shapiro]

That's true.

[Wesley Hunt]

It'll be on the second or third.

[Ted Cruz]

Page.

[Ben Shapiro]

Three or four. And. Yeah, there you go.

[Wesley Hunt]

You'll get there eventually.

[Ben Shapiro]

You'll get there.

[Ted Cruz]

So. And by the way, the Republican Party was literally founded to abolish slavery. The party of Lincoln, the first Republican president was Abraham Lincoln.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yes, sir.

[Ted Cruz]

The reason our party exists is because slavery was an evil abomination.

[Ben Shapiro]

You're thinking. Google it if you don't believe me. If you don't believe me, Google that too. Google that too.

[Ted Cruz]

The history of it. And so, okay, here's how the leftist tries to get around all this. They say, well, okay, maybe all that's true, although they actually deny it. But then in the civil rights era, Democrats got enlightened. Really? Civil Rights act of 1964, a much higher percentage of Republicans in Congress voted for it than did that.

[Wesley Hunt]

That's why it passed, because Republicans.

[Ted Cruz]

It passed because Republicans fought for it.

[Wesley Hunt]

That's correct.

[Ben Shapiro]

And not Democrats.

[Ted Cruz]

Who was it that were opposing was Democrats. Who filibustered him.

[Wesley Hunt]

That's right.

[Ted Cruz]

Fast forward even further. They say, well, that's ancient history. Okay, let's go. A year ago. A year ago, the governor of Virginia was a guy named Ralph Northam.

[Wesley Hunt]

That's correct.

[Ted Cruz]

Ralph Northam, a Democrat. Now, you may recall the scandal.

[Wesley Hunt]

There's some photos out there.

[Ben Shapiro]

You can also Google that.

[Ted Cruz]

It's still out there, but it's actually a very revealing incident. So in his medical school yearbook, he selected a photograph of two people, one dressed as a Klansman, one dressed in blackface. And the media, of course, no one discovered this when he was running for office.

[Ben Shapiro]

Only after.

[Ted Cruz]

It was. Only after.

[Ben Shapiro]

Only after. It happens that way.

[Ted Cruz]

It wasn't news while he was. While a Republican could win. Yeah, it was only news afterwards. And the media, oddly enough, called that the blackface scandal. Now, I gotta say, I find it an odd. There's a little bit of an obsession with blackface that. Look, I get how it could be seen as offensive, although it is amazing. It seems apparently every Democrat politician in the state of Virginia has dressed in blackface in Canada, one after the other. Justin Trudeau or Jimmy Kimmel, every late night comic or Joy Behar. Yeah, so. But what I found bizarre is why they focused on the blackface when. Here's what Ralph Northam said when the day the story broke, he said, yeah, I could have been one of those two people in the picture. I don't know, and I don't know which one. Which means how convenient.

[Ben Shapiro]

Could have been.

[Ted Cruz]

He said, google it. He could have been the guy dressed as a Klansman. Now pause and think for a second. I'm going to postulate a really crazy standard if you cannot say categorically with no wiggle words. I have never in my life dressed as a Klansman or in blackface or either one.

[Wesley Hunt]

It's the lesser of two evils right now. Right.

[Ted Cruz]

I'm just gonna take Klansmen. Just, just, just.

[Ben Shapiro]

Okay.

[Ted Cruz]

If you cannot say, I've never dressed as a Klansman, maybe you shouldn't be in public office.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, there you go. A governor.

[Ted Cruz]

Like a governor pontificating sanctimoniously on race.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yeah.

[Ted Cruz]

And by the way. Okay, you say, all right. A year ago. That's ancient history. Okay, so let's go. Today you talked about Joe Biden's record.

[Wesley Hunt]

On race 94 crime bill.

[Ted Cruz]

Well, there is that. There is also Robert Byrd.

[Ben Shapiro]

I would say there's a very famous funeral.

[Ted Cruz]

So Robert Byrd, eulogized him.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yeah.

[Ted Cruz]

Was an exalted Cyclops of the kkk. What is it with these bigoted idiots coming up with ridiculous titles? But they like things like Exalted Cyclops.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yeah.

[Ted Cruz]

And he was a special title, by the way.

[Wesley Hunt]

That was his official title.

[Ted Cruz]

Yeah. Because he recruited people to the Klan. So he wasn't just in the Klan. The exalted Cyclops brings in members, other racists, to join the Klan. That's what Robert Byrd did. And he was a Democrat senator from West Virginia. Now, he wasn't just a Democrat senator from West Virginia. He was the Democrat Senate majority leader.

[Wesley Hunt]

Unbelievable.

[Ted Cruz]

An exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan. Now, he died, I think his funeral was in 2011, I believe. Do you know who spoke at Robert Byrd's funeral?

[Ben Shapiro]

The President of the United States of America.

[Ted Cruz]

Right now, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. Gave a eulogy, exalted, and said if.

[Ben Shapiro]

He would have become president, America would have been a better place. Implied it.

[Wesley Hunt]

Disgusting.

[Ted Cruz]

Said his good friend Robert Byrd. Now I got another crazy proposition. If you can't say I have never eulogized and praised an exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan, maybe you ought to slow down a little bit when pontificating based on race. Yes, but how many people know any of this history?

[Wesley Hunt]

Because the left and the media won't tell it.

[Ben Shapiro]

The schools, I was gonna say not taught in the schools.

[Wesley Hunt]

They won't tell.

[Ben Shapiro]

They don't go anywhere near any of this in the public schools today.

[Wesley Hunt]

And this is why I love the beauty of this conversation. And that is, sir, you are my senator, and I have the honor of being your congressman, and you are a Cuban American, and I am a black man. And what's really funny about this is while the. While the Left would absolutely pontificate about how we cannot exist. Here we are sitting here in unison with same. The same conservative values from different backgrounds from different parts of the earth. My great great grandfather was a slave.

[Ted Cruz]

Really?

[Wesley Hunt]

But my great great grandfather was slave.

[Ben Shapiro]

What part?

[Wesley Hunt]

Rose down plantation in about 33 miles north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

[Ben Shapiro]

No way.

[Ted Cruz]

Wow.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yes. And Rose Down Plantation is still there today.

[Ben Shapiro]

Wow.

[Wesley Hunt]

And here we are having this conversation about conservative values.

[Ben Shapiro]

Isn't that cool? I mean, the fact that nobody cares.

[Wesley Hunt]

About what we look like.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah.

[Wesley Hunt]

This is the argument that the left cannot deal with because it does not fit their narrative.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well.

[Ted Cruz]

And let me make it. That's absolutely right. And let me make also a substantive point connected to that. You know, a minute ago we were talking about the history of the parties and then the reason the history matters is because it's what the media and the Democrats use to scare minority voters.

[Wesley Hunt]

Exactly.

[Ted Cruz]

But the substance matters too. The Democrat policy agenda is absolutely horrific. If you sat down and said, let's design a policy agenda to devastate the African American community and the Hispanic community, you could not come up with anything more effective than the Democrat agenda.

[Wesley Hunt]

You are correct.

[Ted Cruz]

You look at number one, the war on police. Abolish the police. You know, every time you see Democrats demonizing cops, what inevitably happens, the cops pull back. They stop enforcing the law as vigorously and crime rates and murder rates go up. And if you think black lives matter, apparently the lives that you don't think matter are the African Americans who were murdered in much greater number. When the police are not out locking up the murderers and the gang bang.

[Ben Shapiro]

Bail reform, prison reform, all ads to drive the cops crazy. They go and arrest people, they immediately let them out. We're now doing this bail reform based on what your means are so you can get no bail even if you commit heinous crimes based on your means. Because they say it's racist to have a real tough bail on someone if they say they don't have the means to get out. And that's just again, it's costing people their lives, specifically in the African American community.

[Ted Cruz]

And it's not just crime. You look at the left wing assault on the family. Oh, go back to the black family in the 1950s and the 1960s where you had. It's the inverse strong two parent household.

[Ben Shapiro]

You talked about your parents, you talked about your daughter, you talked about your, your upbringing here. 70. Yes, it was either last year, the year before, 74% of all African American children in America were born in a single parent household.

[Wesley Hunt]

And it was the.

[Ben Shapiro]

And that number's going to rise.

[Ted Cruz]

Yes.

[Wesley Hunt]

You know, it was the inverse in the 50s.

[Ted Cruz]

That's exactly right. And people don't know it. Look, the Great Society, the left wing policies that said, we're going to give you welfare payments, we're going to disincentivize.

[Wesley Hunt]

Marriage and divide the home.

[Ted Cruz]

And divide the home.

[Ben Shapiro]

The government became the father.

[Wesley Hunt]

That's right.

[Ben Shapiro]

There was no shame in a father leaving. There was no shame in a father abandoning their children.

[Ted Cruz]

And they trapped generations of low income Hispanics and African Americans in dependency. So I've said a thousand times, when my dad was washing dishes in Austin, Texas in 1957, he was making 50 cents an hour and he couldn't speak English.

[Wesley Hunt]

Wow.

[Ted Cruz]

Thank God some well meaning liberal didn't come, put his arm around him and say, raphael, let me take care of.

[Ben Shapiro]

You.

[Ted Cruz]

Let me give you a check, let me make you dependent. You don't need to work. You don't need to work hard. That's hard work, washing your dishes, Your hands are red and they hurt. Yeah, just sit at home on your ass and I'll send you a check. It would have been, to be honest, it would have been less destructive if someone came by with a bat and beat him with it. Yes, because that you heal from. And the Democrat agenda has trapped generations in poverty and dependency where you have 1, 2, 3, 4 generations on welfare and unable to get off of it, unable to get the dignity of a job and then throw on top of.

[Ben Shapiro]

That, failed schools and no way to get out. And against you getting a voucher to get a kid out of a failing school.

[Wesley Hunt]

It's to create victims. So imagine if my parents raised me and they told me, you know what, this world is so much against you and America is so bad that you can't even get an id. Rely on me and I will give you a check. Imagine if my parents told me that every single day, I certainly wouldn't be United States Congressman. And that's what I mean by the soft bigotry of low expectations. And that's how they keep people voting for them, by promising the very bare minimum. And as somebody that has spent a lot of time in the United States government, working in the army, I can tell you if the government is giving you something, I can assure you you can do better on your own.

[Ted Cruz]

You know, I'll tell you what my dad told me when I was a kid about racism. And he said, look, when I came out of school, he came out of University of Texas, class of 61. He said, When I was applying for a job, he said, I had a very heavy Spanish accent. I'm obviously a foreigner.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah.

[Ted Cruz]

And he said, if I'm applying for a job and there's an American applying for the job and we're equally qualified, he said they'd hire the American. And he wasn't actually that upset about it. He said, you know what? He said, you know what? In Cuba, they'd hire me. He said, that makes sense.

[Wesley Hunt]

That makes sense to him.

[Ted Cruz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's just like, look, in Cuba, they'd hire me. Here, if I'm the immigrant, they're going to hire the American. And he said his answer to that is, he said, look, I just resolved. He said, I'm gonna be three times as good as the other guy. He said, I'm gonna make it. So you had to be an idiot not to hire you to hire the other guy. And that principle, it's part of what's so destructive about the Democrat message in minority communities is they teach children their victims.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yes.

[Ted Cruz]

Which means they. They discourage them from doing the hard damn work to, as my dad said, be two or three times as good as the other guy, and. And to climb that ladder, and then.

[Wesley Hunt]

Later on in life, he's better for it.

[Ted Cruz]

Yes.

[Wesley Hunt]

So instead of sitting around, sitting back on your heels and saying that, well, somebody had it easier than me, or they were given more, they had more inheritance, you had to work in those formative years three, four, five times as hard as. And then 20 years later, then you become a better person. You work harder, and you persevere. And that is called growth, and that is called the American dream. And so what the left tries to do is try to create equal outcomes. You cannot create equal outcomes. This country is a meritocracy. It's about effort. I get it. Some people have it easier, harder than others. But those that work hard can find and make a way. And you can outwork yourself out of somebody that's been given everything.

[Ted Cruz]

And I'll tell you something, Ben, that Wesley will get. But if you're black or Hispanic, I guarantee you've had people say to you. And I've had people say to me, oh, you just got where you are in affirmative action.

[Ben Shapiro]

Oh, it's.

[Ted Cruz]

The only way you got into school is affirmative action. And it. And they just, oh, that burns me up. How many times have you heard that? Seriously. One of the reasons.

[Ben Shapiro]

Go back with it's my flare. It's my. It's my. It's my.

[Ted Cruz]

It's My flare.

[Wesley Hunt]

It's my pocket square.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, it's my pocket square. You see the good one.

[Ted Cruz]

It's one of the reasons, actually we were joking before about sports or debate. It's one of the reasons I like debate. Because you go into debate, two teams walk into a room, there's no affirmative action, and one wins and one loses. And it was, it's why I spent all four years of college, almost every weekend on the debate circuit. Because you'd go in and there was a winner and loser, and you won it based on your own skill and your own merit. And it was a way of responding. And it was inevitably supercilious. Liberals. All right, I'll tell you a story you'll like.

[Wesley Hunt]

I cannot wait. I love it.

[Ted Cruz]

So I'm in law school and Harvard Law Review. Every year they select 40 editors, class of about 560 people, 40 editors. So there are a total of 80. They're 40 second year law students, 40 third year law students that are on the Law Review and the Law Review. It's kind of a weird thing, law schools. It's sort of, it's a legal journal, but it's also this like super prestigious thing that opens up clerkships, opens up jobs. It's historically, it's the best students at the law school. So the Law Review is. Treat it as a big deal. When I was there, the way they selected it is they had 32 of the slots. Half of them were based on a writing competition that was a week long, incredibly grueling writing competition. The other half were based on grades and the writing competition. So that's 32 of the 40 slots. And then they had up to eight of the slots reserved for affirmative action. So that was a policy, explicitly affirmative action. So my second year on the law, or my first year on the Law Review, second year of law school, there were several of us who were conservatives, who were editors, and some of my buddies decided they wanted to force a vote to end affirmative action on the Law Review. Now I have to admit, I thought affirmative action was wrong, but I also could count votes. And I said, we're not gonna win. Like, why are you wasting your time?

[Wesley Hunt]

Math is math.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ted Cruz]

But they wanted to. I said, great. So we went and we met in a classroom. And so there are all 80 of us in a classroom. We're debating whether or not to end affirmative action. And I remember this one particularly arrogant liberal stood up and said, if we end affirmative action, the Law Review will be nothing but white men. And I was sitting in the back. I actually wasn't really engaged in the argument.

[Wesley Hunt]

So that's racist.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah.

[Wesley Hunt]

Right.

[Ben Shapiro]

Just for the record, you don't even have to Google it. So that's racist. Yes.

[Ted Cruz]

And it pissed me off.

[Ben Shapiro]

I can't imagine. I can't imagine you got that mad.

[Ted Cruz]

And I stood up in the back and I said, all right, you want to understand why affirmative action is evil? You just heard it. Because this sack of.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah.

[Ted Cruz]

Just said that he believes on merit. If it's objective merit, the only people who will rise to the top are white men. Now, number one, I'm an Hispanic, and you want to throw your damn transcript on the table, I'll put mine next to it, and let's. Let's see who's performing better at law school, you miserable, arrogant little jerk. Yeah, but I said, number two, you want to understand just how invidious this is at the time. I don't know about now, but at the time, there was only racial affirmative action.

[Wesley Hunt]

Right.

[Ted Cruz]

There was not gender affirmative action. There was not affirmative action for women. I said to every woman here, what he just said is, he thinks based on merit. No women could possibly get here. By the way, periodically, there would be a debate on adding women to affirmative action. It was all the women editors who voted against it because they understood that doing so cheapened their credential. Sure, but the assumptions, what utter crap. But the left embraces those views. And part of their views, it actually explains their arrogance is. So if you get anything, you ought to be damn grateful they gave this to you. And in response, you ought to shut up and obey them.

[Ben Shapiro]

That's the Democratic Party. That's literally the Democratic Party.

[Ted Cruz]

Now, I do want to tell you, I don't think you know this, but I do want to mention a bill that I introduced that we just got passed the month before you arrived in Congress that actually you'll care about because it impacts West Point very directly. And it is so all of the service academies and.

[Wesley Hunt]

Thank you for doing this, but go ahead. Yes.

[Ted Cruz]

Have had in place a rule, and it's a horrific rule. It is a rule that says cadets cannot get pregnant. And if a cadet gets pregnant. Yes, the cadet had three choices. Number one, you could have an abortion.

[Ben Shapiro]

Wow.

[Ted Cruz]

Number two, you can voluntarily give your child up to adoption and surrender your parental rights. Permanently and legally surrender your parental rights. Or number three, you can withdraw from the service academy. Those were the choices they gave cadets.

[Wesley Hunt]

That's correct.

[Ben Shapiro]

Now, I would assume that cadets sometimes got impregnated by people they actually worked with who were also serving the military.

[Ted Cruz]

Yes. So. And ostensibly, the policy applied to women and men, but it was very differential in how it was applied, because men could get a woman pregnant and escape the consequences of the policy. Whereas if you're a woman and you're pregnant, there ain't no hiding it. You're facing it. So I looked at this and thought it was completely indefensible.

[Wesley Hunt]

It was.

[Ted Cruz]

And so I ended up teaming up with a Democrat, Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat from New York, who's a good friend. And she and I have worked together quite a bit. But she and I introduced a bill that was called the Cadet Act.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yes.

[Ted Cruz]

And it was Cruz Gillibrand. And it instructed the service academies to end these policies and to adopt policies that if a cadet gets pregnant, that allows her to give birth to her child and continue to have parental rights. In December, the Cadet act passed into law.

[Wesley Hunt]

Thank you.

[Ted Cruz]

And Just last week, DoD promulgated the rules to the service academies to implement it. You can see. And so they no longer kick out. You can see there a picture of a US Air Force Academy graduate in 2011. And by the way. And so my team spoke to a number of cadets faced with this choice. Some were pressured into having an abortion and regretted it. Others terminated their parental rights.

[Wesley Hunt]

Yes.

[Ted Cruz]

Graduated and then would go back and adopt their own child. I had a classmate that did that.

[Ben Shapiro]

Really?

[Wesley Hunt]

Yes. I had a classmate that did that exact thing. I had another classmate that got pregnant and then took a leave of absence. So then she resigned from West Point and then had the baby and then had to turn over her parental rights to her mother. And then she re enrolled, and then West Point accepted her. And then she graduated the following year. And then after she graduated, then she then took on the parental rights away from her mother. That's ludicrous.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah.

[Wesley Hunt]

So thank you, sir, for this.

[Ben Shapiro]

Well, it takes us long to get it done. And this was there for so long.

[Wesley Hunt]

And by the way, I graduated in 2004. So, I mean, this has now been 20 years in the making. Who knows who has suffered under those draconian rules before? So this is. I'm very grateful for this.

[Ted Cruz]

And it was an interesting example also. So I was talking with a reporter this past week who was asking, said, well, look, Gillibrand is a liberal Democrat. How did you two work on this? And you know, this obviously concerns abortion front and center. And listen, I am strongly pro life. She is very much pro choice. We disagree on the question of abortion. But you know what we both agree on that forced abortion is terrible.

[Ben Shapiro]

Yeah.

[Ted Cruz]

That forcing, forcing women to do that to keep her abortion. If a mother wants to keep her.

[Wesley Hunt]

Child, you should not be kicked out of West Point for that.

[Ted Cruz]

For those purposes, you shouldn't be kicked out of West Point for it made no sense. It was idiotic policy. But I was really glad to see that we could get Democrats and Republicans to come together and that changed just this week.

[Wesley Hunt]

Thank you, Phil.

[Ben Shapiro]

Awesome. Well done. What a great thing to end on. That's a big victory. Great to have you with us. This is fun.

[Wesley Hunt]

Thank you for having me. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Ben Shapiro]

We really enjoyed it. And I have a feeling we'll probably end up doing this again sometime down the road. I'll be here for everybody watching. Don't forget we do two other audio only versions of this podcast each week, so make sure you subscribe and hit that download or auto download button wherever you get your podcasts. Also make sure you share this with your family and friends, tell them about verdict, write us a five star review. It actually helps us reach a lot more people on the charts and we'll see you back here in a couple of days.