← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
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- [00:00]
A
One of the big issues in this whole objection. January 6th issue was what is the function of the vice president who's acting as the president of the Senate? What is his function in the counting of the electoral votes? Does he have some active role? Is he merely reading them? Does the Senate. What does the Senate do? What does the House do? And this same issue came up in the Compromise of 1877, which is you had one, the Republican Party had one view of the vice president's role. The Democrats had another view. Depending on which way it worked out, that could have thrown the election. And so you end up with this bizarre sort of electoral commission that would then go forward and decide the election.
- [00:38]
B
That's right. And as I was looking at that, what initially struck me was just the weirdness of five House members, five senators, five Supreme Court justices. I was like, well, gosh, that's an odd historical creature. But as I was looking at the two choices we were facing, I wanted a third option.
- [01:02]
A
Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cru. I have missed all of you. Thank you so much to everyone who's been writing in asking, where is Verdict? We are back. It's been kind of hectic. Initially, it was just because of Christmas. Then it's because of children popping out everywhere, mostly in my family. Senator, I don't think there are any new kids going on by you. And of course, the madness that we've seen in Washington, D.C. which frankly resembles Baghdad these days, all of the lockdowns, all of the heightened tensions. Senator, it's good to see you again.
- [01:33]
B
Let me say to all our viewers, it's good to be back with you. In addition to everything Michael listed that has happened, we also had Christmas, we had New year's. I turned 50 years old.
- [01:42]
A
That's right.
- [01:43]
B
And you, Michael, became a father. Simon John Knowles, your son, came into the world. And so that is highly consequential. Let me say congratulations and let me start. But before we dive into constitutional law and what's happening in the country, let me just ask you, how is it being a dad?
- [02:05]
A
It is so great. I appreciate your mentioning it. Some people don't know that actually we had been keeping the pregnancy kind of quiet. And two of the first people to know about it were you, Senator, and Jon Voight. Because we were filming that earlier episode of Verdict, and I think it was John said, michael Ladd, are you, are you a father yet? I forget, are you a father? And I said, funny you should ask. Kind of funny that it's gonna be you two guys who find out first. But, yes, as of a few weeks ago, I am going to be a father. It's wonderful. And I have to tell you, we're in a really awful political moment right now. And a lot of the predictions that we have made on this show have sadly come true, and they're coming true in real time. And I'm not despondent about it because I've got this little bundle of joy. And I didn't expect to have such an emotional reaction to it. I thought it would be all intellectual. And then I go back to write or whatever, podcasting. It's just wonderful. It's tremendous. And so it's really great. And thank you for the congratulations in mentioning it.
- [03:05]
B
Well, it is terrifying and all consuming. I still remember when we brought both our girls home from the hospital, the absolute fear. These things don't come with instruction manuals. And I remember Heidi, how do I keep it alive? Heidi and I looked at the doctors and nurses, said, who in their right mind would give us a living human being to take care of? We don't know what we're doing. And yet somehow you manage. And the desperation when your infant child is crying and won't stop crying, you will do anything to soothe, soothe this child. And so I actually found with Caroline, late at night, two, three in the morning when she was crying, that rocking her. And I would put on, I had a cd, a Pavrati opera.
- [03:52]
A
Oh.
- [03:53]
B
And it, for whatever reason, Ness undorma. It calmed her down. So you may want to try some. I have a feeling there may be some opera in the Knowles household.
- [04:03]
A
There certainly will be. I'll be singing Nes undorma because it's true, because in Italian that means nobody sleeps. And that's what's been happening. You know, I was worried that I might fall asleep at my desk today since it's sort of the first day's back. But fortunately, or I guess unfortunately, the news is so unbelievably impressive. Intense, obviously. We have so much to get to today. Let's begin with January 6th, reading the Electoral College votes at the joint session of Congress. The objection to the Electoral College votes, the riot that ensued afterward. You were there. I was not. What happened?
- [04:42]
B
I think it's helpful to take it back, really. Starting about a week earlier in the period between Christmas and New Year's, because we were heading up to January 6th. Under federal statute, January 6th was the date where the vice president reads the Electoral College votes before the House and Senate and where objections can be made from either House members or senators. And Coming out of Christmas, a number of House members had made clear they were going to make objections, and it wasn't clear if there were going to be any senators who made an objection. And the reason that matters is there's a statute that was passed. It's called the Electoral Count act, was passed in 1877, and it lays out under what conditions objections can be made. And for an objection to be made and be debated on and voted on, it has to be made by one House member and one senator. So if there's not a senator, the objection is out of order and you don't have a debate or a vote. If there's one House member and one senator, then you go automatically to two hours of debate in your separate chambers and a vote on that objection. And so there were several days where it was unclear if any senators were gonna raise an objection. Then Josh Hawley, the senator from Missouri who's been much of the news lately as well, he announced he was going to object. He was going to object to the electors from Pennsylvania. That changed things because it meant we were definitely going to go and have to vote on that objection. We're gonna have two hours of debate, and all 100 senators were gonna have to vote. And I gotta tell you, there was enormous pressure within the Senate, within the Republican Conference, for no senator to object. Leadership really didn't wanna take this vote. Josh decided he was going to object anyway. I spent several weeks really wrestling with what's the right thing to do here, what is the principled approach that is consistent with the Constitution, that is consistent with federal law, that's consistent with my responsibilities as a senator. And as I looked at it, I thought all of the senators really faced a dilemma in that we had two terrible choices. We were going to have to vote on the objection. If we voted no, if we voted against the objection, that vote would be heard by tens of millions of Americans as saying, you don't believe voter fraud is real, you don't believe it's serious, you don't believe it's significant. And that's just not true. That's certainly not true for me. It's not true for many, if not most of the Republicans that voter fraud has been a real and significant and persistent problem. And it goes right to the heart of the integrity of the election. And so voting no was a really lousy option. But on the other hand, I was not willing to, and I think most of the Republicans in the Senate were not willing to vote to set aside the results of the election just because the candidate I was supporting hadn't won. That is not a principled outcome either to say, well, gosh, my guy didn't win, so throw it out. That was a terrible option. And so as I looked at it, I spent some time really studying the precedents and trying to dig into, well, look, this is not the first presidential election we've had in this country. It's not the first election that was close. What has happened in past elections, there have been objections raised over and over and over again. And in looking through the historical precedents, I focused in particular on one, which was the presidential election of 1876. 1876 was a very contentious election between Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican, and Samuel Tilden, the Democrat. And it was very close. And that election, likewise, there were serious allegations of voter fraud in three different states, in Florida, in Louisiana, and in South Carolina. And what Congress did in 1877. So right after the 1876 election, Congress appointed what it called an election commission. And this was a strange creature. It was a commission that consisted of five House members, five senators, and five Supreme Court justices, which is really a curious. I mean, it's like a winged unicorn or something. It's something that. For which I don't know of any other parallel in US History for an entity that is a hybrid entity like that. Well, that's what Congress did.
- [09:44]
A
And there's an important precedent set here, too, which is one of the big issues in this whole objection, January 6th issue was what is the function of the vice president who's acting as the president of the Senate? What is his function in the counting of the electoral votes? Does he have some active role? Is he merely reading them? Does the Senate. What does the Senate do? What does the House do? And this same issue came up in the Compromise of 1877, which is you had one. The Republican Party had one view of the vice president's role. The Democrats had another view, depending on which way it worked out, that could have thrown the election. And so you end up with this bizarre sort of electoral commission that would then go forward and decide the election.
- [10:27]
B
That's right. And as I was looking at that, what initially struck me was just the weirdness of five House members, five senators, five Supreme Court justices. I was like, well, gosh, that's an odd historical creature. But as I was looking at the two choices we were facing, I wanted a third option. I didn't like either one of the options. And so I sat down actually on a plane on Southwest Airlines. I pulled out my laptop and flying back and forth from Houston to D.C. and I wrote what turned into about a two page statement. And what I did in the statement is I walked through, through the historical precedents and I walk through the legal precedents that govern this decision. And I argued we should follow the precedent of 1877 and specifically that Congress should create an election commission that would conduct an emergency 10 day audit and just like in 1877, consider the evidence and make determinations on the disputed ballots. The 10 day period was important because 10 days, it would have been a daunting task had Congress agreed to do it. But by doing it as a 10 day audit, it would be completed before January 20th. So it wouldn't delay inauguration, it wouldn't delay or impact the peaceful transfer of power, but it would have a credible impartial tribunal consider these very serious claims of voter fraud. Now, after I wrote it, I thought about just putting the statement out as this is what I'm going to do. But then as I thought about it some more, it occurred to me that it would be better, it would be stronger if other senators were standing with me. And so this was on January 1st, New Year's Day, we had a vote. So I was flying from Houston back to D.C. on New Year's Day because we had a vote on New Year's Day. And so I began just talking to other senators. And it started so the first senator I saw was John Kennedy. And just happened, John Kennedy was on the Senate floor. And I called John off to the side and I said, hey, what are you thinking about January 6th? And he was struggling with it. He thought the two choices were crappy as well. He didn't like them.
- [12:55]
A
Right.
- [12:56]
B
And so I said, well, here's this idea I have that's really door number three. If you don't like the two options you've got, maybe there's a third option that is a better option that is grounded in principle in the Constitution and history and precedent. And I mentioned it to John and I said, here, I've got the statement. You want to take a look at it and see what you think he did? And he said he was interested and intrigued in the idea. And what I proceeded to do over the next 24 hours is I talked to probably 15 senators. And this was very much one on one, just, just calling my colleagues on the phone. It was almost all on the phone. And I spent, I'd say roughly an hour apiece on the phone with them where kind of I just call them and say, hey, what are you thinking about January 6th and everyone's like, yeah, I don't know what to do. I'm really frustrated. And I said, well, here's this idea. What do you think of it? Let me send you the statement. You look at it. What ended up happening is that a group of 11 senators came together. So 10 other senators joined me in this statement, and they agreed that it was a much better option than the other two votes. And so we put out that joint statement as a statement from 11 senators that we were going to object on January 6th. But this is really important, Michael. We weren't objecting saying, throw the results out. We want the candidate we favored to win. Instead, we were objecting. We were using the objection to press for an election commission to be a fair, impartial tribunal, to actually consider the facts and the evidence and the claims of voter fraud, which I think would have been a much better path to go down than the one we went down.
- [14:47]
A
Well, because, you know, we talked on this show, there have been a whole range of theories about the election, and some are a little more outlandish than others, and some are right in front of your nose. I mean, what happened, for instance, in Pennsylvania where the election officials violated the state constitution? That is the clearest example of irregularities. But you had other irregularities in Georgia and other places as well. So there is this problem, this fear in people's minds that they can't trust the integrity of the electoral system. And we've gotten mailbag questions saying, well, what are we gonna do in the future if we can't trust the elections? So it would seem that it's in everybody's interest, including Democrats, for that matter, to shore up some trust in the system, have a commission go out, do this for 10 days. Is it going to throw out the results of Pennsylvania? Probably not. But to at least get on the record, take these issues seriously. And there were other approaches to this. I mean, I know Senator Hawley kind of had his own approach to these election issues, but you had this. You released the statement. I read the statement. You had other senators join onto it, and then this riot breaks out.
- [15:58]
B
And let me stop you before we get to the riot, which was obviously major occurrence. I think the point you just made is really important that going into this election, coming out of this election, we have seen overheated rhetoric like crazy on both sides of the political aisle.
- [16:15]
A
Yeah.
- [16:16]
B
The Democrats and the news media. And sadly, the news media is now just part of the Democratic Party. They are one. Their talking point is there is no voter fraud. It doesn't exist. And for you to say voter fraud is just. I mean, it's amazing. You read any newspaper article, and anytime there's a reference to voter fraud, I think the editor's mandate they put in, which is totally baseless and false. And look, voter fraud has been a persistent challenge in elections. And the media narrative that doesn't exist, and you can't say it exists is weird. Rewriting history.
- [16:52]
A
Yeah.
- [16:53]
B
Now, listen, on the other hand, President Trump's rhetoric, I think, went way too far over the line. I think it was both reckless and irresponsible because he said, repeated and he said over and over again, he won by a landslide. There was massive fraud. It was all stolen everywhere. That evidence, the campaign did not prove that in any court. And to make a determination about an election, it has to be based on the evidence. And so simply saying the result you want, that's not responsible. And you've never heard me use language like that. What I've said is voter fraud is real, and we need to examine the evidence and look at the actual facts. And in particular, what is the evidence of how much voter fraud occurred and did it occur in sufficient quantities and in sufficient states to alter the outcome of the election? That would have been the mandate of the election commission to assess. And, you know, one of the things I pointed out on the Senate floor, Reuters polling shows 39% of Americans believe the election was rigged. That's a terrifying statistic. And I tried to make the case to Democrats. I said, look, you should want this commission because that's not good for our nation. It's not good for our country to go forward. With nearly half of the country believing that our democracy is fraudulent, we need to reestablish faith and trust in the democracy. And I think having a process to consider the evidence and the facts would have helped in that regard.
- [18:31]
A
Well, I think these distinctions are so important because they've all been blurred, certainly by the media, but even just in the chaos, they've been blurred. But it is a different thing. But on the one hand, you've got some people who are saying this election was completely stolen. Trump definitely got more votes than Biden. And I know this with 100% certainty, even though we don't know that with 100% certainty. But there's another argument that you can make, which is democratic election officials took away safeguards that protect election integrity. And in some places, they did this brazenly in violation of the law, and therefore people have questions about the election. Those are different statements. I understand how they relate to one Another. But it does seem important to get this on the record and hash it out.
- [19:14]
B
I think that's exactly right. All right, so let's go back to January 6th. So the way this works, all the senators gather on the floor of the Senate, and then we walk over to the House together. We walk over in a procession across the Capitol to come to the House floor. And with COVID we're kind of spread out. Normally everyone's on the House floor, all the House members and senators, with COVID protocols, they had people really spread out. So there were House members up in the gallery where they wouldn't normally be. And what happens? The vice president goes through and opens the envelopes of the votes from the electors in alphabetical order and reads them and asks if there's any objection. And so the group of 11 that had come together, I spent a lot of time between January 1st and January 6th talking to that group of 11 and trying to keep the coalition together, asking folks, all right, what's the right path here? What we agreed to do was object on the first of the contested states. And so that was Arizona. Just. It's alphabetical. So Arizona of the states where there were significant claims of voter fraud, Arizona was the first of those. And so we said, all right, we're gonna object on Arizona and use that as a vehicle to debate and lay out why we should appoint an election commission. So I made the objection for Arizona. Did it. Paul Gosar, who's an Arizona congressman, objected as well, because there was one senator and one House member there. Actually, I think there were six or seven senators who joined my objection. I think all 11 intended to, but not everyone actually physically got to sign the thing. So some of it is actually just mechanically, like, there's an objection that you have to sign. And it was kind of funny, like, we couldn't find the paper for a little while. So there were senators like, hey, I want to sign the objection. And it's like, oh, well, the House members have got it. We got to go find it. And so six or so other senators joined my objection. We go back to the Senate for two hours of debate, and it is alternating back and forth. Democrat, Republican. And so I get up and lay out the. And you're only allowed five minutes. So I have five minutes to lay out what it is I'm seeking, which, importantly, because the media refuses to acknowledge this, was not to set aside the results of the election, but was to have the election commission appointed. I present those remarks. We go back and forth. James Lankford, Republican, Senator from Oklahoma, who was one of the 11 part of the group that had put out the joint statement. James was standing, speaking. And while he was speaking, we notice a commotion, and some Secret Service agents come in, and they pull the vice president out of the presiding chair, which was really odd. And we're all kind of looking around going, what's going on? And James is still speaking. And so they grabbed Chuck Grassley, who was the president pro tem, who's the most senior senator in the majority party. And so Grassley goes and takes the seat, and we're all kind of like, okay, well, what happened to the vice president? Nobody knows at that point what's happening. And then, I don't know. A minute or two later, police officers come in, and they interrupt the proceedings, and they say, lock the doors. And so we stop. James stops talking, and they suspend the proceedings on the Senate floor. And the police officers come in and say, close all of the doors to the Senate chambers. There's doors around the bottom. Close the doors up top around the Senate gallery. And they're yelling. I mean, there's an urgency. They're saying, get everyone in here. Everyone sit in your desks. They're bringing the reporters who are in the hallways. They're rushing them into the gallery. There were a number of staff members who were back in the back areas. They rush them all onto the Senate floor, and they kind of cluster in the back of the Senate floor. And the police officers lock all the doors and physically stand guard. And, you know, we're all. Everyone's pulling out their phones and, you know, trying to what the heck's going on? And we're kind of hearing snippets, and we hear, okay, there's. There's a riot. There's an attack on the Capitol. But it's very much fog of war. No one's really sure exactly what's happening. We're there, I think, probably about 20 minutes, it felt like. On the Senate floor, they're telling everyone, stay there. And then the Capitol Police made the determination. I guess the rioters were starting to get close to the Senate floor, and they determined that was no longer a secure location. And so they gave an evacuation order. They said, everyone, get out. They said, you need to go. Get out and move now. And so all the senators, the staff, the reporters, we all exit.
- [24:21]
A
And are they directing you at this point? They're saying, go out that door. Go this way.
- [24:25]
B
Yes, they're telling us exactly where to go. And look, the Senate. You know, there are a lot of folks that are not spring chickens. And so there are some, you know, some senators in their 80s who are not the most mobile of folks, and they're trying to evacuate. And the Capitol Police are saying, move quickly. They're not saying stroll. They're saying. I mean, it was pretty tense. And so we exit, and they move us to a secure third location, so away from the Senate chamber. And so we're all together, all the senators are together in a secure location. And we're there for the next several hours. And we're watching TV at this point. We're all on our phones. We're seeing what's going on. And we're horrified. Right. As we see terrorists assaulting police officers, tragically murdering a police officer, we see a violent assault on the Capitol. We see terrorists breaking onto the floor of the Senate chamber and the floor of the House. And all of us are horrified by what we're watching. Now, I will say, in the secure location, we were there, someone had put on cnn. And so you could see Jake Tapper on CNN referring to everyone who had objected as the Sedition Caucus.
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A
Right, right.
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B
Which goes back to just the shameless propagandists that journalists are. But that's. Trump has broken cnn. Trump has broken journalism. We're all watching. We're all obviously deeply concerned. Capitol Police is pressing back. Capitol Police is trying to retake the Capitol. Secret Service is engaged. D.C. police is engaged. And so there's a concerted law enforcement effort to retake the Capitol. Over the next couple hours, there are a lot of different discussions among senators. I brought the group of 11 together, and we kind of huddled in the back, and I just asked everyone, okay, what do you guys, what should we do? Now? This was obviously, no one anticipated a terrorist attack on the United States Capitol. What should we do? And there was some disagreement in the group. And I kind of, you know, anytime you get a group of 11 senators, you just let everyone talk, because they're going to anyway. You're not gonna stop them.
- [26:54]
A
Maybe at the same time.
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B
But, you know, I was trying to say, all right, what do you think? What do you think? My view is? I said, listen, I think we need to continue what we're doing. And I do not believe that we should let a violent mob of terrorists intimidate the United States Senate.
- [27:13]
A
Right.
- [27:14]
B
We should follow through what we're fighting for. Election integrity, an independent election commission to protect the integrity of our election. That is a good and principled and right outcome. And there were several senators who said, well, maybe we should stop because of the riot. And I said, look, why would you let the rioters win? Why would you change your behavior? Because terrorists have attacked the Capitol?
- [27:41]
A
Well, it would seem also to grant the premises of. Well, certainly of cnn, but also of the people breaking into the Capitol, which is. You know, when you hear this term sedition caucus, what is being told is that it is seditious. It is undermining of the American constitutional order to raise an objection and to call for an electoral commission. And I think you've explained it very well. There is not only precedent for this, but the argument whether or not people want to say it's wise to do this or it's unwise or I support this or I don't support this. Surely it is the case that shoring up support for our electoral system and shoring up trust in that system is the opposite of sedition. It is attempting to restore some faith in the American constitutional order. Whatever you think about it, practically, you have to at least say that if you. Then after the riots, say, okay, well, now I'm gonna pull my objections, Isn't that granting the premise that the whole thing was seditious in the first place?
- [28:39]
B
Yeah, look, I think you're right. And that's one of the reasons that I think we thought it was a bad idea. You know, the point you just made, I think is really important, which is the forum that we were having this debate. The floor of the United States Senate is the exact right place under the Constitution, under federal law, to have this debate. That's actually in our constitutional system, how we resolve differences of opinion over legal issues, over policy issues, over differences between us as we debate. The Senate is supposed to be the world's greatest deliberative body. Standing and making an objection on the floor of the Senate is operating within the constitutional system, and it is the antithesis. It is the complete opposite of settling disagreements through violence and terrorism and rioting and assault. And, you know, the Democrats right now. So in the wake of this. This terrorist attack, we've seen the Democrats trying to go after everybody. And I gotta say, Michael, where we are right now, it reminds me of the end of every Godfather movie. You know, think of all three of the Godfather movies. The end of the movie, they settle all the debts. You're right. And they eliminate all their enemies. That's what the Democrats are trying to do now. So are they trying to destroy Donald Trump? Yes. And they're trying with all their might to destroy him. But he's not the only target. They're certainly. They're trying to destroy me. They're trying to destroy every conservative. They're trying to destroy every Republican. And they're really trying to say that the 75 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump are all bigoted, racist, hateful, seditious, insurrectionist terrorists. Yeah, I mean, I mean, they are trying to. You know, Rahm Emanuel famously said, you never let a good crisis go to waste. Right. And we're seeing both the Democrats and the media trying to operationalize that and trying to use this attack as an excuse to go after everyone. You know, one of the most amazing hypocrisies. We don't have to go very far back in history to find violent riots occurring with the active encouragement and celebration of Democratic politicians.
- [31:24]
A
Not just, by the way, Senator, not just the act of encouragement and celebration, which you saw from people like Maxine Waters, which you saw from people like Hillary Clinton, which you saw from media figures like Chris Cuomo, who said protests don't need to be peaceful, but they also would provide material support. So the vice president, Kamala Harris, posted a fundraising link to bail out the violent rioters in Minnesota. Now, all of a sudden, I know that I'm not supposed to mention that sort of context. It's called whataboutism or some nonsense. I'm pleased to see Democrats are condemning political violence. Now, where were you when you were providing mater support for violent riots across the country?
- [32:04]
B
Michael? That is exactly right. And listeners of Verdict will remember that we have spent the past year talking at great length about Antifa, about BLM riots, about police officers murdered by Antifa and BLM terrorists, about stores being looted and burned to the ground, about police cars being firebombed. And condemning unequivocally violence is always, always, always wrong. And it doesn't matter if it's left wing or right wing or no wings at all. And there's a consistency in what you've said and I've said, which is that every American has a right to peaceful protest. You have a right to speak. You have a right to stand out in the street and say whatever your views are, whether they're right or idiotic. The First Amendment protects your right to speak, but nobody has a right to commit acts of violence. And I've been unequivocal condemning violence. All of the Democrats calling for my head right now spent an entire year apologizing for celebrating violent terrorists and rioters burning American cities because they happen to agree with their politics. And as you noted, were saying, and let's bail the criminals out afterwards. I think we ought to be consistent and say violence and terrorism is wrong, period. The end. And anyone who's attacked the Capitol ought to be fully prosecuted and they ought to go to jail for a long, long time.
- [33:38]
A
Yeah, I think that's fair. And I actually am pleased to see that some of the less right wing Republicans are not really falling for this trick that I think the media are pulling here and the Democrats are pulling. But I repeat myself, your colleague, Senator Mitt Romney, who is not the most right wing member of the Republican caucus, he came out and said you were raising perfectly legitimate questions and objections. So I was pleased to see that. But I think the point you're making here on the end of the Godfather, everyone's settling scores. I think it's really important. And it gets to something even sort of beyond January 6th, that we've been talking about for a couple of months on this show, which is Joe Biden might talk like a moderate, but the Democrats are gonna go for broke here. They now have a unified government. We're now, what is it, the third day of the Biden administration. I suppose that we're recording this and we have not seen meek, mild, unifying Joe Biden. We are seeing the Democrats putting their pedal to the floor of the car.
- [34:37]
B
I think that's right. You know, we had the inauguration on January 20th and I was there at the inauguration. I've been. It's the third inauguration I've been to now as a senator. I was at Obama's second inauguration. I was at Trump's inauguration and now Biden's inauguration. And I was sitting up there on the platform and I actually thought Biden gave a good speech. I am glad that he made it a very explicit call for unity. I think that's beneficial. I don't think his party's interested in listening to him. I don't think they're interested in unity. They don't wanna heal. They want everybody dead. I mean, you know, make another movie reference. It's like, you know, Al Capone, untouchable, saying, you know him, I want dead, him dead.
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A
Want his family. Yeah.
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B
And we also saw, even though Biden's rhetoric. And look, the inaugural speech had some partisan jabs that were pretty nasty.
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A
Yep.
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B
But it had some important appeals to let's come together, which I was glad to hear him say. That was combined with though he then returned to the Oval Office and signed a stack of executive orders that were anything but uniting, anything but moderate. They were radical, they were extreme. He shut down the Keystone pipeline, destroyed 11,000 jobs, 8,000 union jobs boom with a stroke of a pen, gone. Ordered that construction of the border wall be halted immediately. Ordered executive amnesty, and came out with a radical immigration plan, which of course, the Democrats are supporting, to grant citizenship to tens of millions of people here illegally. You know, the unifying theme behind all of these is they're just hammering American workers, that the working men and women. That first day in office, Joe Biden and his pan, were just destroying jobs. And that's not a moderate. It's not a unifying agenda. It is instead the wish list of the far left. And you and I have talked about for a year that I think that's where the Democratic Party is, is they're captive to the far left. The first wave of executive orders certainly seem to suggest that.
- [37:01]
A
Something that I found even more troubling than the Keystone pipeline or these other kind of economic issues where you kind of knew Joe Biden was gonna go there sooner probably rather than later. But on day one, he didn't just get rid of 11,000 jobs with the stroke of a pen. He seemed to get rid of the women's bathrooms. He seemed to get rid of women's sports. Now, I'm sure this will be litigated for years to come, but he signed an executive order saying that boys have the right to go into the girls room and boys have the right to play in girls sports. We know that the left is there. But you would imagine that any kind of moderate Democrat would either put that issue to the side or push it well off into the future. Does it seem to you, as it seems to me, that by addressing that kind of a radical idea on day one, he's signaling there ain't gonna be no moderation?
- [37:54]
B
I think that's right. I think they've told the radicals, you get your wish list. And their view, by the way, is what you just said is. Is no longer acceptable. You will be silenced. You will be canceled. You will be censored. That they want to. If you think that your girl's soccer team ought to have girls on it and not people who were born biologically male, the view of the radical left is that is verboten. That is, you're not allowed to have that view. You're not allowed to say it's. And it's bigoted and discriminatory if you do.
- [38:32]
A
Right, right.
- [38:34]
B
You know that's right. Now, who's driving the train in the Biden administration?
- [38:37]
A
I wanna dig in. I mean, the executive orders were scary. They were hypocritical. There was one where Joe Biden signs a mask mandate for federal lands and then he immediately goes and doesn't wear a mask on federal lands because there's one set of rules for thee and one set of rules for me if you're in that sort of liberal elite. But I want to get beyond the EOs into some of the worries that we had before the election. Issues like mass amnesty. I guess we saw that in the executive orders. Issues like getting rid of the filibuster, issues like possibly adding new states, Puerto RICO and Washington, D.C. i mean, these are the kind of issues that could destroy the Republican Party at the national level forever. And that will require some legislative work. So that'll take place in the Senate, that'll take place in the House. What is your view on the likelihood and the timeline of those kind of worst case scenario policies?
- [39:33]
B
Well, the big first step is whether or not the Democrats end the filibuster. To do that, they would have to exercise what's called the nuclear option. The Senate is 50, 50. There are 50 Democrats, 50 Republicans. Any tie? Kamala Harris, the vice President breaks. So it is the narrowest Democratic majority possible. Right now, at least Joe Manchin, Democrat from West Virginia, is saying that he won't support ending the filibuster. A huge step. One question is, does Joe actually hold that position?
- [40:17]
A
Right.
- [40:18]
B
As we've talked about on Verdict before, I'm skeptical that he will. I think when Chuck Schumer puts the thumbscrews to him, and with Schumer, I'm not sure thumb screws are figurative. They may actually be literal thumb screws. I'm not sure Manchin's gonna hold the line, but it's a dramatically different world if he does. Because the most radical policy ideas from the left, if they end the filibuster, they can get them done. If they don't end the filibuster, the most radical legislative ideas at least aren't going anywhere. So for example, making D.C. a state, if they end the filibuster, they'll have the votes to make D.C. a state. If they don't, they won't. Because Republicans are not going to go along with that. Packing the U.S. supreme Court. If they end the filibuster, I believe they'll pack the court, that they'll add four new justices to the court. If miraculously they don't end the filibuster, they won't have the votes. Republicans won't go along with that. If they don't end the filibuster, we're still gonna See, really, really bad policy over the next two years, we're gonna see horrible executive policy, regulatory policy that they can do just within the executive branch, we will see, I believe, a horrible tax bill. They're going to raise taxes on everybody. It's going to be massive. It is going to be driven by the socialist left. And even with the filibuster, if you remember the way Republicans cut taxes in 2017, there's a procedural vehicle called budget reconciliation, which you can pass a tax bill using reconciliation, and it can't be filibustered. So with 51 Democrats, they can pass a massive tax increase. I think that's gonna happen. I'm gonna fight against it, but it's gonna happen. Immigration. I'm very, very worried. They're gonna do terrible things on the executive side, but they're gonna push immigration legislation. If we keep the filibuster, immigration is the one area where they could get 10 Republicans to join with them. With the Gang of Eight in 2013, which I fought tooth and nail against, and we stop, they got. I think. I think it was 68 senators voted for the Gang of Eight. Right, right. So there are definitely some members of the Republican conference who are willing to go along with some terrible immigration policy. I hope that doesn't happen. I expect that to be a vigorous legislative battle, and I am all in stopping a massive amnesty plan that is contrary to the rule of law and grotesquely unfair to American workers. The ancillary question to all of this is, do they have 50 votes to end the filibuster? And the only Democrat who has said anything suggesting he might not is Manchin. So it literally. If you want to pray for something tonight, pray for spinal fortitude in Joe Manchin and for him being quick enough to avoid Schumer's thumbscrews.
- [43:33]
A
Well, there is one thing that I think could hopefully derail some of this awful legislation. And it's funny that this would be the thing to do it, but, Senator, it feels like Groundhog Day on this podcast. This time last year, we launched the show. We launched it during impeachment. Now, you know, history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. We are once again in the impeachment of Donald Trump, who, for those of you who haven't been watching the news recently, is no longer the president. But there is, I guess, going to be an impeachment trial to remove from office the president who's no longer in office. Presumably this. I guess the bright side is this could derail some of the Senate's time And focus. I truly have no idea what this means. I didn't know that you could impeach a president who's no longer in office. I still don't know that you can. You are a constitutional scholar and a practitioner of the legislation that's going on in the Senate right now. What on earth is happening?
- [44:43]
B
Well, the Democrats are hell bent on going forward with impeachment. And so we're doing yet another impeachment. The House has already impeached Donald Trump. The Senate, they decided today that the trial is going to happen the second week of February. So there's going to be a couple of weeks for each side to get in their legal briefs and then the trial will commence the second week of February. I think it's a mistake, I think it is petty, I think it's vindictive. And you know, look, Trump has left office, he's no longer president. At this point, they're simply exercising their primal rage. They hate the man so much. And you know, you think of the challenges facing this country. I mean, we've got a global pandemic, we have tens of millions of people out of work. We have a lot to be doing rather than looking backwards and fulfilling. The Democrats fury and hatred directed at Trump, but that's where they're gonna go. I don't believe he's gonna be convicted. To convict him, take 67 votes. I don't think that'll happen. And I imagine our next podcast, maybe our next couple will be talking about different aspects of that. But I think this is just, this is the Democrats with a giant middle finger, not just to Trump, but to everyone who voted for him. They're saying screw you to everyone on the other side.
- [46:22]
A
You know, I'm trying to even figure out what the argument is here for impeachment. Cuz I guess they're gonna charge him with inciting a riot or inciting an insurrection or kind of whatever language they wanna use. Now, of course, President Trump, whatever you think of his actions between the election and January 6, on January 6, he did say, be peaceful, right? Don't be violent. And while this riot was going on, he said, go home, be peaceful, don't do this. So I don't see how they're going to get him on that count, really, unless they totally change the definition of insurrection. But beyond that, I just have the constitutional question, can you impeach? Can you convict a president who's no longer in office?
- [47:05]
B
So that's actually, that turns out to be a complicated constitutional question. And the answer is not A slam dunk on either side. It is an open question, and there are serious scholars on both sides of the issue. If you look at the text of the Constitution, there's support both ways. So, for example, the Constitution provides that the chief justice shall preside for the impeachment of the president. Well, Donald Trump today is not the president. In the United States, there's only one the president at any point in time.
- [47:48]
A
That's why he has the definite article, the right.
- [47:52]
B
And the president today is Joe Biden. So one of the consequences of that is when the trial happens in February, I expect and imagine John Roberts will not be presiding because Trump is not the president. If you look at the history and the precedents actually in the US Whether you can impeach or whether you can try someone after they've left office has been hotly debated for hundreds of years. It has happened. The Senate has. The House is impeached, and the Senate has considered proceedings for officials who have left office. So there is historical precedent. The term of art is late impeachments is what it's called. If you look at British common law and the practice of impeachment in Great Britain, there were precedents there for late impeachment as well, for people who are out of office being impeached after the fact. And so there is a, I think, a reasonable argument that it is permissible. The counter to that is the language in the Constitution. It is focused principally, the objective of impeachment is to remove someone from office, is to get someone out of office if they can no longer carry out the role or the job consistent with the responsibilities. And of course, the predicate is high crimes or misdemeanors, which we talked about a lot on verdict someone who's already left office. Getting them out of office has already happened. So the central objective of impeachment is already satisfied. I expect the question of whether you can impeach a president after he's left office to be vigorously debated. I'm sure Trump's lawyers will argue at length that you cannot. I'm sure the House's lawyers will argue at length that you can. And none of that's going to dissuade Chuck Schumer. He's going ahead. The Democrats are all going ahead. All of them will vote to convict. And I think on the question of whether you can impeach a president after he's in office, there will be senators who arrive on both sides of that issue.
- [50:21]
A
Well, I have a conspiracy theory of my own that CNN is putting all of These senators up to this trial because even though they wanted Trump out of office, they really like him for the TV ratings. So they just, even though he's gone out of the white, they want to keep him in the national picture. This all brings us to the question that is certainly on my mind. I think it's on everybody's mind. It was sent to us, actually, as a mailbag question from Margo. Question is, so what now? We are arrived at the worst case scenario, right? Democrats have the House, they have the Senate, they have the White House. Where do we go from here? What practical steps can conservatives take to combat all the leftist policies already being enacted?
- [51:05]
B
Yeah, it's a bad situation. And one of the things that made it much, much worse was the outcome in Georgia. So on January 5th, we had the two Senate runoffs. You know, I went to Georgia three times in December and January, campaigning on the ground, campaigning to try to hold those seats. You joined me for those rallies. I saw you.
- [51:25]
A
That's right.
- [51:25]
B
Yeah, yeah. Look, I said at the time, the Georgia Senate races were the most consequential Senate races of our lifetimes. I think that's right. And if we look at what happened on January 5, we now have the election results and we can see what happened, which is Republican turnout was down. Democrats showed up, they were unified, they were pissed off. They hate Donald Trump, and they all showed up in mass. And Republicans. And we tried to energize folks, but Republicans were demoralized, they were dispirited. They were frustrated at the results in the presidential election. And Republicans stayed home. And, you know, if one side shows up and the other side stays home, you know, it kind of reminds me of, you know, John Madden, his sports, sports analysis, where, you know, Madden will say things like, you know, if one team scores more points than the other team, they're going to win the game.
- [52:22]
A
It's true. Show me the flaw.
- [52:25]
B
You know, with that same John Madden insight, if one side's voters show up and the other side's voters stay home, they're gonna win the election. And so we're gonna have two very difficult years. What now is we keep fighting for principles that are right and true and just. It means that we spend the next two years trying to stop policies that will hurt our country, try to stop policies that will destroy individual liberty, try to stop policies that. Policies that will destroy the Constitution and Bill of Rights. We're seeing, you know, for four years, the media wanted it to be all about personality. Do you like Donald Trump or not? Do you like his tweets or not, it was just, it was, you know, it was a reality TV completely devoid from policy or substance or anything concerning our lives. Now with the radicals in charge, we're going to see their bad policy. That is an opportunity to make the case to millions of Americans, to young people and Hispanics and African Americans and suburban moms, that these policies of the socialist left are really, really harmful. And I think we need to use these two years to make that case. And then we gotta win in 22 and we gotta win in 24. We got elections coming up. We gotta make it through these two years. And one thing to draw some good news from some solace is politics historically tends to be a pendulum. Swings one way and then it swings the other. And what causes it to swing the other is the party in power. Particularly if they get unified power, as the Democrats have, they almost invariably overreach. They go too far, they go too extreme and the American people don't like it, they swing back the other way. I think that's what the Democrats are going to do. Now that suggests that 2022 should be a very good election and 2024 should be a very good election. Now, could Republicans screw it up? Yes. And the easiest way for us to screw it up is have a civil war within the Republican Party where Republicans spend the next four years trying to kill each other instead of trying to unify and win the elections. I hope that doesn't happen. I'm gonna try to do everything I can to prevent it from happening, but that is a risk. But the Democrats overreaching is a factor that should set up a very good election in 22 and a very good election in 24.
- [55:10]
A
I think that's all great points, but in particular this idea about the civil war among Republicans. Cuz if the left is able to really divide the Republican Party, that's kind of their best hope. I mean, I think they've frankly already overreached with the executive orders from day one. But it's also why I was very pleased to see your colleague Mitt Romney come out and be supportive of, I believe, the Constitution, but also supportive of you and others of your colleagues who maybe are a little more on the conservative side.
- [55:39]
B
Yeah. And I appreciate admit saying that that was gracious and helpful of him to say.
- [55:45]
A
Yeah. And if there can be some unity from Republicans, I agree that the map is looking good, the climate looks good. Assuming we can ensure election integrity, which was obviously a topic we talked about a lot today, it could be a good year. In 2022. But all of that, of course, begins now. And even 2024 begins now. I have to move to a different topic, a disturbing topic. Senator, this is from Dominic. Senator, did you at least chuckle when Chuck Schumer had his Freudian slip on the Senate floor and said that Trump caused an erection? I'll just say it. I know this is a family show, but the Senate Majority leader said it, so I'll say it, too.
- [56:28]
B
Well, look, I mean, Chuck is really, really excited about being majority leader, and I think he showed his excitement to the world. He did. Yes. I chuckled heartily. And, you know, there are times when the Senate is supposed to be this august, deliberative body, but there are other times where it's a junior high. And, you know, I have to say this. That mental image, I could have gone my entire life without ever having it in my mind. And I really, my life was complete without ever once having that image.
- [57:09]
A
Yes. For those listeners, by the way, who don't know, a Freudian slip is where you say one thing but mean your mother. So just to give you some context for what happened there, I'll show myself out. By the way, Galen wants to know, this will be the last question before we go. Cause I know we've gone a little longer today, but, Senator, I missed you so much. There was a lot to catch up on over this past month or even a little more than a month. Galen wants to know what are your priorities, top priorities for 2021, and do you think the GOP is gonna keep it together, or do you think we're.
- [57:42]
B
Gonna fracture, stop bad policy and win hearts and minds? So I've sat down with my Senate team and I've said, look, we're in a very different posture. You know, if you look at my time in the Senate. So I've now been in the Senate just over eight years. And first four years I was in the Senate, Barack Obama was president. We saw lots of bad policy coming from the White House. And I viewed my job as leading the loyal opposition, doing everything I could to stop policies that would hurt 29 million Texans, had hurt the country. Starting January 2017, we had a Republican president in office, Donald Trump. I agree with him on many things. I disagreed with him on some things. But we spent the next four years, I worked hand in hand with President Trump trying to deliver big policy wins for the American people. And I think we did. I think if you look at the policy record of the last four years, it's remarkable. That was a very different posture because we weren't trying to fight to stop disastrous policies. We were instead, I spent those four years, a lot more time sitting in conference rooms with other senators, hammering out legislation and trying to bring Republicans together to get 50 Republicans to yes. And we delivered some really big wins. I've already sat my team down and said, you know what, we're back in the first four years, we're back in the mode of stopping bad policy. Now we have less leverage than we did back then because then we had a Republican House. We don't now. So I'll use every lever I've got to try to stop bad policy. But we're going to see a lot of bad policy over the next two years, which means that winning hearts and minds, explaining why these policies are so harmful, bringing them home and connecting with people and, you know, Verdict listeners are educated and informed and engaged on the issues. And so a lot of what Verdict is going to try to do is give you the tools when you're talking to your family around the dinner table, when you're at the water cooler at work or at school, give you the tools to understand what's going on and why these policies matter. And I think that's how we bring the country back. And just look, as I travel around, a lot of people stop me really worried, really dismayed. What are we going to do? And I say, listen, it's going to be a rough two years, but we'll make it through it. America is strong and resilient. Our country is strong enough to make it through this. And it's gonna take each of us fighting to make sure that happens.
- [60:41]
A
It will and it will take everyone listening to the show. We really appreciate it. If you wouldn't mind leaving us a five star review, it'd be very helpful if you would subscribe while we're still on podcast apps. For now, hope they don't take us off. We will be back much more quickly than we were over the past month or so. Christmas is over. New Year's is over. We are in a whole new political universe. And in some ways, though, as we look forward to impeachment, it seems like so much more of the same. We will dig into what's going on and look forward to the future. Senator, thank you very much. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
- [61:24]
B
This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz.
- [61:27]
A
Is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security pac, a political action.
- [61:31]
B
Committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations and candidates across the country.
- [61:37]
A
In 2022, jobs, freedom and Security PAC.
- [61:40]
B
Plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.