So Help Me God

Summary

Podcast Summary: "So Help Me God" – The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson

Release Date: October 28, 2020
Host: Ben Ferguson
Episode Title: So Help Me God

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In this episode of The 47 Morning Update, host Ben Ferguson delves into the pivotal moments surrounding the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Through an insightful discussion with Senator Ted Cruz, Ferguson unpacks the implications of Barrett's confirmation, the dynamics within the Senate, the looming challenges ahead in the political landscape, and the ongoing oversight of Big Tech companies. The conversation offers listeners a comprehensive understanding of the events that have shaped America's judicial and political environment in recent weeks.

1. Confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett

The episode opens with Senator Ted Cruz recounting the historic confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Cruz describes the emotional and strategic elements that defined the confirmation process.

• Key Moments:

  • Cloture Vote: "We voted at 1pm on Sunday on what's called cloture, which is the vote to end debate on a nomination." (01:05)
  • Senate Floor Dynamics: Cruz highlights the rare scene where Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer was the only Democrat present on the Senate floor during the confirmation vote. Schumer's absence led to a tension-filled environment as he expressed strong opposition to the confirmation.

• Notable Quote:

  • “Justice Barrett was confirmed with a vote of 52 to 48. At that point, there was a standing ovation as the Senate Republicans all burst into applause.” (05:55)

2. Senate Dynamics and Leadership Speeches

Senator Cruz provides an in-depth analysis of the interactions between Senate leadership and the Democratic minority during the confirmation process.

• Mitch McConnell's Speech: Cruz praises Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for his measured and historical perspective on the confirmation process.

  • “I told him afterwards I thought it was the best speech I've ever heard him give because it was sort of a very reasonable assessment of how The Democrats have abused the confirmation process and how what Republicans were doing is consistent with how the Senate has operated for 200 years.” (03:22)

• Schumer's Absence and Implications: Cruz interprets Schumer's absence on the Senate floor as a strategic move, highlighting the lack of Democratic support during the confirmation.

  • “No single Democrat is on the Senate floor while Mitch is speaking.” (04:57)

3. Potential Court Packing and Future Judicial Strategies

The discussion shifts to the Democratic strategy post-confirmation, particularly focusing on the talks around court packing if Democrats regain control in the upcoming elections.

• Court Packing Threats: Cruz warns of the Democrats' intentions to "pack the court" should they win the election, referencing statements by Schumer and positions taken by President Biden.

  • “If they win next Tuesday, they intend to pack the court.” (08:34)
  • “I believe, and that's naturally gonna escalate. So the next time Republicans take power, we will pack the court in response.” (09:09)

• Historical Context: He draws parallels to past political maneuvers, emphasizing the potential for a tit-for-tat escalation that could be detrimental to the judiciary and the country.

  • “If they go to 11, we'll go to 13. That's bad for the court, that's bad for the country.” (09:09)

4. Oversight of Big Tech Companies

Senator Cruz transitions the conversation to the Senate's ongoing and upcoming hearings targeting major Big Tech companies, underscoring the Republican agenda to regulate these entities.

• Upcoming Hearings: Cruz outlines the scheduled hearings with CEOs of Google, Facebook, and Twitter before the Senate Commerce Committee.

  • “Tomorrow, there's going to be a hearing with the CEOs of Google, Facebook, and Twitter in front of the Senate Commerce Committee.” (10:39)
  • “We're gonna have two hearings in the next couple of weeks with Big Tech.” (11:34)

• Conversations with CEOs: He shares insights from his preparatory discussions with Sundar Pichai of Google and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, highlighting their stances on free speech and content moderation.

  • “I made the case to him [Zuckerberg] tonight that, listen, y'all should not be in the business of deciding what media stories are allowed to be seen and what media stories aren't.” (13:26)

• Notable Quote:

  • “Big Tech censoring the speech of American citizens is crossing over into censoring the media, which is a major threshold.” (13:26)

5. Senator Cruz's Campaign Schedule and Election Strategy

The conversation veers into Senator Cruz's extensive campaign efforts leading up to the November elections, showcasing his commitment to Republican candidates across various states.

• Campaign Priorities: Cruz outlines his busy schedule, including campaigning for senators in North Carolina, Montana, Iowa, Arizona, and Texas.

  • “Tomorrow night, I fly to Montana. Do, I think two events in Montana with Steve Daines in a very close contested Senate race in Montana.” (19:54)
  • “And then on Sunday, I fly to Arizona, do several stops with Martha McSally, who's running to hold onto her seat there.” (20:04)

• Personal Sacrifices: He shares personal anecdotes about prioritizing family over political events, such as attending his daughter's birthday over World Series tickets.

  • “I've turned down World Series tickets to go to spend it instead for Catherine's birthday.” (19:54)

6. Future of Political Moderation and Party Dynamics

Addressing a listener's question, Senator Cruz discusses the potential for both political parties to return to the center or remain entrenched in their current extremes.

• Introspection and Moderation: Cruz emphasizes the necessity for both parties to undergo introspection following electoral defeats to reassess and recalibrate their platforms.

  • “If you look at elections, typically what happens is if one side gets clobbered over and over again, they engage in some introspection.” (24:45)

• Historical Examples: He references the Democratic Party's shift under Bill Clinton after consecutive election losses and contrasts it with the lack of similar introspection following Trump's 2016 victory.

  • “They came back with Bill Clinton, who ran as a centrist Democrat and won and won twice.” (26:42)

• Future Outlook: Cruz remains hopeful that repeated electoral challenges will eventually drive both parties towards moderation, but acknowledges the current trend towards extremism.

  • “The only way you will see a decline in the dividend is to have one or two electoral thumpings to cause one or the other party to recalibrate.” (26:42)

7. Closing Remarks and Personal Insights

As the episode concludes, Senator Cruz shares personal plans and reflections on campaigning during the COVID-19 era, highlighting the challenges of maintaining personal connections with constituents.

• Impact of COVID-19: He expresses his preference for in-person campaigning and the limitations imposed by the pandemic, which hinder meaningful interactions with voters.

  • “I hate campaigning in the era of COVID because what I like to do is events.” (21:31)
  • “In the era of COVID you can't really do that. I mean, it's miserable.” (21:31)

• Final Quote:

  • “It was miserable. And I really will be grateful to getting back campaigning the way it should be done, which is actually interacting directly with lots and lots of people.” (21:31)

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Conclusion

In "So Help Me God," Ben Ferguson and Senator Ted Cruz provide listeners with a detailed exploration of the recent confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the strategic maneuvers within the Senate, the Republican approach to regulating Big Tech, and the broader implications for the upcoming elections. The episode underscores the high-stakes environment of American politics, the evolving challenges faced by legislators, and the personal commitments of political leaders amidst a tumultuous period.

Transcript

[Michael Knowles]

Judge Amy Coney Barrett has become Justice Amy Coney Barrett after a confirmation vote in the Senate and a wonderful ceremony, it seemed like just minutes later over at the White House. How is this going to affect the bench for the next 10, 20, 30, who knows how many years? We will find out. And almost of equal importance, how will this affect the vote in less than two weeks? This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles. I wish that I were in Washington right now because it sounds like it has been a whirlwind past two days. Senator, I know that you voted on Justice Barrett earlier yesterday, then it seemed, went straight to the White House for her confirmation ceremony with Justice Thomas and the President within, what, half an hour, an hour after that? Could you just take us through? We know that she's on the bench now. Could you take us through how it all unfolded?

[Ted Cruz]

So, sure. So yesterday was a big deal. It was historic. The confirmation vote itself was about 8:00 at night. Monday night it was teed up. So we voted at 1pm on Sunday on what's called cloture, which is the vote to end debate on a nomination. And so we invoked cloture Sunday at 1pm and then there's a 30 hour rule that the nomination is 30 hours after that vote. So we voted 1pm on Sunday. So then Monday night was supposed to be about 7pm, ended up being about 8pm so we all gather on the Senate floor, the Republicans are all there and the only Democrat on the floor is Chuck Schumer. And Schumer is when I come and sit and sit at my desk, Schumer is pontificating about how he intends to burn the country down. And you will rue the day. I don't know if he actually said you will rue the day, but that was kind of his whole theme is you will rue the day and we're going to be even worse. But it was an odd thing because all the Democrats were missing. So it's the Republicans listening to Schumer lecture us. So we sat there for, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes listening to him go on and on. He finishes and then Mitch McConnell gets ready to give his speech and Schumer leaves. Like he walks off the floor. So not a single Democrat is on the Senate floor while Mitch is speaking. And by the way, I thought Mitch gave a very good speech. I told him afterwards I thought it was the best speech I've ever heard him give because it was sort of a very reasonable assessment of how The Democrats have abused the confirmation process and how what Republicans were doing is consistent with how the Senate has operated for 200 years. So Mitch gives his speech 20 minutes or so, and we're all sitting there listening to him. Interestingly enough, by the way, most of Mitch's speech, he's turned around and kind of talking to the other Republican senators, which is odd because if you're on the floor, you're usually talking to a TV camera, you're talking to C Span. So I guess the image from C Span, I haven't seen the TV cut, but it's kind of his back, cuz he's like turning around and talking to us.

[Michael Knowles]

Why do you think he was doing that? Why did he change position?

[Ted Cruz]

I think he was very much trying to address. I don't know if it was wobbly votes. I don't think there were any votes that were wobbly at that point. But it was more just sort of, I think, assuaging the Republicans that all of this apocalyptic talk on the left isn't right or accurate. So all the Democrats skip. Boycott Mitch's speech. Then Mitch finishes and Schumer, who's hiding in the Democratic cloak room, he sticks his head out and says, there isn't a quorum. And technically what you do is. So he sits in the back, pulls out his mic and says, I suggest the absence of a quorum. The clerk starts calling the roll and actually Chuck Grassley, who's the most senior senator, who's the President pro tem, he took the chair and he looked around. Every Republican was sitting in our damn chairs. I mean, you can look around and see that we were all there. So Grassley just rules. There is a quorum, which I kind of appreciated that he didn't make us actually all physically say present, because where every one of us could see each other, right? What was funny is during that quorum call, Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow stepped onto the floor and I guess she just didn't get the message that they were all boycotting. And one of the Senate floor staffers rushed over to her. It's like, no, no, no, no, Senator, you got to get out. You got to get out. So she turns around and runs out.

[Michael Knowles]

There'S no voting here. This is the Senate. You can, you've got to get out of here if you're a Democrat.

[Ted Cruz]

They were making a sort of petulant statement that we're really mad by all boycotting. And then when we finally got to the vote and the vote kicked in, we each vote. And so for the Republicans, we're all sitting in our seat, and when they call your name, you stand up and say aye. And 52 of the 53 voted aye. The Democrats. You know what was fascinating, Michael, is most of the Democrats didn't call out their vote nay. They would just kind of quietly go up and signal to the clerk they were voting no, which actually is how you normally vote on most issues. You normally. It's very rare for us to be in our seats and sort of vote vocally, but in that sort of circumstance, I thought it was fascinating. Maisie Hirono walked down and was captured on C Span voting, hell no. Which I don't necessarily even falter. I get that she's impassioned on that.

[Michael Knowles]

She's impassioned, yeah.

[Ted Cruz]

But then the vote was over and Justice Barrett was confirmed. And at that point, actually, there was a standing ovation as the Senate Republicans all burst into applause. We then went. There was a little press conference in a room in the Capitol that's called the LBJ room. So we had TV cameras set up there. A number of us went up and talked to the cameras and then jumped in a car and headed to the White House for the swearing in ceremony. That was immediately thereafter.

[Michael Knowles]

That sounds like a wonderful night. It all went off without a hitch. And I have to say, I. Senator, I was wrong in my prediction. You were right in your prediction, because I assumed there was gonna be some last minute surprise that was gonna come up and they were going to try to make a big deal out of Barrett. And you said, at least, what was it, a week or two weeks ago, three weeks, said the Democrats realized that Judge Barrett is going to be Justice Barrett. They've basically surrendered this fight. Was there anything left for them to do? Or they just. They had no cards to play.

[Ted Cruz]

Look, they tried to take some shots at her in the hearing. She was really good. And they realized every minute the American people spent listening to Judge Barrett, this calm, cool, collected, serious, her temperament, scholarly, judicial, defending the Constitution, they were losing when the American people were hearing her. And so they decided, you know, there's one exchange. Do you remember when Dick Durbin blasts her on race? And how did you feel when George Floyd, when that video broke, became public? And she pointed out to him, she said, look, I do have two black children. And like, you know, we cried over it. And it. You could see Durbin's face of, like, abject terror of, oh, crap. And I have to admit, I thought of the Monty Python skit, run away, Run Away. As quickly Durbin realized, okay, this is not the usual Democratic demagoguery is not really working on this.

[Michael Knowles]

Right.

[Ted Cruz]

And so I think they decided to get out of dodge. They didn't have the votes, but Schumer's speech was all about throwing down the marker. And we talked about this on our last podcast. But throwing down the marker. If they win, win next Tuesday, they intend to pack the court. And that was what Schumer's speech was all about, is if Democrats win. Katie barred the door.

[Michael Knowles]

Right. You saw the New York Times, almost immediately after the vote publish about half a dozen columns saying, we need to pack the courts, we need to change the way the courts are set up. Joe Biden came out and he said, I'm not willing to institute term limits on the court, but I would be willing to move judges from the Supreme Court to other courts, which effectively, obviously puts term limits on the court. So it does seem that at all levels of the left here, they are serious about transforming the court. Aoc. I mean, so many other elected officials were talking about this the moments after ACB was confirmed.

[Ted Cruz]

Look, it's brute power. And it's worth noting, for the first two years of the Trump presidency, Republicans had majorities in both houses. We could have packed the court. Nothing to prevent us from ending the filibuster and adding justices. We didn't do that. Yeah, and we wouldn't have. Nobody even suggested it. And so, look, I hope we don't wake up in a world that is a Biden, Schumer, Pelosi world, but if we do, they're going to pack the court, I believe, and that's naturally gonna escalate. So the next time Republicans take power, we will pack the court in response. I mean, it will. If they go to 11, we'll go to 13. That's bad for the court, that's bad for the country. I don't wanna see us go down that road, but I don't think a single Democratic senator will oppose their efforts to pack the court.

[Michael Knowles]

It would seem that way. There seems to be a lot of uniformity, and I'm pleased that the Barrett nomination went off easily. I am curious, though, Senator, on a completely different topic, if there will be more hostile interactions in the Senate with big tech. Big tech has played a huge role in this election. I know that, that senators have been grilling and hammering these big tech overlords, but it's been pretty opaque. I don't think we've really seen what's going on behind the scenes. Are there any updates, especially now, as we get into the waning days of the campaign with regard to the political.

[Ted Cruz]

Oversight of Big Tech, so tomorrow, there's going to be a hearing with the CEOs of Google, Facebook, and Twitter in front of the Senate Commerce Committee. And so I'm on commerce. I'll participate in that. I'm gonna be questioning them. We're doing it virtually. It's a virtual hearing. So I'm back in Texas now. I'll be doing it from here. And then in November, the Judiciary Committee will be having a second hearing with the CEOs of Twitter and Facebook. And so we're gonna have two hearings in the next couple of weeks with Big Tech. Today, I spent over an hour on the phone with the CEO of both Google and Facebook in preparation for the hearing and talking about these issues. And in both instances, I would say the conversations were vigorous.

[Michael Knowles]

I don't want to ask for tales out of school here, Senator, but I would anticipate the conversations were vigorous. Can you give us a little behind the scenes what to expect at these hearings? What was discussed?

[Ted Cruz]

So on both of them, both of them asked for the calls, and so I said, sure, and I'm happy to hear them out. And so I let both Sundar and Mark Zuckerberg drive the conversations and lay out their views. Zuckerberg and I have talked a fair amount, and I will say my views on the sort of Big Tech players is they all occupy different spaces. I think Facebook and Zuckerberg has been the most outspoken in the general direction of free speech. I don't think they're a very good player, but I think they're the least bad of the three players. And actually, Zuckerberg has taken a lot of grief from the rest of Big Tech for suggesting free speech even matters. And so I'm in a posture of trying to encourage him. Okay, that's good. But Facebook still throttled the New York Post story. And so with Zuckerberg, I made the case to him tonight that, listen, y'all should not be in the business of deciding what media stories are allowed to be seen and what media stories aren't. That by any measure, the New York Post is a serious, major media company. And as he knows well, and as we've talked about a lot on this pod, I have serious issues with Big Tech censoring the speech of American citizens.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Ted Cruz]

Crossing over into censoring the media is a major threshold across. And now, by the way, Zuckerberg pointed out, he said Facebook never blocked sharing the Post story and that they have Zero constraints on it right now. That's good. That's better than. As we sit here talking right now, Twitter is still blocking the New York Post today.

[Michael Knowles]

That is a distinction worth making because the former Democrat operative who's now running communications at Facebook did say, we're suppressing the spread of the article. But compared to Facebook, they were basically. Or compared to Twitter, rather, they were basically a free speech platform. They were allowing people to post it. They were allowing people to message it. Twitter was not doing that. And as you point out, I had actually forgotten, the New York Post is still not permitted. Even though Twitter has lifted the regulations surrounding that link, they still will not allow the New York Post to post their stories now, however many days before the election.

[Ted Cruz]

So of those three companies, Twitter is the most brazen. I mean, Dorsey is just a hard leftist partisan saying, screw you, we have power and we're gonna use it. Twitter's also the least powerful of the three. It's funny, they're the smallest player and the most in your face about it. Although I think of Twitter kind of like the Morning Joe of social media. And what I mean by that is, you know, Morning Joe is the show on MSNBC that has, like, virtually no viewers. Yeah. But it's on every morning. And the people who view it are actually all the media folks who. There was a period of time less so. Now it's actually Morning Joe's been more marginalized. But a few years ago, Morning Joe could drive the news because all the reporters and all the, quote, thought leaders were watching it. Twitter's kind of the same thing in that it can drive news, but its reach is much, much smaller than Facebook. And both of them are dwarfed by Google, which is this vast omnipresence in the sky with octopus tentacles expanding the cosmos.

[Michael Knowles]

So is there any insight you can give us from your. From that vivid and accurate image? Is there any insight you could give us from Sundar Pichai, the head of Google?

[Ted Cruz]

So it's interesting, Sundar, his reputation is of not being deeply political, and I don't have a reason to doubt that. But a point that I made to him is because he's. I mean, he's an engineer, because he's not necessarily. He may be, but he's not visibly and overtly political. He doesn't perceive that everything around Google is hard left and is profoundly partisan. And so I pressed him. The conversation with Sundar was quite vigorous where I said, look, Google has massive power. Now, I did point out, actually on the New York Post story, Google, by all appearances did not censor the story.

[Michael Knowles]

Right, right. It was a bit strange at the time.

[Ted Cruz]

Twitter and Facebook did. Now, we talked about last podcast. I think one of the reasons Google may not have is because of the DOJ lawsuit and Google's kind of sort of on best behavior. And it was interesting. Sundar said, well, the New York Post is a media outlet and we don't want to be constraining media outlets. I'm like, good, that's a step in the right direction. Now I press them on. Their search outcomes are biased. They have no transparency. You guys were the single biggest donor on the face of the planet to Hillary Clinton. You're profoundly left wing. It was. Look, I think it was beneficial to talk through. My sense was some of these issues are new to him as a stretch, but I think Google has such vast power that they just don't seem to care much. And so I'm hopeful the continued scrutiny draws their attention.

[Michael Knowles]

I think this is a great point that conservatives don't focus on that much, which is that these guys are living in this very left wing world of big tech. Everything around them is left wing.

[Ted Cruz]

All.

[Michael Knowles]

Often they don't perceive themselves as political. They just assume that leftism, liberalism, progressivism is the only type of politics, you know, so they don't. They don't understand maybe even some of the premises that they are accepting here. So it would be good. I'm glad to hear you had a vigorous conversation with them. I hope that it can open their eyes. And if their eyes cannot be opened in that sort of way, then perhaps there's a role for the DOJ lawsuit for other mechanisms that we've discussed many times on this show because time is running out. Senator, I have to call your attention before we get to the mailbag, to this terrifying headline that I saw in the Financial Times, which is that Texas is on its way to becoming a blue state. You are a Texan. I trust you more than the Financial Times. Is this true?

[Ted Cruz]

I hope not. I don't know. I don't think so. I think Texas will stay red. I think Texas will vote for Trump. I think John Cornyn will get reelected. But Texas is clearly a battleground. Texas has been trending more purple. I wouldn't say Texas is blue, but it's trending more purple. And I can tell you. So this is Tuesday night. Let me just tell you about my next week. So yesterday I was in D.C. we confirmed justice Barrett. This morning I flew back to Houston. Actually, tonight is my daughter Katherine's 10th birthday. So I'm going to leave the podcast and go have dinner to celebrate Catherine's birthday, which I made it home for. Second year in a row, by the way. I've turned down World Series tickets to go to spend it instead for Catherine's birthday. So both this year and last year, I declined to go to the World Series because I had a date with a 9 year old and now a 10 year old.

[Michael Knowles]

You are a better father than I think I would be. That is a big sacrifice, a very nice thing to do.

[Ted Cruz]

It was easier this year because the Astros aren't in it. So I'm a little more ambivalent about the results. Last year, I actually invited Catherine to come with me to the World Series.

[Michael Knowles]

How'd that go?

[Ted Cruz]

She went to some of the games, but she didn't want to go on the day of her birthday, so we skipped it on the day of her birthday. Tomorrow I fly to North Carolina to campaign with Thom Tillis, who's running for Senate there in a very close contested race. Tomorrow night, I fly to Montana. Do, I think two events in Montana with Steve Daines in a very close contested Senate race in Montana. From Montana, I fly to California, do a fundraiser in California to help try to keep the Senate red. From California, I fly back to Texas because Katherine has her 10th birthday party this weekend. I told her I'd be here for the party. Hold on, hold on. No, no, I don't fly. I fly from California to Iowa. I'm sorry, I forgot where I do, I think three stops with Joni Ernst campaigning to help her hold onto her Senate seat in Iowa, then back to Texas for Katherine's birthday. Then on Sunday, I fly to Arizona, do several stops with Martha McSally, who's running to hold onto her seat there. And then I come back on Monday to campaign with John Cornyn in Texas. And then Tuesday's Election Day, so a.

[Michael Knowles]

Nice, relaxing couple weeks before we get to November 3rd. You know, as senator, you do hear these stories of President Trump is doing two rallies this day or one rally, this. And you think, oh, my gosh, this is so unusual. This. This is really putting out the effort. But it sounds like this is just how election season works in politics. This is not exactly your first rodeo.

[Ted Cruz]

It's not. And frankly, I enjoy being out there campaigning. I will say I hate campaigning in the era of COVID because what I like to do is events. So you go to a rally or something, you give a talk, and then what I like to do is go off the front of the stage and into the crowd and take pictures with people and hug people and, like, just hang out. And we would usually schedule events where, say, the event was an hour, and then I'd just stay an extra hour just to be with people afterwards. In the era of COVID you can't really do that. I mean, you know, you've got an infectious disease. So for most of these events, I'll do the remarks and then just kind of leave through the back, which I hate. I mean, it's miserable. And I really will be grateful to getting back campaigning the way it should be done, which is actually interacting directly with lots and lots of people.

[Michael Knowles]

And it actually. It's not even just, you know, it's nice to shake hands and meet people. But there is something very helpful about it, too, which is that when you get to campaign in that way or you get to go to events in that way, you're hearing from people what's really going on, what maybe you're not hearing in the mainstream media. So it kind of works both ways. Covid seems to have cut out that aspect of the campaign.

[Ted Cruz]

It has. And it's just kind of. Particularly the last couple of weeks, I've been very cautious about it because, look, the biggest thing that could have derailed Justice Barrett is if three of us have gotten Covid.

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah, right.

[Ted Cruz]

I mean, she was confirmed 52 to 48. And by the way, the median age in The Senate's, like, 142. I mean, it's. You know, these are not spring chickens in this body. And we've had several senators test positive for Covid, but it was a big concern. We were all sort of consciously limiting our interaction because we have to. In the Senate, you have to vote in person. If you're not physically on the floor, you don't get to vote.

[Michael Knowles]

No zoom votes.

[Ted Cruz]

And so we were legitimately discussing, and we had procured, like, space suits, like hazmat suits. Like, when I quarantined, I told Mitch McConnell, look, if I need to wear a hazmat suit to come vote for Justice Barrett, I will. And I'll tell you, actually, we had them. The White House went and got. If we needed to put a senator in, like, a hazmat suit to walk onto the floor and go, aye, we would have done it.

[Michael Knowles]

In a sense, I'm glad nobody came down with COVID But another part of me thinks if you just had a senator walking down as, like, a bubble boy or something, that would have made for great political imagery. But I guess better that everybody's Healthy, you know, we have only a minute or two remaining before you've got a hot all around God's green earth. I do want to get to one mailbag question, though, because we've been talking about how things have gotten so extreme and the Democrats are going to completely break every norm of our Constitution if they get power in November and Republicans have become more conservative. Stephen wants to know, does Senator Cruz believe we will ever reach back to a more centrist right and left, or would we even want to? Or are we forever locked to the extremes by this election and the ensuing ones?

[Ted Cruz]

So I hope so, and it will take breaking the fever. You know, if you look at elections, typically what happens is if one side gets clobbered over and over again, they engage in some introspection. They say, okay, what's going wrong? Why do we keep losing? Think about the Democrats through the 80s and early 90s where you had Reagan, Reagan, Bush. And so Democrats lost three elections in a row, and they had a massive period of introspection and said, gosh, what we're selling, people ain't buying. And what did they do? They came back with Bill Clinton, who ran as a centrist Democrat and won and won twice. One of the interesting effects of Trump's victory in 2016, Democrats, by and large in Washington very quickly blamed Russia for the loss. And we had the whole three years of Russia, Russia, Russia. One of the consequences of that is you had virtually none of the introspection that usually follows an election loss where almost no Democrats said, wait a second, how did we, as the Democratic Party lose working class voters in Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin and Ohio? You know, these are, you know, FDR union voters who suddenly voted Republican. Any sane Democrat would be saying, wow, we, we might need to adjust what we're saying. They didn't engage in that process. I think if we see a really fantastic election this time, you may see some Democrats second guess. But I think the only way you will see a decline in the dividend is to have one or two electoral thumpings to cause one or the other party to recalibrate.

[Michael Knowles]

This is a great point, because whenever I hear people say, oh, we need to come back to the center, I think, well, you know, if the center is very far left or if it means unilateral disarmament, that doesn't sound so interesting to me, and I don't think it would work anyway. Your take does seem to be historically valid, which is you need to force a little introspection. You need to lead people into a way that they can't resist it anymore because they keep getting rejected at the ballot box. So the way to come back to a little moderation and come back to the center is to give them a good thumping at the ballot box. Let's hope that we can accomplish that. This go around all the time we have for today, Senator, I'm sure you'll have visited 25 states before I speak to you next in a few days, but in the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

[Ted Cruz]

This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security pac, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations, and candidates across the country. In 2022, jobs, freedom and Security PAC plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the.