← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
Speaker Chaos: What It Means & What's Next, plus Crime Surges as Dem Congressman Gets Car-Jacked
00:42:29
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- [00:02]
Ben Ferguson
Welcome. It is verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you, and history was made. Kevin McCarthy becomes the first House speaker in American history to be voted out of the Speaker's job. The vote 216 to 210 to vacate the chair. Eight Republicans voted with the Democrats to remove him. Those Republicans, Biggs, Bucks, Burchett, Crane, Gates, good Mace, and Rosendale. Senator, this is obviously a day of history. It's somewhat not shocking to me because there's been a lot of this, you know, bickering back and forth since Kevin McCarthy got the job. We saw how long it took him to get the job. Your reaction?
- [00:48]
Ted Cruz
Well, it's obviously a big, big deal. And I have to say my sentiments today are conflicted. I think. I feel like a lot of Republicans, like a lot of conservatives across the country. I think some of the hyperbolic sentiments on both sides of the spectrum are exactly that. They're hyperbolic. I think some of the folks celebrating and dancing on the graves are too excited about this. I think some of the folks mourning and saying the Republic is ending are too much in despair. My reaction is as follows. Number one, as I look at the state of the country, House Republicans are about the only thing to be encouraged by. I mean, we've got a disastrous executive branch led by Joe Biden and other zealots on the left who are doing enormous damage to this country. We've got a Senate that is a train wreck. The Chuck Schumer Democrats are disastrous. And so the lone point of hope and optimism in the elected spheres is the Republican House. And so I have to admit, I am sad to see the Republican House in utter disarray and chaos. That, that, that makes me disappointed. When we are fighting each other, that means we're not unified and fighting the bad guys. We're not unified and fighting the people who are destroying this country. At the same time. I'm. I'm in the place that a lot of people are. I don't know what comes next. I don't know. It certainly appears as you and I, it. It is just before midnight Tuesday night. At this point, I have no idea who the next speaker of the House is going to be. It appears right now it's not going to be Kevin McCarthy. I don't know if it's someone else. What I hope is whoever the speaker of the House is, is going to be a strong conservative leader. And listen, I. My job is to represent 30 million Texans in the Senate, so I'm going to stay out of House leadership elections. I'm going to trust that to the members of the House. I'm not going to put my thumb on any particular candidate on one side or the other. But I will say whoever the speaker is, I hope we have a Speaker that is a strong conservative leader. And looking forward, what should we be doing for the remaining three months of 2023 and for next year? I think we ought to be fighting for bold conservative principles. We ought to be taking on the Democrats. We ought to be on the offense. We ought to be on the aggressive. We ought to be prosecuting the case that the Biden agenda is a train wreck, that it's not working, that it's hurting millions of Americans, and that there is a better alternative. Now, listen, I've been arguing for over a year that the House Republicans should be more aggressive than they have been. So for example, I believe we should have impeached Alejandro Mayorkas. I think we should have done so by now. We've talked a lot on this podcast about the utter disaster that our southern border has been. I think it's a mistake that the House has not impeached Mayorkas yet. That should be an early and top priority of whoever the next speaker is. I think we should have impeached Merrick Garland. I think the absolute lawlessness and politicization of the Department of Justice and the FBI merits impeachment. And my hope is whoever the next speaker is makes those 1 and 2 very early on their priority list. I think those are issues that unify Republicans. They unify conservatives. They unify a lot of Americans who don't want lawless chaos and death and sexual assault and drug overdoses and disaster on our southern border. I think they unify people who don't want to see law enforcement turned into a political weapon. I think being on offense is a winning place to be. And beyond that, when it comes to spending, I hope that the House is passing appropriations bills that rein in the out of control spending from the Democrats, that are causing rampant inflation that's hurting Americans across the country. I think the key to winning is to have bold, optimistic, positive, conservative leadership. And I believe that good policy is good politics. So whoever the next speaker is, I hope that's what we do.
- [05:12]
Ben Ferguson
There's also the politics of picking the next guy. And there's a lot of people saying, I don't know if I'd want this job right now if there's this type of fighting. There's been several members that I talked to that said there's ideas of picking someone that could be a unifier Just to say, hey, I'm not going to run again, but as a unifier to finish out the term. Steve Scalise's name, for example, has been brought up in that capacity of saying, hey, this may be a person that could bring us together. This someone that's saying, I'm not, I don't have the intent to be the speaker after this, finishing this term. You guys can pick somebody else afterwards, but let's come back together. Is that a strategy that Republicans should at least look at?
- [05:53]
Ted Cruz
Look, the idea that we should have a speaker that's a placeholder, I don't find that very persuasive. We have a majority. Let's have a leader who actually leads. Now, I'm not saying the job is easy. The job is unbelievably hard, particularly when you have such a narrow majority. You have a four vote majority. That means any five Republicans get a wild hair and you can have a revolt on your hand. And the problem is you can have from the right, from the left, from the middle. You can have it parochial, you can have it geographically, you can have it on any basis. It is. I've joked I'm not sure there are many people I dislike enough, but to wish that they would be speaker of the House, it is an insanely difficult job.
- [06:34]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, that's a great way of putting it, by the way. It's like, you wouldn't wish this on your worst enemy in a sense.
- [06:40]
Ted Cruz
And it's also very different when you're a Republican. So listen, Nancy Pelosi was the speaker on an incredibly narrow Democrat majority. But Democrats and Republicans are different in many respects. But in Congress, one of the biggest respects is Democrats follow orders. They are collectivists, they are statist, they are good with authority, whatever the authority says, they crack the whip and every one of them obeys. And like lemmings, they march off the cliff. That's what Democrats do. That's a strength of theirs, that's a weakness of theirs. On the Republican side, we're a bunch of individualists. In the Senate, we've got 49 Republicans. If we got 49 Republicans, we have 55 different agendas. Like it is incoherent. We're at each other's throats. And part of the challenge with the leadership battle in the House is it's not clear what the demand of the conference is. So look, we had a battle. We came inches from a shutdown. And one of the challenges was knowing, okay, what is the demand of House Republicans to prevent a shutdown, to actually fund government. And if there was a clearly articulated, explicit demand, I don't know what it was. The demands fell roughly into two broad buckets. One was some modicum of fiscal restraint. And look, you and I believe passionately in that. We've seen the most wildly irresponsible federal government spending in history in the last two and a half years under Democrat control. It's driving rampant inflation, it's hurting millions of Americans and so reining in. We've seen a 40% increase in discretionary spending in the last three years. Covid was an excuse for the socialist to bankrupt this country. And so the principle of let's have some reasonable modicum of fiscal restraint, that's a good principle. The second broad bucket was doing something significant, meaningful to rein in the utter chaos and disaster our southern border. Now, I agree emphatically with that. It's the worst illegal immigration in our nation's history. That's a good objective. The problem was, after articulating those two broad buckets, what the specific ask is, if you can articulate it. Ben, you're playing closer attention than I am because I don't know. And it's because you had lots of agendas that were all over the place. Now, I will say there were some leaders in the House and I'm going to give a shout out to Chip, Roy in particular. As you know, Chip was my old chief of staff. He was my very first chief of staff. He's now a congressman from Texas. I think Chip has done an excellent job trying to fight for. He was fighting for continuing resolution. That was a significant cut in discretionary spending. That had significant steps to rein in the southern border. And unfortunately, they couldn't get a majority of Republicans to support it, which is, by the way, disappointing. That was maddening. It was insane. It made no sense. I was proud of the job Chip did. I think we need to have a clear and real vision for Republicans and conservatives in the House. Maybe it will come out of this. So I'm not as despondent as some. You see some voices on TV saying, Burn them all down. Everyone who dared oppose McCarthy needs to be, you know, excommunicated and we need to salt their fields. I'm like, easy does it, guys. We don't have a big enough majority to be salting anyone's fields. Let's actually focus on what matters, which is saving this country. And I hope that's what's next. I don't know if it is, but I hope it is.
- [10:20]
Ben Ferguson
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- [11:57]
Ted Cruz
Know, I. I always knew you were a secret lefty look.
- [11:59]
Ben Ferguson
That's right, that's right. Yeah, exactly. Hanging in Manhattan, but up here doing tv. All right, all right. Bet.
- [12:06]
Ted Cruz
Ben, did you mug anyone today?
- [12:07]
Ben Ferguson
No, I did not. And I made sure that I had. I stayed away from all the crazies. I walked from Fox News, back to my hotel, back to Fox News, back to my hotel. Mike, I'm not.
- [12:16]
Ted Cruz
When in Rome, went in Rome. Apparently that's what you got to do in New York City.
- [12:20]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, that's just part of like the life here, right? You just randomly mug people. But.
- [12:24]
Ted Cruz
But you did at least spray some graffiti on the subway.
- [12:26]
Ben Ferguson
Well, I mean, I did.
- [12:27]
Ted Cruz
I mean, you got to do a little bit.
- [12:28]
Ben Ferguson
I did verdict right. Just so people would know where to download it. That's all. And no big deal. It's an ad sign. But. But I was here and there was people that were asking and it was the same Conversation within Fox. And it's interesting when there's big news days to kind of see how people react to it. And we were in the green room, we were chatting about this, and there's several other people, and I'll keep them, Rene. Nameless. But there was a, there was a consensus of why is it that Democrats do such a great job of arguing and fighting and yelling on the House side behind closed doors, and they come out more united. And it seems like Republicans are having a lot of fighting outside of the, of the, of the closed door meetings in the chambers and, and on social media and on Twitter. I mean, you had an example, you had a bring it on Tweet from Kevin McCarthy and then you had we did, or I did from Matt Gaetz in response, like, okay, let's go. You don't see that from Democrats. And I ask you from a perspective on the Senate side, the Senate seems to work in a very different way where there's people that disagree. You deal with it all the time, but it doesn't seem to play out the same way that it does on the House side. And I think that can actually hurt us as conservatives. And I want your perspective because you're there every day.
- [13:39]
Ted Cruz
Look, there are differing times. There's no doubt that the House and the Senate are very different bodies. You know, there's an old joke from House Republicans which, which is that the Democrats are our opponents, but the Senate is the enemy. There's some truth to that. I get that. There is a bicameral tension that is real. The House is more chaotic, it is less unified. It is all over the place. It's 435 people. And often the people have not been there very long. You have people from all disparate walks of life, and there's an ethos where they're nastier to each other. My sense, and I've never served in the House, but my sense is that they literally in the hallways will say F you to each other. In the Senate, that doesn't happen. The senate is number one. It's just an older body. Listen, I'm 52 years old and I'm like a young chickadee in the Senate. I've joked, if you ever want to feel young, go to the US Senate. The median age is like 142. You'll feel sprightly. I mean, there's some truth to that, but there's also just a sense people are there longer. Uh, it's a smaller body. There are only a hundred of us and, and whoever you're fighting today, you may need their vote tomorrow. And so, you know, even the most partisan Democrats are not typically nasty to you, just one on one, because the institution, you have to work with each other going forward. The challenge right now in the House is among the multiple rebels. There's no natural and uniform and consensus leader. Listen, in the Senate, we had a leadership challenge in November, and I was the point of the spear on the leadership challenge. In November of last year, we had the first leadership challenge in 16 years to Mitch McConnell as leader.
- [15:37]
Ben Ferguson
And I was, you got to go back to your speech because you're going to forget this. And it was. I remember how. And people may have missed this on verdict when you stood up talking about how important it was to pick the right leader. Can you go back to that day? Because this is part of that fighting and the grand debate, as I would call it, behind closed doors.
- [15:57]
Ted Cruz
Well, sure. If you look to November of 2022, we had the first leadership challenge to Mitch McConnell in history. He's been leader of Republicans for 16 years, had never been a leadership challenge. We had that in November 2022. I was the point of the spear. I led that challenge. And the way Republican leadership challenges work and Republican leadership elections work, they happen the week after the general election. So the general election happened. And immediately the next week, the very first thing that happens, we have leadership elections. Now, there's a reason for that. You have all these brand new baby freshmen senators. They come to Washington and they don't know what they're doing. They're put in little bitty basement offices before they moved into their real offices. They have no idea what's going on. And leadership schedules the election so fast because they don't want any freshmen to get any uppity ideas and decide to challenge any of the leadership. They want them to shut up and vote before they figured out where the men's room is. So the week after the election, you come together to vote. I remember in 2012, I was newly elected. I show up and I'm like, wow, okay, a Senate leadership election. This is kind of cool. This is going to be interesting. We're going to see debates about what should we as Senate Republicans be doing? What's our agenda? What's our vision? What's our plan? I was really looking forward to it. I gotta admit, Ben, I was flabbergasted. I sat down. So the leadership election is always held in the historic Senate chamber. So that's, that's where the Senate used to meet for 100 years. In the Capitol, it's a much smaller billing room than the Senate floor, and it's where we go for our leadership elections. And, you know, I expected each of the candidates for leadership to stand up and give a speech and say, here's what I want to do if you elect me. That doesn't happen. I mean, think back to when you and I were in junior high. Someone was running for president of the student council in junior high. They'd stand up and say, okay, elect me president of the student council, and I'm going to get chocolate ice cream in the cafeteria. And the students say, hey, I want chocolate ice cream in the cafeteria. Okay, I'm going to vote for Ben. Great. None of that happens. Instead, the way a senate leadership election works is you have three or four senators stand up and give nominating speeches praising the incumbent leadership. And I just. I mean, we're talking effusive ass kissing, puffing, empty speeches about how amazing the existing leaders are, one after the other after the other. And then leadership gets elected by acclamation, and the leader gets up and says, thank you very much. All right, moving forward. And there's no. There's not a word of, like, what we're going to do, what we believe, what we're like, what the plan is. None of that happens. I remember the first time I'm sitting there, I'm going, this is weird. All right, well, let's Fast forward to 2022. We have the leadership elections, and the very first salvo in the battle is. Is I made a motion to delay the elections a month, to delay them until after the Georgia runoff. So you remember there was a runoff for who was gonna be the next senator from Georgia.
- [19:02]
Ben Ferguson
You and I were there in Georgia with Herschel Walker. We had no idea what was gonna happen.
- [19:05]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, well, I stood up and I said two things to my colleagues. I said, number one, listen, if Herschel Walker wins, he deserves a say in who our leader is. If he's gonna be one of the senators, he deserves to have input in this. So we ought to wait until December 6th until we know who the next senator from Georgia is going to be. But I said, secondly, we just came out of an election in 2022 where we got our ass kicked. And I said, listen, given the absolute disaster that is the Biden administrator administration, the Biden agenda, the Biden record, we should have had a phenomenal election. We should have won the Senate. We should have won a big, big majority in the House. We should be resurgent right now. Instead, we lost The Senate. In fact, we lost ground, we ended up losing a seat in the Senate and we won A tiny, minuscule 4 vote majority in the House. And what I said to the conference, I said, listen, in any ordinary organization, in any company in America, if I'm working for a private company and I'm in charge of a division and I lost $100 million, my boss wouldn't be like, hey, great, great job, Ted, keep doing what you're doing. They'd be like, no, what the hell's wrong? Let's talk about what you screwed up and let's go fix it. Because it's not okay to lose a hundred million dollars. Well, we just got clobbered in the last election. I said, we ought to spend the next month talking about and debating what we did right and what we did wrong. And I pointed out further, I said, listen, we just spent the last two years, 2021 and 2022, with a handful of Republicans joining with the Democrats to pass the Democrat agenda. I said, listen, maybe that's a good idea. I don't think it is, but, but maybe you could argue it's a good idea. But I can say at a minimum, what is indisputable is the Democrats don't do this. We had two years with a Republican President, Donald Trump, and a Republican House and a Republican Senate, and there was not a single bill, not one, that the Democrats joined with the Republicans to pass the Republican agenda. So they never, ever, ever do it. And we spent two years doing it. Now, seems to me that was a really bad electoral strategy, but we ought to discuss that. And if you disagree, let's talk about it. And then what I did secondly, I mean, I mean, my speech was, was 45 minutes long right at the outset. What I did secondly is I turned to Mitch McConnell in, in the historic Senate chamber and I said, Mitchell, over the next two years, what are you prepared to fight on? Is there anything you're prepared to fight on? I said, listen, there are a lot of things I think we ought to stand up and fight. I think the biggest reason we got clobbered is we didn't stand and fight nearly enough. We didn't stand for anything and that's why we didn't win. But I said, you tell us there may be a dozen things I think we should fight on. Maybe you disagree with me, you don't think we should fight on a dozen things. But is there one over the next two years, or is the position of Republican leadership, we will surrender, we will roll over, we will Grab our ankles on everything, if that's your position, okay, but let's be honest about it, all right? The end of my 45 minute speech, Mitch McConnell stands up and he gives a speech to the conference. He doesn't address a single question I've asked. He doesn't say anything. He's willing to fight on. Instead, he points at a series of senators and he goes, Oh, I gave 20 million to your campaign. I gave 25 million to your campaign. I gave 30 million to your campaign. I gave 35 million to your campaign. That was his whole speech. It was essentially, shut up, I spent the money, now you vote for me. That was the leadership election. We ended up voting. I needed 25 votes to prevail. There were 49 of us, so 25 would win. I got 16. So I fell nine short. Now, on one level, that's frustrating.
- [23:16]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah.
- [23:17]
Ted Cruz
On another level, those are the first 16 votes ever cast against Mitch. After that, Rick Scott, my colleague from Florida, ran for leader against Mitch. I voted for rick. Rick got 10 votes, so 10 votes. Again, those were the first 10 votes cast against Mitch. But the high water mark were the 16 that voted in favor of my motion to delay the leadership election. That's frustrating at one level, but it is also signs that people are recognizing we need to change what we're doing. And I hear that across Texas all the time. I'm not saying we need to burn the place to the ground. I'm saying we need positive, organized, coherent, serious, conservative leadership with real objectives, real victories, and a vision that is clearly articulated to the American people. I think that's what a lot of House Republicans are feeling right now. And I think that's what conservatives across the country are feeling.
- [24:11]
Ben Ferguson
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- [26:33]
Ted Cruz
Well, listen, the timing was driven by the individual who made the motion to vacate. And so if there was a systematic strategy behind it, I'm not aware of it. That's part of the challenge is that you don't have a clear, consistent demand that leads to a victory. We'll see what happens. I hope that we do. That's a hard thing to get in part because very few House members will defer to each other. And so you've got lots of people putting out lots of ideas that are all out there in the cacophony. I don't know how long the House will take. And listen, I've never served in the House. I'm not remotely an expert on House procedure. I think they will have a battle. There are different people right now that seem to be putting themselves forward to be potential speakers. I'm seeing coverage on the news that Steve Scalise is making a run at it. I don't know if that's true. That's at least what was reported on Fox. I was on Hannity tonight, Jim Jordan was on right before me. It sure seemed like Sean Hannity was trying to talk Jim. Jordan. Jordan into doing it. Jim was non committal. He said that's going to be up for the conference to decide. I don't know if somebody else will be in the mix. I have no idea. I will stay out of it. That's a decision for House Republicans to decide. What I hope is whoever the speaker is, and I don't know if they go Back to Kevin McCarthy again that, you know, we had what, 432 votes for Kevin back at the beginning of this conference. So maybe Kevin comes back. That's possible too. Whoever the speaker is, I hope we have a clear, positive conservative vision. And I do think we would be better off, as I mentioned at the outset of this pod, if House Republicans had started off by impeaching Alejandro Mayorkas. The results today might have been different. In the midst of impeaching Merrick Garland, the results might have been different. I do think the combination of number one, the debt ceiling fight where, where conservatives did not get much of anything and then a clean cr. I do think there was a frustration that was manifested in votes. And so I think the way you win elections is by having serious principled fights that matter. It's not easy to do in the House. So I'm not, I'm not diminishing how difficult it is, but I think that's the path to victory.
- [29:08]
Ben Ferguson
I want to move to something else that obviously got pushed back in the headlines, but it still is important. The crime wave that we're seeing is not just sweeping the nation, but now it's affecting Democratic leaders and leaders in the liberal movement like we haven't seen before. And it's happening way more often. I'll give you an example. You have a Democratic Representative, Henry Queller, who was carjacked at gunpoint in D.C. this comes as in just the past. Well, it was in a 24 hour period. You had a liberal gay reporter that was shot and killed in his home in Philly. You had a far left activist that was stabbed to death by a deranged stranger in Brooklyn in front of his girlfriend. You had this Democratic congressman who was carjacked at gunpoint in D.C. by far for African American men. And yet we have Democrats who have a soft on crime policies that aren't just hurting their neighborhoods that I mentioned these different spots, but it's hurting people in Texas as well. And almost every House Democrat voted against the Republican efforts to stop the DC week on crime bill, which specifically would have Reduced carjacking penalties. This is something that the Democrats, I mean, they voted for this Allred, for example, voted with the Dems on this one. It's shocking to me.
- [30:30]
Ted Cruz
Well, listen, crime is out of control in this country and it's an issue that has people understandably very concerned. I watched tonight the video of the liberal activist in New York at four in the morning being stabbed to death on the streets of New York by a guy that certainly appears deranged. It was horrific to watch. You're right. The news of the left wing journalist in Philadelphia who was shot I think seven times in his own home and killed in the past few days. And Henry Cuellar. Look, Henry Cuellar is a Democrat congressman from Texas. I know Henry well. Henry represents Laredo up to San Antonio. Henry is, is the most conservative of the Texas Democrats. I worked hand in hand with Henry, for example, on the Texas bridges. We've talked on this podcast before about four bridges from Texas to Mexico that Henry and I teamed up in and won big legislative victories to build new bridges to Mexico for legal commerce, to expand bridges. Henry, as I said, is by far the most conservative of the Texas Democrats. Well, in the last couple of days, Henry was coming to his apartment in D.C. it was 9:30 at night and he was getting out of his car and he was carjacked. He was carjacked by four individuals. They put a gun in his face. They stole the car, they stole his luggage. Presumably. I haven't spoken to Henry since it happened, but you have to assume that with a gun in his face he was afraid for his life. I mean, that is frightening. My understanding is Henry lives at an apartment building where there are multiple members of Congress who live there. There are apparently multiple members of congressional leadership who live there, which means there are a lot of Capitol Police around there. And at 9:30 at night he was carjacked on the streets of D.C. and then that reflects the crime wave that is sweeping this country. Now. The D.C. city Council, which is populated by left wing Democrats, they voted to lower the penalties for violent crimes, including carjackings. In particular, they voted to lower the sentence from 21 years to 7 years. And they voted to lower the sentence from 40 years if armed to 15 years. And under the Revised Code, carjacking is now divided into three gradations dependent on severity, with the lowest penalties for an unarmed offense ranging from four to 18 years, and the highest penalties from an armed offense ranging from 12 to 24 years. Now in the Congress, thankfully, the Congress has the ability to rescind any legislation in the District of Columbia. And the reason for that is the Constitution gives Congress total authority over D.C. unlike a state, we can't rescind laws in Texas or any other state, but D.C. is a federal district and Congress has plenary authority over it. And so in Congress, we voted to rescind these soft and crime laws that lessen the penalties for violent crimes. And the results are horrific as we're seeing carjacking, murders, crime rates skyrocketing in D.C. and all across the country.
- [33:39]
Ben Ferguson
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- [35:13]
Ted Cruz
If a member of Congress is not safe on the streets of the nation's Capitol, who is?
- [35:20]
C
Look, we're grateful and relieved that the congressman is unharmed. We understand what communities are going through across the country, not just in D.C. that's why the president took action very early on in his administration to get the American rescue plan done without the help of Republicans. That's why every time he puts forward his budget, he makes sure there are billions of dollars to deal with crime. That's just a fact. All you got to look is what the President has been able to do this past two years. There's always going to be more work to be done. But the fact is the President has taken action.
- [35:54]
Ben Ferguson
He hasn't taken action. He's done the opposite of that.
- [35:57]
Ted Cruz
She didn't have an answer to that. Holy crap. If a Democrat congressman is getting carjacked on the streets of D.C. at 9:30pm what the heck is the answer? And she's like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to answer that. And what was her answer? Well, you know, Joe Biden spending a ton of money, mind you, not actually putting criminals in jail, not supporting police, not doing anything to stop crime. But he's shoveling a whole lot of cash at Democrat special interest groups. He's shoveling a whole lot of cash at deficit spending that's causing rampant inflation. That is her answer. It's an utter non sequitur. And by the way, it's not just Henry Cuellar. Angie Craig, who is a Democrat member of Congress from Minnesota was assaulted in the apartment of her D.C. her D.C. apartment in February of this year. And this is a pattern that is happening over and over and over again. Let me give you some stats. Carjackings in D.C. are up 109%. Robberies are up 68%. Theft is up 22%. Homicides are up 38%. And the city is on pace for the deadliest year in two decades. Not only that, nine of the top 10 cities with the highest homicide rates are run by Democrats. 27 of the top 30 cities with the highest murder rates are run by Democrats. This is a pattern. And you're saying Karine Jean Pierre and the Biden White House utterly dodging responsibilities for their soft on crime policies that are endangering people all across the country.
- [37:39]
Ben Ferguson
One last question for you. Will Democrats move on this? Because even the White House presbytery was asked a question of follow up where she could have kind of gotten a redo. I got to play it. It's too good not to.
- [37:50]
Ted Cruz
President Biden's policies are helping bring crime down. Would he be comfortable with somebody borrowing his Corvette and parking it on the street overnight in Southeast D.C. i'm not.
- [38:00]
C
Going to get into hypotheticals. I'm just going to get into the facts about what this president has done in this president.
- [38:05]
Ben Ferguson
I mean she still screwed it up.
- [38:08]
Ted Cruz
Look, of course not. Nobody would you park your Corvette on the street. It's going to get robbed. It's going to get broken into. It's going to get keyed, it's going to get vandalized. She can't answer that question. And so you know what she's counting on. Look, that was a question from Fox News, so Fox will cover it. Ben, you worked for years at cnn. Did CNN cover that exchange?
- [38:30]
Ben Ferguson
Hell, no.
- [38:31]
Ted Cruz
Msnbc?
- [38:33]
Ben Ferguson
No.
- [38:34]
Ted Cruz
Abc? NBC? Cbs?
- [38:36]
Ben Ferguson
Nope.
- [38:37]
Ted Cruz
They know that the corporate media, they are the puppets for the administration. They are the propagandists for the administration. They will repeat the regime line. And so, look, any sane person would say no to the question. Would you be happy with your, your, your classic Corvette parked on the streets of D.C. of course not. Because crime is out of control. And the problem is, look, let me underscore that again. When the D.C. city Council looked at skyrocketing crime rates and said, you know what the answer here is? Let's lower the penalties on violent crime. That's the best solution. We've got too many murderers, too many, too many murders, too many carjackings. Let's send people to jail for shorter times for murder and carjacking. That's a great idea in Congress. Thankfully, we overturn that. Why do you think crime is out of control?
- [39:31]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah. This is the Democratic Party, and this is certainly going to be an issue with the presidential election.
- [39:36]
Ted Cruz
Ben, Ben, hold on. Before we wrap up, I want to ask you a final question.
- [39:39]
Ben Ferguson
I'm ready.
- [39:40]
Ted Cruz
If you're standing by a doorway and you see a little red box that is 3 inches by 4 inches and it says the word fire on it, and it says, pull this for the fire alarm, my question to you is, is that a doorknob?
- [39:55]
Ben Ferguson
That is not a doorknob. And that is not a way to exit the building.
- [39:59]
Ted Cruz
But how do you know? How do you know, Ben? Seriously? I mean, look, it's not like that.
- [40:04]
Ben Ferguson
Insurrectionism 101, right? Like, don't you immediately lock that person up forever.
- [40:09]
Ted Cruz
Well, let me ask you this. It's not like you were a high school principal. It's not like you were a high school principal in a high school that had fire alarms. It's not like you were a high school principal in a high school that had fire alarms, that had a policy that said if you, a student pulls the fire alarm, you will be expelled. Jamal Bowman, the Democrat congressman, was a principal at a high school that had a policy that if you, Ben Ferguson, a student in his. In his high school, pulled the fire alarm, you would be expelled. And yet, what did Jamaal Bowman do? Oh, I'm going to pull the fire alarm because I want to stop the Republican vote. And why is it his claim, if you believe him? His defense is I'm dumber than a box of rocks and I think a fire alarm is a doorknob. That is his defense and that's the best interpretation he can hope for.
- [40:58]
Ben Ferguson
By the way, I have to ask now, because you brought it up, if a Republican would have done that, how fast would they have been kicked out of Congress and would they have a mug shot at this point?
- [41:08]
Ted Cruz
To be honest, I don't think they'd be kicked out of Congress, but I think they might have a mug shot. And my guess is, look, kicking people out of Congress is pretty severe. My guess is the votes won't be there for that. My prediction is they will censure him. I think the votes will be there for censuring him. But it is a criminal offense in the District of Columbia to pull a fire alarm fraudulently, and he is on video doing that. But he is counting on the corporate media to ignore the fact that that he was willing to pull a fire alarm to try to stop the Congress from voting on a provision that he didn't like, which, mind you, was a provision to fund the government and he wanted to force a government shutdown. So he pulled a fire alarm to cause it to happen. But again, he knew the corporate media would cover for him and they're doing it right now.
- [41:57]
Ben Ferguson
Don't forget, we do this podcast three days a week, Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. Make sure you hit that follow button if you're listening on Apple, so you get every episode or hit that subscriber auto download button, depending on what platform you're listening on. We also do our weekend review on Saturdays for what you may have missed during the week, so you'll get that bonus pod as well. And also in the days in between, make sure you download my podcast, the Ben Ferguson Podcast, and I'll keep you updated on the biggest breaking news in those in between days and we'll see you back here in a couple of days.