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- [00:00]
Michael Knowles
Just now, the Justice Department has filed a motion in the Southern District of Florida to unseal a search warrant and property receipt relating to a court approved search that the FBI conducted earlier this week. That search was of premises located in Florida belonging to the former President. Faithful adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principle of the Justice Department and of our democracy. Upholding the rule of law means applying the law evenly, without fear or favor. Under my watch, that is precisely what the Justice Department is doing. I personally approve the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter. Let me address recent unfounded attacks on the professionalism of the FBI and Justice Department agents and prosecutors. I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked.
- [01:05]
Ted Cruz
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- [02:42]
Michael Knowles
To Verdict with Ted Cruz. I am Michael Knowles. Be sure to like and subscribe to this podcast. If you have not done so already. You can find us over at@verdict PlusCals and you can like and subscribe on any platform. Merrick Garland, the Attorney General will not stand for attacks on the integrity of Joe Biden's DOJ and FBI. I think that's going to be the title of my next blank book, the Integrity of Joe Biden's doj A Comprehensive Guide. And speaking of books, Senator, no one has made this observation yet, but I have to call you out because right before your last book came out, one vote away, it was about how one vote can change Supreme Court rulings. Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. I think that was about one week before. Now, just weeks before your next book is coming out. Justice Corrupted. The Attorney General Sicks the Feds on Donald Trump's home at Mar? A Lago. Senator, I want a straight answer. Are you behind all of this?
- [03:46]
Ted Cruz
No. No, I'm not. But I promise you right now I've had several friends say, please, please, please don't write your next book on global thermonuclear war. Because I will say it does seem to keep happening and happening right as the next book's about to come out.
- [04:05]
Michael Knowles
The Bankruptcy of Michael Knowles by Ted Cruz. I don't wanna see it. That would be a very terrible thing. This really, the timing is bizarre. I'm sure it's great for the publicity of the book. It's really, really bad for the country that your terrible system have come true here. This to me seems unprecedented. You've got Donald Trump right now, who is a predecessor of Joe Biden, a potential political rival of Joe Biden if he runs in 2024. And you've got the DOJ, now, the AG admitting that he's the one who, who called for this raid for something like the Federal Records act or some vaguely described classified documents or what. What is this about?
- [04:52]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, look, it is utterly unprecedented and the word unprecedented has a meaning. There is no precedent in our nation's history for federal law enforcement officers raiding the home of, of a former president. Has never happened. Going all the way back to George Washington. This has never happened in significant part because we're a country that has a tradition of the peaceful transfer of power. And part of the peaceful transfer of power is the successor regime does not then use government to go target their predecessor. You see, banana republics do that. You know, if you go down to, to tin pot dictatorships, that's a common feature. When one guy's out and the next guy's in, the next guy goes after the former guy. By the way, that's the abbreviation lefties like to Use for Donald Trump, the former guy. Well, there is an element of respect of rule of law and respect for the office of the presidency that says you don't turn the federal government into a political tool to target your enemies. Unfortunately, Barack Obama trampled on that tradition and politicized the Department of Justice and the FBI. And now Joe Biden has made it markedly worse. This is a complete abuse of power. It is utterly corrupt. And, you know, it was rather striking. Merrick Garland said, I won't stand by while anyone calls into question the good men and women of the FBI. Let's be real clear, Merrick, we're not calling into question the line officers. We're calling into question your integrity. We're calling into, in question the top political operatives at DOJ and the FBI that, that have no respect for the rule of law and that instead are perfectly content to be the Biden White House's political henchmen. The buck stops here. You approved it. And, and you shouldn't have. And you should be embarrassed by sending the FBI and into this situation and doing enormous damage to the credibility, to the respect of the FBI. These partisans are burning to the ground centuries of credibility built by the federal government and law enforcement. And, and, and, and it really is, it, it, it's an outrage to watch.
- [07:21]
Michael Knowles
Well, this was the most shocking part to me of his statement when he invoked the integrity of the DOJ and the FBI. And you, I think rightly are pointing to the political hacks who run those groups. I thought, what integrity is it? The integrity that led the DOJ and the FBI under Barack Obama to spy on Donald Trump's campaign that led the DOJ and the FBI during the Trump administration to undermine his presidency by using a completely fabricated cooked up nonsense about Russian collusion that, by the way, the DOJ and the FBI cooked up with the Hillary Clinton campaign. That integrity, Is that what you're talking about? I don't really see that. And I guess what the libs right now are bringing up and what you're hearing top Democrats bring up and even some moderate Republicans is, well, hey, let's just let this play out. Let's hold on here because maybe Donald Trump was violating some law. And it raises to me this point that one, you can indict a ham sandwich first of all. But two, we haven't seen this before because of what you're bringing up our tradition of the peaceful transfer of power. So as far as I'm concerned, unless there are severed heads in a freezer at Mar A Lago, I don't really understand what kind of violation Donald Trump could have committed that would justify a 40 agent raid on his private residence.
- [08:45]
Ted Cruz
You know, you were talking a minute ago about my book. Actually, the book that is coming out in just a few weeks is exactly on this topic. So the title of the book, as viewers of the pod know, is justice how the Left has Weaponized the Legal System. And it goes through that. What Richard Nixon tried to do. And the first chapter of the book talks about Nixon and Watergate and Nixon tried to use the legal system to go after his enemies. By and large, the system resisted. So Nixon tried to get the IRS to attack his enemies. The IRS refused in significant parts. The system worked. And I think Nixon was utterly corrupt. What Nixon attempted to do, Barack Obama succeeded in doing and Joe Biden has taken it to the next level. And if you look at the Department of Justice and the FBI, you look at the IRS targeting political enemies under Barack Obama, you look at the Department of Justice, Merrick Garland sending the FBI after parents who speak up at school board meetings. You look at Crossfire Hurricane. This is while Trump was president. But under Obama, hardcore leftist partisans burrowed into senior career positions at the FBI and the Department of Justice and they weaponized law enforcement in the intelligence community to go after Donald Trump. There's a whole chapter, injustice Corrupted on Crossfire Hurricane explaining how it got so far that an assistant general counsel of the FBI created a counterfeit document and submitted that counterfeit document to a federal court, which is a felony. That's how corrupt it got. Because they hated Donald Trump and they cooked up the entire garbage of Russian collusion, which was always a croc. That same pattern is continuing today. And look, one of the problems. Let's go back to the beginning of Crossfire Hurricane. In a Department of justice, should a DOJ be able to investigate a sitting president or a former president? Yes, if that president has violated the law. That being said, the threshold for when a Department of justice investigates, someone in particular investigates the opposing party. So if you're a Republican administration and you're contemplating in investigating a leading Democrat, or if you're a Democrat investigate administration, you're contemplating investigating a leading Republican, the threshold for doing so should be very, very high because there is such a danger of this being used simply as a, as a cudgel to beat your opponents senseless. Under Barack Obama, the FBI was wiretapping Donald Trump's campaign headquarters when he was the Republican nominee to be president. They were sending people in wearing wiretaps, trying to entrap Trump in, in a violation of the law that was utterly insane. Like, in any Department of Justice, the threshold for, you know, some loon told someone at a bar, well, I heard, you know, you know, he went to Russia once. Like, that is not enough to go wiretap the opposing campaign here. The predicate for it is so utterly flimsy as to make this whole thing ludicrous. And you asked, okay, why is this? This is ostensibly under the Presidential Records Act. Now, let me say a couple of things about it. Number one, ordinarily, the way a matter, a dispute like this would be solved is the Department of Justice would negotiate with the lawyers for the former president and say, hey, we think you have some documents you're not supposed to have. We'd like to get them. Okay? You negotiate back and forth, you produce them. That happens all the time. And by the way, they've done that. So Trump has cooperated. He's produced, I think, 15 boxes voluntarily through negotiations, back and forth. That's the way this would ordinarily operate. If the person was being resistant, the next step is to issue a subpoena. Subpoena is a legal compulsion. You must turn over the following. They didn't do that. They skipped over the subpoena. They skipped over, apparently, the compromise and, and, and reaching a solution through negotiated settlement. And instead they do a surprise raid with 40 agents. That is such overkill as to be obvious and political and partisan. And let's be clear, the biggest losers here are the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the rule of law, because their actions were so political that it was obvious to everyone. And I'll give an example. So I'm going to cite famed right winger and noted Republican partisan, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
- [14:11]
Michael Knowles
Yeah.
- [14:13]
Ted Cruz
Who tweeted, quote, doj must immediately explain the reason for its raid. And it must be more than a search for inconsequential archives, or it will be viewed as a political tactic and undermine any future credible investigation and legitimacy of January 6th investigations. So this is even Cuomo, who obviously is such a partisan. Damn it, it bursts out of his pores, who's saying, guys, if this is all about, as he put it, a search for inconsequential archives, you guys are screwed because it's going to be obvious you're just going after him because you don't like him, and he's. He's on the other team.
- [15:03]
Michael Knowles
So what does this mean for 2024, assuming that they really were just going after these inconsequential archives? Merrick Garland, who just gave this statement and took responsibility for authorizing the raid, he didn't actually explain what the raid was about. He just sort of huffed and puffed and said, how dare you besmirch my glorious doj? And then said, I'm not going to give you any other information. So, one, is there another shoe potentially that could drop? And two, what is the practical effect? You said it looks like a disaster for the DOJ and the FBI and the rule of law. What does it mean for the Republican presidential nomination? Is this going to galvanize support around Donald Trump for the Republicans? Are they going to lead the guy out in handcuffs at a certain point? Are they preparing an indictment? What's it mean for the next step at Mar a Lago?
- [15:53]
Ted Cruz
So, look, they may well be trying to prepare an indictment. And as you noted, the typical rule is a prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich. So they might try to indict him. I will say this. If they do, I think it will backfire even more than this raid has backfired. Part of the problem with DOJ and the FBI and the left, like the media, they hate Trump so much that they just, they foam at the mouth and they view everything from the lens that they assume everyone else on earth hates him as much. And so they don't have any actual awareness of reality. Merrick Garland and the FBI have just boosted Donald Trump's 2024 prospects. So much so that I actually, if I were a campaign finance lawyer for Trump, I might well report to the Federal Elections Commission this raid as an in kind contribution to the Trump political campaign, because it is so enormously helpful to Trump. It was stupid. It was idiotic. Now, look, we'll see what plays out. But let's take the alleged crime, which is the Presidential Records act, which is the law that says essentially every piece of paper in the White House belongs to the federal government and the federal government has control of it. Well, that's true on paper, but what has it meant in practice? And if you look at every single president, all of them have taken a crap ton of stuff with them. And let's go to some specifics because the specifics are rather stunning. All right, The Nixon library didn't release the final batch of his secret tapes until 2013, which was 39 years after Nixon left office. So for 39 years, apparently the G man should have come bursting down Nixon's doors for 39 years because he had these tapes. And you want to talk about presidential records, tapes in the Oval Office are pretty Juicy and spicy stuff. 39 years. All right, Nixon bad guy, you might say. All right, how about lbj, hero of the left? Well, the Lyndon B. Johnson library delayed releasing the final batch of his secret tapes of presidential conversations until 2016, which, if you're counting, was 47 years after he left office. So apparently for 47 years, the FBI should have raided LBJ or then rated as a state. All right, how about more recently? How about the patron saint of the left, Barack Hussein Obama? At the end of his presidency, Obama took 30 million pages. Let me repeat that again. 30 million pages of the administration records to Chicago. And he promised to digitize them and eventually put them online. More than five years after Obama's presidency ended, zero pages have been digitized and disclosed. So he took them. He didn't follow through on his commitment. Every president has done this. And so the idea that, all right, we're sending 40 FBI agents to raid the former president for doing what every former president has done, it doesn't pass the smell test. And then layer on top of that, as Sherlock Holmes wrote, the dog who didn't bark up. Who didn't they send the FBI to raid? Well, they didn't send the FBI to raid Hillary Clinton. And if they claim to care about classified documents, the classified documents that Hillary took, why didn't the FBI raid her? Or how about Hunter Biden, our last podcast where we talked about. The guy literally videos himself with crack, naked, with prostitutes and a gun, like multiple felonies. Where are the FBI agents, by the way? Hunter's not hard to find. Within hours of the FBI agents raiding Mar? A Lago, Hunter was on Air Force One with Dad. I don't know if he brought the crack and the gun and his lady friends, but the obvious double standard is lost on nobody.
- [20:40]
Michael Knowles
It seems to me even worse than a double standard when it comes to Hillary Clinton. Because with Trump, what we're talking about is physical documents that are, at this point, what, two years old at least. Maybe more than that. Maybe six years old. When we're talking about Hillary Clinton, we're talking about digital documents. We're talking about information that is easily hackable. The only way to hack the documents in Mar? A Lago is if a spy comes in with an axe and knocks down the door and takes the documents. When we're talking about Hillary's unsecure server, we're talking about foreign governments that certainly, easily could have had access to those documents, and almost certainly did. And we're talking about documents that were contemporary. We're talking about documents that were classified, information that was relevant at the very moment that it was accessible to other people, that it was on this home server. They're really incomparable in the sense that what Hillary did was much, much worse. And by the way, Hillary was not president. She was merely a Secretary of state, would presumably have even less of a right to have those kinds of documents. And so when we're talking about whether or not the raid is justified, I think all of this is really relevant because you might point to some provision of the law and say, well, Trump didn't have the right to have those papers in his home. First of all, all these other presidents did it, too. And you've never seen any kind of raid, certainly not against Hillary Clinton. So how do you conclude anything other than this was a partisan attack on a political opponent of Joe Biden?
- [22:10]
Ted Cruz
It's unquestionably that. And I'll point out there are two ostensible hooks for the raid. One is the Presidential Records act, which, as I said, has never been enforced in this way against any other president. So apparently the law applies uniquely to Donald Trump because they hate him. Or two, you sometimes see people intoning about classified documents. And, you know, I'm reminded in 1997, there was a federal commission headed by Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who described, quote, he said, secrets in the federal government are whatever anyone with a stamp decides to stamp secret. And there's a lot of truth to that. I've been to a ton of classified briefings, and there are things that are classified that there is no reason whatsoever for them to be classified other than someone put a stamp on them, and sometimes because a White House doesn't want it public. So. So one of the. The favorite moves, particularly of the Biden White House, is politically embarrassing information that is classified stuff like anything. Like any explanation of why Afghanistan was an absolute cluster, was a train wreck, was an absolute disaster. All of that's classified because. Oh, gosh, that would embarrass Democrats. But there is a legal complication and actually a big difference between Trump and Hillary Clinton, which is under the law, it is incredibly difficult, bordering on impossible, to charge a president with disclosing classified information. Why? Because under the law, the president is the arbiter of what's classified and what's not. A president can declassify any damn document he wants, by the way, a secretary of state can't. So Hillary Clinton didn't have the ability to declassify documents, but Donald Trump did. And so the idea that he was in charge. He can literally, he can read a classified document and go out on TV and read it on tv. And that's under the law. The president has the authority to make a determination. Even though it's classified, I'm declassifying it. So the idea that we're going to send in the G men to prosecute, to raid him and to set up a prosecution on that, legally, there's no there there.
- [24:32]
Michael Knowles
Now, some people have suggested that if you violate this Presidential Records act, that you can be barred or you improperly handle classified materials, that you can be barred from, from running for office again. And that this is a way for the Democrats to prevent Trump from running in 2024. Is there any substance to that kind of suggestion?
- [24:53]
Ted Cruz
So it's utterly absurd. It is true. The statute says that. So they do have a statutory hook, that there is language that says if you're convicted, you can be barred. The Constitution sets out the qualifications to be president. I think that statute, if it was applied to the president, would be deemed unconstitutional. The court has repeatedly in decisions, decisions like the US Term limits decisions, made clear you can't add additional qualifications to run for federal office beyond the constitutional qualifications. There is a constitutional mechanism to bar someone from running for subsequent office, and that is impeachment and conviction. And upon conviction, that is a potential punishment. But the Democrats tried that and failed. And so twice. Yes. And so if they went down this ludicrous path and tried to prosecute him, I think they would fail in the prosecution. But if they got a conviction and they tried to argue he was barred from running for president, they would lose in court. The court would throw that out. The court would say the Constitution sets the qualifications to run for president. And that whole fight. Again, if this raid was an in kind contribution, I might call the Biden White House, the Trump super PAC at that point, because like, if they went down that insane rabbit hole, you might as well start, start getting tickets for the Inauguration Ball because they would, I don't think even in their deranged Trump derangement syndrome, they're likely to go down that far. That's the sort of thing MSNBC producers say to each other when they're spooning in the back closet and trying to titillate. But it is not a reality that I think exists anywhere on planet Earth.
- [26:45]
Michael Knowles
Thank you for that image, Senator. That's really sort of burned into my mind now, the spooning at msnbc. Speaking of the G Men abusing their authority, this ties directly into one of the spookiest News stories to come out of your place of employment, to come out of the U.S. capitol and the U.S. senate. The Senate has just voted to give the IRS an additional, I think, what, $80 billion. And to authorize 87,000 additional IRS agents. For what? To authorize all of our tax returns more quickly? No, I think probably to audit ordinary Americans and if passed as precedent, to go after the political opponents of this administration. How worried should we be about that?
- [27:32]
Ted Cruz
We should be very worried. This is about abuse of power. One of the elements of the terrible build back broke bill that the Democrats just rammed through is 87,000 new IRS agents, more than doubling the size of the irs. If those positions were filled, the IRS would have more. More agents than the State Department, the Border Patrol, the FBI, and the Pentagon combined. It is utterly disconnected from what people want. Listen, I campaign all over Texas, all over the country. I've never heard one person come up to me and say, what we really need is tens of thousands of more IRS agents. Like. Like there is zero demand for it. You know, it's kind of like someone saying we need more gonorrhea in the world or, you know, maybe the Biden White House. We need more monkeypox. I mean, it's. This is not what the people want. And you are right. It is designed to go after ordinary Americans. It's not designed to go after billionaires. It's not designed to go after giant corporations. By the way, this bill also has massive subsidies for giant corporations. So the Democrats are perfectly happy to take care of their friends in corporate America. This is designed to go after small businesses. This is designed to go after families. This is designed to send a swarm of IRS agents like locusts to descend on America. But even worse, overlay it with the pattern of how the Biden administration uses law enforcement. I think they want this to be used to harass conservatives, to harass Republicans. We saw under Barack Obama, the IRS targeting conservative groups, Tea Party groups, pro Constitution groups, pro Israel groups, targeting and weaponizing the IRS. They want 87,000 new agents to do this even more and to give you a sense of what they envision. So the IRS posted job postings already. They got very excited about this. And here are the job postings they posted. It says, major duties adhere to the highest standards of conduct, especially in maintaining honesty and integrity. Okay, that's good. Work a minimum of 50 hours per week, which may include irregular hours, and be on call 24 7, including holidays and weekends. Okay, so this is going to be a lot of IRS agents here. All the time. All right. Okay, what about what next? Maintain a level of fitness necessary to effectively respond to life threatening situations on the job. Carry a firearm, and be willing to use deadly force if necessary. And here's the final bullet point. Be willing and able to participate in arrests, execution of search warrants, especially on Mar a Lago and other dangerous assignments. Other than the Mar a Lago bit, every word of that is verbatim in the IRS posting. And it's so bad, they pulled it down like people suddenly noticed. Wait, you're advertising for jackbooted thugs? That's what the posting says. Give us leftists with guns to go after conservatives and Americans. That's what they want.
- [30:59]
Michael Knowles
The image I have of a typical IRS employee is a sort of bookish looking fellow with. With maybe a pocket protector and a green visor on. Clicking on his.
- [31:11]
Ted Cruz
So are you looking in the mirror, Michael?
- [31:15]
Michael Knowles
That was a softball that I just sent up to you. You know what I usually don't picture, though? I usually don't picture Rambo kicking down people's doors, though. Conservatives often speak of these government agencies as being so over the top and aggressive against ordinary Americans, now it seems that the IRS is, is admitting it. That's what they want.
- [31:36]
Ted Cruz
Well, it is. And you know, the sort of lefties on Twitter say, oh, well, it's just tax cheats. And if you're not doing anything wrong, don't worry about it. Well, apparently they've never been subjected to an IRS audit because when you have the government come after you, number one, it can cost you thousands or tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend yourself. And especially in a context where an administration is willing to target their enemies on that, inflicting that kind of cost and pain. One of the things I talk about in Justice Corrupted, I talk about True the Vote. I talk about Katherine Engelbrecht, who's a grassroots activist. She founded a group called King Street Patriots in Houston. I know Katherine well. She founded a group called True the Vote under Obama. They sent out the dogs to come after her and everyone went after her. So she got audited. She and her husband's business got audited. OSHA went and did safety inspections. ATF went after her husband for having sold years earlier, a gun for like $200. Like every federal agency, they said this is Persona non grata. As Mr. Burns would say, release the hounds. That's what they did.
- [32:57]
Michael Knowles
How did this bill get through? You were obviously there. You were staying up all night while I've been up with My crying newborn child. You were up for 16 hours straight in Votorama to ram through this bill. I was really hoping that cinema maybe mansion the moderate Dems who have resisted the most outrageous predations of the Biden administration. I was hoping they wouldn't cave and yet they did. So were they each given Ferraris or something? What did Biden do to win their votes?
- [33:30]
Ted Cruz
Look, unfortunately they're both Democrats and so they had previously stood up and said no, but at the end of the day they gave in. This is a terrible bill. So this bill spends hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare, in boondoggles. It's gonna be. We're gonna see a whole lot of Solyndras, we're gonna see a whole lot of green energy companies headed by former Democrat staffers with lobbyists that support Democrats who are suddenly getting millions or billions of dollars from the federal government. And that money's gonna be allocated not based on what they can do, but based on who their friends are, based on their political influence. And they're gonna take those millions and billions of dollars and turn around and hold fundraisers for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. It's pure political graft. Paying off their buddies, that's one component. But there's another component of it. So Biden and the Democrats keep telling us that they want number one to stop inflation. They've called this the Inflation Reduction Act. It truly is an Orwellian name. It's like calling a can of gasoline the fire reduction tool. Like this will increase inflation. It is literally hundreds of billions of dollars of yet more spending.
- [34:42]
Michael Knowles
Even Bernie Sanders admits. Right. Senator Bernie Sanders came out and he referred to it as the so called inflation Reduction act because even he, a socialist, is willing to admit that spending a bunch of money on all this nonsense is not gonna do anything about inflation.
- [34:57]
Ted Cruz
Well, and he's understating it cuz it'll make inflation worse. This will exacerbate inflation. It is. We have inflation because the federal government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars it didn't have. The Democrats solution was let's spend hundreds of billions more. That will produce more inflation. But, but they actually made it even worse because it also includes billions of dollars of new taxes. Now Joe Biden and every Democrat say they want to lower the price of gas at the pump. Now they're lying. They don't mean this. There are lots of reasons we know they're lying. There are lots of things Biden could do to Lower prices at the pump, like stop assaulting oil and gas production in the US with regulations. But on the face of it, this bill imposes billions in new taxes on oil and gas production. If you want prices of something to go down, you don't vote for billions in new taxes on the thing you're saying, we want prices to go down. And we had what's called Votorama. So how does that operate? The tool that the Democrats used to pass this is the Budget act of 1974, and it's what's called reconciliation. We've talked about this before. The most important thing about it is it's. It's a significant exception to the filibuster. Passing something under Reconciliation takes only 50 votes, not 60. There are limitations. You can't do everything under reconciliation, but you can do a lot. You can do taxes under reconciliation. You can do a lot of spending under reconciliation. So they used budget reconciliation. But one of the consequences of it, under the statute, there are unlimited amendments. And normally the majority can stop the minority from having amendments. But under reconciliation, it's the one big exception. They can't do that. So we have the ability. I have the ability as an individual senator to offer as many amendments as I want. So we were there all night and well into the next day offering amendments. We had an amendment on stripping out the gas taxes for all the Democrats who say they don't want gas taxes, they don't want gas prices to go up. Every single Democrat voted no. All of them are on record voting in favor of new taxes on oil and gas, which means when your gas prices go up, you know who's to blame. So, Michael, I had four amendments that I forced. I think it was the most of any of the Republicans. All four, I think were important. One of the amendments I forced was a simple amendment that. That deleted the hiring of 87,000 new IRS agents. Just deleted that from the bill. Said, nope, we're not doubling the funding of the IRS. We're not hiring 87,000 new IRS agents. We voted on it. It was 50, 50. Every Republican voted yes for my amendment. Every Democrat voted no. That means every single Democrat was the deciding vote. Wow. Democrats in Georgia and Arizona and Nevada, New Hampshire, all of them were the deciding vote in favor of 87,000 new IRS agents. I had another amendment that would prohibit the federal government from selling oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Communist China, which, as you know, Joe Biden has sold over 2 million barrels of oil to Communist China from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We voted on it. Every Democrat but four voted against it. So there were four. This particular amendment was at a 60 vote threshold, so they had some votes to give away. Normally amendments are at a 50 vote threshold, but in this case we had a ruling from the parliamentarian that set it at 60. So four Democrats, the two from Georgia, one from Nevada and one from New Hampshire voted with me. But every other Democrat voted against it. So Mark Kelly in Arizona voted for Joe Biden to sell oil paid for by the taxpayers to Communist China. By the way, Joe Manchin voted for selling oil to communist China. John Tester, not on the ballot this time, but will be on the ballot in two years in Montana voted for Biden to be able to sell oil to communist China. These are dumb, dumb votes, but the Democrats voted it down. Let me tell you my final two amendments because they're going to blow you away. The D.C. public Schools have implemented a vaccine mandate that they require all students in order to go to school have a COVID vaccine. And that's kicking in in the next week or two when school starts. Here are the stats. In D.C. of the students in D.C. roughly 85% of the students have been vaccinated. That means 15% of the students have not. So the D.C. schools have decided to throw 15% of the students out of school. It gets even worse when you look at the demographics among African American students and they're an enormous percentage of the students in D.C. schools are African American. 60% of African American students in the D.C. public schools are vaccinated. That means 40% are not. I forced a vote to eliminate the D.C. vaccine mandate for Covid. Every single Democrat voted. No, every one of them voted literally to throw 40% of the black kids out of school. And by the way, forever to literally. You're a 14 year old African American kid in D.C. guess what, you're a high school dropout now because every Democrat voted unless you comply to their demand to get this vaccine, you're done with schools. Sucks to be you. It was a stunning vote and every single one of them voted to throw those kids out of school. Let me tell you my final amendment. We've talked a lot about Merrick Garland and the FBI targeting parents as domestic terrorists under the Patriot Act. And by the way, even though Garland tried to backtrack in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, we had the head of the FBI in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I asked him about it. The FBI has interviewed, has interrogated dozens of parents because they spoke up at school boards, they're implementing this, they are.
- [41:34]
Michael Knowles
Doing this because I remember that they called them these parents domestic terrorists. And you thought, well, that's just. This is insane. But I at least believed there's no way that they're actually going to act on this.
- [41:49]
Ted Cruz
They're doing it all over the country.
- [41:51]
Michael Knowles
Wow.
- [41:52]
Ted Cruz
Wow. They are doing it all over the country. They are bringing in moms and dads. They're interrogating them. And so I had a simple amendment that said the FBI should not target parents as domestic terrorists for speaking up at school boards. Every single Democrat voted no, failed by one vote. That means every Democrat on the ballot, November, is the deciding vote in favor of the FBI targeting you targeting mom and dad as a domestic terrorist. That is a. It was an amazingly stupid vote. I actually think if they had any sense, like if, if Schumer were not such a wild eyed partisan, he would have told all his guys, vote for that. Let's all get on record and say, don't target parents as domestic terrorists. That would have been a rational Democrat responding to that vote. The fact that he said, every one of you, go, go walk the plank. Listen, this issue single handedly elected Glenn Youngkin in Virginia. And now every Democrat is on record saying, we're with the G man going after mom and dad. It was stunning and radical and extreme.
- [43:05]
Michael Knowles
That is surprising because I understand the Democrat vote on the COVID vaccine. The consequences are horrific. But I get it. They're saying we are so bought in on vaccine mandates, it's so important to us. We're willing to take the political heat for this vote. But I think calling parents domestic terrorists, that's really so important to you that you're gonna risk what happened to Yonkin in Virginia, what we're seeing play out in Florida, this education issue, so important right now to voters, you're really gonna risk that just so that you can keep siccing the federal government on concerned parents? And they're saying, yes, the Democrats are saying that is important enough to us to risk it.
- [43:46]
Ted Cruz
Well, and you know why they do it, Michael? They do it because they know the corporate media is corrupt. They know they won't get called out about on it. So you and I are talking about it. But let me ask you, have you seen any TV station talking about that vote? Has CNN talking about that.
- [44:00]
Michael Knowles
I mean, we do have better ratings than cnn, but we do definitely got better ratings than their shows. But you're not seeing this anywhere in the liberal press.
- [44:09]
Ted Cruz
It's why Democrats are so radical and so extreme, because their. And again, I Talk about it in Justice Corrupted, which, by the way, everyone go onto Amazon and pre order. Justice Corrupted. You can go do it right now. Go to Amazon, click pre order. But I talk about the corrupt. Corporate media has played a major role in producing this corruption because it teaches Democrats, I can abuse my power and I won't get called out on it. There will be no consequences. And so if you're a Democrat and you're like, should I vote on whether or not the FBI should target parents as domestic terrorists? Well, I'll just vote party line because no reporter will ask me about it. No headline back home, no coverage, nothing will address this issue. So I'm safe and immune. If we have some campaigns in November that don't suck, that are actually competent and capable on the Republican side, every one of these votes ought to appear in campaign ads. But before the ads, you ought to have real journalists asking about it. But the number of real journalists left in the. In the world is. Is vanishingly small.
- [45:30]
Michael Knowles
Before we go, Senator, speaking of accountability, I want to get to at least one question from the Verdict plus subscribers. And so this question comes from Eileen, who says, I kind of feel like this raid on Mar A Lago could also be a smokescreen for something else that they want to distract us from. They do it all the time. Does anything come to mind? November can't come fast enough. P.S. i love to barbecue, but I can't find the Jack Daniels original recipe. Any replacement suggestions from a Texan? I think even KC Masterpiece is gone. So we're really seeing two distinct issues brought up in this question. I'll let you take them in either order you prefer.
- [46:13]
Ted Cruz
All right, so I'll start with just a confession that I like to eat barbecue, but I'm not much of a barbecuer myself. I have a big green egg in the backyard that I'll grill up a burger or a steak on. But to be honest, for good barbecue, I just go to a Texas barbecue joint and eat it there. So I have nothing of value to impart in terms of the best way to prepare it. I find the best way to prepare it just ordering it. Right.
- [46:42]
Michael Knowles
The best way to make it is make a reservation. Fair enough. Fair enough. That's a good, manly answer. Just call.
- [46:49]
Ted Cruz
It is. But look, I can grill up a burger or steak. That much I can do. But my cooking repertoire is pretty limited. Yep. Look, in terms of a distraction, I mean, it's right to be skeptical. They're doing a ton. That is bad. I don't think this was deliberately a distraction. I think this was tone deaf. I think this was. We talked about it earlier in the pod. The partisans at doj, they've drunk the Kool Aid. Everyone they know hates Donald Trump. He is the devil, they believe. And so everyone they know has been like, eagerly like, you know, if you saw Stephen Colbert who had, you know, practically an epileptic seizure, he was so excited with the FBI raid. I think it's the bias of reinforcements that they're just tone deaf and eager to charge in. Do I think it is a carefully calibrated plan to distract from something specific and otherwise? No. Is it part of distracting from the disaster of inflation and gas prices and crime and open borders? Yes. So all of January 6th is a political circus designed to distract from the failures of the Biden agenda. So in that context, this is also a distraction from that. But I don't think it's specifically hiding one particular pernicious thing, in part because I think they're doing 100 pernicious things all at once.
- [48:35]
Michael Knowles
Right. Never ascribe to 4D chess, that which is equally explained by a blunder and incompetence. Very good point. Now there is much more to discuss, but not with me. The rest to discuss will be for the verdict plus subscribers with our friend Liz Wheeler on Cloakroom. Liz, what will you be talking about?
- [48:55]
Ted Cruz
Hi, Michael. Hi, Senator. I gotta say, after sitting here and watching and listening to this episode for the past hour, this feels very different to me. There have been a lot of federal agencies who have abused their power and targeted the American people a lot of different times. And I think this time the American people feel that a line has been crossed. I've never seen the emotion and the passion and the fury as I've seen this week. It just feels different on the cloakroom, Senator. And I'm addressing this to you because you don't know what we're going to talk about until I tell you on air. We're going to talk about Alex Jones. I know. Interesting topic. There's actually some very interesting legal questions as it pertains to the defamation trial that Alex Jones just underwent about slander and libel and the different types of damages, whether they're compensatory, whether they're punitive and cruel and unusual punishment. So please join us over there. We're gonna be talking about that. You can go to verdict with TedCruz.com plus if you use my promo code cloakroom, you can get one month free on your annual subscription verdict with TedCruise.com.
- [49:59]
Michael Knowles
Plus I can't wait to hear about it. And I do want to hear more about the gay frogs. It's amazing that the man was right on the gay frogs. We have to leave it there. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
- [50:18]
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 it.