← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
The Inside Story: ANOTHER Biden Nom Defeated, plus Biden LOVES China & Kerry LOVES Private Jets
00:54:11
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- [00:01]
Ben Shapiro
Senator, nice to be back with you in studio today. And there is exciting news about a Biden nominee. You and I were talking about this behind the scenes and I want to bring people into this part of the discussion. There was a guy that was nominated for the FAA position to lead it, that was just not qualified for the position. You actually liked him as an individual, but it was the wrong person for this job. Now the Biden administration has withdrawn him. Talk a little bit about the dynamics here because to be honest, it's the second time they've had a nominee that's not made it through. And without your leadership, I'm gonna say this because it was obvious this would not have happened if you weren't in the position that you're in. And Americans should feel safer now because of this.
- [00:44]
Ted Cruz
Well, it's a big deal. Big news broke this weekend, Saturday night, sort of quietly, late at night, trying to avoid the news, the Biden administration announced they were withdrawing Phil Washington, their nominee for faa. This is now the second major nominee the White House has withdrawn. Earlier, they withdrew Gigi Sohn, who they had nominated the Federal Communications Commission. Both of those nominees go through the Commerce Committee. And I am, as of this year, the new ranking member on the Commerce Committee. In other words, I'm the lead Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee. It's the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. It's got jurisdiction over about half the U.S. economy, including both of these appointees. Both of them. Now, we've taken them down and it was not by accident. Look, it is a good thing. We talked last week on the POD about Phil Washington and why he was not qualified to run the faa, why this is an incredibly important safety and security job and he didn't have the background in aviation or aviation safety. Gigi Sohn we've talked about a lot on the podcast as well. She's a left wing radical, an activist, someone who hates Fox News, who's described Fox News as a threat to democracy, who has advocated using government power to silence voices she doesn't like. She would have been very dangerous as a government regulator. I do think that there are valuable lessons to be taken in terms of how on the Commerce Committee we were able to take these two nominees down because there were bad nominees. But if you look at most of the bad nominees Biden puts forward, make it through. We did a couple of things different that led to two big victories in a matter of two months. Number one, with Gigi Sohn, I tried to systematically empower every Republican on the committee. And in Terms of providing them information on her record, providing her information on all of the different things she had said and done that were extreme and that led to different members of the committee being empowered, being able to run with, okay, what issue do you want to take? And so, for example, she had sent tweets praising people who were calling for abolishing the police. And so one of the Republican senators went with those and pointed out that a number of police groups, the sheriff's groups, had opposed her nomination because they didn't want someone at the FCC who actively undermines cops. There were a whole series of issues, you'll recall, we empowered everyone. And then at the hearing, and we had a total of three markups on her. But at the hearing, I walked through some of her extreme record and in particular that she kept supporting this left wing group that attacked incumbent Democrat senators and that put up billboards saying that incumbent Democrat senators were corrupt. So she had put up a billboard saying, or the group, rather had put up a billboard saying, Joe Manchin is corrupt. I asked Gigi Sohn, do you think Joe Manchin's corrupt? She said, no. The group had put up a billboard saying, Jon Tester is corrupt. By the way, John Tester is on the Commerce Committee.
- [04:01]
Ben Shapiro
Not an awkward moment at all when you're trying to get someone to vote for you. Right?
- [04:04]
Ted Cruz
So I asked, do you think Jon Tester's corrupt? She says, no. They put up a billboard saying, Kyrsten Sinema is corrupt. At this point, you knew where it was going. I asked her if she thought Kyrsten Sinema was corrupt. She said no. At this point, Maria Cantwell, who's the chair of the committee, says, what, are you going to have them coming after me next? Which, as it so happened, I had to laugh and say, well, actually, yes. So this group sent a letter to Chuck Schumer in December of 22, so just a couple of months ago, demanding that Schumer fire Maria Cantwell as the chairman of the Commerce Committee because we hadn't yet confirmed Gigi Sohn. And I put up the press release, the story behind me. And if you watch the video, Maria Cantwell is like cracking up, laughing. And I just said, I said, you know, I have to say, in my entire time in the Senate, I've never seen a nominee who supports a group. And by the way, she'd attacked a bunch of the Republicans, too.
- [05:04]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah.
- [05:04]
Ted Cruz
But I was like, who attacks half the senators on the committee that's asked to confirm her? This is a new one. I also asked her I said, okay, after they sent these, put these billboards up, you sent fundraising tweets. You raised money for the group. Afterwards. I said, did you know about it? Now, look, any lawyer is told, never ask a question you don't know the answer. I didn't actually know the answer, but I figured it was reasonable to ask. And she said, well, I didn't know about the others, but she said, I did know about their billboard saying Kyrsten Sinema is corrupt. Like, you did know about that? She said, yes. And I said, and you raised money for them after they'd accused Sinema being corrupt? Correct. She goes, oh, yes, like quite proudly, quite brazenly. That had, I think, a real effect. It had an effect in terms of lots of wobbly votes on the committee. It had an effect in terms of other Democrats. But we also, my team was organizing different constituent groups who were reaching out to their senators, saying, hey, we don't want a left wing partisan who will censor us abusing power at the fcc. And what ended up happening. And I will tell you, I did a lot of personal diplomacy going to Democrats on the committee, going to Democrats off the committee, and just walking through some of the things she said. By the way, as an aside, you may recall, and we talked about this once on the pod, but it's worth revisiting. I did complain at the hearing. I said, look, I actually feel a little bit offended. You've attacked half the senators on this committee, but this group has never attacked me. I mean, what do I have to do?
- [06:45]
Ben Shapiro
And a lot of people attack you. So there you go.
- [06:47]
Ted Cruz
But, like, I'm really feeling, like, inadequate. Apparently I'm not doing a good enough job of irritating this left wing group. And so they saw that, and I guess I feel some vindication. When I complained that they hadn't attacked me, they promptly began crowdsourcing for a billboard attacking me. So I wasn't left out. I felt good. And the billboard had a picture of me with the website, Ted Cruz hates free speech. And the funny thing is these guys are not very good because they hadn't secured the website. So I promptly bought it. Well, yeah, I own the website now.
- [07:29]
Ben Shapiro
That's the best $7.99 you've ever spent.
- [07:31]
Ted Cruz
Ted Cruz hates free speech. And so I tweeted out their crowdsourcing. I said, please go to the website and it goes to a campaign fundraiser for me where you can contribute to my campaign. And it just, look, it was trolling.
- [07:42]
Ben Shapiro
And having fun, but that's a good day for trolling. When you search to see if the website is available and it says yes, and immediately you're like, let me buy this as fast as I possibly can.
- [07:52]
Ted Cruz
It was. I got a lot of laughter out of it. But look, the organized, comprehensive effort of bringing together the material, having it be substantive. None of the attacks on her were personal. Yeah, I actually like Gigi Sohn. She's smart. She's a true believer. She is a leftist. Hardcore. She is a hardcore leftist. Look, I'm a hardcore conservative. I respect people who believe something, who don't flinch. And so I understand where she's coming from. I just think she is ill suited to be on a regulatory agency with massive power over communication and broadcast and telecom. That's just dangerous, that wants to take.
- [08:33]
Ben Shapiro
Down different sectors, conservative media in that job. It's not supposed to be a political position.
- [08:40]
Ted Cruz
So my point in terms of, there are lots of Biden nominees that are radical and extreme, and almost none of them are taken down. There is a specific approach to doing it. Some of it is doing the homework. And I'll tell you, my team, the top two staffers on the Commerce Committee, I hired both of them. They're incredibly talented. They were both the top two staffers on the Senate Banking Committee last Congress. So they worked for Pat Toomey, the Republican who retired. Pat's a good friend and banking took down a couple of extreme nominees from Biden in the last two years. So I deliberately went out and hired these guys and said, look, y'all did a great job last time. You remember, what was it? The Russian woman who was nominated to be a banking regulator who had like, literally was a Marxist. In fact, if you remember, John Kennedy had the great questioning where he said, so should I call you comrade? But it's the same approach where you do your homework, you assemble all the materials, you assemble the substance, you marshal it out to key members of the committee, you present it in a way that is clear, that is understandable, that is. And it's substantive. It's not a personal attack. It's not going. It is going. Your record is not suitable for this job. Now let's fast forward to Phil Washington.
- [10:00]
Ben Shapiro
And I wanted to ask you about that because the FAA nominee here is a position that's obviously supposed to be non political. And before we get into that and how it's about protecting everybody's family when they're flying and everybody that's on an airplane. This is not a place that you want someone that doesn't know about this position. And before we get to that I want to tell you about our friends, I guess to Precious Metals. If you've seen what's going on in the economy right now and you are either in retirement or close to retirement, you know how stressful it can be when you're looking at your retirement savings and they're changing a lot. That is where gold and silver can come in to help protect some of your hard earned assets. Our friends at Augusta Precious Metals, they will sit down with you and look and see if gold and silver is right for you. Most importantly, their job is this to protect your hard earned dollars because there's no time to make up losses, especially if you're in retirement or very close to retirement. We've seen what's going on in the economy. Check them out. Now there's two things I can send you the free guide, but you can also do their online actual sit down with the company and they walk through what may work or what may not be right for you. They'll even tell you if switching some of your money to gold and silver is not right for you. Check them out. Go online to Augusta Precious Metals.com Verdict Augusta Precious Metals.com Use my name, Ben. You'll also get your fees waived for 10 years. Augusta precious metals.com or you can call them 8774 Gold IRA 8774 Gold IRA Senator, you look at this FAA and Washington right away. It was very clear and you brought this up immediately. We talked about it a little bit on this pod, that he was just not qualified to lead the faa. That's what it was about. And you liked him as a person?
- [11:52]
Ted Cruz
I did. You, you know, he's someone who spent 24 years in the military, is a smart guy, served his nation honorably, senior enlisted in the military. But he's someone who was wildly unqualified for this position. And you know, I have to admit for me with Phil Washington, it was never ideological. I was offended that they would nominate someone who couldn't remotely succeed, didn't have the background. And so back in January, right when I started as the ranking member, I said publicly, I said, Gigi Sohn and Phil Washington, neither of these nominations will be confirmed. I don't know why the White House is wasting their time on them. They're going to fail on them both. And so I predicted this at the outset. Phil Washington, we did several things. Number one, again, it was going through and doing the research. So there are a whole host of issues. There was one issue which is under the statute creating the FAA and defining the Administrator, it says that the administrator must be a civilian, in other words, cannot be military. And Congress has consistently interpreted civilian to mean not active duty military, but also not retired military. And so this has happened a number of times where you get someone who served 20 plus years in the military, they retire, they, they're receiving a retirement every month. And Congress six times has required of FAA nominees that either Congress grant him a waiver, which takes both houses of Congress, or, and this has happened twice, the retired military officer give up his or her retirement, like legally give it away.
- [13:37]
Ben Shapiro
I mean, you're really committed to this new job if you do that.
- [13:40]
Ted Cruz
So that's been the consistent pattern. One of the very first things we did is I went and met with, I met with the entire House committee in charge of transportation. I met with the chairman, Sam Graves is a good friend, House member from Missouri. And we together penned a letter together saying under the statute, it requires a waiver where both houses of Congress have to pass it. And we said the House is not going to pass this. Normally on confirmations, look, it's the Senate that's in the personnel business. Most nominations, the President nominates, the Senate confirms. The House doesn't play a role here. The House does play a role because you had to have a waiver from both Houses. So we started with that argument, putting it out there, laying out the legal basis. Did that take Washington's nomination down? No, but it was an argument that was a real concern and we had history and law and practice on our side. So there was a second set of issues, which is that Washington has an ongoing public corruption investigation going on for him right now. So he was previously the head of LA Metro, so did trains, buses, Los Angeles. And there's an investigation concerning a whistleblower that he allegedly retaliated against and a nonprofit that got what's alleged to be a sweetheart deal in order to ingratiate Washington with a really powerful Metro board member. Now, this investigation the Democrats didn't want to address at all. So here's what my team did that was really important. Number one, the LA County Sheriff, who's a Democrat, had executed a search warrant describing all the things that the sheriff was looking for from Phil Washington about this public corruption. So in the hearing, I walked through the search warrant and quoted it, had it blown up behind me and walked through the terms of the search warrant from the LA County Sheriff. But secondly, so the California Attorney General has taken over the public corruption investigation. My team did something no one else had done, which is they picked up the phone and they called the California Attorney General's office and they said, hey, what's the status of this investigation? And California Attorney General's Office said, well, it's active and ongoing. And they said, well, what's Phil Washington's connection? And they said, well, Phil Washington is materially connected to this investigation. He's right in the middle of this investigation. And they said one other thing. They said nobody else had called them. So I want you to think about this. This is the week before the hearing. They said the Biden White House had not called them. They said the FBI had not called them. They said the Senate Democrats had not called them. So my staff were the first people to call the California AG's office and say, what's the status of the investigation? And they told my guys. So all of that I laid out at the hearing and I said, look, I can't think of another time that I've been in the Senate where the President has nominated someone for a position who's right in the middle of an active public corruption investigation. And to be clear, this is not some partisan witch hunt. The LA County Sheriff is a Democrat and the California Attorney General is a Democrat. Hardcore Democrat, hardcore, like left wing Democrats. They're actively investigating this right now. That argument likewise. Look, do I think that this, that argument defeated Washington? No.
- [17:19]
Ben Shapiro
Which is also kind of scary if you think about.
- [17:21]
Ted Cruz
Yes, it is.
- [17:21]
Ben Shapiro
I mean, if you have an active investigation, you would think that the Biden administration would say, hey, we got to table this guy until we figure this out, maybe for another position, but certainly not right now. This is not who we're going to.
- [17:32]
Ted Cruz
Go with in the world of sanity. It would here. If those were the only two issues, my guess is Phil Washington would be confirmed. The Democrats would be willing to look the other way, say, nevermind the statute. By the way, with the statute that requires a waiver. One of the things it meant is if Washington had been confirmed as faa, every decision he made would have had a legal cloud and could have been challenged in court by saying, you have an illegally serving administrator, so it actually hurts the agency.
- [18:02]
Ben Shapiro
Wow.
- [18:02]
Ted Cruz
There would have been litigation from some plane manufacturer, from something, you know, I.
- [18:07]
Ben Shapiro
Mean, anybody that wasn't getting their way.
- [18:08]
Ted Cruz
Could just sue, could sue and say the administrator is illegal because the statute requires a waiver for someone who's a retired military individual, individual to serve. The Democrats would have happily ignored that and ignored the public corruption. What took Washington down was his utter and complete lack of qualifications. And at his hearing, and we played this on the podcast, I asked him systematically, did he have any aviation experience. I said, have you ever flown a plane? No. You ever been a military pilot? No. You ever been a commercial airline pilot? No. You ever worked for an airline? No. You ever worked as an air traffic controller? No. You ever worked for a company that manufactures airplanes? No. You ever worked for a company that repairs airplanes? No. I walk through this now. To his credit. He didn't try to filibuster. He wasn't overly political, and you weren't.
- [19:10]
Ben Shapiro
Trying to be a jerk. It was one of the most just shocking moments because it's like I'm asking you every position you could have had that would then give you credibility to have this position of being in charge of the faa. You don't check any of the boxes, sir. It's almost like, why are you here? Why would you think this would be good for you in that scenario? You know nothing about what we need to keep people safe who are conservative or liberal, black, white, every religion on planes. It doesn't matter in that scenario. I just want to be safe.
- [19:40]
Ted Cruz
So we laid out those facts, and as I said, listen, I was offended. This is a technical job. It's like if you're nominating someone to be in charge of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and they don't know anything about nuclear energy, like, holy crap, that's a problem. I would like someone to know enough not to have nuclear meltdowns and have us all grow a third eye. And, like, there are safety jobs. And to be clear, you and I are unqualified for both of these. You're more qualified. You know more about a plane than I do. But I wouldn't put you in charge of the faa either. Sorry about that.
- [20:13]
Ben Shapiro
I'm okay with that. I feel good about that, losing that opportunity.
- [20:17]
Ted Cruz
But look, these are. It's not like you want a right winger or left winger in these jobs. For these kind of safety jobs, you just want someone competent and up to the task, but laying out those facts. So we also did the same thing. We coordinated with all the different members of the committee so that they had a ground for questioning. So, for example, Ted Budd, new senator from North Carolina. Ted Budd is a pilot. So Ted Budd had a really effective series of questions where he asked him different things that any pilot should know. He asked him, for example, how close can two commercial airplanes come on a Runway? And Washington's like, I don't know. And, like, he walked through a whole bunch of technical questions that, frankly, I don't know the answer. To like. It's why Ted did such an effective job with it. Cuz he was asking.
- [21:04]
Ben Shapiro
But the FAA administrators should absolutely know how to answer that question. It's like two plus two is four. If you're going for a math job, you should always know that answer.
- [21:11]
Ted Cruz
Like, the FAA is in charge, among other things, of regulating how close the planes can come to each other. If he doesn't know how close they can come or the reasons why, that's just a huge problem. So we had all of the different players on the committee empowered with the information that they could raise it. And then we had to do several things. Number one, look, there are some Republicans on the committee, particularly from rural states, who care a lot about the faa, who were a little nervous about, oh, I don't want an administrator who's mad at me who will take it out of my state.
- [21:43]
Ben Shapiro
So explain the politics quickly. That the reason why rural states and rural people that represent rural areas, they need their smaller airports, they need their regional airports, they need the money that comes because the cash made on the ground there will never cover what it costs to operate an airport. Airports are very expensive to run, but you want to have access to your state, you want people to be able to fly into your state, and you want to hopefully grow that. But you have to have FAA money come in, otherwise you could never open up a lot of these small airports.
- [22:13]
Ted Cruz
And if you have a politically vindictive FAA administrator that could punish a small rural state. And so there were some Republicans that were concerned that we had to calm their concerns. It wasn't personal, it was substantive. Look, we want someone who keeps people safe and protects us from plane crashes where lots of people die. That was a piece of it. We had to work on Democrats. So I worked on committee Democrats. I'd go and make the case to them. Now, one of the pieces that was very helpful, we had a hearing on the faa. The acting administrator is a guy named Billy Nolan. I don't know Billy Nolan, but he's the person Biden has nominated to be acting administrator. He was a commercial airline pilot. He's worked in the FAA in senior positions. He has multiple certifications in aviation safety. Like we would ask him substantive questions about aviation safety. He knew it, and he'd give answers. And look, by the way, the Biden administration is very Bean county. And you know, Phil Washington happens to be African American. Billy Nolan also happens to be African American. So if their view is they just wanted to nominate an African American administrator, okay, fine. But could you have someone who knows a damn thing about airplanes. So we're at the hearing with Billy Nolan. I actually turned back to my staff, and I said, hey, what do you think about Nolan? They're like, he's pretty capable. And I said, would it be crazy for me to suggest right now that they should withdraw Washington and nominate Nolan? And my guys are like, no, no, that's fine. And so I just. It was an audible. This was not planned. I leaned forward and I said, let me say something right now As I see Mr. Nolan, Acting Administrator Nolan, answering these questions. They're substantive. They're real. I think if the White House withdrew Phil Washington and nominated Mr. Nolan, he would in all likelihood be approved with a large bipartisan majority because he's capable.
- [24:14]
Ben Shapiro
Of the job of dealing with safety.
- [24:16]
Ted Cruz
In the faa, you know, absent some big smoking gun we don't know about. You know, I mean, something terrible in his background that nobody knows. Absent that he would be an easy confirmation. And so I suggested at the hearing, and you saw a lot of heads turn. I actually heard from a former senior official in the Biden White House who said, the White House, like, their heads jerked when I said, if you nominate this guy, he could get confirmed and confirmed quickly. That was an important part to beating Phil Washington, because what it enabled me to do. So this past week, I was on the Senate floor. I had an entire pocket full of pocket cards. So my team prepares them. They're a note card that I carry, my inside pocket. And I had individual senators they were prepared for, for each one, Democrats that I'd go to, and I'd pull a senator aside and say, hey, let me talk to you about Phil Washington, particularly people who are not on the committee. So people who were, say, pilots, people who are more moderate. I said, look, here's his background. He doesn't know this. He doesn't know that. I'd give him the pocket card and I'd say, and by the way, the acting administrator Biden put him in place. This is not partisan. This is. I'd like to have someone qualified. One of the things my team did also is we worked with stakeholders. So lots of different groups came out against Washington and said he's not qualified. Lots of pilot groups in individual states. So, for example, the Montana Pilots association said no, said he's manifestly unqualified. Well, Jon Tester is on the Commerce Committee. Jon Tester's running for reelection in 2024. Do you really want to be the Democrat who votes to confirm someone the Montana Pilots association says is unquestionably unqualified. The Arizona Pilots association said the same thing. So we worked, I gave a floor speech which actually we played in a previous podcast about Phil Washington. Here's a piece I didn't tell you about. So when I'm giving the floor speech, the person presiding, the way it works on the Senate, presiding anytime she wishes to, the Vice President can preside. Generally speaking, the Vice President does not preside, only on really critical votes where a tie breaking vote is required. So the way it normally works is a senator from the majority party presides and it's usually the more junior senators. So it's on seniority, the more senior ones are kind of out of that responsibility. So when we had a Republican majority, I liked presiding. You'd preside every week, typically an hour each week. And it was interesting. You'd sit there, you could do some work, you'd listen to speeches, but it's the more junior members of the majority party that are presiding. Well, when I gave my speech on Phil Washington, it so happened that Peter Welch was presiding. So Peter is one of the newest senators. He's a Democrat from Vermont, was just elected, replaced Pat Leahy was in the House for a long time but is new to the Senate. And I like Peter. I'm just getting to know him. He's on Commerce with me and he's on Judiciary with me. So I'm on two committees with him. But it was interesting. Peter's listening to me give the speech and I'm walking through Washington's record. I'm walking through the substance, I'm walking through the corruption case, I'm walking through.
- [27:26]
Ben Shapiro
And you can tell he's paying attention to you. Cuz there's not a lot of people in the Senate chamber.
- [27:30]
Ted Cruz
There's virtually nobody.
- [27:31]
Ben Shapiro
I watched you when we were in D.C. recently. There's virtually no one in there. There's the pages sitting on the left and the right side on the little steps, there might be another member that walks in getting ready for their next speech. And there's like you said, it's almost like you have an audience of one in that moment.
- [27:45]
Ted Cruz
And I will say, by the way, different presiding officers do it differently. So there are a number of people. Elizabeth Warren, when she presides, she won't look at you, she's just reading a paper and just ignores you the whole time. Which I never liked. Yeah, when I presided I tried to look at every senator to listen to their speech, even if there's some left winger and I didn't like what they were saying, I tried to give them the courtesy of the Senate listening to them and hearing them out. So Peter, number one, he looked at me and was engaging. But what's interesting, he's nodding quite a bit and at the end of the speech he literally gives me a thumbs up.
- [28:22]
Ben Shapiro
Wow.
- [28:23]
Ted Cruz
Now this is on C Span.
- [28:25]
Ben Shapiro
Don't you wish we had more of this, by the way, in the Senate? I mean, wouldn't it be better for the country if you could have moments, more moments like that?
- [28:32]
Ted Cruz
And so I went up to the dais and I stood there with peter for like 10 minutes just talking to him and saying, look, these concerns are real.
- [28:40]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah.
- [28:42]
Ted Cruz
And he had not heard a lot of them. He's on the committee, but he wasn't there for all the discussion. And so listening to them all together. And I was saying, so here's what I urge several Democrats and I said, look, Peter's a new senator, it's hard for him to come out against a Biden nominee. And I said, I'm not asking you to do that publicly, but what I would say is if you've got a concern, quietly pick up the phone, call the White House or call Maria Cantwell, the chair, and say, look, I've got a concern. If you force a vote, I'll be a no. And I pointed out to him, I said, listen, during the Trump administration I did this multiple times. Now I didn't do so publicly, sure, I didn't throw a fit publicly, but there were several nominees.
- [29:25]
Ben Shapiro
You just said this ain't gonna fly with me.
- [29:27]
Ted Cruz
That I picked up the phone and said, you don't have my vote. This nominee is a problem. And every single time I did it, they pulled the nominee. Now you don't, you know, you don't piss on them publicly unnecessarily, but there is a responsibility as a senator, even for your own party. And the case I made, apparently the Biden White House was freaked out. Cuz I'm having this conversation with Peter on C Span. I mean it was not hidden cuz it just happened. The camera was there.
- [29:54]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah, you can watch.
- [29:55]
Ted Cruz
And so they're all. The White House was nervous as all get out, but I had this conversation with multiple Democrat senators where I said, look, if God forbid there's another plane crash and at some point there's going to be a plane crash, I mean, it's an inherently dangerous activity. We know, we hope that there's never another plane crash. But we also know with reality something will go wrong, pilot error, there will be a Mechanical breakdown, something will happen if, God forbid, there's another plane crash in the next two years. Do you really want to be the senator who was the deciding vote in confirming the head of the FAA who's manifestly unqualified and didn't know how to prevent it like that, frankly. And I said this to several senators, I said, let's be honest, this is the kind of issue senators lose elections on.
- [30:46]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah.
- [30:47]
Ted Cruz
Like, it's not hard.
- [30:48]
Ben Shapiro
This is an easy one to get right. And if you get it wrong, it could go really bad.
- [30:53]
Ted Cruz
It could. You could literally be looking at hundreds of dead bodies, women, children dead because you put someone in a position they weren't qualified for and they screwed up.
- [31:07]
Ben Shapiro
Solely based on politics.
- [31:09]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, yeah. And it was a. And I had several Democrats say, why are they nominating this guy? I said, look, frankly, I don't know.
- [31:17]
Ben Shapiro
At that point you're like, I'm not on your team. Like, I have no idea why they would do this.
- [31:21]
Ted Cruz
Well, but what I said, look, I don't know, but I assume it's a political favor either for California Democrats or for Colorado Democrats because he had worked in both California and Colorado and I assume he was east tight with the Democrats there. But this was cronyism. And there are jobs in government you can put someone for cronyism that they're just a buddy of yours. And so you get this job. You wanted to make him ambassador to some small country. Knock yourself out.
- [31:50]
Ben Shapiro
Fine by me.
- [31:50]
Ted Cruz
He'll be fine. I pointed out, look, he had quite a bit of experience with trains and buses. He was originally considered for the Amtrak board of directors. I said, you know what, that would have been a perfectly reasonable position. Number one, you're part of a board, but he has train experience. So that, you know, as the old phrase goes, that's good enough for government work, but the FAA is something different.
- [32:16]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah.
- [32:17]
Ted Cruz
So I would say, listen, I'm really proud. I want to commend my team because the guys on my team worked their tails off. But did it right? Did it based on substance, did it based on real legitimate concerns. And we presented with Phil Washington, we presented an alternative. And I'll draw a distinction. Look, the fcc, if I were a left wing Democrat, I'd actually be pissed at the Biden White House because through their trying to ram Gigi Sohn through, and this thing's been pending for over a year, they had three markups. It was clear she was never going to go anywhere. They kept a vacancy on the fcc. So the FCC has two Republicans Two Democrats. They haven't had a Democrat majority on the fcc. And with a Democrat majority, they would ram through some terrible policies. But they overreached. They went for someone who was so far left that they couldn't hold their own party. They couldn't hold the Democrats. If I were a partisan Democrat, I'd be irritated at the Biden White House. Why didn't you just find an ordinary left winger and get stuff done for two years? And so from my perspective, I actually had mixed sentiments when they withdrew Gigi Sohn. I don't know that I would have minded them continue this fight for another year and then fail in a year because it stops them from a bad three commissioner majority on the FCC doing real harm to jobs in America, to free speech in America, to communication in America. The faa, I feel very different. We haven't had a Senate confirmed administrator at the FAA for a year now. That's bad. And I've told, Look, I told Maria Cantwell, get the White House to nominate someone like Billy Nolan. We'll confirm him quickly because I want someone in that job tomorrow. Yeah, like, I don't like the delay there because tomorrow morning when I go get on an airplane and fly to Washington, I'd really like an FAA administrator know something about not having that plane crash.
- [34:23]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah.
- [34:24]
Ted Cruz
So it does vary job by job. But I do think there is also, hopefully it was worthwhile for listeners of the pod to kind of go behind the scenes, no doubt, on the mechanics of building support. By the way, I'll say one other thing, which is with the faa, the Biden Department of Transportation was leaning on everyone. They were leaning on airlines. They were leaning on unions. They were pounding the hell out of them. Support Phil Washington. And they were exerting political pressure. We mostly kept people on the sidelines. There were a few, like Frontier Airlines came out in support of Phil Washington, which frankly pissed me off. And so last week we had a hearing on bad customer service on airlines. Frontier Airlines is routinely ranked, like, at the bottom.
- [35:20]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah, they're one of the worst.
- [35:20]
Ted Cruz
Very last. So I invited Frontier Airlines to come testify. All right. You're going to give lousy service and be enlisted to be political henchmen for the Biden White House in confirming a manifestly unqualified FAA administrator. Why don't you come on in? They refused to come. So Frontier was a bad actor in this. Although I'm sure the political pressure put on them was a lot.
- [35:48]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah.
- [35:48]
Ted Cruz
But I will say on our end, we did a pretty good job with almost everyone of keeping them on the sidelines. And my team was on the phone to all of them and they're like, these guys are beating the heck out of us. And we said, fine, he's not gonna be confirmed. Just we're not saying come out against him. We were asking other people to do that.
- [36:08]
Ben Shapiro
Sure.
- [36:08]
Ted Cruz
But look, if you're a big regulated entity, it's frankly dangerous to come out against someone who may be your regulator.
- [36:15]
Ben Shapiro
Like that's, yeah, that's, that's a big gamble.
- [36:18]
Ted Cruz
That's asking too much. But it wasn't asking too much to say just sit this one out and let the Senate work its will.
- [36:31]
Ben Shapiro
It's a remarkable story. It's a remarkable story of how we got to where we are now. And I also think it's gotta make the White House realize they actually have to bring better candidates before your committee. Cuz they're gonna have a rough two years if they don't.
- [36:47]
Ted Cruz
Well, we're going to make sure people know what their record is and if their record is reasonable and they're qualified and they're not extreme partisan nominees, they're likely to get confirmed. But if their record, if they're unqualified and they are extreme partisan nominees, they're going to face a much rockier time.
- [37:08]
Ben Shapiro
Senator, I want to move to something else that was big this week and it dealt with Russia and China having meetings. The President's hanging out in the Oval Office with his wife and a TV group of stars at the same time and totally doesn't seem to be looking at what's going on with international security issues with China and Russia meeting kind of a big deal. Ted Lasso apparently was much bigger than that. But before we get to that, want to remind you about our good friends at Chalk. If you're a guy and you're dealing with that, you're getting older fatigue, you're not feeling like you have that edge anymore. Check out chalk c h o q.com and with chalk, they help you fight back. Now you can up your testosterone levels by up to 20% over 90 days. Naturally, all you got to do is go online to chalk. Choq.com I'm taking the Male vitality stack. It can help you maximize your masculinity by boosting your testosterone levels. Like I said, 20% over 90 days. Go online. Choq.com Choq.com use the promo code BEN. You'll get 3.35percent off any chalk subscriptions and you can cancel anytime. Choq.com use the code BEN sender. There was a shocking moment. And it was just like, is this real life? The cast of Ted Lasso? I don't know if you've ever seen the show. Great show, Love it. Watch it on airplanes all the time.
- [38:32]
Ted Cruz
The victory dance in the locker room.
- [38:33]
Ben Shapiro
Is still awesome, still amazing. Their asked to come to the White House on the exact same day that Vladimir Putin and the leader of China are meeting. Now, they're not meeting in China, which I also think you could read a lot into. They're in Russia meeting, and they're meeting. And there's been a lot of conversations about weaponry coming from China and technology to kill innocent people in Ukraine. Russia desperately needs that. China also desperately needs energy. This is a perfect alliance. And the White House thinks, and I'm just talking about, from an optic standpoint, why the hell would you not cancel or delay that, that meeting? Now, the President also mocked a lot of the reporting. I want to play this video basically saying, you guys have all been saying that they're going to give weaponry to Russia. It hadn't happened yet. And then he goes, I mean, it may happen, but it was also one of those moments like, what are you doing? Take a look, look, look.
- [39:25]
C
I don't take China lightly, I don't take Russia lightly. But I think we vastly exaggerate. I've been hearing now for the past three months about China is going to provide significant weapons to Russia and they're going to have been talking about that. They haven't yet. Doesn't mean they won't. But they haven't yet.
- [39:48]
Ben Shapiro
Doesn't mean they won't. They haven't yet. Senator, this is, this is embarrassing. And the scary part is our adversaries, Russia and China are watching this.
- [39:56]
Ted Cruz
They are. And listen, the Biden foreign policy has been a disaster from day one. You know, Gates, the former Defense Secretary, famously said, joe Biden's been wrong in every foreign policy issue the last 40 years. That just is Biden.
- [40:13]
Ben Shapiro
And he's talking about going back to his Senate time. And he has been wrong. And he has a long record when he was a senator being wrong over and over and over again.
- [40:21]
Ted Cruz
The Biden White House, what they have done systematically, they've alienated our friends and allies. They've driven our friends and allies away, and they've shown weakness and appeasement to our enemies. All of our enemies are stronger than they were two and a half years ago. Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, all of them. If you're an enemy of America, they bend over backwards to you. They wave Sanctions on you, by the way, what does Biden do consistently? Russia. He waves sanctions on Nord Stream 2, gives billions of dollars to Putin, causes the war in Ukraine, Venezuela. He's declining to enforce sanctions. So now Maduro is stronger in making more money because Joe Biden is there. Iran. He's refusing to enforce sanctions against Iran. The Ayatollah is selling a million barrels a day of oil because Joe Biden's weakness. And what does he say right there? He's like, oh, they're not so bad. Remember, this is the same Joe Biden who a few years back said, come on, man. Yeah, China's not our enemy, they're our friends. Come on, man.
- [41:26]
Ben Shapiro
So he had respect for China by competing with China.
- [41:30]
Ted Cruz
This is someone our enemies don't respect. They're not afraid of. Why did Putin invade Ukraine? Number one, because Biden let him complete Nord Stream 2. But number two, because Biden's so weak that they're not concerned about him. Why is Taiwan in existential danger right now from China? Because Xi doesn't respect Biden. And when he says. Look, play the beginning of that clip again. Yeah, play just the beginning of the clip where he says they're exaggerated because I want you to listen to it.
- [42:09]
C
Look, I don't take China lightly, I don't take Russia lightly. But I think we vastly exaggerate.
- [42:18]
Ted Cruz
Okay, stop right there. I think we vastly exaggerate. Now, if we had a functioning press corps, there would be follow ups to that. Mr. President, you said, quote, we vastly exaggerate when it comes to China. You said, quote, we vastly exaggerate when it comes to Russia. Mr. President, is an exaggeration to say that China maintains concentration camps with over 1 million Uyghurs in it today. Mr. President, is an exaggeration to say that China uses murder as an official government policy. Mr. President, is an exaggeration to say China uses torture as an official government policy. Mr. President, is an exaggeration to say China has come in and crushed democracy in Hong Kong? Mr. President, is it an exaggeration to say that China is responsible for the release of the COVID virus? That the virus was likely developed in a Chinese government lab? That the virus may well have been manufactured by Chinese scientists in that government lab to make it more transmissible and more lethal and that the Chinese government actively and aggressively covered up the leak from the lab and allowed Covid to become a national pandemic? Mr. President, it is an exaggeration to say that the Chinese Communist government engages in espionage, steals our national security Secrets steals our commercial. Secrets steals intellectual property. Mr. President, is it an exaggeration to say the Chinese Communist government takes our weaponry and is assembling a military designed to defeat us? That's what a functioning press corps would say. Now, I have no idea how Biden answers to that. He just, oh, it's all exaggerated weakness. That kind of weakness means our enemies are laughing at us. But you know what's even worse? Not just our enemies, our friends are laughing at us. Here, play this next clip.
- [44:19]
C
So today I applaud China for stepping up. Excuse me, I applaud Canada. You can tell what I'm thinking.
- [44:28]
Ted Cruz
So that's addressing the Canadian Parliament.
- [44:31]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah.
- [44:31]
Ted Cruz
And listen, fine. So he had a slip of the tongue. Everyone does that. Biden does it a lot. But I just want to point out that's the entire parliament of Canada laughing at the President of the United States. Now, Canadians are many things, but fundamentally, they're polite. They are very polite. Just how bad do you have to screw up to have a room full of Canadians laughing.
- [44:54]
Ben Shapiro
Laugh at you? And he's saying, you can tell what I'm thinking, which is what they're laughing as. The cognitive part.
- [45:01]
Ted Cruz
I wish the verbal slip was not actually indicative of what this White House is doing. Unfortunately. It is.
- [45:09]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah, it is. There was another big oops this week that dealt with John Kerry. John Kerry actually having to answer some questions. And this was a moment for Kerry that I'm sure he was hoping didn't happen. He usually gets a free pass to the press. I want to play that for you. Before I do that, I want to tell you about Patriot Mobile, the only conservative cell phone company in the US I love hearing from many of you that have switched to Patriot Mobile because what I said is true. You get the same coverage that you're used to right now. You need to keep your same cell phone number. The difference is you're actually giving your money to a conservative Christian company that supports your values and reinvest. They take a portion of every bill when you pay your bill and they give it back to conservative causes and organizations. We're talking about standing up for unborn children. We're talking about helping with adoptions. We're talking about standing up for your first and your Second amendment rights. So have your money. Go to companies that are aligned with your values. Check out Patriot Mobile. You actually may save money over what you're paying right now while making a difference. Patriot mobile.com verdict. Use promo code. Verdict. You'll get the best deals of the day or you can actually call them 878 Patriot. That's 800-878-PATRIOT. Use a promo code. Verdict or online@patriotmobile.com Verdict Senator, this last video, it just makes me laugh. John Kerry gets to walk around, do a bunch of easy interviews. He's been doing it for years when he makes up these new positions in the government that he has. But he had a reporter that actually wanted to ask him something legitimate. Take a look. Private aviation is an example of something where people are starting to pay more attention and. But when, you know, people who go to Davos to talk about climate change fly private. It seems like they don't want to make.
- [46:55]
Ted Cruz
Well, they actually, I've talked to them about it. They offset, they buy offsets. They offset and they are working harder than most people I know to be able to try to affect this transition.
- [47:05]
Ben Shapiro
Right, so you can beat your wife as long as you give money to a battered women's shelter. And it offsets the crime.
- [47:13]
Ted Cruz
Look, I gotta say, John Kerry embodies the rich out of touch contempt that today's left has for working men and women. His claim, well, yes, this, yes, all my gazillionaire friends fly private everywhere, but they have offsets. Look, it's like in the Dark ages where you could buy indulgences from the Catholic Church that, like, it's just like, well, they write a check. So if John Kerry believes what he's saying, it means when John Kerry puts his privileged derriere on a private jet, he is destroying planet Earth and simply buying an indulgence of, well, I sent a check to somebody else, so it's okay.
- [47:56]
Ben Shapiro
Fixes it.
- [47:57]
Ted Cruz
It fixes it. And his comment, these gazillionaires are doing more than most people I know and.
- [48:06]
Ben Shapiro
I've talked to them, I've said, really.
- [48:09]
Ted Cruz
You need to know. It's such dripping content. And by the way, most people, he means like the dirty masses, you truck drivers and taxicab drivers just fly private. Why would you possibly be with. I will say at one point, John Kerry has defended his own private jet flying by saying, really, for people in positions like me, it's the only reasonable way to travel.
- [48:41]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah, you shouldn't expect me to sit on a commercial airliner ever, because of the stature that I've gotten to in this world.
- [48:48]
Ted Cruz
And I was on, I think on Fox News doing an interview and I compared him to Thurston Howell and I went back to my Senate office and someone in my office pointed out that he didn't know who Thurston Howell was. And I asked, now look, you know, Capitol Hill, Capitol Hill is a young person's game and most of the people there are 20 something or maybe 30 something. So I grabbed about 20 of my staffers and I said, all right, do any of y'all know who Thurston Howell is? No one, Not a single person knew. By the way, since many of our podcast listeners are young, Thurston Howell was the millionaire on Gilligan's Island. He was the rich, out of touch millionaire.
- [49:31]
Ben Shapiro
For the record, I didn't know who that was either. So that means that's how much younger I am than you. Yeah, I just wanted to feel young today. Thank you for giving me that gift.
- [49:39]
Ted Cruz
All right, 20 somethings and 30 somethings. But Skippy, you didn't know 41, you didn't know 99 luff balloons and you don't know Gilligan's Island.
- [49:47]
Ben Shapiro
I know Gilligan's Island.
- [49:48]
Ted Cruz
Apparently not.
- [49:49]
Ben Shapiro
But I don't know the old person's name on there. I remember the theme song.
- [49:54]
Ted Cruz
That was Thurston Howell iii. So here's an amazing story though. This happens in my, with my staff, I go to the Senate Republican Lunch now. We have lunch together every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. And for some reason I was thinking about it, I decided to tell my colleagues that story, which got a good laugh because my colleagues, the median age is 142. So they all know who Thurston Howell is. And then Mitt Romney says, you know, I actually discovered the same thing when I was running for president. And I found, if you want to use an analogy, a much better one to use is Mr. Burns. That young people get Mr. Burns. And I'm like, oh, dear God. I'm being, I'm getting advice on how to be like in touch and a man of the people. From Mitt Romney.
- [50:47]
Ben Shapiro
From Mitt Romney.
- [50:48]
Ted Cruz
It's a new o. It's actually good advice. Mr. Burns. You know who Mr. Burns is, so excellent.
- [50:54]
Ben Shapiro
Yes.
- [50:55]
Ted Cruz
So, but let me tell you something amazing about John Kerry. So since he began serving in the Biden administration, let me tell you something about his personal emissions, and I mean his plane. In 2021, he took 48 trips lasting more than 60 hours in total. It's a lot of time in private planes. He has a big private plane. His plane emitted an estimated 715,886 pounds of carbon, or 325 metric tons. This is John Kerry single handedly since he first took his position in the Biden administration. Now I was trying to think of how do you characterize what is 325 tons, to put it in kind of relative comparison. And so I did a little bit of searching online, actually, right before we did the podcast. I wouldn't let you start because I was on my phone Googling. Here's what I found. The country Greenland emits in a given year, 15, 30 tons of carbon. In other words, John Kerry, individually, one person emits roughly a fifth, 20% of what the entire nation of Greenland emits. In Greenland, by the way, is a little over 836,000 square miles. Greenland has over 56,000 people who live in Greenland. So one guy, John Kerry and his entourage that care for his Grey Poupon and that polish the tassels on his loafers, he emits one fifth of what 56,000 people in the entire nation of Greenland emits. And he has.
- [52:54]
Ben Shapiro
He's kind of a big deal, Senator. You should know that. He's kind of a big deal. He deserves that private jet.
- [52:58]
Ted Cruz
And you know what he's willing to tell you? You need to give up your automobile, you need to give up your gas stove, you need to give up your lawnmower, you need to give up your washing machine, you need to give up your dishwasher.
- [53:09]
Ben Shapiro
Because after all, that's his offset, I guess, right?
- [53:12]
Ted Cruz
That's exactly right. If he takes away your cars and the cars of the other 56,000 people in Greenland, it will make up for his private jet and he's saving the world. The absolute hypocrisy of the left. It is difficult to find it better personified than his comment. The gazillionaires in Davos do more, much more than you little people.
- [53:35]
Ben Shapiro
Great Googling, by the way. Right before the show, that was worth it. Now that's it for this episode of Verdict. Don't forget to subscribe. Hit that auto download button. Please write us five star review. It helps us reach more people. We do this show three days a week. If you're seeing the video version of this, you're missing out on the other two. So hit subscribe auto download. You can tell Siri Alexa play Verdict with Ted Cruz. It'll play automatically now.
- [53:57]
Ted Cruz
Also subscribe to YouTube. Don't. Don't.
- [53:59]
Ben Shapiro
That's right, don't.
- [54:00]
Ted Cruz
Just our YouTube subscribers, we want you to subscribe to YouTube and to the audio podcast. Get them both.
- [54:06]
Ben Shapiro
Get them both and we'll see you back here in a couple of days.