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- [00:00]
Ted Cruz
Think about that Social Security you paid for your whole life. Medicare, Medicaid. Not a joke.
- [00:12]
Michael Knowles
Really.
- [00:12]
Ted Cruz
Ask yourself how well are you going to sleep at night knowing that every five years Ted Cruz and the other ultra maga Republicans are going to vote on whether you'll have Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. It's unlikely they'll be able to wipe it out, but any one of you doubt for a second they'll find ways to cut benefits and programs in order to keep anything going. That's what this is about. They've always wanted to cut Social Security. They've always wanted to cut Medicare. They've always wanted to cut Medicaid.
- [00:49]
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- [02:04]
Michael Knowles
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- [03:17]
Ted Cruz
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- [04:30]
Michael Knowles
I'm Michael Knowles, no longer able to sleep at night because the co host of this show is gonna take away everybody's Social Security. So says the leader of the formerly free world. Senator, what say you?
- [04:46]
Ted Cruz
Well, you know, I will Say, the White House this week noted and designated it as elder abuse day. And I guess I do have to apologize because apparently I'm interfering with Joe Biden's nap time. You know, it really is amazing the kind of fear mongering that the White House does. You remember years ago, the Democrats ran ads of Paul Ryan literally pushing granny off the cliff. So now he's standing at the AFL CIO saying Cruz wants to end Social Security. I mean, look, let's be honest. Who has hurt seniors more in the past 20 years than Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. You got 9% inflation, food prices skyrocketing, healthcare skyrocketing, electricity skyrocketing, gas skyrocketing. Seniors are getting screwed. The only one who can compete with Joe Biden for screwing seniors is Jimmy Carter. And so what does he do? He fear mongers, he suggests. Look, Social Security is a bedrock of our country. Ain't nobody messing with it. He knows that. But he can't run on his record, so he's gotta scare people. And I'm sorry that Joe Biden is finding it hard to sleep at night.
- [06:09]
Michael Knowles
Someone once told me in politics many years ago that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. And I assume that principle is in play here. It's interesting that Biden, while he's making this desperate plea in what seems to be a very unfavorable year for Democrats, he's going after you.
- [06:28]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, I will say, I guess I'm kind of flattered that apparently I'm not just maga, I am ultra maga.
- [06:34]
Michael Knowles
I'm just saying that's a point of clarification here, Senator. You worked very well with Donald Trump. Obviously you guys worked very well together during the administration, but I seem to recall that you were the man's chief primary rival. If I were gonna describe someone as ultra maga, doesn't that seem a little bit strange to describe the guy's primary rival that way?
- [06:57]
Ted Cruz
So, look, Biden gets confused sometimes, and I'm not sure he knows what any of these words mean. I mean, Biden, literally, he was elected to the Senate in 1972. When Joe Biden was first elected to the Senate, I was one and a half years old, so I understand how he remembers. Back to the false campaigns Democrats have run way back when, you know what Biden said Ronald Reagan was gonna take away Social Security. I mean, Biden has been saying that line for a long time. For literally the entirety of my life and for about double the entirety of yours.
- [07:35]
Michael Knowles
That's a good point, actually. And Reagan had two terms, didn't take away Social Security. It did strike me when he said that as just a kind of tired old line. Maybe it would have worked in 2010 or 2012, but even his talking points, they seem to be a little dated at this point. But it wasn't just bide. Senator, you know I do not speak Spanish. You know this. You have spoken Spanish to me. I have responded by asking you where the library is. That is the extent of my Spanish. But from what I could make out, it sounds as though the President of Mexico, Mr. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, does not like you very much. I could make out about one phrase there, Senator. The phrase was Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz kept coming up. So if you wouldn't mind, I know you're a little more fluent than I am. What did the President of Mexico say about you and why is he so angry with you?
- [10:21]
Ted Cruz
So I will say that that is one of the most bizarre press conferences I've ever seen. Because you've got a Mexican reporter who asks him a question about Marco Rubio. And Amlo says, I'm sorry, who is this Rubio guy? I don't know who he is. And, and the reporter says, oh, he's the senator from Florida. And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, there are three of them, three of the Cubans, but Ted Cruz. And it's the most bizarre thing, cuz the reporter asked about Rubio and Amlo responds by attacking me. And I mean, going off on a screed attacking me. And it's really bizarre. So the reason Amlo is so worked up is that at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, I pointed out that Mexico has had a horrific record under Amlo's presidency of allowing journalists to be murdered. And we're seeing historic levels of the drug cartels murdering journalists. If a journalist dares cover the drug cartels and cover their murder and extortion and crimes, they're killing them. And Amlo's turning a blind eye. And what's fascinating about this exchange. So Rubio had tweeted about Amlo's support for Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela and dictators. And actually Amlo doesn't mind that. He's like, yeah, yeah, forget about the dictators. Cruz is saying, I'm turning a blind eye to the drug cartels. And what he says there is, show me the proof. And he actually goes on later in that press conference to say, I have the proof. I have the proof that Cruz is on the take from the supporters of gun rights and so he goes on this whole thing about, you know, Cruz refuses to ban guns. You know what, amlo? Damn straight I refuse to ban guns. We have this thing in the United States called the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms. You don't want your citizens to be able to defend themselves from the drug cartels that are terrorizing innocent Mexican citizens. And instead of responding to the substance, instead of having a government that actually takes steps to protect freedom of the press, to protect journalists, to stand up to the criminals instead, you know, amlo seems very, very dismayed. You know, to quote Shakespeare, methinks she doth protest too much.
- [12:39]
Michael Knowles
I just love that he has that nickname amlo. He's sort of like JLO with Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. That's very impressive. And when you've got two world leaders, both in North America, attacking you, you've got Biden going after you, and then this feckless guy down in Mexico, I suppose that means you're probably doing something right.
- [13:00]
Ted Cruz
Look, I'm just waiting for Justin Trudeau. I want the trifecta. Come on, man. The Canadian truckers were right. Let's see if Trudeau rises to the occasion.
- [13:10]
Michael Knowles
Now, Justin Trudeau knows a thing or two about Cuba and Cubans, according to rumors. But who knows? Maybe we can discuss that on a future podcast. I do have to talk about one other.
- [13:23]
Ted Cruz
Michael, I'm not gonna ask you, who's your daddy?
- [13:26]
Michael Knowles
That's true. As Telemachus says, it's a wise man knows his own father. And certainly that's true up in America's hat as well. But closer to home, there is another group that's going after you. That would be, of course, the media and the Congressional Democrats. And really, I suppose I'm repeating myself in the January 6th committee because you have been such a target of this whole thing. What is your take on the January 6th hearings?
- [13:55]
Ted Cruz
You know, Pelosi really gave up the game when the committee was being formed. And typically, in a committee, you have a roughly equal number of Democrats and Republicans. The majority party typically has one or two more, but it's about equal. And the majority party doesn't get to pick the other party's members that are on it. And so Kevin McCarthy selected several people, including Jim Jordan and Nancy Pelosi said, no, no, we don't want real Republicans. We don't want actually people who will ask questions. Instead, she picked. She picked Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger because they both decided they're not Republicans anymore, and their agenda is the same, which is to attack all the Republicans just like Pelosi's is. And you know, I gotta say so as you walk down the hall, this is the only question that reporters want to ask. And they're asking it constantly. And I just laugh. They're like, are you going to watch it? I'm like, why would I watch this? I don't watch the Democratic National Conventions Convention every four years. That is a multi day political campaign ad. It is designed to be propaganda. And I get it. They can have their campaign ads, but it's not actual factual inquiry. And if it were, look, if you want to ascertain what's going on, if you look at congressional hearings that go somewhere, you have cross examination, you have scrutiny, you have if a particular witness comes in and makes a charge, there's all these allegations that are made, you actually have someone challenge the credibility of the witness. Press on, engage. Cross examination is a powerful tool for ferreting out truth. But for example, this kangaroo court has zero interest in Nancy Pelosi's culpability on January 6th with stopping a sufficient law enforcement presence, stopping a sufficient effort to stop the riot that happened because she said in her words, it was bad optics. They don't want to talk about that because that's inconsistent with their political narrative. I think it makes a lot of reporters really excited, but I don't think it's going to change any voter's mind anywhere in America. And by the way, the New York Times, there's an old line that a gaffe is when someone in Washington accidentally tells the truth.
- [16:23]
Michael Knowles
Right?
- [16:24]
Ted Cruz
The New York Times let the cat out of the bag when they ran as a headline January 6th Committee Hearings Present Opportunity for Democrats to Change the Midterm Narrative. Well, that's obviously what they want to do. I think it has failed badly so far and I think it's gonna continue to fail.
- [16:46]
Michael Knowles
Do you think Pelosi made a mistake kicking Jordan and Banks and the real Republicans off the committee? That is if you do think, because if they were on the committee, presumably the Republicans would be more engaged, you'd have the grilling, there would be a reason to tune in.
- [17:03]
Ted Cruz
I think it was stupid to kick off the real Republicans. Look, even from a perspective of tv, let's say you're Nancy Pelosi and you're not interested in truth, you are interested in eyeballs. And frankly, the clash of seeing Jordan or Banks go at it with, with, with the witnesses makes good tv. That conflict would cause some people possibly to give a flip about what's going on this is right now a bunch of Democrats talking to a bunch of Democrats. It's, it's msnbc. This is like a panel of MSNBC talking heads sitting down and going, Trump is terrible. Yes, Trump is terrible. Oh, I agree. Oh definitely. Uh huh. And like that's boring and not news. Like, we know you think that it was not lost on us that you don't have the Donald Trump swimsuit calendar up on your wall. We got that. I think it was a bad strategic and tactical mistake for Pelosi to throw the Republicans selected by the Republicans off the committee. Because just like the New York Times, it said the quiet part out loud. It made it obvious we are telling a story complete with our Hollywood producer and we don't want anyone telling any different stories than the story we want to tell.
- [18:32]
Michael Knowles
And just look at the coverage. I think the Times example is a great point here. The New York Times is covering the coverage. The New York Times is covering the way they want to shift the narrative. But there's no actual news happening. And so it just doesn't seem politically urgent.
- [18:49]
Ted Cruz
Well, and Michael, an easy way to understand how ludicrous it is, what the Democrats are doing is just to flip the premise. Imagine if Donald Trump held an inquiry onto what happened on January 6 and it was just Trump. To be honest, would the press give it any credibility? No, of course not. But to be honest, if you wanted to have something, you would want to have both parties. You would want to have free speech, you would want to have conflict, you would want to have debate. That's the method for ascertaining truth. Nobody in the press would give any credibility to a purely Republican assessment of January 6th or anything else. I mean, I mean it. Whatever you talk about, a purely Republican assessment gets no credibility. And that's not crazy because we have a partisan system. Both parties want to advance their narrative. And if you're an intelligent voter. Look, as a consumer of news, I don't just read right wing news. I read left wing news too. And I try to figure out the truth somewhere in the middle. When the Democrats and the corporate media are only spewing their propaganda, it's transparent to everyone.
- [20:08]
Michael Knowles
Now, speaking of Nancy Pelosi's missteps and transparency and other trans issues, Nancy Pelosi made a claim this past week on a television show that I will admit I don't regularly watch. She gave her theory on what America is All about. About. I'll give it to you in her own words.
- [20:32]
Ted Cruz
Please give a warm drag race welcome. Nancy Pelosi welcome back. My honor to be here. Your freedom of expression of yourselves in drag is what America is all about.
- [20:48]
Michael Knowles
Senator, I'm not a graduate of Harvard Law School. I've never clerked for the Supreme Court. I'm not a member of the United States Senate. In your estimation, is transvestitism what America is all about?
- [21:02]
Ted Cruz
I kind of think Nancy may have missed some days in American history. Look, you got a right to dress up any way you want. That's great, knock yourself out. But the idea, the last pod we did, we talked about the drag show for kids in Dallas. This is another example of the Democratic Party going so extreme like, look, if people want to dress in drag, that's fine. I'm quite libertarian about do what you want to do. But to claim that's what America is all about. Look, I get it. The founding fathers did wear wigs. So she does have a point there. They were wearing wigs. But I'm not sure that's what Washington and Jefferson were doing. But it is such the dominant. The left wing culture war is the Democrat Party. It is who they are and what they're driven by and they keep going. It's not accurate to say that's what America's all about, but it is accurate to say that's what today's Democrat Party's all about.
- [22:19]
Michael Knowles
I at least understand that the Democrats are making this philosophical claim that this is at least what the country should be all about. What I don't understand is how can Pelosi with a straight face make the historical claim that transvestitism, which was illegal, by the way, in lots of America throughout parts of the 19th century in San Francisco of all places, which has not exactly been promoted. I don't think it was part of the shining City on a Hill speech. I don't think Governor Bradford was writing about his great passion for cross dressing. How do you make the historic claim that actually America. It's not about apple pie or freedom or going west, young man. No, no. It's about dressing up like a lady.
- [23:02]
Ted Cruz
Well, and there's a richer irony. So she did. She has a tiny leg to stand on in that. She starts off by saying freedom of expression. And you could make an argument that freedom of expression is what America's all about. But the irony is Nancy Pelosi doesn't believe in freedom of expression like today's Democrat Party has abandoned free speech. So she literally means only if you want to dress up as a woman.
- [23:32]
Michael Knowles
You're right.
- [23:32]
Ted Cruz
Is what America's all about. But if you wanna make a movie asking, what is a woman? That is not what America's all about. So she. It is quite amazing. You know, Nancy Pelosi leads a Democrat Party that wants Big Tech to censor, that wants views that they disagree with silence, that wants to ban conservative speakers from campus. So I'm glad she's acknowledging freedom of expression is important. But, you know, I wish there were Democrats in Congress that still believe that.
- [24:05]
Michael Knowles
Of course, because when Pelosi uses the phrase freedom of expression, and really, it's true of Democrats, broadly, all they really seem to mean is replacing our taboos with their taboos and replacing our standards with their standards. There's this major Supreme Court case of a high school football coach who just said a prayer on his knee by himself, alone on the football field after the games, and the school fired him for it. They were so angry at this. This individual act of expression. So I don't think Pelosi is defending that. But to your point, they're only defending this sort of thing. And actually, it ties right in with the big story out of Hollywood, which is that there's a new movie. It's a new Toy Story movie about Buzz Lightyear. And for some reason, Disney felt it was very, very important to include lesbian toys kissing in the Buzz Lightyear movie. Meanwhile, they fire Tim Allen, who originated the role of Buzz Lightyear. They replace him with, frankly, probably a more expensive actor. What is going on? Do our kids. Is it so important that our kids see lesbian toys? Smooch.
- [25:14]
Ted Cruz
Well, I gotta say, Michael, I think it is remarkable that the Verdict podcast seems to be driving Hollywood's agenda. You and I sat at the University of Alabama for our live campus tour, and we were talking about Woke Disney. And I observed, I said, look, these lunatics, they want to see Mickey and Pluto going at it. And the press lost their mind. And then what do they do? Boom. The next movie, they come out Buzz Lightyear. What do we need? We need lesbian toys. Now, never mind that. The last time I checked, most toys are kind of androgynous. They're usually without genitalia, unless you're chopping it on the. Yeah, yeah. Like, it's just. But it is. The commitment to culture is. And you know, this movie has now been banned, I think, in 14 countries. The UAE has banned it. They're countries in the Middle east, they're countries in Asia. There's significant discussion that China is not going to allow the movie in because of this scene. And I gotta say, it's a wild twist Where Hollywood has been willing to grovel to China, to let China censor its movies, to embrace anti Americanism, to avoid any criticism of China because they want to get access to the Chinese movie market. But when it comes to their culture agenda, apparently now, suddenly they discovered, all right, give up the money because lesbian toys are more important. And I must say, it brings a whole new meaning to the phrase to infinity and beyond.
- [27:01]
Michael Knowles
Yeah, that's sort of like the slippery slope, Senator. You know, it seems that we never get to the bottom of the slippery slope. Maybe that's because the slippery slope goes to infinity and beyond.
- [27:13]
Ted Cruz
Why do toys have to go at it like it just you could do without? We don't need to see. It's the sexualization of kids that Hollywood embraces. And it is a political agenda that is all consuming. And look, they fire Tim Allen. They replace him with Chris Evans, Captain America. So, I mean, it is American icons driving an agenda that, astonishingly enough, for the first time, matters more to Hollywood than money.
- [27:58]
Michael Knowles
Well, I think this is why it's important that Allen's getting dropped for Chris Evans is, you might say, well, maybe Tim Allen was just asking for too much money and so they're moving on to a cheaper actor. I suspect Chris Evans is demanding a higher contract right now than Tim Allen is. He's a major, major movie star, young and right in the prime of his career. And so the only explanation I can think of is that Tim Allen is an outspoken conservative. Chris Evans is a huge lib from everything that I can tell. And so even more to your point, the studios are willing to lose money if it advances their cultural agenda. And speaking of people losing money, Senator, it's not just Hollywood losing money. You and I and all the rest of America is losing money right now because inflation is through the roof and our President is blaming Republicans.
- [28:50]
Ted Cruz
You know, the White House has one talking point. I didn't do it. Not my fault. It's Republicans fault. It's Putin's fault. It's anybody's fault but Joe Biden. There's a reason Biden's approval rating is in the 30s because people recognize that that's just not credible. To watch this White House try to blame everything, watching Biden's energy secretary go on TV and saying Biden's trying to do everything he can to lower gas prices. Well, yeah, except allow people to drill for oil and gas. Like, other than that. I mean, you literally have had for a year and a half an unrelenting war on oil and gas production in the United States, they keep doubling down. They keep. Bizarrely, Biden is going to be flying to Saudi Arabia to kiss Saudi Arabia's behind after he's been attacking Saudi Arabia for a year and a half and alienating them because he wants the Saudis to produce more oil. He wants Venezuela to produce more oil. He wants Iran to produce more oil. He wants everyone to produce more oil except Americans. Yeah. And it is. He believes that he can just convince the American people it's everybody else's fault.
- [30:10]
Michael Knowles
It seems like they're deflecting a little bit, Senator. And it's actually a type of deflection that you first called my attention to right. In the earliest days of this podcast when we were in the middle of the night in the bunker in the middle of Washington D.C. which is the Democrats line here is inflation is not entirely Joe Biden's fault, which of course inflation is not entirely Joe Biden's fault. But that doesn't mean that it's not at all his fault or even largely his fault. And you can point to the reasons that he's driving inflation, the ones that you've named. One, he's not allowing us to produce energy. Two, he in many ways caused the war in Ukraine, at least according to President Zelensky's take on things. Three, he's continued to lock down the economy in many ways that I don't think is very conducive to economic growth. The list goes on and on.
- [31:04]
Ted Cruz
He keeps spending a crap ton of money, like at the end of the day, trillions and trillions of dollars. You're right, it's not entirely Joe Biden's fault. It's also Nancy Pelosi's and Chuck Schumer's and every damn Democrat that votes for a trillion here and a trillion there and spends and spends and spends and spends. And actually, you know, so one form of inflation they call shrinkflation, you notice you go in and like packages are all smaller in the stores. So you know, you buy Doritos and you have five fewer chips in the bag. So maybe CNN was right because they might start selling gas by the court. And we're not far away from $2 a quart for gasoline. And so, so, you know, it just, it's a smaller unit. Like a good question to ask if you're watching a CNN broadcast. And I pick on CNN in particular because they actually used to be something of journalists. They were bad journalists, but they were trying to be journalists. Right now they're just shameless shills. But a Question that's worth asking if you watch a news broadcast is would a word of this have been different if the Biden White House had written the script? And if the answer is no, it's not journalism. Right. This is not a complicated concept, but CNN and MSNBC seem very confused at the concept.
- [32:26]
Michael Knowles
Well, speaking of perhaps unethical ways to make money, like just having the government print endless amounts of cash, there was a mailbag question that came in. I mentioned it to you a little bit earlier because I didn't know anything about it, but I would love your take on it if you have formed one. This is from Chris, I believe Chris is. Or I'm sorry, the question is from Jonathan, but it's about someone who is one of your constituents. Question is the Twitch streamer asmongold said he reached out to Senator Cruz's office about regulating loot boxes in video games. Where does the senator stand on loot boxes? I know that those are all words and I understand they have been strung together in an English sentence, but I don't really understand what it means semantically together.
- [33:15]
Ted Cruz
Look, I'm happy to engage in a conversation with him. I'm happy to see what he has to say on it. As I understand it, the concern he's raising is a concern about gambling and kids. And I will say it is certainly true that social media online environments, including video games, are designed to be addictive. Now, I'm something of a gamer. I'm not a gamer like hardcore Twitch streamers and I don't do the massive multiplayer games.
- [33:47]
Michael Knowles
Not yet, Senator, but I'll tell you, I bet you never thought that you were going to be a top podcaster. So who knows, we may have to launch the Verdict Twitch stream and start playing Pac man or whatever the kids are playing these days.
- [34:00]
Ted Cruz
That could well be. And you remember when you and I did Dave Rubin's podcast, we did a Twitch stream on playing, I think it was Nintendo that he had and we did that and if I remember right, I beat his ass. I'm pretty sure that's right and if not, that's the story I'm going with. But look, there are different components of it in games. I'll tell you, I don't like it when you can buy in game items and sort of make your character stronger or get advantages. Now I'll confess when I play some games I'll sometimes buy it because it is more fun if suddenly you're character has a lot more great stuff that would take you six months or a year to build up. So sometimes I'll, okay, I'll spend 20 bucks and buy a, you know, a treasure chest full of coins, because then I can spend them to get cool things in the game. You know, I think it is a greater concern when you're dealing with kids, when you're dealing with minors who have a potential, number one, to spend a whole lot of money. And, you know, with some of the loot boxes, there's a fair amount of randomness that you could get a lot of great stuff or some lousy stuff. And so I guess that's the argument that it's gambling. I'll confess. I haven't. I'm open to hearing arguments on this, but I approach the issue with a pretty strong libertarian bent. So I'd like to not see kids exploited and harmed. And so I'd be interested in his views. But at the same time, I'm not sure that the federal government really has a dog in the fight that if people want to, in a video game, spend money on stuff in the game, I think my instincts are probably. That may not be a great choice if you're spending massive amounts of money in games, But I'm not sure the federal government has a role preventing you from doing that.
- [36:00]
Michael Knowles
Well, we'll have to look into loot boxes more. Maybe I'll brush up on my Donkey Kong or, you know, whatever's really hip right now. And I hope that we can figure out maybe we'll have to.
- [36:11]
Ted Cruz
I'm quite confident it's not Donkey Kong.
- [36:14]
Michael Knowles
Is it not? Okay, I'm a little behind the curve, but there were no loot boxes in Donkey Kong too. So maybe we'll hear from Osman Gold.
- [36:23]
Ted Cruz
I will note. So I actually just watched last week. Watched again. Ready Player one. Did you ever see this movie?
- [36:30]
Michael Knowles
No. I heard it was great, but I didn't catch it.
- [36:33]
Ted Cruz
I've seen it several times, but I just happened to have rewatched it last week, and it's a really good movie about virtual reality and people going into the game and a whole alternative world in the game. But people amass money in virtual reality, and it ends up, for many people, subsuming the world. And look, there are hard challenges. We're not yet to the dystopic world of Ready Player one, but we might be. We're on a path towards that. And, you know, escapism. There are times when escapism can be valuable, but it also is gonna raise all sorts of challenges and challenges that can spill over from the virtual world to the real world. And how those intersections happen, we're gonna have to learn more about them.
- [37:27]
Michael Knowles
And specifically on this issue of the loot boxes and gaming, a lot of the question involves the role of parents. And parental rights is a big topic these days. And I believe parental rights is the topic of your conversation on the Cloakroom with Liz Wheeler. Is that right, Liz?
- [37:44]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, this is a great question, right? It's a question I think a lot of conservatives are asking. Are parental rights absolute? Can parents actually be bad parents and take their kids to a drag show? Or can that, or should that be illegal? We're gonna break this down on the Cloakroom. You can join us for this conversation at verdict with TedCruise.com plus if you use my promo code, which intuitively you know, this is Cloakroom, you can get your first month free on your annual subscription. That's Verdict with TedCruise.com/plus. But before I toss this back to you, I want, I want to talk about the Tim Allen thing that you guys were talking about before the new Disney movie, the Buzz Lightyear movie. There was actually a member on our Verdict community today that was asking whether you, senator, are ever going to star in a movie or even make a cameo in a movie. I think they said, are you going to be a high powered lawyer in one of these, one of these crime movies? And I laughed when I saw that. I thought to myself, what could possibly trigger the libs more than conservative Tim Allen being in a movie? And Senator, I think the answer is you.
- [38:41]
I'll tell you right now, I'm not fighting Sylvester Stallone and Schwarzenegger would break me in half, but I'm game. And listen, if Star Trek could have Stacey Abrams as the president of Earth, which really was, look, I'm something of a Trekkie. I'm not a hardcore Trekkie, but I like Star Trek. And it really is just sad for them to be, to be yet another woke mouthpiece. It's one thing to take on issues, it's another thing to be just silly. It reminds me of, you know, Michael Jordan. Republicans buy sneakers too. You know, Republicans watch Star Trek 2 and you start putting Stacey Abrams there and suddenly I'm going to have to find something else to watch. I'll go back, I'll go back to original Star Trek. James T. Kirk, by the way, was the best captain ever anyway. And you've never seen the Internet get more upset than when I said that James T. Kirk is a Republican and Admiral Picard was a Democrat and apparently lefties don't like it. When you comment on their art, they believe they own it.
- [39:56]
Michael Knowles
Well, and now, Senator, not only will you be criticized by the president of the United States, not only will you be criticized by the president of Mexico, but you will be criticized by the president of the world on Star Trek. I have no doubt much more to be covered on the cloakroom. So do not go anywhere. I will go somewhere, though, because that is it. For Verdict, I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
- [40:27]
This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom, and Security Pack, 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 nation.