Loading summary
Transcript43 lines
- [00:00]
Ted Cruz
Following up on the Supreme Court decision, a number of Republicans, as you know and as you've been asked about, have spoken out about the president's pledge to pick a black woman for the high court. How do you respond specifically to Ted Cruz, who overnight called it offensive and defensive to black women that wouldn't make that pledge?
- [00:19]
Michael Knowles
Well, here's what I would say first, just over a year ago, the previous president also promised to select a woman for the Supreme Court. Not only were there no complaints about choosing a nominee from a specific demographic from the same corners, but there was widespread praise of now Justice Barrett on those grounds, with Republican lawmakers widely highlighting that they thought this was positive for women in America. So take Senator Cruz himself. He had no objection to Donald Trump promising he'd nominate a woman in 2020. Repeat, no objection at all. In fact, he praised her on these grounds. Praised her on these grounds. The nominee. During her confirmation hearing, Senator Cruz said, I think you're an amazing role model for little girls. What advice would you give little girls? When President Reagan honored his campaign pledge to place the first woman on the court, he said it symbolized the unique American opportunity. There is no outcry around that. The president's view is that after 230 years of the Supreme Court being in existence, the fact that not a single black woman has served on the Supreme Court is a failure in the process, not a failure or a lack of qualified black women to serve as Supreme Court justices.
- [01:37]
Liz Wheeler
This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is brought to you by Thompson Cigar. I don't have to tell you the gentleman on this show likes cigars. Well, so does my husband most times. Actually, that's what we do after the show. We go smoke cigars and tell ourselves what a great show it was. That's why you've got to check out Thompson Cigar. Whether you're working from home or just kicking back after a week of being essential, there's no better way to relax than with a premium cigar. They've got the best prices on the best brands in the business, from Macanudo to Monte Cristo. Looking to try a new rare, top rated blend, but don't want to splurge on boxes? Well, check out Thompson Cigars Tour, a smattering of five different blends delivered to your doorstep each month. Now, Michael and my husband have been fans of Thompson even before they became a partner. In fact, I think Thompson Cigars sponsors the Michael Knowles show as well. No one has more selection than Thompson. Their customer service is the best. So sit back and take a break from all the craziness with a cigar from Thompson Cigar Co. This guy. These guys rarely do offers, but right now Thompson is offering our listeners 15% off orders over $75 or 20% off orders over $99. To take advantage of these incredible savings, Simply go to thompsoncigar.com and use the promo code Cactus. When you're ready to check out that website is Thomson T H O M P s o n cigar.com and use promo code cactus thompsoncigar.com, promo code cactus. This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is also sponsored by American Hartford Gold. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed everything is getting expensive. We are in the biggest economic crisis since 2008 with a government that's printing trillions and trillions of dollars. Consumer prices are the highest we've seen in 30 years. Inflation is certainly here to stay. And if the government continues its out of control printing and spending, the dollar could continue its free fall and lose its coveted role as the world reserve currency. So how do you protect your money, your retirement, your savings? Well, American Hartford Gold can show you how to hedge your hard earned savings against inflation by helping you diversify a portion of your portfolio into physical gold and silver. They'll even help move your existing IRA or 401k out of the volatile stock market into a precious metals Iraq. And they make it easy. They are the highest rated firm in the country with an A rating from the Better Business Bureau and therefore thousands of satisfied clients. And if you call them right now, they will give you up to $1,500 of free silver on your first qualifying order. So don't wait. Call them now. Call 855-768-1883. That's 855-768-1883 or text Cactus to 65532. Again, that's 855-768-1893 or text Cactus to 65532. This episode of Verdict is also brought to you by stamps.com if you've got a small business, and I know a lot of you do, you know that there's nothing more valuable than your time, so stop wasting it on trips to the post office. Stamps.com makes it easy to mail and ship right from your own computer. You can save time and money with stamps.com, send letters and packages for less with discounted rates from USPS, UPS and more. Stamps.com brings the services of the Postal Service and UPS shipping right to your computer. So whether you're in office. Sending invoices, a side hustle, Etsy shop or a full blown warehouse. Shipping out orders, stamps.com will make your life easier. All you need is a computer and a standard printer. No special supplies or equipments. Within minutes you're up and running printing official postage for any letter, any package, anywhere you want to send. And you'll get exclusive discounts on postage and shipping from USPS and ups. Once your mail is ready, all you have to do is schedule a pickup or drop it off. No traffic, no lines. There's no risk. With our promo code Verdict, you get a special offer that includes a four week trial plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts. Just go to stamps.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage and type in verdict. That's stamps.com, promo code verdict. Never go to the post office again.
- [05:30]
Michael Knowles
Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles and Liz, am I correct to assume that there is going to be even more content for the Verdict subscribers after the show?
- [05:43]
Liz Wheeler
You are correct to assume that. Thank you, Michael. Thank you Senator for having me back on. I'm excited to introduce today the Cloakroom on Verdict. This is only for Verdict subscribers. You can join us over there. Verdictwithtedcruise.com It's a brand new series with Senator Ted Cruz, co hosted by me, Liz Wheeler. Basically, I'm gonna pick his brain like I would in a strategy session. It's a behind scenes peek into details of what goes on in D.C. just like the actual cloakroom of the Senate. Today we're gonna talk about how to apply a constructed foreign policy to a real life situation like Ukraine. We're gonna talk about Whoopi Goldberg and we're gonna talk about Tom Brady. Again. You can join US verdict with TedCruz.com/plus in fact, to get a one month free trial on your annual subscription, you can use the promo code cloakroom, that is promo code cloakroom@verdictwithtedcruise.com for a one month free trial on your annual subscription.
- [06:38]
Michael Knowles
That sounds absolutely magnificent, Liz. I can't wait to head over there. And I know the new show is going to be a huge success. And then after that we are of course going to launch a show with the senator and the cactus. And then we're going to have a show with me and you and the cactus without the senator. There is a lot of content for you over there at Verdict, so please head on over, subscribe, do not hesitate to Join today, Liz. We will see you a little bit later. Senator. First, you are in trouble again. You've gotten us both in trouble again. Verdict some weeks ago was, I think, the first podcast in American history to be referenced during a White House press briefing. Now I think we're also the second podcast in history to be referenced because of your comments on this show about the Supreme Court nominee.
- [07:31]
Ted Cruz
You know, I gotta say, the media and Democrats are really phenomenal. So we saw our last podcast. We talked a lot about the Supreme Court. And you and I talked about how it is offensive that Biden threw down, that the only criterion he would look for in nominating a replacement for Justice Breyer is that it had to be a black woman. And the media lost their mind. I mean, there were stories all over the country with media reporters saying, this is terrible. And, you know, you look at Jen Psaki there, she actually engages in the logical sleight of hand or actually the illogical sleight of hand the left does often because she says, well, if you don't support a quota, then you don't like whoever it is, whatever the characteristic is about the person that they're putting a quota in place. So, for example, she says, well, when Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett, you said she was a great role model for little girls. Well, of course she is. The fact that you're saying someone's a woman and a mom and an amazing scholar and an amazing judge. Yes, she is a woman. We are aware of that. Do I think Clarence Thomas life story, growing up as a poor kid, an African American in Pinpoint Georgia, overcoming poverty is an amazing story? Absolutely, yes. But here's the weird thing. Democrats today, the modern left, and this includes all of the corporate media, they embrace discriminating based on race. They believe in discriminating based on race. So there's a difference between nominating someone who's a woman or nominating someone who's a black man, or nominating someone who's a black woman. And saying at the outset, in this instance, 94% of Americans are categorically ineligible. It doesn't matter what their qualifications are. I, Joe Biden, won't consider them. And you know, it's interesting, Michael, if anyone else tried to do this in your business, let's say you're running a business, let's say Daily Wire puts up an ad. We're looking for a copy editor. Only black women need apply or only Native American men need to apply or only white guys need to apply.
- [09:44]
Michael Knowles
Right.
- [09:45]
Ted Cruz
It would be obviously illegal. It would Be obviously wrong. And what Biden is doing here, and it's amazing, look, he could have done the exact same thing, said we're going to look for qualified jurists for someone with a great record, and then nominated someone who happened to be a black woman. And that would perhaps have been a wonderful thing. But you know, one of the tells that shows that Biden actually really doesn't care about crossing that threshold. Do you know who is one of the very few people on planet Earth to have ever, ever filibustered a black woman nominated to be a federal judge?
- [10:24]
Michael Knowles
I think I know the answer. But who?
- [10:26]
Ted Cruz
That would be Joseph Biden. So when George W. Bush nominated Janice Rogers Brown, an incredibly qualified jurist to the D.C. circuit, the federal Court of Appeals, what did Joe Biden do? He filibustered. Not once, twice. Not only Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer did it. Dick Durbin did it. The Democrats all stood together and said, not that black woman, uh, because she actually believes in the, in the Constitution. We want a left wing activist. And it's bizarre that, that, that it has become an article of faith among the left that discriminating based on race, doing it explicitly at the beginning. We are only looking at black women. That's. That almost takes on like this religious significance to them. They believe in it. And I gotta say, you know, I'm reminded of something Chief Justice Roberts said. He said, it's a sordid business that's divvying us up by race and drawing distinctions. Look, when we were putting this podcast together, I was looking for a host, but I didn't say, give me an Italian Yali. I said, let's find a host. Look, an Italian Yali. That would have limited the field somewhat and we would have landed on you nonetheless. It did.
- [11:45]
Michael Knowles
It's true. You know, I don't think anyone has ever put out a call for an Italian Yali. They usually, they say, no thank you need not apply. But that's true. Because it was colorblind and degree blind casting. I got to do it. And I think your point is really important here, which is Joe Biden could have fulfilled his campaign pledge and just happened to have nominated a black woman. But what he did was so crass, it was so tactless. And if it were any other industry, it would be illegal to say, I'm taking 94% of Americans out of the running here. If you look at public polling, people don't like this. The majority of Americans think that Joe Biden should have considered all of the nominees, even if he ended up with a black woman in the end. So I think the proof of the pudding there is in the tasting, yeah.
- [12:33]
Ted Cruz
76% of Americans disagree with what Biden's doing. And let's take for an example, because Psaki and the media, this is their talking point, they're going to is, ooh, Trump did this with Amy Coney Barrett. Well, actually, no, he didn't. So what they're referring to is that Trump, at a rally just a few days before he announced Amy Coney Barrett's nomination, said he's going to nominate someone and she's a woman. Well, yes, he was aware she was a woman. So once he decided who he was going to nominate, he acknowledged that she was a woman. But if you think about how Trump did this, Trump did it in a way. There's never been a president who's done it this way. He put out a list, a detailed, specific list of potential Supreme Court nominees while he was still a candidate for president. He had 21 names on it initially. Then he supplemented that list. He added 10 more names. And in fact, we've talked about on the podcast how the 10 more names he added were a condition of my endorsing Trump. We added Mike Lee to that list, and he added Neil Gorsuch to that list. That was the second list. And then he put out a third list where, among others, he stuck me on it. So I think the third list got much, much weaker. The quality dropped dramatically, precipitously. But look, Trump's lists, they were racially diverse. They had men, women. They had folks of all sorts of different races, but they were jurists selected because Trump believed they would be faithful to the Constitution. They had a jurisprudential outlook that would protect the Bill of Rights. And in this instance, Amy Coney Barrett was the third nomination Trump had made. So when Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh, he had interviewed Amy Coney Barrett. He had sat down and he interviewed her. So she didn't get that slot, but he knew he liked her. In fact, I talked to Trump at the time, and even after Kavanaugh, he's like, she's gonna be the next one. She's really good. As far as I know, Joe Biden hasn't interviewed anyone. He doesn't know who any of the potential candidates are. He's just said, if you're not fitting my racial category and gender category, you are ineligible. So Merrick Garland, no matter how good Merrick Garland might be in his interview with Joe Biden, he's the wrong skin color and today we had a hearing in the Judiciary Committee. One of Biden's nominees is an Asian American woman who's been nominated to be a federal judge. And she wrote in law school. She was actually in law school with me, a year behind me. I didn't know her in law school, but she was a year behind me in law school. She wrote this article that is really radical, that is actually blasting Asian Americans who oppose discrimination against Asian Americans. She calls them neoconservative Asian Americans. And she explains that really woke Asian Americans should embrace Harvard and Yale and other elite schools discriminating against Asian Americans. That, that's really a sign of being woke. And my opening question, Michael, to her was, is racial discrimination wrong? Now, that ought to be a really simple question to answer. Is racial discrimination wrong? Absolutely. Hell yes. She refused to answer it. She wouldn't answer it. She said, well, the Supreme Court has said, blah, blah. I said, no, no, no, no. I'm asking you, is it wrong? And by the way, she wouldn't defend her article. She just said, well, I don't know what I was thinking. I said, I didn't ask you what you were thinking. Do you agree with what you said? She wouldn't answer it. It's much the same thing the far left supports as a matter of principle, discriminating based on race. And it's weird. And it's really, look, it's the same thing that's in critical race theory. Again, they believe race is the defining characteristic. And if they can discriminate based on race and it suits their politics, they're all for it.
- [16:33]
Michael Knowles
So this is playing out as I think a lot of us expected it would, which is the left has come out, Joe Biden has come out in favor of explicit racial discrimination. And conservatives have objected to that and said racial discrimination is a bad thing. And then the Democrats have come back and said, well, you're racists. If you oppose racial discrimination, you're racist and you hate black ladies or whatever. Okay, we all knew that was going to happen. That is the playbook. They can't fire you for saying it. You're elected by the people of Texas. So unfortunately for them, you're in your job for the time being. They can fire other people who have said exactly the same thing. And you saw it happen at Georgetown Law School. Ilya Shapiro, he's a libertarian lawyer. I believe you're friends with him. I think you know Ilya. Yes, Ilya has been around a long time. He's a very well known lawyer. He came out and made almost the same sort of comment. He said, this is bad. We shouldn't be choosing people based on race and sex. We should just choose the best available candidate. He has been placed on administrative leave. There are struggle sessions going on in the law school at Georgetown right now. There is a crying session hosted by the dean of the law school. It looks like they're gonna fire Ilya at this point. What has happened to American law schools?
- [17:51]
Ted Cruz
Let me just start by saying there should never be a crying session at any university or any law school. It reminds me of A League of Their Own. There's no crying in baseball. And if you wanna be a lawyer, don't be crying. Like if you disagree with what Ilya said, argue against it. Yeah, I know Ilya well. He's a very smart lawyer. He's a libertarian, he's been with Cato forever. He's a scholar, he's well respected. I don't know how Georgetown screwed up and hired him in the first place. Cuz he's not a radical leftist. And I thought they insisted you must be a radical leftist to get hired. But they did. And actually it's more ridiculous even than you described. So Ilya was arguing that Biden should nominate the most qualified left of center judge. And he advocated someone in particular. He advocated Sri Srinivasan. So Sri Srinivasan is the chief judge of the D.C. circuit. I know Sri. Sri and I clerked together on the 4th Circuit. He's very smart, very talented, Supreme Court litigator, was a Supreme Court clerk. Sre is an Indian American liberal Democrat judge. And Ilya argued, well, he'd be a great choice for Biden to nominate. And then Ilya had a stupid phrase, cuz he said he shouldn't go with a lesser nominee. And he used the word lesser. It was a badly phrased tweet.
- [19:16]
Michael Knowles
Right.
- [19:17]
Ted Cruz
And what happened is the left said, well, you're saying all African American women are lesser. And it's like. Well no, he didn't say that. He said he thought that SRI was the most qualified nominee, therefore every other.
- [19:30]
Michael Knowles
Nominee would be a lesser nominee.
- [19:32]
Ted Cruz
But I'm sorry, that's logic and reason and the woke mob, they're ready to burn you to the ground. They don't want to engage. It is. It's amazing that they want to cancel you. And look, I think Ilya may well be fired for it. They put him on unpaid administrative leave. Why does it say that? Our law schools don't believe in anything resembling free speech, that you can get fired for Your job by arguing for a liberal Democrat to be nominated to the Supreme Court, which is what Ilya did, that the very idea of considering people based on their qualifications is now anathema to the left. It is a vicious, I mean, cancel culture is alive and well. If they could cancel me, they would. The only reason they can't is that I'm elected by 29 million Texans. And so that they. And you think of the interorum effect it has. Not only is Ilya potentially losing his job, but every other professor that's terrified to open their mouth, every other person in their job, that the mob will come and say fire them. It really is ridiculous.
- [20:55]
Michael Knowles
Well, I give the student radicals, I give them a little bit of credit, actually credit at least for their honesty. I don't give them credit for sobbing in front of their dean and demanding people's heads on pikes.
- [21:05]
Ted Cruz
No, no, you can't say heads on pike. Remember Steve Bannon in a podcast said we want heads on pikes and they accused him of calling for murder. For murder. Remember, the nutty people are really nutty. So you can't use that phrase anymore. You're right.
- [21:19]
Michael Knowles
Only metaphorical pikes and figurative heads. But what the student asked was, listen, this guy, Ilya Shapiro, he's a lecturer at Georgetown Law and he's the director of the center for the Constitution. Seems like an unobjectionable sort of place. But he advocates an originalist position on interpreting the Constitution. And what the student asked was, why do we need this? Why do we need this center? Why do we need this perspective? Why do we need originalism to be taught at Georgetown Law? And I thought it was actually a pretty good question in that the law school overwhelmingly is leftist. The law school does not teach students, generally speaking, that originalism is a good or valid interpretive principle. They're trying to churn out leftist lawyers. And so why do they need it? Why does Georgetown, a left wing law school, need to have these pesky conservatives making all the students cry?
- [22:17]
Ted Cruz
Well, I mean, that's the view of a lot of the left and I'll give you at least one reason. Let's assume you don't care about intellectual diversity. Let's assume you don't care about learning anything other than the orthodoxy and propaganda that you're being spoon fed. Presumably, at least some of the students at Georgetown Law want to practice law. They would actually like to be practicing lawyers. And presumably that means they'd like to go in a courtroom and argue to judges that the judges should do what is in their client's interest. I can tell you there are a heck of a lot of judges in the district courts and the courts of appeals and the US Supreme Court that believe, I think quite rightly, that the text of the Constitution and the text of the statute is controlling and that, you know, that the original understanding of that text has, at a minimum, a major interpretive weight. You can disagree on how much weight and there are disagreements among judges. But if you got a law school that is graduating lawyers who don't know what originalism is, who don't know how to argue on originalist bases, you're gonna graduate crappy lawyers. You're gonna graduate lawyers who don't know how to actually litigate in court. And part of the problem is in some of these law schools, they're okay with this because you've got a bunch of deans and professors in ivory towers who don't actually engage in the practice of law. And it's just all politics for them instead.
- [23:42]
Michael Knowles
Well, that is a sort of silver lining. I hope that Ilya can keep his job, but if he can, and if the cancel culture mob really claims all these originalist scalps, at least the next generation of liberal lawyers will not perform very well in front of conservative judges.
- [23:56]
Ted Cruz
And Michael, I'll point out also. So the left's game, they say at the outset we're gonna discriminate based on race. In this case, we know Joe Biden is gonna nominate a black woman. We also know from the pattern of Biden's nominees that the odds are overwhelming. Whoever he nominates will be a radical left wing activist. Because most of the judicial nominees Biden's made this past year have been radical left wing activists. But we also know the next step in this game, they're going to say anyone that opposes the radical left wing activist is a racist and sexist who hates black women. That's their gameplay. And I mentioned, you know, when Joe Biden and the other Democrats filibustered Janice Rogers Brown, she was a black woman, but of course there they just didn't want a constitutionalist. There's another example, same time they filibustered Janice Rogers Brown, Joe Biden also filibustered a guy named Miguel Estrada. Miguel Estrada, Hispanic and amazing Supreme Court advocate. Supreme Court Clerk George W. Bush nominated him to the D.C. circuit. The Democrats had a real tough problem because Miguel was unquestionably qualified and there was nothing in his record that was disqualifying. And actually, one of the Democratic staffers for Ted Kennedy wrote a memo To Ted Kennedy on the Judiciary Committee along with Joe Biden, the Democratic staffer says we must defeat Miguel Estrada. Why? Because he is Hispanic. I'm quoting there. They say we must defeat him because he is Hispanic. And it was widely anticipated if Miguel had been confirmed to the D.C. circuit, that Bush would put him on the Supreme Court and he would be the first Hispanic ever on the Supreme Court. And so not only are Democrats willing to discriminate based on race, when they're favoring someone who meets their ideology, they are even more eager to discriminate on race against someone who disagrees with their ideology. And there was Joe Biden filibustering an Hispanic, incredibly qualified nominee. Now, is it because I think he hates Hispanics? No. He's a leftist who hates anyone who disagrees with his orthodoxy and is willing to divide based on race. And he believes in his heart, like most Democrats, that discriminating based on race, if they think the cause is righteous and just is a good thing, and I think it is a terrible thing in America to discriminate on race, period.
- [26:27]
Michael Knowles
Well, I hope Ilya Shapiro can make it through. They're trying to cancel him. There is an even more prominent person than a libertarian law professor who's got a cancel attempt on him right now that would be not a conservative, not even really, I think a libertarian. That would be a left winger, a guy who supported Bernie Sanders, Joe Rogan, who has been up backed into a corner. Now he's got some of the most powerful voices of the 1970s coming after him. We're talking Neil Young, we're talking Joni Mitchell, people who at one time actually were somewhat relevant. And it looks like he's actually sort of on the ropes.
- [27:09]
Ted Cruz
So I gotta say, Michael, just at the outset, who knew Neil Young was still alive? Who knew Joni Mitchell was still alive? You know, Graham Nash, Peter Frampton, I mean, we've got every geriatric rocker who was playing when I was in diapers and you were a twinkle in your daddy's eye. That's when these guys had their heyday. And I gotta say I think it's funny as hell that a bunch of 70 and 80 year old rock and roll stars from prior eras got more press this week than they've had in 30 years. And what they're saying is bizarre. They're saying we really don't like that, that many people are listening to Joe Rogan. And I think maybe they have a plan here which is nobody wants to listen to their songs. So if they get big tech to Ban the things that they're actually listening to. Maybe you'll have no more choice but to listen to their songs. Cause they'll be the only things left. I mean, it really is asinine.
- [28:14]
Michael Knowles
Neil Young and Crosby, Stills and Nash went on a Free speech tour in 2006. That was the name of the tour. And I think people are beginning to wake up to this fact that maybe they weren't so much in favor of free speech. Maybe they just wanted to smash whatever standards existed of the day and they wanted to just install their own standards. And now Joe Rogan is contradicting that. So they are the defenders of the entrenched power. But the thing that's crazy to me is, as you say, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, these people have not been relevant in decades. And yet they do seem to be potentially getting Joe Rogan not to back down, but to permit a disclaimer on his controversial episodes to get more left wing guests on. I mean, it does seem that they really are putting a lot of pressure on him.
- [29:04]
Ted Cruz
Well, you raise a very good point. I'd say two things in response. One, I hope Rogan doesn't give in. I mean, look, he's got, it's been reported like $100 million contract with Spotify. $100 million is a lot of leverage. I mean, he has shown a lot of courage, a lot of boldness. But I have to assume Spotify, they haven't given in yet. But to the extent, I mean, Spotify is kind of at the intersection of big tech and Hollywood music. So you've got to assume everyone in that world is arguing, surrender, surrender, surrender. Give in to the woke mob. And I do think it will do real damage to free speech if Rogan knuckles under. Because what people will say is if they could force Rogan to comply, how does anyone else have a chance?
- [29:53]
Michael Knowles
But you bring up the hundred million dollars. Senator, let's say you're Joe Rogan. And look, Joe Rogan seems like a perfectly principled guy, but let's say he weren't. Let's say he's totally unscrupulous and he's looking at that big paycheck. Sure, it would be a big blow to the American free speech tradition if he backs down. But what about numero uno? What about Joe Rogan? What incentive does he have not to just give in here?
- [30:17]
Ted Cruz
Look, the only incentive is integrity, that his viewers listen to him because they believe he's speaking from the heart and he's telling the truth. And I gotta say, you know, anytime you sell out for cash and you're intimidated. When you give in to the mob, it does lessen your credibility. And I wanna give him a lot of props. He has shown a ton of courage. I also think, you know, it really got his attention when CNN went after him for Ivermectin. He has become a fantastic defender of free speech. I think that's really important. And one thing that it's important, I think, for Rogan to understand and everyone else to understand is when the mob comes after you, it's not even about the topic you were about. So we were talking a minute ago about Biden's Supreme Court nominee. I sent a tweet today, somewhat tongue in cheek, which was simply, candace Owens for Supreme Court. But, you know, if Biden said it must be a black woman. You and I both know Candace. We like Candace. She is both black and female. According to the less stated criterion, she is an obvious choice. And it's funny, like the Twitterverse and their media stories written about my tweet were like, oh, my God, Cruz thinks Candace. Oh, as far as I know, I don't think Candace is a lawyer. She isn't a lawyer. I don't know about it. I, I am assuming if she has the qualifications to be a Supreme Court justice, I am unaware of those. But. And she's a fantastic podcast host and thinker and, and provocateur illustrating the idiocies of the left. But, but what I've enjoyed is since that tweet, watching leftists explain. No, no, no, not that black woman. You can oppose people. And we oppose her because she's conservative. We can hate on her. We mean only leftist black women. It's all ideology. It's all politics. Race is part of the politics. But anyone on the wrong side, they'll go after. And so Rogan may think, okay, well, if I. All right, I've had some doctors on my show who are skeptical of some of the things they're saying about COVID So I'll have some people on the other side who say, believe whatever St. Fauci says, and maybe the mob will be satiated. The mob will never be satiated. That is the nature of the mob. And when they see they can bow you into submission, they'll come back again and again and again.
- [32:52]
Michael Knowles
I think that's the fear. Rogan is speaking 2 and 4, a wide variety of Americans. It's not rock ribbed right wing Republicans, probably not very many of them at all. I think it's ordinary people. Maybe some disaffected liberals, maybe some leftists. For goodness sakes. He endorsed Bernie Sanders, so he's got leftists in there, too. And he's speaking like the kind of guy who is not ideologically rigid. And I think that's part of why he's been able to amass such a huge audience. And I agree. I think so far he's played this pretty smart. But this is a big fear. Do not show them your neck. Do not give in. You will never. I assume I'm not saying anything that Joe doesn't already understand, but you will not win. The moment that you start to appease them, you're dead. You're gonna be dead in the water. I guess figuratively again, too.
- [33:46]
Ted Cruz
I don't want hateful rhetoric in junior high. If you give in to the bullies, they take your lunch money tomorrow, too. And the next day and the next day. That principle was true then and it's true now.
- [33:54]
Michael Knowles
That's right. And Rogan is actually important to conservative sites on the future. We've talked a lot on this show about how when I was a kid that the caricature of the GOP was that it was rich Uncle Pennybag smoking a cigar, shilling for corporations, keeping the working man down. And that is not the case anymore. You're seeing it just in exit polling. You're seeing it in the lawn signs in people's yards, and you're seeing it in the behavior of Democrats, who are now very clearly the party of the global elite. And Republicans have positioned themselves as the party of the working man. My question is, why is it that Americans who have such a history of loving freedom and fighting back, why is it that we are currently being outdone by America's hat, our polite, lovely neighbors to the north, the Canadians, where Canadian truckers by the thousands are showing up to the nation's capital and protesting these draconian vaccine mandates. What's going on with the Americans?
- [34:53]
Ted Cruz
It is absolutely awesome. God bless the Canadian truckers. And I will say, look, I love the, you know, we were just talking about Joe Rogan. I love big, bald, angry working class people who are pissed off and fighting back. That is awesome. The Canadian truckers. Those convoys are spectacular. Watching Justin Trudeau run away. I had fun tweeting out. Someone did a mashup of Simpsons videos where there was an old Simpsons episode that had Homer driving a truck and he gets in a convoy. And then they cut to Trudeau as prime minister of Canada crawling out the window to run away. And, you know, it actually says something that There were a bunch of fact checkers today who fact checked that Simpsons mashup. Said it's actually not factually correct that the Simpsons predicted the Canadian truckers. Because these were two different episodes that someone put together. And I'm just like, all right, you guys are nimwits and idiots. And the Canadian truckers, look, they're standing up for freedom. And you know, a year ago we listened to people pontificate online very solemnly, the truck drivers are heroes in America. We also listened to them to say, doctors and nurses and police officers and firefighters, they're heroes for America. All these people are being persecuted right now, right? The totalitarian left wants to fire those truck drivers. They wanna fire doctors and nurses and cops and firefighters and soldiers and sailors and navy seals. Why? Because they won't knuckle under their Covid mandates and vaccine mandates. They won't obey their totalitarian dictates. And I gotta say, those Canadian truckers are awesome. And they're fighting for American freedom in a way we all should be doing.
- [36:54]
Michael Knowles
We could take a lesson from. There is an irony that the Left for over 100 years said, Workers of the world unite. And now the workers of the world have united and their leaders, like Justin Trudeau are running as far as they possibly can. There's a Trudeau shaped hole in the wall where he once was because he doesn't want to face the the crowd.
- [37:12]
Ted Cruz
So I will say the Canadian truckers, when they drove their convoy in and they protested, they did it very politely. And having been born in Calgary, I will say the Canucks, God bless them, are wonderfully polite. But you know, in this instance, they are warriors for freedom. And their message is being heard not just throughout Canada, but throughout America and across the world, hopefully.
- [37:36]
Michael Knowles
So this raises an important question. We're running a little late and so we're not gonna get into a ton of mailbag. But I do want to get into one mailbag question that came up from Eudaimonia. It was the pseudonym, the good old ancient Greek references here in our mailbag. Very educated audience. He asked, what concrete policies is the GOP going to put forward now that the GOP is positioning itself as the workers party? So is it simply that the GOP is saying, door is open, you're welcome to come in, but we're not gonna change anything about way that we look at economic issues, social issues. We're not actually gonna change the policy. We just want you to vote for us. Or is there going to be some kind of substantive shift in what the GOP is actually offering.
- [38:24]
Ted Cruz
So I think we've seen pretty significant shifts and I think Trump played a big part in that. Number one, we're the party of jobs. You want a job, you ought to be a Republican. We're the party of small businesses. We're the party of energy. Joe Biden and the Democrats hate energy. They hate oil, they hate gas, they hate coal. They're destroying jobs across the country. They're shutting down pipelines, they're putting people out of work. We're the party of keeping small businesses open. You look at Biden and the Democrats, they're happy to shut down a restaurant, a bar. They're happy to shut down anyone who won't comply with their mandates. We're the party of opportunity. Democrats are shutting down schools, we're keeping schools open. We wanna give you school choice, we wanna give you opportunity. Immigration is critical to this. Democrats are the party of open borders. When you have millions of people coming illegally into this country, they're driving down wages, they're hurting working men and women. You want to help protect jobs, you stop illegal immigration. And I think every single policy the Democrats embrace, ask yourself what San Francisco and Manhattan billionaires want. That's what Democrats support 100% straight down the board. And ask yourself every policy that Ohio steelworkers or Texas truck drivers support. Those are the policies that Republicans I think ought to be supporting, including, by the way, protecting free speech and religious liberty in the Second Amendment. Democrats want to take away the guns of working men and women across this country. It is a radically anti worker agenda. And I will say one of the things I think Republicans have gotten better at, but there's still too much of is corporate cronyism giving in to big business. Look, when it comes to big business, big business has gone woke for too long. Republicans behaved that whatever big business wanted, they listened to. I think Trump helped break that. I think we have shifted. You know, the giant companies are fine. I don't have anything against them, but they don't need any favors from me. They don't need any favors from government. They don't need any subsidies, they don't need any mandates to benefit them. We ought to be the party of the little guy, of the small business owner, of the worker. And Democrats are the party of taking away your job. And I think that's playing out in a very, very real way.
- [40:43]
Michael Knowles
Because some of Those things the GOP's talked about for a long time, but especially when you're talking about the big corporations, that would be a shift when I was a kid. The GOP was the party of helping out every gigantic corporation. They would assist them in shipping jobs overseas and getting sweetheart deals from the government. Corporate welfare of total corporate welfare. And that is a big shift. And it does tie into the small businesses too, because if the GOP is gonna be the party of the big woke multinational corporations, then sort of, by definition, they're not the party of the small businesses. So that shift is very important. As you say, keeping jobs here.
- [41:22]
Ted Cruz
And Democrats are the party of corporate welfare today. They embrace it openly.
- [41:27]
Michael Knowles
Yeah, that's very important. And as you say, too, this idea that when you have 2 million illegal aliens pouring across the border, that's gonna depress wages, and it's not gonna depress Mark Zuckerberg's wages or I guess Mark Zuckerberg's capital gains. I don't think he makes most of his money from his salary. It's gonna depress wages for working class Americans. And so that's a big shift. If the Democrats are gonna be the party of more and more and more and more immigration, then the Republicans really can offer something different there as well. That was a good answer. That really. All right. That makes me hopeful for the future, Senator. Even as we're all getting canceled, even as we're gonna get radical leftist judges all over the courts, there does seem to be some hope looking ahead to 2022 and 2024, but we've got to leave it there. You know, one thing you can do to really express your enthusiasm, not merely for the upcoming elections, but for this very show, is to go get some merch, everybody. We've got superb merch. I don't have my hat on me right now. Hats sometimes make my head look like a peanut. But this hat is so good looking that I have to wear it. It is our famous cactus microphone hat. You can get that some really great t shir, Some have expressions coined by Lindsey Graham. For goodness sakes, what is a podcast? We've got a lot of verdict merch. You can get that at verdict with TedCruz.com shop and especially if you have a non peanut shaped head, the hats will look really, really good on you. Really wonderful stuff over there. And then you can stick around and head on over to the verdict community and check out more content from the senator and from Liz. But as for me, Michael Knowles, that's all I've got right now. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
- [43:13]
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.