← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
Trump WINS at SCOTUS, Reshaping the Learning Landscape & What Moviegoers Love and Critics Ignore Week In Review
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- [00:00]
Podcast Host
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:05]
Ryan Seacrest
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Ben Ferguson
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- [00:34]
Podcast Host
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- [01:51]
Ted Cruz
Welcome. It is Verdict with Ted Cruz Week in Review Ben Ferguson with you and I hope you are having a fabulous fourth of July weekend with your family being safe on the road. If you're traveling as well, we've got some major stories for you that you may have missed this fourth of July week. First up, major victories coming from the Supreme Court, helping parents and also making sure that you get to make decisions on what happens when your kids go to school. I'll have those details in a moment. Also, legislation on school choice made it into the big beautiful bill. There were many that wanted to get rid of it and we'll give you the story behind how we kept it in the bill. And finally, for a little fun for the 4th of July weekend, the last 10 great movies of the 21st century given to you by none other than Senator Ted Cruz. It's the week in review, and it starts right now. All right, so let's start with universal injunctions and the Trump v. Casa case. This is also, by the way, something that you, you chaired the subcommittee hearing on that very issue earlier this month. So explain why this is such an important issue for everyone listening.
- [03:06]
Well, this was a case challenging President Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship. Birthright citizenship is the law that says that a baby born in America is a US Citizen, even if that baby's parents are illegally, even if they came illegally precisely to have that baby in America. Nonetheless, that baby is a US Citizen. As a policy matter, I think that is a very foolish policy. It is a policy that incentivizes illegal immigration. You see, people, I spend a lot of time at the southern border. I go out on midnight patrols with the Border Patrol agents. We see every day pregnant women coming across the border illegally, coming across, being brought in by human traffickers with the express purpose of coming here to have their baby in America because that baby then becomes an anchor baby. That baby becomes a US Citizen. That doesn't make any sense. And by the way, most of the other countries on earth don't have that policy. If you sneak into another country illegally, most other countries don't make them a citizen of that country. It is an accident of American history that our law has done that. And so for more than a decade, I've advocated for ending birthright citizenship. Now, Ben, there is an open legal debate about how you can end birthright citizenship. There are some legal scholars who argue it can only be done through a constitutional amendment. And the reason is part of the predicate for birthright citizenship is the language of the 14th Amendment that talks about granting citizenship to people born in America. Now, there's a phrase in the 14th amendment which is subject to the jurisdiction thereof. And legal scholars argue back and forth. Some say you can only change birthright citizenship through a constitutional amendment. If that's the case, we should have an amendment because it's a policy that is foolish. Others say Congress can pass legislation to end birthright citizenship because someone who comes here illegally is not subject to the jurisdiction thereof, is not subject to American jurisdiction, but rather came here illegally. I've introduced legislation to end birthright citizenship through legislation. What President Trump has done is he's tried to do it a third way, which is through an executive order. That's going to be a harder hurdle to get through. But he's trying to do it, and on the policy grounds, he is exactly right. So what happened is in this case, there was a lawsuit challenging President Trump's executive order purporting to eliminate birthright citizenship. And the district judge issued a nationwide injunction, a so called universal injunction. So ordinarily, courts have jurisdiction, have authority over the parties in front of them. So if you have two parties in a car wreck and they crash into each other and one party sues the other, the court has jurisdiction over those two parties to say, okay, you're at fault, you pay for the repairs and the medical bills of the person injured. That is called under the Constitution, Article 3 of the Constitution, courts are given jurisdiction over cases and controversies. So actual disputes between real people. What the district judge did in this case is issued an injunction prohibiting Donald Trump and prohibiting the entire federal government from enforcing the birthright citizenship executive order against anybody. Not just against the parties in front of the court, but 330 million people in this country. The court said, you cannot enforce this against anybody. It is a universal injunction. That is something that for the first hundred plus years of our country never occurred. Universal injunctions began occurring more frequently, but not that much more frequently. There have been over 40 universal injunctions issued against Donald Trump in the first five months of his presidency. Now, how does that compare to the historical record? There are more universal injunctions that have been issued against President Trump than were issued in the entire 20th century from 1900 to 2000. There have been more in the last five months than there were in those hundred years. There have been more universal injunctions issued against President Trump than were issued against all eight years of George W. Bush, all eight years of Barack Obama, and all four years of Joe Biden. Five months. Trump has even more than that. It has been an abuse of power. And as you noted, I have been very vocal. I've been laying out the case. I chaired a Judiciary Committee hearing focused on exactly this abuse of power. This is the next wave of lawfare. During the last four years, we saw Democrat prosecutors indicting Donald Trump that was using the courts to attack their political enemy to try to stop the voters from re electing Donald Trump. That didn't work. They failed. Once President Trump was reelected, this was the next iteration of lawfare. Get Democrat attorneys general, get left wing radical groups to go seek out radical district judges put on the bench by Joe Biden. And Barack Obama to issue injunctions and shut down the entire Trump agenda because. And understand these Democrat attorneys general, they don't believe in democracy. They don't believe the voters have a right to decide this is what we want and to elect someone to carry it out. Instead, they want courts to stand in the way. Well, you and I talked about on an earlier podcast what I thought was likely here and what I predicted on this podcast. As I said, I think the Supreme Court is going to rein in universal injunctions. The Supreme Court's going to make clear this is an abuse of power. And so I was really optimistic because in terms of the tools we have to reign in universal injunctions, the Supreme Court acting is by far the best. Well, on Friday, they did. Their decision was fantastic. It was 6, 3. The decision was written by Amy Coney Barrett. It is the most important opinion she has written in her tenure on the court, and it is very strong. It makes clear that individual district judges do not have the legal authority. They don't have the jurisdiction to issue universal injunctions. That is a massive victory for the rule of law, and it is a massive blow against the lawfare that the radical left is waging against President Trump.
- [09:41]
And finally, the other one that you mentioned earlier, this one, for me, is so important for parental rights and getting parental rights back in our public schools, because there was a massive fight where parents were saying we should be able to opt our kids out of this LGBTQ curriculum. There was a lawsuit. It went to the Supreme Court. It favored on the side of parents six to three. This was massive for so many parents. They're concerned about their kids being indoctrinated by the radical left.
- [10:17]
Yeah. This case arose out of Montgomery county in Maryland, and Montgomery county has a very diverse population. And the Montgomery County School board, unfortunately, is one of the more woke school boards in America. And so they put in place an aggressive LGBTQ curriculum, and they mandated it. And we're not talking high schoolers. We're talking young kids, kids kindergarten through fifth grade. And they pushed content that was pushing LGBT content that was pushing transgender content to little children, 5, 6, 7, 8 year olds. And a group of parents said, hey, this is wrong. A group of parents. And they included Catholics, they included Muslims. They said, we don't want our school indoctrinating, brainwashing our kids that you think it's great to be gay, to be transgender. You think it's great. Like, if you're a boy one day, you think you're a girl.
- [11:22]
Ben Ferguson
It's not the school's job to tell.
- [11:24]
Ted Cruz
Our five year olds, that's your ideology. And so they sued. And the school board said, basically, go jump in a lake. We're going to indoctrinate your kids and you have no right. And on appeal the, well, the district.
- [11:45]
Ben Ferguson
Court and the court of appeals both.
- [11:47]
Ted Cruz
Ruled against the parents and said they had no right. And it went to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court 63 upheld the.
- [11:56]
Ben Ferguson
Right of the parents to opt out of that curriculum.
- [11:59]
Ted Cruz
And the court said, quote, because it has long recognized the rights of parents to direct the religious upbringing of their children, the court concluded that the parents are likely to succeed on the claim that the board's policies unconstitutionally burdens their religious exercise. Justice Alito wrote the majority opinion for 6:3 court.
- [12:22]
Ben Ferguson
And they said that parents rights are.
- [12:24]
Ted Cruz
Violated when the government, quote, substantially interferes with their children's religious development. And so this is a great protection for parental rights. Look, parents ought to be in charge of what is being taught to their kids. It's also a great victory for religious liberty if a parent wants to teach kids that to embrace a radical agenda, whether on LGBT or anything else. A parent has a right to do that. But the school system should not be indoctrinating children, in particular young children, kindergarteners is what this case was about. And so this is a big victory. Three big victories for our constitutional rights, for common sense. And all three of them were six three out of the Supreme Court.
- [13:12]
Now if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week.
- [13:18]
Ryan Seacrest
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Ben Ferguson
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- [14:28]
J.R. Martinez
The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves.
- [14:40]
Ted Cruz
This medal is for the men who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it.
- [14:46]
J.R. Martinez
I'm J.R. martinez. I'm a U.S. army veteran myself and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart podcast from Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal. To Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [15:33]
Ted Cruz
Now on to story number two there, because it's huge. Because that's not the only thing that was transformative in this bill, something you've been championing. Now I would say it's part of the legacy of your career is school choice. And, and there's some big stuff in this bill also on school choice.
- [15:51]
Ben Ferguson
So school choice has been my passion for 30 years. I've been very active in the school Choice movement. In 2017, when we did the first.
- [15:59]
Ted Cruz
Trump tax cut, I authored the legislation.
- [16:02]
Ben Ferguson
That expanded college 529 savings plans so now parents can save for K through 12 education. We got that through. It passed and it was at the time the most far reaching federal school choice legislation that had ever passed. And there are millions of kids now whose parents save for K through 12 education using 529s. This time around I took five 29s and I expanded them. I expanded what you can spend them for and I raised the cap. It used to be you could spend 10,000 a year from the account. Now you can spend 20,000 a year. But that actually is the smallest piece on school choice that would be huge in any other year. But what we got in this year is the federal government will now grant a federal tax credit dollar for dollar for every taxpayer up to seventeen hundred dollars. So Ben you pay taxes. Every year you pay more than $1,700 in taxes. When this goes into effect, if you write a yes. So if you write a $1700 check to a scholarship granting organization in Texas, you will get a seventeen hundred dollar credit on your taxes. In other words, it's dollar for dollar. It disappears from your tax liability. What this will do is this is going to unleash billions and billions of dollars of new scholarships for K through 12 education in the states. And the way it operates, every state has to choose to opt in. So Texas will opt in. I suspect a number of blue states will not opt in because the teachers unions will not want them to. They will not want scholarships for kids to be able to go to the school of their choice. And the way we wrote the rule, the state has the law, the state has to opt in. But Texas will have scholarship granting organizations and any taxpayer could write a check up to $1,700 a year and get a full tax credit on their irs. What they owe. That is going to result in millions of kids across America, many of whom are stuck in failing schools. Schools that are not learning to read, they're not learning to write. Schools where there's violence, they're drug dealers. Schools where their future is really in peril and they're suddenly gonna have the ability to get a scholarship to go to the school of their choice, to get a real education, to get a better education, to be safe, to not be subject to violence. This is, I think school choice is the civil rights issue of the 21st century. This has never happened before. And I gotta tell you, I fought tooth and nail. This almost got stripped out of the bill about five different times. And I made clear, I'll shut this whole bill down if we don't get school choice in there. And this is, I could not be more excited about any provision in this bill than the impact school choice is gonna have for the next generation.
- [19:06]
Ted Cruz
So on these two issues, school choice and also the savings accounts, when does that start to become a reality? Timeline. There's, there's a lot of people that say, hey, we passed bills and then things that were supposed to happen don't happen. They get undone because there's a no present that comes in or you see a Senate flip or the House flip, whatever it may be. So how sure are we that we are going to see the fruits of this fight and this labor?
- [19:32]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, these are both gonna happen and they're both gonna happen in the next year.
- [19:35]
Ted Cruz
For the Trump accounts, I wrote into.
- [19:37]
Ben Ferguson
It an effective date of one year from the signing. So if it's signed on July 4th, these will start on July 4th, 2026.
- [19:46]
Ted Cruz
Our nation's 250th anniversary.
- [19:48]
Ben Ferguson
And I think that's something particularly fantastic. I'm quite confident President Trump will make a big deal about the facts that these accounts are being opened on our nation's birthday or if it ends up being signed at a slightly different date somewhere, honor about our nation's birthday. A great celebration, same thing. The tax deductions are gonna start, I believe, next year on the, on the school choice tax deductions. So these will happen. They will happen quickly. Now, one question people are asking, what happens next? The Senate passed this. What happens next? Well, we sent the whole bill to the House. They have two choices. Number one, so they're coming back in session. They can take it up and pass it. And if they pass the bill that we just passed, it will go to the president and he can sign it. And he said he wants to sign it on July 4th of this year. So if the House passes what the Senate passed, that'll be the end of the process and the president will sign it. The second thing they can do is they can say, okay, we passed a bill, the Senate passed a different bill. We need to work out the differences between them. And that's, that's called going to conference. And the House could insist we go to conference. I don't know which one they're going to do. There are some real differences in the Senate right now. They're in the House right now. They're having fights. There's some aspects of the Senate bill that are really good. There's some aspects of the Senate bill that are not great. And so it's going to be a question of what can get 218 votes in the House. I know the speaker wants, if he can, to take up and pass the Senate bill and just send it to the president. That's what the president wants also. So that may happen. If that doesn't happen, then we'll go to conference. And I think conference would take the month of July for us to work out the differences. And my guess is we would pass the final bill at the end of July, right before August.
- [21:45]
Ted Cruz
So this is one of those big moments that I think we should all enjoy. Elections have consequences. This time it was for conservative values and for kids to have a better future in education or savings accounts and for tax cuts so that Americans that work hard can keep more of their own money on a scale of 1 to 10 and nothing's perfect. How proud of you or of you are you with this bill, there's a lot of people that are saying, well, there's this, there's that or there's this look, yeah, there were some compromises, no doubt, that had to be made. You got a tight, you know, a very, very slim majority that you're dealing with here. But overall, how happy are you with what the American people are now getting?
- [22:28]
Ben Ferguson
I think there are many very, very good things in this bill. I wish we cut spending significantly more.
- [22:34]
Ted Cruz
I was fighting hard to cut spending significantly more.
- [22:37]
Ben Ferguson
I went to President Trump with $3 trillion of spending cuts we could do. I was urging my colleagues. I prevailed in some of those arguments, but not all of them. I wish we'd shown more fiscal restraint. That would have made me much happier. Look, at 6am on Tuesday, we were near the end of the amendments and the question was, could we get to 50 Republicans? There are 53 in the Senate now. Susan Collins was a no. She is the most liberal of the Republicans. She did not like some of the reforms on Medicaid. The Democrats and the press are saying we slashed Medicaid. That is a lie. We actually are spending more on Medicaid every single year. What we did was slightly decrease the rate of growth of Medicaid in the future. And in particular, we increased efforts to fight waste, fraud and abuse and to remove people from the Medicaid rolls who don't qualify. And we also put in place a work requirement which, which is really important and I think actually benefits people. If you look at the history of work requirements for federal welfare benefits, it, it, it ends up helping the recipients by getting them back into the workforce, which is ultimately much better for them and their families. So, so, but, but anyway, Susan Collins did not like the reductions in spending on that side, so she voted no. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, also did not like the Medicaid changes, and so he voted no. And so with 53 Republicans, we could only lose three. The two other votes that were in play were Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul. And they were both between 6am and noon. Nobody knew which one, which one we would get if either. But if we didn't get one of them, this bill was going down because if four senators voted against it, four Republicans, we were at 49, and it failed. So the consequence of which road we went down was really consequential because Lisa, after Susan is the most liberal to moderate Republican in the conference. And so Lisa was bargaining for a bunch more spending. She wanted a ton of spending, particularly at Alaska, and that was the price of her vote. And she was going back and forth. Rand, on the other hand, Rand was always going to be no. Always going to be a no. And Rand said at the end he would be a yes if the debt ceiling was not extended. We extend the debt ceiling throughout President Trump's term in this bill. That was a very high priority for President Trump. Rand said he would vote yes if we shorten the extension of the debt ceiling to September 30th. So we just did a couple of months of the debt ceiling. Now, the consequence of that would mean we'd have to come back in September 30th and address the debt ceiling again. And that would mean we'd probably have to negotiate with the Democrats and make a lousy deal with with Chuck schumer. But between 6am and noon, none of us knew which direction they were going to go. Were they going to go the direction of Lisa Rakowski or were they going to go the direction of Rand Paul? At the end of the day, Lisa is the one who got to yes. But it was literally up till the moment she cast her vote, we didn't know for sure. And she ended up. She ended up increasing the rural hospital fund by $50 billion. She ended up dropping the Medicaid penalty for states that are giving Medicaid to illegal immigrants. She ended up delaying the work requirements for food stamps for Alaska. And the cost of that was billions and billions of dollars. Interestingly, if Rand had said yes instead of Lisa, we would have ended up spending much less. But the consequence of Rand being a no is that it drove it made Lisa the swing vote. And the price of her vote was billions and probably hundreds of billions more in spending. And so, you know, I mean that that's where votes have consequences.
- [27:12]
Ted Cruz
As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and download the podcast from earlier this week to hear the entire thing.
- [27:20]
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- [27:46]
Ben Ferguson
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- [27:48]
Podcast Host
Prohibited by law 21/ terms and conditions apply. There's a myth A lot of us grow up believing that hair loss is just a part of life. It happens, it runs in the family. Once it starts, there's no stopping it. But here's the truth. That's outdated thinking. Scientific understanding of hair loss has advanced in recent years. Today we have a deeper knowledge of underlying causes and we've developed science backed solutions that are both effective and safe. And that's at the very root of Happy Head. Dermatologists led innovation offering stronger FDA approved ingredients that work. But what really sets Happy Head apart is how personalized it is. They don't do one size fits all fixes. You fill out a comprehensive consultation, they're board certified dermatologists assign a formula specifically for your hair loss pattern, goals and lifestyle. And whether you're early in your journey or more advanced, Happy Head offers targeted options that actually work. Topical treatments, oral capsules or potent dual action bundles all deliver directly to you, discreetly and freshly compounded. In the US most people start seeing results in three to six months. But the real magic? It's sustainable. This isn't just about growing hair, it's about keeping it long term. So no, hair loss isn't inevitable anymore. Visit happyhead.com and find out what's possible when science, expertise and personalization come together. Hair happiness starts here.
- [29:06]
J.R. Martinez
The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. Recipients have done the improbable, showing immense bravery and sacrifice in the name of something much bigger than themselves.
- [29:18]
Ted Cruz
This medal is for the man who went down that day. It's for the families of those who didn't make it.
- [29:25]
J.R. Martinez
I'm J.R. martinez. I'm a U.S. army veteran myself and I'm honored to tell you the stories of these heroes on the new season of Medal of Stories of Courage from Pushkin Industries and iHeart podcast from Robert Blake, the first black sailor to be awarded the medal to Daniel Daly, one of only 19 people to have received the Medal of Honor twice. These are stories about people who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor going above and beyond the call of duty. You'll hear about what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. Listen to Medal of Honor on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
- [30:12]
Ted Cruz
I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed. You're taking a break with a fam hanging out. Maybe you're wanting to watch a movie. We have got an epic list we're going through right now. We thought we'd take a little break from all the politics and talk about a list that came out of apparently, like the best movies of all time. All these actors and Hollywood elitists voted on it. New York Times put together the. The list is incredibly sad. A lot of it anti American, anti family. And so we're adding some great movies to your list. If you don't know this about Senator Cruz, huge movie guy. And you love still going to the big screen, seeing them when they come out, I think that's. I love doing that as well. I think it's a blast. So let's get back to this list of some of the incredible movies out there.
- [30:57]
All right, so we've done 20. We have 10 more to do. Movies that came out in the 21st century in 2016. Two movies in particular. Number one, Hidden Figures. Great movie, Terrific movie. I took my wife, my daughters, my mom to see true story of the African American women mathematician who were foundational to NASA going to the moon. It's an amazing story. And Ben, as you know, my mom was also a mathematician at the dawn of the computer age. Hidden Figures begins with Sputnik being launched and the space race being started. My mom in the 1950s worked at the Smithsonian. One of her first projects was helping to compute the orbit of Sputnik. And actually, in honor of this movie, I introduced legislation that resulted in the street where the NASA headquarters is in D.C. being changed to Hidden Figures. Way to honor those African American women mathematician who were foundational in our going to the moon. It's not on Hollywood's list either, but it's a great movie and it's a fabulous family movie. Another great family movie, La La Land, same year. It's a musical, it's fun, it's light, it's about Hollywood. It is. It's a terrific movie. And yet it's nowhere on their list.
- [32:17]
Ben Ferguson
2017. 2017.
- [32:19]
Ted Cruz
A great movie. The Darkest Hour. Winston Churchill in the middle of World War II.
- [32:25]
Ben Ferguson
Powerful.
- [32:26]
Ted Cruz
Gary Oldham does a terrific portrayal of Churchill. Highly recommend it.
- [32:31]
Ben Ferguson
2018, Black Panther.
- [32:33]
Ted Cruz
Black Panther was a terrific movie.
- [32:35]
Ben Ferguson
It's a comic book movie, but there's.
- [32:36]
Ted Cruz
A reason so many people go, go.
- [32:37]
Ben Ferguson
Like go see them, because they're really good. 2019.
- [32:42]
Ted Cruz
Once upon a time in Hollywood. Another Quentin Tarantino.
- [32:45]
Ben Ferguson
I thought it was terrific. Loved it. Brad Pitt was in it as well. Brad Pitt, when.
- [32:50]
Ted Cruz
When Tarantino is directing him, is really, really good. You then get on to 2022, Top Gun, Maverick Just a great, fun movie. Action film. Fun to go to the theater and see the jets rocketing through the sky fighting the bad guys. I will note that no Hollywood theater will now make communist China the bad guys because they all want to sell movies in China. So the bad guys are always some made up fictional place. On to 2023. Two movies in 2023.
- [33:25]
Ben Ferguson
On the list, Oppenheimer.
- [33:27]
Ted Cruz
Oppenheimer was terrific. True story. Powerful, interesting. Really well done. Same year, Killers of the Flower Moon.
- [33:35]
Ben Ferguson
Another true story. Really powerful. Well done.
- [33:40]
Ted Cruz
All right, full disclosure, I missed that movie, apparently, when it came out. What's it about? Because now I'm interested.
- [33:46]
So Martin Scorsese did it and it's based on a true story. So it's set in Oklahoma in the 1920s, and it focuses on a series of murders of Osage Indians after oil is discovered on their tribal lands. And it's got a fabulous cast. Leonardo DiCaprio's in it, Robert De Niro is in it.
- [34:08]
Ben Ferguson
And look, it's brutal.
- [34:09]
Ted Cruz
It doesn't paint a pretty unsanitized picture of history, but it is. Our history has moments of brutality, moments of evil and oppression. And Scorsese can. Can tell a story as, as well as anyone in the business.
- [34:27]
Awesome. I'm gonna have to grab that movie and check it out. Keep going.
- [34:30]
Ben Ferguson
Well, that takes us to 28.
- [34:32]
Ted Cruz
And for the last two, I said.
- [34:34]
Ben Ferguson
You know, I figured, all right, who ought to decide what are really good movies?
- [34:39]
Ted Cruz
And I came up with a crazy idea. How about the ticket buyers? And so I just pulled.
- [34:45]
Ben Ferguson
What are the top 10 highest grossing.
- [34:48]
Ted Cruz
Films from 2000 to 2025? Any idea what the number one film of the last 25 years has been in terms of box office dollars?
- [34:57]
That's a hard one. I have no clue. Go for it. I'm ready.
- [35:01]
So number one is Avatar 2009, and it brought in $2.9 billion. And Avatar. I'm gonna put Avatar on my list because it's a great film. It really was novel how it sort of stretched, but brought you into an entirely different world. And the effects were fantastic. It was a well done story. The number two grossing film of the last 25 years was Endgame, and that brought in $2.8 billion.
- [35:31]
Ben Ferguson
I'm gonna include both of those as.
- [35:33]
Ted Cruz
The final two on my list. They're the top two grossing films.
- [35:36]
Ben Ferguson
They're fantastic.
- [35:38]
Ted Cruz
I like most comic book movies, but I do think Endgame was really, really good. And it says something.
- [35:46]
Ben Ferguson
If you look at the list of.
- [35:47]
Ted Cruz
Top 10, none of the top 10 grossing films are on Hollywood's list. You have number three is Avatar, the.
- [35:55]
Ben Ferguson
Way of the Water.
- [35:55]
Ted Cruz
Number four is Star wars, episode seven, the Force Awakens. Number five is Avengers Affinity War. Number six is Spider man, no Way Home, which, which I thought was the best of the Spider man movies. Number seven was Nija 2. I don't know that movie. Maybe Chinese. I just don't, I don't know that movie. Number eight was Inside Out 2. Number nine was Jurassic World and number 10 was the Lion King in 2019. It says something when you have a product and the people making the product.
- [36:26]
Ben Ferguson
Don'T like the product that people like and are buying.
- [36:30]
Ted Cruz
There's a real disconnect there.
- [36:33]
Ben Ferguson
You know, you go back to that.
- [36:34]
Ted Cruz
New York Times list. Most of the movies on the list nobody has seen and nobody wants to see. And that really is sad. There used to be a time, look, what's fun about going to the movies, you'll notice themes. So I like true stories. I like war movies. I like gangster movies, things like Godfather and Scarface. I like westerns, I like comedies, I like some musicals. But I like a story. When I go to the movies, I want to tell me a story. It can be a sad story, it can be a funny story, it can bring me in on an adventure.
- [37:16]
Ben Ferguson
You know, classic movies I grew up.
- [37:18]
Ted Cruz
With like Indiana Jones, like it can be, you know, Star wars, the whole Star wars series, the hero's Journey.
- [37:27]
Ben Ferguson
Actually, Ben, I'm going to tell you.
- [37:28]
Ted Cruz
Something really funny.
- [37:31]
Ben Ferguson
Really good buddy of mine that I went to high school.
- [37:34]
Ted Cruz
With, you bet him, Joel's his name. Great friend of mine came, came to.
- [37:40]
Ben Ferguson
Our place in D.C. last weekend.
- [37:43]
Ted Cruz
He and his family were in town and he said, hey, can I crash at your place? I said sure. And, and he and I have gone.
- [37:49]
Ben Ferguson
To a lot of movies together and.
- [37:50]
Ted Cruz
He'S a huge Star wars buff.
- [37:52]
Ben Ferguson
And so he went to, to the.
- [37:53]
Ted Cruz
Star Wars, I guess, museum.
- [37:57]
Ben Ferguson
And when I get back to my.
- [37:58]
Ted Cruz
D.C. apartment, he's replaced my sheets with Star wars sheets and a Star wars.
- [38:05]
Ben Ferguson
Comforter and Star wars pillowcases and it looks like a nine year old boy's room. And I just cracked up laughing. And then actually it was right after.
- [38:14]
Ted Cruz
I had the Tucker Carlson interview.
- [38:16]
Ben Ferguson
That was a lot of fireworks. So he bought Tucker Carlson's book and he rested it on the pillowcase. So I was doubled over laughing when.
- [38:24]
Ted Cruz
I walked in, walked in Monday morning to the apartment and saw my bedroom.
- [38:28]
As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to download my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day. You're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards. I'd love to have you as a listener to again the Ben Ferguson Podcast and we will see you back here on Monday morning.
- [38:47]
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