Ben Ferguson (4:15)

Which brings us to Maine and let's talk about Maine's Democratic Secretary of State. You talk about being friendly. She actually tweeted out at one point in January 4th of 2022. So two years ago, in essence, the fundamental right of any American citizen to vote freely, fairly and to have their vote counted is the premise of our democracy. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not values to be compromised away. And that is what she tweeted out. Now, what's shocking about this is we've now found out more about this Democrat Secretary of State number one, she is not elected by the people, she's elected by the legislature. And explain a little bit about that because there's been some people that have been saying like this woman wasn't even elected by the people. That's how they do it in Maine. But she also, the reason why she said she wanted to take Trump off the ballot was mainly from what she described in the filings as from being from YouTube videos.

Ted Cruz (5:16)

Yeah, look, different states select secretaries of state differently. Some states the voters elect the Secretary of State. Other states in Texas, for example, the governor appoints the Secretary of State. So the Secretary of State in Texas is not elected. The Secretary of State is appointed by the governor. In Maine, they have a rather odd hybrid system where the state legislature elects the Secretary of State. Now the legislature elected her. Shanna Bellows is her name. She's a Democrat. She's a partisan Democrat. She was the executive director of the ACLU in Maine. And actually, interestingly, she's not a lawyer. She doesn't have a law degree. She's never been to law school. And she purported to make a definitive determination of what the Constitution, of what the 14th amendment, section three means, what it holds, and make a determination that Donald Trump has engaged in insurrection. That decision will not stand. She didn't follow anything resembling due process that any court of law would recognize. And I think what the next step will be that this is being challenged in Maine state court. It goes to a main trial court initially, and then it could be appealed to the Maine Supreme Court. I think there's a very good chance the main trial court reverses it. I don't know the particular judge it'll be in front of, but the right decision would be to reverse it, the main trial court. But what's really gonna decide this is the Colorado appeal. If I am right that the Supreme Court will take the Colorado case and they will decide it quickly, that determination is going to be conclusive on Maine as well.

Ben Ferguson (7:00)

So when you look at where this is moving forward, and I want to talk the politics of this for a second, what this seems to be is Democrats moving to what I describe as phase two of their radical get rid of our Constitution, our freedoms, our democracy. As she described, quoting her, the fundamental rights of any American citizens to vote freely, fairly, and have their vote counted. Right. It is the core premise of our democracy. Except if you go back 2016, Senator, look at what Democrats did. They tried to overthrow the will of the people by impeaching Donald Trump using a dossier they knew was created by the Democrats. It was paid for by the Democratic National Committee and paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign. That's an. That's a fact, undisputed fact. We know that now. In fact, they were even fined for. For misappropriating money with. With how they paid for that dossier. Democrats that were trying to impeach the president then, because they didn't like who the people chose, knew they were impeaching the president off of. Off of, basically a story that they created out of thin air. So now that didn't work, they move on to phase two, which is, all right, well, we can't trust that you're going to pick the candidate that we approve of, so we're going to take that candidate off the ballot. This seems to be phase two of this juncture. Now, which is. All right, forget the past impeachment. We're going to get rid of your guy even before you have a chance to vote for him. And this is happening in dozens of states around the country that are looking to do the same thing. How concerning should we be as voters that this is literally that slippery slope?

Ted Cruz (8:34)

Look, this is utterly brazen, and it's the full manifestation of a pattern that has been unfolding for years. And as you know, I talk about it at length in the last two books I wrote. I wrote. A year ago, I wrote a book called justice how the Left has Weaponized the Legal System that breaks down in detail how the radical left turned our legal system into an offensive weapon to try to attack their political opponents and destroy their political opponents. And then my latest book that just came out in the last couple of months is called how to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America. And it likewise describes how the cultural Marxists have seized the institutions of our government. The institutions of culture, journalism, education, colleges, K through 12 education, entertainment, sports, science, it goes through all of them. If you look at government under Barack Obama, we saw the federal government weaponized against the enemies of the White House. Under Barack Obama, the IRS began attacking conservatives and Tea Party groups. Under Barack Obama, the FBI, the doj, and the CIA began to be weaponized to attack their political enemies. But then when Donald Trump got elected, it shattered the brains of leftists. They did not imagine that that was even remotely possible. It could not happen. They were certain that Hillary was going to be anointed, was going to be coronated, and they would continue their control, their stranglehold on the federal government. When the voters had something different to say about it, when the voters said, no, we don't want that, and elected Donald Trump, we saw for four years, you want to talk about assaults on democracy? We saw, number one, right after the election, multiple Democrats object to the certification of Donald Trump. So, by the way, every Democrat, every media person who says it's an insurrection, it's an insurrection, because they objected to the election, ignores the fact that the Democrats had objected in 2001, had objected in 2005, and it objected in 2017. Every time a Republican had been elected in the 2000s, Democrats had objected. They'd done the same thing, but not only that. And by the way, one of the objectors was Jamie Raskin, ironically, one of the impeachment managers. He himself was claiming that it was an insurrection when he had, in fact objected on the floor of the House to Trump's first election as president. But if you look at what the DOJ and the FBI and the CIA and the Alphabet soup of federal agencies did when Trump was president, it was an assault on democracy. Why is that? Well, democracy says that the voters get to choose, and the voters elected Donald Trump in 2016. But yet the hard partisans who had burrowed into senior career positions at DOJ and the FBI and the rest of the agencies, they hated Trump. And they spent four years trying to undermine, trying to attack, trying to destroy the democratically elected President of the United States. That is an assault on democracy. That is reflecting a contempt for democratic values. That is saying, I, the career bureaucrat, know better who the president should be than the pesky voters, and I'm going to abuse my government power to try to destroy the office holder that the voters elected. Well, that angry, hateful, lashing out that we saw in 2017-2018-2019-2020, that we saw with Russia, Russia, Russia. That we saw with the Steele dossier, that we saw with the relentless attack. The newest manifestation is what is happening in Colorado and what is happening in Maine. If you look at Colorado, the Colorado Supreme Court has seven members, all Democrats. They've been appointed by Democrat governors in Colorado. Interestingly, it was a 4:3 decision from the Colorado Supreme Court. The four justices who were in the majority, none of them went to school in Colorado. They all went to Harvard and Yale. The three justices who went to law school in Colorado all dissented. And it shows you something about just how radicalized the elite schools have been. Actually, one of those four justices is a woman I went to law school with. I was on the law review with her. I knew her well. She was a partisan Democrat then. But I gotta say, where she and her three other liberal justices are now is breathtaking, because they are saying, we don't care what the voters want in Colorado. The Secretary of State in Maine is saying, I don't care what the voters want in Maine. I hate Trump so much. You cannot vote for them. That has no precedent in our nation's history.

C (13:37)

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Ben Ferguson (15:06)

You look at these moving forward and continuing an assault on our democracy. It brings me to phase three. And you warned about this in your book. You alluded to it a second ago. But I want to dive into this more. Democrats, if they don't get their way on election day, then they try to impeach a conservative. Then if, then another candidate comes out they find threatening, now they're just going to try to take him off the ballot. If that doesn't work and the Supreme Court, you know, shuts it down nine zero or eight one or whatever, seven two, then I think we can all agree stage three would be okay. Well, the next time we have a chance to pack that court, which is what you warned about in your book, then we're just going to pack the court until we get the votes we need so then we can kick people off ballots anywhere we want to in America. Am I crazy to think that's where we're going?

Ted Cruz (15:50)

You're not crazy. And it is exactly where, where we're going. The Democrats, they believe the ends justify the means. They have convinced themselves Donald Trump is Hitler and therefore in order to stop Hitler, anything, anything, anything is justified. And destroying norms, destroying the principle that, that the voters decide elections, that's, that's perfectly okay from their perspective, destroying the rule of law, destroying the Supreme Court. Look, you've seen Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice and Democrats in the Senate wage war on the US Supreme Court, trying to delegitimize the court, trying to destroy trust because they don't like the rulings coming from the court and it's perfectly acceptable. They apparently have no compunction, no, no tiny voice in them says, well, maybe our country is worse off. They don't have that voice. They don't respond to it. Instead, they're willing to do whatever it takes because they're convinced with a messianic zeal. It's a zealotry that is reminiscent of the fervor of a religious zealot, of a fanatic. It has become their life purpose to hate and attack Donald Trump and to destroy every institution in America, if necessary, to stop Donald Trump.

Ben Ferguson (17:11)

When this news broke of Maine's top elected official removing Trump from the 2024 primary ballot, the shocking part was in the devil, in the details of the decision on why they decided to do it. They, of course, said, oh, what was January 6th? Insurrection. But they actually cited YouTube videos, which is one of the reasons why to kick him off the ballot. And even on cnn, they couldn't get this past their own commentators who said this. Listen carefully.

Ted Cruz (17:41)

Interesting discussion. An interesting take from the main Secretary of state here. The 14th amendment, section three says in plain text that if you shall have engaged in insurrection, you can't be in office. She takes that to mean that if she determines that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection, he can't be on the main primary ballot. Is it that simple?

D (18:02)

No, it's not that simple. So clearly, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says, Engage in insurrection, you're out. We all have that. The complicated part, and where we are going to see this play out in the courts is who gets to decide and by what process. Now, it's important to note, and in the ruling, the Secretary of State we just heard from says she's basically following the same legal reasoning as the Colorado Supreme Court did last week. And she says in her ruling, if this gets struck down in Colorado, we're out of luck, too. So she's basing it on the same legal argument. Let me sort of lay out the arguments, both sides. And by the way, it's worth saying we're all theorizing here, we're in legally unknown territory. The argument against is, first of all, the 14th Amendment, Section 5 says Congress has the authority to pass laws to implement this. They did. They passed the criminal law. And the argument is that means Congress, not the states. But perhaps, and this is the argument that the main Secretary of State in Colorado made, the states can do it, too. If that's true, then Section two, question two is, were the processes, were these hearings fair? Did they comport with due process? And I think there's a question there with regard to what Maine did, because if you look at the hearing, and she details this in the ruling, they heard from one fact witness, a law professor, she based her ruling on a lot of documents. But also YouTube clips.

Ben Ferguson (19:18)

I mean, Senator, also YouTube clips. And one witness who is a law professor. I'm gonna go out in a limb here and say it's probably a liberal law professor they found to make the argument. And so now that's enough that we can just say, yep, you can't vote for you. The candidate you want to choose that the Republican Party chooses because we think he's a threat to the Democratic Party. So therefore, you don't have the option. Like, this is the world we live in now in 2024.

Ted Cruz (19:43)

You know, and it's interesting that that legal commentator on CNN is very liberal, but. But even he is saying this is ridiculous. Look, the text of the 14th Amendment, Section 3, here's what it says. It says, quote, no person shall be a senator or representative in Congress or elector, a president and Vice president, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States or under any state who, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid and comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two thirds of each house, remove such disability. Now, this was passed right in the wake of the Civil War, and it was designed to stop people who had fought in the Confederate army from serving in government office. That if you had been part of an army waging war, a civil war. Look, at the end of the day, the Civil war killed over 600,000Americans. It was a war that waged on for four years. It was the bloodiest war in American history. And the 14th Amendment concluded if you were a Confederate soldier, you were not going to be a senator, a congressman, you were not going to be president, you were not going to be a federal officer. That was written into law. Now, it is. It defies reason, logic and facts to suggest that Donald Trump standing up and giving a speech on January 6 in which he urged people to be peaceful, not to be violent, was somehow equivalent to leading a brigade in the Civil War and. And fighting a war, by the way, insurrection. So the central question here is whether or not Donald Trump is guilty of engaging in insurrection. Now, we don't entirely have to theorize on this. Actually, the United States Congress has defined insurrection. So there is a statute. The statute is 18 USC Section 2383. It is entitled rebellion or insurrection. Here's the definition of it. Whoever incites, sets, on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title, or in prison not more than 10 years or, or both, and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States. So this is defined, and it's defined specifically with regard to the 14th amendment, that if you're convicted of this under the terms of the statute, you're disqualified under the 14th Amendment. Now, interestingly enough, Jack Smith is literally trying to throw the book at Donald Trump. He has brought two different indictments, one in Florida, one in D.C. jack Smith is Javert. He. He is. He is pursuing Jean Valjean. And he will not stop, no matter what. Jack Smith has demonstrated that he is not constrained by the bounds of law. When he went after Bob McDonnell, the Republican governor of Virginia, when he indicted him and ended up destroying his political career, that ended up being reversed unanimously by the Supreme Court. Nine to nothing. Actually, eight to nothing, because one of the justices was recused. But the fact that, that it was lawless did not stop Jack Smith. Well, you know what? Jack Smith has not indicted Donald Trump under 18 USC section 2383. He has not charged him with insurrection. Donald Trump is not charged with insurrection in any court of law anywhere in the country. And there is a reason. Even a rabidly partisan, obsessed prosecutor like Jack Smith, even in an incredibly friendly venue like the District of Columbia with a very left wing judge and with a jury pool that voted 94% Democrat, even there, Jack Smith and his team no doubt concluded we don't have the evidence to charge Trump with insurrection. Now, what did the main Secretary of state say? Ah, evidence. Evidence. I look at a YouTube video. Ice. You know what? Gosh. Everyone on TV says insurrection. It must be an insurrection, because every Democrat I know screams insurrection when they look at Trump. It is a lawless determination. And that's why. That's one of the many reasons why I believe the Supreme Court will reverse the Colorado Supreme Court. And as I said, I think there's a very good chance they'll do so unanimously.

Ben Ferguson (24:22)

All right, so let's move into the politics and the timing of this year. We're very close now to getting into the primaries. We're talking about Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina center, you know, this map and this calendar and how important it is when you ran for president. And this could linger on with this over Donald Trump's head with state after state trying to kick him off the ballot. How long could we have to wait until the Supreme Court gets involved? And then how long would we have to wait for the ruling for this to come down? Are we weeks or months? How long could this, how does this play out at the Supreme Court?

Ted Cruz (24:58)

Well, the appeal is already pending at the Supreme Court. So last week, last Wednesday, the Colorado Republican Party asked the Supreme Court to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court's decision so that, that the initial appeal papers have been filed. In the interim, Trump's name is on the ballot. And in Colorado, and that was under the terms of the Colorado Supreme Court decision. Which is it? They stayed their own decision pending appeal. They recognized the massive consequences of it. So the primary in Colorado is on March 5th. And so right now, Trump's name is on the March 5th ballot. With the appeal filed, the court could act exceptionally quickly. The court could act in a matter of days or weeks. And there are times for emergency appeals that the court schedules a very expedited briefing schedule, schedules oral arguments, and issues a decision. I hope they do that. Look, there's a chance they take their time and let it play out because the Colorado Supreme Court decision is stayed. And so they could say, well, look, he's gonna be on the ballot, so there's no urgency or exigency. And by the way, in Maine, there's a good chance the Maine courts overturn the Maine Secretary of State's decision. If that happens, then there is no immediate threat to the voters being denied the ability to elect the candidate of their choice. I hope the court doesn't slow down or doesn't take their time doing it. I hope they resolve this quickly. I think it's important to have clarity nationally. But the court has the ability, there are times where it has briefed and heard argument and issued decisions within a matter of days. So it has the ability to move very quickly. During Bush versus Gore, during those 36 days when we had multiple recounts in Florida, as you'll recall, I was part of the legal team that was litigating Bush versus Gore. I was down in Tallahassee representing George W. Bush. In those 36 days, we went to the U.S. supreme Court twice and within that period, briefed out the case, had oral argument, and had decisions two different times from the US Supreme Court within those 36 days. So when the court wants to, it can move exceptionally fast. I would note also that between the two, look, in terms of the general election, the odds are not great that Colorado is going to be a swing state. Joe Biden won Colorado by about 14 points last time. And so Colorado is not anticipated to be a swing state in November. Maine, interestingly enough, is. So Maine has an unusual way of allocating its electoral votes. Maine has a total of four electoral votes, and two of them go to the winner of the state, and then one goes to the winner of one congressional district and another goes to the winner of another congressional district. So Maine has two congressional districts. What's interesting about that is even though Maine has been a reliably Democrat state in presidential elections for some time, one of the two congressional districts in Maine quite regularly will vote for Republicans. And so Trump won one electoral vote out of Maine, out of one of the districts, he won, the other three he lost. And that could easily happen again. And listen, if this election was close, it could literally come down to that single electoral vote in Maine deciding the outcome. And so the decision in Maine is quite consequential. It's also consequential going forward. Do other states, in particular swing states, make the same determination? Do you see bigger states, a Pennsylvania, a Michigan, a Wisconsin? Do you see states like that that are very much in play, that very much could go either way? Do you see them engage and try to follow this pattern? And if these left wing partisans were to succeed in removing Trump from the ballot, I think the risk would be very high that you would see other bigger and more consequential swing states following that pattern. Now, I don't think that's going to happen because they're not going to succeed. And by the way, there's an obvious escalation at some point. If the left weaponizes the legal system to such an extent that they try to remove the Republican nominee from the general election ballot, you're likely to see red states reciprocate and try to remove the Democrat nominee from the ballot. This can be a mutually assured destruction, which is one of the reasons I don't think there's any chance the Supreme Court allows this Colorado decision to go into effect, because it undermines the ability of the voters to choose who they want as president. And that is as foundational to democracy in our country as anything there is.

C (30:03)

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Ben Ferguson (30:24)

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Ben Ferguson (31:31)

Finally on this, there's the political ramifications of this. There's a lot of conservative voters now that are very up set. I've heard from more people that are not necessarily big fans of Donald Trump, that are now like, the hell with this. I'm going to stand behind Donald Trump because this is just so egregious. Do you think the Democrats overplayed their hand here politically and the backfire could be catastrophic to them? Or by the time we get to election Day, will a lot of this just be forgotten?

Ted Cruz (32:02)

Well, I think politically this benefits Trump in the primary. You know, rewind, go back, go back to our early podcasts. Last year when the first Trump indictment, when the Alvin Bragg indictment came down, you and I went on air. And right after that indictment, I went on this podcast and I told the podcast viewers, I said, donald Trump will go up 10 points in the polls as a result of this. That was a prediction I made immediately after the indictment came down. A week later, Donald Trump was up 10 points in the polls. And by the way, he's never come down since. If you look at a year ago, the poll numbers had a much more competitive race between Trump and DeSantis a year ago. And then the first indictment came and then the second, and then the third, and then the fourth. And Trump's numbers went up and up and up and everyone else's numbers went down. And I think one of the effects is in a Republican primary, people rallied around Trump. Look, when the Colorado Supreme Court decision came down, all of Trump's opponents immediately denounced it, which you had to do. It was a lawless abuse of power. I also think the Democrats are quite fond of that. Every single Democrat in elected office wants Trump to be the nominee, but at the same time, so they are happy with helping Trump in the primary because that's the outcome they want in the general. Assuming this Colorado decision is overturned, assuming the main decision is overturned, it could backfire. You could see some independent and swing voters get ticked off in a state like Maine that has independence that might have some, some lasting legacy, in a state like Colorado that has some independence that might have some impact as well. I have not seen any evidence that this abuse of power is hurting Democrats in a general election. It may be the case, but one of the challenges is that the media is so utterly corrupt that they're by and large not reporting on it. But I would tell listeners a verdict anytime you're talking with leftists who are arguing and they're trotting out language like we must save democracy, you know, it's a great opportunity to say, oh, save democracy. You mean like Colorado, like Maine, like preventing the voters from actually voting for the candidate they want to vote for. Explain to me how exactly it's saving democracy to stop the voters from voting for the candidate they want to vote for. And, and I don't know of a leftist who could argue against that other than to just jabber. You know, Trump is evil. Trump is evil. Trump is evil. Rather than actually engage in reason and logic. And so I'm not convinced this abuse of power will have a massive ish impact on turnout in November. But I do think it helps Trump in the primaries.

Ben Ferguson (34:56)

It's going to be a very interesting 2024. Obviously we are going to cover it all for you here on Verdict and Happy New Year to you and your family, everyone of you listening. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button, that auto download button, or an Apple the Follow button as the algorithms have changed a lot at the end of this year. So make sure you check and see if you have Follow if you're listening on Apple Share this podcast on social media where wherever you are, we will we are looking forward to bring you a lot of information. This is going to be a very active year. So thank you for spending time with us on your New year. Happy New Year to each and every one of you. Center Happy New Year to you as well. And I know you want to say to all the listeners again, happy New Year's to them.

Ted Cruz (35:34)

Happy new year. And may 2024 be an extraordinary year for our nation. May God bless you and your family. And may God continue to bless the United States of America.

Ben Ferguson (35:44)

We'll see you back here on Wednesday morning.