← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
What's Next for Tik Tok in America, Biden's Pandora's Box plus Trump Nominations Move Forward Week In Review
00:29:07
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- [00:00]
Ted Cruz
Welcome.
- [00:01]
Ben Ferguson
It is Verdict with Ted Cruz, Weekend Review, Ben Ferguson with you. And these are the stories that you may have missed that we talked about this week. First up, Tick Tock went down in America, but then it was saved at the last moment temporarily. So what is going to happen moving forward? And is it a national security threat? We're going to dive into that coming up in just a moment. Also, Joe Biden decided to pardon a lot of his family members and their spouses. Well, could it have opened up Pandora's box? Apparently, many of those people that got those pardons may have to come and testify now before Congress and will not be able to plead the Fifth. We'll explain exactly what we mean in just a moment. And finally, the confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill continue to roll on. We'll have some of the highlights of this past week of Senator Cruz talking with several of the nominees. It is the Weekend Review and it starts right now. Let's move to TikTok for a second because this has actually been a big conversation around the inauguration, elections having consequences, laws having consequences, Supreme Court getting involved. So can we take it back to square one so that people that maybe weren't paying attention to TikTok maybe don't use it, they understand TikTok is extremely important to a younger generation. And there are a lot of Americans that make a living on TikTok. There are a lot of people that supports their businesses. There is a lot of things on TikTok that you can say are very good. There are a lot of things you can also say are very bad. But explain what happened with TikTok and why it was shut down.
- [01:39]
Ted Cruz
Well, Congress passed a law last year dealing with TikTok. TikTok is owned and controlled by a company called ByteDance. ByteDance is a Chinese company and it's a Chinese company that is under the direct control of the Chinese Communist government. The Chinese Communist government uses TikTok and uses it in a way that I think poses a very real national security risk to the United States. There are some hundred and seventy million Americans that use TikTok overwhelmingly young people, teenagers, young adults, young professionals. And the Chinese Communist government uses it, number one, to engage in espionage, to monitor what those Americans are doing, what they're saying potentially where they are. They have the potential to monitor their locations. But number two, the Chinese Communist government uses TikTok aggressively to push propaganda, to push propaganda that is, number one, pro China. And they suppress content, things like Tiananmen Square. They suppress content about the 1 million Uyghurs that are in concentration camps in China. They suppress content about Hong Kong or China or Taiwan. But. But they also push anti American content. They push anti capitalist content, they push communist content, they push socialist content. They also push harmful content to young people. They push substance abuse, they push self harm, they push suicidal ideation. I gotta say that the same company that owns TikTok, they have a TikTok version in China that's very different from the TikTok in America. The Chinese kids that are on TikTok, they're getting videos on math and calculus, and they're limited in the number of hours they can do it, but it's developing the kind of skills that are gonna make them really effective in life. You know, the Chinese kids are getting calculus and our kids are getting chewing tide pods. Uh, that ain't good. It. The Chinese communist government is not doing it because they love our kids and they want to see a good outcome. Uh, we also see heavily skewed political propaganda. So for example, antisemitism, anti Israel, pro Hamas, pro Hezbollah propaganda is, is rampant on TikTok. And, and at a. At a complete differential, wildly different ratios than on other social media platforms. And so, given China's malevolent use of TikTok, Congress passed a bipartisan bill designed to force China to divest from TikTok. And the terms of the bill said that that TikTok had to shut down by January 19th unless it had been sold and was no longer under the ownership or control of the Chinese communist government. Now, TikTok has done next to nothing to comply with the efforts to sell itself. In fact, they brazenly said, we will not sell. Instead, they've tried to do a couple of things. Number one, they've tried to engage in litigation. They filed lawsuits. Uh, they went all the way to the U.S. supreme Court. They argued at the U.S. supreme Court, and TikTok lost unanimously. The Supreme Court said, no, your First Amendment argument is not valid. So the first amendment protects the free speech rights of Americans, but it doesn't protect the Chinese communist government. And the Supreme Court unanimously concluded, this law is focused on national security. It's not trying to suppress any Americans free speech. It is trying to prevent a hostile government from being able to engage in espionage and propaganda in the United States. So they devoted a lot of time to litigation, a lot of time to lobbyists. They've had lobbyists descend on Capitol Hill trying to lobby against the ban. Well, Saturday night at midnight, TikTok turned itself off. And I will tell you, there were teenagers and young people all across the country that expressed enormous dismay when it shut down. But they shut it down. And so TikTok for most of Sunday was shut down. And then Sunday afternoon they turned it back on. And they turned it back on because Trump had indicated that he intends to, to give, give TikTok another 90 days. The statute has a provision that the President can extend the ban for 90 days in order to help facilitate a sale of TikTok. And Trump has said that's what he intends to do. Look, my view on this, if in the next 90 days TikTok follows through and sells the company to a non Chinese buyer, a non Chinese government controlled buyer, ideally to an American company, that will be a very, very good thing. The objective of this law, it's important to understand the objective of this law was never to ban TikTok. The objective of this law was to force the Chinese Communist government to end its ownership and control of TikTok. I don't know if that's going to happen. I hope it's going to happen. I am not certain what Trump is going to end up doing, but at least right now he's indicating that he intends to exercise the 90 day extension to give TikTok time to consummate the sale. And so we'll see what happens in the next 90 days.
- [07:07]
Ben Ferguson
One last thing about TikTok, your opinion, if it is a threat to national security and to our way of life, and that's why you say it's so important for it to be sold to a non Chinese controlled company.
- [07:22]
Ted Cruz
Absolutely. That, that's why you had overwhelming bipartisan support for this legislation. Because what China is doing with TikTok is, is, is really harmful. And, and, and it, and it's a way to spy on Americans and it's also a, a way to really inject harmful content. They're trying to drive our country in directions that tears America down and they're not doing it. You know, this is not complaining about, well, gosh, Hollywood producers are not making wholesome movies anymore. This is an adversary that is deliberately pumping propaganda to our children. And we would be a foolish nation if we said, hey, we're great with the Chinese Communists having an open pipeline to our kids. That's why Congress acted. And as I said, I don't know what President Trump will do, but certainly my counsel to him will be use this law as leverage and let's force China to sell TikTok.
- [08:20]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, it's going to be really interesting to see how this happens. Let me ask you one final question on this Inauguration Day.
- [08:26]
Ted Cruz
Didn't you just have a final question?
- [08:28]
Ben Ferguson
I got no, this is, overall, though, this is.
- [08:30]
Ted Cruz
Are you like a used car salesman? One more thing, one more thing. Would you like some undercover coverage?
- [08:37]
Ben Ferguson
Hey, I'm not there. I get my bonus question. That's my story and I'm sticking with it. When you look at where we are January 20, 2025, how much, how excited are you for what we're about to witness compared to January 20th of 2017 because of how prepared we are this time?
- [08:59]
Ted Cruz
Much more excited because I think we're much more prepared. We're hitting the ground running. As I said, the initial Trump team, they'd never done this before. The initial Trump White House had never worked in the federal government. I think there's just a much greater level of experience and also awareness of the deep state awareness of the career bureaucrats who, who, who fight against a, a common sense, free market, freedom oriented agenda. And, and look, as I look at this array of Cabinet nominees, I'm really excited. And, and I think the, the most consistent characterization of these or characteristic of these nominees is that they're change agents, they're disruptors, and they're, they're going into these agencies to change and disrupt how they operate. I think that's a very good thing. Now listen, there are going to be moments of chaos. They're going to be mistakes that are made. The old Silicon Valley phrase of, you know, move fast and break things, I think that's what we're going to see. They're going to move fast and some things, some things won't work. But I'm excited because I think the overwhelming majority of what's accomplished will be very, very good for the country.
- [10:07]
Ben Ferguson
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. Now on to story number two. No doubt about it. Lastly, I want to get your thoughts on something that was said in Trump's first sit down interview that he did in the Oval Office. He did it with our good friend Sean Hannity and he was asked about the pardons that Joe Biden gave out and he made a comment, and I want to get your reaction to it about, hey, he may have messed up because he didn't pardon himself. Take a listen.
- [10:41]
Donald Trump
He heard that I was going to do, I didn't want to do it. I was given the option. They said, sir, would you like to pardon everybody, including yourself? I said, I'm not going to pardon anybody. We didn't do anything. Wrong. And we had people that suffered. They're incredible patriots. We had people that suffered. You had Bannon put in jail. You had Peter Navarro put in jail. You had people that suffered. And far worse than that, they've lost their fortunes. They've lost their whatever, their nest egg, paying it to lawyers. And those people. And people said, do you want. And they don't even, they wouldn't have even taken most of those people. They wouldn't have even taken a pardon. This guy went around giving everybody pardons. And, you know, the funny thing, maybe the sad thing is he didn't give himself a pardon.
- [11:33]
Ben Ferguson
He didn't give himself a pardon. Senator, I gotta, I gotta ask you your take on that. Is that, is that a foreshadowing comment coming from, from Donald Trump there?
- [11:45]
Ted Cruz
Well, listen, it may well be. And we've been, been very clear. We've talked a lot on, on, on Verdict about how the scandal with, with Hunter Biden and the Biden crime family was never about Hunter being a, you know, guy who abuses drugs and has made a lot of wrong choices in life. The scandal was always that the entire Biden family made millions of dollars selling favors from the big guy, selling favors from Joe Biden. It was always about Joe Biden's corruption. And we talked a lot about how the Biden doj, the tell in terms of whether they were being politicized on protecting Biden, would be if they fought in the Hunter Biden investigation to protect Joe himself and to prevent any inquiry into his corruption, if they kept it focused on the drug crime or the gun crime or even the income tax crimes that were personal to Hunter rather than examining the corruption, that's exactly what they did. And so I think that corruption needs to be investigated and I think we need to enforce the law fairly, regardless of party. And I got to say, by the way, we predicted on this podcast when, when the we, number one, predicted the Hunter Biden pardon. And in fact, I put the odds of the Hunter Biden Pardon at 100%. We even predicted the date, I said it would be December of 2024. It happened on December 1st of 2024. But second, when that happened, we went on this podcast and predicted, said he's going to pardon the rest of his family. Well, he did that on the very last day, moments before he left office. He pardoned the rest of his family because they were all involved in the corruption. They were all involved in selling favors. And so right now, the only one with potential liability is Joe Biden himself. And, you know, Trump's right that it's interesting he didn't pardon himself. Um, we'll. We'll see if that has real consequences. By the way, one of the results of all these pardons is that Congress can now subpoena the members of the Biden family and force them to answer questions under oath, and they don't have a Fifth Amendment right to decline to answer.
- [13:58]
Ben Ferguson
Really? Okay, So a lot of people don't know that, including me. So explain that a little bit for everybody, because that is. That is big news.
- [14:05]
Ted Cruz
So the Fifth Amendment says that. That you can't be forced to testify against yourself. Now, that only applies if you have criminal jeopardy. If you can be prosecuted once you've been pardoned, you have no criminal jeopardy, which means you don't have the right to say, I'm not gonna answer that because I might incriminate myself in a crime, because if it's a federal crime, you can't be prosecuted for it, which means if you refuse to answer, you can be held in contempt and put in jail. And so it has changed. I will be.
- [14:39]
Ben Ferguson
There's a very. Hold on. There's a very real chance that members of the Biden crime family that were pardoned could be asked to come and testify in Congress, and they would be forced to answer the questions for the reasons you just stated.
- [14:53]
Ted Cruz
Yep.
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Ben Ferguson
And if they don't, by the way.
- [14:55]
Ted Cruz
Same is true about Fauci, that, you know, Biden pardoned Fauci. That means Fauci doesn't have a Fifth Amendment right to refuse to answer questions under oath. I certainly hope that he's forced to answer those questions. And I gotta say, so, hold on, hypothetical.
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Ben Ferguson
You get Fauci in front of you, you start asking him questions, and he just refuses to answer those questions. Is that in contempt of Congress at that point?
- [15:19]
Ted Cruz
Well, Congress has to vote to hold him in contempt for refusing to answer those questions, and then the Department of Justice has to prosecute him. I gotta say, I think if Congress voted to hold him in contempt, I think DOJ would prosecute him. And by the way, to be clear, the Biden Department of Justice. Trump mentioned putting Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro in prison. They did that because they held them in contempt of Congress. And that was even aside from from pleading the Fifth there. They just refused to testify, and they argued, they asserted executive privilege, and DOJ prosecuted them after Congress, after the House voted to hold him in contempt of Congress as before.
- [15:56]
Ben Ferguson
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. I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed. So as I mentioned earlier, what he did do today was some pretty incredible work on the Hill. Senator Cruz questioned Elise Stefanik in the confirmation hearing and I want you to hear what he had to say. Take a listen to what Senator Cruz had to say today on Capitol Hill in the questioning of Elise Stefanik.
- [16:27]
Marco Rubio
Congratulations on your nomination. You're going to be terrific. I want to go back to a topic you discussed with Senator Cornyn. I want to focus on Iran's push to build a nuclear arsenal, which poses, I think, the most immediate and acute threat to American national security. When the Ayatollah chants death to America, he means it. And I believe he would absolutely detonate a nuclear weapon over an American city if he could. The Trump administration got Iran's nuclear program in a box and kept it there. President Trump withdrew from the catastrophic Obama Iran nuclear deal in 2018. He imposed maximum pressure in 2019. He invoked the UN snapback mechanism in the UN Security Council Resolution 2231 to reimpose international sanctions in 2020. For that entire time, Iran was deterred from making significant advances on their nuclear program. They did not even enrich uranium above 5% or cascade advanced centrifuges. Starting in November 2020, the Iranian regime gambled that it could start rushing to a nuclear arsenal and the incoming Biden administration would let them. Unfortunately, that proved correct. In November, the regime approved a new law calling for major nuclear advances. In January, they started enriching at 20% at Fordo, the underground enrichment bunker built into a mountain that the Obama Iran nuclear deal left open. The incoming Biden administration responded with appeasement. In February, immediately after being inaugurated, they rushed to the UN to rescind President Trump's snapback, again allowing international sanctions to expire for the next four years. The administration continually dismantled pressure on the regime and refused to impose sanctions. We know the result today. The Ayatollah has achieved a nuclear breakout time of zero. We now face the very real possibility of an Iranian nuclear arsenal. I do not believe that this is a threat the US can tolerate, and I'm confident that both the president and Secretary of State Rubio agree. I asked Secretary of State Rubio whether he intends to go to the United nations and again trigger the snapback mechanism as a part of his written testimony to this committee. Here was Secretary Rubio's response. Quote, I believe it is in our national security interest for the UN Security Council to snap back the sanctions that were suspended under the jcpoa. I will execute the president's guidance and work with our allies to ensure that snapback takes place first. Do you agree with Secretary Rubio's assessment that it is in the national security interest of the United States to snap back those sanctions?
- [19:42]
Elise Stefanik
Yes.
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Marco Rubio
Talk about how you would execute a strategy to do so, either unilaterally or working with allies.
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Elise Stefanik
We will have to. That will be a strategy that I developed with the National Security Council in tandem with Secretary Rubio and President Trump to work with our allies within the United nations, within the Security Council. And there are allies that are already considering this and looking at it, and that has been publicly reported. But obviously pushing back on Iran is a top priority. It was a success during President Trump's first term and we've seen the catastrophic results in loss of life during the previous four years. When you have had an emboldened Iran that has led to directly the October 7th terrorist attack against Israel and Hezbollah firing tens of thousands of rockets against Israeli civilians. Civilians.
- [20:32]
Marco Rubio
Let's move to another topic. You and I talked about the deep rot in the United nations when it comes to supporting terrorism against America and our allies, especially Israel. As you discussed with Senator McCormick, UNWRA has for decades provided material support for Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza. The World Health Organization has also been deeply complicit in the use of hospitals by Hamas for terrorist activities, including for the holding of hostages. The complicity of these organizations deepened after October 7th. The Biden administration embraced UNRWA and the World Health Organization. Congress prohibited the Biden administration from funding unrwa, but the administration officials circumvented that prohibition by using UNRWA infrastructure yesterday. The President rightly and immediately withdrew our participation from them. I think that was a critical first step. But the next step is to enable American citizens to hold these organizations accountable. We currently have a very odd legal environment where these organizations enjoy more sovereign immunity than states and thus are shielded from accountability. Last Congress, I introduced the Liable act and was joined by four current members of this committee, including as well as Secretary of State Rubio. The bill will allow American victims of terrorism and their family to sue international organizations that support terrorism against this. I will soon reintroduce it in this Congress. What is your understanding of the role these organizations have played in facilitating terrorism against Americans, Israelis and our allies?
- [22:09]
Elise Stefanik
Well, unwra, there were individuals in UNRWA who participated, who executed and committed terrorist acts against Israel.Israel on October 7.Sinwar, the leader of Hamas carried an UNRWA passport. You had a Hamas data center under UNRWA headquarters. So the rot is deep. Congress made the right decision. I was proud to be one of the leaders when it came to defunding unrwa, and I am committed to holding them accountable and working with the U.S. senate and the U.S. house and the president if that legislation passes.
- [22:42]
Marco Rubio
Terrific. Thank you.
- [22:44]
Ben Ferguson
Now, there's also other big news that we want to talk about and that deals with the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State now has an even bigger job than any Secretary of State had during the time of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris being in office. And what's really cool about what's happening now is Donald Trump is empowering leaders to do their job well. Now, there was some big breaking news, and that is that President Donald Trump signed an executive order suspending all U. S. Foreign assistance programs for 80 days, pending a comprehensive review to ensure their alignment with his administration's policy objectives. Now, this suspension affects a wide range of global initiatives, including humanitarian aid, economic development and health programs. Notably, the U. S. Contributes approximately 70.3 billion annually in foreign aid supporting various international efforts. So where the present do. He said it's time for all of this to go back under a review and is calling out other countries for what he described as not paying their fair share. Who's going to be looking over this? Well, that would be Marco Rubio. He will do a deep dive into where your tax dollars are going and then come back with recommendations. What's also interesting is how this relates back to Marco Rubio and his conversation with Senator Cruz on January 17th. Take a listen to what he had to say then.
- [24:10]
Ted Cruz
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I got to say, boy, that.
- [24:13]
Marco Rubio
Sounds good, Mr. Chairman, that isn't as good as it sounds to me. Thank you. Well, congratulations, and I'm looking forward to the next two years working together.
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Ben Ferguson
Thank you.
- [24:21]
Marco Rubio
And the. Senator Rubio, let me say congratulations to you as well. We're going to miss you on this committee. We're going to miss you in the Senate. But you're going to do an extraordinary job at that Foggy Bottom. And I will say if. If they capture you and tie you up in the basement, we will send a team to pull you out. You know, as I look back over the last four years of the Biden Harris administration, there are a lot of policies that have done a lot of damage. Domestic policies, economic policies. But I think all of those pale compared to the damage that has been done to national security and foreign policy. Over the last four years, over the last four years, this administration has systematically undermined and, and abandon our allies, and it has systematically shown weakness and appeasement to our enemies. And the consequence has been disastrous. We've gone from four years ago peace and prosperity to today, a situation with wars across the globe and every enemy of America stronger than they were when this administration came into office. I am confident the incoming administration is going to change that direction. I am confident that President Trump in the White House and you as Secretary of State are going to shift us back to where we should be, which is standing by our friends and allies and standing up to our enemies. Do you agree with that assessment? Is that what you intend to do as Secretary of State?
- [25:50]
Secretary of State
Well, let me say first, the foreign policy of the United States will be set by the president. And my job is to advise on it and ultimately to execute. I think the president has been abundantly clear, and that is his policy is going to be driven about making America safer, stronger and more prosperous. As I said in my opening statement, everything the State Department does, every policy, every program, every dollar it spends, every initiative it takes, has to answer three questions. Does it make us safer? Does it make us stronger, or does it make us more prosperous? And if it doesn't, if the answer is not yes to one of those three, you're going to have a hard time moving that forward because that's the priority that the president, and that's the priority, by the way, voters gave this president when they elected him. You point to a number of things that I think are critically important. I'll phrase it a different way, but I think we're saying the same thing. We have lost deterrence in multiple theaters around the world. So as an example, and I use this as a small scale example, it's really an important one. I think the year was 2020, 2019. The Wagner Group tried to get cute and came after some of Americans. Americans operating in Syria. And fire from the sky rained down on them. And that group was pushed back pretty hard. That's deterrence. They threatened us and they knew what the response would be. I recall the consternation here and in other places when Soleimani met his demise. But I can tell you it impacted Iranian behavior for a substantial period of time. No matter how tough they talked, it impacted their behavior. I think it's important to reestablish deterrence. And to the extent that that's been lost for a variety of reasons, the lack of deterrence is an invitation to war. The lack of deterrence is an invitation to hostility. It prevents the very thing that we hope to achieve, which is peace and stability in the world. And I do think we've lost deterrence. And I think in some ways it contributed to what happened in Ukraine. An item I know is very close to you and you've worked very hard. And we talked earlier today about is energy dependence. I recall President Trump at both a NATO summit and at the United nations. And I recall the United nations one in particular. President Trump said Germany is dependent entirely going to be left dependent on China, on Russia for its energy. And they laughed at him. There were diplomats in the hall that were snickering. That's exactly what happened.
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Marco Rubio
It is.
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Secretary of State
One of the reasons why Putin believed he could invade Europe is because Europe would not push back because they depended on him so much for energy. Now Europe is to be congratulated. They have moved very swiftly, particularly the Germans, to diversify their energy resources. But one could argue that we may never have had that invasion had that dependence not existed, because maybe who would have thought the European response would have been more forceful than he anticipated. So I do think re establishing deterrence and strength is important because it prevents war and it gives us leverage in diplomacy where we Hope to solve 99.9% of the global disagreements we hope to solve through diplomacy, not through armed conflict.
- [28:45]
Marco Rubio
I think that's very well said.
- [28:48]
Ben Ferguson
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.