Sen. Ted Cruz and Michael Knowles | Fake Hispanic Irishmen, the State of Texas, and 2020’s Rapidly Shifting Electoral Landscape

Summary

The Charlie Kirk Show — Detailed Podcast Summary
Episode Title: Sen. Ted Cruz and Michael Knowles | Fake Hispanic Irishmen, the State of Texas, and 2020’s Rapidly Shifting Electoral Landscape
Date: July 16, 2020
Guests: Senator Ted Cruz, Michael Knowles
Host: Charlie Kirk

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Charlie Kirk Show features a wide-ranging, in-depth discussion between Charlie Kirk, Senator Ted Cruz, and Michael Knowles (co-hosts of the Verdict podcast). The trio tackles some of the pivotal issues affecting American politics and culture in 2020, including the impact of Big Tech on democracy, the dynamics of the 2020 election, the transformation of the Republican and Democratic parties, and the fate of Texas as a political battleground. Emphasis is placed on the culture war, challenges facing conservatives, and the urgent need for clarity and boldness within the movement.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. State of the Nation in 2020

[02:31 – 04:33]

• Sen. Ted Cruz characterizes 2020 as “nuts” due to the confluence of a global pandemic, economic crisis, and race riots.
• Reflects on the humor and absurdity of vandals targeting historical figures like Frederick Douglass, signaling a broader attack on American foundations.

"It's not that they're opposed to slavery. It's not that they're opposed to racism. It's that they hate America and they're trying to tear down the very foundations of our country."
— Ted Cruz [03:36]

• Emphasizes America's historical journey toward justice, not perfection.

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2. Sanctioned by China: A Badge of Honor

[05:17 – 07:17]

• Sen. Cruz recounts being sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), noting the irony and claiming it as a “badge of honor.”
• Details the CCP’s human rights abuses, their role in the COVID-19 pandemic, and their threat to global freedom.

“The Chinese government is directly responsible for over a half million deaths worldwide.”
— Ted Cruz [06:37]

• Highlights his longstanding opposition to CCP policies, criticizing those in both political parties who previously ignored or excused China’s actions.

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3. The Origin of the 'Verdict' Podcast

[08:24 – 09:49]

• Michael Knowles shares how the podcast launched during the Trump impeachment trial. Despite grueling late-night recordings, the show quickly rose to #1, revealing Americans’ hunger for substance and respect in political discourse.

“…if you show just a little bit of respect for the American people and for the audience, they will show how worthy they are of that respect…”
— Michael Knowles [09:00]

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4. Big Tech Censorship & the Free Market Dilemma

[11:10 – 16:35]

• Charlie Kirk raises concerns over the power of tech giants—now possibly exceeding that of government agencies—and questions whether government action is needed to ensure fairness.
• Sen. Cruz outlines three core solutions:
  1. Section 230 Repeal/Amendment: Remove special liability protections since tech companies no longer act as neutral platforms.
  2. Antitrust Action: Use existing laws to break up or restrain monopolistic behavior.
  3. Breach of Contract/Consumer Fraud: Hold them accountable for deceiving users regarding the reach and impartiality of their platforms.

"Big Tech censorship is the single greatest threat to free speech in America. And I think it's the single greatest threat to democracy in America."
— Ted Cruz [11:18]

• Knowles urges utilizing every available legal avenue instead of self-imposed conservative constraints and procedural hang-ups.

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5. The Toxic Influence of Tech Lobbying

[17:21 – 20:34]

• Kirk and Cruz criticize major conservative think tanks for being compromised by Big Tech funding, fostering paralysis in conservative policy.

“Much of conservative ink... is actually very closely connected to... Big tech gets people addicted to suckling at the teat of cash.”
— Ted Cruz [19:50]

• Cruz highlights the lack of transparency from tech companies and congressional challenges in enacting meaningful regulation.

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6. Inside Battles & Political Will for Reform

[20:34 – 29:26]

• Cruz describes lobbying Trump administration officials to confront Big Tech and lauds Attorney General Bill Barr’s (whom he dubs the “honey badger”) willingness to tackle complex legal challenges.
• Knowles and Kirk discuss Congressional and generational limitations—that many lawmakers do not understand Big Tech, leading to ineffective oversight.
• Cruz references Dr. Robert Epstein’s research into Google’s search result bias, noting its potential to sway millions of votes and the existential risk this poses to free and fair elections.

“In 2016, Google’s manipulated search outcome shifted 2.6 million votes to the Democrats.”
— Ted Cruz [31:28]

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7. The 2020 Election: New Fronts in the Culture War

[32:03 – 36:42]

• Kirk and Knowles critique the politicization of science during the pandemic, particularly on lockdowns, suggesting that public health messaging is being weaponized against conservatives and the Trump campaign.
• Knowles points to the “wokest virus ever,” mocking the perceived double standard for protests depending on political alignment.

“We think that we can have a nuanced, complex, nice rational debate here in the age of people tearing down statues, setting cities on fire, looting buildings in the name of social justice. That is not the time…”
— Michael Knowles [36:15]

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8. Texas, Beto “Fake Hispanic Irishman” O’Rourke, and Demographic Trends

[36:42 – 41:13]

• Kirk asks Cruz to assess Texas’s electoral future. Cruz notes that the shift is driven more by suburban voters (especially women) moving left, not necessarily the growing Hispanic population.
• Provides details on his tough 2018 Senate race, noting unprecedented Democratic turnout and spending.

“They more than double-doubled Democratic turnout... They took Democratic turnout from 1.8 million all the way up to 4 million. That is crazy. And that's hard to do.”
— Ted Cruz [40:07]

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9. Republican Messaging and the Culture War

[42:10 – 45:21]

• Knowles faults many Republicans for their timidity, standing in the “middle of the road,” and ceding cultural ground—arguing this isn’t a policy debate but a struggle over the country’s soul.

“…if you stand in the middle of the road, you are going to get hit by a truck. The stakes are only going to increase day by day.”
— Michael Knowles [42:17]

• Kirk and Cruz emphasize that the battle is now fundamentally cultural, where “winners and losers” are determined by who takes the fight to the opposition.

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10. Positive Messaging: Defending America's Founding Values

[46:28 – 52:26]

• Cruz urges conservatives to fight back confidently, highlighting the need to win both “hearts and minds,” especially among suburban voters.
• Calls out the Democratic Party’s problematic historical record on race and lauds the Republican tradition of fighting for equal opportunity.

“America is the most extraordinary country in the history of the world, we've got to engage on that terrain of ideas.”
— Ted Cruz [51:52]

• Stresses the importance of “arming people with information” and reaching voters directly—citing Turning Point USA’s efforts as a positive model.

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11. Final Thoughts & Election Outlook

[52:53 – End]

• Knowles stresses the importance of individual action: “It's up to us....” [52:53]
• Both guests advocate leveraging every available platform—especially podcasts—to counter legacy media, mobilize voters, and communicate conservative ideas.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “I look out the window and wonder if we're going to see frogs and locusts any minute now.”
  — Ted Cruz [02:40] (on the tumultuous sweep of 2020)

• “Listen, I despise communists. The Chinese Communist government, they are murderers, they are torturers, they have 1 million Uyghurs in concentration camps right now.”
  — Ted Cruz [05:34]

• “They [Big Tech] can curate your feed so that the only things you see are what they want you to see. And you're completely unaware of this. It is hidden.”
  — Ted Cruz [12:03]

• “We win and you lose.”
  — Michael Knowles paraphrasing Reagan [45:23]

• “If you stand in the middle of the road, you are going to get hit by a truck.”
  — Michael Knowles [42:17]

• “America is the most extraordinary country in the history of the world, we've got to engage on that terrain of ideas.”
  — Ted Cruz [51:52]

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• The State of the Nation / 2020 Tumult: [02:31–04:33]
• China Sanctions Cruz: [05:17–07:17]
• Genesis of Verdict Podcast: [08:24–09:49]
• Big Tech Regulation Solutions: [11:10–16:35]
• Tech Lobbying & Transparency: [17:21–20:34]
• Big Tech’s Impact on Elections: [28:39–32:03]
• On Lockdowns and the “Wokest Virus”: [34:30–36:42]
• Texas Politics & Electoral Trends: [37:28–41:13]
• Critique of Republican Strategy: [42:10–45:21]
• Winning Hearts & Minds/Conservative Messaging: [46:28–52:26]
• Closing Thoughts/Election Stakes: [52:53–End]

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Tone and Language

The conversation is lively, unapologetically conservative, laced with humor and sometimes sarcasm. Kirk, Cruz, and Knowles share camaraderie, self-deprecation, and a rhetorical style marrying earnest ideological concern with punchy, memorable lines. They frequently invoke historical references and blend cultural commentary with electoral analysis, seeking to energize and mobilize their audience.

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Conclusion

This episode serves as a primer on contemporary conservative anxieties regarding cultural upheaval, Big Tech overreach, electoral volatility, and the perceived need for stronger, more assertive Republican leadership. Listeners are encouraged to take personal responsibility—“It's up to us”—to defend freedom, shape culture, and ensure political victory. The hosts close by urging engagement through podcasts and grassroots activism, echoing their overarching message: the 2020 election is not just about policy, but the very future of America.

Transcript

[Michael Knowles]

Thank you for listening to this Podcast 1 production now available on Apple Podcasts,

[Charlie Kirk]

Podcast 1, Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Hey everybody. Special treat for you today on the Charlie Kirk show, an exclusive sit down interview with Michael Knowles and Senator Ted Cruz. They have a podcast called the Verdict. You're gonna really enjoy this conversation. We talk about big tech, we talk about Robert Francis O', Rourke, we talk about the 2020 election and so much more. So type in Charlie Kirkshire, your podcast provider, hit subscribe, give us a five star review to make sure you know when future episodes are coming. Email us freedom charliekirk.com Freedom charliekirk.com if you want a signed copy of the MAGA doctrine, type in Charlie Kirk show hit subscribe, give us a five star review, screenshot it and email us freedomarliekirk.com if you want to win a signed copy of the MAGA Doctrine. Also, thank you. For those of you that are supporting our [e-mail] support our monthly supporters, we have a special private video call we are going to be doing very soon. For those of you that are monthly supporters of our show, Ted Cruz, Michael Knowles here on the Charlie Kirk Show. Buckle up, everybody. Here we go.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

[Charlie Kirk]

Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

I want you to know we are

[Charlie Kirk]

lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

[Michael Knowles]

Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point usa.

[Charlie Kirk]

We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives. And we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show. I am joined by two special guests. We're very socially distanced. They are the co hosts of the Verdict. You can download the Verdict podcast. And of course, it's none other than Senator Ted Cruz and Michael Knowles. You both have joined the podcast before, but welcome together. Welcome, guys.

[Michael Knowles]

Thanks, Charlie. Good to be with you.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Great to be with you, Charlie.

[Charlie Kirk]

Awesome. So it's very strange times that we're living in, to say the least. Senator, you have, you do all of the representation for myself in Washington D.C. you go to Washington and represent us so I don't have to. Can you give us a status report of how the nation's capital, which I think is incredibly corrupt and backwards and not serving the interests of the American People, how are things going there? You're one of the few fighters. You're one of the few people that actually stands for liberty and stands for our country. Give us a status update from Washington.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Well, thank you, Charlie. Look, it's nuts 2020, when we started this year, who had on their bingo card global pandemic, Great Depression, and race riots? I mean, this has been. It's been a tough year, I think, for the country. I keep joking that I look out the window and wonder if we're going to see frogs and locusts any minute now. And it's also a divided year. I mean, we're angry that there's, you know, when you see people who are attacking the very foundations of our country, who are, you know, rioting in our cities, who are burning police cars and assaulting citizens and looting and destroying small businesses and murdering police officers, and when you see them attacking, you know, you look at the issue of statues. It started out with Confederate statues, and then very quickly it moved to attacking George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, because, you know, Lincoln and Grant were such big Confederates. And then it went nuts. It truly became the theater of the absurd when you had vandals deface a statue of Frederick Douglass, the great abolitionist. And all of this is when they're doing that, it's not that they're opposed to slavery. It's not that they're opposed to racism. It's not that they hate America and they're trying to tear down the very foundations of our country. And I think there are an awful lot of us across the country who are desperate for leaders to stand up and unapologetically proudly defend this nation, defend our Constitution, defend the Bill of Rights. And does that mean every aspect of American history is perfect? Of course not. But it has been a journey towards justice and a journey towards better realizing the principles and values of equality and justice and rule of law that America was founded upon.

[Charlie Kirk]

And, Senator, you're one of the few fighters that actually has done that in the last couple weeks. I have been very critical of, mostly Republicans, just to be honest, of how silent and how cowardly they have been. And you have been unafraid to speak your mind. I was really, you know, sad for you. Looks like you're not gonna be able to vacation in China this summer, so you will not be able to go. The Chinese Communist Party, I think, sanctioned, whatever that means, sanctioning a US Senator. So I suppose that your podcast will not be listened in the Wuhan region anytime soon. So I think that it's fair to say that WeChat will not. Will allow the verdict with Ted Cruz on it. So, Senator, any thoughts on that? I guess that you are now a sanctioned entity of the Chinese Communist Party?

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Yeah, yeah, look, it's a badge of honor. A day and a half ago, I woke up, my cell phone is my alarm clock and the first thing I saw was a whole series of texts that over the night while I slept, that the Chinese Communist government had sanctioned me and banned me from travel to China. And listen, I despise communists. The Chinese Communist government, they are murderers, they are torturers, they have 1 million Uyghurs in concentration camps right now. They have grotesque policies, one child policy, forced sterilization, forced abortions. They engage in suppression, they engage in censorship. They engage in massive theft of American intellectual property. And their cover up of the coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan, China was a direct cause of this global pandemic. The Chinese government is directly responsible for over a half million deaths worldwide. And you know, it's interesting, in recent weeks, in the wake of the pandemic, it's suddenly become fashionable in Washington for people to notice that the Chinese government is bad. Now I'm glad of it because there have been a lot of my colleagues, especially Democrats, but also some Republicans, who for years have been singing the praises of China and apologizing for China. And I gotta say, I've been in the Senate now eight years and I have been leading the fight for eight years. There's a reason China sanctioned me, which is that I've been leading the fight to stand up. I think the single biggest geopolitical threat facing the United States of America over the next century is China. And we need to stand up, we need to defend ourselves. We need to decouple our economy from the Chinese economy. We need to address the supply chain and our vulnerability. And we need. And so I am proud to continue to lead the fight against the threat that is communist.

[Michael Knowles]

There is a real downside here though, I have to say, Senator, which is that we have the Verdict podcast. We have it on YouTube, we have it on Apple podcasts, we have it on Google Play. We were just about to expand into TikTok. I had been working on my dance moves for weeks. And now, unfortunately, I suppose we're not.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

I'm sorry, I'm unwilling to exchange clothes with you or do any sort of synchronized whatever. Did you see the A rod one?

[Michael Knowles]

I don't think so.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Oh, it was okay. Look, when you're the father of a 12 year old, 9 year old. You see some things that are really. You see, let's just say it's not high art.

[Michael Knowles]

Okay, fair enough.

[Charlie Kirk]

I was really looking forward to both of you lip syncing to some song that has come out in the last couple years. You pick any of them. But I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to miss that. So, Michael, let's take a step back. How did this dynamic duo come together? This podcast was number one in all of podcasting. Obviously, the Senator is busy trying to protect our freedoms and liberties in dc. You're in la. Walk us through the story of this podcast, how it came together and also just some of the success you guys have had.

[Michael Knowles]

So we launched the podcast during impeachment. The Senator was obviously in the impeachment trial at the Capitol all day. And then around 10 or 11pm he would come on over to the studio. We'd record until 2 in the morning. Then I would get to go to sleep. He would get a couple hours, but then he'd have to go back to the Capitol the next day. That was the beginning of the podcast. That's how it launched. It hit number one, as I've joked before, did not expect the Senator to beat Joe Rogan. Not that I had low expectations for the man, but, you know, it was really great news to see that showed people were interested in their government. They just wanted a little more substance. But we had been talking about doing a show for probably a year and you know, the idea here being that a lot of people think that Americans are. They're stupid, they're not interested in their government, they don't want to know about their history or their politics. And that is just not the case. What we thought is that actually the American people are very interested in their government. They just don't want to be talked down to. They don't want to get 5 minute little sound bites. They want a little bit, they want to go a little bit deeper, they want some substance. And so we decided the impeachment was a great time to launch the show. And I think if you show just a little bit of respect for the American people and for the audience, audience, they will show how worthy they are of that respect and they'll show how low an opinion I think the mainstream media gatekeepers have had of them for many years.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, I mean, the activist media, which I call them because it's truly, there's no difference between the people in the streets that are shouting and burning and looting and someone at Huffington Post that happens to have a verified Twitter account that got hired. The only difference is the person that has the verified Twitter account probably made marginally better decisions towards the senior year in college. That's probably the only difference. And they got hired for buzzfeed. And instead of throwing a brick through a window, they throw a fake article at a senator. Like that's their vehicle for social change. So I completely agree that the kind of the over the top model of podcasting and being able to actually communicate directly with your target audience is the way that media is going. And that's exactly why the tech companies are trying to shut us all down. And so, Senator, I want to ask you about this because I'm a conservative free market capitalist. You and I have talked about this at length. I recently was rereading the Federalist Papers. And the founding fathers warned us about centralized power and they warned us about tyranny. And the greatest threat that they could think that would infringe on freedoms and liberties would be government. Now there's an argument to be made that some of these private companies actually have more power than the federal government, that Google could be more powerful than certain agencies of government. Is there an argument to be made that that the instruments of government should be used to maybe regulate or at least ensure fairness on some of these platforms? I know it's an uncomfortable conversation for some conservatives. I'd love to get your take on it.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Yeah, I think it is an enormous challenge, an enormous problem, and it's one that I've been so. I've chaired multiple hearings in the Senate on the issue of big tech censorship. I think big tech censorship is the single greatest threat to free speech in America. And I think it's the single greatest threat to democracy in America. America. And it's a complicated issue. So let's break it down into a couple of pieces. And by the way, this is something we've done on the verdict podcast multiple times is drill down into the details of this, because this. Let's start with the problem and then let's address the solution. Because the solution you rightly raised raises some challenging questions, particularly for those of us that believe in the free market. But let's start with the problem. There have always been biased journalists. From the beginning, from the very first journalist who was carving words into a stone tablet, there were biased journalists. What's different about big tech is the amalgamation of power that they have is on a scale and scope that has never been seen throughout human history. Google is more powerful than any company has been in the history of humanity. And it is ubiquitous. It is everywhere. But it is also invisible. So it's one thing. Look, if you read the New York Times, you can tell they're a shrill leftist propaganda rag. You can see it on the face. The problem with social media and big tech censorship is they do it invisibly. So if they decide we don't like what Charlie Kirk is saying and you post on social media, it can just disappear in the ether. And you have no idea when you post something on Twitter, when you post something on Facebook, you have no idea how many of the people who've said, I want to follow Charlie Kirk, I want to see what he has to say. You have no idea what percentage of those people actually see what you have to say. They can just invisibly shadow ban you. Even more insidious, they can curate your feed so that the only things you see are what they want you to see. And you're completely unaware of this. It is hidden. And we've got now over 70% of Americans get their news from social media, from the little computer we all carry in our pockets called our phone. That problem is massive. And Big Tech in recent years has gotten more and more brazen. They're more and more open about what they're doing. They're actively censoring conservatives, they're silencing views they disagree with, and they're promoting views they agree with. Things like the Black Lives Matter rioters and vandals, they're promoting like crazy. And that's dangerous. So then what do you do about it? Let's start with what we don't want. Nobody wants a government speech police. No one wants the federal government saying, okay, this speech is okay, this speech is not. That would be a disaster. But that doesn't mean there are no remedies. And so I've laid out three potential remedies that Congress can consider and the federal government can consider to respond to the blatant censorship. Number one is what's called Section 230 of the Communications Decency act, which is Congress a couple of decades ago, gave Big Tech a special immunity from liability. An immunity from liability nobody else enjoys. And it's a special benefit. It's a special privilege given to big Tech. And the reason for it is Congress believed that social media, the Internet, would be neutral public fora. In other words, that it wasn't fair to sue Facebook for a comment that was made on Facebook. If it's a third party user, it's not Facebook speaking. It's just whoever happens to Be posting, speaking. That was Congress's reasoning. It's a neutral public forum, so they should be immune from liability. Well, what's happened? They've changed their mind. They're not neutral anymore. They're now biased, they're censoring. And if they're not going to be neutral public forum, there's no reason on earth they should get a special immunity from liability from Congress. That's lever number one. Lever number two is the antitrust laws. It has long been against the law for monopolies to abuse their monopoly position. By any measure, Big Tech is bigger, richer, more powerful, has more power and control than AT&T was when it was broken up under the monopoly laws. Then it's bigger and more powerful than U.S. steel was. As they say in the Godfather, we're bigger than US Steel. Well, they're way bigger than US Steel. And the antitrust laws are a serious tool to treat this abuse of power. And then the third Avenue sounds in breach of contract or consumer fraud and deception. And stated pretty simply, when you sign up for a social media account, the implicit promise, the contract between the consumer and the social media, the big tech company implicitly is if you choose to follow someone, you'll see what they have to say. And if they choose to follow you, they'll see what you have to say. We now know that promise is a lie, that they are deceiving consumers, that if they disagree with your views. It doesn't matter that people say I want to hear Charlie Kirk. It doesn't matter that people say I want to hear the verdict podcast. If big Tech disagrees, they silence you. So there are real tools we could use to protect free speech. And given the power of Big Tech, I think it's really important that we use them.

[Charlie Kirk]

Michael, any thoughts on that?

[Michael Knowles]

Yes, I think, you know, the Senator just laid out three distinct legal avenues at our disposal. And one thing we've talked about a lot on Verdict is which one of these should we pursue? The answer is yes. The answer is all of them. I know very often, Charlie, how many times have you talked to conservatives where they get hung up on all the minutiae of these details? And well, I like this one, but I don't like this one. And we've got to hold ourselves to rules that our opponents aren't playing by. We've got to tie one hand behind our backs and jump up and down on a pogo stick. And the answer is we have a real goal here. We know that Big Tech is abusing its power. We know that they are violating the law as we can see plainly in front of us. And that needs to be taken care of using all of the available means before us.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah, and what I find so troubling is the amount of conservative think tanks that are funded directly by big tech. And I'm not going to say any names, you guys know who they are. And these tech, these big conservative think tanks. For years, Senator, you and I grew up reading some of their policy papers and now you read what they have to say on big tech and it comes out they're getting seven figure annual contributions. Something tells me that Google is not writing a check to that think tank because they love FA Hayek. Okay? It's not happening, okay? They're not writing a check to that think tank because they're so moved by Milton Friedman's pencil speech. They're writing that check because they're getting a piece of policy paper that can be distributed in center right circles to almost create a paralysis amongst the conservative movement so they can create almost a supergovernmental structure in Silicon Valley. And I have waited patiently for a competitor to rise up against these companies. And I know there's parler and all this. It's not even close to the same power or the same funding or the same amount of sophistication that Google and Facebook have. I mean Google is in the fiber business, they're in the medical business. They're in. It's beyond just social media. It's search engine optimization, all of it. And you mentioned the antitrust laws. The issue is that the antitrust laws were written for a completely different type of company where you're actually front facing selling a product where you could price gouge. And so what they'll do in the Sherman Antitrust act is a lot of these tech companies will try to hide behind the idea that, well, we don't really charge anything. Well, if you can't figure out what they're charging, they're selling you, okay? They're selling you to a potential vendor and they're selling all of your data around it. And so here's my question, Senator. When it comes to this, I'm cynical because I see a lot of your Republican colleagues that are bought and paid for by the tech companies. They just are. They get huge money from lobbyists that represent Google and Facebook and these other companies. We're talking 40, $50 million a year. And by the way, Google will spend about $38 million a year on government affairs. They laugh at how little money they have to spend on how Much they get back in return, they say millions. Yeah. They're like, oh, my goodness, it's a rounding error for them. Do you think that we can get congressional action, real congressional action on this, or is this going to be another issue like on immigration where you have the weak Republicans and the entire corrupt Democrat party that just try to sell our country out?

[Senator Ted Cruz]

All right, there are lots of elements of your question. Let's go in reverse order. Sadly, the last piece, probably the Democrats are going to be prostitutes for Big Tech and many of the Republicans are weak winds. Weak and blowing in the wind. Let's loop back to where you started. You're exactly right. Much of conservative ink of the sort of professional conservative think tanks and free market think tanks. This issue is actually very closely connected to where we started the conversation with China. Just like China, Big tech gets people addicted to suckling at the teat of cash. And it is, it is buying subservience. It is buying it cheap.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yes.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

And you know, by the way, anytime someone says it's not about the money, it's about the money. And listen, when it comes to conservatives or libertarians, and I love libertarians, but you get some of the folks that are getting paid a whole lot to argue and it's an easy argument. Well, hey, they're private companies. They're businesses. Let me point out any principled conservative, anyone who understands free markets. You're not an unabashed prostitute for big business. You believe in small businesses and entrepreneurs and big business loves big government. Big business gets in bed with big government. Monopolies have always exist in totalitarian and socialist economies. And so the notion that, well, because Google is a private company, there are no rules that apply to it, that is not conservative, it's not libertarian, it is destructive. And so how do we fix it? There are a couple of elements. One is just sunshine. And part of the reason I've chaired multiple hearings. So the left makes arguments. One of the arguments they make is. And one of the arguments Big Tech makes is there's no evidence of censorship. And this is like the old example of the kid who kills his parents and then pleads the mercy of the court because he's an orphan. It's true. There are not objective data that demonstrate censorship. Why? Because Big tech has all the data, it won't answer any questions. It has no transparency, no accountability. So if I've asked repeatedly, I've asked repeatedly in writing and orally, simple questions like, I'll give an example of questions that I've asked every big tech company in 2018, the last election cycle, how many posts from Republican candidates from office did you ban or shadow. Ban and throttle their coverage? How many posts from Democratic candidates from office did you ban or shadow Ban and throttle their coverage? Now, there is an objective answer. Facebook knows the number. It is a specific number. 622. Whatever it is, I don't know. You don't know because you know what they say when you ask them, go jump in a lake. I won't answer your question. They just, they won't answer. And so you can point to lots of examples, anecdotes. Now, it's never satisfying to argue by anecdote, but the reason all you have is anecdotes is because they won't release. They're a black box. So the way I've tried to solve it, I'm not confident about Congress passing legislation on this, this, but here's what could be done. So in the last three and a half years, I have spoken to damn near every person in the Trump administration who would listen to me on this. So I've spoken to the president multiple times. I've spoken to the Vice President. I've spoken to the Attorney General, both this attorney General and the prior Attorney General. I've spoken to the Deputy Attorney General about going after Big Tech. I've spoken to the head of the antitrust division about going after Big Tech. I've spoken to the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission about it. I've spoken to the commissioners of the FTC about it. I've spoken to the general counsel of the FTC about it. I've spoken to the chairman of the FCC about it. Now, we saw the Trump administration come out with an executive order on this just a few months ago. That was great. It was a very positive step in the right direction. I've been pushing three years for it to happen. One of the challenges, and you referenced this when you said the Sherman antitrust law was not written to solve this problem. One of the challenges, say, within doj, the Department of Justice, is you have lots of different silos that think about this problem within their narrow world. And what I've urged, folks, is, look, you need to think cross dimensionally and across disciplines. That's why I've laid out multiple theories of law, because this is a new challenge, this monopoly on information and news and communication. It's never happened before. And so we had actually on the Verdict podcast, one of our guests in one of the most recent shows we had was Bill Barr, the Attorney General. And you know, it's interesting. You watch Barr at a media interview. They're typically fairly brief. The media interview is usually some hostile lefty. And Barr's a very good lawyer. He's pretty buttoned down. He gives disciplined answers. What was fun about this podcast is Barr and I have been friends for 25 years. And so we spent a half hour. I'm not trying to play gotcha with him, I'm just talking and hanging out with him. We spent a lot of time talking about big tech censorship. And this was an issue that in the podcast, we pressed quite a bit. But it's interesting also the comments to the podcast, like, a lot of people were like, wow, Barr is really funny. And you don't see that, but he's got this wicked sardonic. He's got a very dry sense of humor. And I think my favorite moment of the podcast, Michael knows where I'm going, is I said, look, Barr has shown real courage to charge forward for rule of law with the media coming after him like the mob with pitchforks and torches at the end of Frankenstein. They're coming after Barr like that. And I used an analogy. I said, bill Barr, Bill, you are the Honey badger. And I gotta admit, I didn't think that was just sort of off the cuff. I didn't think Bill would have any

[Charlie Kirk]

idea what the Honey badger. I think it would just go right over the head. Right.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

He knew exactly what it was.

[Charlie Kirk]

And he.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

And it was. I was actually a little astonished. And it's like, you know, honey badger, don't care.

[Charlie Kirk]

That's right.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

And it was. It's my favorite moment where he. I mean, he was double overlapping.

[Michael Knowles]

It was a relief, actually, to know that the AG who is looking into these issues is at least familiar with YouTube. Seems like he's familiar with a lot of these other tech platforms.

[Charlie Kirk]

My favorite is at one of the hearings, I think the senator that you were hosting is one of. One of your colleagues, said, Mr. Zuckerberg, can you unlock my phone? Cause. No, I'm kidding. I don't think that was. Or Mr. Zuckerberg, the Facebook that my grandkids on. What the hell is this thing? Like, you know, you were trying. I'm half kidding, of course, when you, Mark Zuckerberg, testified and you know, you were the youngest person on the committee by half. Right. And you had people, no offense to your colleagues, they didn't know what the heck they were asking Mark Zuckerberg, half of them. But I think actually. Go ahead, Michael, please.

[Michael Knowles]

There's a bit of a philosophical issue here too, which is I think this problem that conservatives have when looking at tech is one of being a little out of date, because we're arguing about this and we say, well, we don't want to stop a private company from doing whatever they want to do. There is nothing conservative about letting a handful of Silicon Valley oligarchs control the flow of information around the Internet, control our public square, particularly when it's based on a fraud for the user agreements of these platforms, platforms, and it's based on receiving protection from liability in laws where they no longer deserve that protection from liability.

[Charlie Kirk]

And so you mentioned the libertarians, Senator, and I'm familiar with a lot of their literature and I can sympathize with it. But it all comes down to they say, well, the private company's different because people can engage and interact voluntarily. And first of all, I don't sympathize with that argument anymore because you literally have Google inside of classrooms all across the country, that in order to go to school and get educated, you have to use Google or use Facebook products. That's number one. Number two, what really concerns people in the libertarian community is the threat of liberty. And you look at, you know, Basiat's writing and the law, it's the idea that you have natural rights articulated by John Locke previously. We all agree with that. But what happens if a private company is infringing on natural rights and does so without you knowing, as you said, Senator, and there's no way to get them to stop doing it. And in fact, they're actually more powerful than the very government that's supposed to represent us. And this is a. So we have to ask ourselves the question, we are limited government people, but we're actually limited power and authoritarian and limited tyranny people. And what happens when something else is actually more tyrannical than the government? And that is a new philosophical direction that's only made possible because of artificial intelligence and technology and so on and so forth.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Well, and Big Tech is doing this deliberately and they're getting worse. One of the things we talked about at one of the hearings I chaired is a document that Google prepared And it's a PowerPoint drafted by Google. It is entitled the Good Sensor. It's about a 50 page PowerPoint and it describes how the old model of the Internet, the one when we all started on the Internet, was what they described as the laissez faire free speech model. By the way, if you're a libertarian, you should like the laissez faire free Speech model. The second model they described, in their words, was the European style censorship model. And they identified that Big Tech has made a decision to shift from laissez faire free speech to European style censorship. And they identified four companies, Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. They actually had their symbols on that side of European style censorship. And it's a conscious decision. And in one of the hearings I chaired, we heard testimony from Dr. Robert Epstein that was very, very interesting and deeply concerning. So Epstein, he's an academic, he's a psychologist. He used to be the editor of Psychology Today. So he's a respected academic. And interestingly enough, he's not a conservative. He is a liberal Democrat. He voted for Hillary Clinton and he actively supported Hillary Clinton. He advocated for him. So Dr. Epstein has done, to my knowledge, the only empirical work on Google's search outcomes and biased algorithms. There are a couple of ways that Google engages in rampant manipulation. One is the autocomplete. If you start typing in a few words, you start typing in Donald Trump, Donald Trump, and it fills in all sorts of bad things. You start typing in Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden, and it fills in all sorts of good things. And what Dr. Epstein found is that it has a massive impact on people's decision making and how they vote in elections. Another example is you search what are the first 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, what's the first page of results and what would happen in 2016. And he studied the 2016 election as you typed in Hillary Clinton and you got positive stories. You typed in Donald Trump and you got negative stories. People tend to click on the first story, by the way, the first story is much more powerful than the second. And it goes down dramatically as you go down the order of search results. His empirical research, Dr. Epstein concluded that in 2016, Google's manipulated search outcome shifted 2.6 million votes to the Democrats. In 2016, and even though he voted for Hillary Clinton, he was horrified at these big tech gazillionaires having that power. And he also testified that big tech has gotten more egregious and that in 2020 they could shift 15 million votes to the Democrats. If you care about a free election, letting a handful of billionaires in Silicon Valley behave like colossus, silence every voice that believes in liberty and advance every voice that wants to tear down America, that is incredibly dangerous for anything like free election.

[Charlie Kirk]

And Google just announced they are going to fund $100 million to BLM Inc. That's what I call it. I don't even say the phrase because I want to make sure when I say something critical it's separate than a phrase that is in itself true. BLM Inc. And racial justice. So you have Google, they have so much profit that they are putting a nine figure investment into divisive left wing postmodern type content on their platform. They want section 230 immunity. Hold on a second. If you're gonna do that, then not so fast. And so I wanna also talk about the election here coming in a couple months. As you said, Senator, we had a year that none of us could have predicted. We knew that the left was going to try things that they've never tried before. And you mentioned it, Michael, we had impeachment, which would have been the number one headline news. You know, a president gets impeached and acquitted in the Senate, we almost go to war with Iran. Remember that whole news cycle in January,

[Michael Knowles]

Charlie, until you reminded me of that, I actually had forgotten that for what it was. At a week we were told we were on the verge of World War Three. That's right. Now nobody even remembers.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Are you telling me the President killed the world's biggest terrorists and General Soleimani, who had was directly responsible for murdering over 603 US servicemen and women? That can't possibly be true. I would have read something about it if that had happened.

[Michael Knowles]

You would have seen it on network news. I think that's just not possible, I suppose.

[Charlie Kirk]

Right. The very same general that was passed up for killing, for lack of a better term, by Barack Obama and Joe Biden's administration on multiple occasions. Yes, that would be the one. And so we go through the virus, we go through the lockdowns. And Michael, you and I talked about this at length. I was a huge critic of the lockdowns. Still am. And Senator, full disclosure, I'm disappointed with the governor in Texas with what he's been doing recently. We can go into that and you know, we are now in a moment where we're not really sure even if we're gonna have a convention, if we're sure what the political, you know, ecosystem looks like. Michael, you do this every single day. You listen to a lot of different people hosting for radio and you have a good kind of understanding of the conservative base. Where are we going wrong? Because it feels like in some ways we as conservatives and the Republican Party and I distinguish the two because those are two completely different things. We don't really have a ethos right now. And in 16 we had an ethos. In 12 we didn't. In 08 we didn't. What is the message that is going to get conservatives elected and the Republican Party to victory and hopefully Donald Trump re elected?

[Michael Knowles]

Very often what's happening right now is people are pretending that a political argument is really a scientific argument. And you've seen the exploitation of so called science capital s with a trademark over the E in the name of decisions that are patently political. And I think this new round of lockdowns, coincidentally from people who very much would like the president not to be reelected, is good evidence of that. That's one issue here that the right conservatives tend to mistake the political arguments for science and science for politics. So I think we're playing a game on the left's terms. We're playing sincerely. We're trying to come to a middle ground. We're trying to be conciliatory, we're trying to behave responsibly. Whether it's saying wear a mask in certain places or practice certain kinds of social distancing, whatever, we want to do that responsively. But we're not able to have that conversation. Because on the backdrop here, if you may have forgotten this is this presidential election. The left is playing this entirely politically. There were over 1,000 public health experts who signed a letter that said that if you protest the lockdowns that will exacerbate the virus and if you protest for a leftist cause, that will actually slow the spread of the virus.

[Charlie Kirk]

That is the wokest virus. United Senators Jinx Spy Miyuko but it is the wokest virus ever where if you happen to protest the right cause, the virus comes up and says I'm not going to infect you. In fact, that's right, I stand in solidarity. You keep going comrade, and it will go to the lockdown rally and they'll go infect all of them or church.

[Michael Knowles]

That's what I think. And you know these. That's right. You're allowed to go to a church to attack it, but you're not allowed to go.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

But there is a reason it's the Wuhan virus, which means it's a communist.

[Michael Knowles]

That is true. It's a fellow traveler. You know, this problem though is I think what conservatives, we think that we can have a nuanced, complex, nice rational debate here in the age of people tearing down statues, setting cities on fire, looting buildings in the name of social justice. That is not the time that you're going to get the most nuanced, rational academic discussion. This is a campaign. And I think that unless we wake up to the fact that It's a campaign. November 3rd is going to come around and it's going to be too late before we realize it.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, so Senator, you won in 2018 against a fake Hispanic Irishman from El Paso, Robert Francis o', Rourke, who has a very bizarre fascination of taking other people's weapons away and keeping borders open. I don't want to have to psychoanalyze Robert Francis o' Rourke here on the Verdict and Charlie Kirk show partnership here, but I do want to get your opinion on Texas and electoral trends. You won in Texas. I think you would agree that your race was closer than would have been projected, probably from the outside. And I was so thrilled to see you win. And so can you just talk about what you're seeing on the ground, what it's going to take for the president to win? A recent poll came out that showed, I don't know if I believe this Joe Biden up in Texas or tied in Texas or down one, something like that. I'd love to hear what your opinion is of trends nationally, politically.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Yeah, look, I think Texas is in play. And if you look at nationally, what's going on. So part of the media narrative, like on so many other things, is completely wrong. So the media narrative as to why Texas is in play is because of the growing Hispanic population and because of racial and ethnic divides. That's not true. If you look at every election I've had in Texas, I've won over 40% of the Hispanic vote. And I've done so campaigning for securing the border, building the wall, stopping amnesty, supporting rule of law. That's not the challenge in Texas. The challenge in Texas, if you look across the country, there are two broad demographic and political waves going on. On the one hand, on the positive side, blue collar workers are moving, right? Steel workers, truck drivers, cops, firefighters. That is moving Midwestern states, more Republican. That's moving states like Ohio, like Pennsylvania, like Wisconsin, like Michigan, all Republican. Every one of those. Donald Trump won in 2016. Minnesota, Trump came within a point of winning. That is blue collar workers who the Democratic Party have abandoned moving towards the Republican Party. The countervailing political movement is suburban voters and particular suburban women are moving left and they don't like Donald J. Trump. I mean, there is a real problem in the suburbs. That means that heavily suburban states like Georgia, like Texas, like Arizona, where you are right now, Arizona is a giant suburb.

[Charlie Kirk]

It's all Maricopa county, the whole state.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

And those voters have moved significantly left. You look at. All right, so Texas, let's talk about the 2018 election against Beto O'. Rourke. Beto raised over $80 million. He outspent my campaign 3 to 1. To give you a sense of what that means on the ground. And you are a wonderful organizer, so you can appreciate this. My campaign had 18 paid campaign staffers. 18, 1, 8. The O' Rourke campaign had 805.

[Charlie Kirk]

I mean, that's the difference in a presidential operation. In all the states.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

It was the most expensive US Senate race in hard money in the history of the United States. That's how much they wanted to take me out.

[Charlie Kirk]

Wow.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

And they more than double doubled Democratic turnout. This is where you got to pause and understand this is real and it's dangerous. They took democratic turnout from 1.8 million all the way up to 4 million. That is crazy. And that's hard to do. Now, the reason we won, we turned out 4.2 million Republicans, and point two was the whole margin. So in 2020, listen, I believe Donald Trump's going to win Texas, but every leftist in the state is going to show up because they hate him. They will crawl over broken glass. And if we diminish that threat, if we underestimate that threat, that's how we lose the country. Which means we got to get everyone else to show up.

[Charlie Kirk]

And so, Michael, to piggyback off of that. And Senator, we're so thrilled you won, I have to say. And I just. We're huge fans of yours and we appreciate what you do for our country. And as I say that, I have equal amount of repulsion for your opponent. I just. There's some people that are in the political system that I think are just so repugnant. And that would be Robert Francis o'.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Rourke.

[Charlie Kirk]

So it was a very passionate race to see, to make sure that you came across the finish line.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

And right there, by the way, a quick aside. When Beto launched his presidential campaign, he launched it in El Paso. And the AP reported that he gave part of his announcement speech in his native tongue, Gaelic, which. That's exactly what I tweeted. I said, wow, I've never seen a political speech in Gaelic. And it really is. It's the absurdity of the modern left.

[Charlie Kirk]

Oh, well. I mean, but it's also. There's a deeper philosophical question there, which is he's pandering. I think it's insulting to Hispanic voters. And I talk to a lot of Hispanic people that think it's incredibly insulting. It's like, well, my nanny or something called me Beta when I grew up. Well, if she called you the Texas Chainsaw massacre. Are you gonna say that on your campaign sign? I mean, that's ridiculous. So, Michael, where are Republicans going wrong right now?

[Michael Knowles]

So the Republicans are going wrong in

[Senator Ted Cruz]

that we have like three, four hours. I know. Yeah.

[Michael Knowles]

Charlie, there's no way we're in the middle.

[Charlie Kirk]

How much time did all of this? Right.

[Michael Knowles]

So where aren't they going wrong? You know, in Republicans defense, I've been very critical of Republicans in recent weeks, but in their defense, they've got everything working against them. I have often pointed out when the left complains about institutional oppression, the left controls every major institution, the mainstream media, Hollywood, big tech, higher education, lower education, administrative government, they control all of them. So if there is institutional oppression would seem to me it would be the left's fault, not the right's fault. They've got all of this working against them at the same time, and they're going to turn it up. They're going to gin it up every single day until November 3rd, because so much of this is about the election. So I understand that. I think what Republicans are trying to do. We've talked a lot on the Verdict podcast about the timidity of many elected Republicans, on how afraid many elected Republicans are of losing their positions and losing nice blurbs in the mainstream media. So what they want to do is stand in the middle of the road. They want to try to play both sides and go wishy washy. And the fact of the matter is, especially at a time like this, if you stand in the middle of the road, you are going to get hit by a truck. The stakes are only going to increase day by day. We are now at the point where we're not just talking fighting over tax rates or something. We're fighting over George Washington being pulled down off of his pedestal. In the American mind, we are fighting over our very country. Which side of that battle are you going to stand on? Pick a side and fight.

[Charlie Kirk]

Well, and it's not a policy debate. And this is something that I talked to certain members of Congress and Senator, you get this. This is a culture war. In a culture war, there are winners and losers. It's not a bill where you can place an amendment or you can kill it in the committee or you can, you know, say, oh, we're going to vote on it next year. It's either you have a country or you don't have a country. And I wrote a piece and I spoke to the President about this and I was so thrilled about his Mount Rushmore speech. I think it was the best speech of his entire presidency, where basically he said, we need to get our kids.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

I agree with that. Yes.

[Charlie Kirk]

Yeah. We need to get our kids to love America again. And the more you talk about suburban voters, I believe a lot of suburban women voters in particular are repulsed by the growing anarchy and indoctrination that's happening in our schools and the disorder and the disunity and the breakdown of the rule of law. I think that is a really winning, phenomenally winning issue, if we articulate it correctly. Where we are not going to win, though, is where certain senators, one from Indiana all of a sudden says nice things about blm, Inc. And all of a sudden wants to get on the right side of, you know, police immunity or whatever issue that was. I think that. Michael, you've said this before. Either it was at Politicon, and it was a call all the way back to Phyllis Schlafly. People want a choice, not an echo right now. I really believe that. And the more that we are able to say, here are the dividing lines. We do believe that America is the greatest country ever to exist in the history of the world. We do believe that the Constitution is the greatest political document ever written. We have a history to be proud of, that America has made mistakes, but we're not a mistake. Prove us wrong.

[Michael Knowles]

Charlie, you bring up this Phyllis Schlafly point. We could also go to Ronald Reagan's point, which is Ronald Reagan was asked about his strategy on the Cold War. He said, my strategy is simple. We win, you lose. And when we're talking about this battle for the soul of America, for American history, for all the things we cherish, my strategy is simple. We win and you lose.

[Charlie Kirk]

And in order to win, that means you have to play offense and set the terms of engagement. I think the president is at his best when he's an offensive political player, when he actually sets the tone. And I think the winning issue here is what is America? And unfortunately, that now has to be a ballot referendum issue for probably the first time in our nation's history. When you think about it, in 16, it was sort of that way. But you now have up or down the way you vote. It's going to be. I either think America's a beautiful, benevolent, generous country that's worthy of our preservation, or this is all a mistake. It's a corrosive rot. We should just fundamentally destroy it. And I'm really ashamed to be in this country, and I hate to put it in those very simple terms, but that's really where it is. Senator Log, get Your thoughts on that?

[Michael Knowles]

Yeah.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Look, I think you are absolutely right. What the stakes are in this election and in terms of what Republicans need to do, number one, we need to stand up and fight. Stand up and fight unapologetically for America, for our founding principles, for the greatness of this nation. Hands down, the best characteristic of President Trump is that he's got a backbone and he's willing to make decisions that most Republicans are too scared of their own shadow to make. And the last four years, I've worked very, very closely with the president, and the policies that have been enacted have been enormously beneficial. Now, at the same time, we've got to engage in winning people's hearts and minds in winning the argument. Margaret Thatcher said, first you win the argument, then you win the vote. And you know, Charlie, I will say you're. You and I have known each other a long time. The work you've done with Turning Point usa. I remember sitting down at tables when Turning Point USA was just kind of an idea. And frankly, it was an idea that the Republican graybeards laughed at you and said, oh, come on, young people, they're the white whale. They're never going to do anything. They're distracted. They don't care. And you had a vision and you had a vision of organizing and engaging. And over the years, I mean, I've spoken at probably over a dozen Turning Point events with young people who love liberty. Things like, all right, Yalls T shirts. Socialism sucks like it is. If you were to pick two words right at the heart of a message, it's great, but we've got to engage. It's why podcasts, why your podcast matter. It's why what we're doing on Verdict, I think and believe matters. Voters, we've got to arm people with the information. The great debate between socialism and free enterprise, too many people don't know the difference between the two, don't understand. And if you look at. All right, let's talk for a minute about some of the suburban voters. You're right that the angry riots, that the burning and the violence, that's scary. And the Democrats have gotten so extreme and so radical that it should be driving voters in droves to vote Republican. Now, the countervailing side and the danger is, look, most people, and especially suburban female voters, they don't want to vote for someone they think is a scary, violent racist. And that's sort of the Democrats, they go to it over and over and over again. Bigot, racist, bigot, racist. And the tone, if they scare people Enough. That's their strategy to win. And it's something where we need to engage. And most Republicans are terrified of race. They're terrified of addressing racial issues. As you know, and I've seen some of my favorite videos of you are confronting these ignorant, angry mobs and confronting them, number one, with a smile. You're not yelling and screaming at them, but you're confronting them with facts. And the facts are, number one, the Democratic Party's history on race is utterly abominable, disgraceful, embarrassing, and they should bow their heads in shame. It was Democrats who founded the kkk. It was Democrats who wrote Jim Crow. It was Democrats who put in place separate but equal and segregated schools. It was Democrats who filibustered the Civil Rights Acts. And my party, your party, the Republican Party, we were founded to end slavery. Abraham Lincoln was our first president. And Democrats like to say, well, okay, but that was ancient history. What about now? All right, what about now? The sitting governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, a Democrat, had on his damn medical school yearbook page a picture of a guy dressed as a Klansman. And his first defense, by the way, the first day, which the New York Times and all the media has conveniently forgotten about. There's a guy as a Klansman, a guy in black face. He said, yeah, I could have been one of those two. He didn't specify which one. So they're one of two scenarios. Either Ralph Northam said either that was a picture of Democrat Ralph Northam dressed as a Klansman. That's one possibility. Or the second possibility is it isn't actually him. But he said, you know, for my yearbook page, this is what I want to remember. What is me medical school and what I stand for more than anything else is some jackass in a white sheet dressed as a Klansman. And if you can't say categorically, unequivocally, I've never in my life dressed as a Klansman. That is the Democratic governor of Virginia. And so when it comes to race, we should be. Look, I'm proud to defend equal rights for every American, but too many Republicans don't know our facts, don't know our history, and are scared. Ooh, don't call me a bigot. Look, don't be a bigot. And defend equal rights and equal justice. And by the way, Black Lives Matter, the radical Marxists who run that organization, what they are advocating for a Marxist overthrow of the United States government. Abolishing the police departments of our country would result in more murders, more rapes, more assaults, and it would kill black lives. Those leftists are arguing for more dead African Americans, more dead Hispanics, more dead Americans. And if we're afraid of engaging and saying, look, America is the most extraordinary country in the history of the world, we've got to engage on that terrain of ideas. You're right, the Mount Rushmore speech was fabulous, but we got to get it out to people because frankly, you and I both read the New York Times and the Washington Post that described it as dark and divisive. And we've got to get around the media and straight to the people.

[Charlie Kirk]

Senator, what you just articulated, if we had 54 senators that said exactly what you just said, this wouldn't even be an issue. If we had 10 senators that said what you just said, this wouldn't be an issue. They say, well, how do I fight? That's how you fight. You get righteously indignant towards the radical left that wants to destroy our country. Michael, we have a hard stop by now. Any closing thoughts going into November? What is your prediction? What are you seeing and hearing? I know we got a about 90 seconds out.

[Michael Knowles]

We've got 90 seconds. I can sum it up in, I think, one sentence. It's up to us. It's up to us. What the media, what the. And I described the media and the Democratic Party and the left, they're all the same thing. What they tried to do in 2016 is what they're trying to do now. They're trying to tell you that it's inevitable. It's inevitable that the Democrats win. They're going to win the White House, they're going to win the Senate. They're going to win everything. Oh, you silly Republicans. Don't even show up to vote, don't even leave your homes. And it's a lie. They lie like that all the time. They want to tell you you have no power, you have no say in your government. You have no ability to access this sort of information. Yes, you can, but it's up to you. Are you willing to take that opportunity? Are you willing to exercise your power and your responsibility as a US Citizen, or are you going to roll over? I sure hope it's the former, but we're free to choose.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

And Michael, let me ask you a question. If listeners, if viewers want to engage and hear more about the the Verdict podcast, hear more about the principles that underlie our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, hear more about the inside, about the battles in the Senate and the cloakroom and what's going on to save this country. How do they do that if you want to actually do that, well, this

[Michael Knowles]

is the big part. And I'm so glad you asked that question, Senator. You can go to verdictpodcast.com, you can go subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, YouTube, Everywhere, Spotify. Until we get shut down, we're going to be on as many places as possible. Because the left allows their adherents, their followers to be armed with facts, with arguments, with some clarity of vision. We are trying to offer that on the Verdict podcast. Charlie, I know you do an excellent job not just on this show, but through tpusa.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

You can also leave a five star review for us.

[Michael Knowles]

And I would say, actually I'd go further. You should leave a 5 star review.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

If you want to leave 4 stars, just go do something else. You need to mow your lawn. But if you want to leave five, we need you to do it. And on YouTube, if you sign up for subscribe on YouTube, I guess you can click on the bell and get notified.

[Michael Knowles]

Click that bell. You will find out when a new episode drops. And we've got some pretty great episodes dropping that we've just shot over the last few days.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Absolutely. And we've got to fight for America, everybody.

[Charlie Kirk]

Check out the Verdict podcast. Type it in, subscribe. I never do this, but I hope that we can get them higher in the charts on Apple podcasts. So we'll have a good one too. A good jockeying position, right? You guys are the best. Thank you. And you're both fighters for freedom and liberty and for America. God bless you guys. Thank you.

[Michael Knowles]

Well, thank you, Charlie.

[Senator Ted Cruz]

Charlie,

[Charlie Kirk]

what a great conversation that was with Senator Ted Cruz and Michael Knowles. If you guys want to get involved with Turning Point usa, the nation's largest conservative student organization fighting for freedom, liberty, American exceptionalism and protecting our country from the radical left, go to TP that is tpusa.com get engaged, get involved, start a chapter, Chip in some money if you can. It's tpusa.com, tpusa.com email us your questions. Freedomarliekirk.com please consider supporting our program. Maybe $20 a month, $50 a month. Some people are giving $100 a month at charliekirk.com support charliekirk.com support that helps pay for our research team. It helps pay for costs associated to get deliver you 12 podcasts a week, sometimes even [e-mail] support and keeps us protected from leftist boycotts. God bless you guys. Thank you so much for listening. If you want a signed copy of the MAGA doctrine, Type in Charlie Kirk show to your podcast provider, hit subscribe, give us a five star review, screenshot it, and then email us. Freedom charliekirk.com thank you for listening. Till next time. God Bless.