← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
BONUS: Dems Double Down on Illegal Alien Gang Members & Shocking Supreme Court Decision Halting Deportations
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- [02:34]
Senator Ted Cruz
Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. And I want to give a very special welcome to so many of you that are joining this podcast for the very first time. As many of you that are listening to this podcast may have heard, we are now a syndicated radio show on the weekends nationwide. So you can listen to show wherever. You have a lot of local news talk stations. So we're really excited to bring in new listeners with this first show since we went live this weekend with that syndicated show center. It was really fun. By the way, we even had some, some friends that sent you some warm wishes which included Sean Hannity and that was really cool as well, welcoming you as the first sitting senator and actually national politician to ever have a a syndicated radio show while also in office. It's pretty awesome.
- [03:22]
Ben Ferguson
Well, we launched the podcast as a syndicated radio show this weekend. We started on 84 stations nationwide. 84 and we're anticip more stations picking it up. We're going to be every weekend all across the country and it'll be our Friday podcast that will air on Saturdays and Sundays throughout the weekend. And it's a great opportunity just to take listeners behind the scenes behind the curtain. What's going on today? What we're talking about is we're talking about two battles. One a battle in the United States Senate, the second a battle in the U.S. supreme Court. All of these battles, number one in the Senate. The Democrat senators have decided they have found their issue to campaign on in 2026. Their issue is illegals. They want more of them and especially MS.13 gang members. They're all in. It's an amazing decision. Chris Van Hollen, Democrat from Maryland, flew down to El Salvador to play footsie with a gang member. We're going to talk about that. We're also going to talk about a big decision at the Supreme Court halting, I hope temporarily deportations of Venezuelans. You had a vigorous dissent from Justice Alito and Justice Thomas. All of that on today's pod.
- [04:37]
Senator Ted Cruz
Before we get to that though, I want to talk to you about how Israel is still under attack. Missile fire has resumed from Israel's enemies and terrorists are seeking utter death and destruction here in America. We can't imagine what it's like to live in constant fear like this. And that is the reality for many in Israel. That is where you can come in and help those. You can join me and show the people of Israel that not only do you want to help protect them in this time of attack and uncertainty, but that you stand with them as well. And one of the best ways to do this is by giving to the International fellowship of Christians and Jews. Your gift today will help provide security essentials like bomb shelters, flak jackets and bulletproof vests. Also, there is a major need for armored security vehicles and armored ambulances. There's no better time to give than right now during the Passover holiday when we celebrate Israel's historic deliverance and birth as a nation. So give a special Passover gift today and help protect the people of Israel. The number 888-488 IFCJ. That's 888-488-4325. Or you can go online and give securely@supportifcj.org that's one word. Supportifcj.org or 888-488ifcj. All right, sender. So let's start with this big first issue. I, I still can't get my. Clearly, the political issue, as you mentioned a moment ago, Democrats believe is like a big moment for them and an issue to run on in less than two years in the midterms. And that's not to defend Americans, but to defend a terrorist organization and their members.
- [06:37]
Ben Ferguson
Well, it really is astonishing. This individual that they're focusing on who's been deported to El Salvador, he is an illegal alien. No one disputes that he came illegally. He had an order of deportation against him. The court ordered him deported. Nobody disputes that either. And twice he's been adjudicated to be a member of Ms. 13. As President Trump tweeted out, he has tattoos on his fist, on his fingers that correspond with Ms. 13 gang tattoos. It is really a remarkable thing that the Democrats look at this situation and say this is the issue that is going to move the American people to our side. I don't know anybody who thinks at least, I don't know anyone normal and rational who thinks. What we need is more gang members and illegal aliens. And in fact, look, I'm gonna read to you a text. I'm not gonna identify who it is, but it's a buddy of mine who's a Democrat, who's a Democrat, he's on the left and he just texted me and said, your colleague, Maryland Senator Van Hollen, flew to El Salvador to see Garcia. My wife's friends are very upset. The senators cares more about one non citizen than many innocent American hostages. Your thoughts? And to be clear, this is a friend of Mine, who is a Democrat who is solidly left of center and his wife is looking at this going, what the hell are these people doing? That says something. And I'll tell you something else that's interesting. This is not just a one off. The Democrats have decided this is our issue. So Sunday, Chris Van Hollen, Senator from Maryland who flew down to El Salvador, he did the full Ginsburg. Now, what is the full Ginsburg? Let's see. Ben, how good is your recollection? Do you remember what the full Ginsburg is?
- [08:38]
Senator Ted Cruz
See, I, I, these are the moments for people that are just listening for the first time that, that make me laugh because these are the I got you co host questions. Get used to them. They happen about once per episode. And this is where I say, okay.
- [08:51]
Ben Ferguson
That sounds like an excuse.
- [08:52]
Senator Ted Cruz
Please tell me what the Ginsburg is.
- [08:55]
Ben Ferguson
Okay, the full Ginsburg. It's, it's a thing. It was named for William Ginsburg, who was Monica Lewinsky's lawyer during, during the scandal against Bill Clinton. And he went on all major Sunday morning talk shows. He went on this Week on abc, Face the Nation, Meet the Press, and State of the Union on cnn. So doing all five is called the full Ginsburg because he's the first one anyone remembers doing it. And it's actually interesting. I went and Googled it just a minute ago, and Wikipedia, oddly has a list of everyone who's done the full Ginsburg. And it turns out quite a lot of people have done it. So it started off with William Ginsburg. Then it was Congressman Rick Lazio when he was running for Senate. Then it was Dick Cheney. Then it was John Edwards when he was running for President. Then it was Michael Chertoff when he was Secretary of Homeland Security. Then it was Hillary Clinton. Then it was Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Then it was Secretary Janet Napolitano. Then it was Dr. Richard Besser of the CDC. Then it was Bill Clinton. Then it was George W. Bush. Then it was Rajiv Shah. Then it was Lieutenant General Ken Keane. Then it was Michele Bachmann. Then it was Jack Lew. Then it was Susan Rice, and it was Timothy Geithner. Then it was Jeb Bush. Then it was Marco Rubio. Then it was Daniel Pfeiffer. Then it was John Kerry. Then it was Denis McDonough. Then it was Jack Lew. Then it was John Kerry. Then it was Dennis McDonough. Again, he was White House Chief of Staff. Then it was Robert Sunwalt, a board member of the National Transportation Safety Board. Then it was Paul Ryan. Then it was Marco Rubio. And you know what I discovered? And the next person to make the list actually was me, which, which I, I didn't remember, but I'm looking at this Wikipedia article and, and, and when I ran for president, 2016, apparently I did it February 28th of, of 2016, which, which I, I didn't remember. But, but I'm one of the ones who's done the full Ginsburg.
- [10:44]
Senator Ted Cruz
So just to be clear, I got asked if I knew what the Ginsburg was. I didn't know the answer, but you were one of the people on the Ginsburg list and you forgot it. So we're just. Full.
- [10:56]
Ben Ferguson
Well, and then the last two who've done it have been John Kirby, who was a White House spokesman for Joe Biden, and then on Sunday, Chris Van Hollen. And so I make this point. Look, someone does the full Ginsburg. They go on every Sunday show when they really, really want to draw attention to something, when they want to highlight it, when they want to say, hey, this matters. And listen, the Democrat Party as a whole, they are all in on this strategy. The media as a whole, they're all in on this strategy. And I gotta say, that's just, I think that has a real danger of backfiring on him.
- [11:37]
Senator Ted Cruz
So let's play. Part of what he had to say on this visit with a guy that's not only a. Not because I say so, multiple courts have said so, government agencies have confirmed it as well, is an Ms. 13 gang member, which has been declared a terrorist organization. And this is part of what he had to say on ABC this week. Take a listen.
- [12:00]
Ben Ferguson
As you know, the president himself has been attacking you by pointing out some.
- [12:06]
Matt Gaetz
Of the aspects of Abrego Garcia's record.
- [12:08]
Ben Ferguson
Including the fact that his wife had an order of protection against him in 2021 and, and alleged some pretty serious allegations of abuse and even that, that he had, he had detained her. Are you concerned about your defense of somebody? Obviously, everybody in this country, even those.
- [12:27]
Matt Gaetz
Undocumented immigrants, have rights, but are you.
- [12:30]
Ben Ferguson
Concerned about standing so forcefully with somebody that has, you know, at least a questionable record?
- [12:37]
Chris Van Hollen
I am not defending the man. I'm defending the rights of, of this man to due process. And the Trump administration has admitted in court that he was wrongfully detained and wrongfully deported. My mission and my purpose is to make sure that we uphold the rule of law, because if we take it away from him, we do jeopardize it for everybody else. And I do want to point out, Carl. Yes. The Trump administration is trying to change the story. They're trying to attract attention. Here's where they should put their facts. They should put it before the court. They should put up or shut up in court.
- [13:16]
Senator Ted Cruz
I mean, it's amazing that he tries to spin it this way. It's also amazing that ABC tries to kind of downplay the fact that this is a guy that attacked his wife. She had a protective order. Oh, and by the way, on top of these, an MS.13 gang member, and you're trying to act like this is the guy we need to go protect and save.
- [13:33]
Ben Ferguson
Well, well. And let me point out what, what Van Hollen says there is is just wrong. So there was an order of deportation against this guy. Court had ruled he should be deported. It is true. The Trump administration has admitted they made a mistake. And the mistake they made is that there was a court order prohibiting his deportation to El Salvador. It was an older order. They didn't see it, and so they missed it. And so the state of the law was the federal government could deport him to literally any country on planet Earth except El Salvador. But because of that order, you had a court order saying don't send him to El Salvador. And they did so because they didn't see that order until after the fact. Now, that also means if he came back, they could literally deport him 10 seconds later to another country. Because, listen, if you are here illegally, and in particular, if you are a member of a terrorist organization, you don't have a right to remain. You know, Jonathan Karl calls him an undocumented alien. No, the term under the statute is illegal alien and they are an illegal alien. It's not that they're just, you know, missing some piece of paper. It's that they came here illegally and the administration has the power to remove them. I want you to listen to this clip on another part of the full Ginsburg when he's on CNN and Dana Bash question him. Give a listen to this.
- [14:57]
Dana Bash
Now, President Trump says that some of Abrego Garcia's tattoos signify that he's a member of Ms. 13. In 2019, police alleged a confidential informant claimed that Abrego Garcia was an active MS.13 member. His wife and his attorney deny that, of course. Can you say with absolute certainty that he is not nor has he ever been a member of the Ms. 13 gang? And did you ask him point blank?
- [15:25]
Chris Van Hollen
Well, Dana, what Donald Trump is trying to do here is change the subject. The subject at hand is that he and his administration are defying a court order to give people to give Abrego Garcia his due process rights. They are trying to litigate on social media what they should be doing in the courts. They need to put up or shut up in the courts. Let me tell you, I decided to write this down so I could be absolutely accurate as to what Federal District Court Judge Zinnis said about these allegations by the Trump administration. Quote, no evidence linking abrego Garcia to Ms. 13 or any terrorist activity has been presented to the court. That's where to litigate this. That's been. It's been litigated in many other places. So I'm not going to get into the details, because the whole purpose of our court system is for them to adjudicate these things, not for Donald Trump to go off on social media.
- [16:22]
Dana Bash
Yeah, you're right. They have not. There hasn't been a court hearing for them to put forward evidence in the first place, which is your whole point. But since you were the one person to have met with him, and since this is a thing you say on social media, it's what we hear from Donald Trump and Republicans every day, all day long. You didn't ask him?
- [16:42]
Chris Van Hollen
I didn't ask him that because I know what his answer is. What he told me was he was sad and traumatized that he was being in prison because he has committed no crimes. And that goes to the heart of this issue because he's been being denied his due process rights. And Donald Trump is trying to change the subject. And, you know, when people start asking about asking that question, in my view, they're falling into the President's trap, because what the President wants to do is talk about that as if we can't all fight gang violence, which I've been doing for much longer than Donald Trump. Right. His argument is you can't fight that and at the same time uphold people's constitutional rights. That's a very dangerous view. And if we deny the constitutional rights of this one man, it threatens the constitutional rights of everybody in America.
- [17:35]
Ben Ferguson
So there's several things that are remarkable in what Van Hollen is doing. Number one, he keeps saying Trump is trying to change the subject. Now, mind you, that's exactly what Van Hollen is doing. I mean, it really is Freudian projection. He gets asked about the restraining order and the evidence that this illegal alien committed domestic violence and was a wife beater. And he said, nope, nope, nevermind, nevermind. And he gets asked, okay, well, is the guy an MS.13 gang member? Yes. No. Did you ask him? And he says, no, no, no. Trump, Trump, Trump. Orange man. Bad Trump, Trump, Trump. And remarkably, Dana Bash goes back again and says, well, yeah, but you sat down with him. Did you ask him? And Van Hollen says, no, because it turns out. So in his view, it is, quote, changing the subject to discuss the facts of who it is that was deported. I think that is the subject. Who it was that was deported. And by the way, one of the things Van Holland says is he has committed no crimes. That would be factually incorrect. Crossing illegally into the United States is a crime. The Democrats want everyone to do that. And even if you're a gang member, look at the very same time that the Democrats are embracing this admitted illegal alien and person who's been found by two courts to be affiliated with Ms. 13 while they're defending him as a, quote, Maryland man. We had simultaneously the mom of Rachel Moran, who is also a Maryland resident. And yet the senator from Maryland cannot bother to be worried about Rachel Moran, a woman who was raped and murdered, a mom of five kids raped and murdered by an illegal immigrant that the Democrats released. Their priorities are, I think, abundantly clear.
- [19:35]
Senator Ted Cruz
And by the way, this PR stunt by Van Hollen, if you want to know who had to pay for it, well, here's his answer on that.
- [19:41]
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- [19:43]
Chris Van Hollen
This was an officially cleared congressional trip. Clear basis. Yes. Like every other trip.
- [19:51]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yes, like every other trip. So that just, you know. Yeah, we waste your money all the time. We waste your money on this trip, too. Why would that be out of the ordinary?
- [19:59]
Ben Ferguson
It is standard practice for members of both parties to travel abroad. And it's part of doing the job. Responsibility. So I don't fault him for traveling to El Salvador. I fault him for deciding that he wants to stake everything he stands for on the proposition that we need more illegal aliens in this country, that the federal government cannot deport illegal aliens, and that we need more gang members in this country. And as he lays out, he doesn't care. And he didn't ask if this guy's a gang member. And apparently he didn't care if he also is committing domestic violence and beating up his wife. Those are not his concerns either.
- [20:38]
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- [22:12]
Ben Ferguson
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- [24:15]
Senator Ted Cruz
I want to move also to the second big story and there's some people that are confused. I also think very frustrated by the Supreme Court halting the deportations of illegal immigrants in some cases. Can you break down what this ruling is? Alito was in the dissent here and the the headlines over Easter weekend that people are like, wait, what? How? Why is this happening? I don't understand how we're protecting people that are illegal immigrants. Yet again at the level of the Supreme Court. Break this down so it makes sense.
- [24:47]
Ben Ferguson
Well, the Supreme Court early Saturday morning issued an order blocking the deportation of Venezuelan illegal immigrants under an 18th century law. And what it said is that they had to halt the deportations until, quote, further order of this court. And I gotta say, Justice Alito, joined by Justice Thomas, wrote a very fiery dissent, really disagreeing with it. I'm gonna read you part of the dissent. Here's what Justice Alito and Justice Thomas wrote. Quote, Shortly after midnight yesterday, the court hastily and prematurely granted unprecedented emergency relief proceeding under the All Ritz Act. The court ordered the, quote, government not to remove a, quote, putative class of detainees until this court issues a superseding order. Although the order does not define the quote, putative class, it appears that the court means all members of the class that the habeas petitioner sought to have certified, namely, quote, all noncitizens in custody in the Northern district of Texas who were, are and will be subject to the 3-20-25 presidential proclamation entitled Invocation of the Alien Enemies act regarding the invasion of the United States by trend and or its implementation. It also appears that applicants have recently moved to amend their class petition for habeas corpus and their Motion for class certification. So it is not clear if the applicants will continue to defend this specific definition or will argue for a new one. And although the court does not specify what it means by, quote, the government, it appears that term is intended to embrace all the named defendants, including the President. The court did all of this even though it is not clear that the court had jurisdiction. The All Writs act does not provide an independent grant of jurisdiction. Therefore, the court had jurisdiction only if the court of appeals had jurisdictions of the applicant's appeal, and the court of appeals had jurisdiction only if the supposed order that the applicants appealed amounted to a denial of a preliminary injunction. But here, the order that applicants appealed was what they viewed as the district court's constructive denial of their request for a temporary restraining order. That is, the district court did not actually deny their most recent request for a tro, but they inferred that it was constructively denied because the district court failed a rule on that request before the expiration of a truncated council imposed deadline. The denial of a true TRO is not appealable. And here it is not clear that the applicant's TRO request was actually denied. Indeed, in an order issued last night, the Fifth Circuit held that it lacked jurisdiction. For this reason, it is questionable whether the applicant complied with a general obligation to seek emergency injunctive relief in the district court before asking for such relief from an appellate court. When applicants requested such relief in the district court, they insisted on a ruling within 45 minutes on good Friday afternoon. And when the district court did not act within 133 minutes, they filed a notice of appeal which the district court held deprived it of its jurisdiction. Now, a lot of that, that jurisdictional language seems confusing, but understand what happened. They went to the district court and they said, we want an answer within 45 minutes. And the court did not respond one way or another in 45 minutes. And they immediately appealed and said, oh, they haven't answered. That means you've denied it. And the court of appeals ruled that, well, we're not going to act on this. And unfortunately, 7:2, the Supreme Court jumped in. And in fact, here's how Justice Alito and Justice Thomas end their dissent. Quote, in sum, literally in the middle of the night, the court issued unprecedented, legally questionable relief without giving the lower courts a chance to rule without hearing from the opposing party within eight hours of receiving the application with dubious factual support for its order and without providing any explanation for its order. I refused to join the court's order because we had no good reason to think that under the circumstances, issuing the order at midnight was necessary or appropriate. Both the executive and the judiciary have an obligation to follow the law. The executive must proceed under the terms of our order. And this court should follow established procedures.
- [29:36]
Senator Ted Cruz
So you look at this and what is this going to mean moving forward? And how big of a roadblock is this going to be for the Trump administration to do what they've said and promised the American people? And by the way, the American people voted for, which was, we want to secure the border and we want to get rid of all the illegal immigrants that came into this country, especially those that are violent.
- [29:55]
Ben Ferguson
Well, look, it's not clear how big a challenge it's going to be. The most distressing thing about this order was that it was 7 2. 72 is not good. It means everybody but Alito and Thomas voted to stay to halt the deportations of Venezuelans. It's not clear. Presumably they're going to write a more extended opinion at some point. And so we'll find out more their reasoning. But, but I gotta say, look, look, these two stories, this story and the first one are connected because I will say the Democrats strategy in doing the full Ginsburg, in some ways, I think their audience is, is not the American people. They've got to know. Somebody on the Democrat side of the aisle has got to know, hey, this is not earning us votes. When we say we're the party of illegal aliens and criminals and gang members and wife beaters, that's us. You don't have to be a rocket scientist when it comes to reading public opinion to know that's not the most popular of issues to stake your entire party platform on. But in many ways, they're aiming at a much smaller audience. They're aiming at five. They're hoping to get five justices pissed off and to get them pissed off enough that we see a series of Supreme Court orders against the Trump administration trying to halt these deportations. Now, I don't think that's going to happen, but this ruling is troubling that it was 7:2. Alito's dissent. Look, Alito was very concerned about this. And the procedural minutiae that he recounts is very unusual. And so that dynamic, it is a dangerous process. It is. Right now there's a little bit of a game of chicken. And I think what the Democrats are trying to do is piss off a couple of Supreme Court justices and get them to rule decisively against the president. That would be very unfortunate if that starts to happen.
- [32:09]
Senator Ted Cruz
Simply another question real quick before we move on is part of this. Could it just be the quickness that they were asking for the ruling from the court? Is that something that you could change moving forward? Could that be part of that issue?
- [32:22]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, look, it was done as an emergency appeal. And there are times, you know, there's another context where this happens a lot which is dealing with death penalty appeals. And when you have death penalty appeals, you have someone who's been convicted of a capital offense and they're set to be executed. And very frequently you have last minute appeals that are filed. And I'll tell you, when I was a law clerk, I was a law clerk for Chief justice Rehnquist in 1996 and 1997. And at the time, so this gives you a sense, you can now make a crack about how old I am at the time. The way we would get these emergency appeals is they would be faxed in. So they weren't emailed at the time. They'd be faxed in. And you'd get it off the fax and you would get say if the midnight was, if the execution was scheduled to happen at midnight. And by the way, if it was midnight on the west coast, that MEANT it was 3am in D.C. but if the execution was scheduled at midnight, you would get sometimes 100 page appeal faxed in at 10:30pm and what would happen, so what plays out when that gets faxed in is the justice who is the lead justice for that circuit. So each circuit, each region of the country has a lead justice who is the justice to whom emergency appeals go. Initially, Chief Justice Rehnquist was the lead justice for the fourth Circuit as concerned death penalty appeals. And so that was Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia in particular, there were a fair number of capital cases. So you would get it faxed to you. You as the law clerk would read through it. You'd have to read through it very quickly. You'd have to prepare a memo, write a memo. You then send it to your justice. And a lot of times if this was at midnight or one or two or three in the morning, you'd have to call home and wake your justice up. Your justice would be asleep. You'd call home, you'd say, chief, we had an emergency appeal. Now the justice would know there was an execution set that night and so would know that there is likely to be a call. But you'd call, wake youe justice up and ask, okay, here's the arguments, here's what I think about it. And you would write a memo from your justice saying, summarizing the arguments in the appeal and making the recommendation. So for Chief Justice Rehnquist, in virtually every circumstance, if someone was seeking to halt an execution at the last minute, he would recommend that that be denied. You would then forward it to the other eight chambers, to the other eight chambers. And there was a law clerk. So the night of execution, at least nine of us were there till midnight or one or two or three in the morning. And so when you would forward your memo, and a memo in a case like this would be anywhere from two to maybe eight pages, depending on how complicated the issues were, they would then get your memo and they've gotten the appeal as well. So they're reading the appeal at the same time. They would then call their justice, wake him or her up at home, and they would cast votes at midnight or one or two or three in the morning. And a strategy that is still quite frequent when it comes to death penalty appeals is just throw so much crap at the wall that they're hoping the justices say, I don't know, I can't figure this out this quickly. All right, just stay the execution, halt the execution so we can figure this all out. And unfortunately that strategy can work. There may have been some of that that this was being done over Easter weekend very quickly and it may be that the justices wanted to say, hold on a second, we want to understand what's going on here. That's possible. But I do think the Democrats entire strategy is try to see if they can get a majority of the Supreme Court ticked off. And I don't think that's happened. But I do think that would be very dangerous and harmful if it did happen.
- [36:30]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah, that's a really great point. And by the way, don't forget, if you are new to this podcast, is this your first time listening? Maybe you caught us on the radio with our syndicated show. Make sure that you hit that subscriber auto download button right now so you do not miss an episode as we do this Monday, Wednesday, Friday we have a weekend review of the big three stories of the week you may have missed on Saturdays as well. And then if you are driving around on the weekend, make sure you check your local news talk station and you can find this show on the radio. It's really, really cool. So we hope you enjoy that as well in the center. I will see you back here on Wednesday morning.
- [37:04]
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- [39:06]
Ben Ferguson
Hey Clay, if there was a summer camp for critical thinking, we'd be the chief counselors. Those jelly heads in June would be.
- [39:13]
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Intellectual warriors by August.
- [39:15]
Ben Ferguson
Be a lot of fun too. Some Bill and Ted's excellent adventure references.
- [39:19]
Chris Van Hollen
Thrown in this podcast.
- [39:20]
Ben Ferguson
Like a daily dose of that.
- [39:22]
Chris Van Hollen
Minus the campfires, archery and pranking the girls.
- [39:25]
Ben Ferguson
The bonafide boot camp for critical thinking. You can get in on it for free at the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.
- [39:33]
Senator Ted Cruz
Just search our names Clay and Bach.
- [39:34]
Ben Ferguson
Listen and subscribe.