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The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
Verdict with Ted Cruz: Iran Revolution-Why this is Different...Trump is not Obama
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- [00:00]
Ben Shapiro
This is an iHeart podcast.
- [00:02]
Podcast Sponsor/Announcer
Guaranteed Human support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It's IT screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member finra SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available@public.com disclosures welcome.
- [01:15]
Ben Shapiro
It is verdict with Senator Ted Cruz. It is so nice to have you with us. And Senator, we've got a big show today. First off, Iran and President Trump speaking out in a very bold way.
- [01:25]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, this week is momentous in that millions of Iranians continue to stand up and fight to overthrow the Ayatollah, to overthrow the mullahs, the radical Islamist who have dominated that country for five decades. And President Trump has come out unequivocally in support of the protesters. And just this week he came out and said it is time for a new government in Iran. The Ayatollah needs to go. That is enormously consequential. We're going to break down why he said what he did, what it means, and what's going to happen next.
- [01:55]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah, it really is an important story. I want to also remind you about an incredible organization, our friends at Compassion International.
- [02:03]
Compassion International Narrator
Right now, somewhere in the world, a kid you've never met is writing you a letter. They're telling you about their day, their dreams, the goal they scored, the test they passed, the new friend they made at school. Maybe they're drawing you even a picture. Maybe they've asked you about your family, your favorite color, what makes you laugh. They're wondering who you are, this person who cares enough to be part of their story. And you, you're not just sending money. You're writing back. You're showing up month after month, letter after letter. You're celebrating their victories, encouraging them through challenges and reminding them that they truly matter. Now, this isn't a transaction. It's an incredible relationship that spans continents and changes everything for both of you. That is where Compassion International connects you directly with one child. Real letters, real relationships and real change. Because poverty isn't solved with donations alone. It's solved by showing up. Impact the world one child at a time and learn how@compassion.com that's compassion.com all right.
- [03:17]
Ben Shapiro
So Senator Sunday morning, I was watching CBS like Sunday Morning, their show with Jane Pauley. And they were reminding people that Tuesday is one year since President Trump will be in office. And they were talking about this and they were also comparing it, saying that Donald Trump has gone so rogue on the world stage now. And they had a historian on to say, well, most countries don't make it to 250 years with a democracy and freedom. And so they were clearly implying that this is that 250 year anniversary and we probably won't make it there by July because Donald Trump's gone so rogue. And I laugh because I'm like, this guy is so clearly transparent and what he wants to do and what the voters told him to do. Iran is another example that you don't have to guess. He has said what our stated mission is.
- [04:09]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, I gotta say, your first mistake is, is what on earth were you doing watching CBS this morning? I, I was very bored. I was on Maria Bartiromo, but apparently I'm chopped liver. And so you weren't interested in watching me. You instead wanted, I want to know.
- [04:25]
Ben Shapiro
What the commies were peddling out there.
- [04:28]
Senator Ted Cruz
Look, you wanted to listen to commie historians lie and say democracy died the day the American people elected Donald Trump. By the way, they think democracy died anytime the voters don't elect left wing radical Democrats. You know, it reminds me of an Ego Montoya and the Princess Bride. When it comes to democracy, you keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Like, like their definition of democracy is not what you actually would get looking in the dictionary, which is the people voting. And actually pure democracy is the people voting and choosing the policies that will govern their country. We don't have a pure democracy. We have a republic. What is a republic? A republic is where the people vote to elect their representative. So the people are not voting on should our top marginal tax rate be 36% or 50% or 10%, that would be direct democracy. But instead we have, you could call it a democratic republic because it is a republic where democracy operates to elect our representatives. But when people use democracy, capital D, they usually mean that the voters get to decide. But that's not how Democrats use it. That's not how the media use it. Instead, what they mean by democracy is, is socialists and Marxists are in power. And by the way, they're perfectly happy to ignore the voters if it keeps them in power. Let's focus on Iran for a moment because listen, and we've talked about this on the pod in the last couple of weeks. I really do think we're in a momentous moment, like unlike anything we have seen since the late 1980s, the early 1990s. Yeah, we're in a moment where three of the most viciously anti American regimes across the planet, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba, in the next six months, we could see all three of those regimes fall and we could also see free and fair elections in all three of them. And if that happens, I think there is a real possibility that they will elect, democratically elect, going back to big D democracy, the voters, I believe there's a real possibility, will elect leaders who will defend free markets, defend freedom and critically stop waging war on America and make the choice to be friends with America. If that happens, it will be the most consequential change on the global stage since the fall of the Berlin Wall, since Ronald Reagan and America won the Cold War. And we did that without firing a shot that changed the entire globe. And we could see in 2026 a change every bit as significant. Now let me be clear. There are a thousand ways for things to go wrong in Iran, in Venezuela, in Cuba. So. And what we do know for certainty is it will not be smooth and without challenges. We know that to an absolute certainty. Expect the unexpected. That being said, President Trump came out this week and he explicitly said it is time for a new government in Iran. He had never said that before. Throughout the first term, throughout this term, until right now, he had explicitly not gone so far as to embrace, quote, regime change. Now Ben, you'll remember what was it six, seven months ago when it, when I did Tucker Carlson show, he started by peripatetically freaking out and saying, my God Cruz, you're for regime change in Iran. And he like had a heart attack. And then he began laughing maniacally, which he does a lot.
- [08:15]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah.
- [08:16]
Senator Ted Cruz
The odd thing is I think any rational American should be want to see regime change. If you ask yourself. Is America better off if the leader of Iran is not a crazy religious nut, an Islamist radical who chants death to America?
- [08:37]
Ben Shapiro
Who buys people to kill people? Yeah.
- [08:38]
Senator Ted Cruz
Who chants death to America? Who murders and tortures his own people? Who is the biggest funder of terrorism on planet Earth? Who provides more than 90% of the funding to Hamas? Who provides more than 90% of the funding to Hezbollah? Who is responsible for killing hundreds if not thousands of Americans? Like, unequivocally, America would be better off if the Ayatollah was no longer the leader of Iran. Now, part of the reason why the words regime change have a stigma connected to them is many remember the Iraq war. They remember the George W. Bush administration where regime change justified sending hundreds of thousands of American troops to spend years fighting in a distant war. And they don't want to see that. And by the way, I don't want to see that. I think the Iraq war was a mistake. I have said that for a long, long time. So when I say I support regime change, it doesn't mean I wanna send hundreds of thousands of American troops onto the ground in Iran. What it means is it is unequivocally in our interest to see the Ayatollah fall. I think the Ayatollah's fall ought to be driven primarily by the Iranian people. And it's why this uprising is so consequential, because it is Iranians who. Who are risking their lives to overturn this, this regime, this dictatorship. But President Trump, I think, is doing a good job of, number one, making clear that America stands with the people, stands with the protesters, and threatening accountability. And what does accountability look like? Like, he, he has made clear to the government of Iran, if you just sit there and begin massacring the protesters, there will be real consequences. He hasn't specified what they are, but the clear implication is the consequences will be military in nature. That deterrence, by the way, military in nature is not send hundreds of thousands of troops to the ground, but it may well be bomb the crap out of something like there is.
- [10:40]
Ben Shapiro
And hopefully they are remembering the Iran nuclear sites that we just hit doing the impossible mission. And I do think that's part of Trump's calculus. Like, if you don't believe me, just go look at your nuclear sites. Don't, don't, don't test me here. Don't think I won't do this.
- [10:58]
Senator Ted Cruz
Right. And look, you combine President Trump taking out the Iranian nuclear facilities and you combine it with the raid and arrest on Maduro, two incredibly audacious national security steps massively improve the national security of America. Both were incredible successes. And in Iran, Israel's already taken out their air defenses. Their air defenses are essentially non existence. Now. Anytime you engage in military action, there is a risk. I mean, we could have casualties, but Iran is in a markedly weakened position and so that threat is consequential. I also hope and I believe, and I don't have any classified information on this, so I'm not revealing anything, but I hope and believe there's quite a bit that is happening under the surface that we're not seeing in terms of COVID activities. I hope we're doing everything humanly possible to help and support the protesters so that they can overthrow the government. Not us, but them. But we can be contrasted to what happened when Barack Obama was president. And I want to actually, I want to compare the two and give you that contrast. So there was an article in Tablet magazine several days ago and it's called Is this Time different in Iran? It's by an author named Peter Thoreau and here's what he said. I want to read this at some length because I think it's really quite interesting and profound. In 2009, what shocked me about President Barack Obama's lack of support for the Green Movement protesters in Iran was the failure to launch of the Commander in Chief's colossal ego. Here were thousands of young Iranians filling the streets of Tehran to appeal to him. Even with a wistful pun on his Obama, Bama Bashid Obama, be with us. Anyone in government at the time knew that the Chicagoan lacked nothing in the way of ruthlessness, though he tended to save it for Republicans of the non Islamic variety. He applied the word enemy to the gop, but never to the mullahs. If righteous anger at the regime's murder of dissidents didn't meet the threshold for Chicago rules, I thought surely vanity might do the job. But opening to Iran had been an early theme of his presidency. That same year, with a mushy Persian New Year message and a secret letter to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, of whom he knew little. Quote, despite his title as Supreme Leader, Khamenei's authority wasn't absolute. Obama preposterously intoned in his memoir, A promised land. In 2020, quote, he had to confer with a powerful council of clerics, the Guardians Council. Referring to the clerics, journalist Karim Sajapur observed that their average age is deceased. Obama continued, that's pretty funny. Obama continued, quote, my first impulse was to express strong support for the demonstrators. Obama records further in that memoir. But when I gathered my national security team, our Iran experts advised against such a move. According to them, any statement for me would likely backfire. Activists inside Iran fear that supportive statements from the US government would be seized upon to discredit their movement.
- [14:23]
Ben Shapiro
That's amazing.
- [14:25]
Senator Ted Cruz
The latter statement was ridiculous on its face as the demonstrators were openly pleading for outside support. And from him specifically. He may have been ignorant about how Ronald Reagan's harsh anti Moscow rhetoric boosted the morale of imprisoned dissidents like Natan Sharansky. But what of that national security team? Obama does not name them, but his administration would become known for high level sentimentalists towards Iran. Rob Malley, Samantha Power, Philip Gordon, Sahir Nawazade and the diplomatic weaklings who would negotiate the nuclear deal. So Obama issued a series of statements that he himself would describe as, quote, bland, bureaucratic and passive, bitter. That, quote, I had to listen to Republicans howl that I was coddling a murderous regime. Actually, he was six years away from truly coddling it. Our cerebral leader lamented that as president, quote, my heart was now chained to strategic considerations and tactical analysis. My conviction subject to counterintuitive arguments that in the most powerful office on earth I had less freedom to say what I meant and act on what I felt than I had as a senator. In other words, what passed for his convictions were easily defeated by an America bad briefing from his subordinates. Now it goes on to say numbers are still inexact, but Tehran's thugs made about 4,000 arrests and killed hundreds to quell the 2009 demonstration. The Green Movements leaders were jailed globally. Dissidents of all stripes and Even Madonna and U2 spoke out in favor of Iranian democracy. By the way, where are Madonna and you two right now? That's an interesting question. Was it a bitter pill for a cool cat like Obama not to be in that club? I suspect not, as he harbored some sentimentality towards the Islamic Republic, having stated in his first letter to its leader as well as in his tape video message on the occasion of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, that he sought normalization with the state sponsor of terror. A long step beyond better hope. Hoping for better relations with Iran someday, as you might do in a holiday.
- [16:44]
Compassion International Narrator
Greeting, I want you to meet Maria. In 15 years she'll be a nurse bringing health care to her village. Right now she's eight and she just needs someone to believe she can get there. Someone to help her stay in school, someone to tell her she's capable of extraordinary things. I want you to meet James, a future engineer. He'll design clean water systems for his community. Today he's learning multiplication and dreaming big. But he needs more than dreams. He needs nutrition. He needs mentorship and someone who won't give up on him. Meet Sophia. She'll become the first first in her family to graduate university. She'll teach dozens of children who remind her of herself. But right now, at age 10, she's at a crossroads. And your support could be what tips the balance. Through Compassion International. You're not helping a child survive poverty. You're investing in who they'll become. The teacher, the leader, the parents who will change their family story forever, impact the world one child at a time. Learn how@compassion.com that's compassion.com support for the.
- [18:03]
Podcast Sponsor/Announcer
Show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like EFTs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member finra SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comdisclosures Senator, I.
- [19:12]
Ben Shapiro
Just got to stop. And I do love the revisionist history from Barack Obama. He's like, hey, I wanted to stay with the people at Iran, but my team told me not to. So therefore that's why I didn't do it. Leaders lead. Like straight up leaders lead. You lead. You're at the front of the ship. You're in charge. It's supposed to be your foreign policy. And then you look at what he actually did with Iran and you understand he was aiding and abetting and helping them stay on top in Iran. Like, let's just be clear, we sent them money.
- [19:44]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah, yeah. Look, to understand leaders Lead. And by the way, Obama was leading. Obama was leading. There is, there's practically not an Islamist on planet Earth that he didn't coddle, embrace and send money to.
- [19:59]
Ben Shapiro
Right. When he got elected, remember, it was all about the Muslim world in a reset.
- [20:03]
Senator Ted Cruz
And by the way, when he was brand new in office, he flew to, as president, he flew to Cairo, to the University of Cairo and he gave a speech where he said Iran has a right. And he used the word right to nuclear weapons. Nuclear technology. Actually didn't say weapons. He said nuclear technology.
- [20:17]
Podcast Sponsor/Announcer
Technology.
- [20:18]
Senator Ted Cruz
That was absurd. And so his claiming to be reluctant I think is a brazen lie. This is his ideology. And by the way, it came to full flower under the Biden White House. And I think the history for a lot of folks that may not remember what was happening, look, 2009 was 16, 17 years ago. It was a long time ago. Yeah, let me jump forward because the question then is, okay, what's different now? And let me jump forward to this article. I think it's a really insightful article. So after two weeks of the largest nationwide demonstrations in Iran since the Islamic Revolution, what has changed and why? It has nothing to do with negotiating tables and lots to do with battle space. First, let's note that this month's huge anti regime demonstrations in more than 100 Iranian cities were not ignited by a single big domestic event like a blatantly stolen election or the murder of an innocent young woman. The Iranian real has been crashing past a million to the dollar. Let me say that again. One past one million to a dollar. That's their exchange rate for weeks. And inflation reached the point where the Tehran bazaar was losing money on every transaction. So it closed something else. Every transaction.
- [21:42]
Ben Shapiro
Just imagine having a store and everything you're selling you're losing money on. How would you stay in business? That's why they closed down.
- [21:47]
Senator Ted Cruz
It's incre because hyperinflation. If the value of the real falls day after day after day, you sell something for 5 million real and then the next day that 5 million real is worth a fraction of what it was worth the day before. That's why they closed. Something else drove the following events, such as the South Pars energy strike and reported military defections. The battle space started shaping up six years ago this month under Trump with the US killing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Qassam Soleimani, the second most powerful man in Iran by US drones at Baghdad airport. He had just arrived from Damascus, where he was briefing former Syrian President Bashar al Assad on a plan to attack the US Embassy in Baghdad, as it had been done in Tehran in 1979. Iran's Iraqi catspaw Abu Madi Al Mahandas and 10 senior Iranian briefers and bodyguards were also killed in the strike. After 20 years of Bush, Obama and Biden kid gloves, Tehran was legitimately frightened. And then after the Tehran directed atrocity against Israel In October 2023, Israel killed Yahassinwar Mohammed, Deef, Hasran Nasrallah, Ibrahim Akil Hashem Safedine and Ismail Haniyeh at an IRGC safehouse in tehran and almost 100 more in Lebanon and Gaza. Deprived of its decapitated Hezbollah praetorian guard, the Syrian Ba'ath Party didn't trust its own people any more than the Bolivarian Maduro trusted Venezuelans more than Cubans. The criminal Assad family fled to Moscow. Then last summer, the Israeli and US air forces wiped out much of the Iranian military's general staff and key nuclear sites. The pro Tehran, Moscow and Beijing dominoes continue to fall with the capture of Nicolas Maduro, the massacre of his Cuban protection detail, the seizure of Russian ghost ships and the spread of Starlink terminals in Iran. Iranians have seen the regime and its backers exposed and humiliated by an American administration and they were quick to exploit this roll of the dice. Unlike pro Hamas nihilists from Berkeley to Dublin, they have hit their streets in millions of without a single keffiyya or aloha akbar. Motivated by American successes against their regime and its feckless backers at the time of writing, the regime has turned off the Internet and all landlines and Khamenei has engaged emerged from a two day silence to express defiance. This is no surprise to anyone who knows that Khamenei's greatest fear is moderation that causes the regime to bend and then break, as expressed in Alex Vatanka's the Battle of the Ayatollahs in Iran, Khamenei became obsessed with the prospect of an Iranian Gorbachev who would impose reforms and usher in a USSR style collapse. The more so because this was addressed by Tom Friedman, a Jewish American journalist, in a 1996 column titled Waiting for Ayatollah Gorbachev after he visited Iran that pressed all of the leaders buttons. Expect his defiance to continue as long as he is alive or in power, which may not be long. And listen to this because he faces two threats. The one in front of him is the unpredictable Donald Trump, who has already shed Iranian blood and has promised to rescue the Iranian People, the one behind him is the irgc, which holds all the firepower in Iran and which knows, as Mohammad Ahmadinejad do, that the mullahs are despised by nearly the entire population. They are unlikely to lay down their guns or give up the 40% of the Iranian economy they control. They are led by Ahmed Vahidi, an internationally sanctioned terrorist. Quote, terrorists are a. Was a wise saying of one of my counterterrorist colleagues at the CIA. She didn't just mean that terror plots ruined our weekends and sleep schedules. She meant that terrorists are psychopathic, disloyal and venal creatures who couldn't did mistreat each other and turn against each other. The top ranks of the IRGC are full of them. And this is the final point. What might lead the IRGC to sideline or overthrow Khamenei and his weak president Massoud Pezechian? Two kinds of strike. An anti regime blow from the United States or the labor variety that would shut down Iran's energy sector. If both occur, my money is on a coup and goodbye mullahs. And this is from Peter Thoreau. Spent 20 years in the US government and the CIA. I gotta say, look, I appreciated that article because it provides a level of context and detail.
- [27:39]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah.
- [27:40]
Senator Ted Cruz
Drawing a real difference between what happens when you have a weak pro Islamist president like Barack Obama or for that matter Joe Biden in the White House versus a strong pro America president like Donald Trump. And I think the terrain is totally different. Which is why by the way, Trump is saying to the protesters, keep a list of the names of any soldiers who are committing atrocities because there is going to be accountability. That carrot and stick is really powerful for deterring that kind of horrific action.
- [28:11]
Ben Shapiro
You know, there's part of this article and I think we should talk about this for a moment because there is. I had, I had dinner the other night with some oil executives and they were frustrated a little bit because the price of oil has come down. And one of the people at the table was also White House. And they said, what you don't understand is that our energy independence policy is also a national security policy. Because when you take away the money, that is to the leadership in Iran, to Vladimir Putin in Russia, Venezuela is another example of this. Right. Then what you, you, you. The money that they need to survive and to hold on to power and to pay their forces to keep them in power and to go after their citizens just completely disappears. That is part of, I think what Donald Trump and it was very interesting to hear this kind of back and forth. It was like, hey, I'm sorry that the price of per barrel is not where you want it, but it's helping American families to lower gas prices and it's a national security thing for us as well. And it's allowing some of these horrible people in the world to start teetering a little bit because they don't have the cash flow they had two, three, four years ago under Democratic leadership.
- [29:21]
Senator Ted Cruz
I think that's right. There's also a balance that President Trump and the Trump administration are trying to strike, which is we've seen the price of oil drop dramatically from 100 bucks a barrel to down just around 60 bucks a barrel, a little bit lower. That has weakened almost every bad guy in the world. That has weakened Russia, that is weakened Iran, that is weakened Venezuela and Maduro because it is, I guess God has a sense of humor and that many of the worst players on planet Earth depend upon oil revenues. They're in many ways petro tyrants. Now Maduro's not. Maduro is inmate number two, five, seven, whatever.
- [30:00]
Ben Shapiro
But, but he used to hanging out with Pete.
- [30:02]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah, but I'll say this, look, there is a balance because from a US national security interest. Look, oil and gas and energy are powerful weapons against our enemies and, and to buttress America. But you don't want to slash the price of oil so dramatically that you devastate US producers. And I, as you know, I talk to, I represent Texas, I talk to a lot of US producers and I will say at down around 60, $70 a barrel, you see what we've got now, which is gas prices at about 2, 3 bucks a gallon depending on what part of the country you're in. Now if you're in California, there's still four or five bucks a gallon.
- [30:42]
Ben Shapiro
But that's, that's on you for living in California, voting for those nut jobs.
- [30:45]
Senator Ted Cruz
But yeah, that's Gavin Newsom of the Democrats fault. But here, here in Texas, you fill up your tank, it's you know, somewhere between two and three bucks typically is what you're paying right now. I think that's a sweet spot is 60 to $70 where it lowers. Under Biden, when we had $100 oil, you were seeing 4, 5, 6, $7 a gallon of gasoline. That really hurts consumers.
- [31:07]
Ben Shapiro
Yeah, crushing, crushing middle and lower class families even more than anybody else.
- [31:11]
Senator Ted Cruz
I will say this, if you see oil prices plummet, so let's say they drop from the 60s down to say the 40s or below, it hurts a lot of people. That's when it starts doing real damage, in particular to the independent producers, the small guys in West Texas and the Permian, that's when you see drilling basically stop. And by the way, the majors will be fine. The ExxonMobils, the Chevrons, I mean, look, those are companies that literally have more revenue and assets than most countries on planet Earth. They're that massive. So the majors will survive a drop. But what happens if we see $40 oil? You'll see bankruptcy, bankruptcies throughout the Permian Basin of the small producers. And when those guys go away, those are the guys driving production. And what it does is it weakens America's ability to produce oil and makes us more dependent on foreign adversaries. So I think what President Trump and the administration is trying to do is stay in a sweet spot where oil is low enough that our enemies are weakened, but not so low that we're devastating U.S. small businesses. And I think they're doing a pretty good job of trying to balance those two factors.
- [32:26]
Ben Shapiro
Well, I was talking to some. Some small refineries, and that was exactly their concern center was, hey, these small refineries that keep these small towns going that employ a lot of people, they want to make sure that they're okay as well. And like you said, that's where this administration kind of has to weigh both. Both ends of this. Because you don't want to hurt mom and Pops, you don't want to hurt the small ones. Like you said, the big ones will be okay. But these small refineries that. That literally power these small towns where they are, you don't want them to get hurt either.
- [32:55]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah, and. And look, in the last several weeks, with everything happening in Iran, everything happening in Venezuela, I've been reaching out to energy leaders, primarily in Texas. So I've had conversations with the CEO of Chevron and the CEO of Valero, the biggest refiner in America. And I've had conversations with a number of smaller E and P exploration and production independents in West Texas, and they've expressed optimism, number one, in terms of Venezuela. Venezuela, as we've talked about, has the highest proven reserves of oil in the world. No country has more. But the Venezuelan infrastructure has completely collapsed. Communism is not capable of producing what they should. And so Venezuela right now is producing about a million barrels a day, which is a fraction of what their capacity is. I will say. I asked one of the major CEOs, I said, okay, what would the timeframe be to take Venezuela from 1 million barrels a day to 3 million barrels a day? And the response was 10 years that it doesn't happen over like it would tens of billions of dollars of investment and perhaps north of $100 billion. Now you would recoup that. But the infrastructure has so degraded. And I said, all right, so 10 years to go from 1 million a day to 3 million a day. How about just from 1 to 2? And the answer was five to seven years. So the first million, you add a.
- [34:25]
Ben Shapiro
Structure, it's just straight up infrastructure.
- [34:28]
Senator Ted Cruz
Right, right. And you could keep going up from there. I also am talking to refiners. So Venezuela produces what is called heavy sour crude, which is a different sort of crude than in West Texas. They produce what's called light sweet crude. You refine them very, very differently. Now it so happens that the refineries that were built to handle heavy sour crude are along the Gulf coast. They're in Texas and Louisiana. And so we've got the capacity. I've been told that the Gulf coast refineries could almost overnight refine an additional 250,000 barrels of the heavy crude from Venezuela. Now, interestingly enough, when I've asked the refiners, okay, what would the trade off be? What would the impact be say for West Texas producers? Yeah, the refiners at least were not that concerned about it. And they said, look, the other producers of heavy crude are Canada. And so the tar sands in Alberta. And I said, look, more Venezuelan crude would impact Canada and actually Mexico. Mexico also produces similar crude to what Venezuela and Canada produce. And so that in terms of the impact, those are the trade offs. And that's the kind of decision making the Trump administration is engaged in right now.
- [35:45]
Ben Shapiro
It's a new year, 2026, you've probably heard the name bitcoin and cryptocurrency. So the question so many people have is, is it safe and is it something that I should be invested in? It's a question I want to get answered for you today. And joining me now to talk about that is the co founder of Bitcoin, Ira, Chris Klein. Chris, I appreciate you being here and it is pretty cool to see what's happening in the crypto space. It has become normal. It now can be a part of your ira. The federal government has changed the rules. They're accepting cryptocurrency like it's a stock.
- [36:19]
Chris Klein
Yes, absolutely. And it's, it's really driven itself into a mainstream space. I remember a decade ago when we first started bitcoin ira, and everybody was like, are you crazy, kid? You're putting bitcoin in Retirement accounts. Is this even possible? And you fast forward to where we're at today, where countries are building stockpiles, corporations are building stockpiles. Strategy, for example, is pretty much its entire business models around this. It's a piece of diversification that every major player in the space and economics is looking at and so should to the individual sovereignty of the average American looking to put it inside of their retirement.
- [36:51]
Ben Shapiro
You guys actually have a really cool stat that you told me about at dinner and that is that your clients 75% were born before 1976. So the idea that you maybe missed out on this or if you're a little older, it's a young man's game in crypto that is also just not true.
- [37:08]
Chris Klein
That's definitely one of the myths I wanted to come debunk with you and your audience is this isn't, this isn't our grandfather's economy. And grandfathers are buying bitcoin and putting it inside of their retirement for long term holdings. Especially now that they're thinking about inheritance and handing some of these things down. But yeah, that was actually shocking to me. We discovered that in 2018 that 75% of them were older than my parents generation. And what we found from surveying all of them was this is something that they think is new age and that I think almost every American, especially older ones, has a genuine concern of watching what's happened to the US dollar over the last four or five decades. And there's always been gold and silver as a potential hedge, land, real estate. These scarce assets in bitcoin, while it may seem, oh, that's digital and it's different, it's scarce. There's only 21 million assets of Bitcoin that will ever be mined. 19 and a half million have been mined so far. And you and I actually won't live. Our kids will probably live to see the last one get mined. This is something, you know, we're in a world of abundance. Since I was born in 1985, it's abundance. We just printed and printed and print did more. This is a moment in time where we may be able to revert back to scarcity. And there'll be a day where just saying I have one Bitcoin will be life changing.
- [38:14]
Ben Shapiro
Chris. I hope a lot of people that are watching this, you guys will go and find out more. It is amazing what you can do in your retirement account now just like your other investments with bitcoin cryptocurrency. Find out more right now@bitcoin IRA.com Ben. That's bitcoin. IRA.com, ben. And see what cryptocurrency can do for your portfolio. I want to ask you one final question before we wrap here. We talked a lot about Venezuela in the last couple of shows. We kind of know the state of play there. We talked a lot about Iran today. Can you give us, for everyone listening, just a quick update on what's happening in Cuba. We've mentioned it several times of, of how things could be teetering there. Give a little bit of an update for people that understand what's happening on the ground there as we wrap things up.
- [39:03]
Senator Ted Cruz
So look, the Cuban regime has been a communist dictatorship since 1959. As you know, that for me is not some abstract statement because my family was directly involved in it. My dad was a kid, he was 14 when he began fighting in the Cuban revolution. And to this day, my dad turns 87 in March. And he told me, he said, look, the revolution, he said it was 14 and 15 year old boys who he said were too stupid to know any better. And as you know, you know my dad well. But, but when I, when I want to give my father grief, I'll call my dad a communist gorilla. He gets very mad.
- [39:43]
Ben Shapiro
I have a feeling that's during game night when you guys are playing games. I just, I feel like that's when that's going to get used the most.
- [39:49]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah. And he will say, I was not a communist. I was never a communist. He was a kid. And they were fighting against Batista, who was, who was a dictator, he was corrupt. And Batista's thugs threw my father in prison and they tortured him. And so when my dad came to America, he was fleeing Batista and he came to Texas at 18 with nothing and he couldn't speak English. He came seeking freedom. His younger sister is my Theasonia. And my Thea Sonia, I adore my Theasonia. I call her my Thea Loca. She's my crazy aunt. She is a fireball. She was there in 59 when Castro took over. And the young people, the Cubans didn't realize Castro was a communist. They just thought it was a people's revolution against Batista. He took over, he declared he was a communist. He began firing squads, he began executing anyone who disagreed with him. He began seizing people's lands. And my Theasonia fought in the counter revolution. She was. There was a whole counter revolution of the people trying to fight back. And my Theasonia ended up being thrown in prison and tortured by Castro's goons. So I take it very personally when it comes to communism, it strikes very close to home. If you look at the history of Cuba, starting early on, from when Castro took over and made Cuba a communist dictatorship, for decades, Cuba was effectively a satellite state of the Soviet Union. Remember the whole Cuban Missile crisis under JFK and the Soviets provided them a financial lifeline. Look, if you're a communist, you destroy the economy. That happens all across the world. Communism is a great way to destroy jobs and make your people incredibly poor. Cuba went from. It was the number one sugar producer in all of Latin America, and they just destroyed the sugar industry and everything else and brought massive poverty to Cuba. They survived because the Soviet Union sent them money, and they sent them money because the Soviets wanted a military satellite just 90 miles off the coast of America. Now, when we won the Cold War, when the Soviet Union collapsed, suddenly that financial lifeline disappeared. And what happened was Venezuela stepped into the breach. And you had Hugo Chavez and then later Maduro, both communist dictators who destroyed the economy in Venezuela just like Castro had in Cuba. Chavez and Maduro did the same thing in Venezuela. And Venezuela had a corrupt bargain where they would send oil, which they had a ton of, and they would send money, which they had a lot of in exchange for selling the oil. And what they would get back is enforcers and thugs. There was a reason Maduro's entire protection detail were Cuban guards. And, you know, in the article I just read, it talked about how one of the reasons is Maduro didn't trust Venezuelans because he was such a terrible leader that he was afraid Venezuelans would turn on him, which is why he used Cuban enforcers instead. Well, with Venezuela, with Maduro having been arrested, no longer in power, Venezuela is no longer sending oil and no longer sending money to Cuba. And the Cuban economy is in free fall, just like the Iranian economy is in free fall. The regime is incredibly precarious. And I'll tell you what's keeping it alive right now, which is Mexico is still sending oil to Cuba. And my hope is the Trump administration is going to lean on Mexico to stop that oil going to Cuba. I think that may be the single most important piece to nudge Cuba beyond the tipping point, much like Iran is. And I think the communist dictatorship is terrified that they will lose control. Now, the counterbalance to that is the Cuban regime has a massive oppressive machinery that has been in place for decades. And that machinery can be really brutal. And so I think the vulnerability right now is that when people face a collapsing economy, they get angry and they can turn on their leaders. And so I think the Trump administration, I think President Trump is encouraging that. But, but it is the economic factor more than anything that I think is, is, is putting the regime in a massively fragile position.
- [44:15]
Ben Shapiro
It's going to be very interesting to see what happens in the days and weeks ahead on this because like you said, it's teetering at the moment. How long can you teeter before the people also rise up, which is what we've seen in Venezuela. It's also what we've seen certainly day to day in, in Iran. And, and the question is what happens next in Cuba? We're going to cover it all here. Don't forget, we do the show Monday, Wednesday and Friday. So hit that subscriber auto download button so you don't miss an episode. You can tell Siri or Alexa play Verdict with Ted Cruz and that will happen. And you can also watch the show now on YouTube or on Facebook. Make sure you subscribe on YouTube and you can watch the show on the big screen in your living room or on your phone, wherever you want to, on demand as well. And the center. I will see you back here Wednesday morning. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.