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- [00:00]
Ben Ferguson
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- [02:21]
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welcome.
- [02:22]
Ben Ferguson
It is verdict with Center Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you and obviously this is a very big show. Many of you may have not ever listened to the show before. We want to welcome you as we're obviously going to be talking a lot about the attack on Iran and what is happening. So if you're joining us for the very first time, it's nice to have you. Don't forget to hit that subscriber or auto download button wherever you get your podcasts. Senator, this is obviously a very big show and it's an important one because the world is changing before our very eyes.
- [02:50]
Ted Cruz
On Saturday, President Trump launched a major military attack on Iran. A bombing. Bombing from, from the sky. Bombing from, from naval vessels. It was done in close coordination with Israel that likewise launched a bombing attack. In the opening minutes and hours of the attack, the Ayatollah Khamenei was killed. Other major leaders of Iran were killed. The bombing is ongoing. You and I are recording this Sunday afternoon. As of right now, over 900 bombing strikes have been carried out by the United States. Over 1,200 bombing strikes have been carried out by Israel. I spent the entire day on Friday with President Trump. The day before the attack. We spent much of the time discussing the attack that was coming. This podcast, we're going to try to explain exactly what's happening, why President Trump attacked Iran, what is likely to happen as a result, and what the next stages are. We're also going to talk about the mass shooting that occurred at 2am Sunday morning in Austin, Texas, in a bar on 6th street where a gunman murdered two other people and injured 17. That gunman in turn was shot and killed by Austin police. Early indicia makes it make it appear that this was a terrorist attack. He was wearing a sweatshirt that said Property of Allah. He was wearing a shirt with the Iranian flag on it. It is still early. I spoke today with Kash Patel, the director of, of the FBI. We're going to break that down as well. This is going to be a podcast where we try, try to examine everything you need to know about what is happening in Iran, how it is going to impact the United States and what's coming next.
- [04:37]
Ben Ferguson
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- [06:22]
Ben Ferguson
mentioned earlier that you were on the plane with President Trump, Air Force One. We're going to get to that. And what was discussed on the plane a moment because a lot of people listening, they're going to want to hear that. But but let's talk about the biggest news now. And and you actually were on Face the Nation earlier today and had a lot to say about this attack on Iran and how successful it's been so far. So take a listen to what Senator Cruz had to say earlier today on Face the Nation.
- [06:46]
Margaret Brennan
Senator, just looking at the the global environment right now, CENTCOM announced three Americans were killed and five seriously wounded in this operation. President Trump and President Vice President Vance campaigned on not getting America involved in new wars. What do you say to Americans this morning who are asking why we are in this conflict now?
- [07:09]
Senator John Cornyn
President Trump's decision to launch this decisive action against Iran is the single most important decision of his presidency. I think he laid out powerfully and effectively why he is taking this action. He is taking this action because the government of Iran is a profound and malign influence. They have been the leading state sponsor of terrorism for 47 years. They have over that time killed nearly 1,000Americans. They provide more than 90% of the funding for Hamas. They provide more than 90 percent of the funding for Hezbollah. The Iranian Ayatollah was, until yesterday, actively trying to murder the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. I spent the entire day with President Trump on Friday right before he launched these attacks. He and I discussed this at length on Friday. My counsel to him was that the Iranian regime has never been weaker, that it was teetering, and now was the time. My advice was do not miss this opportunity. I think the President has acted boldly, he's acted decisively, and Iran no longer being led by a theocratic, murderous dictator, that makes America much, much safer.
- [08:37]
Margaret Brennan
Senator, you are not going to find a lot of people in any way defending the Supreme Leader, that is for sure. However, putting Americans in harm way is what I'm pressing you on here. Did the President explain to you why he called off active diplomacy? Because at the very same time he was on that plane, the Vice President United States was talking to the Omani mediator who was trying to get a deal and told us that they were to one. Why not choose diplomacy?
- [09:08]
Senator John Cornyn
Because the diplomacy was an abject failure. The Iranians approached the diplomacy with arrogance, which with absolute hubris. They said they would not stop enriching no matter what. They were going to continue to enrich uranium. They would not discuss zero enrichment. They claimed a right to enrich uranium in underground bunkers with no supervision. As President Trump said on Friday when he was with me in Texas, his line was zero enrichment. And the Iranians refused to discuss it. They also refused to discuss their proxies. They refused to discuss Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis. And President Trump understood that the Iranian, quote, negotiation was just a stall tactic and that the only response was my advice to him. I said there's only one deal you should accept, and it's the deal that you offered Maduro, which is if you want to leave and flee the country, you can do so. Anything else is unacceptable. And Khamenei made his choice.
- [10:15]
Margaret Brennan
Well, there are disputes there in terms of your characterization of what was actually on the table and what the administration had indicated it was willing to accept in terms of allowing enrichment for medical purposes and the like. But, but that's now, obviously.
- [10:30]
Senator John Cornyn
So, Margot, what I just told you, what I just told you is almost word for word what Secretary of State Marco Rubio told me yesterday.
- [10:40]
Margaret Brennan
Can you tell us now if you believe that there was an ongoing nuclear weapons program? One of the top arms control, arms control experts out there, David Albright, has written there should be an immediate priority on rapid response operations to secure Iran's nuclear Stockpiles right now. Can you assure the public that it will be secured and if so, who is doing it if there are no Israeli or US Forces on the ground?
- [11:09]
Senator John Cornyn
So there is no doubt that a year ago, Iran had an active and ongoing nuclear weapons program. We took out the vast majority of that at the end of the 12 day war.
- [11:19]
Margaret Brennan
That US intelligence assessment was not made public, if that is what was brief to you.
- [11:25]
Senator John Cornyn
We took out, we launched targeted bombs at the end of the 12 Day War, where we dropped the equivalent of about a third of a nuclear weapon on those underground facilities, facilities like Fordo, which is built into the base of a mountain. The bunker buster bombs we used. Israel doesn't have those bombs. No other country has those bombs. We took them out last year. The Iranians were still hell bent on rebuilding them. And one of the things we are doing right now is taking out their missiles. In particular the southern missile belt. Right now, Iran is building roughly 100 missiles a month. They are actively building missiles to threaten their neighbors.
- [12:07]
Margaret Brennan
And they're firing some of them right now at their neighbors.
- [12:10]
Senator John Cornyn
Yeah, they're illustrating powerfully they're attacking virtually every Arab neighbor that surrounds them. They are firing missiles that. It's almost like they want to illustrate to the world just how maligned they are.
- [12:24]
Margaret Brennan
But in terms of containing the risk. Who is securing the nuclear material that you say still exists within Iran? Who's doing that?
- [12:32]
Senator John Cornyn
Look, the quantity of nuclear material. I didn't say one, anything one way or another on that. What I said is they were building nuclear weapons a year ago and our bombing took that out. They also had an ongoing desire to rebuild them. I don't have present day intelligence on what progress they had made towards rebuilding nuclear weapons since we bombed their facilities. I have no indication that, that they were anywhere close to getting nuclear weapons because our bombing was devastating. And Margaret, that's one of the reasons I urged President Trump. Now is the time. You know, dictatorships survive because they're perceived as invulnerable. And in this instance, Iran decisively lost the 12 day war that weakened the regime and set up what the President is doing now.
- [13:23]
Ben Ferguson
Senator, I found it very interesting just how much she wanted to say that somehow her sources are better than your sources. When you were just with the President, United States of America, and just talked directly to Marco Rubio, it was pretty hilarious. She's like, well, that's not what all the intelligence says. And you're like, no. Like, I just talked to the people where the intelligence is coming from. If you, I this is why I go back and say, you don't hate the media enough. This is what they do. We, by the way, we saw this with headlines today. New York Times a great example of the propaganda of how they're, like, still standing there, acting. Acting like the ayatollah was some sort of, like, decent and humane individual. That was taken out. This is the narrative, and you witnessed it right there in that interview with you.
- [14:04]
Ted Cruz
Well, the New York Times headline says, ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hardline cleric who made Iran a regional power, is dead at 86. Which is just ridiculous. And I'll say Mark Halperin had had an amusing take on it. He said that headline was a little bit like a headline, quote, jeffrey Dahmer, hungry Wisconsin man passes away. Yeah.
- [14:34]
Ben Ferguson
That it's not far off.
- [14:36]
Ted Cruz
While technically accurate, it conveys, you know, approval of the conduct. And in fact, I want to, in fact, that that New York Times headline is as ridiculous as the older Washington Post headline that read, abu Bakr al Baghdadi, austere religious scholar at the helm of Islamic state, dies at 48. I mean, it's just absurd, but it's actually, it's not the worst. The Washington Post wrote an obituary for the ayatollah that if Saturday Night Live had done this, they couldn't have made it more absurd. I'm going to read you a paragraph from it. With his bushy white beard and easy smile, Ayatollah Khamenei cut a more avuncular figure in public than his perpetually scowling but much more revered mentor. And he was known to be fond of Persian poetry and classic Western novels, especially Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. Some Iranians knew Ayatollah Khamenei before he became supreme leader. Described him as a, quote, closet moderate. Look, that is sick. This is the same Ayatollah who regularly chants, death to America and death to Israel. This is the same Ayatollah that set the goal of creating nuclear weapons, I believe, for the purpose of using those nuclear weapons. This is the same Ayatollah who is responsible for. For killing nearly 1,000Americans, for waging war on America relentlessly, for funding Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis. 90% of their funding comes from Iran. This is the same Ayatollah. Look, one of the reasons we went into Venezuela is Iran had a major beachhead in Venezuela. Maduro allowed Iran in there. Hezbollah had a major beachhead to wage war in Venezuela to attack the United States. Look, this avuncular man with a. With A bushy white beard as, as the numbskulls at the Washington Post put it until yesterday, was actively trying to murder President Donald Trump. Had hired hitman, had put out a video, an animation showing a drone going to mar a lago and killing President Trump on the golf course. You know, the phrase for the media that's been used more than once is useful idiots. And I think sometimes headline writers decide they haven't given us enough material. They need to be even more ridiculous. Cheering for our enemies.
- [17:35]
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- [18:56]
Ben Ferguson
all right, I got a lot of questions center and everybody listening right now, I know, is going to want to ask the same one I'm going to ask. You're on Air Force One. You were in D.C. you flew with the president back to Texas. How much of the conversation on Air Force One was about this becoming a reality 24 hours later, less than 24 hours later? You guys either had great poker faces when you were down there in front of that ship that we had seized in Venezuela and the oil and what you were doing on that trip, because clearly this was in the final moments of the planning stages, or execution, I should say stages of this plan. What all was discussed on there that you can talk to us about?
- [19:34]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, so I was on Air Force One with President Trump, flying from Washington, D.C. down to Texas to Corpus Christi. I was joined by my colleague, Senator John Cornyn. And then there were multiple members of Congress that were there. And the President came and was talking with us and asking About Iran. And he went around the room and he said, should we strike? What do you think? Should we strike? Should we hit them hard or should we go and keep trying to cut a deal? What do you think? I will tell you, every one of us that was on the plane, it was unanimous. We said hit them and hit them hard. That was the assessment. And look, Trump often when he's making decisions and talking to people who he trusts, he tries to get their. Take their thoughts. Yeah, yeah, he wants a barometer. Is this a good idea? What are the risks? What should we do? So we talked quite a bit on Air Force One about it, and then when we landed, the President waved me over to join him in the Beast. And so he and I drove from the tarmac to the event. It was probably 15, 20 minutes, and it was just the two of us and the Beast, we were the only two. And we spent almost the entire time talking about Iran further. And so that was one on one. And in that context, I was leaning in even more vigorously than I had on Air Force One and was saying, listen, this is a moment in time which we've never had like this before.
- [20:57]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah.
- [20:58]
Ted Cruz
This regime is so weak. You know, dictatorships. And this is true. This is true of the Soviet Union. This is true of Communist China. This is true of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro. This is true of the Communist regime in Cuba, and this is true of Iran. Dictatorships depend upon convincing their citizens they're invulnerable, that nothing can defeat them. That's part of how you keep 92 million Iranians subjugated is the feeling that it's hopeless. We cannot overthrow these tyrants and understand the Ayatollah was a tyrant. He regularly murdered his own citizens, tortured his own citizens, stripped them of their freedom. I mean, the abuses were horrific, directed to his own citizens, much less the murder and terror that he projected outward.
- [21:47]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah.
- [21:47]
Ted Cruz
And last year when the 12 Day War happened, you know, it's interesting, some folks in politics behave like everything is communications, everything is comms and messaging and spin. There are very real world effects when you lose a war. There was a war for 12 days, and Iran utterly and completely got its ass kicked. And if there's anything worse, if you're an Islamist dictator, if you're trying to envision a world that is worse than losing a war, it's losing a war to Israel. It was Israel that completely and totally decimated them, that took out their air defenses, took out the leadership of the irgc, and by the way, day after day, The Ayatollah would appoint a new leader of the irgc. The next day, that guy was dead. He'd appoint a new one. The next day, that guy was dead. It demonstrated complete and total penetration by the Mossad and by American intelligence of Iran, knowing where everybody was and that. And obviously it culminated with President Trump launching the bombing run, taking out the underground nuclear facilities that when that happened, you and I on this podcast said, in the wake of that, we predicted this regime is going to fall. And I said it. They are so weak now. The Iranian people rose up, rose up in massive numbers, over a million Iranians in protest. And by the way, the response of the Ayatollah was to order his soldiers just to fire machine guns at them, killing anywhere between 10,000 and 40,000 protesters. We don't have. I haven't seen really firm estimates. I think it is at least 10,000. It could be as high as 40,000. But that shows the level of tyranny. When you say just. Just unload and fire into the crowd and kill as many as you can, that's what they were doing. President Trump's actions this weekend levels the playing field and has taken out, by the way. It's also an illustration of exquisite intelligence. The early bombing strike that occurred that killed Ayatollah Khamenei. The reporting we're getting, and this is open source, I don't have any classified information on this, but the public reporting is that there was a meeting of the Ayatollah, along with basically his National Security Council, his top military advisors, and that's the meeting that Israel struck and took him out. And so they knew exactly where he was. They knew where his senior leaders were, that is. And so when I was riding in the beast with the president, I was urging him, this is the moment. And he's like, well, what do you think of the negotiations? And I said, Mr. President, they're just dragging it out. It's just a delay tactic. They think they can delay and that you'll let the moment pass. And listen, is there risk? Of course there's risk having.
- [24:50]
Ben Ferguson
There's even more risk if you don't act right. I mean, that's how you look at this. When people say, I don't like war, I can't believe you're advocating for this. I don't like war either, but I really don't like a war where Iran starts it and Iran has a nuclear weapon and Iran kills countless innocent people, whether it is a dirty bomb or Israel or wherever they decide to do it. In the world or have one of their proxies. That was the biggest thing that I don't think people understood about Iran. Iran getting a nuclear weapons center is not just them having it, it's that they have these proxies they could also give them to and dirty bombs could go. That's a major concern that a lot of people don't think understood. In the complexity of Iran, they're not the one that always has to shoot. They may give the supplies needed to someone else to do it for them.
- [25:31]
Ted Cruz
Well, that's right. And that's one of the real risks of escalation in the coming days is those proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis, engaging in acts of violence, engaging in acts of terrorism and targeting Americans. We have three American servicemen who have already been killed. And listen, military conflict, tragically casualties can be part of military conflict. We also have the shooting that occurred in Austin, Texas and it is still early. Our reports are preliminary, but from the preliminary reports it certainly appears that this was terrorism and terrorism directly related to what occurred. So here's what we know right now. The shooting took place at 1:59am on March 1 at Buford's Backyard Beer Garden, which is on West 6th street in downtown Austin. And you and I have both been in, in, in an Austin Bar at 2 in the morning on, on a Saturday night many, many times. The, the, the, the Austin 6th street scene is, is a lively scene.
- [26:38]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah.
- [26:38]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah.
- [26:39]
Ted Cruz
Here's what we know so far. Three individuals are dead, one of whom is the shooter. Fourteen people were injured and transported to local hospitals. Three of the injured as of right now remain in critical condition. Two weapons were, were recovered from from the scene, a pistol and a rifle and, and evidence from it from the suv, SUV and nearby cameras is still being processed. Law enforcement and FBI agents at the scene has gone to this, to the residence and two different residences of the individual that was the shooter. Now what's been publicly reported is the shooter is a man named Indiga Diagny who is a 53 year old naturalized US citizen born in Senegal and residing in Pflugerville, which is a town just north of Austin. He came to the United States during the Obama presidency. Reports indicated that the shooter was armed and he was wearing a sweater that with the phrase Property of Allah across the front of the sweater. He was also reportedly wearing an undershirt with an Iranian flag on it underneath that shirt. And a Koran was found in the car. Now I spoke this afternoon with, with the mayor of Austin. I Spoke this afternoon with Cash Patel, the director of the FBI. As of Sunday afternoon, they do not have clear evidence of motive from. So they're right now carrying out the search warrants on his residence. They're examining his social media. They're examining phone calls. They're putting the evidence. Putting together the evidence to determine what went on, if he acted alone, what the precise motivation was. That being said, given the sweatshirt and shirt he was wearing and given his origin from Senegal, I think it is very likely this is terrorism, that it is not a coincidence. I believe that he's wearing an Iranian flag while he is opening fire. That evidence has not conclusively been proven yet, but I expect that it will be. Interestingly, he did not enter the bar. He opened fire from outside, from. From the street and sidewalk, opened fire and shot into the bar. And three Austin police officers took him out, killed him, shot him on the street. The mayor told me that the Austin police was there within a minute. So it was very fast, very fast response, and took him out, thank goodness.
- [29:27]
Ben Ferguson
Saved a lot of lives, you know,
- [29:29]
Ted Cruz
And I'm told the video. There's videos that will be released, show chaos, show people running. And in fact, some of the people are running actually towards the shooter because they heard gunshots but did not know where they were coming from. And so they were running, but accidentally running the wrong way. I think it is very clear if law enforcement had not acted quite quickly, many more people would have been killed and injured. But this look from. From his clothing, it certainly appears this is terrorism. And. And tragically, this may not be the last incident of terrorism that occurs. That's one of the real dangers of escalation, either from Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, or from sympathizers in the United States.
- [30:15]
Ben Ferguson
Well, let's go back to the Middle east for a moment. One of the things that we talk about, you know, the ayatollah and his team, they're homicidal, and you could also even say suicidal in their obsession with killing, you know, innocent people in their own country, going after Americans, going after Israelis as well. But one of the things that I was even a little bit shocked by was how quickly they decided to bring in every other country on the side of Israel in the US by attacking these other Middle Eastern nations around them that weren't involved. Right. They were. They were outside. Were you as shocked as I was that they just decided, all right, like, whoever's still left standing, let's just go after Bahrain, let's go after Qatar, let's go after I mean, the list is pretty long now of countries they've attacked, and now they brought them into the fold. I mean, that, to me, just seems like a suicidal mission on their part.
- [31:04]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, I will admit I was surprised by that. There's been a lot of public reporting that suggested that other Middle Eastern nations were discouraging President Trump from going after Iran. I'm a little bit skeptical of that. I have not recently had those conversations with other Middle Eastern nations, but I've had many conversations with the Saudis, uae, Bahrain, and they have always been very focused on, number one, doing everything necessary to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. The Saudis have said publicly if Iran ever got a nuclear weapon, that they would do everything possible to get a nuke themselves to defend themselves from Iran. And so I don't know if it's true or not that in the recent weeks, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries were urging Trump not to attack. But I do know that Iran's behavior. So they fired missiles and sent drones and had attacks at almost every single Arab country all throughout the Middle East. So they've attacked Saudi Arabia, they've attacked uae, they've attacked Kuwait, they've attacked Qatar, they've attacked Bahrain, they've attacked Jordan. And we've seen statements from many of those other Middle Eastern countries, mostly Arab countries, expressing, condemning, condemning Iran's response. And, you know, in my view, they're just indiscriminately firing, firing abroad. And I think their reasoning was that if the United States and or Israel hit them, that they wanted to make it as painful as possible for the entirety of the region. What they have ensured is that there's basically nobody standing up and siding with the Iranians. They're demonstrating, essentially, they're willing to kill anybody and everybody. I gotta say, that's also a really powerful illustration. If that's what they do now.
- [33:04]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah. What would they have done with a nuclear weapon?
- [33:06]
Ted Cruz
Yeah. Can you imagine how much worse if they had a nuclear weapon? And during the whole go back to Obama and the debates on Obama's terrible Iran nuclear deal, I always said most of the debate rotated around, well, if they had a nuclear weapon, it would change the balance of power, it would make them more aggressive, they would fund more terrorism. And I always said, look, that's the best case scenario. The best case scenario is a horrible situation. The worst case is that they would actually use the nuclear weapon. And everyone operates under an assumption. Well, having a nuclear weapon doesn't mean you use it. Listen, when the Ayatollah Chants death to Israel and death to America. Yeah, I believe him when he calls Israel the little Satan and America the great Satan. I believe him. And I think the odds are unacceptably high. I don't know what they were, but they were unacceptably high that the Ayatollah, if he had a nuclear weapon weapon, would detonate it, maybe in Tel Aviv or maybe in New York or Los Angeles. And I don't want to wake up and discover, oh, the predictions were wrong because we have a mushroom cloud and hundreds of thousands or even millions of Americans being killed. The reason. And by the way, I've got to say, a lot of the news reporting is challenging, why would Trump do this attack? You heard Margaret Brennan there say, say Trump campaigned on not getting in wars. I did. After Face the Nation. I also did State of the Union with Dana Bash, and Dana Bash asked a question of me. She said, you know, President Trump campaigned on no more wars. And I, in my response, I said, well, Dana, you actually misquoted what the President said. What the President said was, no more forever war.
- [34:58]
Margaret Brennan
Yeah.
- [34:58]
Ben Ferguson
Referring to Iraq and Afghanistan.
- [35:00]
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Totally.
- [35:01]
Ben Ferguson
And troops on the ground. Just completely different doctrine. You can tell.
- [35:04]
Ted Cruz
Yeah. And I said, listen, we're not going to see troops on the ground in Iran. We're not gonna see hundreds of thousands of Americans there for an extended period of time. I don't think we'll see that at all. That is very different. And I said, look, there are isolationists who want America to withdraw from the world. Donald Trump has never been an isolationist, and he is acting to protect America. This is America first. The reason we are striking Iran right now is because the odds are unacceptably high. Iran has already killed nearly a thousand Americans, and they have every desire to kill more. As I told the president driving in the Beast, I said, if the Ayatollah could kill the two of us right now, he would. The only thing that is preventing him is that he's not able to, because he is trying to. And so if we have an opportunity to take out this regime. And look, my hope is we see a new government in Iran that wants to be friends with America, that would make this country massively safer. Removing these psychopaths from power and replacing them with anything resembling a normal government would massively improve the safety of every American.
- [36:21]
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- [37:28]
Ben Ferguson
So that's why I want you to switch to Patriot Mobile because every time you pay that bill, you're making a real difference. Now I also want to give you a free month of Service. Go to patriotmobile.com verdict that's patriotmobile.com verdict or call them 9721 Patriot. That's 972 Patriot for a free month of service. Switch today. Make a difference patriot mobile.com verdict or 972patriot and get a free month of service with a promo code. Verdict Two questions to wrap things up. Number one, I thought it was really interesting to see the compare and contrast of the women standing up for themselves in Iran on the streets risking their lives while women in America were actually standing up angry at America for going into Iran. We saw that in New York City, for example. We saw it in some other college campuses. The disconnect from reality from some of these leftists is amazing. I want to get your take on that real quick. And then also I want to talk about the possible closing Strait of Hormuz and what that means and what America's role could be in that as well.
- [38:28]
Ted Cruz
Yeah. So today Comrade Mandami put out a statement that I want to read to you. Today's military strikes on Iran carried out by the United States and Israel mark a catastrophic escalation of an illegal war of aggression, bombing cities, killing civilians, opening a new theater of war. Americans do not want this. They do not want another war in pursuit of regime change. They want relief from the affordability crisis. They want peace. I am focused on making sure every New Yorker is safe. I've been in contact with our police commissioner and emergency management officials. We are taking proactive steps including increasing coordination across agencies and enhancing patrols of sensitive locations out of an abundance of conscience caution. Additionally, I want to speak directly to Iranian New Yorkers. You are part of the fabric of this city. You are our neighbors, small business owners, students, artists, workers, and community leaders. You will be safe here. Look, this is Comrade Mandami cheering for the Ayatollah. Yeah, because they are both jihadists and they both want to see the Great Satan of America. They want to see this country fundamentally change and to become an Islamic caliphate. That was the Ayatollah's objective. That, sadly, I believe, is Comrade Mandami's objective. And I want to contrast that with the reaction of protesters. Iranians like his line to Iranians, you will be safe here. I know a great many Iranians. Every Iranian I know hates the regime. Is cheering. And I want you to watch in particular this scene that played out on the ground in Austin, Texas. And a CBS News reporter who was told, don't cover the protest celebrating the Ayatollah being killed. Cover that up. And this brave reporter didn't do that. Give a listen, give a watch.
- [40:30]
Ben Ferguson
Here we go, Diaz. Three, two, one. It's incredible there. And again, for people that can't see the video, you have this Austin CBS reporter. He was handed the phone from his cameraman, and he reads it and he's like, what does that mean? And the cameraman responds, they don't want us to focus on this. And this brave local reporter said, all
- [41:12]
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right, well, I am.
- [41:14]
Ben Ferguson
And now it's out there on the Internet of him having this moment. It's sad that you've got to be this brave in America at a local affiliate to report the news, which was the news that you had people celebrating and waving American flags and Iranian flags and standing up for the people in. The innocent people in Iran. And they're like, no, no, no, we don't want you to focus on that at cbs.
- [41:34]
Ted Cruz
Yeah, look, this is happening all. All over the country, all over America. It's happening on the ground, on the streets of Iran. It's happening around the world. You know, Kamala Harris today put out a statement, quote, donald Trump is dragging the United States into a war the American people do not want. Let me be clear. I am opposed to a regime change. War in Iran and our troops are being put in harm's way for the sake of Trump's war of choice. Now, I will tell you, I responded to her on. On X and I said, your administration gave over $100 billion to the Ayatollah who kept killing Americans. We know you're sad that your friend isn't with us anymore. Look, the. The Democrat Party was all in. In support of the Ayatollah now, sometimes they pretended they weren't, but when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris sent over a hundred billion DO dollars, flowed that money into the Ayatollah, they funded his terror. The Obama Iran nuclear deal was designed to inevitably lead to a nuclear Iran, to the Ayatollah with nuclear weapons. And so this is, I'll tell you. And folks that deal with conflict in the Middle east and that deal with foreign policy frequently refer to Iran as, quote, the head of the snake. Why do they call it the head of the snake? Because it is what is leading and directing and funding the vast majority of the terrorism. You see, without Iran, Hamas has no resources. Without Iran, Hezbollah and the Houthis have no resources. And so what President Trump is doing here is being a strong commander in chief and making Americans safer.
- [43:19]
Ben Ferguson
Final question on the story of the Hormuz and the reality of what's happening there. Give us your thoughts and perspective on that and what you think can happen moving forward.
- [43:28]
Ted Cruz
So we don't know that there is reporting that the Iranians may have mined the Straits of Hormuz. We don't have an answer to that right now. Right now there's not shipping, there are not ships going through the Straits of Hormuz until it is determined whether or not they have mined it.
- [43:43]
Ben Ferguson
And to be clear, that's significant. People that just don't understand how important that is. A significant amount of oil world supply goes through there.
- [43:51]
Ted Cruz
Yeah. So right now, that is shut down. By the way, right now, civilian air traffic is shut down throughout the Middle East. You can't get on an airline and fly into and out of most of the cities in the Middle east because you've got missiles flying everywhere. And so all of the countries have understandably shut their airspace down. And so I am confident that we will have minesweepers go into the Straits of Hormuz that may be happening now, I don't know. And examine and determine if their mines there. But at least right now, you're not seeing ships go through there because these guys are just crazy enough to have put mines there. And so no one wants to risk it. And until it's determined one way or another whether it's safe.
- [44:33]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, it really is incredible. Well, we're going to keep you updated on all this all week long, I can promise you. Don't miss a episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz. Wherever you get your podcasts, hit that subscribe auto download button in the center and I will see you back here on Wednesday morning. If something massive breaks, we'll probably be back before then as well so don't miss an episode. You can also Watch us on YouTube. This episode is up on YouTube and on Facebook so you can grab it there and on Rumble and the center and I will see you back here in a couple of days. Can you buy real Bitcoin in your retirement account? If not, it's time to upgrade to Bitcoin ira. You can buy and sell Bitcoin with major tax advantages. Visit bitcoin ira.com or call 866-679-7871 now
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Ben Ferguson
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Ted Cruz
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Ben Ferguson
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Margaret Brennan
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