← Verdict with Ted Cruz
Verdict with Ted Cruz
Media Rewriting Biden Legacy, The Pardoning of Federal Death Row Inmates & Democrats Kicked Ol' Joe to the Curb Week In Review
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- [00:01]
Ted Cruz
Welcome. It is Verdict with Ted Cruz and the Week in Review, Ben Ferguson with you. And these are the major stories that we chatted about this week that you may have missed. First up, I can't believe I'm saying this, but there was an actual article in a major newspaper that said that Joe Biden was an amazing leader, that he did incredible things. Why on earth would you be writing that article when the majority of Americans say that his presidency was a disaster? We'll break down the Biden failures for you in a moment. Also, there was a big prediction that Joe Biden was going to pardon or give clemency to people that were hardcore criminals, including those on death row. Well, that is exactly what he did. And could it be because he's about to pardon many others around the Biden crime family? And finally, there's another big question that Democrats are dealing with right now, and that is should they have kicked Joe Biden to the curb sooner than they did? And would that have changed the outcome of the election, meaning Donald Trump wouldn't have been elected president? We'll break that down as now they're trying to figure out what they're going to do next. It's the Weekend Review and it starts right now.
- [01:12]
Ben Ferguson
So let's move to the Washington Post. And I'm going to do something unusual on this podcast. So I read this article and my head exploded and I texted you and said this is the most absurd, self satirizing article I've ever seen. So I just want to go through it literally line by line. This is a major story in the Washington Post banner headline on Drudge and it is entitled we're just going to go through sentence by sentence. It's entitled How Biden Leads Joe Biden's Lonely Battle to Sell His Vision of American Democracy. In his presidency's final chapter, Biden has mused about whether he should have handled some decisions differently. And the guy who wrote this is a guy named Tyler Pager. We're going to come back to him later. So let's start. Earlier this year, Representative James E. Clyburn met President Joe Biden at the White House to deliver a stern message. Biden had to find a way to revitalize his flagging campaign. Clyburn, who had been pivotal to Biden's 2020 victory, also made a confession about his own long standing belief that substance is more important than style and politics. Quote, I've come to the conclusion in recent days that I'm wrong about that, The South Carolina Democrat, 84, remembers telling Biden the new environment that we currently live in, style seems to carry the day more than substance. Your style, he told the president, does not lend itself well to the environment we're currently in. Clyburn's conclusion, which was shared by anxious Democrats in the months before the president ended his re election bid, undermined Biden's theory of presidential leadership. After Donald Trump's dissent, Biden believed that he just needed to show Americans that traditional democracy still worked by listening to experts, working with Republicans, passing popular policies, and voters would rally around him. All right, let's stop there. Okay, so so far, every word of this article, if this was written by the Biden press office, it would not be any different. And this entire article is hagiography. This entire article is not journalism. It is not only trying to praise breathlessly, as we're going to go through Joe Biden and cast him as a mighty titan, but it is profoundly dishonest. So it starts with the frame that Biden's great success is on substance, not style. And the obvious implication of which we're going to get more is that all Trump has, his style. There's no substance. That's the obvious implication. Let's take this last sentence. After Donald Trump's ascent, Biden believed he just needed to show Americans that traditional democracy still worked. We're going to get more into democracy in a second by listening to experts, working with Republicans and passing popular policies. What experts did he listen to? He did not work with Republicans. Every damn thing he passed, he, he ran through on a vicious party line vote. He used budget reconciliation over and over again with no Republicans and passing popular policies. Nobody helped Donald Trump get elected more than Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. Because his policies were so incredibly unpopular. All right, let's, let's keep going back to the article. Quote, he succeeded in phase one of his plan. Did he now? Enacting legislation, much of it bipartisan, to reshape the nation's infrastructure, revive the semiconductor industry, and fight climate change. Let's be clear, the climate change, the Inflation Reduction act was a straight party line vote rammed through unreconciliation. But phase two never happened. The truth of Biden's presidency is that he has failed in what, by his own count, his most important mission, making Trump's presidency seem like an aberration. Quote, he governed through traditional processes and institutions, said Julian E. Zelizer, a moron presidential historian at Princeton University. It doesn't say moron, but you're going to see that everything this guy says, I don't he's sadly, a professor at my alma mater. He's a complete moron. Let's start with the traditional processes and institutions. There's nothing traditional about weaponizing the federal government to go after your opponents. There's nothing traditional about prosecuting and indicting the former president over and over and over again. There's nothing traditional in using the institutions about opening the border and having an invasion of our country. But here, the good Princeton professor, quote, it didn't change the picture where he started. This anger in the electorate towards institution, this support for a pretty radical conservative vision that Trump embodied, it didn't do anything to end the very intense polarization that exists in this country now. The idea that Trump is a radical conservative is a bizarre idea. Trump ran on securing the border, bringing down inflation, standing with our friends and defeating our enemies. That is very hard to characterize as a, quote, radical conservative vision. But, hey, the Princeton professor says it and the Washington Post breathlessly reports it. We're going to go on, but, but, but. Give me your thoughts so far and then we'll go back to the article.
- [06:33]
Ted Cruz
I'm not surprised that this is how they want to just rewrite history, part of this and just be, be so delusional. I, I am a little bit, it gets worse. I, I'm a little bit shocked, though. It. If they, like, you know how you're supposed to, like, put proofread before you print. If you're reading what you just wrote that you just read, I would think there would be a moment where you might be like, yeah, I don't know if this needs to see the light of day, yet here it is. They put it out there.
- [07:03]
Ben Ferguson
All right, let's keep going because it gets much, much worse. Previous articles in this series examine the pillars. Oh, they're so strong, the pillars. The pillars of Biden's leadership. How he absorbs information, how he makes decisions, how he communicates with Americans. They showed that Biden, even at the peak of his glorious, magnificent power, doesn't say glorious magnificent, but it's just implied, struggled mightily to communicate his decisions and vision. This article, based on interviews with more than two dozen people close to Biden, reveals the ways in which his theory of how to succeed in an era of American politics dominated by Trump fell apart in the final phase of his presidency. And how he's been publicly and privately rethinking whether he should have handled some decisions differently. Even some of his closest advisors. Without faulting Biden, conceded recently that his style of governing did not always mesh with Today's politics, quote, the president has been operating on a time horizon measured in decades, while the political cycle is measured in four years. Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security adviser, said with his lips planted firmly on Biden's rear end. That last piece was my comment. Like, I want you go back and listen to that sentence again. The president has been operating on a time horizon measured in decades, while the political cycle is measured in four years. Now, look, kudos to the Biden White House for just having the chutzpah to say, oh, Biden's presidency would be hysteric. And, you know, you really have to measure decades. 12 million people invading this country. 4 years is too short to measure it. We're gonna screw up this country for decades, you know, undermining our allies, causing two wars, a war in Ukraine and a war in Gaza. Like, you're right, the harm from Biden will last decades. But that's their entire spin. Well, yes, everything Biden did was profoundly unpopular because all of his policies failed. But he's really playing the long game. You foolish people don't understand. This. This. This misery is good for you. All right, let's add. Let's keep going. Sullivan added that Biden's accomplishments, by their nature, will take a long time to bear fruit. Quote, how to govern at this moment to set the US up for long term success has one answer. And how to deal with midterm and presidential elections in the very short term might have a different answer. He said the President went with doing things that really put America in a strong position. Ben, what the hell have they done to put America in a strong position? In every part of the world, America is weaker today than when Joe Biden entered the White House. Like, this is absurd. And I got to say, the absurd thing. We're going to go back to this in a minute, is the Washington Post just publishes this drivel like it's news. There's not a moment of reflection. There's not a moment of facts. There's not a moment of reality. And it's. I mean, how do you react to that? Oh, he. He's playing the long game.
- [10:26]
Ted Cruz
Yeah. I think there's two things here. One, there's a part of me that's like, I can't believe it. And then there's another part of me. It's like, good, because if you don't learn from your losses, then you're going to repeat the same mistakes that you just made. And I think the Democratic Party learned nothing from November. Nothing from losing the Popular vote. Nothing from the resurrection of Donald Trump from, from 2000 to 2024. Nothing from weaponizing the government. Nothing from overspending and no accountability. And honestly, nothing. They've learned nothing from having a president that clearly was incapacitated. So part of me is like, good, keep writing these types of articles because it's going to help conservatives like you and I be able to be way more successful in getting this country back on track.
- [11:13]
Ben Ferguson
Well, the. Ben, the Post just reported that he absorbed information like, you know, some, some sort of Nobel scientist, like, like just. All right, let's, let's go back. As his presidency and his 50 year political career wind down far faster than he wanted, Biden has taken to acknowledging some strategic mistakes, both big and small. Many of those missteps resulted from his determination to restore the age old rules of the American presidency after Trump's term. A determination that many of his supporters in retrospect consider a politically fatal error. All right, so what are the age old rules of the American presidency that he returned to earlier this month? In a speech on his economic legacy, Biden admitted he was stupid for not putting his own name on the pandemic relief checks his administration sent out in 2021. Yeah, that really was the problem. He just didn't sign the checks. Clearly, Kamala would have won if Biden had just signed those checks. That, that was the pivotal issue. Dammit, I didn't see Joe Biden's name on those checks, so forget it. But hey, Trump, by contrast, made a point of signing his own relief checks in 2020. And Biden suggested that Trump got more credit for the economic recovery because of it. Balderdash. Biden acknowledged that he had, quote, screwed up at his June 27 debate against Trump. You think, as he struggled to put together sentences and defend his policies, as his rivals held forth with a series of falsehoods. Evil liar who I hate named Donald Trump. That is not there. It's just implied and called him a criminal. He does not regret participating in the debate, just his performance that night. Now, at this point, there's a breakout quote. And you know what the breakout quote is? It's Jake Sullivan saying the President is operating on a time horizon measured in decades, while the political cycle is measured in four years. So if you missed the central political spin from the White House, then, well, that's your problem. Let's, let's keep going. He has also mused on changes in the media, arguing that he did not get enough credit for his accomplishments, especially on the economy. But in citing examples Like Richard M. Nixon's 1960 debate against John F. Kennedy, Biden has suggested that, like Nixon, he has struggled to adjust to a new media landscape. We pick what news we want to hear. It's a totally different deal, Biden said in a podcast interview this month. We've got to figure out how we deal with this significant technological change. If Nixon was more accustomed to television, he wouldn't have perspired so much and he would be president when he beat Kennedy. I know that sounds silly, but think of the changes taking place. Where do you go? What is true? We have no evidence anymore. I'm not sure how that gets resolved. The president and his aides have acknowledged that they struggled to communicate. See, that's the whole problem. The record was phenomenal. They just failed to communicate it. Struggled to communicate about the administration's efforts to lift the country out of the pandemic. Frustrated that even as the United States fared better than other countries, Americans did not feel the impact. Psychologically, you idiots, you're doing great. Why are you so dumb that you don't realize it? And now here's. All right, now remember, so so far, there's two main themes that the Post has laid out. Number one, genius. Biden is playing for the history books for the decades rather than the short term political cycles. So don't blame him for the disasters of his policies. But number two, that he wanted to restore the norms of the presidency and the norms of democracy. So this next paragraph is going to blow your mind. In private, Biden has also said he should have picked someone other than Merrick Garland as Attorney General. Well, no kidding. He was the most partisan and political Attorney General in history and he disgraced the Department of Justice. But no, no, no, no, no. That's not Biden's complaint. Biden, quote, complaining about the Justice Department's slowness under Garland in prosecuting Trump and its aggressiveness in prosecuting Biden's son Hunter, according to people familiar with his comments. So understand this great titan restoring the norms of the White House. His DOJ is the first Department of Justice to indict and prosecute a former president and a leading candidate for president who later got elected president. In the history of our country, it's never been done under Biden. They did it twice. They absolutely weaponized the DOJ to go after his opponents over and over and over again. They weaponized the FBI. And his complaint is, damn it, they didn't do enough. They should have been more vigorous. They should have indicted him more. They should have indicted him faster. We should have, we should have attacked him from day one. I mean, it is. And by the way, everything I'm saying, there's not a word of that in this article that they don't acknowledge. No other DOJ has indicted a president. They just report like a blinking, doe eyed four year old. Well, his complaint was Biden didn't move fast enough. And the other thing, he was too aggressive in prosecuting Biden's son. Now, mind you, the Biden DOJ went to a court and tried to enter a sweetheart deal. That Biden got a slap on the wrist and no jail time. And it was so egregious that the judge threw it out only after public scrutiny, including this podcast, which shined a great deal of light on it. But he still says that's too much to hold Hunter accountable. And by the way, the DOJ also bent over backwards to protect Joe Biden. That paragraph may be the most astonishing paragraph of this entire article.
- [17:01]
Ted Cruz
You look at this article and I think there's three different points that I want to dive into with you. One, what was the real purpose of writing it? I'm still trying. I mean, I get the whole rewriting of history, but it's so extreme that I don't even think many on the left could take this seriously. Or am I wrong? So let's start with that.
- [17:22]
Ben Ferguson
Well, I think they have the audacity to believe that, that, that they can. That they are. That the newspaper, the Washington Post is the first draft of history. And as I said, this is not journalism. This is hagiography. The article continues. We've only done about the first third of it. I'm not going to continue reading the rest of it. It goes on to say how Biden modeled himself after fdr. And I am just going to skip to the end because the end is every bit as absurd as the earlier parts we read. So here's the end of the article. To show that he respects the peaceful transfer of power, Biden is welcoming Trump, who openly challenged that transition. Biden has repeatedly directed his aides to do all they can to help Trump assume the presidency. After years of calling Trump unfit for high office, now, mind you, every day in the White House, Biden is doing everything he can to frustrate Trump coming in. So what is he doing? Number one, he pardoned Hunter Biden, which we predicted on this podcast, because he does not want any accountability for the rampant lawlessness of his son and the corruption of selling access to himself, Joe Biden. Number two, he pardoned every Single federal death row inmate, except for the three most notorious. So of the 40, he pardoned 37 of them. Again, we predicted that it was absolutely brazen. Why? Because he knew Trump was gonna actually carry out the law, and so he's trying to frustrate that. Number three, he's selling off the border wall for $5 a parcel because he doesn't want Trump to build the wall. Number four, he's granting. Considering granting wholesale pardons. He is actively trying to do, by the way. Number five, Trump has said he wants federal workers to go back to work. So Biden is signing contracts, collective bargaining contracts, to make sure that federal workers can stay home because he wants to tie up the next administration on litigation. So. But here. Here's what the Post said. Biden has repeatedly directed his aides to do all they can to help Trump assume the presidency. Like, what? Utter and complete garbage. And let me. Let me say something. Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. Jeff Bezos should be ashamed of this garbage. If Jeff Bezos cared at all about the integrity of the Washington Post. This guy Tyler paid. I have no idea who this numbskull is. He should be fired. He is not a journalist. Anyone who writes this garbage that contains no facts, it contains no. No counterbalancing, countervailing. Side, it is simply, if Madison Avenue were hired to come in and let's rewrite the Biden presidency to be exactly what we wanted it, they couldn't write it more ridiculous than this. And by the way, the editor who signed off on this should be fired as well. This is. You want to know why nobody trusts the media? It's because they publish garbage like this without even a tiny nod to facts. Or the simple reality that we just saw a overwhelming election where Trump won the popular vote of the seven battleground states. He won all seven. Like someone at the Post should say, gosh, maybe these incredibly popular policies that were so good for America, maybe people really didn't like it. Maybe waging a war on oil and gas and driving up energy prices was a really bad idea and hurt a lot of Americans. Maybe undermining our allies. Maybe giving Vladimir Putin a gift of waving sanctions on Nord Stream 2 and causing the biggest war in Europe since World War II, maybe that wasn't a great idea. Maybe sending $100 billion to Iran, who sends it to Hamas and Hezbollah, who uses it to fund a war on Israel, the worst war in the Middle east and 50 years. Maybe that wasn't a good idea. Maybe turning a blind eye and refusing to prosecute anti Semitic terrorists all across their protesters. Terrorists is too strong. But anti Semitic protesters who threaten violence? Maybe that is a profoundly bad idea. Maybe watching the integrity Half of America believes the FBI and the Department of Justice are completely unprincipled because, well, they've been completely unprincipled. None of that. There isn't even the tiniest acknowledgment of facts. This is the Washington Post behaving in a way that I think everyone connected with this article ought to be thoroughly, thoroughly embarrassed when your principal points are we're aiming for 50 years, not four. So as bad as our policies are in 50 years, we'll claim they were great. And Merrick Garland's problem was he wasn't political enough and he should have indicted Trump even more and he should have covered up Biden's wrongdoings even more. And you don't acknowledge any like, this is a load of crap. That ain't journalism.
- [22:43]
Ted Cruz
Now if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week. Now on to story number two. Number five is another big one here. And that is the prediction that Joe Biden would pardon death row inmates. You said that it was going to happen and it did. Plus the even more I would say disgusting deal that was given out to Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the mastermind of 911 to spare his life. The mastermind of 911 and a man that was also before even 911 involved in many other terrorist attack that killed women and children and the elderly, innocent bystanders that he did around the world.
- [23:32]
Ben Ferguson
Well, and this is a prediction that we made on August 18, 2023. Give a listen to what we said back in August of 23 way. I'm going to make a prediction as well, which, which is that these are not the only mass murderers that I think this administration is going to refuse to follow federal law and impose the death pen. I'm going to make a prediction right now which is Joe Biden, before he leaves the White House, will commute the sentence of every federal prisoner on death row. That he will do it for every one of them. And that includes, it includes the white supremacist and Nazi who murdered nine African Americans at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina in a horrific hate crime. He's on federal death row. It includes the Boston bomber who murdered innocent people by exploding a bomb at the Boston Marathon. One of the two brothers is still alive. He's on death row. And my prediction right now is Joe Biden intends to spare every one of these mass murderers, every one of them. Many of them are racist, bigoted, homicidal lunatics. And I think we're going to see him commute all of their sentences before he leaves the White House.
- [24:57]
Ted Cruz
Well, if you won't take out the mastermind of 911 and you won't give him the death penalty, if. Is there anyone that you'll give it to? I mean, it doesn't get any worse than this. It doesn't. And yet that's exactly what he's done.
- [25:13]
Ben Ferguson
Well, so my prediction again in August of 23 is that he would remove the death penalty, that he would commute the death penalty for the federal death row prisoners. That has come to pass. Now, to be clear, this prediction proves slightly off. I predicted that he would commute the sentence of every single federal death row prisoner. He instead commuted the sentence of 37 out of the 40 federal death row inmates. And so there were three he did not. And interestingly enough, the three he did not are the three that I identified in October, or rather in August of 2023. So the three he did not were the murderer at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, the murderer at the Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and. And the Boston Marathon bomber. And those three are the only three he did not. Now, I identified those three because they're the most horribly egregious. They're the most famous and infamous. They are two of the three, at least, are vicious, unrepentant racists. And so I have to say, my prediction, it was not 100% right. It was 92.5% right. Because instead of commuting 40 death sentences, Biden commuted 37 out of 40, and he left the three most egregious and famous ones off the table. Why? Because they knew that the press was so utterly corrupt that without those three, that they would get almost no criticism for it. That would. You would just go under the carpet, not really be seen. And I have to say I underestimated the incredible cynicism. And I gotta say, nonetheless, that is a profound disrespect for the rule of law. Among those that Biden did commute the sentences was a Nazi, an Aryan brotherhood racist. You know, Joe Biden stepped forward and said, hey, we're the Democrat Party. We're here for Nazis and Klansmen. I mean it. But 92.5% prediction. Correct. And sadly, another element of this prediction just became confirmed moments ago. So this episode we were talking about the plans to spare the life of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9 11. And this podcast put enormous public pressure on the White House. The White House, Karine Jean Pierre was asked about it and the heat became so much that they backed off of it. Well, sadly, the news just broke that they're going back to trying to spare Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. They're trying to do it literally on the way out the door. And the contempt that Joe Biden, this entire White House has for the voters, they are trying to break everything on the way out the door. They're trying to frustrate Donald Trump every way they can. They are such vicious partisans that there is no, no respect for the Constitution, for the rule of law, no respect for the voters. They don't care what the voters said in November. They are trying to literally break everything on the way out the door. And I gotta say it, it is grotesque.
- [28:30]
Ted Cruz
As before. If you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and download the podcast from earlier this week to hear the entire thing. I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed. Let's move on to another prediction. This may be one of the, my favorite predictions that we've ever made here on this show because when we said it, we got a lot of pushback and there were a lot of people that said what you were saying was just absurd. We had our tinfoil hats on again. I mean, there were people that were angry over this. And that was the big prediction that you made, that Joe Biden would not be the 2024 Democratic nominee.
- [29:17]
Ben Ferguson
Well, that's right. And I made two related predictions. Number one, early on I said, I believe Joe Biden would not be the Democrat nominee. He would not be on the ballot in 2024. I also predicted, I said the only people that were when people were later talking about replacing him with Gavin Newsom or Gretchen Whitmer or some other people, I said, no, that will never happen. The Democrat Party is a bean counting party. Next in line is Kamala Harris. And the Democrat party cannot, cannot, cannot push her aside, cannot push an African American woman aside for a white guy like Gavin Newsom. Their party would spontaneously combust if they tried to do that. So I said the only people who could replace Joe Biden are Kamala Harris or Michelle Obama. And I did lay out that I thought Michelle Obama, if I were a Democrat, I would much prefer Michelle Obama to Kamala Harris because Kamala Harris, as the whole world has seen, is a lousy candidate. So if You're a Democrat who wants to win, and you're stuck with Kamala Harris. There's only one human being who can push Kamala, Kamala Harris aside. That is Michelle Obama. Now, what I think happened, I think they tried with Michelle. I think Michelle said no. And so prediction number one, that Joe Biden would not be the nominee. That came 100% correct. Prediction number two, that he would be replaced either by Kamala Harris or Michelle Obama. That came came true as well. Although I did think Michelle Obama had a very real possibility. So let's listen this. This first Excerpt is from September 18, 2023. So more than a year, a year and three months ago where I laid out, laid out this possibility and give a listen. So here's the scenario that I think is perhaps most likely and most dangerous. In August of 2024, the Democrat kingmakers jettison Joe Biden and parachute in Michelle Obama. And I want you to pause and reflect on that.
- [31:23]
Ted Cruz
Oh, I'm pausing and I'm reflecting, as we said. And so is everybody else listening right now.
- [31:28]
Ben Ferguson
I view this as a very serious danger.
- [31:32]
Ted Cruz
I'm smiling right now because it terrifies me. And I also could totally see this happening.
- [31:36]
Ben Ferguson
So Michelle Obama, number one, you don't infuriate African American women, which is a critical part of the constituency that Democrats are relying on to win. But number two, you avoid the problem if you pick from any of the four. The other three are pissed because they're all to some extent, peers. They're rivals. They're all jabbing knives at each other. Michelle Obama, because she was first lady, has the ability to kind of parachute in above all four and say, hey, we're not picking among any of you. You guys can all fight it out next time. You're all going to be on the same level. We're coming. This is the Obamas saving the day. And I think in terms of a solution that unifies Democrats, there ain't nothing like that. I also think Michelle is not all that eager to run for president, but to parachute in In August of 24, a couple of months before the presidency, and suddenly wake up and be president.
- [32:37]
Ted Cruz
Not a bad gig. Not a bad gig.
- [32:38]
Ben Ferguson
It's not a bad gig at all. Now, would she do it? I don't know. I've met Michelle, but I don't know her personally in any meaningful way. I don't know if she would do it. I do think Barack Obama is already running the Biden administration. I think he is already the puppet master behind this Biden White House I don't think Joe Biden is the decision maker. And so when I see the media turning on Joe Biden right now, I think the odds of Michelle Obama parachuting in, in August of 2024 have risen dramatically. And that ought to scare the hell out of anyone who is unhappy about the direction this country is going and doesn't want us to go even crazier. In an even worse direction.
- [33:26]
Ted Cruz
In an even worse direction.
- [33:28]
Ben Ferguson
Well, and there you heard in September of 2023, making the prediction that Joe Biden would be jettisoned. And by the way, at the time that happened, very few people were making that prediction. When we put that podcast out, it drove a lot of news. There were headlines, there were people that were shocked when I laid out that Biden was not capable, that his mental capacity had diminished, that he was not going to be the nominee, that the Democrats realized it, that they were going to jettison him. The media ridiculed it. But you go forward to February of 2024, I went on Maria Bartiromo. I said, I think Obama's driving the train. Which is also what I said. Back in September 2023, John Harwood, who, you know, was the former journalist for the Wall Street Journal and for NBC and who's a hard leftist, a vicious leftist, he retweeted my comments on Maria Bartiramo and his entire commentary was, quote, impossibly stupid conversation. So that was his learned journalistic view, is that it was impossibly stupid to say that. Um, I will tell you, just, just in November of this year, I retweeted, Harwood shot, shot at me. And I just said, want to know why nobody trusts the media. Just nine months ago, a fake, quote, journalist claimed it was, quote, impossibly stupid to observe that Joe Biden was not mentally competent to be president. Now everybody admits it. What say you, John J. Harwood? Of course, Harwood didn't respond at all. He ignored it. All right, let's go forward though. Um, not only did we lay it out in September of 2023, but then fast forward to the debate, the debate between Joe Biden and, and Donald, Donald Trump. That was on June 28, 2024. You and I recorded a verdict podcast immediately after the debate. We, we, we went live, recorded it that night and give a listen to what the verdict podcast said the night of the debate.
- [35:41]
Ted Cruz
Senator Cruz, I didn't think it could actually be this bad. It was worse than even I think either of us could have imagined. And now the Democratic Party is screaming, replace the president.
- [35:55]
Ben Ferguson
Well, you and I are sitting here. It is 10:17pm Texas time. It is 11:17pm East coast time. The night of the debate. The debate just ended. And I have to say we have just witnessed what I believe is the most consequential presidential debate in U.S. history. Sometimes debate change. Debates change things, sometimes they don't, I believe to bite tonight's debate change things fundamentally. And I believe the odds have now skyrocketed. I believe the odds are north of 80% that the Democrat Party will remove Joe Biden from the ticket and replace him. And I believe they are likely to replace Joe Biden with Michelle Obama because Biden did so disastrously badly tonight that Democrats across the country are in utter freefall and complete panic. We're going to break all that down tonight.
- [36:43]
Ted Cruz
Yeah. And by the way, this was a prediction that you made on this show back in September of 2023 that the Democratic kingmakers could bring in Michelle Obama will break all that down center. Yet another prediction there. Again, you go back and look at the night you made it right at that debate and you said there's no way he's going to be on the ticket. And it was absolutely correct.
- [37:08]
Ben Ferguson
Well, to be fair, what I said was the odds were north of 80% that he would be pulled off the ticket. That prediction that Joe Biden would be removed from the ticket, which by the way, is unprecedented and was almost universally ridiculed in the media, that prediction came 100% true. I also articulated there were only two people who could replace him, Kamala Harris or Michelle Obama. I believe Michelle Obama was more likely. The Michelle Obama thing did not come to pass, but the Kamala Harris thing did. And in fact, I predicted that the Democrat kingmakers would jettison Biden in August of 2024. They in fact did so on July 21st of 2024. So I was 10 days off in terms of predicting it. And by the way, to be clear, I predicted that way back in September of 2023. So, so over a year earlier, I predicted within 10 days when they would throw Biden off the ballot. And, and I'm going to make actually a brand new prediction here. I'm going to predict that in the next year or two we are going to get confirmation that there was serious outreach to Michelle Obama to see if she was willing to replace Joe Biden on the ballot and that Michelle Obama said, no, I don't know that. But my instinct, my judgment tells me that happened. And we'll see in the next year or two if that gets confirmed. We'll have a subsequent podcast. If that gets confirmed publicly, we'll go back and revisit it.
- [38:40]
Ted Cruz
As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. Don't forget to download my podcast. And you can listen to my podcast every other day. You're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards. I'd love to have you as a listener to again the Ben Ferguson Podcast. And we will see you back here on Monday morning.