The "Oligarchs" are Coming, Rape Gangs in the UK plus Moving Trump's Agenda Forward Week In Review

Summary

Verdict with Ted Cruz: Episode Summary Release Date: January 18, 2025

In this episode of "Verdict with Ted Cruz," host Senator Ted Cruz and co-host Ben Ferguson delve into three major stories shaping the political landscape: Democratic critiques labeling wealthy individuals as "oligarchs," the harrowing reports of rape gangs in the United Kingdom, and strategies for advancing former President Donald Trump's legislative agenda. Below is a comprehensive summary of their discussions, enriched with notable quotes and timestamps for reference.

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1. Democrats Labeling the Wealthy as "Oligarchs"

Overview: Senators Bernie Sanders and President Joe Biden have intensified their rhetoric against America's wealthy elite, warning them about the dangers of oligarchical influence. Ted Cruz criticizes this narrative, suggesting it targets conservatives aligned with Trump while demonizing successful entrepreneurs.

Key Points:

• Use of "Oligarchs": Sanders and Biden caution wealthy individuals about the consolidation of power, hinting at potential repercussions if Democrats regain control.

• Critique of Democratic Hypocrisy:

  • Ted Cruz ([06:03]): Highlights the irony of Biden awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to individuals like George Soros, whom Democrats criticize as oligarchs.

    "One of them, by the way, is a hardcore radical by the name of George Soros."

  • Ben Ferguson ([08:10]): Accuses Democrats of selectively supporting billionaires who align with their agenda while vilifying others.

    "The position of Bernie Sanders is we hate billionaires. Unless you're billionaires who support socialists and the Democrat Party, then you're okay."

Notable Quotes:

• Ted Cruz ([03:31]):

  "There's like, hey, we're warning some of you that have stepped out of line from the Democratic Party that we're coming after you when we get our power back."

• Ben Ferguson ([06:23]):

  "Unless you're billionaires who support socialists and the Democrat Party, then you're okay. But to be clear, you're only okay if you're buying absolution."

---

2. Shocking Revelations of Rape Gangs in the UK

Overview: The hosts expose the disturbing history of organized rape gangs in the United Kingdom, primarily perpetrated by Pakistani Muslim men. This issue is juxtaposed with the United States' own crisis of missing unaccompanied minors at the southern border, drawing parallels between failed immigration policies and systemic abuses.

Key Points:

• Scale and Systematic Nature: Ben Ferguson references an article from the Free Press detailing the largest peacetime crime in British history, involving thousands of English girls being groomed and raped over decades.

• Government Complicity: The UK government, across both Conservative and Labor parties, allegedly ignored and abetted these crimes to maintain "community relations" and uphold multiculturalism.

• Public Outcry and Media Silence: Despite the severity, the British media largely downplayed the scandal, fearing accusations of racism or Islamophobia.

• Connection to US Issues: Cruz and Ferguson link the UK's failures to the US, emphasizing the plight of over 300,000 missing children from the Biden-Harris administration.

Notable Quotes:

• Ben Ferguson ([10:47]):

  "The grooming and serial rape of thousands of English girls by men of mostly Pakistani Muslim background over several decades is the biggest peacetime crime in the history of modern Europe."

• Ted Cruz ([17:55]):

  "Wow." (Expressing shock at the detailed accounts of victim abuse.)

• Nigel Farage ([23:36]):

  "There needs to be a full public inquiry. Let us find out the truth of the scale of this."

• Ben Ferguson ([24:40]):

  "We need to find those kids, those kids who are being abused. Right now, we need to get them out of harm's way and sunlight. And transparency is powerful, but there also needs to be accountability for those who are culpable."

Real-Life Cases Discussed:

• Victoria Agaglia ([17:55]): A 15-year-old forcibly entered into a sex ring, leading to her tragic death from a heroin overdose.

• Charlene Downs ([17:55]): A 14-year-old whose disappearance in 2003 remains unresolved, with allegations of gang involvement.

• Lucy Lowe ([17:55]): Groomed from age 12, Lucy was brutally murdered by her abuser in a horrifying incident.

• Sophie in Oldham ([17:55]): A 12-year-old raped multiple times, with systemic failures in protection and justice.

---

3. Advancing Trump's Legislative Agenda

Overview: As Donald Trump prepares for his inauguration, Cruz and Ferguson discuss the complexities of passing Trump's legislative priorities in the Senate. They focus on strategies to navigate political blockades, especially concerning the state and local tax (SALT) deduction.

Key Points:

• Senate and House Dynamics: Ben Ferguson explains the procedural challenges in reconciling House and Senate bills, emphasizing the need for strategic bifurcation to ensure passage.

• SALT Deduction Issue:

  • Explanation ([31:26]): The SALT deduction allows taxpayers to deduct state and local taxes from their federal taxable income, which disproportionately benefits high-tax states like New York and California.

  • Proposed Solutions ([35:30]): Ferguson discusses ideas from tax reform advocate Grover Norquist, such as eliminating the marriage penalty to allow couples to double their SALT deductions without significant federal subsidies to high-tax states.

• Political Risks and Negotiations: The hosts highlight the tension between accommodating Republicans from blue states and maintaining sound tax policies that avoid subsidizing inefficient state taxation.

Notable Quotes:

• Ben Ferguson ([32:03]):

  "And so we were like, Gavin Newsom, keep raising taxes. The feds will subsidize you on that."

• Ben Ferguson ([35:30]):

  "Grover suggested as a fix is eliminate the marriage penalty. Which means you and your wife would be able to deduct not 10,000, but 20,000."

• Ted Cruz ([31:07]):

  "I'll go talk to them." (In response to moderating Republicans who may oppose budgetary moves.)

Legislative Strategy:

• Two-Bill Approach: Starting with essential components like border security, military rebuilding, and energy independence to secure initial votes, followed by tax reform, ensuring gradual and sustainable progress.

• Avoiding Failure: Emphasizing the critical nature of Trump's agenda and the necessity of meticulous negotiation to prevent legislative stumbling.

---

Conclusion

In this episode, Ted Cruz and Ben Ferguson provide a fervent analysis of pressing political issues, from the Democratic Party's stance on wealth and power to international and domestic crises involving systemic abuse and legislative maneuvering. Their discussions underscore the challenges and strategies within the current political environment, aiming to inform and engage listeners who seek deeper insights beyond mainstream media coverage.

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Notable Advertisements Skipped: The transcript included multiple advertisements for Chumba Casino, Roku, Hyundai, and High5casino. As per instructions, these non-content sections have been omitted from the summary to maintain focus on the episode's substantive discussions.

Transcript

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[Ted Cruz]

Welcome to this verdict with Ted Cruz, the Weekend Review, Ben Ferguson with you as always. And my oh my, do we have a lot of big stories that happened this week, especially before Donald Trump is inaugurated on Monday. First up, Bernie Sanders and the President Joe Biden going out with a bang saying to any rich person in America, you better be careful before you work with Trump because when we get back our power, we're coming after you. They even use the word oligarchs. Yes, we'll explain that for you in just a moment. Also, shocking news coming out about rape gangs in the UK and how this is a very concerning issue, especially for what's happened in the United States of America with so many kids being lost that have come across the southern border. So what will the administration do about that? We'll explain that for you as well. And finally, Donald Trump went to Capitol Hill to meet with leaders on the Hill, had a sit down with a Senate Republican. So what was said behind closed doors and what does it mean for the Trump agenda? It's the Weekend Review and it starts right now. It is also goes back to this other narrative when we heard it from the President of the United States of America the other night. He was obsessed with this idea of oligarchs. I actually think this was a little bit different. And Bernie Sanders started naming names when he was doing the Confirmation hearing for the man who's up for, for Treasury Secretary. And, and I want to get your take and we're going to play Bernie. But one of the things I, I, I felt was really kind of icky about this was the fact that it's like, hey, we're warning some of you that have stepped out of line from the Democratic Party that we're coming after you when we get our power back. If you do, if you step out too far into the conservative side of things. And that's why we're warning you that if we name you as a, an oligarch, then if we get our, when we get our power back, there's gonna be some sort of hell to pay. And you better be careful how much you work with Donald Trump and you support freedom of speech and you support freedom of expression online and the able, the ability to post things. And that's what it was boiling down to. And it was, I think even more weird. It was in a back and forth with a guy for Treasury Secretary. It's like, wait, are you trying to weaponize treasury to say, hey, your job is to now make sure there's no billionaires in America?

[Ben Ferguson]

Well look, it's worth giving a listen. So listen to this back and forth. And in terms of the demagogic language of the Democrat Party, this is a great example.

[Joe Biden]

Give a listen when you have a small number of multi billionaires who have enormous economic, media and political power. Would you agree with President Biden who last night stated, and I quote, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms, end of quote. That's what President Biden said last night. I agree with him. Do you? I enjoyed our visit and I hope you got my follow up materials that we on the discussions, my previous findings on the tariffs and China. And look, the three billionaires who you listed that all made the money themselves. Mr. Musk came to the country as an immigrant. I understand that. But what I'm asking you is when you have a handful of people like Musk who will soon be part of the Trump administration and others, when you have three people owning more wealth than the bottom half of American society, when these people have enormous influence over the media, when they spend huge amounts of money in both political parties to elect candidates, what Biden said last night is we're moving toward an oligarchy. I'm asking you that question. Do you think, forget how they made their money. Do you think that when so few People have so much wealth and so much economic and political power that that is an oligarchic form of society. Well, I would note that the President Biden gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two people who I think would qualify for his oligarchs. So this is not a condemnation of any one individual. I'm just asking, would so few people have so much wealth and power? Do you think that that is an oligarchic form of society, Senator? I think it depends on the ability to move up and down the. No, that's not really the answer. I mean, even if you had that mobility, no matter who those individuals might be. All right, but let me ask you another question.

[Ted Cruz]

I love there how he's like, all right, I'm going to move on, because this isn't landing. He just threw it back in my face. That we just gave medals of the highest level of metal you can give to a civilian, to two of the people that would be categorized oligarchs. One of them, by the way, is a hardcore radical by the name of George Soros.

[Ben Ferguson]

Yeah, George. George Soros just got the Medal of Freedom from Joe Biden. He celebrated. He also gave it to Hillary Clinton. And by the way, before that, Barack Obama gave the Medal of Freedom to Bill Gates. And listen, the position of Bernie Sanders is we hate billionaires. Unless you're billionaires who support socialists and the Democrat Party, then you're okay. But to be clear, you're only okay if you're buying absolution. The instant you stop buying absolution, we will demonize you and we will burn you an effigy in the streets. And, and, and I gotta say, I like Scott Besson's point. He's like, wait, you're attacking these people? None of these three people you're attacking, none of them inherited wealth. You know, Elon Musk came as an immigrant from Africa, like, like, he built amazing companies. And. And to a socialist, they don't care what you did to build wealth. They're gonna demonize you. They're gonna attack you. And it's an example of. And, and by the way, it's why you get so many incredibly rich, so many billionaires who back the Democrat Party because they're basically paying for protection from Robespierre, from the guillotine in the French Revolution. And I gotta say that that is where the Democrat Party is. But I'll give Scott Bessen a shout out. He responded with fantastic answers, which is why Bernie ran. Ran to the hills and ran away, because he realized it wasn't going the way he wanted. Scott Besson's going to get confirmed. Every Trump Cabinet member is going to get confirmed.

[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.

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[Ted Cruz]

High Five Casino now on to story number two. I want to move to another story you mentioned earlier. And this is a story that on face value, it's, it's something that's in the UK and there's some people that say, well, like this is the uk, why does this matter to me? And I want to connect it to what has happened in this country because of our open borders and the number of minors that we have released in this country to non family members through the Biden Harris program. And when we go back to check on them, they are nowhere to be found. There are tens of thousands of children.

[Ben Ferguson]

Over 300,000, not over 300,000, that's in the United States, that the Biden administration has lost, that they do not know where they are, that they came as unaccompanied minors and they were handed over to adults and they have no idea where they are. And many of them are no doubt being abused. And the corrupt corporate media could not care less. The Democrats could not care less. I don't know a Democrat senator who's ever asked about the 300,000 children that this administration lost. They don't care about it. But look, I want to say what's happened in the UK and is happening right now is horrifying and it's a real warning sign here. I want to start by reading from an article in the Free Press because it sums it up really effectively. It's entitled the biggest Peacetime crime and cover up in British History. The grooming and serial rape of thousands of English girls by men of mostly Pakistani Muslim background over several decades is the biggest peacetime crime in the history of modern Europe. It went on for many years, it is still going on and there has been no justice for the vast majority of the victims. British governments, both Conservative and Labor, hoped that they had buried the story after a few symbolic prosecutions in the 2010s. And it looked like they had succeeded until Elon Musk read some of the court papers and tweeted his disgust and bafflement on X over the New year. Britain now stands shamed before the world. The public suppressed wrath is bubbling to the surface and petitions calls for a public inquiry and demands for accountability. The scandal is already reshaping British politics. It's not just about the heinous nature of the crimes. It's that every level of the British system is implicated in the COVID up. Social workers were intimidated into silence. Local police ignored, excused and even abetted pedophile rapists. Across dozens of cities, senior police and Home Office officials deliberately avoided action in the name of maintaining what they called, quote Community relations, local counselors and members of Parliament rejected pleas for help from the parents of raped children. Charities NGOs and Labor MPS accused those who discussed the scandal of racism and Islamophobia. The media mostly ignored or downplayed the biggest story of their lifetimes. Zealous in their incuriosity, much of Britain's media elite remained barnacled to the bubble of Westminster politics and its self serving priorities. They did this to defend the failed model of multiculturalism and to avoid asking hard questions about failures of immigration policy and assimilation. They did this because they were afraid of being called racist or Islamophobic. They did this because Britain's traditional class snobbery had fused with the new snobbery of political correctness. All of which is why no one knows precisely how many thousands of young girls were raped in how many towns across Britain since the 1970s. What we do know is that the epicenter was in the post industrial mill towns of England's north and midlands, where immigrants from Pakistan and Bangladesh settled in the 1960s. White locals say the grooming and rapes began soon after in Rotherdam, the rundown Yorkshire city where the scandal first broke. Local police and counselors were notified about systematic grooming and sex abuse by 2001. The first convictions did not occur until 2010, when five men of Pakistani background were jailed for multiple offenses against girls as young as 12 years old. The breadth of what occurred is staggering and the systematic willingness to look aside is truly horrific.

[Ted Cruz]

And let's be clear, the reason why they look the other way you mentioned it is really from a PR standpoint, they wanted to have, quote, good relations and not have a stigma related to people that were coming from the Middle east that were there. So they said, all right, we'll just look the other way and that'll make it easier.

[Ben Ferguson]

It's actually less Middle east than primarily Pakistan. Pakistan and it's Pakistani Muslims. And what we've seen, so we have seen since the 1970s, the grooming and serial rape of thousands of children. And the issue is in particular relevant because Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, was England's Director of Public Prosecutions between 2008 and 2013. And so he was actively involved in looking the other way. And so let's break down a little bit of the facts of what happened because the story sounds so extreme as to not be credible. But the child sex rapes weren't just individual instances done by rogue individuals. Rather, in nearly all the cases, there were groups of mostly Pakistani men that cooperated and Conspired to groom and sexually abuse girls over decades. And they targeted mostly vulnerable girls, poor orphans, children in care homes. They raped the girls, they passed them around networks, so raping them one after the other after the other. Some of these child rapists had roles in local governments. The leader of one of the rape gangs in Oldham, individual named Shabir Ahmed, worked for the local council as a quote, welfare rights officer and ran his gang from the council's welfare office. And let me give you some of the facts because they're just, just horrifying. One of the victims, a girl named Victoria Agaglia. Victoria was a 15 year old teenager and, and she was subject to the government's round the clock caretaking. But she went missing 19 times in three months for up to two weeks at a time. Instead of trying to find her, the welfare workers simply messaged her saying when are you coming back?

[Ted Cruz]

Wow.

[Ben Ferguson]

It turns out she was forced into a Pakistani sex ring by older women who raped her in exchange for cash, alcohol and hard drugs. She was sometimes abused by up to 25 men in a single night. Victoria wrote, wrote a heartbreaking letter to the police documenting her abuse. But it was ignored and eventually ignored, ignored and she was found dead from a fatal dose of heroin given by an abuser. And she was repeatedly drugged and raped the night she was killed. I'll give you another example. Charlene Downs in Blackpool. In 2003, 14 year old Charlene Downs disappeared. Police had a lead that Charlene's body had been dismembered and disposed of at a kebab shop in Blackpool. Police uncovered evidence that Charlene had been the victim of child sexual exploitation after being groomed by a gang. The criminals have not been found and her body is missing 20 years later. Lucy Lowe in Telford. An individual named Azhar Ali Mahmoud groomed Lucy Lowe from the age of 12 and impregnated her at 14. He burned her alive in her own home with her mother, her disabled sister and her unborn second child, also fathered by Mahmoud. Mahmoud was jailed for life in 2001 for murder, not for the sex crimes, for murder. Reports indicated that South Asian men were targeting teenagers in Telford since the 1980s. I'll give you one other example. Sophie in Oldham. In 2006, a 12 year old girl named Sophie entered a police station and reported that she had just been molested in a graveyard by a man named Ali. A desk officer told her to come back with an adult when she was sober. Mind you, she was 12. Two men accosted her in the police station joined by a third. They raped her in their car. When they dumped her on the street, she asked a man named Sarwar Ali for directions. He took her to his home, raped her, and gave her money for bus fare home. Sarwar Ali was arrested and remanded to prison over his attack on Sophie. However, he was then released following a bail application to a judge. Despite being an illegal immigrant in the United Kingdom, he subsequently failed to attend his appointment with the Immigration Service and is still at large. Then a man named Shaquille Chowdhury pulled up in his car and offered to take Sophie home. He abducted her, took her to a house, fed her alcohol. Soon after, he and four other men repeatedly raped her. Only Shaquille was convicted. Six years in prison. During his trial, Chowdery named two of the other men involved in the rapes of Sophie as part of his mitigation, but these were not followed up by police at the time. One of the men named by Chowdhury was subsequently convicted in 2009 of the attempted murder of his wife. This pattern happened over and over and over again, and the numbers are staggering. We are talking about thousands of girls systematically, repeatedly raped, and the entire British government looked the other way for decades.

[Ted Cruz]

So, Senator, the question that I'm sure everyone listening is thinking to themselves like, a, has anything changed now? And B, what should happen, the fact that now this is all out in the open?

[Ben Ferguson]

Well, what has changed is Elon Musk has started tweeting about it, and Elon has over 200 million followers. And it has drawn attention to it in a way that is really important. And it has become, thankfully, a political crisis in the United Kingdom. But I want you to listen to Keir Starmer. This is just about a week ago, addressing this crisis, and listen to what he had to say. This is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

[Joe Biden]

And when politicians, and I mean politicians.

[Ben Ferguson]

Who sat in government for many years are casual about honesty, decency, truth and.

[Joe Biden]

The rule of law, calling for inquiries.

[Ben Ferguson]

Because they want to jump on a bandwagon of the far right, then that affects politics because a robust debate can.

[Joe Biden]

Only be based on the true facts.

[Ben Ferguson]

So there you have it. The sitting Prime Minister is saying that if you're concerned about the ongoing rape of thousands of girls in the United Kingdom and the complicity of government, he says you're jumping on the bandwagon of the far right. That continues to be the multiculturalism, political correctness that he does not want to acknowledge. And by the way, he was the chief prosecutor for many of These years he was the one who was directly involved in looking the other way. So naturally he doesn't want an inquiry. Now, I'll give you the response of Nigel Farage, one of the leaders. And actually Nigel Farage we've had had on, on the, on this podcast. He's been a guest on this podcast before. Nigel Farage obviously led the, the fight for Brexit in the United Kingdom. And, and, and, and listen to Nigel Farage's response to what Keir Starmer said.

[Nigel Farage]

Well, so much talk over the last few days about grooming gangs, or should I say rape gangs, and Keir Starmer today saying that anyone who's calling for a full public inquiry is jumping on the bandwagon of the far right. Wrong. Prime Minister. The vast majority of people in this country are absolutely mortified by what has gone on. But even worse, the COVID up we've had from the police, social services and both Conservative and Labour governments, the inquiries that have happened so far have been nothing more than a whitewash. There needs to be a full public inquiry. Let us find out the truth of the scale of this. I'm told that in up to 50 British towns these gang rapes were going on. I believe the public need the truth. We must have an inquiry.

[Ted Cruz]

Senator, you hear the frustration there from Nigel, but I'd also, and this is where I say let's bring it back to the U.S. i worry that we're gonna have the same type of conversation in the not too near distant future about all the children that we've lost in this country.

[Ben Ferguson]

So the answer to both needs to be the same, which is there needs to be an inquiry, there needs to be transparency. In the United Kingdom. You know, Nigel Farage mentioned that there are allegations of up to 50 towns where these rape gangs were ongoing for years and years. That's a staggering scale. So there needs to be full transparency, the opposite of a whitewash or a cover up, but real transparency. In the United states, the over 300,000 children that the Biden administration lost. We need full transparency. We need to find those kids, those kids who are being abused. Right. Right now, we need to get them out of harm's way and sunlight. And transparency is powerful, but there also needs to be accountability for those who are culpable.

[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.

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[Ben Ferguson]

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[Ted Cruz]

I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed. Let me ask you this just to paint the picture of the room. When you guys meet with him, are you seated?

[Ben Ferguson]

Yep.

[Ted Cruz]

And then when you talk to him, when you're making your points stand, what does it look like? Is it very chill room? Is it a casual room, or very formal?

[Ben Ferguson]

So we're in a room called the Mansfield Room, which is a room named for Mike Mansfield, former Senate majority leader, Democrat senator for Montana, has a big picture of Mike Mansfield holding a pipe. The big painting on the wall. It is a large room in the Capitol. And when we met with him, there's a table that's basically a giant table set in a rectangle so we're all facing each other. Okay, so, you know, 53 of us plus the president around a table looking at each other. And it's a very nice room. And it's where we have lunch every day. It's actually One of the perks of being in the majority. So the majority has lunch in the Mansfield room. The minority has lunch in the LBJ room, which is smaller. So when we became a majority, we got into the bigger room, which is nice because the LBJ room, it's pretty tight quarters. And so there's a lot more space in the Mansfield room. So, look, I made a case to him because he came in and he'd been told by the House, hey, this is the only way we can get it done. And I said, Mr. President, I want you to understand something. I said, we had a meeting earlier today of all of the Senate committee chairs. All of us, every single one of us agrees that doing this with two bills is the only way to get it done. And one bill has a massive, massive.

[Ted Cruz]

Risk of failure and extending it to eight months.

[Ben Ferguson]

And I pointed out to him, I said, look, there are 53 of us in this room. I want you to look around the room. Every single one of us agrees. All of us, I agree. John Thune agrees, Lindsey Graham agrees, said, look, you've got Susan Collins and Rand Paul. They agree on nothing. They agree on this. I want you to understand why. And one point that I made to him is I said, look, you need to understand I love the House of Representatives. I love Mike Johnson. He's a great man. He's a good friend. He has a nearly impossible job. So I feel for how difficult that job is. The House of representatives, more than 60% of the House was not here when we passed 2017 tax cuts.

[Ted Cruz]

That is significant number.

[Ben Ferguson]

So they do not understand what goes into it. They do not understand the thousands of hours of back and forth. Look, they're passionate. They believe in what they're saying, but they don't have the experience of having gone through this, by the way. They also, many of them don't understand the rules of reconciliation, of what the Senate could do. Remember I talked about we can do budgetary things and not policy things. There's always a battle between the House and Senate because the House gets mad at the Senate. You damn senators, you won't do what we want. It's like, well, there's a statute that governs what we can do, and it does limit what the Senate could do on reconciliation. That'll be a back and forth. It always is. Every reconciliation, there's a battle between the House and Senate because the House wants to do things that the Senate is not allowed to do under the terms of the statute. What I told President Trump is, I said, listen, if we Put this all in one bill, we have a massive risk of failure. If we do it in two bills, we can start with a huge victory. Securing the border, rebuilding the military, unleashing American energy, and then we will get tax cuts passed. It's just going to take longer. And you know, on the argument that, well, gosh, this is the House leadership's argument. We need each piece as a sweetener to get the votes. What I've said in response is, okay, show me this magical unicorn of a House member, because I know most of these guys. Yeah, so show me. Don't talk about, well, I got members. I can't get their vote without it. All right, tell me who you talking about. Crazy right wing knuckle draggers. Okay, I'm a crazy right wing knuckle dragger. Those are my peeps.

[Ted Cruz]

I'll go talk to them.

[Ben Ferguson]

I'll go talk to them. But when I'm talking to them, they're not saying that. Are you talking about really moderate Republicans? All right, fine. That's a different. That's a different, different problem to solve. But we talk about that. One of the issues that complicates this is what's called the salt tax.

[Ted Cruz]

Explain that.

[Ben Ferguson]

Okay, so the salt tax is state and local tax deduction. So one of the things that happened when we passed the 2017 tax cut is we eliminated, initially we eliminated deducting state and local taxes. So it used to be before 2017, if you're in California and you pay a crap ton of taxes to the state of California, you could deduct all those taxes on your federal taxes. Now, what that ended up doing was having the federal government subsidize big blue states that tax the hell out of their constituents.

[Ted Cruz]

Right.

[Ben Ferguson]

And big blue states that have massive taxes, you just got it deducted from your federal taxes. And so we were like, Gavin Newsom, keep raising taxes. The feds will subsidize you on that. That. So in 2017, we eliminated that. Now we eliminated it, but we actually allowed some deduction. We put a cap of $10,000. So you can deduct up to $10,000 of state and local taxes. So you and I are both homeowners in Texas. The biggest state tax we pay is property tax.

[Ted Cruz]

Yeah.

[Ben Ferguson]

So you and I deduct our property tax on our federal income tax, but it's capped at $10,000. So if you're paying more than $10,000, it's on you. It's on you. Now what's the political problem? The political problem is there are A number of House Republicans who come from blue states, in particular New York and California, and the blue state Republicans, the New York and California Republicans have a problem because eliminating the SALT deduction really impacted people in high tax states because unfortunately their big government Democrats keep taxing the hell out of them.

[Ted Cruz]

We talked about this in California this past week.

[Ben Ferguson]

Those New York and California Republicans feel an obligation to do something to help the problem of not being able to deduct More than 10, more than 10 now. And so the argument is, well, if we add border security to it, they'll have to vote for it because they can't vote against border security. So this is where the argument makes no sense. I'm like, all right, first of all, we tee up the first bill. Securing the border, rebuilding our military, unleashing American energy. I don't know a Republican who's voting against that. The mandate out of this election was secure the border. Show me the idiot Republican who's gonna say no. I'm for open borders. That is a recipe for disaster. You're retiring when you're doing that because you ain't running again.

[Ted Cruz]

And if you do, you're gonna get.

[Ben Ferguson]

Primaried, you'll get killed. None of them will vote against border security. They're just not going to.

[Ted Cruz]

They know the American people, they know.

[Ben Ferguson]

What they want on the salt issue. Look, will there have to be an accommodation for New York and California Republicans? Sure there will. There will have to be an accommodation. I understand that. That's part of why this takes a while. You gotta negotiate. There are geographic and regional issues that you have to negotiate and there's a trade off. Now, will the accommodation be restoring in full the state and local tax deduction? I don't believe it will be because that's terrible tax policy. That means the red states are all subsidizing the blue states and their bad tax policy. Here's what I think the resolution will be. This is actually an idea I got from Grover Norquist. Grover Norquist runs Americans for Tax Reform. He's a longtime friend of mine, one of the leading thinkers when it comes to tax policy and Grover's idea. So right now there is a marriage penalty in how you deduct state and local taxes. You as an individual, if you file your tax return, you could deduct up to $10,000 of state and local taxes. If you are married as you are, you and your wife can deduct a total of $10,000 on state and local taxes. What Grover suggested as a fix is eliminate the marriage penalty. Which means you and your wife would be able to deduct not 10,000, but 20,000. So there's. So it doesn't hurt you you're not.

[Ted Cruz]

Being penalized for being married right now.

[Ben Ferguson]

That's good tax policy as well. Getting rid of the marriage penalty. One of the negative things federal law does is discourages marriage, and marriage is a very good thing for our society. I think we'll end up. If I were to predict the bill that gets enacted, I think we'll end up eliminating the marriage penalty on the salt deduct, which lets the California and New York Republicans go back and say.

[Ted Cruz]

Hey, big win, big win.

[Ben Ferguson]

We doubled the deduction. Now, what it doesn't do is give a multimillion dollar tax break to Michael Bloomberg. What it doesn't do is give a massive benefit to billionaires in New York and California who have massive taxes. And I think that's where we'll end up. But again, that takes time. And so I don't know how we resolve this. I think we'll end up seeing the two proceed on parallel tracks. I think we're gonna see the House for a while, go forward and say, we're doing one big, beautiful bill.

[Ted Cruz]

Yeah.

[Ben Ferguson]

And I think the Senate's gonna say, yeah, that's fine. We're moving forward.

[Ted Cruz]

We're not wasting time.

[Ben Ferguson]

We know you're gonna get with our bill on the border, on the military, and on energy, because we can get it done. We want a victory, and this is how you win. And look, I don't know how it resolves, but I can tell you, I think it is an enormously consequential question. And frankly, this is exactly the reason I think people listen to Verdict for sure, because there is not another show. There's not a news show.

[Ted Cruz]

No one's talking about this or covering it or explaining it.

[Ben Ferguson]

It's not a podcast. People don't understand this. And I will tell you, this is the single biggest topic that the Senate and House and President Trump are discussing right now, and nobody is covering it in the news. But the reason it's the single biggest topic is, I believe it is the difference between succeeding on Trump's legislative agenda and winning massive victories or losing and having a crushing failure. And in my view, failure is not an option. We cannot fail, which means we got to do it right.

[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.

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