← Verdict with Ted Cruz
Verdict with Ted Cruz
Trump CRUSHES Colombian Resistance, CIA Comes Clean on COVID & Confirmations Accelerate
00:33:30
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- [00:00]
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- [01:34]
Senator Ted Cruz
Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz. Ben Ferguson with you. Senator, nice to be with you on this Monday. And my oh my, do we have some fun things to talk about, including a very quick war with the US and Columbia over illegal immigrants.
- [01:50]
Ben Ferguson
What a difference a week wit makes. A week ago, Joe Biden was still president. Now, just seven days later, Marines are on our southern border. Catch and release is over. We are deporting illegal immigrants. We are arresting thousands of criminal illegal immigrants, including murderers, including child molesters, including gang members. And the nation of Colombia tried to stand up and say we will not allow Colombians to come back. Trump immediately retaliated, threatening tariffs, and within hours, Colombia backed down. It went so far. The president of Colombia, a radical socialist, said he would send his presidential plane to America to pick up the Colombian illegal immigrants. It is an incredible victory for President Trump for the nation, for securing the border in just hours. That is a big, big deal. But that's not all that's going on. We also have the CIA has confirmed its own judgment that the COVID virus originated in China. That's something you and I have talked about. We've talked about on verdict for a long time. Within hours of John Radcliffe being confirmed as the director of the CIA, he made that public. We're going to talk about that as well. And finally, we're going to talk about confirmation. The cabinet members that have already been confirmed. Who's on deck? I've told you, within 30 days, every single Trump Cabinet member will be confirmed. We'll walk you through exactly where that stands.
- [03:18]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah, it's going to be a really fun show today. I also want to remind you about something really important, and that is that today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, when we remember the great evil of the Holocaust when millions of Jews were slaughtered during the Nazis reign of terror. Today, the rise in global anti Semitism and the constant attacks on Israel show us that it's more important than ever to remember the atrocities of the Holocaust and to ensure that it never happens again. That's why I partnered with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. They provide food, shelter and safety to Jews in Israel and around the world, including those remaining Holocaust survivors. Now, your donation today will help provide food, water, medicine and other basic necessities to the Jewish communities in need. And through your gift, you will stand with the Jewish people and against this growing anti Semitism and hatred that we're witnessing around the world. So give a gift to show your support of the Jewish people today by visiting supportifcj.org that's one word. Supportifcj.org you can also call to make a donation 888-488-IFCJ. That's 888488, IFCJ or online at support ifcj.org so Senator, before we get into the big war with Colombia, I want to start with the incredible news of the deportations that are taking place with violent rapists, murderers, gang members, drug traffickers that ICE is picking up not just in one city but all over the country. People that could have been picked up that were walking among us by the Biden Harris administration and they refused to do it.
- [05:13]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did not care that murderers and rapists were allowed to wander free. They would not arrest them. They would not pick them up. In just a week, thousands of illegal immigrants have already been arrested. Here are A few of the examples the White House has put out that they've arrested. Edgar De La Cruz Monzo, a convicted child rapist, was arrested by ICE in Seattle on January 25th. Or a Jordanian national with suspected ties to ISIS was arrested in Buffalo on January 24th. An MS.13 gang member from El Salvador wanted for aggravated homicide was arrested in Los angeles. Also on January 24th. A Mexican national wanted for murder was arrested in Los Angeles on January 24. A Honduran national was found with coke, cocaine, fentanyl and a firearm. He was arrested in Seattle on January 24. A Ethiopian national who's a convicted sex offender was arrested in New Orleans on January 24th. A Honduran national with convictions for driving while impaired and pending charges, including assault and firearms offenses was arrested in Atlanta on January 25. A Brazilian national convicted of vehicular manslaughter was arrested in Boston on January 25th. A Mexican national convicted of three counts of aggravated DUI was arrested in Phoenix on January 24th. Those are just a few of the examples. And let me ask you something, Ben. Why the hell were none of them arrested when Joe Biden and the Democrats were in charge?
- [06:56]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah, it's the question that every American should be asking is why were they purposely allowing them to stay and walk among us? And how many people's lives were affected? How many people's lives were lost? How many children were abused because of people like this in this country? They knew that where they were, and they didn't take go get them. They didn't deport them, something that they've done in less than a week.
- [07:19]
Ben Ferguson
Notice. ICE was able to find them and arrest them within days. Many of those were January 24, January 25, which means we had the information, we knew how to get them. What was missing was the political leadership. It's not that Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and the Democrats couldn't find these murderers, couldn't find these rapists, couldn't find these terrorists, couldn't find find these gang members, couldn't find these child molesters. They could find them. It was actually pretty easy and straightforward for ICE to do. So. The reason they weren't arresting them is the Democrats didn't want to arrest them. And understand, it's not just Biden and Harris. It is every Senate Democrat who over and over and over again when we tried to vote and say, let's go after the criminals, they voted no, no, no. Straight party line. I want you to listen to Tom Homan, the new border control czar, talking about what they're doing on the border and what they intend to keep doing.
- [08:15]
Senator Ted Cruz
To deport all of those people.
- [08:17]
Tom Homan
Well, I'll leave it up to Congress. You know, I think Congress, the president has a mandate. This was the number one issue that people voted on. I think Congress has a mandate to give us money. We need. What price do you put on national security?
- [08:27]
Ben Ferguson
More detention.
- [08:28]
Tom Homan
What price do you put on? What price you put on all these young ladies have been raped and murdered and burned alive. What price you put on that? What price you put on Lincoln Riley's life? What price you put on national security? Like I just explained, when you have a surge that because we don't secure that border, that's when national security threats enter the country. That's when sex trafficking goes up. That's when you know, that's when the fentanyl comes in. It killed a quarter million Americans. I don't put a price in that.
- [08:51]
Senator Ted Cruz
And on those detention centers, it's amazing how the media keeps arguing a quarter million Americans die from fentanyl. As he described it, he also mentioned Lake and Riley. And the Lake and Riley act was finally passed because Republicans are in charge now. And it is going to go, you know, to the President, this is one of those moments where it should have been completely bipartisan. But these are all the things that the Biden Harris administration stopped.
- [09:17]
Ben Ferguson
Well, they blocked it. And by the way, one of their excuses for not deporting people, the real reason they didn't deport people is they want the illegals here. But one of their excuses is they say, well, some countries wouldn't take them back. I gotta say, what we saw with Colombia in the last two days has been stunning. So the Trump administration was flying two different plane loads of Colombian illegal immigrants to Colombia. And the head of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, who is a hardcore socialist, radical, anti American, he, he decided, he announced, we're not going to let the planes land. We're not going to take them back. Now President Trump sent out the following truth social. I just want to read you what the President says. I was just informed that two repatriation flights from the United States with a large number of illegal criminals were not allowed to land in Colombia. This order was given by Colombia's socialist president, Gustavo Petro, who is already very unpopular amongst his people. Petro's denial of these flights has jeopardized the national security and public safety of the United States. So I have directed my administration to immediately take the following urgent and decisive retaliatory measures. Emergency 25% tariffs on all goods coming into the United States in one week. The 25% tariffs will be raised to 50%. A travel ban and immediate revocations on the Colombian government officials and all allies and supporters. Visa sanctions on all party members, family members and supporters of the Colombian government. Enhance Customs and Border Protection inspections of all Colombian nationals and cargo on national security grounds. IPA treasury banking and financial sanctions to be fully imposed. These measures are just the beginning. We will not allow the Colombian government to violate its legal obligations with regard to the acceptance and return of the criminals they forced into the United States. Now that truth was posted on January 26th at 1:28pm within hours, Columbia completely caved. The White House press secretary put out a statement that read as follows. Quote, the government of Colombia has agreed to all of President Trump's terms, including the unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the United States, including on US Military aircraft, without limitation or delay. Based on this agreement, the fully drafted IPA tariffs and sanctions will be held in reserve and not signed unless Colombia fails to honor this agreement. The visa sanctions issued by the State Department and enhanced inspections from Customs and Border Protection will remain in effect until the first plane loan of Colombian deportees is successfully returned. Today's events make clear to the world that America is respected again. President Trump will continue to fiercely protect our nation's sovereignty, and he expects all other nations of the world to fully cooperate in accepting the deportation of their citizens illegally present in the United States.
- [12:53]
Senator Ted Cruz
It's amazing how fast this happened and also the backstory. So this tweet that went out went out apparently while Donald Trump was playing golf. And he was clearly focused on this. At the same time, he's been all over the country, from North Carolina all the way out to la, then to Vegas and back to Miami. And you look at the timeline here, it is incredible. This man doesn't stop. And he was ready for this fight. His team was ready for this fight. That is the. I think maybe the biggest blessing of him not getting reelected in 2020 is he had time to think about, hey, if I go back, what would I do differently? They're clearly operating at a different level of efficiency this time compared to 2016, and it's paying off big.
- [13:40]
Ben Ferguson
It is indeed. And I got to say, the timing of it, As I mentioned, 1:28pm was when Trump's Truth Social came out on January 26th. Do you know when the press secretary sent out her statement that Columbia had caved?
- [13:55]
Senator Ted Cruz
What time?
- [13:56]
Ben Ferguson
At 9:20pm on 1 26. So less than eight hours later, that's how long it took for the Colombian President. He didn't just say, okay, nevermind, you can let everyone in. He said, I'll send my damn presidential plane to pick him up. And that capitulation, and this is from a hardcore leftist who hates America. It illustrates the strength and leverage the United States has. Every country in the world wants to trade, wants access to the US Market. That gives us leverage. It's one of the things we've talked about a lot concerning tariffs, which is that President Trump uses them as leverage. Now, he likes tariffs generally, so we may see tariffs as a broader policy, but he especially likes them as leverage to change conduct that is hurting America. And Ben, I want to ask you a simple question. Can you imagine any universe in which Joe Biden or Kamala Harris would do this?
- [14:52]
Senator Ted Cruz
No. No chance in hell.
- [14:54]
Ben Ferguson
And by the way, number one, you have to imagine a universe in which they're actually willing to deport someone. And that's a big hypothetical. But let's assume they sent two planes to Colombia and the Colombian president did what he did to Trump. He would have done it to them, too. Say, we won't take them. It is simply unimaginable that Biden or Harris would have had the backbone to do anything other than to meekly back down and say, okay, we'll take the criminals back. Like this is. It is a simple illustration that America always had the power to enforce our borders. If we had a president who gave a damn about it and was willing to do what was necessary, and thank God, finally we do, it also sends.
- [15:39]
Senator Ted Cruz
A bigger message to other countries that we're gonna have to deal with because there's a lot of other countries, I think simplistically, a lot of people think, well, okay, the southern border, we have an issue with Mexico. Let's be very clear. There are millions of people that are in America legally from countries all over the world, and these types of flights are going to need to land in many other countries. The precedent for what Donald Trump put out and saying, it's not just going to be a tariff of 25%, but in a week it's going to go to 50%. It's not just that we're going to make sure that anybody in your country, in your government, family, allies, friends, can't come to America. We're going to get rid of the bees.
- [16:14]
Ben Ferguson
By the way, that, that piece, Listen, if you're the foreign minister and your wife wants to go to New York to go shopping, that's a real problem if she's not allowed to go to New York to go shopping. You want to talk about that? That's one of the areas of leverage that actually causes foreign leaders to freak out when they're not allowed to access America for many reasons. People travel from all over the world and want to come to America and it's using leverage. And we've talked on this pod a lot about the enormous damage that was done to America under Joe Biden because he was so weak. Nobody was afraid of him.
- [16:51]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah.
- [16:51]
Ben Ferguson
No one of our enemies are terrified of Donald Trump. That is very, very good.
- [16:57]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, and it goes back to this now, every country that we're going to need to take these planes. And just so people understand, they had agreed that these plans could land in Colombia. It wasn't like Donald Trump randomly just had two plans headed towards Colombia. This had been prearranged. The President said yes, then in the air, he said no.
- [17:15]
Ben Ferguson
They revoked the authorization midair. And I gotta say, look, look, there's an online meme that is fafo. And because this is a family friendly podcast, I'm not gonna spell it out, but I'm gonna say to speak euphemistically, screw around and find out. Yeah, and Donald Trump tweeted that out. But like, okay, that, that's just pretty damn funny.
- [17:42]
Senator Ted Cruz
So every other country, now that we've got to deal with, wasn't this clearly a, I would argue probably a pre planned. Any country that messes with us here is what we're going to do back to them. And now every country knows you're going to get the same treatment.
- [17:58]
Ben Ferguson
Look, I'll tell you, I met a week ago with a senior government official from Canada who, who was very concerned about the threatened tariffs on Canada, was saying, okay, what do we do? And, and I basically said, listen, he's not bluffing. What I would advise you do is lean in vigorously and aggressively to do everything humanly possible to help us secure the borders. Because if you don't, we're good. You're going to see those tariffs and no matter how aggressive you were thinking of being to secure the border, triple down on that. Because this is not a bluff. It is a real incredible promise. And I got to say, as we saw, in less than eight hours, it can spur incredible change of conduct. By the way, in the first Trump term, we saw the same thing prompt the remain in Mexico agreement with Mexico for the same reasons.
- [18:46]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, and now it seems like he's willing to double down even more than he was back then. And if Anyone was doubting his resolve on securing the southern border. Just call Colombia's Petro and say, hey, how'd it work out for you? Because when you have to send the presidential plane to pick up migrants after Trump announced the sanctions, that is the biggest failure I've ever witnessed in a political gamesmanship like this in modern political history.
- [19:11]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah, and look, I'll say within an hour of Colombia refusing, refusing the planes to land and Trump announcing the consequences. Here's what I tweeted out. I tweeted out, Colombian President Petro is playing with fire after he took over Colombia in the summer of 2022. I worry this would happen. I introduced the Caution act, which required suspending aid to Columbia unless they cooperated to reduce illegal immigration. That is child's play compared to what will happen now if Petro doesn't reverse course. And about six hours later, he did.
- [19:50]
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- [22:13]
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- [22:19]
Senator Ted Cruz
I want to move to this other big headline and that deals with the CIA and releasing new analysis on the COVID origins. Uh, doesn't matter where you read the headline, whether it's Fox News, Politico, ap, BBC, Wall Street Journal, they're all writing the same article now. And I'll go to Politico. CIA now says COVID 19 is more likely to have originated from a lab leak. Now, the most interesting part about this transparency that we're getting from the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, a friend of both of ours, is the fact that he made it clear, hey, I'm releasing information that they had already come to a conclusion on, Senator. When Biden and Harris were in charge, they just didn't want the American people to know it. So if you think I'm the one giving you this intel, it's not me. This is intel from Biden and Harris that they hid from you.
- [23:13]
Ben Ferguson
Yeah. So the CIA had already come to this conclusion. And for. For a number of years, the CIA's public position was it could not conclude with certainty where the pandemic started. And yet two days after John Radcliffe was sworn in as the new director of the CIA, they issued a public statement that said, quote, we have low confidence in this judgment and will continue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reporting or open source information that could change CIA's assessment. And by the way, low confidence. Typically when the intelligence community has a conclusion that they will report it with low confidence, with moderate confidence, or with high confidence. So they're saying that they're not convinced it's absolutely right. But they think it's correct, but it's at the lowest confidence level. And they did note CIA continues to assess that both research related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID pandemic remain plausible. It is striking, however, that as you just said a second ago, the CIA had concluded this some time ago. It's just under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. They didn't bother to tell the American people. Listen to John Radcliffe explaining this.
- [24:29]
John Ratcliffe
Part of what we have to do is we have to restore Americans trust in our own institutions like the intelligence community and law enforcement, and that includes the CIA. And you know, one of the things that the President stressed, you know, the purpose of the CIA is, is to protect Americans, to keep us safe from foreign threats and foreign adversaries. But we also need to be truthful with Americans. And he has stressed to me and others that, you know, these aren't mutually exclusive missions. We can do both. And so in the case of the CIA, which is the best foreign intelligence service in the world, after five years, to not have a public assessment to be honest with the American people about where the likely source of a pandemic that, that killed millions around the world, including a million Americans, and really impacted all 345 million Americans in some way, people lost jobs, they lost houses, they lost their health, they lost their businesses, all of that. And so I had the opportunity on my first day to make public an assessment that actually took place in the Biden administration so it can't be accused of being political. And it, and it does assess. The CIA has assessed that the most likely cause of this pandemic that has wrought so much devastation around the world was because of a lab related incident in Wuhan. And so we'll continue to investigate that moving forward. But I think it was important for the American people to see an institution like the CIA get off the sidelines and be truthful about what our intelligence shows at the same time of protecting us from adversaries like China. If they caused or contributed to this.
- [26:11]
Senator Ted Cruz
I mean, Senator, wow. What else can you say? This is all intel that we already had that they hid and lied to the American people about.
- [26:20]
Ben Ferguson
Well, listen, and I know John Ratcliffe well, he's a good friend of mine. He is someone I sat and spent about an hour talking with him a week ago before his confirmation. And I'll tell you, one of the things I urged John to do is bring maximum transparency. That's possible. Look, the nature of the CIA, you can't be transparent in everything. Obviously we don't want the public to know the identity of COVID agents or secret wiretaps or things that would jeopardize national security. But the consequences of the politicization and weaponization of both law enforcement and the intelligence community is that the public's trust in those institutions has been severely diminished. That's what John was talking about in that clip you just played. And so I urged him. By the way, it's the same thing I've urged Pam Bondi, who's been nominated to be Attorney General. It's the same thing I've urged Cash Patel, who's been nominated to be FBI Director, is have the maximum transparency possible. And in particular, I've urged them with respect to Covid and the origins of COVID and by the way, any US Government complicity in terms of funding the Chinese research and the gain of function research that may have created the COVID virus, that we need maximum transparency concerning that. In particular. And I think John Ratcliffe is following through with that. I've also urged maximum transparency concerning January 6th and any US government informants who may have been involved, who may have enticed or entrapped people into conduct on that day to make that public as well. And I'm hopeful. And by the way, I'll mention Trump is also releasing the files on. On JFK and RFK and Martin Luther King's assassinations. I will note, Ben, when. When Trump said he was releasing the JFK files.
- [28:07]
Senator Ted Cruz
I know where you're going with this.
- [28:09]
Ben Ferguson
I did at least tweet. Just wondering, what are the non extradition countries Again, I'm asking for a friend.
- [28:18]
Senator Ted Cruz
All right. You can't say that without telling the backstory on this one. Right? Can you remind people the humor here on this?
- [28:24]
Ben Ferguson
Sure. During 2016, Trump accused my father of killing JFK, which, for the record, no, my dad did not kill jfk. He did kill Jimmy Hoffa. Jimmy Hoffa's buried my dad's backyard, but he didn't kill jfk. And so it's a thing. And so if he's releasing the JFK files, I got to tell you, I'm buying a plane ticket for my dad to go to Bolivia right now.
- [28:52]
Senator Ted Cruz
Between that and the Zodiac Killer, you just making headlines, my friend.
- [28:56]
Ben Ferguson
And it is amazing. So, Ben, there is actually a real poll that I have seen that show this was a few years ago, that 28% of Floridians believe I may well be the Zodiac Killer.
- [29:11]
Senator Ted Cruz
That's one I would frame and put on my desk. I'm not gonna lie.
- [29:14]
Ben Ferguson
It really is. And given that the Zodiac Killer killed a number of people in Northern California in the 1960s before I was born, that's an amazing talent. To be able to murder in utero, to reach, like, back in time. That. That's. That. That. That's just. You know, I'm kind of proud of that.
- [29:32]
Senator Ted Cruz
I mean, if liberals need another reason to be afraid of you, just know that Senator Cruz can time travel.
- [29:37]
Ben Ferguson
Per.
- [29:37]
Senator Ted Cruz
Per Internet report.
- [29:38]
Ben Ferguson
So, as the meme says, fafo.
- [29:42]
Senator Ted Cruz
I love it. All right, let's talk about the last thing on our list, and it is one. Were you right in your prediction? When did you get home? Uh, we. If. If you listen to our last show, we were talking about our Democrats gonna hold out through the weekend. Are you gonna have to stay in D.C. all weekend? Are you gonna get to come home? Uh, they were holding up the nominations yet again. So tell us how that went down. When did you get back? Were you right?
- [30:06]
Ben Ferguson
So I was right. Um, I said I thought we'd get back Saturday. Uh, I thought the Democrats would fight tooth and nail to try to beat Pete Hegseth. I said they'd lose. And I said when they lost, they'd give in. And they want to get out of town because they want to get home just like we do. So that's exactly what happened. So we were there. We were there late Friday night, and. And then we ended up finishing the vote Saturday morning, and we all flew out Saturday afternoon. So. So I'm. You and I are recording. It is 12:11 in the morning right now. Sunday night. Monday morning, I'm in Houston, and tomorrow morning, I'll fly back to DC to go back to the Senate tomorrow. So we did get out.
- [30:44]
John Ratcliffe
And.
- [30:44]
Ben Ferguson
And where are we on the confirmations? So right now, four cabinet members have been confirmed. The first to be confirmed was Marco Rubio as Secretary of State. He was confirmed on January 20. The vote was 99 to nothing. The second to be confirmed was the guy that you just played that clip from, John Ratcliffe at CIA Director. The vote was 72 to 26. So big bipartisan vote. And it's striking, though, that the Democrats delayed that several days even though there was clear bipartisan support for him. Ratcliffe should have been confirmed on January 20 also. In fact, we thought he was going to. And the Democrats delayed it several days just because they're engaged in obstruction. They're trying to delay everything.
- [31:29]
Senator Ted Cruz
And we're way behind schedule compared to other administrations. Just so people understand that way behind.
- [31:34]
Ben Ferguson
Is strong, but they're dragging their Feet. And that's why we rammed through, forced them to stay through the weekend, kept them late Friday night, kept them there Saturday to make clear, listen, if you delay, we'll just motor through and so you can decide do you want it to be unpleasant or. Or do you want to move forward? We're going to move expeditiously and confirm these nominees. The Democrats, if they want, they can abuse the procedural rules, they can drag things out, but that means they're going to be there on Fridays and Saturdays and Sundays, and they're not going home. And that's the most effective way to get them to cave in, which is what they did. And so Friday night, the third Cabinet member was confirmed. That was Pete Hegseth. That vote was 51 to 50. More on that in a second. I'll come back to that. And then on Saturday, we confirmed the fourth cabinet member, which is Kristi Noem for Secretary of Homeland Security. She was confirmed 5934. So a respectable bipartisan vote, not overwhelming, but she got got six Democrats. And next week we have teed up Scott Besant for Secretary of Treasury, Sean Duffy for Secretary of Transportation, Chris Wright for Secretary of Energy, and Doug Burgum for Secretary of the Interior. All of them are out of committee. All of them are teed up. I think all four of them will be confirmed next week. We may have some others confirmed next week as well, but we're moving expeditiously. And as I said, my prediction is that we will confirm all of Trump's cabinet nominees within 30 days. We also have next week in Judiciary, we will vote Pam Bondi out of committee and we'll have the hearing on Cash Patel. And by the way, one of the things I did last week is participated in a moot preparation with Cash Patel, which was very productive. Cash, I think, is going to do a good job. The Democrats are going to go hard after Cash Patel. They're going to go hard after Tulsi Gabbard. Those are their top two targets. And then Pete Hegseth. So Pete Hegseth, they fired everything they could at him. They really wanted to defeat Pete. And the vote ended up being 50, 50 on the floor of the Senate. So three Republicans voted no. Susan Collins, which was not a surprise. Lisa Murkowski, again, not a big surprise. And Mitch McConnell, who, I have to admit, I was not surprised that Mitch voted no. But that was the more surprising of the three.
- [33:50]
Senator Ted Cruz
I will say Friday I was surprised by that one. So explain why you say you weren't surprised. I just I was shocked knowing who he had voted to confirm in the past on the Democrat sides. Was it more of an inside baseball in D.C. everybody thought, yeah, he'd probably do this, explain why.
- [34:07]
Ben Ferguson
So, several things. One, I think it's fair to say Mitch is not a fan of Donald Trump, to put that mildly. I think both of them can't stand each other. I think secondly, Mitch, listen, the odds are overwhelming. Mitch is not going to run for reelection, which means he's got two years and his term is up in 2026. I think for his final two years, Mitch has decided he wants to be basically John McCain. He wants to fight for a bigger military. He wants to fight for an aggressive interventionist foreign policy. And I think he views many of Trump's foreign policy nominees. Many of his foreign policy positions Mitch passionately disagrees with. And I think in Mitch's mind, he put Hegseth into that category. And so just given where Mitch is coming from, I wasn't surprised that he voted no. And I think you could see Mitch vote no. I think those three, Collins, Murkowski and McConnell could vote no on a couple of other nominees. On most of them they'll be yeses, but those three. Now the good thing about a 53 vote majority is we can afford to lose three. We can afford to lose three and win. So it was 50, 50 on the floor of the Senate, which meant The Vice President, J.D. vance came late Friday night and he cast the tie breaking vote. So Pete Hegseth is now the Defense Secretary. But that was a battle and there was some real drama in particular because Thom Tillis from North Carolina had raised real issues during the day whether he would be a yes or a no. And I can tell you there were a lot of intense conversations with Tom, with Pete Hegseth, with the White House, back and forth. Look, if one more Republican had voted no, it would have taken Hegseth down. But at the end of the day I was confident Tillis would vote yes. And he did vote yes. In fact, I, I offered to several of my colleagues, I said, I'll bet you a hundred bucks he's a yes. And nobody would take my bet. That's a shame because I would have liked to have won the hundred dollars.
- [36:01]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yeah, no doubt about it. All right, so lastly this week, what do you think's going to happen? Is it going to be a long week or are you guys going to get a lot of this done and get out of there on Thursday like normal, or the Democrats going to keep playing the games?
- [36:12]
Ben Ferguson
Well, Listen, normal Senate schedule is you come in Monday night. Your first vote is typically 5:30pm the reason it's 5:30pm that's called the comeback vote. And you've got senators flying in from all over the country. So even from the west coast you can fly in and land in D.C. and get to a 5:30 vote. So that's why we start Monday night, so everyone could come back to town that day. The normal Senate schedule is you wrap up voting Thursday afternoon, you fly home to your state and then you're in your state. You're traveling your state on Friday and the weekends. What John Thune has announced is, is the schedule right now every week we're going to be there through Fridays. I think part of that is to put pressure on the Democrats not to be obstructionist. I think if the Democrats agree to collapse time and to move a little faster, I think we may go home Thursday afternoons as well so we can be back in the state on Friday. But if the Democrats delay are an obstructionist, I expect us to be there every Friday.
- [37:10]
Senator Ted Cruz
Incredible. Don't forget, we do the show Monday, Wednesday, Friday. We're going to give you a blueprint for what's happening, especially during these confirmation hearings, just like we talked about. So hit that subscribe or that auto download button. And on those in between days, grab my podcast, the Ben Ferguson Podcast. I'll keep you updated on the latest breaking news as well on those days and the center and I will see you back here Wednesday morning.
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- [38:33]
Ben Ferguson
8.