August 25, 2025 • 34 mins
1. Dunking on Gavin Newsom
- Ted Cruz responds to a tweet by Newsom blaming Trump for rising electricity prices.
- Cruz uses AI (Grok) to highlight that the states with the highest electricity rates are Democrat-led with strong renewable energy mandates.
- He argues that liberal policies, not Trump, are responsible for high energy costs.
- The discussion includes a critique of renewable energy mandates and infrastructure challenges in blue states.
2. Democrats’ “Forbidden Words”
- The think tank Third Way released a memo listing 45 words/phrases Democrats should avoid, claiming they alienate everyday Americans.
- Examples include: “privilege,” “birthing person,” “microaggression,” “cisgender,” “food insecurity,” and “environmental violence.”
- Cruz and Ferguson mock the list, comparing it to George Carlin’s “seven dirty words” and argue that the problem isn’t just language but ideology.
3. SCOTUS Victory for Trump on DEI Grants
- The Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in favor of the Trump administration, allowing it to cancel $783 million in NIH grants tied to DEI and gender ideology.
- The ruling was based on jurisdictional grounds—plaintiffs filed in the wrong court.
- Justice Amy Coney Barrett was the swing vote, siding with conservatives on the funding issue but not on reversing DEI guidance.
- Cruz and Ferguson discuss the implications for future lawfare and judicial activism.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome. It is Verdicus Centater, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with
you and Senator I got to say every once in
a while, you get a little feisty on Twitter. And
one of your tweets has now gone to fourteen million
people that have seen it, and a follow up tweet
is in the million plus range and it dealt with electricity.
I did not see this one coming. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, Gavin Newsom, it seems, has gotten a new Twitter.
He's hired some staff that I'm sure are blue haired
transgender freaks, but they've decided that way they're going to
make Gavin the hero of the left is to tweet
in all caps and try to do everything they can
to sound like Donald Trump. And by the way, it
is working in that left wing cooks across the country
(00:45):
are sending money to Gavin Newsom. It's raising him a
whole lot of money. And so he has gone he
has gone crazy on Twitter. But he's getting dunked on badly.
And we're going to talk about one example where he's
trying to blame high electriciy prices on Donald Trump, and well,
let's just say the facts are not backing them.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Up.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
We're going to break that down for you.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
We're also going to talk to you about a remarkable story,
which is a major Democrat think tank has put out
a list of forbidden words, a list of words. They
concluded that when Democrats say them, they sound like out
of touch freaks. Now, I got to say, I agree
with this think tank, but I don't think Democrats are
going to follow this advice. It really is striking, though,
(01:28):
to show just how out of touch they are that
they have to be told what sort of words make
you sound like a scolding schoolmarm or a radical in
a university faculty lounge. And finally, we're going to talk
about a Supreme Court decision that upheld the Trump administration's
canceling of hundreds of millions of dollars of DEI grants.
(01:49):
It was a terrific victory for common sense. It was
five to four, it was closely divided. We're going to
break it down, explain what the court did, what the
divide was, and how President Trump is now able to
cancel massive amounts of money that we're going to completely
woke political ideological projects.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
All of you know that I am a pro Second
Amendment guy. I've shared on numerous occasions how caring my
firearms saved my life from a gang related attack. But
for those of you out there with family members who
may not be comfortable having a gun by their side,
you still want them to be able to protect themselves
and others in times of danger. And that's where the
Burno launcher comes in. Berna is a handheld pistol that
(02:29):
fires both kinetic rounds and chemical irritants to separate you
from an attacker. And I'm here with Josh Cherrard from
Berna to share the true story of how an avid
hiker uses Burne to stop an attacking mountain lion. Josh,
tell us what happened.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Hey, you know, Jason is an avid hiker deciding to
take his family out on a hiper he's done several times,
super easy, high but super fun, all armed with his Berna.
You know, this is one of those things where he
didn't expect to see anything, and all of a sudden,
on this hike, this mountain lion appears out of no
wheay or of course, he sends his family on down
the trail, watches the line for a few minutes, realizing
(03:05):
it's not going away. So uses his burner, fires a
few rounds to scare it off, continues down the trail,
but unfortunately this mountain line appears again, at which point
he realized he was going to have to up his
aggression with that BURNA fire's four rounds was able to
strike the mountain lion all four times at chest and torso,
at which point that mountain lion airs off, never to
be seen again. These guys make it down the trail
(03:28):
back to their car and back to home safely. Fortunately,
this is all it took to make sure and get
this family back home safe off a hike that could
have taken an obvious turn for the worst.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
And I'm going to guess that berner has been used
to stop other types of animal attacks as well.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Absolutely, we get stories all the time of users with
whether it be dogs or other wildlife. We even have
an ecological park whose security carries burna four bears out
in the smoky mountains out there. That's been effective there
as well, So once again, not just a tool for people,
but very affective against animals as well.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
It's really incredible if you want to get more information
on how you and your family member can protect themselves
with the burner launcher, go to burna dot com. That's
by r NA dot com. Again by RNA dot com,
burna dot com. All right, Senator, so let's talk about
this interesting tweet and Democrats anything that goes up price
(04:26):
wise right now, it's automatically Donald Trump's fault. That is
the simplistic liberal logic.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
One oh one.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Anything that they can blame Trump for, They're gonna try
it every time they put out this tweet. Gavin Newso
clearly acting as if he's running against the whole maga world.
He's obviously launched his presidential campaign and is just trying
to take these easy shots. The problem is you hit
him back hard with the fact. So let's talk about
what he tweeted at first, and then what you said
(04:55):
in response.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well, sure, he sent out a tweet that said electricity
p have gone up ten percent since January. Great work,
Donald Trump. And so you know, looks as Gavin Newsom
is wont to do. He is fact free, he is
data free, he is evidence free. He is usually reality free.
But he's pretty slick and drives a message. And so
I responded, actually actually relying on AI and I'm kind
(05:20):
of enjoying doing this online, and so I just asked
GROC to chime in, and so I responded, hey, GROC,
electricity prices have gone up ten percent since January. In
what cities and states are.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
They the highest?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So I had no political content to it. I just asked,
where is this the worst? And today we've got fourteen
million views on that. Here's what Grok came back with,
based on August twenty twenty five data from EIA and
other sources, highest state rates number one Hawaii, number two California,
(05:57):
number three, Connecticut, on four Massachusetts, number five Rhode Island.
And then highest city rates number one Honolulu, Hawaii, number
two San Francisco, California, number three New York, New York,
number four Boston, Massachusetts, and number five Hartford, Connecticut. And
(06:23):
so I looked at that. Just that grock response has
one point two million views. My initial querry has fourteen million,
And so I responded to that. I said, hey, Grock,
what do the five states with the highest electricity rates
all have in common? And it wasn't difficult to figure
this out. But here's what GROC responded based on EIA data,
(06:46):
The top five Hawaii, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island all
have democratic governors and strong renewable energy mandates. Factors include
high fuel import costs e g. Hawaii, urban demand and
infrastructure investments. Rates vary by policy and geography. So it's
(07:08):
an amazing example of how Look I didn't even bother
to argue with Gavin. I just simply pointed to facts.
And the beauty of it is I didn't need adjectives.
I didn't need to make any claims. I just need
to ask the simple question, where is it the highest?
Now I do the answer, And the thing about it
is Gavin knew the answer. Electricity rates are incredibly high
(07:29):
in California, the second highest of any state in the country.
Why because of the Waco left wing policies Gavin Newsom
the legislature put in place. That's true of Democrat legislatures.
And yet here's what Gavin Newsom wants to do. He
wants to tell Californians, you know, your high electricity rates
is because Donald Trump is there, and it's fundamentally dishonest.
And look, that's one of the reasons Ben, you and
(07:51):
I do this podcast is it's designed to give information
the left. You know, if you think about the difference
between being a Democrat or Republican. Today, Democrats, their policies
don't work. Their policies are a train wreck. Whether it's
open borders, whether it is boys and girls sports, whether
it is massive spending and high taxes and job killing regulations,
(08:13):
whether it is appeasement abroad, whether it is letting terrorists
into this country. All of their policies are a mess.
So what do they do. They have to spend, they
have to obviuskate. And there is a fundamental dynamic in politics,
which is Liberals win when they effectively obfuse skate their
views because their policy views don't work. Conservatives win when
(08:38):
we effectively articulate what it is we believe why, because
our policy views work. They are common sense. Most people
with any sense, they want secure borders, they want law
enforcement protecting their family, they want their constitutional rights protected,
they want low prices, low energy prices.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
And so.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
That tweet exchange, I think really embodies much of what
I'm trying to do speaking out in the public debate,
but much of what we're trying to do with this
podcast as well.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Well. Let's dive into alsos so people understand and they
may say them, says, well, hold on a second, why
is it that one state has higher prices than another state.
Why that you know California is higher. Is it just
because quote everything costs more in California? Can you break
down explain to people how this is such a state
wide issue. This is where your actual state government matters
(09:31):
and the policies of your state, and it's going to
dictate the pricing you see.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Well, it's a whole host of things. One chunk of
it is taxes, and you have big blue states they
tax everything they see, and so one of the reasons
when you fill up your tank in California it costs
so much, as you've got massive state and local gasoline taxes.
But not only that, when it comes to electricity generation,
when you put mandates, as blue states do, when you
(09:56):
put massive renewable energy mandates, that drive up the cost
of generating electricity, uh consistently, the cheapest form of generating
electricity is either coal or natural gas. States like California
don't want you to use coal or natural gas, so
they mandate instead you use very very expensive forms of
(10:18):
electricity generation, and that ends up driving costs. But it's
not just the generation it's also getting the fuel. It's
also uh building the transmission lines UH, the environmental permitting,
the regulator, the regulatory barriers, the lawsuits UH that that
that that are entailed in big blue states. Every one
of these drives up costs UH and those costs are
(10:41):
paid by consumers. On the other hand, when you have
red states, red states make it make it easier to
build power generation that is more cost effective UH and
to build transmission lines UH. And and it's interesting if
you you look at the state of Texas and and
and I'm not saying renewable energy is necessarily bad. That
(11:02):
the number one producer of wind energy in America is
the state of Texas. The number one producer of solar
energy in the in the country is the state of Texas.
But if you look at how it happens in Texas,
that's not subject to a mandate. And so we also
have quite a bit of energy that is generated via
natural gas and some that is generated via coal as well.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
In California.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
By driving it overwhelmingly to renewables, especially renewables that if
the weather is uncooperative, you know, sometimes the sun is
shining and the wind is blowing, and wind and solar
works fine. But other times, if it's overcast, you may
not have any sunshine. You have days when the wind
doesn't blow. And so if you're if you're powering a
(11:46):
power grid, you need electricity that can be generated day in,
day out, and that typically comes from either natural gas
or coal, or the.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Alternative is nuclear.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
And when we have nuclear energy in Texas, but again,
blue states make it incredibly difficult to build nuclear as well.
Every time you put it additional man, I'll give you
another example. Let's take Massachusetts. Massachusetts, the cost of natural
gas to heat your home is massively high, and one
of the big reasons there's enormous natural gas deposits in Pennsylvania,
(12:21):
the Marcella Shale. It would be very simple to bring
that natural gas from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts. Well, you know what,
the state of New York has decided New Yorkers don't
want natural gas, so the costs are very high there,
and they've decided no one else in New England wants it,
so New York will not let them build a pipe
across New York to get the natural gas to New England.
(12:43):
And so as a result, what they've been doing is
importing their energy from Russia instead. By the way, it's
worse for the environment. It pollutes more, it emits more carbon,
and it also does things like enrich Vladimir Putin. But
that is left wing liberal logic is no, no, no, no,
we think oil and ass is bad, so therefore no
pipelines whatsoever, and we'll just buy Russian gas and pollute
(13:05):
even more.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
That's where facts matter.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Final question on this, have you seen any fact checks
yet come out on Gavin Newsom in this tweet? Because
I was scouring the internet as you and I were
chatting earlier, I can't find a single fact checker that's
come out saying, hey, you're not telling all the facts here.
This is a misleading tweet, misleading statement, misleading anything. It's
like no one's doing it but you.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Well.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Unfortunately, the so called fact checkers are not in fact objective.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
They are not checking facts.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Things like outfits like PolitiFact are left wing editorial outlets,
and they mask their often deceptive editorial views as objective
fact checking. It really is. It's amazing the things. Number One,
they inevitably fact check conservatives many many more times than liberals.
(13:56):
Sometimes they'll fact check liberals on some innocuous statement just
to conclude it true, and and the bias with which
they have it. You know, one of the funniest fact
checks PolitiFact once I said years ago that that that
that in Iran they celebrate Death to America Day, and
then that they have a holiday that they celebrate Death
to America Day. And PolitiFact fact checked me and and
(14:19):
they concluded, well, yes, it is true that there is
a holiday that's actually on the official calendar uh in
in Iran. And and and the holiday is is the
date that that the Iranian radicals and revolutionaries took over
the American embassy and took Americans hostage. That's on the calendar.
And it is true they celebrated every year. And it's
(14:39):
true as well that mobs go out in the streets
and and and and they chant Death to America on
this day every year, and those chants are frequently led
by the Ayatollah. All of that political PolitiFact concludes true, true, true, true,
They say, but you know, the holiday is not technically
called Death to America Day on the calendar, so we
(14:59):
rate this flo out false. And I literally doubled over laughing.
It was the most absurd I actually retweeted their fact
check and said, read this because the facts that they
lay out are exactly what I said. They make my
case for it, but ideologically because they're leftists. When the
Iatola chance death to America, apparently the PolitiFact editors are
(15:20):
chatting right along with them, so they see nothing to
complain about. So Gavin Newsom's not going to get fact
checked on this. He is going to I mentioned that
liberals win when they obvious gate. Well, to Gavin Newsom's credit,
he is much like Bill Clinton. If you remember years ago,
a backhanded complimented Bill Clinton. It was said he's an
(15:42):
unusually good liar. Well, Gavin Newsom, like Bill Clinton, is
an unusually good liar. And the fact checkers are in
the business of lying, so they're not going to be
fact checking what Gavin Newsom says.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, great point there. I want to move to something
else that's happening, and this is a very interesting Democrats
are going back to their wokeness and adding new words
and phrases that you shouldn't be able to say. Apparently
this is part of their strategy to reach more voters
because they're hemorrhaging voters all over the place. Some of
(16:15):
the things they want to bring back and with a
vengeance center is not breastfeeding of a child, but it's
chest feeding of a child. That's just one example of
this lunacy. And they're rolling it out like, Hey, this
is how we're going to get people to come back
to us.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Well, it's very amusing. This democrat think tank Third Way
has put out a list of forty five words and
phrases that they're asking Democrats please stop saying this, because
you guys sound like kooks when you say this. And
Politico's Playbook reported on it. Here here's what Playbook said
the Blue Blacklist. In a new memo, the center left
(16:50):
think tank third Way is circulating a list of forty
five words and phrases they want Democrats to avoid using,
alleging the terms put quote a wall between us and
everyday people of all races, religions, and ethnicities. It's a
set of words that third Way suggests quote people simply
do not say, yet they hear them from democrats. And
(17:14):
these manned words they span six categories, from quote therapy
speak to quote explaining away crime. And they put in
sharp relief a party that the authors say makes democrats
quote sound like the extreme, divisive, elitist, and obfuscatory enforcers
(17:36):
of wokeness. And the third way argues that quote to
please the few, we have alienated the many, especially on
culture issues, where our language sounds superior, haughty, and arrogant.
All right, so let's let's go through some of the
(17:56):
words that Democrats now are supposed to not say.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Number one, privilege. Number two, Yeah, that's a bad one.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Violence, as in environmental violence, not actual violence like mugging
or murder. That violence they don't say, but environmental violence,
dialoguing whatever that is triggering, which you and I believe
in triggering. But I think we have a very different
meaning for that than than leftist when we talk about
triggering other othering. One on Earth is othering othering othering, microaggression,
(18:31):
holding space, body shaming, subverting norms, systems of oppression, cultural appropriation,
overton window, existential threat to the climate, democracy, economy, radical transparency, stakeholders,
(18:57):
the unhoused, food insecurity, housing insecurity, person who immigrated, birthing
person cis gender dead naming.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Can we go back to birthing person real quick? That's
the one that, like I think most Yeah, that would
be a mom. But they don't want to say that.
They don't think it's a woman they can have a child,
even though it's only women they can have children, So
they want to say it's a birthing person and this
is supposed to like bring them more people. It's incredible,
isn't it.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
All Right?
Speaker 2 (19:30):
I've told this story on Verdict before, but we actually
had a hearing in judiciary where where a Democrat senator
made multiple references to.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Birthing people. And afterwards I came up to him and I.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Said, dude, is your party really that whack job crazy
that you can't say mom?
Speaker 4 (19:50):
And he just nodded and said, yeah, like that's who
they are. All right.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Let me finish this last heteroonormative patriarchy lgbt QIA plus
element OP. I added the element op bipock Alley ship
or ally.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Ship or whatever the heck.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
It is incarcerated people and involuntary confinement.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
So these are the knaughty words.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Now, look, I'm old enough to remember George Carlin's list
of the seven words you can't say on radio, and
since you are a radio host, you probably know those
seven words. Because this is a family show, I'm not
going to repeat the seven words you can't say on radio.
But it is a classic bit of stand up comedy.
And this is now I guess the inverse of that,
this is the words democrats should stop saying because they
(20:42):
make them sound like clowns.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Okay, you'll love this center So true story. When I
was gosh really young in radio, I want to say sixteen, fifteen, sixteen,
somewhere in there. Every year you had to do your
broadcasting license interview and at the radio station hrs who'd
go meet with and you'd have to write down those
words you're not allowed to say on their right, like
(21:06):
the seven words so that you're not allowed to do.
So everyone in the radio station they came to me
when it happened. They started laughing. They're like, hey, Ben,
make sure you when you do it, tell them that
you're dyslexis out of a learning disability, because then you
do the tests orally instead of writing it down. So
everyone went into the HR department and you said the
words out loud. The HR lady who was like seventy
(21:27):
five years old, and she would just shake her head,
and then she finally looked at me. She's like, you're
not dyslexic. I'm like, no, ma'am. They all told me
how to do this. She's like, yeah, you're like the
seventeenth person a day. So there's your little Back in
the day of radio, everybody at the station, no one
knew how to write anything. Everyone wanted to go in
here and just mess with her, like where the words
You're not allowed to send me here? And of course
you would enunciate them like perfectly, and she would just
(21:50):
be cringing, and she's like, you don't have a learning disability.
I'm like, no, ma'am, I don't. They just they put
me up to it. She's like, yeah, so did everyone else.
It was the best every year.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Well, I appreciate your refraining from going through the list
right now. But look, here's what Third Way said as
to the reason they put out their list. Quote, we're
doing our best to get Democrats to talk like normal
people and stop talking like they're leading a seminar at Antioch. Look,
(22:19):
this is one of the few times when I'm gonna
say I agree with Democrats when they say words like
that that they sound like freaks.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
But there's a reason for that, because they are.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
It's not just the words. Notice the memo doesn't say
to stop believing this stuff. The memo doesn't say to stop,
you know, destroying jobs. The memo doesn't say, hey, let's
actually secure the border. The memo doesn't say, if we
find a murderer, let's arrest the murderer and make him
what is it, an incarcerated person. No, no, no, They're perfectly
(22:49):
fine with letting murders and rapists go. They just don't
want you to say it in a way that people
realize what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
I want to move to another big story as well,
and this is one that is not going to get
a lot of media attention. So I hope everyone listening
will actually pay attention to this. Because there was a
big victory from the Supreme Court allowing Donald Trump to
tax millions of dollars center and funding for DEI related grants.
This is huge.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
It is so it was a five to four vote
and it allowed the Trump administration to terminate seven hundred
and eighty three million dollars worth of grants, their grants
from the National Institute of Health, and they were granted
that they were canceled because of the administration's policy positions
on diversity, equity, and inclusion. And gender ideology. And the
(23:41):
Trump administration quite reasonably said we're not going to give
away three seven hundred and eighty three million dollars for
DEI for And these were awards that were studying all
sorts of ideological objectives that and in many instances were
these are awards that were granted because of the research race.
They made that a criterion. And listen, I got to say,
(24:05):
there is an important role for scientific and medical research,
and IHDS does good work. And you know, early in
the Trump administration, I was flying from DC back to
Houston and a woman came up to me on the
plane and she said she was a cancer researcher.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
At m d Anderson. And she said she was very worried.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
About funding getting cut and and and she wanted to
express that to me. And I said, listen, thank you
for the work you do. MD Anderson is incredible. They
do phenomenal work fighting cancer. And I said, everyone, or
at least everyone with any sense, agrees that we ought
to be doing cancer research. And part of the reason,
a big part of the reason you want to scrutinize
(24:44):
and you want to cut out wasteful expenditures, things like
funding you know, transgender education in Guatemala, which was one
of the was one of the USA I D grants
that the administration canceled is so that you can spend
the money where it actually should be. And so seven
hundred and eighty three million dollars in NIH grants that
is not actually going to disease and curing disease and
(25:08):
helping people who are suffering, but instead are granted based
on ideology. That is an absolute waste and it is wrong.
But I got to tell you, the ruling from the
court was only five to four. It was very narrow,
and it had a bit of a complicated, bit of
a complicated lineup. So four justices dissented. The four who
(25:32):
dissented were Chief Justice Roberts, Justice sotom Or, Justice Kagan,
and Justice Jackson.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
So you had the Chief Justice plus the four liberals.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Now you had four conservatives, Justice Thomas, Justice Ledo, Justice Gorsich,
and Justice Kavanaugh, who would have granted the Trump administration's
request entirely. And so what happened was plaintiffs had their
grants canceled, they went and filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts
(26:02):
because of course, in this law fair that they deliberately
seek out left wing judges at extreme left wing jurisdictions,
and so Massachusetts and San Francisco have been incredibly popular
places for left wing attorneys general and radical groups to
file lawsuits. And the district judge, with a district judge
did is two things. Number One, vacated the guidance that
(26:24):
the Trump administration had issued saying they were not going
to give funding to DEI. And then secondly, the district
court ordered the Trump administration give the seven hundred and
eighty three million dollars to these grant recipients. That went
up on appeal to the Court of Appeals, and the
Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court and again
(26:45):
ordered the Trump administration give the money. Now it went
to the US Supreme Court and the Supreme Court five
to four said no, you do not have to give
the money. So the seven hundred and eighty three million
dollars the Trump administration is holding on to it. And
the deciding vote on this was Justice Amy Coney Barrett,
who voted with the liberals on part of the case
(27:08):
and the conservatives on part of the case. So she
voted with the conservatives on you don't have to give
the money. And the basis for it, by the way,
is what the five justices said is the lawsuit was
filed in the wrong place. That the lawsuit should have
been filed in the Court of Federal Claims, which is
(27:29):
where if you have a breach of contract case against
the federal government, if you have a contract and they
broke it under federal law, the place to bring that
case is the Court of Federal Claims. It's a specialized
court that exists to adjudicate breach of contract cases against
the government. They did not bring this in the Court
of Federal Claims. They brought it just in an ordinary
federal district court. So five to four the court said,
(27:52):
wrong court. They don't have jurisdiction to decide this, so
they don't have to give the money. Now, Justice bar
Bar sided with the liberals in refusing to reverse the
district courts vacating the guidance on Dei. So the guidance
on Dei is currently blocked, although that lawsuit will continue,
(28:17):
so it's not necessarily permanently blocked. And she declined to
have the Supreme Court reverse that decision. And so this
was at the end of the day, this really should
have been nine to ozho, but I'm glad it was
at least five to four the right way because that
means that this money doesn't have to go out the door.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, it's certainly big that didn't have to go out
the door. Moving forward, does this also have some sort
of pressent that the president will be harassed? Maybe a
little bit less or do you think Democrats say will
harass no matter what. We'll argue wherever we can, the
liberal court we can find, and that will at least
slow him down.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Look, the Democrats are going to keep trying, and the
left wing activist groups are going to keep trying. This
is their next general of lawfare. Just like what before
when they indicted him four times. That was an effort
to use the courts, to use law enforcement to stop
President Trump, but also to stop the voters from re
electing him. They failed in that. This is now their
(29:14):
effort and it is relentless. Every day of the Trump presidency.
He's going to be sued, the administration is going to
be sued. I will say the Supreme Court, we talked
about this in an earlier podcast, It has made important
steps to rein in the abuse of nationwide or so
called universal injunctions. That was important, and this decision is important,
(29:35):
and I will say Justice Gorsic, joined by Justice Kavanaugh,
wrote a concurring opinion that was significant.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Here's what Justice Gorsic said. Quote.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Lower court decisions may sometimes disagree with this Court's decision,
but they are never free to defy them. In Department
of Education versus California, this court granted a stay because
it found the government likely to prevail in showing that
the district Court lacked jurisdiction to order the government to
(30:05):
pay grant obligations. The California decision explained that quote, suits
based on any express or implied contract with the United
States do not belong in district court under the Administrative
Procedure Act, but in the court of Federal claims under
the Tucker Act. Rather than follow that direction, the District
(30:27):
Court in this case permitted a suit involving materially identical
grants to proceed to final judgment under the APA. As
support for its course, the District Court invoked the quote
persuasive authority of the dissents in California and an earlier
(30:49):
Court of Appeals decision that California repudiated that was error
in casting California side. The District Court stressed that the
court there granted only interim relief pending appeal and a
rit oficcear, and did not issue a final judgment on
the Merits true enough, But this Court often addresses requests
(31:12):
for interim relief, sometimes pending a rit of curcherary, as
in California. And either way, when this Court issues a decision,
it constitutes a precedent that commands respect in lower courts.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
He went on to say, quote, if.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
The District Court's failure to abide by California were a
one off, perhaps it would not be worth writing to
address it. But two months ago, another district court tried
to quote compel compliance with a different order that this
Court had stayed. Still, another district court recently diverged from
(31:51):
one of this Court's decisions, even though the case at
hand did not differ in any pertinent respect from the
one this court court had decided. So now this is
the third time in a matter of weeks, this Court
has had to intercede in a case squarely controlled by
(32:13):
one of its precedents. All these interventions should have been unnecessary,
but together they underscore a basic tenet of our judicial system.
Whatever their own views, judges are duty bound to respect
the hierarchy of the federal court system created by the
Constitution and Congress. Look, this highlights a pattern we're seeing
(32:38):
of lawless district judges.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
That is, Justice Gorsic.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
And Kavanaugh lay out three and just three weeks that
have defied the Supreme Court of the United States said
we don't care what the Court said, and you know
it was striking. Look, I'm reading from a Supreme Court
opinion and some of that sounds like legal ease. But
I'll tell you one of the most amazing things that
Justice Gorsich described the disc Court did is it said
(33:02):
it found persuasive the descents in the California decision. Well,
a descent, by definition, means you lost. You did not
get the majority. The majority issues the opinion. A discent
is someone who disagrees with the opinion. And the way
precedent works, the way our judicial system works, is is
(33:23):
a decision that it issues from the Supreme Court is
a precedent that all of the district courts and all
of the Courts of Appeals are bound to follow. So
if you are citing a descent. You are saying right
on the front of it, I don't care what the
majority held. I agree with the dissenters. No lower court
judge has the authority to do that. That is the
(33:44):
definition of lawlessness, and it is why these plaintiffs are
seeking out radicals on the bench who they know will
be lawless.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Great point there. Don't forget. We do this show Monday,
Wednesday and Friday, said the subscriber auto download button wherever
you get your podcasts, so you do not miss a
single episode. Make sure again put this up on social
media wherever you can, and the center I will see
you back here on Wednesday morning.
Welcome. It is Verdicus Centater, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with
you and Senator I got to say every once in
a while, you get a little feisty on Twitter. And
one of your tweets has now gone to fourteen million
people that have seen it, and a follow up tweet
is in the million plus range and it dealt with electricity.
I did not see this one coming. I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, Gavin Newsom, it seems, has gotten a new Twitter.
He's hired some staff that I'm sure are blue haired
transgender freaks, but they've decided that way they're going to
make Gavin the hero of the left is to tweet
in all caps and try to do everything they can
to sound like Donald Trump. And by the way, it
is working in that left wing cooks across the country
(00:45):
are sending money to Gavin Newsom. It's raising him a
whole lot of money. And so he has gone he
has gone crazy on Twitter. But he's getting dunked on badly.
And we're going to talk about one example where he's
trying to blame high electriciy prices on Donald Trump, and well,
let's just say the facts are not backing them.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Up.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
We're going to break that down for you.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
We're also going to talk to you about a remarkable story,
which is a major Democrat think tank has put out
a list of forbidden words, a list of words. They
concluded that when Democrats say them, they sound like out
of touch freaks. Now, I got to say, I agree
with this think tank, but I don't think Democrats are
going to follow this advice. It really is striking, though,
(01:28):
to show just how out of touch they are that
they have to be told what sort of words make
you sound like a scolding schoolmarm or a radical in
a university faculty lounge. And finally, we're going to talk
about a Supreme Court decision that upheld the Trump administration's
canceling of hundreds of millions of dollars of DEI grants.
(01:49):
It was a terrific victory for common sense. It was
five to four, it was closely divided. We're going to
break it down, explain what the court did, what the
divide was, and how President Trump is now able to
cancel massive amounts of money that we're going to completely
woke political ideological projects.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
All of you know that I am a pro Second
Amendment guy. I've shared on numerous occasions how caring my
firearms saved my life from a gang related attack. But
for those of you out there with family members who
may not be comfortable having a gun by their side,
you still want them to be able to protect themselves
and others in times of danger. And that's where the
Burno launcher comes in. Berna is a handheld pistol that
(02:29):
fires both kinetic rounds and chemical irritants to separate you
from an attacker. And I'm here with Josh Cherrard from
Berna to share the true story of how an avid
hiker uses Burne to stop an attacking mountain lion. Josh,
tell us what happened.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Hey, you know, Jason is an avid hiker deciding to
take his family out on a hiper he's done several times,
super easy, high but super fun, all armed with his Berna.
You know, this is one of those things where he
didn't expect to see anything, and all of a sudden,
on this hike, this mountain lion appears out of no
wheay or of course, he sends his family on down
the trail, watches the line for a few minutes, realizing
(03:05):
it's not going away. So uses his burner, fires a
few rounds to scare it off, continues down the trail,
but unfortunately this mountain line appears again, at which point
he realized he was going to have to up his
aggression with that BURNA fire's four rounds was able to
strike the mountain lion all four times at chest and torso,
at which point that mountain lion airs off, never to
be seen again. These guys make it down the trail
(03:28):
back to their car and back to home safely. Fortunately,
this is all it took to make sure and get
this family back home safe off a hike that could
have taken an obvious turn for the worst.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
And I'm going to guess that berner has been used
to stop other types of animal attacks as well.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Absolutely, we get stories all the time of users with
whether it be dogs or other wildlife. We even have
an ecological park whose security carries burna four bears out
in the smoky mountains out there. That's been effective there
as well, So once again, not just a tool for people,
but very affective against animals as well.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
It's really incredible if you want to get more information
on how you and your family member can protect themselves
with the burner launcher, go to burna dot com. That's
by r NA dot com. Again by RNA dot com,
burna dot com. All right, Senator, so let's talk about
this interesting tweet and Democrats anything that goes up price
(04:26):
wise right now, it's automatically Donald Trump's fault. That is
the simplistic liberal logic.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
One oh one.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Anything that they can blame Trump for, They're gonna try
it every time they put out this tweet. Gavin Newso
clearly acting as if he's running against the whole maga world.
He's obviously launched his presidential campaign and is just trying
to take these easy shots. The problem is you hit
him back hard with the fact. So let's talk about
what he tweeted at first, and then what you said
(04:55):
in response.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well, sure, he sent out a tweet that said electricity
p have gone up ten percent since January. Great work,
Donald Trump. And so you know, looks as Gavin Newsom
is wont to do. He is fact free, he is
data free, he is evidence free. He is usually reality free.
But he's pretty slick and drives a message. And so
I responded, actually actually relying on AI and I'm kind
(05:20):
of enjoying doing this online, and so I just asked
GROC to chime in, and so I responded, hey, GROC,
electricity prices have gone up ten percent since January. In
what cities and states are.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
They the highest?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
So I had no political content to it. I just asked,
where is this the worst? And today we've got fourteen
million views on that. Here's what Grok came back with,
based on August twenty twenty five data from EIA and
other sources, highest state rates number one Hawaii, number two California,
(05:57):
number three, Connecticut, on four Massachusetts, number five Rhode Island.
And then highest city rates number one Honolulu, Hawaii, number
two San Francisco, California, number three New York, New York,
number four Boston, Massachusetts, and number five Hartford, Connecticut. And
(06:23):
so I looked at that. Just that grock response has
one point two million views. My initial querry has fourteen million,
And so I responded to that. I said, hey, Grock,
what do the five states with the highest electricity rates
all have in common? And it wasn't difficult to figure
this out. But here's what GROC responded based on EIA data,
(06:46):
The top five Hawaii, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island all
have democratic governors and strong renewable energy mandates. Factors include
high fuel import costs e g. Hawaii, urban demand and
infrastructure investments. Rates vary by policy and geography. So it's
(07:08):
an amazing example of how Look I didn't even bother
to argue with Gavin. I just simply pointed to facts.
And the beauty of it is I didn't need adjectives.
I didn't need to make any claims. I just need
to ask the simple question, where is it the highest?
Now I do the answer, And the thing about it
is Gavin knew the answer. Electricity rates are incredibly high
(07:29):
in California, the second highest of any state in the country.
Why because of the Waco left wing policies Gavin Newsom
the legislature put in place. That's true of Democrat legislatures.
And yet here's what Gavin Newsom wants to do. He
wants to tell Californians, you know, your high electricity rates
is because Donald Trump is there, and it's fundamentally dishonest.
And look, that's one of the reasons Ben, you and
(07:51):
I do this podcast is it's designed to give information
the left. You know, if you think about the difference
between being a Democrat or Republican. Today, Democrats, their policies
don't work. Their policies are a train wreck. Whether it's
open borders, whether it is boys and girls sports, whether
it is massive spending and high taxes and job killing regulations,
(08:13):
whether it is appeasement abroad, whether it is letting terrorists
into this country. All of their policies are a mess.
So what do they do. They have to spend, they
have to obviuskate. And there is a fundamental dynamic in politics,
which is Liberals win when they effectively obfuse skate their
views because their policy views don't work. Conservatives win when
(08:38):
we effectively articulate what it is we believe why, because
our policy views work. They are common sense. Most people
with any sense, they want secure borders, they want law
enforcement protecting their family, they want their constitutional rights protected,
they want low prices, low energy prices.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
And so.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
That tweet exchange, I think really embodies much of what
I'm trying to do speaking out in the public debate,
but much of what we're trying to do with this
podcast as well.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Well. Let's dive into alsos so people understand and they
may say them, says, well, hold on a second, why
is it that one state has higher prices than another state.
Why that you know California is higher. Is it just
because quote everything costs more in California? Can you break
down explain to people how this is such a state
wide issue. This is where your actual state government matters
(09:31):
and the policies of your state, and it's going to
dictate the pricing you see.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Well, it's a whole host of things. One chunk of
it is taxes, and you have big blue states they
tax everything they see, and so one of the reasons
when you fill up your tank in California it costs
so much, as you've got massive state and local gasoline taxes.
But not only that, when it comes to electricity generation,
when you put mandates, as blue states do, when you
(09:56):
put massive renewable energy mandates, that drive up the cost
of generating electricity, uh consistently, the cheapest form of generating
electricity is either coal or natural gas. States like California
don't want you to use coal or natural gas, so
they mandate instead you use very very expensive forms of
(10:18):
electricity generation, and that ends up driving costs. But it's
not just the generation it's also getting the fuel. It's
also uh building the transmission lines UH, the environmental permitting,
the regulator, the regulatory barriers, the lawsuits UH that that
that that are entailed in big blue states. Every one
of these drives up costs UH and those costs are
(10:41):
paid by consumers. On the other hand, when you have
red states, red states make it make it easier to
build power generation that is more cost effective UH and
to build transmission lines UH. And and it's interesting if
you you look at the state of Texas and and
and I'm not saying renewable energy is necessarily bad. That
(11:02):
the number one producer of wind energy in America is
the state of Texas. The number one producer of solar
energy in the in the country is the state of Texas.
But if you look at how it happens in Texas,
that's not subject to a mandate. And so we also
have quite a bit of energy that is generated via
natural gas and some that is generated via coal as well.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
In California.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
By driving it overwhelmingly to renewables, especially renewables that if
the weather is uncooperative, you know, sometimes the sun is
shining and the wind is blowing, and wind and solar
works fine. But other times, if it's overcast, you may
not have any sunshine. You have days when the wind
doesn't blow. And so if you're if you're powering a
(11:46):
power grid, you need electricity that can be generated day in,
day out, and that typically comes from either natural gas
or coal, or the.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Alternative is nuclear.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
And when we have nuclear energy in Texas, but again,
blue states make it incredibly difficult to build nuclear as well.
Every time you put it additional man, I'll give you
another example. Let's take Massachusetts. Massachusetts, the cost of natural
gas to heat your home is massively high, and one
of the big reasons there's enormous natural gas deposits in Pennsylvania,
(12:21):
the Marcella Shale. It would be very simple to bring
that natural gas from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts. Well, you know what,
the state of New York has decided New Yorkers don't
want natural gas, so the costs are very high there,
and they've decided no one else in New England wants it,
so New York will not let them build a pipe
across New York to get the natural gas to New England.
(12:43):
And so as a result, what they've been doing is
importing their energy from Russia instead. By the way, it's
worse for the environment. It pollutes more, it emits more carbon,
and it also does things like enrich Vladimir Putin. But
that is left wing liberal logic is no, no, no, no,
we think oil and ass is bad, so therefore no
pipelines whatsoever, and we'll just buy Russian gas and pollute
(13:05):
even more.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
That's where facts matter.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Final question on this, have you seen any fact checks
yet come out on Gavin Newsom in this tweet? Because
I was scouring the internet as you and I were
chatting earlier, I can't find a single fact checker that's
come out saying, hey, you're not telling all the facts here.
This is a misleading tweet, misleading statement, misleading anything. It's
like no one's doing it but you.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Well.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Unfortunately, the so called fact checkers are not in fact objective.
Speaker 4 (13:31):
They are not checking facts.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Things like outfits like PolitiFact are left wing editorial outlets,
and they mask their often deceptive editorial views as objective
fact checking. It really is. It's amazing the things. Number One,
they inevitably fact check conservatives many many more times than liberals.
(13:56):
Sometimes they'll fact check liberals on some innocuous statement just
to conclude it true, and and the bias with which
they have it. You know, one of the funniest fact
checks PolitiFact once I said years ago that that that
that in Iran they celebrate Death to America Day, and
then that they have a holiday that they celebrate Death
to America Day. And PolitiFact fact checked me and and
(14:19):
they concluded, well, yes, it is true that there is
a holiday that's actually on the official calendar uh in
in Iran. And and and the holiday is is the
date that that the Iranian radicals and revolutionaries took over
the American embassy and took Americans hostage. That's on the calendar.
And it is true they celebrated every year. And it's
(14:39):
true as well that mobs go out in the streets
and and and and they chant Death to America on
this day every year, and those chants are frequently led
by the Ayatollah. All of that political PolitiFact concludes true, true, true, true,
They say, but you know, the holiday is not technically
called Death to America Day on the calendar, so we
(14:59):
rate this flo out false. And I literally doubled over laughing.
It was the most absurd I actually retweeted their fact
check and said, read this because the facts that they
lay out are exactly what I said. They make my
case for it, but ideologically because they're leftists. When the
Iatola chance death to America, apparently the PolitiFact editors are
(15:20):
chatting right along with them, so they see nothing to
complain about. So Gavin Newsom's not going to get fact
checked on this. He is going to I mentioned that
liberals win when they obvious gate. Well, to Gavin Newsom's credit,
he is much like Bill Clinton. If you remember years ago,
a backhanded complimented Bill Clinton. It was said he's an
(15:42):
unusually good liar. Well, Gavin Newsom, like Bill Clinton, is
an unusually good liar. And the fact checkers are in
the business of lying, so they're not going to be
fact checking what Gavin Newsom says.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, great point there. I want to move to something
else that's happening, and this is a very interesting Democrats
are going back to their wokeness and adding new words
and phrases that you shouldn't be able to say. Apparently
this is part of their strategy to reach more voters
because they're hemorrhaging voters all over the place. Some of
(16:15):
the things they want to bring back and with a
vengeance center is not breastfeeding of a child, but it's
chest feeding of a child. That's just one example of
this lunacy. And they're rolling it out like, Hey, this
is how we're going to get people to come back
to us.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Well, it's very amusing. This democrat think tank Third Way
has put out a list of forty five words and
phrases that they're asking Democrats please stop saying this, because
you guys sound like kooks when you say this. And
Politico's Playbook reported on it. Here here's what Playbook said
the Blue Blacklist. In a new memo, the center left
(16:50):
think tank third Way is circulating a list of forty
five words and phrases they want Democrats to avoid using,
alleging the terms put quote a wall between us and
everyday people of all races, religions, and ethnicities. It's a
set of words that third Way suggests quote people simply
do not say, yet they hear them from democrats. And
(17:14):
these manned words they span six categories, from quote therapy
speak to quote explaining away crime. And they put in
sharp relief a party that the authors say makes democrats
quote sound like the extreme, divisive, elitist, and obfuscatory enforcers
(17:36):
of wokeness. And the third way argues that quote to
please the few, we have alienated the many, especially on
culture issues, where our language sounds superior, haughty, and arrogant.
All right, so let's let's go through some of the
(17:56):
words that Democrats now are supposed to not say.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Number one, privilege. Number two, Yeah, that's a bad one.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Violence, as in environmental violence, not actual violence like mugging
or murder. That violence they don't say, but environmental violence,
dialoguing whatever that is triggering, which you and I believe
in triggering. But I think we have a very different
meaning for that than than leftist when we talk about
triggering other othering. One on Earth is othering othering othering, microaggression,
(18:31):
holding space, body shaming, subverting norms, systems of oppression, cultural appropriation,
overton window, existential threat to the climate, democracy, economy, radical transparency, stakeholders,
(18:57):
the unhoused, food insecurity, housing insecurity, person who immigrated, birthing
person cis gender dead naming.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Can we go back to birthing person real quick? That's
the one that, like I think most Yeah, that would
be a mom. But they don't want to say that.
They don't think it's a woman they can have a child,
even though it's only women they can have children, So
they want to say it's a birthing person and this
is supposed to like bring them more people. It's incredible,
isn't it.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
All Right?
Speaker 2 (19:30):
I've told this story on Verdict before, but we actually
had a hearing in judiciary where where a Democrat senator
made multiple references to.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Birthing people. And afterwards I came up to him and I.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Said, dude, is your party really that whack job crazy
that you can't say mom?
Speaker 4 (19:50):
And he just nodded and said, yeah, like that's who
they are. All right.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Let me finish this last heteroonormative patriarchy lgbt QIA plus
element OP. I added the element op bipock Alley ship
or ally.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Ship or whatever the heck.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
It is incarcerated people and involuntary confinement.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
So these are the knaughty words.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Now, look, I'm old enough to remember George Carlin's list
of the seven words you can't say on radio, and
since you are a radio host, you probably know those
seven words. Because this is a family show, I'm not
going to repeat the seven words you can't say on radio.
But it is a classic bit of stand up comedy.
And this is now I guess the inverse of that,
this is the words democrats should stop saying because they
(20:42):
make them sound like clowns.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
Okay, you'll love this center So true story. When I
was gosh really young in radio, I want to say sixteen, fifteen, sixteen,
somewhere in there. Every year you had to do your
broadcasting license interview and at the radio station hrs who'd
go meet with and you'd have to write down those
words you're not allowed to say on their right, like
(21:06):
the seven words so that you're not allowed to do.
So everyone in the radio station they came to me
when it happened. They started laughing. They're like, hey, Ben,
make sure you when you do it, tell them that
you're dyslexis out of a learning disability, because then you
do the tests orally instead of writing it down. So
everyone went into the HR department and you said the
words out loud. The HR lady who was like seventy
(21:27):
five years old, and she would just shake her head,
and then she finally looked at me. She's like, you're
not dyslexic. I'm like, no, ma'am. They all told me
how to do this. She's like, yeah, you're like the
seventeenth person a day. So there's your little Back in
the day of radio, everybody at the station, no one
knew how to write anything. Everyone wanted to go in
here and just mess with her, like where the words
You're not allowed to send me here? And of course
you would enunciate them like perfectly, and she would just
(21:50):
be cringing, and she's like, you don't have a learning disability.
I'm like, no, ma'am, I don't. They just they put
me up to it. She's like, yeah, so did everyone else.
It was the best every year.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Well, I appreciate your refraining from going through the list
right now. But look, here's what Third Way said as
to the reason they put out their list. Quote, we're
doing our best to get Democrats to talk like normal
people and stop talking like they're leading a seminar at Antioch. Look,
(22:19):
this is one of the few times when I'm gonna
say I agree with Democrats when they say words like
that that they sound like freaks.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
But there's a reason for that, because they are.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
It's not just the words. Notice the memo doesn't say
to stop believing this stuff. The memo doesn't say to stop,
you know, destroying jobs. The memo doesn't say, hey, let's
actually secure the border. The memo doesn't say, if we
find a murderer, let's arrest the murderer and make him
what is it, an incarcerated person. No, no, no, They're perfectly
(22:49):
fine with letting murders and rapists go. They just don't
want you to say it in a way that people
realize what they're doing.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
I want to move to another big story as well,
and this is one that is not going to get
a lot of media attention. So I hope everyone listening
will actually pay attention to this. Because there was a
big victory from the Supreme Court allowing Donald Trump to
tax millions of dollars center and funding for DEI related grants.
This is huge.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
It is so it was a five to four vote
and it allowed the Trump administration to terminate seven hundred
and eighty three million dollars worth of grants, their grants
from the National Institute of Health, and they were granted
that they were canceled because of the administration's policy positions
on diversity, equity, and inclusion. And gender ideology. And the
(23:41):
Trump administration quite reasonably said we're not going to give
away three seven hundred and eighty three million dollars for
DEI for And these were awards that were studying all
sorts of ideological objectives that and in many instances were
these are awards that were granted because of the research race.
They made that a criterion. And listen, I got to say,
(24:05):
there is an important role for scientific and medical research,
and IHDS does good work. And you know, early in
the Trump administration, I was flying from DC back to
Houston and a woman came up to me on the
plane and she said she was a cancer researcher.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
At m d Anderson. And she said she was very worried.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
About funding getting cut and and and she wanted to
express that to me. And I said, listen, thank you
for the work you do. MD Anderson is incredible. They
do phenomenal work fighting cancer. And I said, everyone, or
at least everyone with any sense, agrees that we ought
to be doing cancer research. And part of the reason,
a big part of the reason you want to scrutinize
(24:44):
and you want to cut out wasteful expenditures, things like
funding you know, transgender education in Guatemala, which was one
of the was one of the USA I D grants
that the administration canceled is so that you can spend
the money where it actually should be. And so seven
hundred and eighty three million dollars in NIH grants that
is not actually going to disease and curing disease and
(25:08):
helping people who are suffering, but instead are granted based
on ideology. That is an absolute waste and it is wrong.
But I got to tell you, the ruling from the
court was only five to four. It was very narrow,
and it had a bit of a complicated, bit of
a complicated lineup. So four justices dissented. The four who
(25:32):
dissented were Chief Justice Roberts, Justice sotom Or, Justice Kagan,
and Justice Jackson.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
So you had the Chief Justice plus the four liberals.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Now you had four conservatives, Justice Thomas, Justice Ledo, Justice Gorsich,
and Justice Kavanaugh, who would have granted the Trump administration's
request entirely. And so what happened was plaintiffs had their
grants canceled, they went and filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts
(26:02):
because of course, in this law fair that they deliberately
seek out left wing judges at extreme left wing jurisdictions,
and so Massachusetts and San Francisco have been incredibly popular
places for left wing attorneys general and radical groups to
file lawsuits. And the district judge, with a district judge
did is two things. Number One, vacated the guidance that
(26:24):
the Trump administration had issued saying they were not going
to give funding to DEI. And then secondly, the district
court ordered the Trump administration give the seven hundred and
eighty three million dollars to these grant recipients. That went
up on appeal to the Court of Appeals, and the
Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court and again
(26:45):
ordered the Trump administration give the money. Now it went
to the US Supreme Court and the Supreme Court five
to four said no, you do not have to give
the money. So the seven hundred and eighty three million
dollars the Trump administration is holding on to it. And
the deciding vote on this was Justice Amy Coney Barrett,
who voted with the liberals on part of the case
(27:08):
and the conservatives on part of the case. So she
voted with the conservatives on you don't have to give
the money. And the basis for it, by the way,
is what the five justices said is the lawsuit was
filed in the wrong place. That the lawsuit should have
been filed in the Court of Federal Claims, which is
(27:29):
where if you have a breach of contract case against
the federal government, if you have a contract and they
broke it under federal law, the place to bring that
case is the Court of Federal Claims. It's a specialized
court that exists to adjudicate breach of contract cases against
the government. They did not bring this in the Court
of Federal Claims. They brought it just in an ordinary
federal district court. So five to four the court said,
(27:52):
wrong court. They don't have jurisdiction to decide this, so
they don't have to give the money. Now, Justice bar
Bar sided with the liberals in refusing to reverse the
district courts vacating the guidance on Dei. So the guidance
on Dei is currently blocked, although that lawsuit will continue,
(28:17):
so it's not necessarily permanently blocked. And she declined to
have the Supreme Court reverse that decision. And so this
was at the end of the day, this really should
have been nine to ozho, but I'm glad it was
at least five to four the right way because that
means that this money doesn't have to go out the door.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, it's certainly big that didn't have to go out
the door. Moving forward, does this also have some sort
of pressent that the president will be harassed? Maybe a
little bit less or do you think Democrats say will
harass no matter what. We'll argue wherever we can, the
liberal court we can find, and that will at least
slow him down.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Look, the Democrats are going to keep trying, and the
left wing activist groups are going to keep trying. This
is their next general of lawfare. Just like what before
when they indicted him four times. That was an effort
to use the courts, to use law enforcement to stop
President Trump, but also to stop the voters from re
electing him. They failed in that. This is now their
(29:14):
effort and it is relentless. Every day of the Trump presidency.
He's going to be sued, the administration is going to
be sued. I will say the Supreme Court, we talked
about this in an earlier podcast, It has made important
steps to rein in the abuse of nationwide or so
called universal injunctions. That was important, and this decision is important,
(29:35):
and I will say Justice Gorsic, joined by Justice Kavanaugh,
wrote a concurring opinion that was significant.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Here's what Justice Gorsic said. Quote.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Lower court decisions may sometimes disagree with this Court's decision,
but they are never free to defy them. In Department
of Education versus California, this court granted a stay because
it found the government likely to prevail in showing that
the district Court lacked jurisdiction to order the government to
(30:05):
pay grant obligations. The California decision explained that quote, suits
based on any express or implied contract with the United
States do not belong in district court under the Administrative
Procedure Act, but in the court of Federal claims under
the Tucker Act. Rather than follow that direction, the District
(30:27):
Court in this case permitted a suit involving materially identical
grants to proceed to final judgment under the APA. As
support for its course, the District Court invoked the quote
persuasive authority of the dissents in California and an earlier
(30:49):
Court of Appeals decision that California repudiated that was error
in casting California side. The District Court stressed that the
court there granted only interim relief pending appeal and a
rit oficcear, and did not issue a final judgment on
the Merits true enough, But this Court often addresses requests
(31:12):
for interim relief, sometimes pending a rit of curcherary, as
in California. And either way, when this Court issues a decision,
it constitutes a precedent that commands respect in lower courts.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
He went on to say, quote, if.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
The District Court's failure to abide by California were a
one off, perhaps it would not be worth writing to
address it. But two months ago, another district court tried
to quote compel compliance with a different order that this
Court had stayed. Still, another district court recently diverged from
(31:51):
one of this Court's decisions, even though the case at
hand did not differ in any pertinent respect from the
one this court court had decided. So now this is
the third time in a matter of weeks, this Court
has had to intercede in a case squarely controlled by
(32:13):
one of its precedents. All these interventions should have been unnecessary,
but together they underscore a basic tenet of our judicial system.
Whatever their own views, judges are duty bound to respect
the hierarchy of the federal court system created by the
Constitution and Congress. Look, this highlights a pattern we're seeing
(32:38):
of lawless district judges.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
That is, Justice Gorsic.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
And Kavanaugh lay out three and just three weeks that
have defied the Supreme Court of the United States said
we don't care what the Court said, and you know
it was striking. Look, I'm reading from a Supreme Court
opinion and some of that sounds like legal ease. But
I'll tell you one of the most amazing things that
Justice Gorsich described the disc Court did is it said
(33:02):
it found persuasive the descents in the California decision. Well,
a descent, by definition, means you lost. You did not
get the majority. The majority issues the opinion. A discent
is someone who disagrees with the opinion. And the way
precedent works, the way our judicial system works, is is
(33:23):
a decision that it issues from the Supreme Court is
a precedent that all of the district courts and all
of the Courts of Appeals are bound to follow. So
if you are citing a descent. You are saying right
on the front of it, I don't care what the
majority held. I agree with the dissenters. No lower court
judge has the authority to do that. That is the
(33:44):
definition of lawlessness, and it is why these plaintiffs are
seeking out radicals on the bench who they know will
be lawless.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Great point there. Don't forget. We do this show Monday,
Wednesday and Friday, said the subscriber auto download button wherever
you get your podcasts, so you do not miss a
single episode. Make sure again put this up on social
media wherever you can, and the center I will see
you back here on Wednesday morning.
Host
Ben Ferguson
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