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Supreme Court Ruling on DEI Grants
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The Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in favor of the Trump administration, allowing it to terminate $783 million in NIH diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) related grants.
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The decision centered on jurisdiction — the Court found that lawsuits over federal contracts must be filed in the Court of Federal Claims, not in district court.
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Justice Amy Coney Barrett cast the swing vote: siding with conservatives to block the payouts but with liberals on preventing reinstatement of the DEI guidance policy.
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Conservatives framed this as a victory against what they see as “ideological” grants, while critics warned of reduced research support.
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Corporate “Woke” Backlash — Cracker Barrel Example
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Discussion shifted to Cracker Barrel’s rebranding effort that downplayed its nostalgic Americana imagery.
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The company faced backlash, similar to Bud Light and Target controversies, leading to stock declines.
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After pressure from customers, investors, and even Donald Trump’s public comments, Cracker Barrel reversed course and reinstated its traditional branding.
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This was framed as an example of market-driven resistance to corporate progressivism.
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Senator’s Latin America Trip (El Salvador & Panama)
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The speaker described travels to El Salvador, highlighting improved safety under President Nayib Bukele. This led to “reverse migration,” with Salvadorans abroad expressing interest in returning.
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In Panama, focus was on the Panama Canal’s strategic importance and concerns about Chinese control over ports, infrastructure projects, and canal-adjacent facilities.
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The senator warned that in the event of a U.S.–China conflict, Chinese influence in Panama could threaten U.S. economic and military logistics.
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He urged Panamanian officials to push out Chinese companies and secure the canal with U.S.-aligned interests.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome in his verdict with Ted Cruz. Weekend Review, Ben
Ferguson with you, and these are the stories you may
have missed that we talked about this week. First up,
the Supreme Court allowing Donald Trump to ax DEI grants.
This is a big move and it can save you
a lot of money. I have those details in a moment. Also,
Cracker Barrel, they reverse course well pretty quickly, but was
(00:22):
it quick enough to save the brand. We'll talk about that.
And finally, Centater Cruz is on a codell to Latin America.
What he's seeing is truly unbelievable, especially in the prison system,
and some news from the Panama Canal as well. It's
the weekend Review and it starts right now. I want
to move to another big story as well, and this
(00:44):
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 it was a big victory
from the Supreme Court allowing Donald Trump to ax millions
of dollars center and funding for DEI related grants. This
is huge.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
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 because of the administration's policy
positions on diversity, equity and inclusion and gender ideology. And
(01:26):
the 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
researcher's race.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
They made that a criterion.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
And listen, I gotta say, 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 at m d Anderson and she
said she was very worried about funding getting cut and
(02:09):
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,
and you want to cut out wasteful expenditures, things like
(02:32):
funding you know, transgender education in Guatemala, which was one
of the was one of the USAID grants that the
administration canceled. Is so that you can spend the money
where it actually should be spent. And so seven hundred
and eighty three million dollars in NIH grants that is
not actually going to disease and curing disease and helping
(02:53):
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 dissented
(03:17):
were Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, and Justice Jackson.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
So you had the Chief Justice plus the four liberals.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
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
(03:46):
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 attorney's jen role in radical groups
to file lawsuits. And the district judge, with a district
judge did is two things. Number one, vacated the guidance
(04:09):
that 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 ordered the Trump administration give the money. Now it
(04:33):
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 was Justice Amy
Coney Barrett, who voted with the liberals on part of
the case and the conservatives on part of the case.
(04:56):
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 where if you have a breach of contract
(05:16):
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, wrong court. They don't have jurisdiction to decide this,
(05:39):
so they don't have to give the money.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Now.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Justice Barris Barrett 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, so it's not necessarily permanently blocked. And she
(06:05):
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 oh, 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 (06:21):
Yeah, it's certainly big that didn't have to go out
the door moving forward, does this also have some sort
of pressing 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, a
liberal court we can find and that will at least
slow him down.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Look, the Democrats are going to keep trying, and the
left wing activist groups are going to keep trying. This
is their next generation 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 effort,
(06:59):
and it is really 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,
(07:20):
and I will say Justice Gorsic, joined by Justice Kavanaugh,
wrote a concurring opinion that was significant.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Here's what Justice Gorsic said. Quote.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
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
(07:50):
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
(08:12):
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 thee persuasive
authority of the dissents in California and an earlier Court
(08:34):
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 Ritiscechoran
did not issue a final judgment on the Merits true enough,
(08:55):
but this court often addresses requests for interim relief, sometimes
pending a rit of ccherari, as in calif And either way,
when this Court issues a decision, it constitutes a precedent
that commands respect in lower courts.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
He went on to say, quote, if the District.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
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 one of this Court's decisions,
(09:38):
even though the case at hand did not differ in
any pertinent respect from the one this 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 one of its precedents. All these
(10:00):
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
that this highlights a pattern we're seeing of lawless district judges.
(10:25):
That is, Justice Gorsic 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 district Court did
(10:46):
is it said it found persuasive the descents in the
California decision. Well, a dissent, by definition, means you lost,
you did not get the majority. The majority is the opinion.
A discent is someone who disagrees with the opinion, and
the way precedent works, the way our judicial system works,
(11:07):
is 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
(11:28):
the definition of lawlessness, and it is why these plaintiffs
are seeking out radicals on the bench who they know
will be lawless.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation,
you can go back and listen to the full podcast
from earlier this week. Now onto story number two.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah, well, look, we saw an illustration of this with
Cracker Barrel. Cracker Barrel is a terrific institution, particularly in
the South, and their woke leadership decided that everything the
company was built on they didn't like, and in particular,
they didn't like their customers. You know, their customers they
thought were not nearly as enlightened as they should be.
They were not nearly as woke as they should be.
(12:10):
And the whole thing was very reminiscent of bud Light.
You know, bud Light. You had a marketing executive who said,
you know, the people who buy bud Light.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
We don't like them.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
We need to have you know, a bunch of woke
transgender activists drinking our beer instead. It was reminiscent of
what happened with Target, where they decided to market, you know,
to market to transgender toddlers and do it prominently pushing,
(12:40):
pushing bathing suits.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
For two year old boys to.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Tuck their genitals, to hide them away, to pretend they're
not boys. That was Target thinking, this is really what
America wants, because you know, if you're the parent of
a two year old, clearly you want your son to
believe he's a daughter when he's two. This is a
phenomenon a business leader who buy into an ideology that
(13:04):
is wildly unpopular and ultimately directly antithetical to their customers.
And so Cracker Barrel had had a logo, had a
logo of you know, an old old guy sitting on
a chair next to a giant barrel. And they decided, okay,
let's get rid of the Cracker. Let's get rid of
the barrel. Let's get rid of it all, and we'll
just have anodyne words because we're really embarrassed that that
(13:27):
that were for anything nostalgic, anything that that that is Americana.
And the pushback has been phenomenal. There's stock prices tank
just like bud Light, just like Target, and and just
today they announced never mind. Okay, yeah, this has not
worked well. The beatings are really hurting, so we're going
(13:48):
to stop. But it is it is striking that that
it took the reaction of the market for them to
figure it out. I want to say though, it is
a great, great victory for common sense that Cracker Barrel
finally gave in and said, you know what, we're gonna
stop being woke because we'd like to actually have one
(14:09):
or two customers when this is all said and done.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Yeah. The the I think the frustration of conservatives now
voting with our dollars, and that is what ultimately this
came down to. A Cracker brought This was a bunch
of Americans that said, Okay, you despise us, you despise
the you know who we are as a customer base.
You're basically telling us you don't want us anymore watch this,
(14:34):
uh and and that is exactly how they got this
point very quickly. And look, I also think when you
have people like you and the President who are willing
to speak out on this and say you guys are
being stupid, they realize how quickly others are like yeah,
us too, like we're gonna you know what, We're gonna
say that we think this is ridiculous, and we're starting
to finally, I think see the pendulum swing back the
(14:56):
other way, which is really really cool.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
I was gratified because yesterday President Trump publicly called out
Cracker Barrel and said, look, you need to just go
back to your old logo, like give this up in
the rebranding and accept that you were wrong. And I'll
tell you. I jumped in on Twitter. I retweeted him,
I said this is absolutely right, and the two of
us were very vocal saying go back to where you were,
and twenty four hours later they did. So that was gratifying.
(15:22):
It's not always that people listen they listen to common sense.
In this case, they did, and it's worth noting it
isn't just in the last week that people noticed that
what Cracker Barrel was doing was nuts. Almost a year ago.
November of last year, a big investor in Cracker Barrel
(15:45):
Guy named Sardar big Laurie. He owns approximately five percent
of the restaurant chainstock. He wrote to his fellow shareholders
that the Cracker Barrel transformation was a quote mistake of
misguided executives falling into a textbook trap of overspending on
cosmetic remodeling. And he continued the day Cracker Barrel opened,
(16:09):
it was already old, its theme derived from the nineteen twenties,
and he wrote, I am concerned that not only will
the remodel not work, but it could actually damage the
brand further. These decisions are taking us down the same
path I believe as Ruby Tuesday, Red Lobster, Tgi Fridays
(16:30):
and the like. Let me make my position clear. The
company's seven hundred million dollars remodel plan will not work.
And he called at a letter to the shareholders in
October twenty twenty four, the board's transformation plan quote obvious folly.
(16:51):
And yet the corporate leadership ignored the shareholder own five
percent of the company, and they charged down that road anyway,
and they vaporized roughly fifteen percent of the market cap
of the company because that they were more interested in
listening to woke marketing executives. And by the way, the
entire marketing world, much of that is a scam of
(17:13):
left wing, woke people who despise their customers. And let
me say, if you're in corporate America, don't listen to
marketing executives that don't understand and don't like your customers.
But in this instance, Cracker Barrel should have listened to
its investor and not these marketing execs, and it paid
the price. But the good news is they finally, finally,
(17:34):
finally listened and reversed and said, you know what, the
principles we were founded on, the principles America was founded on.
Those principles are pretty good. We're going to get back
to them.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, it's incredible. All right, final question for you, you've
got day one in the book to the Codell. You're
going to be down there and also doing more. We're
going to be able to talk about that coming up
on the next episode of Verdict.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
That this is a multi day trip and traveling to
two other countries throughout Latin America and the focus is
really on meeting with heads of state, meeting with leaders
in each of these countries where the issues directly impact
the United States, directly impact Texas, they impact our national security,
they impact our economy. By the way, I had dinner
(18:18):
tonight with the Economy minister here in El Salvador. They're
very focused on American investment on energy, on technology, on pharmaceuticals,
on creating jobs. And by the way, to give a
sense of how much these changes matter, I'm going to
give you two stats to wrap up with. The Justice
Minister told me they've had over ten thousand applications for
(18:40):
people who want to be police officers. Suddenly, people are
eager to be police officers because it's making a difference
because as they're making their community safe. Previously, when the
gangs were running the country, they had in one year
over three hundred police officers murdered. Being a police officer
was literally taking your life and your faith, family's life
in danger. Now people are lining up to be police
(19:02):
officers because they see the difference. But here's something else.
It used to be that the people of El Salvador
were fleeing this country because look, you were risking being murdered,
your kids were risking being murdered. You wanted to get out.
Now we are seeing reverse migration. They're roughly six million
Salvadorans and El Salvador. There are about three million Salvadorans
(19:24):
in the United States. President Beccauley told me roughly half
of those Salvadorans in America, about one and a half million,
have said they want to come back to El Salvador.
They're seeing reverse migration because suddenly people are saying, wait,
I've fled my country because I was terrified for my
safety and my family. Now the country's safe, I want
(19:44):
to come back. I love love the beach and the mountains,
and the people and the culture that is changing this country.
And it ought to be an encouragement to any other leader,
to any mayor, to anyone facing crime and challenges. When
you fix these problems, it doesn't just keep people safe,
which it does, but it has economic benefits. It literally
(20:06):
transforms your community. That's inspirational. And as I said, this
is the beginning of a multi day trip throughout Latin America.
So in two days we'll report on the rest of
the trip.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
As before. If you want to hear the rest of
this conversation on this topic. You can go back and
down the podcast from earlier this week to hear the
entire thing. I want to get back to the big
story number three of the week.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
You may have missed.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
All right, Senator, you're on this codelln Latin America. One
of the other parts of your trip involved going to
the Panama Canal and seeing some different things, including a
lot that deals with China. Now it's been a big
concern talk about that.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
Yeah, So I spent a day and a half in Panama.
I flew from El Salvador to Panama and met with
multiple cabinet members, the Finance Minister, the Defense Minister, the
Public Safety minister, uh, and the head of the Panama
Canal and and and I will say number one, Panama
(21:07):
is a beautiful country. Uh. It is. It is a
gorgeous place. And and the people of Panama have a
deep affinity for America. I was struck by that. You
know that they repeatedly, the government officials, the Panamanians that
I visited with, there's a long history in a close,
(21:28):
close affinity for the United States. The Panama Canal is amazing.
So so I went out on a boat and and
and went to to the outer parts of the Panama Canal.
And then I went to one of the locks and
I saw I saw one of the Panamas, like the
super tankers coming through, and and then also saw a
(21:49):
little sailboat coming through, and then a kind of medium
sized container ship coming through. It is amazing, it is
very like, it is very cool. Number one, just how
the Panama Canal operates. Like you see the Panamax, the supertanker.
The container ship is the largest size possible to fit
(22:12):
through the Panama Canal, and it's built for that size.
I mean, it is literally this massive ship that is
going through these locks. And these locks have concrete on
the side, and it's built so the sides of the
ship are within two feet of the concrete walls on
both sides, Like it's that big. And what happens. So
(22:33):
we were on the Pacific end of the canal and
a ship comes in and each of the locks has
to lower the ship twenty seven feet, so it comes
in into the locks. And it's interesting for the big
tanker that connect steel cables to the tanker and they
have locomotives on both sides to help keep the ship
right in the center. You've got only two feet of
(22:54):
clearance on both sides, so it'd be really easy for
it to smack into the side of the canal. And
it is in the lock, and then it takes about
eight to ten minutes for the water to drain and
for it to lower twenty seven feet. And it's lowering
twenty seven feet, and it goes to the next lock
and it lowers another I believe it's twenty seven feet.
(23:16):
All told, it's about eight I think it's eighty one feet.
That it has to rise to get to the height
of the lake in the interior, and that it has
to lower it to get to the Atlantic Ocean of
the Pacific Ocean, and both the Atlantic and Pacific are
about the same distance. To lower the water twenty seven
feet takes eight to ten minutes, and so the water
(23:38):
goes down and then the giant gates open. It was
amazing to watch the technology. I saw the old control room.
I saw the control room where the lock is being operated,
the old control room. So the Panama Canal was built
in nineteen fourteen. The United States built it, and we
lost thousands and thousands of lives building it. It's an
(23:58):
incredible engineer Marble. So the old control room had these
brass ge equipment. You saw the old ge General Electric
and Electric that they built one of the first early
computers to help operate the locks. It's amazing now now
(24:19):
it's all computerized in high tech. So the old brass
controls of each lock that gives you the water height.
And it was literally it almost looked like something Captain
Nemo would have in terms of the nineteen fourteen levers
and switches to operate the canal. That's still preserved there.
(24:40):
When I went out on the boat. One of the
things I saw ben is right at the entrance, the
Pacific entrance of the canal, there is a gigantic port
that is owned and controlled by Communist China, and it's
right there and they have cranes. They're right there in
a position. There is also China is building a bridge,
(25:04):
a bridge across the canal. It is a bridge for cars.
They were awarded the contract to build the bridge. China
is also there's a Chinese company that is digging a
tunnel under the canal for a metro trade. And so
I saw, I saw where the metro was going to go.
I saw the bridge being built, and it's all right
(25:26):
there at the mouth of the canal, and I went.
The purpose of my visit was to meet with the
Panamanian government and say, look, China cannot have control.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Of this canal.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
It is too important to the United States, to our
national security, to our economic security. As you know, I'm
the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. The Commerce Committee
has jurisdiction over the Panama Canal, and so earlier this
year I chaired a hearing on the Panama Canal in
the Commerce Committee, and we laid out the concerns, in
(26:03):
particular the concerns of China. And when I laid out
to the Panamanian officials, I said, look, if God forbid,
we find ourselves in a military conflict with China. Let's
say next year China invades Taiwan, and President she has
repeatedly said he wants to invade Taiwan. If he does so,
(26:25):
there's a very real possibility that escalates into a military
conflict with the United States. If China is in an
active military conflict with the United States, I think the
risk is unacceptable that China would try to shut down
the Panama Canal, because if they shut down the Panama Canal.
(26:47):
It massively delays our ability to move military ships from
the Atlantic to the Pacific to engage with the Chinese
in Taiwan, because it forces our military ships instead to
go around the southern tip of South America rather than
cut through the canal. And so if you're president, she look,
you wouldn't do it at a time of peace. But
(27:09):
if they're at war, it becomes a really compelling situation
to say, let's impose massive economic harm on the United
States and we get enormous benefits. They're billions of dollars
of revenue that comes from shipping. Shipping, whether it is
is oil and gas through the Panama Canal or goods
(27:32):
and containers, and shutting down the Panama Canal would be
a real blow to the United States economy. But it
would also be a real blow to our military because
it would limit our ability to move naval ships from
the Atlantic to Pacific. It would massively delay moving that
those ships. And so what I'm pressing Panama, I will
(27:52):
say when I shared the hearing on the Panama Canal.
Within a week they announced the deal to those two
Chinese ports to an American business consortium that deal has
not gone through yet. The Chinese are slow walking in
and part of the purpose of my trip was to
(28:13):
press the Panamanian government and say, look, you need to
get the Chinese the hell out of here. Do not
leave them in a position where they can shut down
this canal, because shutting down this canal would be an
enormous economic and national security blow to the United States,
but it would also be an enormous blow to Panama.
And so part of the case I was making them
(28:34):
is their interests in our interest are aligned. They don't
want China to be in a position to shut down
the canal.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with center
Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to deal
with my podcast, and you can listen to my podcast
every other day you're not listening to Verdict or each
day when you listen to Verdict. Afterwards, I'd love to
have you as a listener to again the Ben Ferguson podcasts,
and we will see you back here on Monday morning.
Welcome in his verdict with Ted Cruz. Weekend Review, Ben
Ferguson with you, and these are the stories you may
have missed that we talked about this week. First up,
the Supreme Court allowing Donald Trump to ax DEI grants.
This is a big move and it can save you
a lot of money. I have those details in a moment. Also,
Cracker Barrel, they reverse course well pretty quickly, but was
(00:22):
it quick enough to save the brand. We'll talk about that.
And finally, Centater Cruz is on a codell to Latin America.
What he's seeing is truly unbelievable, especially in the prison system,
and some news from the Panama Canal as well. It's
the weekend Review and it starts right now. I want
to move to another big story as well, and this
(00:44):
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 it was a big victory
from the Supreme Court allowing Donald Trump to ax millions
of dollars center and funding for DEI related grants. This
is huge.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
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 because of the administration's policy
positions on diversity, equity and inclusion and gender ideology. And
(01:26):
the 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
researcher's race.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
They made that a criterion.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
And listen, I gotta say, 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 at m d Anderson and she
said she was very worried about funding getting cut and
(02:09):
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,
and you want to cut out wasteful expenditures, things like
(02:32):
funding you know, transgender education in Guatemala, which was one
of the was one of the USAID grants that the
administration canceled. Is so that you can spend the money
where it actually should be spent. And so seven hundred
and eighty three million dollars in NIH grants that is
not actually going to disease and curing disease and helping
(02:53):
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 dissented
(03:17):
were Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, and Justice Jackson.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
So you had the Chief Justice plus the four liberals.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
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
(03:46):
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 attorney's jen role in radical groups
to file lawsuits. And the district judge, with a district
judge did is two things. Number one, vacated the guidance
(04:09):
that 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 ordered the Trump administration give the money. Now it
(04:33):
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 was Justice Amy
Coney Barrett, who voted with the liberals on part of
the case and the conservatives on part of the case.
(04:56):
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 where if you have a breach of contract
(05:16):
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, wrong court. They don't have jurisdiction to decide this,
(05:39):
so they don't have to give the money.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Now.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Justice Barris Barrett 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, so it's not necessarily permanently blocked. And she
(06:05):
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 oh, 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 (06:21):
Yeah, it's certainly big that didn't have to go out
the door moving forward, does this also have some sort
of pressing 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, a
liberal court we can find and that will at least
slow him down.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Look, the Democrats are going to keep trying, and the
left wing activist groups are going to keep trying. This
is their next generation 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 effort,
(06:59):
and it is really 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,
(07:20):
and I will say Justice Gorsic, joined by Justice Kavanaugh,
wrote a concurring opinion that was significant.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Here's what Justice Gorsic said. Quote.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
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
(07:50):
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
(08:12):
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 thee persuasive
authority of the dissents in California and an earlier Court
(08:34):
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 Ritiscechoran
did not issue a final judgment on the Merits true enough,
(08:55):
but this court often addresses requests for interim relief, sometimes
pending a rit of ccherari, as in calif And either way,
when this Court issues a decision, it constitutes a precedent
that commands respect in lower courts.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
He went on to say, quote, if the District.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
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 one of this Court's decisions,
(09:38):
even though the case at hand did not differ in
any pertinent respect from the one this 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 one of its precedents. All these
(10:00):
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
that this highlights a pattern we're seeing of lawless district judges.
(10:25):
That is, Justice Gorsic 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 district Court did
(10:46):
is it said it found persuasive the descents in the
California decision. Well, a dissent, by definition, means you lost,
you did not get the majority. The majority is the opinion.
A discent is someone who disagrees with the opinion, and
the way precedent works, the way our judicial system works,
(11:07):
is 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
(11:28):
the definition of lawlessness, and it is why these plaintiffs
are seeking out radicals on the bench who they know
will be lawless.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation,
you can go back and listen to the full podcast
from earlier this week. Now onto story number two.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah, well, look, we saw an illustration of this with
Cracker Barrel. Cracker Barrel is a terrific institution, particularly in
the South, and their woke leadership decided that everything the
company was built on they didn't like, and in particular,
they didn't like their customers. You know, their customers they
thought were not nearly as enlightened as they should be.
They were not nearly as woke as they should be.
(12:10):
And the whole thing was very reminiscent of bud Light.
You know, bud Light. You had a marketing executive who said,
you know, the people who buy bud Light.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
We don't like them.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
We need to have you know, a bunch of woke
transgender activists drinking our beer instead. It was reminiscent of
what happened with Target, where they decided to market, you know,
to market to transgender toddlers and do it prominently pushing,
(12:40):
pushing bathing suits.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
For two year old boys to.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Tuck their genitals, to hide them away, to pretend they're
not boys. That was Target thinking, this is really what
America wants, because you know, if you're the parent of
a two year old, clearly you want your son to
believe he's a daughter when he's two. This is a
phenomenon a business leader who buy into an ideology that
(13:04):
is wildly unpopular and ultimately directly antithetical to their customers.
And so Cracker Barrel had had a logo, had a
logo of you know, an old old guy sitting on
a chair next to a giant barrel. And they decided, okay,
let's get rid of the Cracker. Let's get rid of
the barrel. Let's get rid of it all, and we'll
just have anodyne words because we're really embarrassed that that
(13:27):
that were for anything nostalgic, anything that that that is Americana.
And the pushback has been phenomenal. There's stock prices tank
just like bud Light, just like Target, and and just
today they announced never mind. Okay, yeah, this has not
worked well. The beatings are really hurting, so we're going
(13:48):
to stop. But it is it is striking that that
it took the reaction of the market for them to
figure it out. I want to say though, it is
a great, great victory for common sense that Cracker Barrel
finally gave in and said, you know what, we're gonna
stop being woke because we'd like to actually have one
(14:09):
or two customers when this is all said and done.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Yeah. The the I think the frustration of conservatives now
voting with our dollars, and that is what ultimately this
came down to. A Cracker brought This was a bunch
of Americans that said, Okay, you despise us, you despise
the you know who we are as a customer base.
You're basically telling us you don't want us anymore watch this,
(14:34):
uh and and that is exactly how they got this
point very quickly. And look, I also think when you
have people like you and the President who are willing
to speak out on this and say you guys are
being stupid, they realize how quickly others are like yeah,
us too, like we're gonna you know what, We're gonna
say that we think this is ridiculous, and we're starting
to finally, I think see the pendulum swing back the
(14:56):
other way, which is really really cool.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
I was gratified because yesterday President Trump publicly called out
Cracker Barrel and said, look, you need to just go
back to your old logo, like give this up in
the rebranding and accept that you were wrong. And I'll
tell you. I jumped in on Twitter. I retweeted him,
I said this is absolutely right, and the two of
us were very vocal saying go back to where you were,
and twenty four hours later they did. So that was gratifying.
(15:22):
It's not always that people listen they listen to common sense.
In this case, they did, and it's worth noting it
isn't just in the last week that people noticed that
what Cracker Barrel was doing was nuts. Almost a year ago.
November of last year, a big investor in Cracker Barrel
(15:45):
Guy named Sardar big Laurie. He owns approximately five percent
of the restaurant chainstock. He wrote to his fellow shareholders
that the Cracker Barrel transformation was a quote mistake of
misguided executives falling into a textbook trap of overspending on
cosmetic remodeling. And he continued the day Cracker Barrel opened,
(16:09):
it was already old, its theme derived from the nineteen twenties,
and he wrote, I am concerned that not only will
the remodel not work, but it could actually damage the
brand further. These decisions are taking us down the same
path I believe as Ruby Tuesday, Red Lobster, Tgi Fridays
(16:30):
and the like. Let me make my position clear. The
company's seven hundred million dollars remodel plan will not work.
And he called at a letter to the shareholders in
October twenty twenty four, the board's transformation plan quote obvious folly.
(16:51):
And yet the corporate leadership ignored the shareholder own five
percent of the company, and they charged down that road anyway,
and they vaporized roughly fifteen percent of the market cap
of the company because that they were more interested in
listening to woke marketing executives. And by the way, the
entire marketing world, much of that is a scam of
(17:13):
left wing, woke people who despise their customers. And let
me say, if you're in corporate America, don't listen to
marketing executives that don't understand and don't like your customers.
But in this instance, Cracker Barrel should have listened to
its investor and not these marketing execs, and it paid
the price. But the good news is they finally, finally,
(17:34):
finally listened and reversed and said, you know what, the
principles we were founded on, the principles America was founded on.
Those principles are pretty good. We're going to get back
to them.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, it's incredible. All right, final question for you, you've
got day one in the book to the Codell. You're
going to be down there and also doing more. We're
going to be able to talk about that coming up
on the next episode of Verdict.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
That this is a multi day trip and traveling to
two other countries throughout Latin America and the focus is
really on meeting with heads of state, meeting with leaders
in each of these countries where the issues directly impact
the United States, directly impact Texas, they impact our national security,
they impact our economy. By the way, I had dinner
(18:18):
tonight with the Economy minister here in El Salvador. They're
very focused on American investment on energy, on technology, on pharmaceuticals,
on creating jobs. And by the way, to give a
sense of how much these changes matter, I'm going to
give you two stats to wrap up with. The Justice
Minister told me they've had over ten thousand applications for
(18:40):
people who want to be police officers. Suddenly, people are
eager to be police officers because it's making a difference
because as they're making their community safe. Previously, when the
gangs were running the country, they had in one year
over three hundred police officers murdered. Being a police officer
was literally taking your life and your faith, family's life
in danger. Now people are lining up to be police
(19:02):
officers because they see the difference. But here's something else.
It used to be that the people of El Salvador
were fleeing this country because look, you were risking being murdered,
your kids were risking being murdered. You wanted to get out.
Now we are seeing reverse migration. They're roughly six million
Salvadorans and El Salvador. There are about three million Salvadorans
(19:24):
in the United States. President Beccauley told me roughly half
of those Salvadorans in America, about one and a half million,
have said they want to come back to El Salvador.
They're seeing reverse migration because suddenly people are saying, wait,
I've fled my country because I was terrified for my
safety and my family. Now the country's safe, I want
(19:44):
to come back. I love love the beach and the mountains,
and the people and the culture that is changing this country.
And it ought to be an encouragement to any other leader,
to any mayor, to anyone facing crime and challenges. When
you fix these problems, it doesn't just keep people safe,
which it does, but it has economic benefits. It literally
(20:06):
transforms your community. That's inspirational. And as I said, this
is the beginning of a multi day trip throughout Latin America.
So in two days we'll report on the rest of
the trip.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
As before. If you want to hear the rest of
this conversation on this topic. You can go back and
down the podcast from earlier this week to hear the
entire thing. I want to get back to the big
story number three of the week.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
You may have missed.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
All right, Senator, you're on this codelln Latin America. One
of the other parts of your trip involved going to
the Panama Canal and seeing some different things, including a
lot that deals with China. Now it's been a big
concern talk about that.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
Yeah, So I spent a day and a half in Panama.
I flew from El Salvador to Panama and met with
multiple cabinet members, the Finance Minister, the Defense Minister, the
Public Safety minister, uh, and the head of the Panama
Canal and and and I will say number one, Panama
(21:07):
is a beautiful country. Uh. It is. It is a
gorgeous place. And and the people of Panama have a
deep affinity for America. I was struck by that. You
know that they repeatedly, the government officials, the Panamanians that
I visited with, there's a long history in a close,
(21:28):
close affinity for the United States. The Panama Canal is amazing.
So so I went out on a boat and and
and went to to the outer parts of the Panama Canal.
And then I went to one of the locks and
I saw I saw one of the Panamas, like the
super tankers coming through, and and then also saw a
(21:49):
little sailboat coming through, and then a kind of medium
sized container ship coming through. It is amazing, it is
very like, it is very cool. Number one, just how
the Panama Canal operates. Like you see the Panamax, the supertanker.
The container ship is the largest size possible to fit
(22:12):
through the Panama Canal, and it's built for that size.
I mean, it is literally this massive ship that is
going through these locks. And these locks have concrete on
the side, and it's built so the sides of the
ship are within two feet of the concrete walls on
both sides, Like it's that big. And what happens. So
(22:33):
we were on the Pacific end of the canal and
a ship comes in and each of the locks has
to lower the ship twenty seven feet, so it comes
in into the locks. And it's interesting for the big
tanker that connect steel cables to the tanker and they
have locomotives on both sides to help keep the ship
right in the center. You've got only two feet of
(22:54):
clearance on both sides, so it'd be really easy for
it to smack into the side of the canal. And
it is in the lock, and then it takes about
eight to ten minutes for the water to drain and
for it to lower twenty seven feet. And it's lowering
twenty seven feet, and it goes to the next lock
and it lowers another I believe it's twenty seven feet.
(23:16):
All told, it's about eight I think it's eighty one feet.
That it has to rise to get to the height
of the lake in the interior, and that it has
to lower it to get to the Atlantic Ocean of
the Pacific Ocean, and both the Atlantic and Pacific are
about the same distance. To lower the water twenty seven
feet takes eight to ten minutes, and so the water
(23:38):
goes down and then the giant gates open. It was
amazing to watch the technology. I saw the old control room.
I saw the control room where the lock is being operated,
the old control room. So the Panama Canal was built
in nineteen fourteen. The United States built it, and we
lost thousands and thousands of lives building it. It's an
(23:58):
incredible engineer Marble. So the old control room had these
brass ge equipment. You saw the old ge General Electric
and Electric that they built one of the first early
computers to help operate the locks. It's amazing now now
(24:19):
it's all computerized in high tech. So the old brass
controls of each lock that gives you the water height.
And it was literally it almost looked like something Captain
Nemo would have in terms of the nineteen fourteen levers
and switches to operate the canal. That's still preserved there.
(24:40):
When I went out on the boat. One of the
things I saw ben is right at the entrance, the
Pacific entrance of the canal, there is a gigantic port
that is owned and controlled by Communist China, and it's
right there and they have cranes. They're right there in
a position. There is also China is building a bridge,
(25:04):
a bridge across the canal. It is a bridge for cars.
They were awarded the contract to build the bridge. China
is also there's a Chinese company that is digging a
tunnel under the canal for a metro trade. And so
I saw, I saw where the metro was going to go.
I saw the bridge being built, and it's all right
(25:26):
there at the mouth of the canal, and I went.
The purpose of my visit was to meet with the
Panamanian government and say, look, China cannot have control.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Of this canal.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
It is too important to the United States, to our
national security, to our economic security. As you know, I'm
the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. The Commerce Committee
has jurisdiction over the Panama Canal, and so earlier this
year I chaired a hearing on the Panama Canal in
the Commerce Committee, and we laid out the concerns, in
(26:03):
particular the concerns of China. And when I laid out
to the Panamanian officials, I said, look, if God forbid,
we find ourselves in a military conflict with China. Let's
say next year China invades Taiwan, and President she has
repeatedly said he wants to invade Taiwan. If he does so,
(26:25):
there's a very real possibility that escalates into a military
conflict with the United States. If China is in an
active military conflict with the United States, I think the
risk is unacceptable that China would try to shut down
the Panama Canal, because if they shut down the Panama Canal.
(26:47):
It massively delays our ability to move military ships from
the Atlantic to the Pacific to engage with the Chinese
in Taiwan, because it forces our military ships instead to
go around the southern tip of South America rather than
cut through the canal. And so if you're president, she look,
you wouldn't do it at a time of peace. But
(27:09):
if they're at war, it becomes a really compelling situation
to say, let's impose massive economic harm on the United
States and we get enormous benefits. They're billions of dollars
of revenue that comes from shipping. Shipping, whether it is
is oil and gas through the Panama Canal or goods
(27:32):
and containers, and shutting down the Panama Canal would be
a real blow to the United States economy. But it
would also be a real blow to our military because
it would limit our ability to move naval ships from
the Atlantic to Pacific. It would massively delay moving that
those ships. And so what I'm pressing Panama, I will
(27:52):
say when I shared the hearing on the Panama Canal.
Within a week they announced the deal to those two
Chinese ports to an American business consortium that deal has
not gone through yet. The Chinese are slow walking in
and part of the purpose of my trip was to
(28:13):
press the Panamanian government and say, look, you need to
get the Chinese the hell out of here. Do not
leave them in a position where they can shut down
this canal, because shutting down this canal would be an
enormous economic and national security blow to the United States,
but it would also be an enormous blow to Panama.
And so part of the case I was making them
(28:34):
is their interests in our interest are aligned. They don't
want China to be in a position to shut down
the canal.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with center
Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to deal
with my podcast, and you can listen to my podcast
every other day you're not listening to Verdict or each
day when you listen to Verdict. Afterwards, I'd love to
have you as a listener to again the Ben Ferguson podcasts,
and we will see you back here on Monday morning.
Host
Ben Ferguson
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