1. Power of Trump’s Endorsement
- Donald Trump’s political endorsements strongly influence Republican primaries.
- Multiple examples are cited:
- Indiana: Lawmakers who opposed Trump-backed redistricting lost primaries.
- Louisiana: Senator Bill Cassidy lost after Trump opposed him (linked to impeachment vote).
- Kentucky: Rep. Thomas Massie lost after Trump backed a challenger.
- Texas: Trump’s endorsement of Ken Paxton is expected to significantly shape the race.
2. Party Loyalty and Political Consequences
- Trump favors candidates loyal to his agenda.
- Politicians who consistently oppose him are portrayed as:
- Weakening party goals
- Facing electoral backlash
- There is an implication that internal GOP dissent is being reduced through these outcomes.
3. Impact on Senate Dynamics
- Short-term consequence:
- Some Republicans who lose or retire may become less cooperative (“pissed”), complicating votes.
- Long-term outlook:
- Trump could gain greater control over the Senate with more aligned members.
4. Potential DOJ Indictment of Raúl Castro
-
- The DOJ may indict Cuban leader Raúl Castro.
- Possible implications:
- Could mirror actions against Nicolás Maduro.
- May increase pressure on the Cuban regime.
- Broader narrative:
- Suggests a possible geopolitical shift in Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran.
5. Cuba Situation
- Cuba is:
- Facing severe economic crisis (fuel shortages, blackouts).
- U.S. pressure could lead to collapse of the communist regime.
- Facing severe economic crisis (fuel shortages, blackouts).
- Vision:
- A free-market, democratic Cuba with strong U.S. ties.
6. Debate on Racial Gerrymandering
- A Senate Judiciary hearing:
- Republicans argue race-based districting is unconstitutional.
- Democrats are criticized for defending it.
- Key claims made:
- Democrats historically supported racist policies (poll taxes, Jim Crow).
- Gerrymandering is portrayed as more heavily used by Democrats.
- Counter-dynamic:
- Heated exchange shows deep partisan conflict on race and representation.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, come in is verdict with Center, Ted Cruz, Ben
Ferguson with You and Center. We've got a lot of
news that's happening, including a big runoff election day in America,
and there are a lot of results that have come
in and it did not look good for people that
didn't get the endorsement of Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, elections in America. Turns out that Donald Trump's endorsement
has enormous potency in a Republican primary that was not
really much in doubt two weeks ago, but it's an
even less doubt today. We're going to talk about the
results there. We're also going to talk about the pending
news coming out today that the Trump Department of Justice
(00:38):
is expected to indict Raoul Castro in Cuba. We're going
to break that down as well. And we're also going
to talk about fireworks on the Senate Judiciary Committee, in
particular a battle over racial jerrymandering. The Democrats trying to
claim they have clean hands, that racial gerrymandering is a
wonderful thing, and you know, I did my very best
(00:59):
this week to hold them to account.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
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so centator. There's leave no doubt in this country. Donald
Trump's endorsement extremely important, and if you didn't get his endorsement,
(03:12):
it is not good news for you if you're a
Republican running for office. Now, there's two ways to interpret this.
I interpreted this way simply. Donald Trump's agenda is what's
on the ballot in this midterm election coming up. Redistricting
is a part of that. If you are not standing
and fighting with Donald Trump, then there's a lot of
American voters that say we want someone different. And clearly
(03:33):
that was the thought process for many people that went
to the voting booth.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Look, in the last two weeks, we've had four illustration
of the potency of President Trump's endorsement. We had, first
of all, Indiana, So Indiana, President Trump and the White
House asked Indiana to redistrict, to redraw their congressional map
to gain additional Republican seats. The Indiana legislature refused. They
rebuke the president. They said no, we're not going to
(03:58):
do that, and the President got pissed off. And so
there were seven Indiana state senators that Trump endorsed against,
and five of them were defeated in their primaries. That
was two weeks ago. It was really a striking result
that if you stand up and defy the president, if
(04:19):
you declare I'm opposed to the president. At least in
the Republican Party, there is no never Trump lane in
the Republican Party. That does not exist, or it does
not exist with any staying power. The never Trump lane
is largely non existent. Then we saw the state Louisiana,
(04:39):
State Louisiana. My colleague Bill Cassidy, the incumbent Republican Senator
from Louisiana, was in a primary President Trump endorsed against
him and Louisiana has a multi person primary. They require
that in order to win, you got to win a majority.
So if you don't win a majority, the top two
(04:59):
go to irun off. What ended up happening in Louisiana
is two other candidates, Julia Letlowe and John Fleming, ended
up winning the primary, and Bill Cassidy, the incumbent Republican senator,
did not make the top two, so he was defeated.
He's not going to be in the runoff, so he
will not be a senator next year. And that was
(05:21):
a powerful illustration. Cassidy had millions of dollars behind him. Look,
Cassidy's most significant step that he took is that he
voted to convict President Trump during the impeachment I'll tell you,
I was sitting next to Bill Cassidy. He and I
are seats on the floor of the Senate, were next
to each other during the impeachment trial. When he cast
(05:42):
that vote to convict, it felt like he knew what
he was doing. It felt like he knew that he
was ending his political career. I was surprised. I think
most Republicans were surprised. We did not anticipate that Bill
Cassidy would vote to.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Convict That was a shock in the moment when it happened.
If you take pell back to that day, it wasn't
like he was out on TV talking about how he
was going to convict Don Trump. It wasn't like he
was Democrats in the media were not floating. That is
a real possibility. And then when it happened, I remember,
it was a total shock on social media at that moment.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Look and Louisiana is now a bright red state, and
so it was that vote was costly. He did not
make the top two. He will not be either Fleming
or Letlow will be the next Senator from Louisiana, but
it will not be Bill Cassidy. And so the Trump
endorsement was demonstrated to be extremely potent. Then we saw
(06:40):
tonight you and I are here. It is eleven nineteen
pm and tonight in Kentucky, Thomas Massey, incumbent Republican congressman,
has been defeated. Has been defeated, but it looks like
maybe up to ten points. Then the numbers are still
being counted. Massy look Massy to win by big margins.
(07:01):
Massey is a libertarian. Massy is in some ways. He's massy,
is similar to Rand Paul, but in the House.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
He's a Rand Paul of the House in essence.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, but but and and listen, President Trump endorsed against him,
leaned in against him. They had a Navy seal running
against him. Who's who was a strong Donald Trump supporter.
And listen, I know Thomas Thomas is a very smart guy.
He's an MIT graduate, He's a principled libertarian. I don't
doubt that he believes what he's doing. But but I
(07:33):
will say Thomas's tenure in the House had become simply
relentless votes against Trump. He voted no, no, no, no,
no on everything. He voted no on the Big Reconciliation Bill,
the one big beautiful bill, also called the Working Family's
Tax Cut. And it got to the point that I
(07:53):
think President Trump was really frustrated. Listen, if we had
if we had a huge majority, if we had two
hundred and fifty Republicans in the House, you only need
two eighteen for a majority, it wouldn't hurt to have
a constant no vote. But if you vote against President
Trump all the time, and if you vote with the
Democrats almost all the time, that's frustrating. When you have
(08:16):
a one or two vote margin in the House, it
really hurts. If you want to be an op ed
columnist and say I am against everything. No no, no, no, no. Fine,
write your columns, express your opinions. But when you're in
an incredibly narrow congressional body, those votes have consequence. I
will say also Thomas's votes and positions on Israel. This
(08:41):
was a bitter, nasty primary. He had a he had
a line when he was conceding his race where he
said it took some time to call his opponent to
concede because it took some time to track him down
and Tel Aviv. That was gratuitous, that was unnecessary. I
get that Thomas's unhappy that he lost, but that kind
(09:03):
of nastiness I wish she hadn't done that. There's no
doubt but for Donald Trump, Thomas Massey wins, and so
Trump endorsed against him, leaned in hard. He wanted a
House member who will vote with him, and the challenger
who beat Massey will win the general election. He will
(09:23):
vote with Trump consistently. And then today we got the
bombshell news and in Ben, you're in my home state
of Texas, which is that President Trump endorsed Ken Paxton
against John Cornet. As we're sitting here right now, the
primary for Senate is unfolding in Texas. We're in early votes.
I voted yesterday. I voted on Monday, the first day
(09:45):
of early votes, and Texas early votes run from Monday
to Friday, and then election day is next Tuesday. And
this is already the most expensive primary in US history.
Just the primary, the two candidates spent over one hundred
million dollars in the off. We don't have the firm
numbers yet, but my guess is well over fifty million
dollars will have been spent in the runoff. So I
(10:06):
think all told, this will be over one hundred and
fifty million dollars in a primary. So it's by a
massive margin, the most expensive Senate primary in the history
of the country. And look, keyword, by the way, is primary,
because now you've got money going in the general election
as well after this, which is going to be a
ton of money as well. Listen, we don't know for
(10:27):
a fact what will happen on election Day, but any
observer will acknowledge that President Trump's endorsement makes it significantly
more likely that Ken Paxston wins. How much more likely,
I don't know, but given what we've seen the last
two weeks, nobody can dispute the Trump endorsement is a
big deal. And so this has been a powerful demonstration
(10:48):
of the President that he wants. He wants members of
the House, he wants members of the Senate who stand
with him, who support support him, and if they don't,
they're real consequences.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
You mention that because there's even some that reached out
to me, and I had media people that were calling saying, hey,
we want to have you talk about this exact as
you just described with this. You know, why did the
president dorse when he did? Was it worth it? Should
he just stay out of the primary with Cornyn? Because
there are consequences. Cassie is another example of this with
consequences because now there's real talk about about the War
(11:23):
Powers Act now getting fast tracked because you have I
think it's for if I'm not mistaken. As of before
we start the show, the latest as I saw as
four Senate Republicans are now willing to go and say yeah,
we're gonna We're gonna now talk about the warst Power
Act and maybe taking away some power from the president.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah, So we had a vote today. The Democrats have
done repeated I think it's been about a dozen now
War Powers Act resolutions trying to restrict the president's power
to wage war in Iran, to defend this nation and
to take out the Iranian regime. They have lost every
one of those until today, and they've had voting in
(12:02):
favor of them has been Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski
and Rand Paul. But today, for the first time, they
won because they got a fourth vote Bill Cassidy. And
I assume I've not talked to Bill. I did not
see Bill today, but I assume he's pissed. He's pissed
the President endorsed against him. He's pissed he lost. And
I don't think it's a crazy assumption that he's going
to be pissed the rest of the year. It's going
(12:23):
to be complicated on votes. If Cornyn Law loses, I
can imagine he's going to be pissed as well. And
so that dynamic when we have a fifty three to
forty seven majority, if we have several members. Tom Tillis
is not running again and he has been quite expressed
a lot of animosity towards the president. Mitch McConnell's not
(12:44):
running again, He's expressed a lot of animosity towards the president.
That makes the Senate complicated. If you've got a three
vote majority and you have four or five senators who
are pissed at the president. That ain't easy. By the way,
another result that happened today was the Kentucky Senate race.
So the race to replace Mitch McConnell. Mitch is not
running for reelection. You had multiple candidates running, and it
(13:08):
was close. It was a bitterly, hotly contested race. Millions
of dollars were spent. Trump a week or two ago
endorsed Andy Barr, who's a congressman, and that basically ended
the race. Barr won the primary to day, I think
about about sixty five percent was the last number I saw.
But once Trump endorsed, the race was over. And so
(13:32):
his endorsement clearly has a lot of potency, and I
think he wants senators and House members that are going
to stand with him and fight for the agenda that
he was elected to fight for. And there's a reason
that I had been Donald Trump's single strongest ally in
the Senate for ten years because I believe in the
agenda he's fighting for. And listen, Trump, by far, his
(13:56):
greatest attribute is he has a cast iron backbone. He
is a courageous fighter, and he's willing to stand up
and fight, and that I and so many other Republicans
have been frustrated by Republicans who were jellyfish, who are
afraid of a fight, and so I'm glad to see
the President standing up and standing up for what he
believes in.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Is it a fair assessment to say that for Donald
Trump it may be really tough for him on the
Senate side, as you mentioned, through the end of the year,
but there's a real now possibility that Donald Trump could
have even more power in the Senate moving forward because
of some of these changes that are coming. And yeah,
there's going to be retribution until they're out of office
(14:38):
and you know, at the end of the year January technically,
but like, this could be very interesting to see that
he went in knowing, Hey, I'm going to have a
hard you know, five six months here, seven months here,
but by golly, it's going to get a lot better
for two more years after that.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yeah, and look, if you look at how President Trump
has done this, I don't think he has abused his
decisions on this. It has not been the case that
if somebody disagrees with the President on one particular issue,
that that that is discreet and not that consequential, that
that that he responds with with with you know, massive retribution.
(15:17):
It has been. Look, Cassidy voted to convict him and
to peach him and remove him from office. That's a
big damn deal. That's not a small vote. The Indiana
State legislators look, the Democrats that Jerrymander the heck out
of much of the country. President Trump wanted Republicans to
counterbalance that, and the Indiana State Legislators told the president
go jump in a lake. That that was significant. You
(15:40):
look at Thomas Massey. It's not like Thomas Massey just
voted against the president on one vote. He voted against
the President on almost every single vote, over and over
and over again.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
I think it's fair to say Massey was fighting harder
against Donald Trump than he was even the Democrats out there.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
And I will say, at least the political retribution for Massey,
I don't know how he could vote against Trump more
like at this point, when the Speaker of the House
is counting votes in the House, he counts all the
Democrats as to know, and he counts Massi as a no.
So it's not like MASSI can vote no twice. He's
going to vote no. He was voting no before. He'll
keep voting no. And so I think the President acted
(16:18):
to say, look, I need people in the House who
actually support me.
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(17:52):
I want to move to the other big breaking news story,
and this is happening as you and I were getting
ready to do the show. There is word now that
if there could be indictments coming from the DOJ against
the Castro regime family members. This is significant break it down.
And what does this actually mean if it does happen
in the next twenty four hours.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yeah, we don't know a whole lot of details right
now because it is Tuesday night. The Department of Justice
sent out an advisory there's an event tomorrow at Miami's
Freedom Tower to honor the victims of the Brothers to
the Rescue murderers, and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is
expected to attend, and a Castro indictment is expected to
(18:36):
be announced. So what we are anticipating is that the
Department of Justice will indict Raoul Castro. Raoul Castro is
Fidel Castro's brother. Fidel is dead, Raoul is still alive,
and it is anticipated that the Department of Justice will
indict Raul Castro. Presumably we don't have the details, so
this may not be exact, but the Brothers to the Rescue,
(18:58):
the Cubans shot down a plane and it resulted in
a loss of life, and I'm assuming that is the
basis for the indictment. We don't know for sure. We'll
find out tomorrow, but that indicting Raul Castro, assuming DJ
does that tomorrow, is a big deal. And part of
the reason it's a big deal is remember the predicate
(19:20):
for going in and seizing Maduro.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
That's exactly what I was going to ask you, is
this is this Maduro two point zero?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
I don't know, but Maduro had been indicted. Maduro had
been indicted by a grand jury for trafficking, for narco trafficking,
for sending thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States,
and that indictment served as the predicate for the Delta
Force going and arresting him and so indicting Raoul Castro.
(19:47):
I don't know if we'll see a military conflict with
with Cuba. I'm still I'm still a little skeptical that
the president will engage in a shooting war with Cuba.
Right now, the President is imposing massive e economic costs
on Cuba. So if you look at Cuba for the
history since the Communist Revolution in nineteen fifty nine, Cuba
(20:08):
spent forty years as essentially a vassal state of the
Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union supported Cuba with money
and with oil. And then when the Soviet Union collapsed,
when America won the Cold War, Cuba entered into a
faustian bargain with Venezuela. And Venezuela Cuba provided them soldiers,
(20:29):
they provided them thugs. You know, the soldiers that were
guarding Maduro were all Cuban soldiers. And they did this
throughout Latin America where they would provide thugs and forcers
to abuse and suppress the populace, and Venezuela reciprocated with
money and with oil, and then that's what kept Cuba's
communist regime alive. When President Trump arrested Maduro, the Venezuelan
(20:53):
oil and money dried up immediately for a brief period
of time. Mexico stepped in the gap and began providing
oil to Cuba, and the Trump administration quite rightly, and
this is something I publicly encouraged, leaned on Mexico and said,
cut off the oil, stop sending oil to Cuba.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
And they did.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Mexico did, and as a result, Cuba is in a
massive economic crisis. Their public transportation is all but halted.
They're almost entirely out of jet fuel. We saw just
a week ago John Ratcliffe, the head of the CIA
in Cuba, meeting with the heads of multiple Cuban agencies.
I don't know what they were discussing, uh, but the
(21:32):
economic crisis and the pressure on Cuba is massive. And
I'll say this, Ben, Look, by.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
The way, we're out of oil. People need to understand,
like their lights are off, they're.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Having blackouts there. Yeah, No, I mean it's it's an
absolute Their economy is shut down. And I also want
to say, look, look, it is a testament to what
an extraordinary moment we are in. There is a very
real possibility that in the next year we will see
new governments in Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran. Now, I want
(22:01):
to be clear, I'm not naive, I'm not pollyannish about this.
There are a thousand ways those could go wrong, so
those are not guaranteed outcomes. Yeah, but if we wake
up a year from now and we have governments in Cuba, Iran,
and Venezuela who are not enemies of America, who want
to be friends with America, that will be the single
greatest geopolitical shift since the fall of the Berlin Wall,
(22:23):
since America won the Cold War. And if you look
at Cuba my vision. I've never been to Cuba, obviously,
my father was born, grew up there, fought in the revolution,
was imprisoned, was tortured in Cuba my aunt.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
But only at the regime faults.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
I do not want to go to a communist Cuba.
I will happily go and visit a free Cuba. And
that could happen in the next year and my vision
what I'd like to see happen in Cuba. I would
like to see Cuba free. I would like to see
Cuba with free speech. I'd like to see Cuba with
free elections. I would love to see Cuba as a
(23:00):
haven for free enterprise, think a Singapore or Hong Kong
before China took it over. And I think they could
have extraordinary prosperity. And one of the amazing things is
there are billions of dollars from Cuban Americans who would
be eager to invest back in Cuba if you had
a government that would respect the rule of law and
(23:21):
property rights and contract rights, and would welcome American investment
in the Cuban beaches past.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
By the way, tourism would explode.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
At the Cuban beaches. By all reports. I've never seen
them myself, but everyone who has says they're among, if
not the most beautiful in the world. And it's only
ninety miles away from America, so it's a very quick flight.
Cuba could boom, could enjoy enormous prosperity if the communist
regime falls, and I know President Trump wants that to happen,
(23:52):
and so I hope and pray. That's what occurs.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Final question on this If something does happen in Cuba
the same way that we saw with Maduro, where we
actually take a someone with the last named Castro, how
significant is that in the moment in history and for
all the victims of the Castro regime.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Look, the Castros are among the most evil people who
have ever lived. They have ruled a regime of tyranny,
of murder, of torture, of oppression that they took an economy.
You look at Cuba, when the Cuban Revolution happened, was
the number one sugar producer at all of Latin America.
Cuba is like the land that time forgot. They strangled
(24:32):
the economy. There's misery, there's poverty. You look at Cuba,
the cars that most of the people drive are cars
from the nineteen fifties. It was like just time froze
because communism is a failed economic model, it's a failed
governmental model. And so you have cars from the nineteen
fifties that they're stitching together the mechanics that they're almost
(24:55):
holding them together with rubber bands and bubblegum. But look
and poverty that the communists have inflicted on that nation.
Enough is enough, and we have a moment right now
where we could see finally, finally, finally, a Kuba libre
free Cuba.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
I want to move to some fireworks that took place
today in the Senate Judiciary where they were talking. You
guys were talking about the issue of jerrymandering, and it
got very heated between you and another senator. Walk us
through that.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Well, we had a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee
on racial gerrymandering and the Supreme Court's recent decision making
clear that you cannot draw congressional lines discriminating based on race.
And the Democrats have been losing their minds about this.
They've been screaming that it's Jim Crow. And Mazie Herono,
the very very liberal Democrat from Hawaii, she spoke right
before me, and she gave a whole speech about how
(25:51):
Democrats or how Republicans are racist, how they that they
want to hurt minorities, and it was just it was
a typic, vicious, false slandering speech. I'll tell you, I
had a whole set of remarks prepared for me. I
had a whole set of questions prepared for me. I
did not ask a single one of the questions my
(26:12):
team had prepared. What I did instead was just off
the cuff. It was reacting to to Mazie Herono's comments.
Give a listen and hear what I had to say, Chairman,
just a moment ago, our colleague, Senator Herono said, there's
a lot more to say, and indeed she's right, and
in fact, I want to go back to her comments.
(26:32):
She began by saying, we have a long history of
racial discrimination in this country. That's undoubtedly correct, and then
she said, quote, we had poll taxes, we had literacy tests,
We even had tests of how many jelly beans are
in a jar. Mister Chamberlain, when when Senator Herono says
we had poll taxes, I want to ask you who
(26:54):
we is and in particular, what party was it that
implemented poll taxes in the South.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
And I don't want to necessarily speak in every single case,
but I'm pretty confident it was mostly the Democrats.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
And what party was it that put literacy tests in
place in the South?
Speaker 3 (27:08):
The same answer, mostly the Democrats.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
And what party was it that had tests like how
many jellybeans are in a bottle? The Democrats tell me,
what party were the founders of the Ku Klux Klan from.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
I'm pretty sure that was the Democrats.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Indeed, in fact, Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of the Klan,
was a delegate to the eighteen sixty Democrat National Convention.
What party wrote.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
The Jim Crow Laws in the South? The Democrats.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
And so on this side of the aisle were members
of the Republican Party. Who was the first Republican President,
Abraham Lincoln. The Republican Party was literally founded to oppose slavery.
We came into existence because slavery was a grotesque evil.
And it was President Lincoln, the first Republican President, who
(27:57):
signed the Emancipation proclib who won the Civil War, and
that resulted in the freeing of the slaves and the
passage of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth Amendments. By the way,
fast forward to the civil rights era. Bull Connor one
of the most noxiously racist politicians. What party was he from?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
He was a Democrat.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
The Democrats for the entire history of their party have
been a party based on racial discrimination. They affirmatively embrace it,
they support it. Let me ask you, mister grime, is
discrimination is discriminating based on race consistent with the United
States Constitution. No, what does the fourteenth Amendment say about discrimination.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Based on race? It's prohibited.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
What does the fifteenth Amendments say about discriminating based on race,
and in particular drawing congressional lines and explicitly discriminating based
on race, It's prohibited. Now, the Democrats are fond of
telling this story, that is, and I wish I could
find a kinder way to say it a flat out
lie that without discriminating based on race, that no African
(29:09):
Americans will be elected and no Hispanics will be elected. Indeed,
there was one fellow online who was a vocal left
wing spokesperson who tweeted out, if I'm advising anybody to
run for president, they sure as hell better have a
solution to how you make sure that it's not another
one hundred years before another black person can represent South Carolina.
(29:31):
So that's a typical Democrat statement that we cannot elect
a black person in South Carolina without discriminating based on race.
I want to ask you, mister Chamberlain, who is the
junior Senator from South Carolina right now? That would be
Tim Scott, And all right, I'll tell you what I
said online. I said, hey, groc who is Tim Scott
(29:54):
and why did Democrats think he isn't black? And by
the way, was Tim Scott elected because because of a
Gerrymander district drawn only to elect an African American.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
No, he won statewide.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
He won statewide. By the way, the Democrat position is
you can only elect African Americans with a Gerrymander district.
I will point out Burgess Owens, an African American, is
elected the majority white district in the state of Utah.
He's a Republican. Byron Donald's another African American is elected
the majority white district in Florida.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
He is a Republican.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
John James, another African American, has elected the majority white
district in Michigan. He is a Republican. And my own Congressman,
Wesley Hunt, who represents me in the House of Representatives,
he is elected the majority white district. He is a Republican.
And yet in the Democrats world, you're not black if
you're not a liberal Democrat. There is an arrogance to
(30:47):
African American voters. By the way, they also have that
same arrogance to Hispanic voters. They say, you're not Hispanic,
if you're not a liberal Democrat. Well, I'll tell you
I am proud to be the first Hispanic ever elected
to represent the state of Texas in the United States Senate.
And mister Chamberlain, in my election in Texas, was I
(31:10):
elected the gerrymandered district that could only elect in Hispanic?
Speaker 3 (31:13):
No, you were elected statewide.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Discrimination based on race is wrong. Final question. The Democrats
are now clutching their pearls that seats drawn to elect
liberal Democrats in the South are going to go away.
You may get black Republicans instead. Indeed, in Tennessee they're
freaking out that a liberal white guy who's a Democrat
(31:36):
is likely going to lose his seat to an African
American woman who's a Republican. And they say that horrible
racial oppression. My final question is this, if you look nationwide,
which party has egregiously abused jerrymandering for decades? Both parties
(31:57):
are guilty of it, But who has been the worst offender?
And in particular take New England, Take Massachusetts, state Connecticut,
Take Rhode Island, Take Maine, take Vermont, take New Hampshire.
How many Republicans are elected from all of New England
and the House representatives.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
I think the answer to that is zero zero.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
They've drawn every district in a naked jerrymander, and yet
they're very upset that their illegal pursuit of power has
now been stopped by the Supreme Court that is enforcing
the Constitution and prohibiting the racial gerrymandering discrimination.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Their party is built on.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Personal privilege. Uh sure, I feel personally aggrieved to sit
here and to be lectured by my colleague from Texas.
And this reminds me of the time when he was
first elected to the Senate and the Judiciary Committee had
a hearing on gun safety, and he has felt a
(32:54):
need to lecture Dianne Feinstein, who was a leader on
gun safety legislation, and he took there's that opportunity to
lecture Diane Feinstein about gun safety and her leadership on
the issue. And she said to him something along the
lines of I did not sit here on this committee
for however many years she did, only to be lectured
by you. And that is how I feel. So why
(33:16):
don't you just stop lecturing the rest of us just
because you think you are the smartest person in the world.
Doesn't mean the rest of us agree to that. Okay,
thanks you.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Said, Senator Herono. I knew Diane Feinstein. I served with
Dianne Feinstein, and you're not Diane Feinstein.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Right, Senator, I just got one question for you. You're
not a big morning person. So who made you mad
this morning? And what did you eat? Because that was brilliant.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Well, look, I couldn't stand seeing the Democrats being hypocritical
and dishonest, and you know it was striking. Mazie Herono said,
I'm offended. I'm offended that you said this. You know
what she didn't do. She didn't dispute a single word
I said, because every word I said was factual. She
didn't dispute that her party has been vicious racist since
(34:01):
the very beginning of that party, that it embraces racil, jerrymandering,
like every word of substance. She just and this is
a classic Democrat tactic. How dare you speak the truth?
I'm offended by the truth. And obviously my reference at
the end, I was quoting a Democrat. If you'll recall
when George W. Bush or not George W. Bush, George H. W.
(34:22):
Bush was running for president and he was running with
dan Quayle and he was running against Michael Decaucus and
his running mate was Lloyd Benson. And Lloyd Benson was
a Senator from Texas and dan Quayle when he was
nominated to be vice president was a very young senator,
I think it was forty one or forty two, and
he did not have a ton of experience. And in
(34:42):
the vice presidential debate between dan Quayle and Lloyd Benson,
dan Quayle had had a riff that I suspect was
prepared by his team where he said, look, I'm the
same age that John Kennedy was when he became president,
and it was I think their line to say, gosh,
I'm not in experience inst because because Kennedy and I
are the same age. And Lloyd Benson looked at him
(35:04):
and said, Senator, I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was
a friend of mine. I served with Jack Kennedy. Senator,
You're no Jack Kennedy. And that obviously was the riff
I was I was using for for for Mazie Dianne
Feinstein my first year, we did have a fiery blow
(35:26):
up over gun control because she was a big advocate
of gun control. I am a big defender of the
Second Amendment, and when I asked her a specific question
about the constitutional basis for what she was proposing, she
got very upset and and and she much like Mazie Herono,
she said, I am not a sixth grader, and she
(35:46):
was horrified that I would actually ask her the constitutional
basis for what she was trying to do. Uh, Mayzi
does not have She could not refute a word I said,
so instead she she resorted to insult and emotional offense.
And look, I think that's a fairly typical example of
(36:08):
where the Democrats are. Truth and facts are not their
strong points, and they're not going going to engage in them. Instead,
they're going to try to engage in deception. And sadly,
that was the entire Democrat theme in the entire hearing.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
No, it really was.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Don't forget. We do this show Monday, Wednesday, Friday. We'll
have a lot for you on Friday's episode. I have
a feeling, especially after that press conference in Cuba, So
make sure you join us then hit that subscriber auto
download button. You can also watch this show on YouTube,
and please write us a five star review. It makes
a huge difference on the charts and the center, and
I will see you back here Friday morning.
Well, come in is verdict with Center, Ted Cruz, Ben
Ferguson with You and Center. We've got a lot of
news that's happening, including a big runoff election day in America,
and there are a lot of results that have come
in and it did not look good for people that
didn't get the endorsement of Donald Trump.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Well, elections in America. Turns out that Donald Trump's endorsement
has enormous potency in a Republican primary that was not
really much in doubt two weeks ago, but it's an
even less doubt today. We're going to talk about the
results there. We're also going to talk about the pending
news coming out today that the Trump Department of Justice
(00:38):
is expected to indict Raoul Castro in Cuba. We're going
to break that down as well. And we're also going
to talk about fireworks on the Senate Judiciary Committee, in
particular a battle over racial jerrymandering. The Democrats trying to
claim they have clean hands, that racial gerrymandering is a
wonderful thing, and you know, I did my very best
(00:59):
this week to hold them to account.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yeah, it's going to be very very fun audio. I've
heard it earlier and you're going to not want to
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so centator. There's leave no doubt in this country. Donald
Trump's endorsement extremely important, and if you didn't get his endorsement,
(03:12):
it is not good news for you if you're a
Republican running for office. Now, there's two ways to interpret this.
I interpreted this way simply. Donald Trump's agenda is what's
on the ballot in this midterm election coming up. Redistricting
is a part of that. If you are not standing
and fighting with Donald Trump, then there's a lot of
American voters that say we want someone different. And clearly
(03:33):
that was the thought process for many people that went
to the voting booth.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Look, in the last two weeks, we've had four illustration
of the potency of President Trump's endorsement. We had, first
of all, Indiana, So Indiana, President Trump and the White
House asked Indiana to redistrict, to redraw their congressional map
to gain additional Republican seats. The Indiana legislature refused. They
rebuke the president. They said no, we're not going to
(03:58):
do that, and the President got pissed off. And so
there were seven Indiana state senators that Trump endorsed against,
and five of them were defeated in their primaries. That
was two weeks ago. It was really a striking result
that if you stand up and defy the president, if
(04:19):
you declare I'm opposed to the president. At least in
the Republican Party, there is no never Trump lane in
the Republican Party. That does not exist, or it does
not exist with any staying power. The never Trump lane
is largely non existent. Then we saw the state Louisiana,
(04:39):
State Louisiana. My colleague Bill Cassidy, the incumbent Republican Senator
from Louisiana, was in a primary President Trump endorsed against
him and Louisiana has a multi person primary. They require
that in order to win, you got to win a majority.
So if you don't win a majority, the top two
(04:59):
go to irun off. What ended up happening in Louisiana
is two other candidates, Julia Letlowe and John Fleming, ended
up winning the primary, and Bill Cassidy, the incumbent Republican senator,
did not make the top two, so he was defeated.
He's not going to be in the runoff, so he
will not be a senator next year. And that was
(05:21):
a powerful illustration. Cassidy had millions of dollars behind him. Look,
Cassidy's most significant step that he took is that he
voted to convict President Trump during the impeachment I'll tell you,
I was sitting next to Bill Cassidy. He and I
are seats on the floor of the Senate, were next
to each other during the impeachment trial. When he cast
(05:42):
that vote to convict, it felt like he knew what
he was doing. It felt like he knew that he
was ending his political career. I was surprised. I think
most Republicans were surprised. We did not anticipate that Bill
Cassidy would vote to.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Convict That was a shock in the moment when it happened.
If you take pell back to that day, it wasn't
like he was out on TV talking about how he
was going to convict Don Trump. It wasn't like he
was Democrats in the media were not floating. That is
a real possibility. And then when it happened, I remember,
it was a total shock on social media at that moment.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Look and Louisiana is now a bright red state, and
so it was that vote was costly. He did not
make the top two. He will not be either Fleming
or Letlow will be the next Senator from Louisiana, but
it will not be Bill Cassidy. And so the Trump
endorsement was demonstrated to be extremely potent. Then we saw
(06:40):
tonight you and I are here. It is eleven nineteen
pm and tonight in Kentucky, Thomas Massey, incumbent Republican congressman,
has been defeated. Has been defeated, but it looks like
maybe up to ten points. Then the numbers are still
being counted. Massy look Massy to win by big margins.
(07:01):
Massey is a libertarian. Massy is in some ways. He's massy,
is similar to Rand Paul, but in the House.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
He's a Rand Paul of the House in essence.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah, but but and and listen, President Trump endorsed against him,
leaned in against him. They had a Navy seal running
against him. Who's who was a strong Donald Trump supporter.
And listen, I know Thomas Thomas is a very smart guy.
He's an MIT graduate, He's a principled libertarian. I don't
doubt that he believes what he's doing. But but I
(07:33):
will say Thomas's tenure in the House had become simply
relentless votes against Trump. He voted no, no, no, no,
no on everything. He voted no on the Big Reconciliation Bill,
the one big beautiful bill, also called the Working Family's
Tax Cut. And it got to the point that I
(07:53):
think President Trump was really frustrated. Listen, if we had
if we had a huge majority, if we had two
hundred and fifty Republicans in the House, you only need
two eighteen for a majority, it wouldn't hurt to have
a constant no vote. But if you vote against President
Trump all the time, and if you vote with the
Democrats almost all the time, that's frustrating. When you have
(08:16):
a one or two vote margin in the House, it
really hurts. If you want to be an op ed
columnist and say I am against everything. No no, no, no, no. Fine,
write your columns, express your opinions. But when you're in
an incredibly narrow congressional body, those votes have consequence. I
will say also Thomas's votes and positions on Israel. This
(08:41):
was a bitter, nasty primary. He had a he had
a line when he was conceding his race where he
said it took some time to call his opponent to
concede because it took some time to track him down
and Tel Aviv. That was gratuitous, that was unnecessary. I
get that Thomas's unhappy that he lost, but that kind
(09:03):
of nastiness I wish she hadn't done that. There's no
doubt but for Donald Trump, Thomas Massey wins, and so
Trump endorsed against him, leaned in hard. He wanted a
House member who will vote with him, and the challenger
who beat Massey will win the general election. He will
(09:23):
vote with Trump consistently. And then today we got the
bombshell news and in Ben, you're in my home state
of Texas, which is that President Trump endorsed Ken Paxton
against John Cornet. As we're sitting here right now, the
primary for Senate is unfolding in Texas. We're in early votes.
I voted yesterday. I voted on Monday, the first day
(09:45):
of early votes, and Texas early votes run from Monday
to Friday, and then election day is next Tuesday. And
this is already the most expensive primary in US history.
Just the primary, the two candidates spent over one hundred
million dollars in the off. We don't have the firm
numbers yet, but my guess is well over fifty million
dollars will have been spent in the runoff. So I
(10:06):
think all told, this will be over one hundred and
fifty million dollars in a primary. So it's by a
massive margin, the most expensive Senate primary in the history
of the country. And look, keyword, by the way, is primary,
because now you've got money going in the general election
as well after this, which is going to be a
ton of money as well. Listen, we don't know for
(10:27):
a fact what will happen on election Day, but any
observer will acknowledge that President Trump's endorsement makes it significantly
more likely that Ken Paxston wins. How much more likely,
I don't know, but given what we've seen the last
two weeks, nobody can dispute the Trump endorsement is a
big deal. And so this has been a powerful demonstration
(10:48):
of the President that he wants. He wants members of
the House, he wants members of the Senate who stand
with him, who support support him, and if they don't,
they're real consequences.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
You mention that because there's even some that reached out
to me, and I had media people that were calling saying, hey,
we want to have you talk about this exact as
you just described with this. You know, why did the
president dorse when he did? Was it worth it? Should
he just stay out of the primary with Cornyn? Because
there are consequences. Cassie is another example of this with
consequences because now there's real talk about about the War
(11:23):
Powers Act now getting fast tracked because you have I
think it's for if I'm not mistaken. As of before
we start the show, the latest as I saw as
four Senate Republicans are now willing to go and say yeah,
we're gonna We're gonna now talk about the warst Power
Act and maybe taking away some power from the president.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yeah, So we had a vote today. The Democrats have
done repeated I think it's been about a dozen now
War Powers Act resolutions trying to restrict the president's power
to wage war in Iran, to defend this nation and
to take out the Iranian regime. They have lost every
one of those until today, and they've had voting in
(12:02):
favor of them has been Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski
and Rand Paul. But today, for the first time, they
won because they got a fourth vote Bill Cassidy. And
I assume I've not talked to Bill. I did not
see Bill today, but I assume he's pissed. He's pissed
the President endorsed against him. He's pissed he lost. And
I don't think it's a crazy assumption that he's going
to be pissed the rest of the year. It's going
(12:23):
to be complicated on votes. If Cornyn Law loses, I
can imagine he's going to be pissed as well. And
so that dynamic when we have a fifty three to
forty seven majority, if we have several members. Tom Tillis
is not running again and he has been quite expressed
a lot of animosity towards the president. Mitch McConnell's not
(12:44):
running again, He's expressed a lot of animosity towards the president.
That makes the Senate complicated. If you've got a three
vote majority and you have four or five senators who
are pissed at the president. That ain't easy. By the way,
another result that happened today was the Kentucky Senate race.
So the race to replace Mitch McConnell. Mitch is not
running for reelection. You had multiple candidates running, and it
(13:08):
was close. It was a bitterly, hotly contested race. Millions
of dollars were spent. Trump a week or two ago
endorsed Andy Barr, who's a congressman, and that basically ended
the race. Barr won the primary to day, I think
about about sixty five percent was the last number I saw.
But once Trump endorsed, the race was over. And so
(13:32):
his endorsement clearly has a lot of potency, and I
think he wants senators and House members that are going
to stand with him and fight for the agenda that
he was elected to fight for. And there's a reason
that I had been Donald Trump's single strongest ally in
the Senate for ten years because I believe in the
agenda he's fighting for. And listen, Trump, by far, his
(13:56):
greatest attribute is he has a cast iron backbone. He
is a courageous fighter, and he's willing to stand up
and fight, and that I and so many other Republicans
have been frustrated by Republicans who were jellyfish, who are
afraid of a fight, and so I'm glad to see
the President standing up and standing up for what he
believes in.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Is it a fair assessment to say that for Donald
Trump it may be really tough for him on the
Senate side, as you mentioned, through the end of the year,
but there's a real now possibility that Donald Trump could
have even more power in the Senate moving forward because
of some of these changes that are coming. And yeah,
there's going to be retribution until they're out of office
(14:38):
and you know, at the end of the year January technically,
but like, this could be very interesting to see that
he went in knowing, Hey, I'm going to have a
hard you know, five six months here, seven months here,
but by golly, it's going to get a lot better
for two more years after that.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Yeah, and look, if you look at how President Trump
has done this, I don't think he has abused his
decisions on this. It has not been the case that
if somebody disagrees with the President on one particular issue,
that that that is discreet and not that consequential, that
that that he responds with with with you know, massive retribution.
(15:17):
It has been. Look, Cassidy voted to convict him and
to peach him and remove him from office. That's a
big damn deal. That's not a small vote. The Indiana
State legislators look, the Democrats that Jerrymander the heck out
of much of the country. President Trump wanted Republicans to
counterbalance that, and the Indiana State Legislators told the president
go jump in a lake. That that was significant. You
(15:40):
look at Thomas Massey. It's not like Thomas Massey just
voted against the president on one vote. He voted against
the President on almost every single vote, over and over
and over again.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
I think it's fair to say Massey was fighting harder
against Donald Trump than he was even the Democrats out there.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
And I will say, at least the political retribution for Massey,
I don't know how he could vote against Trump more
like at this point, when the Speaker of the House
is counting votes in the House, he counts all the
Democrats as to know, and he counts Massi as a no.
So it's not like MASSI can vote no twice. He's
going to vote no. He was voting no before. He'll
keep voting no. And so I think the President acted
(16:18):
to say, look, I need people in the House who
actually support me.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
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(17:52):
I want to move to the other big breaking news story,
and this is happening as you and I were getting
ready to do the show. There is word now that
if there could be indictments coming from the DOJ against
the Castro regime family members. This is significant break it down.
And what does this actually mean if it does happen
in the next twenty four hours.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yeah, we don't know a whole lot of details right
now because it is Tuesday night. The Department of Justice
sent out an advisory there's an event tomorrow at Miami's
Freedom Tower to honor the victims of the Brothers to
the Rescue murderers, and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is
expected to attend, and a Castro indictment is expected to
(18:36):
be announced. So what we are anticipating is that the
Department of Justice will indict Raoul Castro. Raoul Castro is
Fidel Castro's brother. Fidel is dead, Raoul is still alive,
and it is anticipated that the Department of Justice will
indict Raul Castro. Presumably we don't have the details, so
this may not be exact, but the Brothers to the Rescue,
(18:58):
the Cubans shot down a plane and it resulted in
a loss of life, and I'm assuming that is the
basis for the indictment. We don't know for sure. We'll
find out tomorrow, but that indicting Raul Castro, assuming DJ
does that tomorrow, is a big deal. And part of
the reason it's a big deal is remember the predicate
(19:20):
for going in and seizing Maduro.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
That's exactly what I was going to ask you, is
this is this Maduro two point zero?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
I don't know, but Maduro had been indicted. Maduro had
been indicted by a grand jury for trafficking, for narco trafficking,
for sending thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States,
and that indictment served as the predicate for the Delta
Force going and arresting him and so indicting Raoul Castro.
(19:47):
I don't know if we'll see a military conflict with
with Cuba. I'm still I'm still a little skeptical that
the president will engage in a shooting war with Cuba.
Right now, the President is imposing massive e economic costs
on Cuba. So if you look at Cuba for the
history since the Communist Revolution in nineteen fifty nine, Cuba
(20:08):
spent forty years as essentially a vassal state of the
Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union supported Cuba with money
and with oil. And then when the Soviet Union collapsed,
when America won the Cold War, Cuba entered into a
faustian bargain with Venezuela. And Venezuela Cuba provided them soldiers,
(20:29):
they provided them thugs. You know, the soldiers that were
guarding Maduro were all Cuban soldiers. And they did this
throughout Latin America where they would provide thugs and forcers
to abuse and suppress the populace, and Venezuela reciprocated with
money and with oil, and then that's what kept Cuba's
communist regime alive. When President Trump arrested Maduro, the Venezuelan
(20:53):
oil and money dried up immediately for a brief period
of time. Mexico stepped in the gap and began providing
oil to Cuba, and the Trump administration quite rightly, and
this is something I publicly encouraged, leaned on Mexico and said,
cut off the oil, stop sending oil to Cuba.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
And they did.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Mexico did, and as a result, Cuba is in a
massive economic crisis. Their public transportation is all but halted.
They're almost entirely out of jet fuel. We saw just
a week ago John Ratcliffe, the head of the CIA
in Cuba, meeting with the heads of multiple Cuban agencies.
I don't know what they were discussing, uh, but the
(21:32):
economic crisis and the pressure on Cuba is massive. And
I'll say this, Ben, Look, by.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
The way, we're out of oil. People need to understand,
like their lights are off, they're.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Having blackouts there. Yeah, No, I mean it's it's an
absolute Their economy is shut down. And I also want
to say, look, look, it is a testament to what
an extraordinary moment we are in. There is a very
real possibility that in the next year we will see
new governments in Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran. Now, I want
(22:01):
to be clear, I'm not naive, I'm not pollyannish about this.
There are a thousand ways those could go wrong, so
those are not guaranteed outcomes. Yeah, but if we wake
up a year from now and we have governments in Cuba, Iran,
and Venezuela who are not enemies of America, who want
to be friends with America, that will be the single
greatest geopolitical shift since the fall of the Berlin Wall,
(22:23):
since America won the Cold War. And if you look
at Cuba my vision. I've never been to Cuba, obviously,
my father was born, grew up there, fought in the revolution,
was imprisoned, was tortured in Cuba my aunt.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
But only at the regime faults.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
I do not want to go to a communist Cuba.
I will happily go and visit a free Cuba. And
that could happen in the next year and my vision
what I'd like to see happen in Cuba. I would
like to see Cuba free. I would like to see
Cuba with free speech. I'd like to see Cuba with
free elections. I would love to see Cuba as a
(23:00):
haven for free enterprise, think a Singapore or Hong Kong
before China took it over. And I think they could
have extraordinary prosperity. And one of the amazing things is
there are billions of dollars from Cuban Americans who would
be eager to invest back in Cuba if you had
a government that would respect the rule of law and
(23:21):
property rights and contract rights, and would welcome American investment
in the Cuban beaches past.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
By the way, tourism would explode.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
At the Cuban beaches. By all reports. I've never seen
them myself, but everyone who has says they're among, if
not the most beautiful in the world. And it's only
ninety miles away from America, so it's a very quick flight.
Cuba could boom, could enjoy enormous prosperity if the communist
regime falls, and I know President Trump wants that to happen,
(23:52):
and so I hope and pray. That's what occurs.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Final question on this If something does happen in Cuba
the same way that we saw with Maduro, where we
actually take a someone with the last named Castro, how
significant is that in the moment in history and for
all the victims of the Castro regime.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Look, the Castros are among the most evil people who
have ever lived. They have ruled a regime of tyranny,
of murder, of torture, of oppression that they took an economy.
You look at Cuba, when the Cuban Revolution happened, was
the number one sugar producer at all of Latin America.
Cuba is like the land that time forgot. They strangled
(24:32):
the economy. There's misery, there's poverty. You look at Cuba,
the cars that most of the people drive are cars
from the nineteen fifties. It was like just time froze
because communism is a failed economic model, it's a failed
governmental model. And so you have cars from the nineteen
fifties that they're stitching together the mechanics that they're almost
(24:55):
holding them together with rubber bands and bubblegum. But look
and poverty that the communists have inflicted on that nation.
Enough is enough, and we have a moment right now
where we could see finally, finally, finally, a Kuba libre
free Cuba.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
I want to move to some fireworks that took place
today in the Senate Judiciary where they were talking. You
guys were talking about the issue of jerrymandering, and it
got very heated between you and another senator. Walk us
through that.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Well, we had a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee
on racial gerrymandering and the Supreme Court's recent decision making
clear that you cannot draw congressional lines discriminating based on race.
And the Democrats have been losing their minds about this.
They've been screaming that it's Jim Crow. And Mazie Herono,
the very very liberal Democrat from Hawaii, she spoke right
before me, and she gave a whole speech about how
(25:51):
Democrats or how Republicans are racist, how they that they
want to hurt minorities, and it was just it was
a typic, vicious, false slandering speech. I'll tell you, I
had a whole set of remarks prepared for me. I
had a whole set of questions prepared for me. I
did not ask a single one of the questions my
(26:12):
team had prepared. What I did instead was just off
the cuff. It was reacting to to Mazie Herono's comments.
Give a listen and hear what I had to say, Chairman,
just a moment ago, our colleague, Senator Herono said, there's
a lot more to say, and indeed she's right, and
in fact, I want to go back to her comments.
(26:32):
She began by saying, we have a long history of
racial discrimination in this country. That's undoubtedly correct, and then
she said, quote, we had poll taxes, we had literacy tests,
We even had tests of how many jelly beans are
in a jar. Mister Chamberlain, when when Senator Herono says
we had poll taxes, I want to ask you who
(26:54):
we is and in particular, what party was it that
implemented poll taxes in the South.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
And I don't want to necessarily speak in every single case,
but I'm pretty confident it was mostly the Democrats.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
And what party was it that put literacy tests in
place in the South?
Speaker 3 (27:08):
The same answer, mostly the Democrats.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
And what party was it that had tests like how
many jellybeans are in a bottle? The Democrats tell me,
what party were the founders of the Ku Klux Klan from.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
I'm pretty sure that was the Democrats.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Indeed, in fact, Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of the Klan,
was a delegate to the eighteen sixty Democrat National Convention.
What party wrote.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
The Jim Crow Laws in the South? The Democrats.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
And so on this side of the aisle were members
of the Republican Party. Who was the first Republican President,
Abraham Lincoln. The Republican Party was literally founded to oppose slavery.
We came into existence because slavery was a grotesque evil.
And it was President Lincoln, the first Republican President, who
(27:57):
signed the Emancipation proclib who won the Civil War, and
that resulted in the freeing of the slaves and the
passage of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth Amendments. By the way,
fast forward to the civil rights era. Bull Connor one
of the most noxiously racist politicians. What party was he from?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
He was a Democrat.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
The Democrats for the entire history of their party have
been a party based on racial discrimination. They affirmatively embrace it,
they support it. Let me ask you, mister grime, is
discrimination is discriminating based on race consistent with the United
States Constitution. No, what does the fourteenth Amendment say about discrimination.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Based on race? It's prohibited.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
What does the fifteenth Amendments say about discriminating based on race,
and in particular drawing congressional lines and explicitly discriminating based
on race, It's prohibited. Now, the Democrats are fond of
telling this story, that is, and I wish I could
find a kinder way to say it a flat out
lie that without discriminating based on race, that no African
(29:09):
Americans will be elected and no Hispanics will be elected. Indeed,
there was one fellow online who was a vocal left
wing spokesperson who tweeted out, if I'm advising anybody to
run for president, they sure as hell better have a
solution to how you make sure that it's not another
one hundred years before another black person can represent South Carolina.
(29:31):
So that's a typical Democrat statement that we cannot elect
a black person in South Carolina without discriminating based on race.
I want to ask you, mister Chamberlain, who is the
junior Senator from South Carolina right now? That would be
Tim Scott, And all right, I'll tell you what I
said online. I said, hey, groc who is Tim Scott
(29:54):
and why did Democrats think he isn't black? And by
the way, was Tim Scott elected because because of a
Gerrymander district drawn only to elect an African American.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
No, he won statewide.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
He won statewide. By the way, the Democrat position is
you can only elect African Americans with a Gerrymander district.
I will point out Burgess Owens, an African American, is
elected the majority white district in the state of Utah.
He's a Republican. Byron Donald's another African American is elected
the majority white district in Florida.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
He is a Republican.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
John James, another African American, has elected the majority white
district in Michigan. He is a Republican. And my own Congressman,
Wesley Hunt, who represents me in the House of Representatives,
he is elected the majority white district. He is a Republican.
And yet in the Democrats world, you're not black if
you're not a liberal Democrat. There is an arrogance to
(30:47):
African American voters. By the way, they also have that
same arrogance to Hispanic voters. They say, you're not Hispanic,
if you're not a liberal Democrat. Well, I'll tell you
I am proud to be the first Hispanic ever elected
to represent the state of Texas in the United States Senate.
And mister Chamberlain, in my election in Texas, was I
(31:10):
elected the gerrymandered district that could only elect in Hispanic?
Speaker 3 (31:13):
No, you were elected statewide.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Discrimination based on race is wrong. Final question. The Democrats
are now clutching their pearls that seats drawn to elect
liberal Democrats in the South are going to go away.
You may get black Republicans instead. Indeed, in Tennessee they're
freaking out that a liberal white guy who's a Democrat
(31:36):
is likely going to lose his seat to an African
American woman who's a Republican. And they say that horrible
racial oppression. My final question is this, if you look nationwide,
which party has egregiously abused jerrymandering for decades? Both parties
(31:57):
are guilty of it, But who has been the worst offender?
And in particular take New England, Take Massachusetts, state Connecticut,
Take Rhode Island, Take Maine, take Vermont, take New Hampshire.
How many Republicans are elected from all of New England
and the House representatives.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
I think the answer to that is zero zero.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
They've drawn every district in a naked jerrymander, and yet
they're very upset that their illegal pursuit of power has
now been stopped by the Supreme Court that is enforcing
the Constitution and prohibiting the racial gerrymandering discrimination.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Their party is built on.
Speaker 4 (32:33):
Personal privilege. Uh sure, I feel personally aggrieved to sit
here and to be lectured by my colleague from Texas.
And this reminds me of the time when he was
first elected to the Senate and the Judiciary Committee had
a hearing on gun safety, and he has felt a
(32:54):
need to lecture Dianne Feinstein, who was a leader on
gun safety legislation, and he took there's that opportunity to
lecture Diane Feinstein about gun safety and her leadership on
the issue. And she said to him something along the
lines of I did not sit here on this committee
for however many years she did, only to be lectured
by you. And that is how I feel. So why
(33:16):
don't you just stop lecturing the rest of us just
because you think you are the smartest person in the world.
Doesn't mean the rest of us agree to that. Okay,
thanks you.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Said, Senator Herono. I knew Diane Feinstein. I served with
Dianne Feinstein, and you're not Diane Feinstein.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Right, Senator, I just got one question for you. You're
not a big morning person. So who made you mad
this morning? And what did you eat? Because that was brilliant.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Well, look, I couldn't stand seeing the Democrats being hypocritical
and dishonest, and you know it was striking. Mazie Herono said,
I'm offended. I'm offended that you said this. You know
what she didn't do. She didn't dispute a single word
I said, because every word I said was factual. She
didn't dispute that her party has been vicious racist since
(34:01):
the very beginning of that party, that it embraces racil, jerrymandering,
like every word of substance. She just and this is
a classic Democrat tactic. How dare you speak the truth?
I'm offended by the truth. And obviously my reference at
the end, I was quoting a Democrat. If you'll recall
when George W. Bush or not George W. Bush, George H. W.
(34:22):
Bush was running for president and he was running with
dan Quayle and he was running against Michael Decaucus and
his running mate was Lloyd Benson. And Lloyd Benson was
a Senator from Texas and dan Quayle when he was
nominated to be vice president was a very young senator,
I think it was forty one or forty two, and
he did not have a ton of experience. And in
(34:42):
the vice presidential debate between dan Quayle and Lloyd Benson,
dan Quayle had had a riff that I suspect was
prepared by his team where he said, look, I'm the
same age that John Kennedy was when he became president,
and it was I think their line to say, gosh,
I'm not in experience inst because because Kennedy and I
are the same age. And Lloyd Benson looked at him
(35:04):
and said, Senator, I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was
a friend of mine. I served with Jack Kennedy. Senator,
You're no Jack Kennedy. And that obviously was the riff
I was I was using for for for Mazie Dianne
Feinstein my first year, we did have a fiery blow
(35:26):
up over gun control because she was a big advocate
of gun control. I am a big defender of the
Second Amendment, and when I asked her a specific question
about the constitutional basis for what she was proposing, she
got very upset and and and she much like Mazie Herono,
she said, I am not a sixth grader, and she
(35:46):
was horrified that I would actually ask her the constitutional
basis for what she was trying to do. Uh, Mayzi
does not have She could not refute a word I said,
so instead she she resorted to insult and emotional offense.
And look, I think that's a fairly typical example of
(36:08):
where the Democrats are. Truth and facts are not their
strong points, and they're not going going to engage in them. Instead,
they're going to try to engage in deception. And sadly,
that was the entire Democrat theme in the entire hearing.
Speaker 3 (36:22):
No, it really was.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Don't forget. We do this show Monday, Wednesday, Friday. We'll
have a lot for you on Friday's episode. I have
a feeling, especially after that press conference in Cuba, So
make sure you join us then hit that subscriber auto
download button. You can also watch this show on YouTube,
and please write us a five star review. It makes
a huge difference on the charts and the center, and
I will see you back here Friday morning.
Host
Ben Ferguson
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