🇨🇳 Chinese Student Visas and Espionage
- The Trump administration announced plans to revoke student visas for Chinese nationals suspected of ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
- Emphasis on intellectual property theft and espionage concerns.
- Senator Cruz supports aggressive vetting of foreign students and recounts his past efforts to shut down Confucius Institutes in U.S. universities.
🏃♀️ California’s Transgender Athlete Policy Shift
- California revised its policy to protect biological female athletes in track and field.
- The change allows girls who were displaced by transgender athletes to still qualify for championships.
- Cruz and Ferguson interpret this as a retreat by the Left and a win for conservative values.
📱 Promotion of Patriot Mobile
- A segment promoting Patriot Mobile, a conservative Christian cell phone provider.
- Highlights its support for First and Second Amendment rights, veterans, and pro-life causes.
📜 Take It Down Act
- Senator Cruz discusses the Take It Down Act, recently signed into law by President Trump.
- The law criminalizes the distribution of non-consensual explicit images, including deepfakes.
- Inspired by real cases, including that of Elliston Barry, a teenage girl victimized by deepfake imagery.
- The law also mandates tech platforms to remove such content upon request.
⚖️ American Bar Association (ABA) and Judicial Nominations
- The Trump administration removed the ABA’s special role in vetting judicial nominees.
- Cruz criticizes the ABA as a biased, left-wing organization.
- Example given of a nominee unable to answer basic constitutional questions, yet rated “qualified” by the ABA.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is Verdict with Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you,
and we did a show that had some really important
topics in it a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately, that show
was replaced as we were covering the catastrophic flooding that
happened in the Hill Country, and we want to make
sure that we gave you all the info on that
and the relief efforts and how you could help the
(00:22):
people and Curvella in the surrounding areas that were affected.
And we were talking about that show, and it's an
important one because it dealt with a lot of issues.
Number one, Trump revoking Chinese student visas. You probably heard
about that nowhere else. Also, California reverses policies on transgender
(00:42):
in sports. How that happened, the very important Take It
Down Act. It was important to protect people from revenge
and people putting fake pictures of them online as well.
And finally, the ABA won't have any role in judicial selections.
This is massive, So we decided we're going to let
(01:03):
you hear that show that we never got to put out,
so right now here, it is all right, So let's
dive into this big first topic center and it deals
with what you mentioned earlier, China and Chinese student visas.
There was an interesting number that was thrown out earlier
in the day on TV, and I'm going to quote it.
I'm not sure if it's exactly accurate, but it is,
(01:26):
and that's why I said it was. I saw it
earlier today and I want to prefix that with saying it.
But it said that there were about five hundred American
students that have visas in China and more than two
hundred eighty thousand Chinese students in the US. Is what
was said, Why are we doing so much for Chinese students,
many of them by the way they come in here
that spy and rob of this of our intellectual property,
(01:48):
and the administration tr administration is basically saying, we're trying
to put a stop to this.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Well, what the Trump administration has announced, Secretary of State
Marco Rubio announced that they will begin aggressively revoking the
visas of Chinese students in the United States. China engages
in extensive propaganda and espionage, and they're going to begin
vetting and vetting aggressively whether a particular student seeking a
(02:16):
visa to come to this country has ties to the
Chinese Communist Party. I think this is long overdue and
it's part of a broader effort. They're also engaged with
foreign students that are coming to the United States, examining
their social media history, examining if they have a history
of radicalism. So if you are seeking a student visa
to come to America and you've been public saying I
hate America, I want to destroy America, which sadly we've
(02:40):
seen some of these radical students who've said that, and
nonetheless Joe Biden the Democrats said welcome to America. We
need more people who hate our nation and want to
destroy it. Well, I think the President's exactly right to
stand up and say we're not going to welcome people
to this country who are trying to undermine and destroy
this country. With respect to China, you know the question
(03:02):
of espionage and intellectual property theft that's existed since the
dawn of time. Look, when the first caveman invented the wheel,
I suspect somebody stole his idea and made another wheel.
That that's part of the human condition. What is not
ever before existed is a nation state with massive economic
(03:24):
resources like China, making it a state policy to engage
in the theft of resources. And so I am very
I think it's exactly right that we're going to vigorously
scrutinize those students coming in to make sure that they
are not operating as agents of the Chinese Communist Party. Now,
let me say at the same time, look, part of
(03:44):
the reason you don't get that many Americans going to
China to study is you don't have a whole lot
of folks that want to go to Chinese universities, whereas
people from all over the world want to come to
American universities. And I will say, if you have people
who are not agents of the communist government, we want
the best and brightest in the world coming to America.
We end up having inventions coming here because because the
(04:07):
best and brightest students across the country come and come
and study science and engineering, and they make inventions, and
those inventions in turn fuel American companies and they create
great jobs. And so I think the administration is cutting
the right balance here, which is saying we're going to
stop spies, we're going to stop terrorists. But at the
same time, that doesn't mean that we want to close
(04:29):
our doors entirely to to brilliant physicists and engineers from
around the world being able to come to America and
benefiting from from the fruits of that.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
You know, there's one thing that we mentioned, gosh, there's
probably a little over a year ago on this show
and the podcast that we do. I tell people this
is why you should download Verdict with Ted Cruz. We
do it three days a week. We talked back when
under the Biden Harrison administration there was even warnings coming
from their administration that they're the number one threat to
this country was China and Chinese espionage and influence operations.
(05:04):
That is now a Kumbaya moment with the Trump administration
where in essence two administrations it saw nothing o't eye.
Both agreed on China and what they were trying to
do and stealing an electual property and sending an incredible
number of spies into this country and many of them
come through our university system.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yeah, but the Biden administration did next to nothing to
stop it. So they acknowledged it's a problem, but at
the same time they were complicit in it. And I'll
tell you I have for over a decade been leading
the fight to stop Chinese espionage, to stop Chinese propaganda,
to stop China's malign efforts. I think we need a
(05:45):
comprehensive effort to take on Communist China, much like we
had under Ronald Reagan to win the Cold War against
the Soviet Union. And I'll tell you, Ben, one of
the very first pieces of legislation that I authored and
passed dealt with exactly this, and it dealt with what
are called Confucius institutes. So Confucius institutes were started at
US universities all across America, where there were roughly two
(06:09):
hundred of them, and they were controlled by Communist China.
They were paid for by Communist China, by the government,
and they were used to engage in propaganda and espionage
on campus. I authored legislation and said, if you have
a Confucius institute on campus, you will not get funding
from the federal government, from the Department of Defense. I
passed it into law, and I'll tell you that simple
(06:31):
piece of legislation resulted in over one hundred Confucius institutes
shutting down at universities across the country, shutting down their espionage,
shutting down their propaganda. I think the Trump administration's announcement
is the next step in that very important fight center.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Let's deal with California, and there has been a fight
since the President came in with his executive order on
trying to protect women from men being in their life,
locker rooms, being in their sports beating them up. We
saw it during the Olympics in boxing. We've seen countless
women who their achievements have been taken away from them
(07:09):
on the podium because of men claiming their women, which
is impossible in reality. And California decide they were going
to stand up to Donald Trump and guess what, it
didn't go very well for them.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Well, listen, we've seen the Democrat Party getting more and
more radical ever since Donald Trump took the oath of
office back in twenty seventeen. They hate Trump and they've
gotten more and more extreme on a host of issues.
And one of the poster children for their extreme issues
is embracing boys and girls sports, men and women's sports.
And it is wrong, it is unfair, it invites injury,
(07:45):
and it also deprives both both girls and women of
athletic victories they should have and they've earned. There are
differences between boys and girls. There are differences between men
and women that did not used to be a controversial opposition.
It is only in today's looney tune left that they
can't tell to the difference between men and women. But
(08:06):
I got to tell you, even though in the Senate,
Senate Democrats, all of them continue to defend men in
women's sports and boys and girls' sports, We're seeing the
state of California. We're seeing the Democrats beginning to retreat.
We're seeing Gavin Newsom, the governor who's been a far
left radical governor. He's got ambitions of being president. He's
(08:28):
looking at running in twenty twenty eight, and he's decided, Okay,
we're on the wrong side of an eighty twenty issue.
I want to get the hell away from this. And
so California announced this is a big deal. They're changing
their policy for track and field so that if you're
a biological girl and you got you missed out on
(08:48):
making it to the state championship because you were beaten
by a biological male who claims to be a transgender woman,
then the girl you will still get your slot, You
still get invited to the state championship. Look, that's a
significant step in the right direction, and Gavin Newsom is
embracing it. And I got to say this really illustrates
(09:11):
that at least some Democrats realize, Wow, we are on
the wrong side of an issue that America America wants
to protect girls sports and women's sports. We want to
protect our daughters and we don't want to see them
hurt or competing unfairly. And so the crazy thing is
that means in track and field in California now they
(09:34):
may give three gold medals, one to the boy, one
to the girl, and one to the transgender athlete.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
You may have gold medals all around.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
But for bright blue California to make this concession, it
shows that at least some Democrats realize they are way
on the wrong side of this issue.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
This also, I think is an issue that it's worth
fighting for, and I think many that are listening or saying,
we don't want to give in, and we don't want
to give up, and the pendulum went so far to
the radical left for so many years that this is
the fight that is worth fighting on and fighting over,
and showing California having to change girls track and field
(10:13):
championship roles after the Trump threatens funding over the trans
athletes is just an example of hey, we are and
many times the silent majority, and we need to start
acting like it, especially on these types of issues.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Well, I'll tell you Ben this, this issue is a
powerful issue. And as you know, I ran for reelection
in Texas last year in twenty twenty four. It was
a quarter billion dollar race. I was Chuck Schumer's number
one target and my campaign was the first campaign in
the country last year to put real time and energy
(10:48):
behind this this issue of we're going to protect girls
sports from boys competing, and we put tens of millions
of dollars behind this issue. Well, what's fascinating is the
media completely misunderstood the issue. So one of the things
that my campaign did is we did focus groups in Houston,
Dallas of undecided moderate women to understand what issues moved them,
(11:11):
and we tested thirty thirty five different messages. The number
one issue that moved undecided moderate women in Texas was
boys and girls' sports. And when I started campaigning on it,
it was very funny. The reporters are like, oh, Cruise
is trying to appeal to the crazy right wing, and
I was just laughing at him, and I'm like, you
(11:31):
guys are so clueless. This is not the crazy right wing.
This is soccer moms. This is soccer moms who love
their daughters and we land on this issue. And then
you saw senate races all across the country pick up
the same message because they were seeing the same data
we where we saw President Trump lean in hard on this.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Some of those women that you were talking to, let's
be very clear, had moved from California, because the like,
how many people from California moved to Texas over the
last six years A lot.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
We have over a thousand people a day moving to
the state of Texas, and California is overwhelmingly the heaviest,
the largest state that is sending people to Texas. But
this issue, what's what's fascinating, Ben, is you know, four
years ago this issue did not work politically. You saw
campaigns try to raise it four years ago, and I
(12:24):
think people thought then that that that it was jumping
the shark, that it didn't feel real. Four years ago,
I think people said, oh, come on, that's that's that's
not a real threat. Well, you know what we've now
seen Leah Thomas, the the the the swimmer who who
is a biological man and looks like Michael friggin Phelps Whoo,
who we've also seen. And I think this was really
(12:47):
a seminal moment in the Olympics, the two dudes competing
in women's boxing and beating the hell out of women,
and I think a whole lot of people said, wait,
this is not theoretical. This is happening over and over
and over again. Enough is enough. And I think this
is another milestone that that California is retreating on this
(13:08):
issue shows that that truth and sanity are winning.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, and now the question becomes how much are they
going to be able to fight back through the court
system and is this going to be something that's going
to be, unfortunately an issue for probably years to come.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Well, look, we'll see. And to be honest, California hasn't
conceded altogether. They're still having biological males compete against women,
which is which is unfair. It invites injury. You know,
if you're playing volleyball, We've seen women who have a
biological man spike the ball into their head and they
get injured. I mean, I mean it is California is
still looney Tunes. But the fact that that that that
(13:46):
even the lefty government of California is saying we've gone
too far.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
That's a very positive sign.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Center.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Let's talk about this other incredible moment. Donald Trump signed
to take Down Act into law. It's something that you
championed and remind people what this law is intent and
why it is such an important base of legislation to
protect not only young people and minors, but really anyone
from just evil and hateful revenge from an ex.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Well, this is legislation that I authored that President Trump
signed into law this week. Actually he signed it into
law in the Rose Garden and a big ceremony in
the Rose Garden. I've done a lot of bill signing
ceremonies in the Oval Office. This first time I've been
in the Rose Garden because you had victim groups and
victim advocates and people who have been victims of non
(14:37):
consensual explicit imagery.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Now, what is that?
Speaker 3 (14:40):
That's really two different things. Number one, so called revenge porn.
So if you have a boyfriend and girlfriend and they're
in a relationship and they take explicit pictures or videos
and then they have a breakup and one or the
other is mad and they say okay, I'm gonna stick
it to you. I'm gonna put this out for the
whole world to see. And it is an utterly grotesque
(15:01):
violation of privacy. Nobody has the right to do that
to somebody else. And it's something we're seeing happening more
and more often. There's a second manifestation that is new,
and it has to deal with technology, which is more
and more we are seeing people use AI artificial intelligence
to create deep fakes and deep fakes where they appear
(15:22):
to be either a picture or a video of a
real person, but it's utterly fake. And so they make
and naked or explicit image of someone and put it out.
And the incidence of deep fakes last year increased three
thousand percent, and over ninety percent of the victims of
deep fake explicit imagery are women or teenage girls, and
(15:45):
so it is growing massively. And so the Take It
Down Act is legislation that I introduced that makes it
a crime, a federal felony to post non consensual intimate images,
either real pictures or deep fakes. And secondly, it puts
a federal statutory obligation on tech platforms to take the
(16:06):
pictures down, to take the videos down because the platforms
have been horrible responding to victims. They ignore victims, they
leave the images up, and so the victim ends up
being being victimized over and over and over again by
the images staying out there. And so the Take it
puts a legal obligation that when the victim notifies them,
(16:26):
hey that's me, that's an explicit image of me, and
you don't have my consent to put it up, they
have to take it down. This legislation I introduced with
Amy Klobuchar, Democrat from Minnesota, and we passed it through
the Senate. We passed it unanimously. It was one hundred
and nothing. And then the House took it up and
passed it with an overwhelming bipartisan majority. And President Trump
(16:49):
signed it into law. And give a listen to what
President Trump said this week in the Rose Garden as
he signed the Take It Down Act into law.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Today.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
It's my honor to officially sign the Take It Down
Act to law. It's a big thing, very important, so
horrible what takes place. This will be the first ever
federal law to combat the distribution of explicit imaginary posted
without subjects consent. Take horrible pictures, and I guess sometimes
(17:18):
even make up the pictures and they post it without
consent or anything else. And very importantly, this includes for
forgeries generated by artificial intelligence known as deep fakes. We've
all heard about deep fakes. I have all the time,
but I don't nobody does anything. I asked, Pam, can
you help me, Pam, she says no, I'm too busy,
too busy doing other things. Don't worry. You'll survive. But
(17:39):
a lot of people don't survive. That's true and so horrible.
With the rise of aiimage generation, countless women have been
harassed with deep fakes and other explicit images distributed against
their will. This is the wrong and it's just so
horribly wrong, and it's a very abusive situation, like in
(18:00):
some cases people have never seen before. And today we're
making it totally illegal, Sinner.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
One of the things I just I love about this
legislation is the fact that not only is it bipartisan,
but you had the first Lady who really got involved
in this as well. It was important to her and
that made it I think even easier to bridge the gap.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Well we did.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
The first Lady became very active in pushing this bill,
she reached out out to me and said she wanted
to help get it over the finish line. So last
year we passed it out of the Senate one hundred
to nothing, and the House failed to take it up
last year, so it did not pass last year, and
so we got to this year to the new Congress.
I passed it through the Senate again one hundred to nothing,
(18:43):
and the real battle was to get it to rise
up the priority list of House leadership. And so when
the First Lady called my office and said she wanted
to help, what I did is I invited her to
come to Capitol Hill for a roundtable where she could
hear from the victims.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And also at that roundtable.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Was the Speaker of the House and Steve Scalise, the
Majority Leader, and Brett Guthrie, who's the committee chairman in
the House. And when the First Lady asked them, will
you please pass this into law, they committed to her
they would. And this was the day before the State
of the Union address, And you may remember the State
of the Union address, Milania was sitting with a teenage
(19:26):
girl from Texas, Elliston Barry, and President Trump told her
story in the State of the Union and called on
Congress to pass this bill. And I'll tell you it's
actually it's a fascinating story of how this bill came
to pass because it originates with one teenage girl in Texas,
Elliston Barry. She's from North Texas, from Aledo, Texas, and
(19:49):
a year ago she was fourteen, and she was in
ninth grade and she woke up one morning and her
phone was blowing up with texts from her friends because
a classmate of hers had taken a perfectly innocent picture
of her from social media and had used an app
online that he had found to create a deep fake
(20:11):
and then sent what appeared to be naked pictures of
Elliston to all of her ninth grade classmates. And so
she was in tears. Listen, it is hard to be
a teenager. I'm the father of two teenage girls. I
know the pressure that is on teenage girls. It's much
harder to be a teenager today than when you and
I were teenagers, Ben, and this was just just horrific.
(20:32):
Well what happened is her mom, Anna, Look, Elliston and
Anna are constituents, they're Texans. So Anna picked up the
phone and called my office and said, hey, look you're
my senator, can you help my daughter and my staff.
To their credit, they elevated this to me and they
told me what had happened to Elliston, and this is
(20:53):
happening more and more all over the country. And so
I said, look, let's draft legislation to fix this, to
address the problem.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
And so we did.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
It was it was because of Elliston that we drafted it.
But as I said, it's happening all over the country. Well,
Elliston came to d C the day we announced the
bill last year for the press conference, and I sat
down and met with Elliston. I met with her mom
in my office and in the course of the meeting,
I asked, I said, hey, what happened to the pictures?
(21:23):
And her mom said, it's the most frustrating thing in
the world. She said, this happened nine months ago. She said,
I have been calling an emailing Snapchat over and over
and over again. They just Stone Wallace. We get no response.
Ben I turned to my staff, I said, I want
you to get the CEO of Snapchat on the phone today.
I want those pictures down today. They pulled them down
(21:47):
within two hours. Now it should not take a sitting
senator making a phone call to get those pictures taken down.
And now, as a result of the legislation Trump assigned,
every victim has a statutory right to insist that it
be taken down as a matter of law automatically.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
In fact, Ellison Barry got to go on Fox News
Channel with our good friend Keally Mcananny and talk about
this moment.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
And here's what she had to say.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
Take a listen. But you didn't stop. You decided to
go and talk to your local congressman. You get connected
with the senator, and then you manage there you are
standing behind the President of the United States changing the
laws for other young women like you. Did you ever
think this day would come?
Speaker 6 (22:28):
I never would have thought that this could ever be
in my reality. My mom, she's really an amazing person,
and she's the one that's been pushing for this, and
she's the one that's encouraged me. So I wouldn't be
able to do this without her help and her support,
and she really just has encouraged me to the point
where I feel encouraged about this. So having the opportunity
(22:49):
to speak about this and to bring awareness really just
means so much. Especially it's so much growth, seeing how
scared I was at first, and seeing how confident I
am able in this situation.
Speaker 5 (23:01):
Well, other young women now have recourse thanks to you,
Elliston Berry. So impressive. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
It's finally a happy ending to a really hard and
sad subject.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Well and Ben.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
At the signing ceremony, I was able to introduce Elliston
to the President. I introduced also Francesca Mani, who was
another fifteen year old girl who was in New Jersey
and the exact same thing happened to her as happened
to Elliston. And I also introduced Brandon Guffey. Brandon guffy
is a state rep from South Carolina, and tragically, his
(23:33):
oldest son got what we thought was a direct message
from a cute girl and she convinced him to send
naked pictures to her. Well, it turned out it was
not a cute girl, it was a con man, and
the con man began extorting him and threatening I'm going
to send these naked pictures to your friends and family. Well,
(23:54):
Brandon's son, Gavin, killed himself, and we are seeing suicides
across the country. So I introduced and in his family
the President too. And this law is of victory for
everyone that is a target of this kind of exploitation.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
All right, Senat, So let's dive into this other issue
that really is an interesting one. You've got a lot
to say about the Trump Justice Department telling the American
Bar Association that it will no longer comply with ratings
for judicial nominees. Now, explain the politics behind this. The
(24:28):
ABA has had a lot of power and they're basically
now saying we're not going to let you guys have
that power because there's been a lot of bias coming
out of the American Bar Association.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Well, the American Bar Association, it's a national organization of lawyers,
and it is a left wing advocacy group. It is
not fair, it is not impartial. It is a radical
left organization. And the ABA has had a formal role
in judicial selection for seventy five years. It started reading
(25:00):
judicial nominees in nineteen fifty three, and until two thousand
and one, the ABA actually had a formal role evaluating
judicial nominees before they were nominated. So a president, a
Department of Justice and Administration would would share with the ABA. Hey,
we're thinking of nominating Ben Ferguson to be a federal judge,
(25:22):
and they'd go and research and interview former clients, and
at some point people would say, wait, Ben's not even
a lawyer, How the hell is it going to be
a judge? Like you probably should go to law school first.
And by the way, that point is not crazy. But
they engaged that they would do a formal role and
(25:43):
they would rate the qualifications of judicial nominees. Now here's
the problem. For decades, the ABA's qualification measures were wildly biased. So,
for example, Robert Bork, Robert Borke. Ronald Reagan nominated Robert
Borke to the Supreme Court in nineteen eighty seven. Robert
(26:04):
Bork was by any measure, one of the most qualified
federal judicial nominees in the history of this country. Robert
Bork had been the Solicitor General of the United States,
the chief lawyer for the United States in front of
the Supreme Court of the United States. Robert Bork had
been one of the most renowned and respected law professors
for decades. Robert Bork had been a federal judge on
(26:27):
the US Court of Appeals for the d C Circuit,
and so a remarkable career. And yet the ABA, when
they evaluated Robert Borke, they coned he was quote not
qualified to be a judge. They also concluded the same
thing for Frank Easterbrook. Again, brilliant, brilliant judge, brilliant professor,
one of the greatest judges who have ever served on
(26:49):
the Court of Appeals. Frank Easterbrook, the ABA concluded he
was not qualified.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Also Edith Jones.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Edith Jones is a judge on the Fifth Circuit Federal
Court of Appeals down in Texas. No judge Jones, Well,
she's a phenomenal jurist, one of one of the best
and most conservative judges in the entire country. The a
BA rated her not qualified.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Well.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
The breaking news is this week the Trump Justice Department
announced the a BA will no longer have a role
in judicial selection. They will no longer have a role
in vetting. They're out and and and the Department of
Justice said, you know what, they can chime in like
any other left wing advocacy group, but they don't have
a role in this process.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
This is going to have, like I think, a big
impact on the quality BONDI informing the a b A
that they'll no longer enjoy the special access judicial nominees
and the left. By the way, when that news came out,
they totally freaked out. And I think that also shows
just how much they were depending on the ABA to
get rid of good candidates that were maybe more conservative.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Yeah, and and and so Pambondi sent a letter to
the president of the a B A and and and
she said, quote, while the ABA is free to comment
on judicial nominations along with other activist organizations, there is
no justification for treating the ABA differently from such other
activist organizations, and the Department of Justice will not do so.
(28:14):
And so previously the Office Illegal Policy, which is the
office within the Department of Justice that handles judicial selections,
they changed. They had previously directed judicial nominees to provide
a waiver to the ABA to let the ABA access
non public information, including bar records. And so no longer
(28:38):
is the Department of Justice going to tell judicial nominees
give the ABA special access. That is over and moreover,
Pambondi says, quote. Nominees will also not respond to questionnaires
prepared by the ABA and will not sit for interviews
with the ABA. In other words, you can be like
every other whack job organization on the left, but but
(29:00):
you're not going to have any special access whatsoever. This
is something I've called for a long time. I have
for years, for more than a decade, advocated that the
A B a BA is wildly biased and and it
should it should not have a special role in the process.
And I want to commend President Trump and Pambondy. It's
the right thing to do.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Cinaer. We hear a lot about bias and and biased
against conservatives, But my other question is were they also
biased in advocating for liberals.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Absolutely, they are a hard left advocacy organization masquerading as
a non partisan professional organization. And Joe Biden over the
last four years nominated over and over again radicals and zealots,
many of whom were wildly unqualified, and the ABA was
more than happy to stamp them with a rating of
qualified and and and one example is is Charnette Charnelle
(29:54):
Bagel Congrin, who was wildly unqualified, and yet the ABA
happened deemed her qualified and rather than me layout how
bad she was. I want you to listen to this
cross examination from my colleague John Kennedy to this judicial
nominee and the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Speaker 7 (30:12):
Here give listen, Thank you, mister chairman, and congratulations to
all of you. Judge on the far end, tell me
what article five of the Constitution does.
Speaker 8 (30:29):
Article five is not coming to mind at the moment.
Speaker 7 (30:33):
Okay, how about article two?
Speaker 8 (30:35):
Neither is article two?
Speaker 7 (30:37):
Okay? Do you know what proposivism is?
Speaker 8 (30:41):
In my twelve years as an assistant Attorney General and
my nine years serving as a judge, I was not
faced with that precise question. We are the highest trial
court in Washington State, so I'm frequently faced with issues
that I'm not familiar with, and I thoroughly review the law,
(31:02):
our research, and apply the law to the facts presented
to me.
Speaker 7 (31:06):
Well, you're going to be faced with it as if
you're confirmed. I can assure you of that.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
He was dumbfounded at the end there, like, I can't
believe you don't know this.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Well, And let me underscore how simple the first two
questions are that he asked. So, the Constitution has seven articles.
It's not a very long document. Article five is the
article through that lays out the process for amending the Constitution.
It's fairly basic. That was his opening question. She had
(31:41):
no idea what article five was. Article two is even
more fundamental. So the first three articles the Constitution. Article
one creates the Congress, Article two creates the President and
the executive branch, and Article three creates the Federal Judiciary.
To not know what Article two is is stunning.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
To give you a cent.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
You will flunk constitutional law and not graduate law school
if you don't know what Article two is. She was
being nominated to be what is called an Article three judge.
I assumed she had no idea what Article three was,
and nevertheless the ABA said she's qualified to be an
Article three judge even though she has no idea what
(32:21):
it is. I'm very glad the ABA no longer has
a role in making those determinations.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Center
Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to dial
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 Ben Ferguson podcasts,
and we will see you back here on Monday morning.
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is Verdict with Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you,
and we did a show that had some really important
topics in it a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately, that show
was replaced as we were covering the catastrophic flooding that
happened in the Hill Country, and we want to make
sure that we gave you all the info on that
and the relief efforts and how you could help the
(00:22):
people and Curvella in the surrounding areas that were affected.
And we were talking about that show, and it's an
important one because it dealt with a lot of issues.
Number one, Trump revoking Chinese student visas. You probably heard
about that nowhere else. Also, California reverses policies on transgender
(00:42):
in sports. How that happened, the very important Take It
Down Act. It was important to protect people from revenge
and people putting fake pictures of them online as well.
And finally, the ABA won't have any role in judicial selections.
This is massive, So we decided we're going to let
(01:03):
you hear that show that we never got to put out,
so right now here, it is all right, So let's
dive into this big first topic center and it deals
with what you mentioned earlier, China and Chinese student visas.
There was an interesting number that was thrown out earlier
in the day on TV, and I'm going to quote it.
I'm not sure if it's exactly accurate, but it is,
(01:26):
and that's why I said it was. I saw it
earlier today and I want to prefix that with saying it.
But it said that there were about five hundred American
students that have visas in China and more than two
hundred eighty thousand Chinese students in the US. Is what
was said, Why are we doing so much for Chinese students,
many of them by the way they come in here
that spy and rob of this of our intellectual property,
(01:48):
and the administration tr administration is basically saying, we're trying
to put a stop to this.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Well, what the Trump administration has announced, Secretary of State
Marco Rubio announced that they will begin aggressively revoking the
visas of Chinese students in the United States. China engages
in extensive propaganda and espionage, and they're going to begin
vetting and vetting aggressively whether a particular student seeking a
(02:16):
visa to come to this country has ties to the
Chinese Communist Party. I think this is long overdue and
it's part of a broader effort. They're also engaged with
foreign students that are coming to the United States, examining
their social media history, examining if they have a history
of radicalism. So if you are seeking a student visa
to come to America and you've been public saying I
hate America, I want to destroy America, which sadly we've
(02:40):
seen some of these radical students who've said that, and
nonetheless Joe Biden the Democrats said welcome to America. We
need more people who hate our nation and want to
destroy it. Well, I think the President's exactly right to
stand up and say we're not going to welcome people
to this country who are trying to undermine and destroy
this country. With respect to China, you know the question
(03:02):
of espionage and intellectual property theft that's existed since the
dawn of time. Look, when the first caveman invented the wheel,
I suspect somebody stole his idea and made another wheel.
That that's part of the human condition. What is not
ever before existed is a nation state with massive economic
(03:24):
resources like China, making it a state policy to engage
in the theft of resources. And so I am very
I think it's exactly right that we're going to vigorously
scrutinize those students coming in to make sure that they
are not operating as agents of the Chinese Communist Party. Now,
let me say at the same time, look, part of
(03:44):
the reason you don't get that many Americans going to
China to study is you don't have a whole lot
of folks that want to go to Chinese universities, whereas
people from all over the world want to come to
American universities. And I will say, if you have people
who are not agents of the communist government, we want
the best and brightest in the world coming to America.
We end up having inventions coming here because because the
(04:07):
best and brightest students across the country come and come
and study science and engineering, and they make inventions, and
those inventions in turn fuel American companies and they create
great jobs. And so I think the administration is cutting
the right balance here, which is saying we're going to
stop spies, we're going to stop terrorists. But at the
same time, that doesn't mean that we want to close
(04:29):
our doors entirely to to brilliant physicists and engineers from
around the world being able to come to America and
benefiting from from the fruits of that.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
You know, there's one thing that we mentioned, gosh, there's
probably a little over a year ago on this show
and the podcast that we do. I tell people this
is why you should download Verdict with Ted Cruz. We
do it three days a week. We talked back when
under the Biden Harrison administration there was even warnings coming
from their administration that they're the number one threat to
this country was China and Chinese espionage and influence operations.
(05:04):
That is now a Kumbaya moment with the Trump administration
where in essence two administrations it saw nothing o't eye.
Both agreed on China and what they were trying to
do and stealing an electual property and sending an incredible
number of spies into this country and many of them
come through our university system.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yeah, but the Biden administration did next to nothing to
stop it. So they acknowledged it's a problem, but at
the same time they were complicit in it. And I'll
tell you I have for over a decade been leading
the fight to stop Chinese espionage, to stop Chinese propaganda,
to stop China's malign efforts. I think we need a
(05:45):
comprehensive effort to take on Communist China, much like we
had under Ronald Reagan to win the Cold War against
the Soviet Union. And I'll tell you, Ben, one of
the very first pieces of legislation that I authored and
passed dealt with exactly this, and it dealt with what
are called Confucius institutes. So Confucius institutes were started at
US universities all across America, where there were roughly two
(06:09):
hundred of them, and they were controlled by Communist China.
They were paid for by Communist China, by the government,
and they were used to engage in propaganda and espionage
on campus. I authored legislation and said, if you have
a Confucius institute on campus, you will not get funding
from the federal government, from the Department of Defense. I
passed it into law, and I'll tell you that simple
(06:31):
piece of legislation resulted in over one hundred Confucius institutes
shutting down at universities across the country, shutting down their espionage,
shutting down their propaganda. I think the Trump administration's announcement
is the next step in that very important fight center.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Let's deal with California, and there has been a fight
since the President came in with his executive order on
trying to protect women from men being in their life,
locker rooms, being in their sports beating them up. We
saw it during the Olympics in boxing. We've seen countless
women who their achievements have been taken away from them
(07:09):
on the podium because of men claiming their women, which
is impossible in reality. And California decide they were going
to stand up to Donald Trump and guess what, it
didn't go very well for them.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Well, listen, we've seen the Democrat Party getting more and
more radical ever since Donald Trump took the oath of
office back in twenty seventeen. They hate Trump and they've
gotten more and more extreme on a host of issues.
And one of the poster children for their extreme issues
is embracing boys and girls sports, men and women's sports.
And it is wrong, it is unfair, it invites injury,
(07:45):
and it also deprives both both girls and women of
athletic victories they should have and they've earned. There are
differences between boys and girls. There are differences between men
and women that did not used to be a controversial opposition.
It is only in today's looney tune left that they
can't tell to the difference between men and women. But
(08:06):
I got to tell you, even though in the Senate,
Senate Democrats, all of them continue to defend men in
women's sports and boys and girls' sports, We're seeing the
state of California. We're seeing the Democrats beginning to retreat.
We're seeing Gavin Newsom, the governor who's been a far
left radical governor. He's got ambitions of being president. He's
(08:28):
looking at running in twenty twenty eight, and he's decided, Okay,
we're on the wrong side of an eighty twenty issue.
I want to get the hell away from this. And
so California announced this is a big deal. They're changing
their policy for track and field so that if you're
a biological girl and you got you missed out on
(08:48):
making it to the state championship because you were beaten
by a biological male who claims to be a transgender woman,
then the girl you will still get your slot, You
still get invited to the state championship. Look, that's a
significant step in the right direction, and Gavin Newsom is
embracing it. And I got to say this really illustrates
(09:11):
that at least some Democrats realize, Wow, we are on
the wrong side of an issue that America America wants
to protect girls sports and women's sports. We want to
protect our daughters and we don't want to see them
hurt or competing unfairly. And so the crazy thing is
that means in track and field in California now they
(09:34):
may give three gold medals, one to the boy, one
to the girl, and one to the transgender athlete.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
You may have gold medals all around.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
But for bright blue California to make this concession, it
shows that at least some Democrats realize they are way
on the wrong side of this issue.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
This also, I think is an issue that it's worth
fighting for, and I think many that are listening or saying,
we don't want to give in, and we don't want
to give up, and the pendulum went so far to
the radical left for so many years that this is
the fight that is worth fighting on and fighting over,
and showing California having to change girls track and field
(10:13):
championship roles after the Trump threatens funding over the trans
athletes is just an example of hey, we are and
many times the silent majority, and we need to start
acting like it, especially on these types of issues.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Well, I'll tell you Ben this, this issue is a
powerful issue. And as you know, I ran for reelection
in Texas last year in twenty twenty four. It was
a quarter billion dollar race. I was Chuck Schumer's number
one target and my campaign was the first campaign in
the country last year to put real time and energy
(10:48):
behind this this issue of we're going to protect girls
sports from boys competing, and we put tens of millions
of dollars behind this issue. Well, what's fascinating is the
media completely misunderstood the issue. So one of the things
that my campaign did is we did focus groups in Houston,
Dallas of undecided moderate women to understand what issues moved them,
(11:11):
and we tested thirty thirty five different messages. The number
one issue that moved undecided moderate women in Texas was
boys and girls' sports. And when I started campaigning on it,
it was very funny. The reporters are like, oh, Cruise
is trying to appeal to the crazy right wing, and
I was just laughing at him, and I'm like, you
(11:31):
guys are so clueless. This is not the crazy right wing.
This is soccer moms. This is soccer moms who love
their daughters and we land on this issue. And then
you saw senate races all across the country pick up
the same message because they were seeing the same data
we where we saw President Trump lean in hard on this.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Some of those women that you were talking to, let's
be very clear, had moved from California, because the like,
how many people from California moved to Texas over the
last six years A lot.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
We have over a thousand people a day moving to
the state of Texas, and California is overwhelmingly the heaviest,
the largest state that is sending people to Texas. But
this issue, what's what's fascinating, Ben, is you know, four
years ago this issue did not work politically. You saw
campaigns try to raise it four years ago, and I
(12:24):
think people thought then that that that it was jumping
the shark, that it didn't feel real. Four years ago,
I think people said, oh, come on, that's that's that's
not a real threat. Well, you know what we've now
seen Leah Thomas, the the the the swimmer who who
is a biological man and looks like Michael friggin Phelps Whoo,
who we've also seen. And I think this was really
(12:47):
a seminal moment in the Olympics, the two dudes competing
in women's boxing and beating the hell out of women,
and I think a whole lot of people said, wait,
this is not theoretical. This is happening over and over
and over again. Enough is enough. And I think this
is another milestone that that California is retreating on this
(13:08):
issue shows that that truth and sanity are winning.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, and now the question becomes how much are they
going to be able to fight back through the court
system and is this going to be something that's going
to be, unfortunately an issue for probably years to come.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Well, look, we'll see. And to be honest, California hasn't
conceded altogether. They're still having biological males compete against women,
which is which is unfair. It invites injury. You know,
if you're playing volleyball, We've seen women who have a
biological man spike the ball into their head and they
get injured. I mean, I mean it is California is
still looney Tunes. But the fact that that that that
(13:46):
even the lefty government of California is saying we've gone
too far.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
That's a very positive sign.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Center.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Let's talk about this other incredible moment. Donald Trump signed
to take Down Act into law. It's something that you
championed and remind people what this law is intent and
why it is such an important base of legislation to
protect not only young people and minors, but really anyone
from just evil and hateful revenge from an ex.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
Well, this is legislation that I authored that President Trump
signed into law this week. Actually he signed it into
law in the Rose Garden and a big ceremony in
the Rose Garden. I've done a lot of bill signing
ceremonies in the Oval Office. This first time I've been
in the Rose Garden because you had victim groups and
victim advocates and people who have been victims of non
(14:37):
consensual explicit imagery.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Now, what is that?
Speaker 3 (14:40):
That's really two different things. Number one, so called revenge porn.
So if you have a boyfriend and girlfriend and they're
in a relationship and they take explicit pictures or videos
and then they have a breakup and one or the
other is mad and they say okay, I'm gonna stick
it to you. I'm gonna put this out for the
whole world to see. And it is an utterly grotesque
(15:01):
violation of privacy. Nobody has the right to do that
to somebody else. And it's something we're seeing happening more
and more often. There's a second manifestation that is new,
and it has to deal with technology, which is more
and more we are seeing people use AI artificial intelligence
to create deep fakes and deep fakes where they appear
(15:22):
to be either a picture or a video of a
real person, but it's utterly fake. And so they make
and naked or explicit image of someone and put it out.
And the incidence of deep fakes last year increased three
thousand percent, and over ninety percent of the victims of
deep fake explicit imagery are women or teenage girls, and
(15:45):
so it is growing massively. And so the Take It
Down Act is legislation that I introduced that makes it
a crime, a federal felony to post non consensual intimate images,
either real pictures or deep fakes. And secondly, it puts
a federal statutory obligation on tech platforms to take the
(16:06):
pictures down, to take the videos down because the platforms
have been horrible responding to victims. They ignore victims, they
leave the images up, and so the victim ends up
being being victimized over and over and over again by
the images staying out there. And so the Take it
puts a legal obligation that when the victim notifies them,
(16:26):
hey that's me, that's an explicit image of me, and
you don't have my consent to put it up, they
have to take it down. This legislation I introduced with
Amy Klobuchar, Democrat from Minnesota, and we passed it through
the Senate. We passed it unanimously. It was one hundred
and nothing. And then the House took it up and
passed it with an overwhelming bipartisan majority. And President Trump
(16:49):
signed it into law. And give a listen to what
President Trump said this week in the Rose Garden as
he signed the Take It Down Act into law.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Today.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
It's my honor to officially sign the Take It Down
Act to law. It's a big thing, very important, so
horrible what takes place. This will be the first ever
federal law to combat the distribution of explicit imaginary posted
without subjects consent. Take horrible pictures, and I guess sometimes
(17:18):
even make up the pictures and they post it without
consent or anything else. And very importantly, this includes for
forgeries generated by artificial intelligence known as deep fakes. We've
all heard about deep fakes. I have all the time,
but I don't nobody does anything. I asked, Pam, can
you help me, Pam, she says no, I'm too busy,
too busy doing other things. Don't worry. You'll survive. But
(17:39):
a lot of people don't survive. That's true and so horrible.
With the rise of aiimage generation, countless women have been
harassed with deep fakes and other explicit images distributed against
their will. This is the wrong and it's just so
horribly wrong, and it's a very abusive situation, like in
(18:00):
some cases people have never seen before. And today we're
making it totally illegal, Sinner.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
One of the things I just I love about this
legislation is the fact that not only is it bipartisan,
but you had the first Lady who really got involved
in this as well. It was important to her and
that made it I think even easier to bridge the gap.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Well we did.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
The first Lady became very active in pushing this bill,
she reached out out to me and said she wanted
to help get it over the finish line. So last
year we passed it out of the Senate one hundred
to nothing, and the House failed to take it up
last year, so it did not pass last year, and
so we got to this year to the new Congress.
I passed it through the Senate again one hundred to nothing,
(18:43):
and the real battle was to get it to rise
up the priority list of House leadership. And so when
the First Lady called my office and said she wanted
to help, what I did is I invited her to
come to Capitol Hill for a roundtable where she could
hear from the victims.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And also at that roundtable.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Was the Speaker of the House and Steve Scalise, the
Majority Leader, and Brett Guthrie, who's the committee chairman in
the House. And when the First Lady asked them, will
you please pass this into law, they committed to her
they would. And this was the day before the State
of the Union address, And you may remember the State
of the Union address, Milania was sitting with a teenage
(19:26):
girl from Texas, Elliston Barry, and President Trump told her
story in the State of the Union and called on
Congress to pass this bill. And I'll tell you it's
actually it's a fascinating story of how this bill came
to pass because it originates with one teenage girl in Texas,
Elliston Barry. She's from North Texas, from Aledo, Texas, and
(19:49):
a year ago she was fourteen, and she was in
ninth grade and she woke up one morning and her
phone was blowing up with texts from her friends because
a classmate of hers had taken a perfectly innocent picture
of her from social media and had used an app
online that he had found to create a deep fake
(20:11):
and then sent what appeared to be naked pictures of
Elliston to all of her ninth grade classmates. And so
she was in tears. Listen, it is hard to be
a teenager. I'm the father of two teenage girls. I
know the pressure that is on teenage girls. It's much
harder to be a teenager today than when you and
I were teenagers, Ben, and this was just just horrific.
(20:32):
Well what happened is her mom, Anna, Look, Elliston and
Anna are constituents, they're Texans. So Anna picked up the
phone and called my office and said, hey, look you're
my senator, can you help my daughter and my staff.
To their credit, they elevated this to me and they
told me what had happened to Elliston, and this is
(20:53):
happening more and more all over the country. And so
I said, look, let's draft legislation to fix this, to
address the problem.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
And so we did.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
It was it was because of Elliston that we drafted it.
But as I said, it's happening all over the country. Well,
Elliston came to d C the day we announced the
bill last year for the press conference, and I sat
down and met with Elliston. I met with her mom
in my office and in the course of the meeting,
I asked, I said, hey, what happened to the pictures?
(21:23):
And her mom said, it's the most frustrating thing in
the world. She said, this happened nine months ago. She said,
I have been calling an emailing Snapchat over and over
and over again. They just Stone Wallace. We get no response.
Ben I turned to my staff, I said, I want
you to get the CEO of Snapchat on the phone today.
I want those pictures down today. They pulled them down
(21:47):
within two hours. Now it should not take a sitting
senator making a phone call to get those pictures taken down.
And now, as a result of the legislation Trump assigned,
every victim has a statutory right to insist that it
be taken down as a matter of law automatically.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
In fact, Ellison Barry got to go on Fox News
Channel with our good friend Keally Mcananny and talk about
this moment.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
And here's what she had to say.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
Take a listen. But you didn't stop. You decided to
go and talk to your local congressman. You get connected
with the senator, and then you manage there you are
standing behind the President of the United States changing the
laws for other young women like you. Did you ever
think this day would come?
Speaker 6 (22:28):
I never would have thought that this could ever be
in my reality. My mom, she's really an amazing person,
and she's the one that's been pushing for this, and
she's the one that's encouraged me. So I wouldn't be
able to do this without her help and her support,
and she really just has encouraged me to the point
where I feel encouraged about this. So having the opportunity
(22:49):
to speak about this and to bring awareness really just
means so much. Especially it's so much growth, seeing how
scared I was at first, and seeing how confident I
am able in this situation.
Speaker 5 (23:01):
Well, other young women now have recourse thanks to you,
Elliston Berry. So impressive. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
It's finally a happy ending to a really hard and
sad subject.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Well and Ben.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
At the signing ceremony, I was able to introduce Elliston
to the President. I introduced also Francesca Mani, who was
another fifteen year old girl who was in New Jersey
and the exact same thing happened to her as happened
to Elliston. And I also introduced Brandon Guffey. Brandon guffy
is a state rep from South Carolina, and tragically, his
(23:33):
oldest son got what we thought was a direct message
from a cute girl and she convinced him to send
naked pictures to her. Well, it turned out it was
not a cute girl, it was a con man, and
the con man began extorting him and threatening I'm going
to send these naked pictures to your friends and family. Well,
(23:54):
Brandon's son, Gavin, killed himself, and we are seeing suicides
across the country. So I introduced and in his family
the President too. And this law is of victory for
everyone that is a target of this kind of exploitation.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
All right, Senat, So let's dive into this other issue
that really is an interesting one. You've got a lot
to say about the Trump Justice Department telling the American
Bar Association that it will no longer comply with ratings
for judicial nominees. Now, explain the politics behind this. The
(24:28):
ABA has had a lot of power and they're basically
now saying we're not going to let you guys have
that power because there's been a lot of bias coming
out of the American Bar Association.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Well, the American Bar Association, it's a national organization of lawyers,
and it is a left wing advocacy group. It is
not fair, it is not impartial. It is a radical
left organization. And the ABA has had a formal role
in judicial selection for seventy five years. It started reading
(25:00):
judicial nominees in nineteen fifty three, and until two thousand
and one, the ABA actually had a formal role evaluating
judicial nominees before they were nominated. So a president, a
Department of Justice and Administration would would share with the ABA. Hey,
we're thinking of nominating Ben Ferguson to be a federal judge,
(25:22):
and they'd go and research and interview former clients, and
at some point people would say, wait, Ben's not even
a lawyer, How the hell is it going to be
a judge? Like you probably should go to law school first.
And by the way, that point is not crazy. But
they engaged that they would do a formal role and
(25:43):
they would rate the qualifications of judicial nominees. Now here's
the problem. For decades, the ABA's qualification measures were wildly biased. So,
for example, Robert Bork, Robert Borke. Ronald Reagan nominated Robert
Borke to the Supreme Court in nineteen eighty seven. Robert
(26:04):
Bork was by any measure, one of the most qualified
federal judicial nominees in the history of this country. Robert
Bork had been the Solicitor General of the United States,
the chief lawyer for the United States in front of
the Supreme Court of the United States. Robert Bork had
been one of the most renowned and respected law professors
for decades. Robert Bork had been a federal judge on
(26:27):
the US Court of Appeals for the d C Circuit,
and so a remarkable career. And yet the ABA, when
they evaluated Robert Borke, they coned he was quote not
qualified to be a judge. They also concluded the same
thing for Frank Easterbrook. Again, brilliant, brilliant judge, brilliant professor,
one of the greatest judges who have ever served on
(26:49):
the Court of Appeals. Frank Easterbrook, the ABA concluded he
was not qualified.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Also Edith Jones.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Edith Jones is a judge on the Fifth Circuit Federal
Court of Appeals down in Texas. No judge Jones, Well,
she's a phenomenal jurist, one of one of the best
and most conservative judges in the entire country. The a
BA rated her not qualified.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Well.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
The breaking news is this week the Trump Justice Department
announced the a BA will no longer have a role
in judicial selection. They will no longer have a role
in vetting. They're out and and and the Department of
Justice said, you know what, they can chime in like
any other left wing advocacy group, but they don't have
a role in this process.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
This is going to have, like I think, a big
impact on the quality BONDI informing the a b A
that they'll no longer enjoy the special access judicial nominees
and the left. By the way, when that news came out,
they totally freaked out. And I think that also shows
just how much they were depending on the ABA to
get rid of good candidates that were maybe more conservative.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Yeah, and and and so Pambondi sent a letter to
the president of the a B A and and and
she said, quote, while the ABA is free to comment
on judicial nominations along with other activist organizations, there is
no justification for treating the ABA differently from such other
activist organizations, and the Department of Justice will not do so.
(28:14):
And so previously the Office Illegal Policy, which is the
office within the Department of Justice that handles judicial selections,
they changed. They had previously directed judicial nominees to provide
a waiver to the ABA to let the ABA access
non public information, including bar records. And so no longer
(28:38):
is the Department of Justice going to tell judicial nominees
give the ABA special access. That is over and moreover,
Pambondi says, quote. Nominees will also not respond to questionnaires
prepared by the ABA and will not sit for interviews
with the ABA. In other words, you can be like
every other whack job organization on the left, but but
(29:00):
you're not going to have any special access whatsoever. This
is something I've called for a long time. I have
for years, for more than a decade, advocated that the
A B a BA is wildly biased and and it
should it should not have a special role in the process.
And I want to commend President Trump and Pambondy. It's
the right thing to do.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Cinaer. We hear a lot about bias and and biased
against conservatives, But my other question is were they also
biased in advocating for liberals.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Absolutely, they are a hard left advocacy organization masquerading as
a non partisan professional organization. And Joe Biden over the
last four years nominated over and over again radicals and zealots,
many of whom were wildly unqualified, and the ABA was
more than happy to stamp them with a rating of
qualified and and and one example is is Charnette Charnelle
(29:54):
Bagel Congrin, who was wildly unqualified, and yet the ABA
happened deemed her qualified and rather than me layout how
bad she was. I want you to listen to this
cross examination from my colleague John Kennedy to this judicial
nominee and the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Speaker 7 (30:12):
Here give listen, Thank you, mister chairman, and congratulations to
all of you. Judge on the far end, tell me
what article five of the Constitution does.
Speaker 8 (30:29):
Article five is not coming to mind at the moment.
Speaker 7 (30:33):
Okay, how about article two?
Speaker 8 (30:35):
Neither is article two?
Speaker 7 (30:37):
Okay? Do you know what proposivism is?
Speaker 8 (30:41):
In my twelve years as an assistant Attorney General and
my nine years serving as a judge, I was not
faced with that precise question. We are the highest trial
court in Washington State, so I'm frequently faced with issues
that I'm not familiar with, and I thoroughly review the law,
(31:02):
our research, and apply the law to the facts presented
to me.
Speaker 7 (31:06):
Well, you're going to be faced with it as if
you're confirmed. I can assure you of that.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
He was dumbfounded at the end there, like, I can't
believe you don't know this.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Well, And let me underscore how simple the first two
questions are that he asked. So, the Constitution has seven articles.
It's not a very long document. Article five is the
article through that lays out the process for amending the Constitution.
It's fairly basic. That was his opening question. She had
(31:41):
no idea what article five was. Article two is even
more fundamental. So the first three articles the Constitution. Article
one creates the Congress, Article two creates the President and
the executive branch, and Article three creates the Federal Judiciary.
To not know what Article two is is stunning.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
To give you a cent.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
You will flunk constitutional law and not graduate law school
if you don't know what Article two is. She was
being nominated to be what is called an Article three judge.
I assumed she had no idea what Article three was,
and nevertheless the ABA said she's qualified to be an
Article three judge even though she has no idea what
(32:21):
it is. I'm very glad the ABA no longer has
a role in making those determinations.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Center
Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to dial
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 Ben Ferguson podcasts,
and we will see you back here on Monday morning.
Host
Ben Ferguson
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