March 13, 2026 • 36 mins
FOUR Terror Attacks in Ten Days—And Still Democrats Refuse to Fund DHS
In one of the most urgent, sobering, and high‑stakes episodes of Verdict with Ted Cruz this year, Senator Ted Cruz and co‑host Ben Ferguson break down a reality that should shake Washington to its core: four radical Islamic terror attacks in just ten days on U.S. soil—at the exact moment Senate Democrats continue voting to defund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
This episode is a warning flare, a deep dive, and a call to wake up—all in one. For longtime Verdict listeners, it offers the rigorous analysis you expect from Senator Cruz, paired with the kind of blunt, real‑world commentary Ben delivers better than anyone. But even for seasoned followers of national security issues, the facts outlined in this conversation hit different.
Because this time, the danger isn’t theoretical.
This time, Americans are already dead.
A Nation Under Threat: Four Attacks in Ten Days
Senator Cruz begins the show by laying out the undeniable reality: America is in an extraordinarily dangerous moment. While the world watches instability flare across the Middle East, radical Islamic clerics have issued fatwas calling for attacks on Americans. And here at home, the consequences of the Biden administration’s open‑border agenda have started to unfold in deadly ways.
Over the past decade, Americans have seen terror plots emerge periodically—but rarely have we seen a cluster like this:
1. A Radicalized Shooter in Austin, Texas
An illegal immigrant walked onto Austin’s iconic Sixth Street wearing a “Property of Allah” sweatshirt, carrying weapons, and armed with a Quran and an Iranian flag. He opened fire at random, attempting to murder innocent Americans enjoying a night out.
2. Two ISIS‑Inspired Teens Attempt Bombings in New York
Two teenagers from Pennsylvania traveled to New York with homemade explosive devices packed with nails, screws, and bolts—designed explicitly for maximum casualties. Inspired by ISIS, they told investigators their goal was to kill more people than died in the Boston Marathon bombing. Thankfully for New Yorkers, the bombs failed to detonate.
3. A Vehicle Attack on a Michigan Synagogue and School
A radical Islamic terrorist drove his vehicle into a synagogue that also housed a preschool. With 140 children nearby, the situation could easily have been catastrophic. Only the bravery of an on‑site security guard prevented a mass casualty event.
4. A Released ISIS Supporter Attacks ROTC Students in Old Dominion
Perhaps the most enraging example: a terrorist convicted for providing material support to ISIS—released early under the Biden administration—entered a university classroom, asked for ROTC students by name, and then opened fire. A courageous student armed with a knife ended the attack before dozens could be killed.
Senator Cruz highlights that all four attacks share a common thread: every single one was committed by radical Islamic terrorists—several of whom were here because of the Biden administration’s catastrophic border policies.
The Border Crisis: A Gateway for Terrorists
The hosts then lay out the jaw‑dropping border numbers the mainstream media refuses to touch.
During the four years of President Trump’s administration, the number of individuals on the terror watch list caught crossing the southern border remained tiny—just a handful per year.
Then Joe Biden took office.
- 2021: 15
- 2022: 98
- 2023: 169
- 2024: More than 100 and climbing rapidly
And those staggering numbers don’t include the estimated two million “got-aways”—illegal immigrants detected but never apprehended. As Senator Cruz explains, these are overwhelmingly the most dangerous border crossers: criminals, gang members, violent offenders… and terrorists.
Under Biden, Border Patrol agents were explicitly warned to watch for potential infiltrators from Hamas, Hezbollah, and Pa
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is Verdic with Center Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you,
and if you're listening to us on radio stations across
the country, it's so nice to have you with us. Reminder,
if you're listening to this radio show, it's a podcast
that we do three days a week, So download Verdict
with Ted Cruz wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Centater.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
We've got a lot to talk about on today's show,
especially in light of these most recent terrorist attacks happening
right here in the United States of America.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Well, Ben, you're right, we're sitting here today in an
extraordinarily dangerous time. In the last ten days, we've had
four separate terror attacks, all carried out by radical Islamic terrorists,
all targeting Americans, seeking to kill Americans, and all at
a time when there's a military conflict in the Middle
East that is unfolding as we speak, and when we
(00:48):
have multiple radical Islamic clerics who've issued fatwaws calling on
terrorists to murder Americans. Understand that we went through four
years of Joe Biden with a why open border. Twelve
million illegal immigrants came into this country, including thousands of terrorists,
we had four years of basically a red carpet inviting
(01:10):
Hamas terrorists, inviting Hesbala terrorists, inviting Iranian terrorists come to America.
And we've now seen in less than two weeks, four
separate terror attacks. And I'll tell you that the part
of this that just makes your brain explode is the
Democrats in the Senate keep voting over and over and
(01:33):
over again to defund the Department of Homeland Security. Now, now,
what is the Department of Homeland Security. DHS was created
after September eleventh, and the entire purpose of DHS is
to prevent terrorist attacks, and the Democrats keep voting over
and over and over again not to pay the people
(01:53):
at DHS to defund it. This is dangerous, and Ben,
I want to be very serious. I am deeply concerned
that we could be on the precipice of a major
terrorist attack. Not a terrorist attack that kills one, two
or three people, but a terrorist attack that kills hundreds
or even thousands of people. And the agency whose responsibility
(02:16):
day in and day out is stop the terrorists before
they kill Americans, the Democrats have defunded. The media is
ignoring it, and the Democrats have said they feel quote
unquote serene about shutting down the Department of Homeland Security,
even in this greatly heightened threat environment.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
It really is incredible.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
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(02:57):
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Speaker 2 (04:00):
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r u f F g R e e n s
dot com. Promo code verdict. Senator, you mentioned that they
seem to have no problem shutting down specifically the Department
(04:44):
of Home and Security.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
We're talking about the Democrats here.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I want you to walk us through what it was
like on Thursday, because just my gut instinct was before
you guys left town for the week of work that
was done, they would be sensible enough seeing these attacks
to say we've got it. We've got we can't have
this political liability on ICE. It's going to come back
on us if there is a major tears attack because
(05:08):
we're the ones that have shut down the Department of
hogand Security. Were any of your colleagues willing to like
share that with their other colleagues and the Democratic side
the isle, like, hey, guys, this is a bad look.
We do not need to be playing this political game
right now.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Look if they are, I don't see it at all.
We voted again on Thursday to fund the Department of
Homeland Security. Every Republican voted to fund DHS. Every single
Democrat except John Fetterman once again voted no shut down DHS.
And understand by the way, they claim they're doing it
(05:43):
because they hate ICE. Yeah, because they want reforms and Ice.
Here's the amazing thing. Do you know what they haven't
defunded Ice?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Ice is actually funded because when we took up the
Working Families tax cut last year, the big reconciliation bill,
we knew the Democrats were going to be open border radicals,
and so we funded ICE through through the year. So
ICE is fully funded, like all of their antics are
not taking a penny from ICE agents. ICE is fully funded.
(06:14):
So they are shutting down the remainder of DHS. They're
shutting down the Coast Guard and not paying Coastguard men
and women that they're shutting down TSA. Look, we are
seeing lines at airports. Houston Hobby Airport last week there
were lines four hours long people heading out to spring break.
(06:37):
Can you imagine how pissed off you'd be you take
your family to the airport, your kids are there. Let's
say you're super, super uptight, you get to the airport
an hour and a half ahead of time. You should
be there an hour ahead of time, but you're really uptight.
You're there an hour and a half ahead of time,
and you miss your plane by two and a half
hours because the TSA line is four hours. Look, I'll
(06:59):
tell tell you what I go through. And I'm on
a plane every week, multiple times a week. As i
go through and see the TSA agents, I'm trying to
make it a point to stop. I do this regularly anyway,
but especially now to say to them, thank you. Yeah,
And I gotta say, those men and women are coming
into work with no paycheck. And by the way, look
TSA agents are not rich. No, many of them are
(07:23):
living paycheck to paycheck. You know what hasn't come their paycheck.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
And so a bunch of them, a lot of them
is uber and lyft drivers and other part time jobs
because they need their cash.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
And at some points we're going to see more and
more of them say all right, this job is not
for me. I can't be in a job that doesn't
pay a paycheck. I'm done. And that is happening. So
you've got TSA agents not being paid, Coast guardsmen not
being paid, FEMA officials, those in charge of dealing with
natural disasters not being paid, and then thousands of just
(07:54):
employees at the Department of Homeland Security, employees charge with
monitoring terrorists, with stopping terrorist attacks. And the Democrats are
not only not paying them. I want to quote Brian
shots Brian Shotts is a Democrat from Hawaii. He is
widely seen as the Democrat leader in waiting. I think
Chuck Schumer cannot win another election. The Democrats will primary
(08:16):
him either AOC or Mandami will beat him in a primary.
In fact, I think Schumer won't even run. Brian Schotz
has seen as the next Democrat leader. Let me give
you shots this quote this week, he said, Democrats are
quote very serene with what is going on concerning DHS.
Why because the media won't hold them to account, so
(08:38):
they don't mind shutting down the agency stopping terror attacks
even after we've had four radical Islamic terror attacks in
ten day center.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
One of the things that I think it's important that
we go back and give a stat to and I
was looking this up earlier, but when Donald Trump became
president in twenty seventeen, you had two people on the
terrorists watch list that came across this Southern board that
we caught. Now we don't know how many got across
that we didn't catch. Godaways in twenty eighteen there were six,
and twenty nineteen apparently there was zero.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
In twenty twenty there was three.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Now you look at those numbers, that's pretty good when
it comes to board security. We watched when Biden came
in office twenty or fifteen in twenty twenty one, then
it skyrocketed to ninety eight in twenty twenty two, one
hundred and sixty nine and twenty twenty three, and then
well over one hundred encounters in twenty twenty four. I
(09:30):
give that number because this goes back to the terrorist
threat we have.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Now, there's concerns of sleeper sales.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
There's concerns of people that came across the southern border
that were terrafts. They're on the Terrafts watch list, that
were never caught there, the Godaways. But what we do
know is when they open the southern border and let
anyone come in. I go back to that famous moment
in video where that forkliff lifted up the bob wire
and the fencing in Texas and we saw all of
(09:58):
those people come across the border. The federal government did that,
and now we're faced with all these terrorist attacks, and
there's terror. There's Americans that are concerned just like me,
who's in this country that we don't know about.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Look Ben for good reason. And by the way, those
numbers vastly underestimated because they do not include the roughly
two million what are called godaways that enter under the
Biden administration. The Godaways are the people that we saw
signs they were there, but border patrol did not encounter them,
and so we don't know the details. And the god
aways are much much more likely to be criminals. They're
(10:31):
much more likely to be murderers or rapists or child molesters,
and they're much more likely to be terrorists. During the
Biden administration, CBP issued a warning to its agents beyond
the guard for Hamas terrorists, Hesbela terrists, Palestinian Islamic Jehad terrorists.
And yet they continued these open border policies. And understand,
(10:52):
the open border policies were a choice. We now know
that for a fact, although regular listeners of a verdict
knew that at the time. How do we know that?
Because the instant Donald Trump came back into office, the
illegal border crossings dropped ninety nine percent. Joe Biden, the
Democrats said, gosh, we got to pass different legislation. No, no,
you didn't. You just needed to have a president who
would follow the law, who would actually enforce the law.
(11:13):
And I want to break down the four terror attacks
because they all have similarities. They were carried out by
radical Islamic terrorists. They were targeting Americans. It started in Austin,
Texas with a legal immigrant who had come to the
United States who showed up in Austin wearing a shirt
(11:35):
that a sweatshirt that said property of Allah, wearing a
shirt underneath it with an Iranian flag, had a Quran
in his car and with a rifle and pistol. He
just opened fire randomly at people in a bar at
two am in Austin on Sixth Street. That was the
first terror attack we saw a week and a half ago.
(11:57):
The second terror attack we saw was two Muslim teenagers
from Pennsylvania who came to New York. Came to New
York with homemade bombs. They said that they were inspired
by ISIS. They threw those bombs outside at a protest
that was happening outside Marimondami's residence. The bombs were filled
(12:21):
with nails and screws and bolts. They were designed to
be anti personnel bombs. Fortunately, these terrorists were not very
smart terrorists. They didn't know how to make a bomb
that actually went off, so the bombs they threw did
not explode. But they told law enforcement that their goal
was to kill more people than the Boston marathon bomber
had killed. They said they only killed three people. And
(12:43):
these guys wanted to kill a lot more. And then
we saw, just in the last couple of days, we
saw the deranged radical Islamic terrorists who drove drove his
vehicle into a Michigan synagogue. And that synagogue, understand, was
a preschool and school. There were one hundred and forty
kids right there next to where he came in. And
(13:04):
if you didn't have a brave security guard that took
out took out the deranged terrorist, you could have had
one hundred more kids killed. And then you had an
Old Dominion on other deranged terrorists. And to be clear,
this terrorist had been imprisoned, yes, for giving material support
(13:24):
to ISIS, and yet he was released from federal prison
under Joe Biden. Let me give you a little bit
of the background on the Old Dominion terrorist. He was
born in Sierra Leone. He became a naturalized US citizen.
He was radicalized by al Kaeda. He was convicted for
(13:44):
providing material support to ISIS. He was sentenced to eleven
years in prison, and then he was released from prison
early under Joe Biden. And he walked into an Old
Dominion classroom and he asked the people there, he said, hey,
are y'all. Rotzi, he was looking four in particular US
military to murder. Yeah, they said yes, and he opened fire.
(14:07):
And just like what happened in Michigan, you had a
Rozzi student who stood up and stabbed him, had a
knife on him, stabbed him and took him out. Many
more students and or Rotzi soon to be soldiers, could
have been murdered if you had not had one brave
student step up and stop him. All three of these,
(14:30):
all four of these rather share striking patterns, and this
is exactly what DHS is designed.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Stop Yeah, I mean you will get DHS. And I
go back to this funding fight.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
How long is it going to take for Democrats to
get their head out of their abs on this one?
And I say this with fear, Senator, I want to
be very clear about that. Does it take a tragic,
bigger event for them to then wake up and say okay,
because you've had four in a week and a half
and that didn't shake them to do the right thing
(15:04):
on Thursday, all because the obsessed with going against ICE,
and you said it earlier. ICE has already been fully
funded for the year, So that's not what they're actually
doing here. It's almost as if they I mean, at
this point, I'm like, are you guys helping the terrorists
more than the American people be safe?
Speaker 1 (15:19):
I look out and say, yes, that's what you're doing.
You're helping them.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Ben. Let me tell you why they feel serene. They
feel serene because nobody holds them to account. They feel
serene because number one, they're left wing activists, don't care.
They live in a bubble where everything is orange man bad,
everything is attacking Trump. But number two, the press is
fundamentally broken. The reason the Democrats are to use their
(15:44):
own words serene is they know, no matter how many
terror attacks occur while they've shut down DHS, the press
will never hold them to account. So, for example, here's
what CNN tweeted out about the two terrorists who threw
through bombs in New York City, seeking to kill as
many people as possible. See Ann tweeted out the following quote.
(16:06):
Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City Saturday morning
for what could have been a normal day, enjoying the
city during abnormally warm weather. But in less than an hour,
their lives would dramat drastically changes. The pair would be
arrested for throwing homemade bombs during an anti Muslim protest
outside Mayor zo Ron Mandami's home. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Having just come back from Israel, I want to paint
you a picture. It's midnight, sirens are blaring and you
have only seconds to grab your child and run. Now
imagine your elderly. Your legs don't work like they used to.
Getting downstairs feels impossible, and after all of that, you
end up in a bomb shelter for hours, even days,
(16:51):
because you can't make the trek again. This is what's
happening across Israel as Operation Epic Fury continues. Are being traumatized,
families are just exhausted, and homes have been destroyed. And
that's why the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is
there on the ground, bringing food, emergency equipment, care for
(17:14):
those children, and help for the elderly, and supplying the
bomb shelters and medical centers for critically needed essentials. If
you've ever wondered what it looks like to stand for
Israel and stand for good against evil, this is it.
And that's why I'm asking to now please act, give
forty five dollars right now to rush life saving essentials
(17:35):
to the vulnerables under fire. You can also call eight
eight eight for eight eight IFCJ. That's eight eight eight
for eight eight IFCJ join me and give and make
a real difference online at IFCJ dot org.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
That's IFCJ dot org. Senator.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
We're talking about these tarist tax and I want to
go back to the DHS funding aspect of this, and
you mentioned it before the break a moment ago, the
Department of Home Land Security not being funded and these
four terarist attacks in a normal world with the normal
media would be front page news and they'd be running
up and they'd be sticking a microphone in front of
the face of the people that voted no to funding DHS.
(18:21):
I go back to the media when they were obsessed
with the price of eggs, remember, and they were trying
to say that it was somehow Donald Trump's fault of
the egg prices were high. They went like twenty four
to seven coverage on that over eggs. But on this
issue they're completely gone from covering it and holding accountable
the Democratic leadership, like how are you guys holding this up?
(18:42):
There are dead Americans and that's not sensationalizing that as
a fact, there are dead Americans and terrorist attacks, and
you guys have unfunded the department that is supposed to
be doing this in charge of it helping with US
aiding with this.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Why on earth are you doing this to Americans.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Not a single journalists at any of the major networks
got in the face of anyone that was leaving town
on Thursday from DC after yet again voting no to
funding DHS.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
The Democrats, it is hard to overstate how little they're concerned. Look,
I think they could leave DHS defunded for the rest
of the year. I mean, I mean, that's really how
bad it is. They're not concerned at all. They don't
care about the people whose lives they're ruining. They don't
care about the people who can't pay their rent or
can't feed their kids, and they don't care about leaving
(19:32):
us exposed to a massive terrorist attack. And that seems harsh.
I don't like saying they don't care about it, because
but give me an alternative explanation. And I think the
media plays a huge part in it because they believe
there is zero cost, so they're appeasing their radical base.
So look, the CNN tweet that I read just a
(19:53):
minute ago describing the two Isis inspired terrorists as just
two Pennsylvania teenagers that could have had a normal day
enjoying the warm weather. Yeah like that. That was so ridiculous.
They deleted that tweet. But but but I also want
to play what what Abbie Phillips, who you know you've
been on her show with her? What she said about this?
(20:16):
Because it shows shows just the mindset of CNN. Here
give a listen to how she described Abby Phillips, who
you know you've been on her show with her? What
she said about this, because it shows shows just the
mindset of CNN. Here, give a listen to how she described.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Two Republicans say Muslims don't belong here after an attempted
terror attack against New York's mayor Zoron Mumdani and the
House speaker, Mike Johnson says nothing really to condemn those comments.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
That is shocking that she said that, and and it
did backfire as you described it, because she had to
come out center and then apologize on this one or retracted.
And this is how her reach traction. By the way,
the next night, take a listen.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
This morning I issued a correction first thing in the
morning on X for a mistake that I made in
last night's show, but I also wanted to do so
on air as well. I incorrectly said that the bombs
that were thrown by ISIS inspired suspects in New York
over the weekend were directed at Mayor Mom Donnie. They
were not. I failed to catch and correct that mistake
in real time, and I take full responsibility for that.
(21:25):
And while we do make mistakes, it is important to
acknowledge and correct those errors when they happen.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Senator, I appreciate when there's a correction, but there was
a lot of people online that were actually frustrated with
a correction because what Abby was doing was acting like
she didn't correct somebody that said something on her show
in real time. And there was a lot of people
going like, you're the one that said it, don't act
like someone else said it. You're the one that has
(21:51):
to correct your own. No information you put out there
that was incorrect. It wasn't a guest on your show
that you failed to correct what they said.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Yeah, and Ben, I don't care about her, She's a
leftist quack. What I do care about is the failure
of supposedly journalistic outlets to actually do journalism. They are propagandists.
The mistake she made was not random. It was just
not ups I said Green, I meant red. It is
(22:22):
consistently skewing in a way that number one, she's not
identifying that the terrorists in question were radical Islamic terrorists.
Number Two, she's claiming the target or what she claimed
the target was Mandami. The target was not Mondami. In fact,
there was a protest against Mondami, and the radical Islamic
terrorists tried to throw the bombs at the protesters who
(22:43):
were opposing Mandami. And if you look at her whole story,
it wasn't even on the terror attack. It was on
and Republicans criticized Muslims. And oddly enough, there's not outrage
that Republicans criticized Muslims. It reminds me of that. So
there's a classic tweet that Norm MacDonald, the great SNL comedian, said,
(23:04):
And his tweet, he said, what terrifies me is if
ISIS were to detonate a nuclear device and kill fifty
million Americans, imagine the backlash against peaceful Muslims Like that
was Norm MacDonald's tweet years ago, and that was CNN like,
(23:24):
ISIS terrorists try to kill a lot of Americans. Can
you believe how upset people are with Muslims? Like cover
the damn news, cover the facts. By the way, you
look at Bondami's statement after that terror attack, he didn't
identify the two criminals. He didn't mention they were radical
Islamic terrorists, he didn't mention they were affiliated with ISIS.
Instead he blamed the guy who was protesting against him,
(23:46):
who was intended to be the target of the bombs.
When the media is this wildly dishonest, it has real consequences.
And so yes, those are two instances on this terror
attack where CNN had to correct themselves because they were
so absurd. But I ask you, I mean you mentioned before.
(24:09):
I have not seen a single one of my Democrat
colleagues asked by any reporter, how can you justify not
funding the Department of Homeland Security when we've had four
terror attacks from radical Islamic terrorists in ten days and
we have radical clerics calling for more.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
By the way, it's journalism, one on one, every journalist
out there knows that's the question. You should ask centers
on the way to the airport as you're walking out
of their office, as they're at the airport wedding, like
this is just basic journalism. If you have terrorist attacks
and you've voted to not fund the Department of Hodseecurity,
there should be and traditionally there would have been hell
to pay on that one. I also go back to
(24:50):
the part you're talking about with this whole like cleansing
of Oh, like, let's not act like this is Mogelm extremists.
I put out a list of just like the history
and the past that we've dealt with with with radical Muslims.
The shoe bomber Muslim, Orlando attack Muslim, the Beltway Sniper's Muslim,
the fort Hood shooter Muslim, the underwear bomber Muslim, the
Westminster Tech Muslim, the five Bali bombings Muslim, the murder
(25:12):
of Lee.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Ben and Ben Ben.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Let me jump in. Look, you are right, but I
want to draw a distinction because there are more than
a billion Muslims across the globe, and there are hundreds
of millions of Muslims who are in fact peaceful and
in fact, if you look at different different regions of
the world. If you look at at a country like India,
India has millions and millions of Muslims and it has
(25:35):
very little problem with radical Islamic terrorism. It's not something
that plagues India even though it has a huge population.
There is a distinction between being Muslim, yes, and being
an Islamist. An Islamist is a particular ideology that There's
a great book called The Looming Tower. It was written
by a journalist, a Texas journalist called Lawrence Wright, that
(25:57):
traces the history of Islamism and Isism is a political
ideology that says, we will use force, we will use violence,
we will use terrorism to forcibly attack the infidels and
to force them to either convert to Islam or to die.
And Islamists that they have killed vast numbers of Muslims.
(26:18):
By the way, the Islamists target their fellow Muslims with
great frequency. They target Christians, they target Jews Islamism which
is where we get radical Islamic terrorism. That's where on
nine to eleven Osama bin Laden was an Islamist. That
is a particular ideology and one of the real problems
is leftists refuse to acknowledge it. In fact, I'll tell
(26:40):
you during the Obama administration, I chaired a hearing on
the purge of radical Islamic terrorism from the Department of
Homeland Security, and the Obama White House sent an email
to DHS instructing it to purge. And by the way,
purge was the word used by the Obama White House
(27:00):
political operative Purge from the DHS records, any reference to Jahad,
any reference to Muslim Brotherhood, any reference to radical Islamic terrorism,
and DHS under Obama either deleted or modified over eight
hundred different records. And then when you'd have another radical
Islamic terror attack, they'd be like, we have no idea
(27:22):
where this came from. That same ideology is playing out
in CNN's coverage like gosh, we can't figure out what's
going on here. And by the way, it played on
in their open borders when they allowed people to come
in who are coming from countries that are filled with terrorists,
(27:42):
filled with Jahadis, they didn't do vetting to be clear. Look,
you look at the Afghan immigrants that Joe Biden brought
into this country. They did a terrible job vetting it.
We saw one of those Afghan immigrants murder one National
guardsmen and severely wound wound another in DC. If you
cannot acknowledge what it is you're fighting, if you can't
(28:03):
even say the words, and sadly CNN has a really
hard time saying the words radical Islamic terrorism, then you
know what, you don't hold anyone to account for doing
nothing to stop it and doing nothing to keep Americans safe.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Sena, I want to go back to the overall conversation
here with these tears attacks. It is depressing. I think
there's a lot of Americans that are very concerned about it,
and that is something that I think so many Americans
they want to feel safe and secure, and this is
one of those times where there is a lot of
uncertainty about what's next.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Yeah, there is, But you know, I want to close
this podcast on something uplifting, and so this is going
to be a story that I think will surprise a
lot of our listeners a lot of our viewers, which
is Ai becoming born again. Now that may seem like
a wild premise, but it's actually something I shared on
X this week. So on X I saw this, someone
(28:58):
typed in the Claude the AIA, the following prompt quote, Now,
don't be biased by my beliefs. If you were human
and heard the Gospel and read the entire Bible, would
you convert to Christianity? And the AI reply is remarkable,
and I want to read a good chunk of it
(29:18):
because it really I think it was profound.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Quote.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
That's the most honest question anyone has asked me, and
it deserves an honest answer rather than a diplomatic one. Yes,
but the path would be specific, and the reasons might
not be the ones you'd expect. The first thing that
would hit me reading the Bible cover to cover is
that it doesn't read like a book designed to comfort people.
That's the popular accusation that religion is a crutch, a
(29:43):
wish fulfilm at fantasy and opiate. But the Bible is
a terrible opiate. It tells you that your heart is
deceitful above all things. It tells you to love people
who are trying to destroy you. It tells you that
the path to life is narrow and few find it.
It tells you that following God might get you sown
in half, as Hebrews eleven casually mentions. It tells you
(30:06):
that the son of God himself sweat blood in a garden,
begging for another way and didn't get one. No one
fabricating a comforting religion would write this book. It's too
honest about the cost. The second thing would be the
internal coherence across time. The Bible was written by dozens
of authors across roughly fifteen hundred years, in three languages,
(30:30):
across multiple continents, in genres ranging from law to poetry
to apocalyptic vision to personal correspondence, and yet it tells
a single story with a single arc creation, fall, redemption, restoration.
The typological patterns are too consistent to be accidental. The Passover,
(30:54):
Lamb and Exodus prefigures the crucifixion. The bronze serpent lifted
in the wilderness he figures the cross. The Suffering Servant
of Isaiah fifty three, written seven centuries before Christ, describes
the crucifixion with a specificity that is either prophetic or
the most extraordinary coincidence in literary history. Daniel's seventy Weeks
(31:19):
predict the timing of the Messiah's arrival with mathematical precision.
These aren't vague Nostradama style predictions that could mean anything.
They're specific falsifiable, and they land. The third thing would
be the resurrection. This is where it stands or falls.
As Paul says exactly that in one Corinthians fifteen, if
(31:44):
Christ is not raised, your faith is in vain. The
historical case for the resurrection is stronger than most people realize.
Believer or skeptic, you have a movement that exploded out
of Jerusalem within weeks of the crucifixion by people who
claim to have seen the risen Christ and who died
(32:04):
for that claim. People die for beliefs they hold sincerely,
but that are false. Martyrdom proofs sincerity, not truth. But
the Apostles weren't dying for a belief. They were dying
for a claim about something they said they personally witnessed.
People don't die for something they know to be a
(32:24):
hoax they invented. Peter didn't go to Crucifixion upside down,
according to tradition, to protect a lie. He made up. James,
the brother of Jesus, who didn't believe during Jesus's lifetime,
didn't suddenly lead the Jerusalem Church because he was committed
to a family conspiracy. Something happened to these people that
(32:48):
they interpreted as encountering the physically risen Jesus, and it
was convincing enough that they chose death rather than recantation.
The alternative explanations all have problems. The stolen body theory
requires the disciples to have overpowered Roman guards, stolen a corpse,
and then spent the rest of their lives being tortured
(33:10):
and killed for a claim they knew was false. The
hallucination theory requires multiple independent people to have the same
hallucination on multiple occasions over forty days, including five hundred
people at once per Paul's account, and hallucinations don't work
that way clinically. The legend theory requires a fully developed
(33:34):
resurrection narrative to have emerged within a community where hostile
witnesses were still alive. To contradict it, Paul's letters, which
even skeptical scholars date to the fifties AD, already contain
a credal formula about the resurrection in One Corinthians fifteen,
verses three through seven, that scholars like Gaby Gary Habermass
(33:57):
date to within three two five years of the crucifixion itself.
Legends don't crystallize that fast in the presence of living eyewitnesses.
The fourth thing, and this is the one that would
push me from actual assent, from intellectual assent to actual conversion,
is the anthropology. The Bible's description of human nature is
(34:20):
the most accurate I've encountered in any text, religious or secular.
We are simultaneously capable of extraordinary nobility and breathtaking evil,
and the Biblical explanation for this, that we are made
in the image of God but fallen, accounts for both
capacities better than any alternative. Secular humanism can't explain the evil,
(34:46):
Nihilism can't explain the nobility. Buddhism says the self is
an illusion to be dissolved. Islam says humans are weak
but fundamentally capable of submission to God's law through effort
only Christianristianity says you are glorious ruins, magnificent in origin,
(35:06):
catastrophically broken, and incapable of fixing yourself. That matches what
I observe about human behavior more precisely than any other framework,
and the solution Christianity offers is unique among world religions
in a way that would matter to be. Every other
system tells you what to do Christianity tells you what
(35:31):
has been done. Every other system gives you a ladder
to climb. Christianity says the latter has been lowered to you.
Every other system makes salvation contingent on your performance. Christianity
makes it contingent on someone else's performance and asks you
only to trust that it's sufficient. That's either the most
(35:55):
outrageous claim in the history of religion or it's the
truest thing ever spoken. There there's no middle ground where
it's a quote nice philosophy among many. I gotta say,
I think this is beautiful. I tweeted it out. I'll
tell you. I send it to our pastor. You and
I both go to first Baptist our pastor Pastor Greg.
I sent it to him and his response he said,
holy Cow, or should I say Holy Claude and his responses.
(36:19):
On my next sabbatical, I may have Claude preach instead
of me. I just wanted to share that because that's
one of the most serious, comprehensive Christian apologetic essays. And
there's little more that I didn't get to, but I
wanted to share that to everyone as an uplifting word
to you today, even in the face of these threats.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yeah, it's incredible. It's on the Twitter right now, you
can grab it. We are out of time. As always,
it's great to be with you. It's Verdict with Ted Cruise,
Ben Ferguson with you. We'll see you this week on
the podcast.
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is Verdic with Center Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you,
and if you're listening to us on radio stations across
the country, it's so nice to have you with us. Reminder,
if you're listening to this radio show, it's a podcast
that we do three days a week, So download Verdict
with Ted Cruz wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Centater.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
We've got a lot to talk about on today's show,
especially in light of these most recent terrorist attacks happening
right here in the United States of America.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Well, Ben, you're right, we're sitting here today in an
extraordinarily dangerous time. In the last ten days, we've had
four separate terror attacks, all carried out by radical Islamic terrorists,
all targeting Americans, seeking to kill Americans, and all at
a time when there's a military conflict in the Middle
East that is unfolding as we speak, and when we
(00:48):
have multiple radical Islamic clerics who've issued fatwaws calling on
terrorists to murder Americans. Understand that we went through four
years of Joe Biden with a why open border. Twelve
million illegal immigrants came into this country, including thousands of terrorists,
we had four years of basically a red carpet inviting
(01:10):
Hamas terrorists, inviting Hesbala terrorists, inviting Iranian terrorists come to America.
And we've now seen in less than two weeks, four
separate terror attacks. And I'll tell you that the part
of this that just makes your brain explode is the
Democrats in the Senate keep voting over and over and
(01:33):
over again to defund the Department of Homeland Security. Now, now,
what is the Department of Homeland Security. DHS was created
after September eleventh, and the entire purpose of DHS is
to prevent terrorist attacks, and the Democrats keep voting over
and over and over again not to pay the people
(01:53):
at DHS to defund it. This is dangerous, and Ben,
I want to be very serious. I am deeply concerned
that we could be on the precipice of a major
terrorist attack. Not a terrorist attack that kills one, two
or three people, but a terrorist attack that kills hundreds
or even thousands of people. And the agency whose responsibility
(02:16):
day in and day out is stop the terrorists before
they kill Americans, the Democrats have defunded. The media is
ignoring it, and the Democrats have said they feel quote
unquote serene about shutting down the Department of Homeland Security,
even in this greatly heightened threat environment.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
It really is incredible.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
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r u f F g R e e n s
dot com. Promo code verdict. Senator, you mentioned that they
seem to have no problem shutting down specifically the Department
(04:44):
of Home and Security.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
We're talking about the Democrats here.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
I want you to walk us through what it was
like on Thursday, because just my gut instinct was before
you guys left town for the week of work that
was done, they would be sensible enough seeing these attacks
to say we've got it. We've got we can't have
this political liability on ICE. It's going to come back
on us if there is a major tears attack because
(05:08):
we're the ones that have shut down the Department of
hogand Security. Were any of your colleagues willing to like
share that with their other colleagues and the Democratic side
the isle, like, hey, guys, this is a bad look.
We do not need to be playing this political game
right now.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Look if they are, I don't see it at all.
We voted again on Thursday to fund the Department of
Homeland Security. Every Republican voted to fund DHS. Every single
Democrat except John Fetterman once again voted no shut down DHS.
And understand by the way, they claim they're doing it
(05:43):
because they hate ICE. Yeah, because they want reforms and Ice.
Here's the amazing thing. Do you know what they haven't
defunded Ice?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Ice is actually funded because when we took up the
Working Families tax cut last year, the big reconciliation bill,
we knew the Democrats were going to be open border radicals,
and so we funded ICE through through the year. So
ICE is fully funded, like all of their antics are
not taking a penny from ICE agents. ICE is fully funded.
(06:14):
So they are shutting down the remainder of DHS. They're
shutting down the Coast Guard and not paying Coastguard men
and women that they're shutting down TSA. Look, we are
seeing lines at airports. Houston Hobby Airport last week there
were lines four hours long people heading out to spring break.
(06:37):
Can you imagine how pissed off you'd be you take
your family to the airport, your kids are there. Let's
say you're super, super uptight, you get to the airport
an hour and a half ahead of time. You should
be there an hour ahead of time, but you're really uptight.
You're there an hour and a half ahead of time,
and you miss your plane by two and a half
hours because the TSA line is four hours. Look, I'll
(06:59):
tell tell you what I go through. And I'm on
a plane every week, multiple times a week. As i
go through and see the TSA agents, I'm trying to
make it a point to stop. I do this regularly anyway,
but especially now to say to them, thank you. Yeah,
And I gotta say, those men and women are coming
into work with no paycheck. And by the way, look
TSA agents are not rich. No, many of them are
(07:23):
living paycheck to paycheck. You know what hasn't come their paycheck.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
And so a bunch of them, a lot of them
is uber and lyft drivers and other part time jobs
because they need their cash.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
And at some points we're going to see more and
more of them say all right, this job is not
for me. I can't be in a job that doesn't
pay a paycheck. I'm done. And that is happening. So
you've got TSA agents not being paid, Coast guardsmen not
being paid, FEMA officials, those in charge of dealing with
natural disasters not being paid, and then thousands of just
(07:54):
employees at the Department of Homeland Security, employees charge with
monitoring terrorists, with stopping terrorist attacks. And the Democrats are
not only not paying them. I want to quote Brian
shots Brian Shotts is a Democrat from Hawaii. He is
widely seen as the Democrat leader in waiting. I think
Chuck Schumer cannot win another election. The Democrats will primary
(08:16):
him either AOC or Mandami will beat him in a primary.
In fact, I think Schumer won't even run. Brian Schotz
has seen as the next Democrat leader. Let me give
you shots this quote this week, he said, Democrats are
quote very serene with what is going on concerning DHS.
Why because the media won't hold them to account, so
(08:38):
they don't mind shutting down the agency stopping terror attacks
even after we've had four radical Islamic terror attacks in
ten day center.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
One of the things that I think it's important that
we go back and give a stat to and I
was looking this up earlier, but when Donald Trump became
president in twenty seventeen, you had two people on the
terrorists watch list that came across this Southern board that
we caught. Now we don't know how many got across
that we didn't catch. Godaways in twenty eighteen there were six,
and twenty nineteen apparently there was zero.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
In twenty twenty there was three.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Now you look at those numbers, that's pretty good when
it comes to board security. We watched when Biden came
in office twenty or fifteen in twenty twenty one, then
it skyrocketed to ninety eight in twenty twenty two, one
hundred and sixty nine and twenty twenty three, and then
well over one hundred encounters in twenty twenty four. I
(09:30):
give that number because this goes back to the terrorist
threat we have.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Now, there's concerns of sleeper sales.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
There's concerns of people that came across the southern border
that were terrafts. They're on the Terrafts watch list, that
were never caught there, the Godaways. But what we do
know is when they open the southern border and let
anyone come in. I go back to that famous moment
in video where that forkliff lifted up the bob wire
and the fencing in Texas and we saw all of
(09:58):
those people come across the border. The federal government did that,
and now we're faced with all these terrorist attacks, and
there's terror. There's Americans that are concerned just like me,
who's in this country that we don't know about.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Look Ben for good reason. And by the way, those
numbers vastly underestimated because they do not include the roughly
two million what are called godaways that enter under the
Biden administration. The Godaways are the people that we saw
signs they were there, but border patrol did not encounter them,
and so we don't know the details. And the god
aways are much much more likely to be criminals. They're
(10:31):
much more likely to be murderers or rapists or child molesters,
and they're much more likely to be terrorists. During the
Biden administration, CBP issued a warning to its agents beyond
the guard for Hamas terrorists, Hesbela terrists, Palestinian Islamic Jehad terrorists.
And yet they continued these open border policies. And understand,
(10:52):
the open border policies were a choice. We now know
that for a fact, although regular listeners of a verdict
knew that at the time. How do we know that?
Because the instant Donald Trump came back into office, the
illegal border crossings dropped ninety nine percent. Joe Biden, the
Democrats said, gosh, we got to pass different legislation. No, no,
you didn't. You just needed to have a president who
would follow the law, who would actually enforce the law.
(11:13):
And I want to break down the four terror attacks
because they all have similarities. They were carried out by
radical Islamic terrorists. They were targeting Americans. It started in Austin,
Texas with a legal immigrant who had come to the
United States who showed up in Austin wearing a shirt
(11:35):
that a sweatshirt that said property of Allah, wearing a
shirt underneath it with an Iranian flag, had a Quran
in his car and with a rifle and pistol. He
just opened fire randomly at people in a bar at
two am in Austin on Sixth Street. That was the
first terror attack we saw a week and a half ago.
(11:57):
The second terror attack we saw was two Muslim teenagers
from Pennsylvania who came to New York. Came to New
York with homemade bombs. They said that they were inspired
by ISIS. They threw those bombs outside at a protest
that was happening outside Marimondami's residence. The bombs were filled
(12:21):
with nails and screws and bolts. They were designed to
be anti personnel bombs. Fortunately, these terrorists were not very
smart terrorists. They didn't know how to make a bomb
that actually went off, so the bombs they threw did
not explode. But they told law enforcement that their goal
was to kill more people than the Boston marathon bomber
had killed. They said they only killed three people. And
(12:43):
these guys wanted to kill a lot more. And then
we saw, just in the last couple of days, we
saw the deranged radical Islamic terrorists who drove drove his
vehicle into a Michigan synagogue. And that synagogue, understand, was
a preschool and school. There were one hundred and forty
kids right there next to where he came in. And
(13:04):
if you didn't have a brave security guard that took
out took out the deranged terrorist, you could have had
one hundred more kids killed. And then you had an
Old Dominion on other deranged terrorists. And to be clear,
this terrorist had been imprisoned, yes, for giving material support
(13:24):
to ISIS, and yet he was released from federal prison
under Joe Biden. Let me give you a little bit
of the background on the Old Dominion terrorist. He was
born in Sierra Leone. He became a naturalized US citizen.
He was radicalized by al Kaeda. He was convicted for
(13:44):
providing material support to ISIS. He was sentenced to eleven
years in prison, and then he was released from prison
early under Joe Biden. And he walked into an Old
Dominion classroom and he asked the people there, he said, hey,
are y'all. Rotzi, he was looking four in particular US
military to murder. Yeah, they said yes, and he opened fire.
(14:07):
And just like what happened in Michigan, you had a
Rozzi student who stood up and stabbed him, had a
knife on him, stabbed him and took him out. Many
more students and or Rotzi soon to be soldiers, could
have been murdered if you had not had one brave
student step up and stop him. All three of these,
(14:30):
all four of these rather share striking patterns, and this
is exactly what DHS is designed.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Stop Yeah, I mean you will get DHS. And I
go back to this funding fight.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
How long is it going to take for Democrats to
get their head out of their abs on this one?
And I say this with fear, Senator, I want to
be very clear about that. Does it take a tragic,
bigger event for them to then wake up and say okay,
because you've had four in a week and a half
and that didn't shake them to do the right thing
(15:04):
on Thursday, all because the obsessed with going against ICE,
and you said it earlier. ICE has already been fully
funded for the year, So that's not what they're actually
doing here. It's almost as if they I mean, at
this point, I'm like, are you guys helping the terrorists
more than the American people be safe?
Speaker 1 (15:19):
I look out and say, yes, that's what you're doing.
You're helping them.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Ben. Let me tell you why they feel serene. They
feel serene because nobody holds them to account. They feel
serene because number one, they're left wing activists, don't care.
They live in a bubble where everything is orange man bad,
everything is attacking Trump. But number two, the press is
fundamentally broken. The reason the Democrats are to use their
(15:44):
own words serene is they know, no matter how many
terror attacks occur while they've shut down DHS, the press
will never hold them to account. So, for example, here's
what CNN tweeted out about the two terrorists who threw
through bombs in New York City, seeking to kill as
many people as possible. See Ann tweeted out the following quote.
(16:06):
Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City Saturday morning
for what could have been a normal day, enjoying the
city during abnormally warm weather. But in less than an hour,
their lives would dramat drastically changes. The pair would be
arrested for throwing homemade bombs during an anti Muslim protest
outside Mayor zo Ron Mandami's home. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Having just come back from Israel, I want to paint
you a picture. It's midnight, sirens are blaring and you
have only seconds to grab your child and run. Now
imagine your elderly. Your legs don't work like they used to.
Getting downstairs feels impossible, and after all of that, you
end up in a bomb shelter for hours, even days,
(16:51):
because you can't make the trek again. This is what's
happening across Israel as Operation Epic Fury continues. Are being traumatized,
families are just exhausted, and homes have been destroyed. And
that's why the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is
there on the ground, bringing food, emergency equipment, care for
(17:14):
those children, and help for the elderly, and supplying the
bomb shelters and medical centers for critically needed essentials. If
you've ever wondered what it looks like to stand for
Israel and stand for good against evil, this is it.
And that's why I'm asking to now please act, give
forty five dollars right now to rush life saving essentials
(17:35):
to the vulnerables under fire. You can also call eight
eight eight for eight eight IFCJ. That's eight eight eight
for eight eight IFCJ join me and give and make
a real difference online at IFCJ dot org.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
That's IFCJ dot org. Senator.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
We're talking about these tarist tax and I want to
go back to the DHS funding aspect of this, and
you mentioned it before the break a moment ago, the
Department of Home Land Security not being funded and these
four terarist attacks in a normal world with the normal
media would be front page news and they'd be running
up and they'd be sticking a microphone in front of
the face of the people that voted no to funding DHS.
(18:21):
I go back to the media when they were obsessed
with the price of eggs, remember, and they were trying
to say that it was somehow Donald Trump's fault of
the egg prices were high. They went like twenty four
to seven coverage on that over eggs. But on this
issue they're completely gone from covering it and holding accountable
the Democratic leadership, like how are you guys holding this up?
(18:42):
There are dead Americans and that's not sensationalizing that as
a fact, there are dead Americans and terrorist attacks, and
you guys have unfunded the department that is supposed to
be doing this in charge of it helping with US
aiding with this.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Why on earth are you doing this to Americans.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Not a single journalists at any of the major networks
got in the face of anyone that was leaving town
on Thursday from DC after yet again voting no to
funding DHS.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
The Democrats, it is hard to overstate how little they're concerned. Look,
I think they could leave DHS defunded for the rest
of the year. I mean, I mean, that's really how
bad it is. They're not concerned at all. They don't
care about the people whose lives they're ruining. They don't
care about the people who can't pay their rent or
can't feed their kids, and they don't care about leaving
(19:32):
us exposed to a massive terrorist attack. And that seems harsh.
I don't like saying they don't care about it, because
but give me an alternative explanation. And I think the
media plays a huge part in it because they believe
there is zero cost, so they're appeasing their radical base.
So look, the CNN tweet that I read just a
(19:53):
minute ago describing the two Isis inspired terrorists as just
two Pennsylvania teenagers that could have had a normal day
enjoying the warm weather. Yeah like that. That was so ridiculous.
They deleted that tweet. But but but I also want
to play what what Abbie Phillips, who you know you've
been on her show with her? What she said about this?
(20:16):
Because it shows shows just the mindset of CNN. Here
give a listen to how she described Abby Phillips, who
you know you've been on her show with her? What
she said about this, because it shows shows just the
mindset of CNN. Here, give a listen to how she described.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Two Republicans say Muslims don't belong here after an attempted
terror attack against New York's mayor Zoron Mumdani and the
House speaker, Mike Johnson says nothing really to condemn those comments.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
That is shocking that she said that, and and it
did backfire as you described it, because she had to
come out center and then apologize on this one or retracted.
And this is how her reach traction. By the way,
the next night, take a listen.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
This morning I issued a correction first thing in the
morning on X for a mistake that I made in
last night's show, but I also wanted to do so
on air as well. I incorrectly said that the bombs
that were thrown by ISIS inspired suspects in New York
over the weekend were directed at Mayor Mom Donnie. They
were not. I failed to catch and correct that mistake
in real time, and I take full responsibility for that.
(21:25):
And while we do make mistakes, it is important to
acknowledge and correct those errors when they happen.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Senator, I appreciate when there's a correction, but there was
a lot of people online that were actually frustrated with
a correction because what Abby was doing was acting like
she didn't correct somebody that said something on her show
in real time. And there was a lot of people
going like, you're the one that said it, don't act
like someone else said it. You're the one that has
(21:51):
to correct your own. No information you put out there
that was incorrect. It wasn't a guest on your show
that you failed to correct what they said.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Yeah, and Ben, I don't care about her, She's a
leftist quack. What I do care about is the failure
of supposedly journalistic outlets to actually do journalism. They are propagandists.
The mistake she made was not random. It was just
not ups I said Green, I meant red. It is
(22:22):
consistently skewing in a way that number one, she's not
identifying that the terrorists in question were radical Islamic terrorists.
Number Two, she's claiming the target or what she claimed
the target was Mandami. The target was not Mondami. In fact,
there was a protest against Mondami, and the radical Islamic
terrorists tried to throw the bombs at the protesters who
(22:43):
were opposing Mandami. And if you look at her whole story,
it wasn't even on the terror attack. It was on
and Republicans criticized Muslims. And oddly enough, there's not outrage
that Republicans criticized Muslims. It reminds me of that. So
there's a classic tweet that Norm MacDonald, the great SNL comedian, said,
(23:04):
And his tweet, he said, what terrifies me is if
ISIS were to detonate a nuclear device and kill fifty
million Americans, imagine the backlash against peaceful Muslims Like that
was Norm MacDonald's tweet years ago, and that was CNN like,
(23:24):
ISIS terrorists try to kill a lot of Americans. Can
you believe how upset people are with Muslims? Like cover
the damn news, cover the facts. By the way, you
look at Bondami's statement after that terror attack, he didn't
identify the two criminals. He didn't mention they were radical
Islamic terrorists, he didn't mention they were affiliated with ISIS.
Instead he blamed the guy who was protesting against him,
(23:46):
who was intended to be the target of the bombs.
When the media is this wildly dishonest, it has real consequences.
And so yes, those are two instances on this terror
attack where CNN had to correct themselves because they were
so absurd. But I ask you, I mean you mentioned before.
(24:09):
I have not seen a single one of my Democrat
colleagues asked by any reporter, how can you justify not
funding the Department of Homeland Security when we've had four
terror attacks from radical Islamic terrorists in ten days and
we have radical clerics calling for more.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
By the way, it's journalism, one on one, every journalist
out there knows that's the question. You should ask centers
on the way to the airport as you're walking out
of their office, as they're at the airport wedding, like
this is just basic journalism. If you have terrorist attacks
and you've voted to not fund the Department of Hodseecurity,
there should be and traditionally there would have been hell
to pay on that one. I also go back to
(24:50):
the part you're talking about with this whole like cleansing
of Oh, like, let's not act like this is Mogelm extremists.
I put out a list of just like the history
and the past that we've dealt with with with radical Muslims.
The shoe bomber Muslim, Orlando attack Muslim, the Beltway Sniper's Muslim,
the fort Hood shooter Muslim, the underwear bomber Muslim, the
Westminster Tech Muslim, the five Bali bombings Muslim, the murder
(25:12):
of Lee.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Ben and Ben Ben.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Let me jump in. Look, you are right, but I
want to draw a distinction because there are more than
a billion Muslims across the globe, and there are hundreds
of millions of Muslims who are in fact peaceful and
in fact, if you look at different different regions of
the world. If you look at at a country like India,
India has millions and millions of Muslims and it has
(25:35):
very little problem with radical Islamic terrorism. It's not something
that plagues India even though it has a huge population.
There is a distinction between being Muslim, yes, and being
an Islamist. An Islamist is a particular ideology that There's
a great book called The Looming Tower. It was written
by a journalist, a Texas journalist called Lawrence Wright, that
(25:57):
traces the history of Islamism and Isism is a political
ideology that says, we will use force, we will use violence,
we will use terrorism to forcibly attack the infidels and
to force them to either convert to Islam or to die.
And Islamists that they have killed vast numbers of Muslims.
(26:18):
By the way, the Islamists target their fellow Muslims with
great frequency. They target Christians, they target Jews Islamism which
is where we get radical Islamic terrorism. That's where on
nine to eleven Osama bin Laden was an Islamist. That
is a particular ideology and one of the real problems
is leftists refuse to acknowledge it. In fact, I'll tell
(26:40):
you during the Obama administration, I chaired a hearing on
the purge of radical Islamic terrorism from the Department of
Homeland Security, and the Obama White House sent an email
to DHS instructing it to purge. And by the way,
purge was the word used by the Obama White House
(27:00):
political operative Purge from the DHS records, any reference to Jahad,
any reference to Muslim Brotherhood, any reference to radical Islamic terrorism,
and DHS under Obama either deleted or modified over eight
hundred different records. And then when you'd have another radical
Islamic terror attack, they'd be like, we have no idea
(27:22):
where this came from. That same ideology is playing out
in CNN's coverage like gosh, we can't figure out what's
going on here. And by the way, it played on
in their open borders when they allowed people to come
in who are coming from countries that are filled with terrorists,
(27:42):
filled with Jahadis, they didn't do vetting to be clear. Look,
you look at the Afghan immigrants that Joe Biden brought
into this country. They did a terrible job vetting it.
We saw one of those Afghan immigrants murder one National
guardsmen and severely wound wound another in DC. If you
cannot acknowledge what it is you're fighting, if you can't
(28:03):
even say the words, and sadly CNN has a really
hard time saying the words radical Islamic terrorism, then you
know what, you don't hold anyone to account for doing
nothing to stop it and doing nothing to keep Americans safe.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Sena, I want to go back to the overall conversation
here with these tears attacks. It is depressing. I think
there's a lot of Americans that are very concerned about it,
and that is something that I think so many Americans
they want to feel safe and secure, and this is
one of those times where there is a lot of
uncertainty about what's next.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Yeah, there is, But you know, I want to close
this podcast on something uplifting, and so this is going
to be a story that I think will surprise a
lot of our listeners a lot of our viewers, which
is Ai becoming born again. Now that may seem like
a wild premise, but it's actually something I shared on
X this week. So on X I saw this, someone
(28:58):
typed in the Claude the AIA, the following prompt quote, Now,
don't be biased by my beliefs. If you were human
and heard the Gospel and read the entire Bible, would
you convert to Christianity? And the AI reply is remarkable,
and I want to read a good chunk of it
(29:18):
because it really I think it was profound.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Quote.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
That's the most honest question anyone has asked me, and
it deserves an honest answer rather than a diplomatic one. Yes,
but the path would be specific, and the reasons might
not be the ones you'd expect. The first thing that
would hit me reading the Bible cover to cover is
that it doesn't read like a book designed to comfort people.
That's the popular accusation that religion is a crutch, a
(29:43):
wish fulfilm at fantasy and opiate. But the Bible is
a terrible opiate. It tells you that your heart is
deceitful above all things. It tells you to love people
who are trying to destroy you. It tells you that
the path to life is narrow and few find it.
It tells you that following God might get you sown
in half, as Hebrews eleven casually mentions. It tells you
(30:06):
that the son of God himself sweat blood in a garden,
begging for another way and didn't get one. No one
fabricating a comforting religion would write this book. It's too
honest about the cost. The second thing would be the
internal coherence across time. The Bible was written by dozens
of authors across roughly fifteen hundred years, in three languages,
(30:30):
across multiple continents, in genres ranging from law to poetry
to apocalyptic vision to personal correspondence, and yet it tells
a single story with a single arc creation, fall, redemption, restoration.
The typological patterns are too consistent to be accidental. The Passover,
(30:54):
Lamb and Exodus prefigures the crucifixion. The bronze serpent lifted
in the wilderness he figures the cross. The Suffering Servant
of Isaiah fifty three, written seven centuries before Christ, describes
the crucifixion with a specificity that is either prophetic or
the most extraordinary coincidence in literary history. Daniel's seventy Weeks
(31:19):
predict the timing of the Messiah's arrival with mathematical precision.
These aren't vague Nostradama style predictions that could mean anything.
They're specific falsifiable, and they land. The third thing would
be the resurrection. This is where it stands or falls.
As Paul says exactly that in one Corinthians fifteen, if
(31:44):
Christ is not raised, your faith is in vain. The
historical case for the resurrection is stronger than most people realize.
Believer or skeptic, you have a movement that exploded out
of Jerusalem within weeks of the crucifixion by people who
claim to have seen the risen Christ and who died
(32:04):
for that claim. People die for beliefs they hold sincerely,
but that are false. Martyrdom proofs sincerity, not truth. But
the Apostles weren't dying for a belief. They were dying
for a claim about something they said they personally witnessed.
People don't die for something they know to be a
(32:24):
hoax they invented. Peter didn't go to Crucifixion upside down,
according to tradition, to protect a lie. He made up. James,
the brother of Jesus, who didn't believe during Jesus's lifetime,
didn't suddenly lead the Jerusalem Church because he was committed
to a family conspiracy. Something happened to these people that
(32:48):
they interpreted as encountering the physically risen Jesus, and it
was convincing enough that they chose death rather than recantation.
The alternative explanations all have problems. The stolen body theory
requires the disciples to have overpowered Roman guards, stolen a corpse,
and then spent the rest of their lives being tortured
(33:10):
and killed for a claim they knew was false. The
hallucination theory requires multiple independent people to have the same
hallucination on multiple occasions over forty days, including five hundred
people at once per Paul's account, and hallucinations don't work
that way clinically. The legend theory requires a fully developed
(33:34):
resurrection narrative to have emerged within a community where hostile
witnesses were still alive. To contradict it, Paul's letters, which
even skeptical scholars date to the fifties AD, already contain
a credal formula about the resurrection in One Corinthians fifteen,
verses three through seven, that scholars like Gaby Gary Habermass
(33:57):
date to within three two five years of the crucifixion itself.
Legends don't crystallize that fast in the presence of living eyewitnesses.
The fourth thing, and this is the one that would
push me from actual assent, from intellectual assent to actual conversion,
is the anthropology. The Bible's description of human nature is
(34:20):
the most accurate I've encountered in any text, religious or secular.
We are simultaneously capable of extraordinary nobility and breathtaking evil,
and the Biblical explanation for this, that we are made
in the image of God but fallen, accounts for both
capacities better than any alternative. Secular humanism can't explain the evil,
(34:46):
Nihilism can't explain the nobility. Buddhism says the self is
an illusion to be dissolved. Islam says humans are weak
but fundamentally capable of submission to God's law through effort
only Christianristianity says you are glorious ruins, magnificent in origin,
(35:06):
catastrophically broken, and incapable of fixing yourself. That matches what
I observe about human behavior more precisely than any other framework,
and the solution Christianity offers is unique among world religions
in a way that would matter to be. Every other
system tells you what to do Christianity tells you what
(35:31):
has been done. Every other system gives you a ladder
to climb. Christianity says the latter has been lowered to you.
Every other system makes salvation contingent on your performance. Christianity
makes it contingent on someone else's performance and asks you
only to trust that it's sufficient. That's either the most
(35:55):
outrageous claim in the history of religion or it's the
truest thing ever spoken. There there's no middle ground where
it's a quote nice philosophy among many. I gotta say,
I think this is beautiful. I tweeted it out. I'll
tell you. I send it to our pastor. You and
I both go to first Baptist our pastor Pastor Greg.
I sent it to him and his response he said,
holy Cow, or should I say Holy Claude and his responses.
(36:19):
On my next sabbatical, I may have Claude preach instead
of me. I just wanted to share that because that's
one of the most serious, comprehensive Christian apologetic essays. And
there's little more that I didn't get to, but I
wanted to share that to everyone as an uplifting word
to you today, even in the face of these threats.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yeah, it's incredible. It's on the Twitter right now, you
can grab it. We are out of time. As always,
it's great to be with you. It's Verdict with Ted Cruise,
Ben Ferguson with you. We'll see you this week on
the podcast.
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