The Path Forward: How Republicans Can Fund DHS, Secure the Border, Protect Elections, and Deliver Historic Conservative Victories
The latest episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz features a wide-ranging, candid, and often blunt conversation between host Senator Ted Cruz and Ben Ferguson that captures both the urgency and the opportunity facing Republicans in Washington right now. From shocking congressional resignations to the longest Department of Homeland Security shutdown in American history, and from border security to election integrity, this episode lays out what Senator Ted Cruz describes as a defining moment for conservative leadership.
What emerges is not just a diagnosis of dysfunction in Washington, but a clear roadmap for how Republicans can—and must—use the tools available to deliver real wins for the American people.
Stunning Resignations and a Rapidly Shifting Political Landscape
The episode opens with breaking news that validates predictions made on the previous show: the resignations of Eric Swalwell and Republican Tony Gonzales. As Senator Ted Cruz explains, both departures stem from serious scandals, and both underscore how quickly political fortunes can collapse.
The timing of the resignations matters. With margins in Congress razor-thin, leadership on both sides has been reluctant to force members out. Yet with one Democrat and one Republican stepping down simultaneously, the balance of power remains unchanged—making these resignations politically survivable but symbolically seismic. According to Senator Ted Cruz, every member of Congress privately recognized that stepping aside was the only defensible outcome.
This moment sets the tone for the episode: accountability matters, consequences matter, and the public is watching.
Two Months of DHS Shutdown—and Democrats Don’t Care
At the heart of the episode is what Senator Ted Cruz calls an indefensible reality: the Department of Homeland Security has been shut down for two months, the longest shutdown in U.S. history.
During that time:
- Coast Guard service members have not been paid
- Secret Service agents have not been paid
- FEMA personnel have not been paid
- Cybersecurity and bioterrorism defenses have been left unfunded
Roughly 200,000 federal employees are caught in the crossfire—and, as Senator Ted Cruz bluntly states, Democrats are perfectly content with the outcome.
Why? Because, in his view, the modern Democratic Party will never again vote to fund ICE. Their base demands it, and the media shields them from accountability by blaming “both parties” rather than the senators actively voting to keep DHS closed.
The Irony: ICE Is Funded—Everything Else Isn’t
One of the most striking revelations in the episode is the irony of the shutdown itself. While Democrats claim they are defunding ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is actually fully funded for years—thanks to a previous reconciliation bill.
Instead, the agencies suffering are the ones Americans depend on for disaster response, national security, and public safety. As Senator Ted Cruz explains, this contradiction exposes the performative nature of the shutdown and the failure of media scrutiny.
Reconciliation: The Only Path Forward
After weeks of stalemate, Republican leadership is now moving toward the solution Senator Ted Cruz has advocated for months: budget reconciliation.
Reconciliation matters because it:
- Cannot be filibustered
- Requires only 50 votes in the Senate
- Allows Republicans to bypass Democratic obstruction
Leadership’s current plan would fund ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) through fiscal year 2029. But Senator Ted Cruz argues that approach doesn’t go nearly far enough.
Three Mistakes Republicans Must Avoid
In a forceful address to his Senate colleagues, Senator Ted Cruz outlines three major errors he believes leadership is making:
1. Thinking Too Small on Duration
Reconciliation allows funding for up to ten years. If Democrats are committed to blocking border security indefinitely, Republican
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome in as Verdict with Center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson
with you, and we've got a pack show for you,
including predictions that we made in the last show that
are spot on, and if you could be king for
a day. I've got something I want to make that
we should just banon politics.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
We'll deal with that a little bit later, but we
have big news.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
It looks like Republicans are actually going to stand up
and win on a big issue in the Senate.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Center fill us in.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Well, let's say, first of all, Monday's Pod, we made
a prediction. We made a prediction that number one Eric
Swalwell would resign from Congress and number two Tony Gonzalez,
a Republican, would resign from Congress as well. It is
Tuesday night, it is twelve twenty two in the morning,
and both of them are gone. Both of them have resigned.
(00:46):
Both are in scandals. Look, Gonzalez's scandal was really ugly.
It was not pretty. He had an affair with staffer. Tragically,
the staffer took.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Her own life. She literally poured gasoline on herself and
lit herself on fire. She was the mom of an
eight year old child. It was horrific, and so his
stepping down it is not a surprise to anyone that
needed to happen. And then Swallwell.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Swalwell almost like pushed Gonzales aside, said, hold my beer,
I can be more slimy, I could be more nasty
than you. At this point than the number of women
who have worked for him who've come out and accused
him of sexually harassing them, sexually assaulting them, raping them,
the number keeps spiraling, and so it is fairly amazing.
(01:36):
A few days ago, Eric Swalwell was the leading candidate
to be the next governor of California. He is now
unemployed and I think there's a good likelihood he'll be
facing criminal prosecution. So wow, the world can change, and
it turns out if you're a dirt bag, it can
change really really fast. That prediction we told you about
(01:57):
on Monday, we were accurate. And look, part of what
we laid out is the hesitancy Democrats. A day ago,
we're calling on Swallwell to suspend as a good manatorial campaign,
but they were not calling on him to leave Congress.
And that's because the balance of power in Congress is
exceptionally close. I think part of why this happened today
(02:19):
is Gonzales stepped down as well, so you had one
Republican one Democrat, both stepped down, so it didn't alter
the balance of power. And I believe every one of
the members of Congress is glad they did so that
was the right decision.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, no doubt about it.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
We've also got a big deal that's going to be happening,
it looks like with Republican leadership, and I want to
talk about what that looks like. But before we get
to that, I want to tell you about our dear
friends a Compassion International. I want to be honest with
you for a second about how an act of compassion
really feels. A couple of years ago, I made the
choice to partner with an amazing organization called Compassion International.
(02:59):
Why because I wanted to sponsor a child in need.
It was a nice idea, sure, but I had no
idea just how much that simple act would change my
life as well. I sponsored Nadia and got to watch
your life change right in front of my eyes, going
from starving literally alone on the streets, to getting the
(03:20):
healthcare and education she needs to reach her God given
full potential. I got to be a part of that change.
And the light of that compassion not only illuminates in her,
it illuminates now in me. That is the power of compassion.
The light of Christ shines on all of us. Feel
(03:40):
it for yourself and change literally a child's life, change
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All right, senator, So you're there in DC. It's basically
just list.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Round numbers here about one in the morning.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
John Thune seemed too as I was it was described
to me earlier, got some cojones and said he's had
enough and and by golly, we're going to fight now,
and we're gonna get funding that we needed. It's gonna
be done through reconciliation, is what it's looking like. Can
you explain what has been being said behind the scenes,
how we finally got to this point, and now what
(04:21):
actually happens moving forward?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Well, Ben, I want to start by saying, you said
it's about one in the morning. I said, literally three
minutes ago that it was twelve twenty two in the morning.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I said, rounding.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
I said, round, o, kid, that's not how you round
you round down to twelve.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
I'm just saying that.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Round up here. I was giving you more credit. Your
dedication to the show at a sounds better.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
And you're in Texas, so it's barely eleven o'clock in Texas.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Barely eleven twenty five if we're going to get right
at it right, so it's time for you.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
This is a podcast that's going to insist on truth
and advertising.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
It's going to insist on accuracy. So it is now
what times now twelve.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
I love that he gets off the mic to get
his phone to make sure that he knows my.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Phone is down there. I got to see what time
it is.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
So those glasses and those here and aids, we just
got to get him for your next birthday.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
But keep going. I'm ready, all.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Right, you know man, I'm tempted to hold up a
finger foot to you, and it's not the thumb.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
It's not the thumb, and we're gonna save that for
later in the show. We're gonna save that for later
in the show.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
I was trying to give you a segue there make
your day.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So I'll give this segue before the show started today.
We'll just pull back the curtain. I said, I would
like to see a poll that is done on how
untrustworthy people think politicians are both sides out if in
every picture you take, you're doing the thumbs up post, like,
maybe it's just me because I see more political pictures
than than average Americans, but I despise all of them.
(05:51):
I find a picture of me with a thumbs up like,
you will not find that on the internet anywhere. I'm
not gonna do that pose. I don't care who's standing
next to me. And I think you would trust Americans
more as you described it with a middle finger than
you would like a politician with a thumbs up picture.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
So if I was king for a day, I would
ban it.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
So I will confess, Ben, I.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
You've done the thumbs up picture. I googled it. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
I don't do a lot of it.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
And the most common place I do a thumbs up
picture is if I'm taking a picture with Aggie's. So
Aggie's will do a gigam and that's that's the symbol
for Texas A and M, and I'll do a hook
them for longhorns as well.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
So I my guess is neither of those.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Just for the record, you.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Know that's that's okay, you came to Texas, but it
took you a while.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
That's true.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
And so.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
My guess is eighty percent of the pictures that are
thumbs up that I've done have been with Aggie's and
then there's been a handful where someone really occasionally someone
was like, hey, will you do a thumbs up?
Speaker 4 (06:51):
And I'm like, all right, fine, like if you really
want to.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
But that is not my thumbs up.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
But I will tell you an interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
By the way, do you know I feel about this
not really In the first Trump administration, when I was
in the Oval, somebody said, are you going to do
the thumbs up? I was like, I will not. I
will not do the thumbs up. And if you look
at the picture that they sent, I did not do
a thumbs up.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
I smiled. I did not do this.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
I'd do the thumbs up very rarely. But I will
tell you a funny story about thumbs up. So it
is like six seven years ago, I was down at
the border, and I was at a border patrol checkpoint
at our southern border where there were a bunch of
eighteen wheelers crossing from Mexico over to the United States
over to Texas, and I was just standing at the checkpoint,
and I got to say, if you're a truck driver
(07:37):
and you're driving across the border, there are a lot
of things you may be expecting to see at the
border patrol checkpoint, but the US senator from Texas is.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Not one of them.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, it's not on the list.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Yeah, And so the looks of startled shock from every
truck driver. It was really quite amusing because I stood
there probably an hour or so and like geted every
truck driver, and I took an informal survey. So a
number of the truck drivers gave me a thumbs up
and the remaining one gave me a middle finger. Yeah yeah,
(08:09):
And it was I gotta say, I actually felt pretty
good about the truck driver survey because I think it
was about eighty twenty, so about eighty percent got the
thumbs up and about twenty percent flipped me off. And
I was like, all right, I'll take those odds. Like,
truck drivers are my peeps.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
The rod number.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
That's the Republican Party has become a blue collar party,
like truck drivers, steel workers, construction workers, cops, firefighters, waiters
and waitresses. That's our base. But it was still a
fun because it literally was. It's amazing. Almost every truck
driver it was one of two fingers, and I got it.
You know, I don't remember how much, but it felt
(08:47):
like close to one hundred percent that they would give
me one finger or the other.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
You know what.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
That's good odds there By the way, on Saturday, I
worked out, I did get a middle finger in the
gym from a liberal. And I mean, I'm I'm sitting
there and I have my headphones in and I'm listening
to music and this guy just you just you could
just tell he just was wanting to talk and he
just decided he'd had enough and he just he just
put it right out there.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
And I was like, all right, well, I'm going to
go back to lifting weights now.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
But that was a random dude. And it wasn't like
Anna who was pissed at you.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
No, it was not that at all.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
No, it was just a random liberal who, if he's
listened to the show like that was probably the highlight
of his whole year. And I'm glad he had that moment.
I'm glad I could facilitate that for him.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
All Right.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
I feel confident we don't have a lot of random
liberals listen to this podcast. We have reporters because when
I walk on Capitol Hill and people ask me questions,
I'll say, oh, I just addressed that in the podcast.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Why don't you listen to the podcast?
Speaker 3 (09:41):
And then they go listen to the podcast and they
write stories and like break news because we break news.
All right, let's talk reconciliation because we're actually going to
talk about real and hard news. So Department of Homeland
Security has been shut down for two months. Yep, the
Democrats do not care. So understand, for two months, Coast
(10:01):
guardsmen have not been paid, Secret Service agents have not
been paid. FEMA has not been paid. Department of Homeland Security,
the people that are fighting cyber terrorism, the people that
are fighting bioterrorism, they have not been paid. About two
hundred thousand federal employees have not been paid for two months.
And the sad reality is not a Democrat I believe
(10:23):
cares And a big part of the reason they don't
care is the media is not holding them accountable, so
they're having no consequence. So Brian Schotz, who is Democrat
senator from Hawaii, he's widely viewed as the Democrat leader
in waiting after Chuck Schumer. He said about a month ago,
he said, Democrats are serene during the shutdowns, the longest
shutdown in American history. About six weeks ago, I stood
(10:49):
up to my colleagues in the Senate and I said
the Republicans, and I said, look, the Democrats are wildly unreasonable.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
It is bizarre.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
But I think where Democrats are right now is I
think they will never ever ever vote again to fund Ice.
Their base just hates Ice, and this is an open border's,
pro violent criminal party, and I think from their perspective,
they will vote against funding ICE forever, and they're perfectly
happy to shut down all of DHS to do it.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Now.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
The irony is DHS is defunded. You know what is
funded Ice?
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Ice. So when we took Plaine.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
That quickly ToView the man missed those episodes.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
When we passed the Reconciliation Bill last summer, the working
Family's tax cut, we funded ICE, and we funded customs
and border patrol for the next three years because we
knew Democrats were getting unreasonable. And so the rest of
DHS is shut down, but ICE is alive, and it
is literally the case that Democrats are voting to cut
(11:53):
off funding for Coast Guarden, FEMA and Secret Service and
all the rest because they're mad at ICE and ice
get is fully funded. That being said, here's what I
said six weeks ago to my colleagues. I said, listen,
this is where Democrats are. It is wildly unreasonable, it
is indefensible, but it's where they are. So here's the
approach forward. There were some Republican senators. They're saying, oh,
(12:15):
let's do nothing. The pressure will build on Democrats and
eventually they'll cave. And I said, you know what, they
will never cave. They will leave DHS shut down for
the entire year. And part of it is if the
media were functional and real, they wouldn't because they'd feel heat.
But nobody in the media is blaming them. And by
the way, the standard media trick is they blame both parties. Oh,
Congress is broken. That's how they give cover to the Democrats.
(12:38):
To be clear, I have voted sixteen times in the
last two months to fund DHS. Democrats have voted sixteen
times to defund DHS. It's not both parties. The people
who are voting to fund it are not responsible. In
the way that the people are voting to defund it
are The reason DHS is shut down is it takes
sixty votes. We only have fifty three Republicans, which means
(13:01):
the Democrats can shut it down and they're doing so.
Now what I urge is, I said, you know what,
let's pass a bill that funds DHS, and if the
Democrats are so unreasonable they will not fund ICE and CBP,
let's exclude them. Let's fund everything else. That's what the
Senate did two weeks ago. It then went to the
(13:22):
House and I got to say, House Republicans, they kind
of lost their minds and they began screaming, We're not
going to defund ICE. Now that claim was always false
because ICE is fully funded. ICE is funded through the
Reconciliation Bill. But I understand the sort of shock because
the position of the Democrats is so wildly unreasonable that
House Republicans were pissed. But the consequence they voted down
(13:46):
the Senate bill and it meant DHS stay shut down.
And I just think House Republicans had not gotten to
the point where they have accepted, where they've internalized these
are the crazy ass Democrats of the Senate we're dealing
with and they're never ever ever going to fund ICE again.
So here's what I suggested. Fund all of dhs except
ICE and CVP, and then immediately take up a budget reconciliation.
(14:10):
Budget reconciliation cannot be filibustered. The Democrats cannot block it.
We can pass it with just fifty Republicans in the Senate,
and we should fully fund ICE.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
And I will tell you today.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
So every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, when the Senate is
in session, Senate Republicans have lunch together. So today Tuesday,
we had lunch and we had.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Let me ask you a question.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
When you say you guys have lunch, is it working
groups at tables or is there like a big speaker?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
How does the lunch actually work? So people understand.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
So there are two rooms that you have lunch in
in the Senate. One is the LBJ room. That's a
smaller room, it's just off the Senate floor. The minority
gets the LBJ room, and then the bigger room is
the Michael Mansfield Room, named after Montana Senator Senate Majority
Leader Michael Mansfield, and it's a larger room. So whoever's
in the majority gets the man's fe old room, so.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I know, for personal reasons, what do you eat there?
Speaker 4 (15:05):
So there's actually different.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Centers that do it. How's that like? Is there a host?
Speaker 3 (15:11):
So Tuesday and Wednesday there is Senate catering and there's
like a catering office in the Senate that brings in food.
It ferries like today we had some beef and some
chicken and broccoli and green beans. I mean, catering is
actually pretty good. I mean one of the things that
I'm surprised, just like the food they provide at the
Senate lunches is surprisingly decent. And those are Senate employees
(15:33):
that do the catering on the Capitol and so events there.
They provide catering for any meal and we have dinners
and lunches and things that are on the Capitol. So
Tuesday and Wednesday the Senate Catering provides that, and then Thursdays.
The way it works among Republicans is it rotates among
different senators who hosts. So typically like I host about
(15:54):
once a year, and when you host, you usually fly
in food from your home state. So for example, when
I host, I fly in food from Texas. It's typically
either barbecue or Mexican or the two things that I've done.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
I've done. I usually do barbecue.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
I sometimes do Mexican, so I'll fly in either you know,
different barbecue places in Texas where we'll'll fly the food in.
And then what actually happens when you host is you
send a gift bag to your other senators. And the
gift bag is usually a collection of stuff from your state.
So I'll usually pick up some stuff like some you know,
(16:34):
HB tortilla chips and salsa and you know, kind of
different and you kind of put a gift bag together
that I don't know. It's about one hundred bucks worth
of different stuff from the state that you collect and
you send it. Oddly enough, senators send a lot of
booze to each other, so I actually have I have
a whole shelf in my office filled with booze that
(16:56):
senators have sent me. And I don't drink the booze
very much, so it just sits there. It collects faster
than I drink it. But you have varying senators that
will send like the Kentucky senators will usually send it.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Burban around to win that ball game, right, And then
I'm assuming Texas jo like, here's some Tito's.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
I've done Tito's. I've done Schiner back is what I
usually send. I'll off and send a six pack of
schiner Bach. I have done Tito's in the past. Those
those have been the two that are kind of you
pick a collection of stuff that sort of reflects your state.
And so today we had and the Tuesday lunch is
the leadership lunch, so leadership runs it. The Wednesday lunch
(17:34):
is the steering lunch. Steering are the more conservative senators.
Rick Scott is right now the chairman of Steering. There's
about a dozen of us that are on the Executive
Committee of Steering. I'm on the Executive Committee. They are
by design the most conservative senators. So the Wednesday lunch
tends to be more policy driven. But we typically meet
(17:54):
from about twelve thirty to two, so it's anywhere from
an hour to hour and a half. A lot of
people get there about one, so it's typically one to two.
Sometimes it's twelve thirty or too. But you have a
good hour of robust discussion and it's not it's not
a bunch.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Of say it room where someone has a four and
is talking then someone else.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
So it lunch.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
It's not like you're sitting there hanging out with your
buddies and then for fifteen minutes someone speaks.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
It's the floor. It's actually a real working lunch.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
It is a working lunch, and actually a lot of
work gets done. And so I try to make the
lunch every day because you have real debates and discussions
with your colleagues. And so today we had this was
the leadership lunch today, and so you had a presentation
from John Thune and from Lindsey Graham about the plan.
And the plan is to take up a reconciliation bill,
which is what I proposed six weeks ago. They are
(18:43):
planning right now to fund DHS and ICE for three
and a half years through fiscal year twenty twenty nine.
And they want to keep the bill very narrowly limited
to just ICE and CBP, And so I stood up.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
I actually talked at.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Length today and I made a pretty vigorous argument. I said, listen,
this is a no brainer. We need to do it.
It's the right thing to do. Absolutely all of us
agree with us. But I said, I think we're making
three very serious mistakes. Number one, I think the proposal
to fund icen CBP for three and a half years
is a mistake.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
We should enough.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Yes, we should fund them for ten years. Ten years
is the limit under the statute for how long you
can fund anything under budget reconciliation. And I said, the
Democrats are going to vote against border security, against ICE
and CBP for the foreseeable future. If that's the case,
let's fund it for a decade. Let's take the opportunity
we have right now to ensure that border security is
funded for ten years.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
I said.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Secondly, if we simply respond to the Democrats' legislative terrorism
shutting down DHS by funding what we would have funded ordinarily,
I think that's really dumb. What I have argued is
we ought to increase the funding for ICE by ten percent,
so that the consequence and this is it's a policy decision,
(20:06):
but it's also a political decision. The consequence of Elizabeth
Warren and Bernie Sanders shutting down the government for two
months and going nuts on border securities. Congratulations, Elizabeth, you
just increased the funding for ICE by ten percent. That's
just rather than beyond defense, let's go on offense and say,
you know what, we are the Party of Border Security.
(20:26):
We're going to fund it. And because you guys were
wildly unreasonable, we had a bipartisan agreement on DHS funding
until the Democrats backed out of it. So the consequence
of your stupidity is you increase the funding of ICE.
I think that's a no brainer. I don't know if
my colleagues will agree with either of those points, the
ten years or increase in the work.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
By the way, why would they not agree the ten years?
And my cynical view is always I'm going to go
there first. Is it because they'd want it to be
an election your issue within the next ten years, or
therefore they're saying, now, hey, let's fight on this in
a couple of years.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
Again, No, it's not that, it's it's.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Cynical politics has made me certain this want to be clear. Yeah, Like, look.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Immediately, I'm like, I could see something like I don't
I don't want to. I like this issue I wanted
to come up every couple of years. I can fight
over it.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Look that there's a natural instinct of essentially playing small ball,
and this is the outcome of negotiations between John Thune,
Lindsey Graham, and the White House. And I think the
White House is playing small ball too, and so I
am urging the White House. Let's go ten years, let's
up the budget. I've made this case to the White House.
They're not there yet, and so they're focused on the
(21:33):
challenge right in front of us rather than the challenge tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
But here's the big case.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
That I made, and I leaned in really aggressively. I said, listen,
we should do a reconciliation bill. We should fund ICE,
do it for ten years. We should fund CVP, do
it for ten years. We should up the budgets, but
we shouldn't limit it to just those two. We should
do a much broader reconciliation bill. In the case I
(21:58):
made to my colleagues, I said, this, this is the
last meaningful chance we will have to pass Republican priorities.
And there's a very real chance right now. It's substantially
more likely than not that we will lose at least
the House in November. We may lose the Senate to
If that's right, then we have just the remainder of
(22:20):
twenty twenty six to pass conservative victories, because starting next year,
the House will be nothing but all impeachment and all
investigations all the time, and so we will not be
able to pass conservative priorities. So my case to my
colleagues was, we ought to take this up and use reconciliation,
just like we did last year on the fourth of
July where we passed the Working Families tax gut and
(22:40):
had a massive number of conservative victories. We ought to
do it again, and I suggested there are a lot
of things we can do. So for example, I have
a bill called Keep America Flying that says the Democrats
will never again be able to shut down civilian air traffic.
So they won't be able to defund air traffic controllers,
they won't be able to defund the TSA, they won't
(23:02):
be able to defund the federal workers that are critical
to keep planes in the air. By the way, September
thirtieth budget funding is going to expire again right now,
the Democrats are going to force another shutdown. One hundred percent.
I will wager in some money right before the elections
they will force a shutdown. I think we are idiots
(23:23):
to do nothing to prevent them. But the problem is
a lot of folks in Congress just look an inch
in front of their nose and they can't look ten
inches in front of their nose. So if we're headed
to a shutdown in September, we'd be morons not to
do something to forestall it. So one of the things
we can do is make sure that the four hour
lines at airports, the people missing their flights for spring break,
(23:44):
that doesn't happen again. We could pass funding that says
we're going to keep planes flying. Democrats no longer get
to destroy your vacation or destroy your work trip just
because they're mad. That I think makes a lot of sense.
What I've verged is we had to do things that
make sense for the economy. So, for example, an idea
(24:05):
that I have been pushing hard is indexing capital gains
to inflation. So the way it works, let's say ten
years ago you bought a stock for one hundred dollars,
and in the course of ten years, inflation has driven
the cost of that stock to two hundred dollars. Now,
if that's all inflation, you don't have any meaningful gain.
(24:27):
But if you sell that stock at two hundred dollars,
you pay capital gains tax on the difference between one
hundred dollars and two hundred dollars. And that's a phantom gain.
And so what I believe is you ought to index
capital gains to inflation, which means whatever the inflation is
you base, you raise the basis, you raise the cost
of whatever it is you've invested. That would have a
(24:48):
massive positive stimulus effect for the economy, and affordability is
a huge issue for the voters. It has an enormous
impact on housing. So here's what's in interesting. If you
have a house. Let's say you bought a house and
the house is appreciated massively in value, the same principle
is true if you sell it. If the appreciation is
(25:09):
due to inflation, you pay taxes on that. Yeah, and
so what happens is a lot of people don't sell
their house when you die. If you pass your house
onto your kids, the basis steps up, which means your
kids take it not at the cost you paid, but
whatever the cost is when they inherit it, so that
capital gains tax disappears when you die. What it results in,
(25:33):
particularly in high tax states, is people holding onto houses
a really long time in not selling them.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Here's an amazing question.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Man, California, which has among the highest taxes in the country. Yes,
what percent of hopes do you think are passed on it?
Death and other words are held on too so long
because the capital gains tax would be so high.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
I'm not gonna I'm going to totally guess. I would
say at least forty percent. Now I may be wrong,
but I know people that they get they that's how
they got their parents' house for the same reason you
just described it.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
So you are wrong. That's a little too aggressive. It's
about twenty five percent. But twenty five.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Percent saying, by the way, because like in Texas, what
is it three percent, four percent.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
It's much lower. I don't know the Texas number, but
it's much lower. And the consequence, Let's say you have
a family that has a bunch of kids. They buy
a big house and they raise their kids in it,
and then their kids graduate, go off into the world,
and you've just got an older, retired family. Now, many
like an older required couple, doesn't need a big house
with a bunch of bedrooms. In a normal world, they
(26:40):
would sell that house. They'd put it on the market
and they'd buy like they'd buy a smaller little town
home or condo. They'd buy something that is more appropriate
to their stage in life, but especially in California and
other high tax states, they don't do that because their
tax bill would be huge. So the effect of this
would be the lower the cost of housing for people
that buying. What it means is a young married couple
(27:02):
that wants to buy that first house. If there were
more houses on the market, it would drive the prices
down and they could afford it more. So that's an
example of something we can do. I also suggested we
could plus up the school choice provisions. We could plus
up the Trump account provisions. There are lots of things.
Ron Johnson is advocated for the Shutdown Fairness Act, which
(27:24):
says that number one, when there's a shutdown, all essential
workers will be paid. Number Two, there's another bill that
says we won't have shutdowns in the case that you
don't have funding, you will continue at the prior levels,
or maybe you'll ratchet down slightly. My point, look what
I stood up to my colleagues and I said, listen,
I am not today advocating for any one particular policy.
(27:48):
And I told them the story. So back in twenty eighteen,
we had a Republican House, a Republican Senate, we had
a Republican President Donald Trump. And in August of twenty eighteen,
I gave a presentation to the Senate Republicans and it
was a PowerPoint. It was about fifty pages long, and
I called it Carpe DM Seize the Day. And I
went through in the last hundred years what had happened
(28:11):
every time the Democrats had had the House, the Senate,
and the White House, and they pass fundamental transformations of
this country. They passed the New Deal, they passed the
Great Society, they passed Obamacare and Dodd Frank like, when
they have control, they push the pedal to the metal
and they floor their socialist left wing plans. Republicans, we
(28:32):
are piddly. We don't do nearly as much. We did
the working Family's tax cut. That was a big, big victory,
but we haven't done a whole lot since then. And
the case I made in twenty eighteen is I said
we ought to take up another reconciliation. It was the
vehicle for the biggest legislative victories we have. And I
had a chart that I put together of like fifty
(28:53):
bills that different Republican senators had introduced, and I said, listen,
I'm not being crazy. I'm not saying we should pass
all fifty of these. I'm saying, let's pick five. My
case was not we should do something specific. My case
was simply, we should do something. And I turned to
my colleagues, I said that what I said it in
twenty eighteen, I talked in particular the class of twenty fourteen.
(29:17):
There was a big class. Nine new senators Republicans were
elected in twenty fourteen, and I said, listen, you guys,
if we don't take this opportunity, we had one hundred
and eighty three days left in the Congress, this may
be the last opportunity you ever get to pass.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
Meaning meaningful legislation.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
If we lose the House, you're done, no more legislation,
forget about it. If that's the case, don't we have
an urgency to do something? And as I look back
at my entire tenure in the Senate, the most indefensible
legislative decision was Mitch McConnell's decision in twenty eighteen not
to take up another reconciliation.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
And I fear that we're repeating them.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
And by the way, so look for the last couple
of months, I have been searching around for how do
we do another reconciliation. I've been making this case for
a while, but I've said, what we need is a
tent pole. What do I mean by a tentpole. I
mean an idea that is big enough, that is bold enough,
that is important enough that it will unify fifty Republicans
(30:21):
in the Senate and two it or eighteen.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Republicans in the House. Because we have really narrow majority.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
So you've got to have something big enough that everyone
gets behind, and then you could have other provisions carry
along if you have a tentpole. In my view, ICE
and CBP are the tentpole. There is not a Republican.
I don't care if you're the most rock rip conservative
or completely squishy mod No Republican wants to vote against
(30:47):
funding ICE and CBP. That is a tent pole that
can carry the rest of it. And so that's the
case I'm making to my colleagues right now. The White
House is not on board, and my intention is I'm
going to make this case to President Trump directly. I
have not done so yet. Today was the beginning of it,
making it to my colleagues in the Senate. But I
think this is a decision do we swing for the
(31:10):
fences and get victories, economic victories that we can campaign
on and win elections in November, or do we play
small ball? And by the way, one of the things
that leadership is saying is no, no, we'll do another
reconciliation after this. Well, you know what, the next reconciliation
will fail because without a tent poll, without something like
iceon CBP, you ain't getting fifty and you ain't getting
(31:32):
to eighteen because the Republicans will scatter on all sorts
of different grounds. So you've got to have something big
enough to bring them together and then we can win
real victories. That's the case I'm trying to make to
my colleagues.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yeah, it's going to be really interesting how this plays out.
And you're right, I think Americans are like, what are
you doing for me right now? I wish all the
Republicans would understand that and be bold like you described it.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
We'll see if that happens.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Otherwise some of your colleagues may not be your colleagues
after the election this coming November.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
And Ben, by the way, one of the things that
I'm also urging my colleagues to include is election integrity,
to include as much of the Save America Act as
we can now. Now it is limited because of reconciliation.
There are rules under statute as to what you can
include in reconciliation. It has to be budgetary and not policy.
And so how you get you can't get the full
(32:24):
Save America Act in reconciliation, but you can get election
integrity provisions. You can, for example, condition federal grants, for example,
the Help America Vote Act grants, which are grants that
go to help fund elections. You can condition those on
election integrity. You can condition those. You can take those
away from sanctuary cities. So I'm arguing we ought to
(32:44):
be using like, let's take this opportunity to pass legislation
that Republicans agree with. Let's win victories. Let's not give
up the chance to win victories.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah, great point.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
We're gonna keep covering it and we'll keep you up
to day on what's happening in Washington, d C. Don't
forget the show. We do on YouTube as well, so
you can watch on YouTube. You can also download it
as a podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We do
the show Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and a weekend review on
Saturdays as well for what you may have missed during
the week and the Cina and I will see you
back here on Friday morning.
Welcome in as Verdict with Center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson
with you, and we've got a pack show for you,
including predictions that we made in the last show that
are spot on, and if you could be king for
a day. I've got something I want to make that
we should just banon politics.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
We'll deal with that a little bit later, but we
have big news.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
It looks like Republicans are actually going to stand up
and win on a big issue in the Senate.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Center fill us in.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Well, let's say, first of all, Monday's Pod, we made
a prediction. We made a prediction that number one Eric
Swalwell would resign from Congress and number two Tony Gonzalez,
a Republican, would resign from Congress as well. It is
Tuesday night, it is twelve twenty two in the morning,
and both of them are gone. Both of them have resigned.
(00:46):
Both are in scandals. Look, Gonzalez's scandal was really ugly.
It was not pretty. He had an affair with staffer. Tragically,
the staffer took.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Her own life. She literally poured gasoline on herself and
lit herself on fire. She was the mom of an
eight year old child. It was horrific, and so his
stepping down it is not a surprise to anyone that
needed to happen. And then Swallwell.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Swalwell almost like pushed Gonzales aside, said, hold my beer,
I can be more slimy, I could be more nasty
than you. At this point than the number of women
who have worked for him who've come out and accused
him of sexually harassing them, sexually assaulting them, raping them,
the number keeps spiraling, and so it is fairly amazing.
(01:36):
A few days ago, Eric Swalwell was the leading candidate
to be the next governor of California. He is now
unemployed and I think there's a good likelihood he'll be
facing criminal prosecution. So wow, the world can change, and
it turns out if you're a dirt bag, it can
change really really fast. That prediction we told you about
(01:57):
on Monday, we were accurate. And look, part of what
we laid out is the hesitancy Democrats. A day ago,
we're calling on Swallwell to suspend as a good manatorial campaign,
but they were not calling on him to leave Congress.
And that's because the balance of power in Congress is
exceptionally close. I think part of why this happened today
(02:19):
is Gonzales stepped down as well, so you had one
Republican one Democrat, both stepped down, so it didn't alter
the balance of power. And I believe every one of
the members of Congress is glad they did so that
was the right decision.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, no doubt about it.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
We've also got a big deal that's going to be happening,
it looks like with Republican leadership, and I want to
talk about what that looks like. But before we get
to that, I want to tell you about our dear
friends a Compassion International. I want to be honest with
you for a second about how an act of compassion
really feels. A couple of years ago, I made the
choice to partner with an amazing organization called Compassion International.
(02:59):
Why because I wanted to sponsor a child in need.
It was a nice idea, sure, but I had no
idea just how much that simple act would change my
life as well. I sponsored Nadia and got to watch
your life change right in front of my eyes, going
from starving literally alone on the streets, to getting the
(03:20):
healthcare and education she needs to reach her God given
full potential. I got to be a part of that change.
And the light of that compassion not only illuminates in her,
it illuminates now in me. That is the power of compassion.
The light of Christ shines on all of us. Feel
(03:40):
it for yourself and change literally a child's life, change
the world, and you also change yourself. You can sponsor
child today. Visit compassion dot com. That's compassion dot com.
All right, senator, So you're there in DC. It's basically
just list.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Round numbers here about one in the morning.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
John Thune seemed too as I was it was described
to me earlier, got some cojones and said he's had
enough and and by golly, we're going to fight now,
and we're gonna get funding that we needed. It's gonna
be done through reconciliation, is what it's looking like. Can
you explain what has been being said behind the scenes,
how we finally got to this point, and now what
(04:21):
actually happens moving forward?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Well, Ben, I want to start by saying, you said
it's about one in the morning. I said, literally three
minutes ago that it was twelve twenty two in the morning.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I said, rounding.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
I said, round, o, kid, that's not how you round
you round down to twelve.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
I'm just saying that.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Round up here. I was giving you more credit. Your
dedication to the show at a sounds better.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
And you're in Texas, so it's barely eleven o'clock in Texas.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Barely eleven twenty five if we're going to get right
at it right, so it's time for you.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
This is a podcast that's going to insist on truth
and advertising.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
It's going to insist on accuracy. So it is now
what times now twelve.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
I love that he gets off the mic to get
his phone to make sure that he knows my.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Phone is down there. I got to see what time
it is.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
So those glasses and those here and aids, we just
got to get him for your next birthday.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
But keep going. I'm ready, all.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Right, you know man, I'm tempted to hold up a
finger foot to you, and it's not the thumb.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
It's not the thumb, and we're gonna save that for
later in the show. We're gonna save that for later
in the show.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
I was trying to give you a segue there make
your day.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So I'll give this segue before the show started today.
We'll just pull back the curtain. I said, I would
like to see a poll that is done on how
untrustworthy people think politicians are both sides out if in
every picture you take, you're doing the thumbs up post, like,
maybe it's just me because I see more political pictures
than than average Americans, but I despise all of them.
(05:51):
I find a picture of me with a thumbs up like,
you will not find that on the internet anywhere. I'm
not gonna do that pose. I don't care who's standing
next to me. And I think you would trust Americans
more as you described it with a middle finger than
you would like a politician with a thumbs up picture.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
So if I was king for a day, I would
ban it.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
So I will confess, Ben, I.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
You've done the thumbs up picture. I googled it. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
I don't do a lot of it.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
And the most common place I do a thumbs up
picture is if I'm taking a picture with Aggie's. So
Aggie's will do a gigam and that's that's the symbol
for Texas A and M, and I'll do a hook
them for longhorns as well.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
So I my guess is neither of those.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Just for the record, you.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Know that's that's okay, you came to Texas, but it
took you a while.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
That's true.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
And so.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
My guess is eighty percent of the pictures that are
thumbs up that I've done have been with Aggie's and
then there's been a handful where someone really occasionally someone
was like, hey, will you do a thumbs up?
Speaker 4 (06:51):
And I'm like, all right, fine, like if you really
want to.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
But that is not my thumbs up.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
But I will tell you an interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
By the way, do you know I feel about this
not really In the first Trump administration, when I was
in the Oval, somebody said, are you going to do
the thumbs up? I was like, I will not. I
will not do the thumbs up. And if you look
at the picture that they sent, I did not do
a thumbs up.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
I smiled. I did not do this.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
I'd do the thumbs up very rarely. But I will
tell you a funny story about thumbs up. So it
is like six seven years ago, I was down at
the border, and I was at a border patrol checkpoint
at our southern border where there were a bunch of
eighteen wheelers crossing from Mexico over to the United States
over to Texas, and I was just standing at the checkpoint,
and I got to say, if you're a truck driver
(07:37):
and you're driving across the border, there are a lot
of things you may be expecting to see at the
border patrol checkpoint, but the US senator from Texas is.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Not one of them.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah, it's not on the list.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Yeah, And so the looks of startled shock from every
truck driver. It was really quite amusing because I stood
there probably an hour or so and like geted every
truck driver, and I took an informal survey. So a
number of the truck drivers gave me a thumbs up
and the remaining one gave me a middle finger. Yeah yeah,
(08:09):
And it was I gotta say, I actually felt pretty
good about the truck driver survey because I think it
was about eighty twenty, so about eighty percent got the
thumbs up and about twenty percent flipped me off. And
I was like, all right, I'll take those odds. Like,
truck drivers are my peeps.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
The rod number.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
That's the Republican Party has become a blue collar party,
like truck drivers, steel workers, construction workers, cops, firefighters, waiters
and waitresses. That's our base. But it was still a
fun because it literally was. It's amazing. Almost every truck
driver it was one of two fingers, and I got it.
You know, I don't remember how much, but it felt
(08:47):
like close to one hundred percent that they would give
me one finger or the other.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
You know what.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
That's good odds there By the way, on Saturday, I
worked out, I did get a middle finger in the
gym from a liberal. And I mean, I'm I'm sitting
there and I have my headphones in and I'm listening
to music and this guy just you just you could
just tell he just was wanting to talk and he
just decided he'd had enough and he just he just
put it right out there.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
And I was like, all right, well, I'm going to
go back to lifting weights now.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
But that was a random dude. And it wasn't like
Anna who was pissed at you.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
No, it was not that at all.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
No, it was just a random liberal who, if he's
listened to the show like that was probably the highlight
of his whole year. And I'm glad he had that moment.
I'm glad I could facilitate that for him.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
All Right.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
I feel confident we don't have a lot of random
liberals listen to this podcast. We have reporters because when
I walk on Capitol Hill and people ask me questions,
I'll say, oh, I just addressed that in the podcast.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Why don't you listen to the podcast?
Speaker 3 (09:41):
And then they go listen to the podcast and they
write stories and like break news because we break news.
All right, let's talk reconciliation because we're actually going to
talk about real and hard news. So Department of Homeland
Security has been shut down for two months. Yep, the
Democrats do not care. So understand, for two months, Coast
(10:01):
guardsmen have not been paid, Secret Service agents have not
been paid. FEMA has not been paid. Department of Homeland Security,
the people that are fighting cyber terrorism, the people that
are fighting bioterrorism, they have not been paid. About two
hundred thousand federal employees have not been paid for two months.
And the sad reality is not a Democrat I believe
(10:23):
cares And a big part of the reason they don't
care is the media is not holding them accountable, so
they're having no consequence. So Brian Schotz, who is Democrat
senator from Hawaii, he's widely viewed as the Democrat leader
in waiting after Chuck Schumer. He said about a month ago,
he said, Democrats are serene during the shutdowns, the longest
shutdown in American history. About six weeks ago, I stood
(10:49):
up to my colleagues in the Senate and I said
the Republicans, and I said, look, the Democrats are wildly unreasonable.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
It is bizarre.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
But I think where Democrats are right now is I
think they will never ever ever vote again to fund Ice.
Their base just hates Ice, and this is an open border's,
pro violent criminal party, and I think from their perspective,
they will vote against funding ICE forever, and they're perfectly
happy to shut down all of DHS to do it.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Now.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
The irony is DHS is defunded. You know what is
funded Ice?
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Ice. So when we took Plaine.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
That quickly ToView the man missed those episodes.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
When we passed the Reconciliation Bill last summer, the working
Family's tax cut, we funded ICE, and we funded customs
and border patrol for the next three years because we
knew Democrats were getting unreasonable. And so the rest of
DHS is shut down, but ICE is alive, and it
is literally the case that Democrats are voting to cut
(11:53):
off funding for Coast Guarden, FEMA and Secret Service and
all the rest because they're mad at ICE and ice
get is fully funded. That being said, here's what I
said six weeks ago to my colleagues. I said, listen,
this is where Democrats are. It is wildly unreasonable, it
is indefensible, but it's where they are. So here's the
approach forward. There were some Republican senators. They're saying, oh,
(12:15):
let's do nothing. The pressure will build on Democrats and
eventually they'll cave. And I said, you know what, they
will never cave. They will leave DHS shut down for
the entire year. And part of it is if the
media were functional and real, they wouldn't because they'd feel heat.
But nobody in the media is blaming them. And by
the way, the standard media trick is they blame both parties. Oh,
Congress is broken. That's how they give cover to the Democrats.
(12:38):
To be clear, I have voted sixteen times in the
last two months to fund DHS. Democrats have voted sixteen
times to defund DHS. It's not both parties. The people
who are voting to fund it are not responsible. In
the way that the people are voting to defund it
are The reason DHS is shut down is it takes
sixty votes. We only have fifty three Republicans, which means
(13:01):
the Democrats can shut it down and they're doing so.
Now what I urge is, I said, you know what,
let's pass a bill that funds DHS, and if the
Democrats are so unreasonable they will not fund ICE and CBP,
let's exclude them. Let's fund everything else. That's what the
Senate did two weeks ago. It then went to the
(13:22):
House and I got to say, House Republicans, they kind
of lost their minds and they began screaming, We're not
going to defund ICE. Now that claim was always false
because ICE is fully funded. ICE is funded through the
Reconciliation Bill. But I understand the sort of shock because
the position of the Democrats is so wildly unreasonable that
House Republicans were pissed. But the consequence they voted down
(13:46):
the Senate bill and it meant DHS stay shut down.
And I just think House Republicans had not gotten to
the point where they have accepted, where they've internalized these
are the crazy ass Democrats of the Senate we're dealing
with and they're never ever ever going to fund ICE again.
So here's what I suggested. Fund all of dhs except
ICE and CVP, and then immediately take up a budget reconciliation.
(14:10):
Budget reconciliation cannot be filibustered. The Democrats cannot block it.
We can pass it with just fifty Republicans in the Senate,
and we should fully fund ICE.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
And I will tell you today.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
So every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, when the Senate is
in session, Senate Republicans have lunch together. So today Tuesday,
we had lunch and we had.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Let me ask you a question.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
When you say you guys have lunch, is it working
groups at tables or is there like a big speaker?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
How does the lunch actually work? So people understand.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
So there are two rooms that you have lunch in
in the Senate. One is the LBJ room. That's a
smaller room, it's just off the Senate floor. The minority
gets the LBJ room, and then the bigger room is
the Michael Mansfield Room, named after Montana Senator Senate Majority
Leader Michael Mansfield, and it's a larger room. So whoever's
in the majority gets the man's fe old room, so.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I know, for personal reasons, what do you eat there?
Speaker 4 (15:05):
So there's actually different.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Centers that do it. How's that like? Is there a host?
Speaker 3 (15:11):
So Tuesday and Wednesday there is Senate catering and there's
like a catering office in the Senate that brings in food.
It ferries like today we had some beef and some
chicken and broccoli and green beans. I mean, catering is
actually pretty good. I mean one of the things that
I'm surprised, just like the food they provide at the
Senate lunches is surprisingly decent. And those are Senate employees
(15:33):
that do the catering on the Capitol and so events there.
They provide catering for any meal and we have dinners
and lunches and things that are on the Capitol. So
Tuesday and Wednesday the Senate Catering provides that, and then Thursdays.
The way it works among Republicans is it rotates among
different senators who hosts. So typically like I host about
(15:54):
once a year, and when you host, you usually fly
in food from your home state. So for example, when
I host, I fly in food from Texas. It's typically
either barbecue or Mexican or the two things that I've done.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
I've done. I usually do barbecue.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
I sometimes do Mexican, so I'll fly in either you know,
different barbecue places in Texas where we'll'll fly the food in.
And then what actually happens when you host is you
send a gift bag to your other senators. And the
gift bag is usually a collection of stuff from your state.
So I'll usually pick up some stuff like some you know,
(16:34):
HB tortilla chips and salsa and you know, kind of
different and you kind of put a gift bag together
that I don't know. It's about one hundred bucks worth
of different stuff from the state that you collect and
you send it. Oddly enough, senators send a lot of
booze to each other, so I actually have I have
a whole shelf in my office filled with booze that
(16:56):
senators have sent me. And I don't drink the booze
very much, so it just sits there. It collects faster
than I drink it. But you have varying senators that
will send like the Kentucky senators will usually send it.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Burban around to win that ball game, right, And then
I'm assuming Texas jo like, here's some Tito's.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
I've done Tito's. I've done Schiner back is what I
usually send. I'll off and send a six pack of
schiner Bach. I have done Tito's in the past. Those
those have been the two that are kind of you
pick a collection of stuff that sort of reflects your state.
And so today we had and the Tuesday lunch is
the leadership lunch, so leadership runs it. The Wednesday lunch
(17:34):
is the steering lunch. Steering are the more conservative senators.
Rick Scott is right now the chairman of Steering. There's
about a dozen of us that are on the Executive
Committee of Steering. I'm on the Executive Committee. They are
by design the most conservative senators. So the Wednesday lunch
tends to be more policy driven. But we typically meet
(17:54):
from about twelve thirty to two, so it's anywhere from
an hour to hour and a half. A lot of
people get there about one, so it's typically one to two.
Sometimes it's twelve thirty or too. But you have a
good hour of robust discussion and it's not it's not
a bunch.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Of say it room where someone has a four and
is talking then someone else.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
So it lunch.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
It's not like you're sitting there hanging out with your
buddies and then for fifteen minutes someone speaks.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
It's the floor. It's actually a real working lunch.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
It is a working lunch, and actually a lot of
work gets done. And so I try to make the
lunch every day because you have real debates and discussions
with your colleagues. And so today we had this was
the leadership lunch today, and so you had a presentation
from John Thune and from Lindsey Graham about the plan.
And the plan is to take up a reconciliation bill,
which is what I proposed six weeks ago. They are
(18:43):
planning right now to fund DHS and ICE for three
and a half years through fiscal year twenty twenty nine.
And they want to keep the bill very narrowly limited
to just ICE and CBP, And so I stood up.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
I actually talked at.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Length today and I made a pretty vigorous argument. I said, listen,
this is a no brainer. We need to do it.
It's the right thing to do. Absolutely all of us
agree with us. But I said, I think we're making
three very serious mistakes. Number one, I think the proposal
to fund icen CBP for three and a half years
is a mistake.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
We should enough.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
Yes, we should fund them for ten years. Ten years
is the limit under the statute for how long you
can fund anything under budget reconciliation. And I said, the
Democrats are going to vote against border security, against ICE
and CBP for the foreseeable future. If that's the case,
let's fund it for a decade. Let's take the opportunity
we have right now to ensure that border security is
funded for ten years.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
I said.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Secondly, if we simply respond to the Democrats' legislative terrorism
shutting down DHS by funding what we would have funded ordinarily,
I think that's really dumb. What I have argued is
we ought to increase the funding for ICE by ten percent,
so that the consequence and this is it's a policy decision,
(20:06):
but it's also a political decision. The consequence of Elizabeth
Warren and Bernie Sanders shutting down the government for two
months and going nuts on border securities. Congratulations, Elizabeth, you
just increased the funding for ICE by ten percent. That's
just rather than beyond defense, let's go on offense and say,
you know what, we are the Party of Border Security.
(20:26):
We're going to fund it. And because you guys were
wildly unreasonable, we had a bipartisan agreement on DHS funding
until the Democrats backed out of it. So the consequence
of your stupidity is you increase the funding of ICE.
I think that's a no brainer. I don't know if
my colleagues will agree with either of those points, the
ten years or increase in the work.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
By the way, why would they not agree the ten years?
And my cynical view is always I'm going to go
there first. Is it because they'd want it to be
an election your issue within the next ten years, or
therefore they're saying, now, hey, let's fight on this in
a couple of years.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
Again, No, it's not that, it's it's.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Cynical politics has made me certain this want to be clear. Yeah, Like, look.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Immediately, I'm like, I could see something like I don't
I don't want to. I like this issue I wanted
to come up every couple of years. I can fight
over it.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Look that there's a natural instinct of essentially playing small ball,
and this is the outcome of negotiations between John Thune,
Lindsey Graham, and the White House. And I think the
White House is playing small ball too, and so I
am urging the White House. Let's go ten years, let's
up the budget. I've made this case to the White House.
They're not there yet, and so they're focused on the
(21:33):
challenge right in front of us rather than the challenge tomorrow.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
But here's the big case.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
That I made, and I leaned in really aggressively. I said, listen,
we should do a reconciliation bill. We should fund ICE,
do it for ten years. We should fund CVP, do
it for ten years. We should up the budgets, but
we shouldn't limit it to just those two. We should
do a much broader reconciliation bill. In the case I
(21:58):
made to my colleagues, I said, this, this is the
last meaningful chance we will have to pass Republican priorities.
And there's a very real chance right now. It's substantially
more likely than not that we will lose at least
the House in November. We may lose the Senate to
If that's right, then we have just the remainder of
(22:20):
twenty twenty six to pass conservative victories, because starting next year,
the House will be nothing but all impeachment and all
investigations all the time, and so we will not be
able to pass conservative priorities. So my case to my
colleagues was, we ought to take this up and use reconciliation,
just like we did last year on the fourth of
July where we passed the Working Families tax gut and
(22:40):
had a massive number of conservative victories. We ought to
do it again, and I suggested there are a lot
of things we can do. So for example, I have
a bill called Keep America Flying that says the Democrats
will never again be able to shut down civilian air traffic.
So they won't be able to defund air traffic controllers,
they won't be able to defund the TSA, they won't
(23:02):
be able to defund the federal workers that are critical
to keep planes in the air. By the way, September
thirtieth budget funding is going to expire again right now,
the Democrats are going to force another shutdown. One hundred percent.
I will wager in some money right before the elections
they will force a shutdown. I think we are idiots
(23:23):
to do nothing to prevent them. But the problem is
a lot of folks in Congress just look an inch
in front of their nose and they can't look ten
inches in front of their nose. So if we're headed
to a shutdown in September, we'd be morons not to
do something to forestall it. So one of the things
we can do is make sure that the four hour
lines at airports, the people missing their flights for spring break,
(23:44):
that doesn't happen again. We could pass funding that says
we're going to keep planes flying. Democrats no longer get
to destroy your vacation or destroy your work trip just
because they're mad. That I think makes a lot of sense.
What I've verged is we had to do things that
make sense for the economy. So, for example, an idea
(24:05):
that I have been pushing hard is indexing capital gains
to inflation. So the way it works, let's say ten
years ago you bought a stock for one hundred dollars,
and in the course of ten years, inflation has driven
the cost of that stock to two hundred dollars. Now,
if that's all inflation, you don't have any meaningful gain.
(24:27):
But if you sell that stock at two hundred dollars,
you pay capital gains tax on the difference between one
hundred dollars and two hundred dollars. And that's a phantom gain.
And so what I believe is you ought to index
capital gains to inflation, which means whatever the inflation is
you base, you raise the basis, you raise the cost
of whatever it is you've invested. That would have a
(24:48):
massive positive stimulus effect for the economy, and affordability is
a huge issue for the voters. It has an enormous
impact on housing. So here's what's in interesting. If you
have a house. Let's say you bought a house and
the house is appreciated massively in value, the same principle
is true if you sell it. If the appreciation is
(25:09):
due to inflation, you pay taxes on that. Yeah, and
so what happens is a lot of people don't sell
their house when you die. If you pass your house
onto your kids, the basis steps up, which means your
kids take it not at the cost you paid, but
whatever the cost is when they inherit it, so that
capital gains tax disappears when you die. What it results in,
(25:33):
particularly in high tax states, is people holding onto houses
a really long time in not selling them.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Here's an amazing question.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Man, California, which has among the highest taxes in the country. Yes,
what percent of hopes do you think are passed on it?
Death and other words are held on too so long
because the capital gains tax would be so high.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
I'm not gonna I'm going to totally guess. I would
say at least forty percent. Now I may be wrong,
but I know people that they get they that's how
they got their parents' house for the same reason you
just described it.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
So you are wrong. That's a little too aggressive. It's
about twenty five percent. But twenty five.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Percent saying, by the way, because like in Texas, what
is it three percent, four percent.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
It's much lower. I don't know the Texas number, but
it's much lower. And the consequence, Let's say you have
a family that has a bunch of kids. They buy
a big house and they raise their kids in it,
and then their kids graduate, go off into the world,
and you've just got an older, retired family. Now, many
like an older required couple, doesn't need a big house
with a bunch of bedrooms. In a normal world, they
(26:40):
would sell that house. They'd put it on the market
and they'd buy like they'd buy a smaller little town
home or condo. They'd buy something that is more appropriate
to their stage in life, but especially in California and
other high tax states, they don't do that because their
tax bill would be huge. So the effect of this
would be the lower the cost of housing for people
that buying. What it means is a young married couple
(27:02):
that wants to buy that first house. If there were
more houses on the market, it would drive the prices
down and they could afford it more. So that's an
example of something we can do. I also suggested we
could plus up the school choice provisions. We could plus
up the Trump account provisions. There are lots of things.
Ron Johnson is advocated for the Shutdown Fairness Act, which
(27:24):
says that number one, when there's a shutdown, all essential
workers will be paid. Number Two, there's another bill that
says we won't have shutdowns in the case that you
don't have funding, you will continue at the prior levels,
or maybe you'll ratchet down slightly. My point, look what
I stood up to my colleagues and I said, listen,
I am not today advocating for any one particular policy.
(27:48):
And I told them the story. So back in twenty eighteen,
we had a Republican House, a Republican Senate, we had
a Republican President Donald Trump. And in August of twenty eighteen,
I gave a presentation to the Senate Republicans and it
was a PowerPoint. It was about fifty pages long, and
I called it Carpe DM Seize the Day. And I
went through in the last hundred years what had happened
(28:11):
every time the Democrats had had the House, the Senate,
and the White House, and they pass fundamental transformations of
this country. They passed the New Deal, they passed the
Great Society, they passed Obamacare and Dodd Frank like, when
they have control, they push the pedal to the metal
and they floor their socialist left wing plans. Republicans, we
(28:32):
are piddly. We don't do nearly as much. We did
the working Family's tax cut. That was a big, big victory,
but we haven't done a whole lot since then. And
the case I made in twenty eighteen is I said
we ought to take up another reconciliation. It was the
vehicle for the biggest legislative victories we have. And I
had a chart that I put together of like fifty
(28:53):
bills that different Republican senators had introduced, and I said, listen,
I'm not being crazy. I'm not saying we should pass
all fifty of these. I'm saying, let's pick five. My
case was not we should do something specific. My case
was simply, we should do something. And I turned to
my colleagues, I said that what I said it in
twenty eighteen, I talked in particular the class of twenty fourteen.
(29:17):
There was a big class. Nine new senators Republicans were
elected in twenty fourteen, and I said, listen, you guys,
if we don't take this opportunity, we had one hundred
and eighty three days left in the Congress, this may
be the last opportunity you ever get to pass.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
Meaning meaningful legislation.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
If we lose the House, you're done, no more legislation,
forget about it. If that's the case, don't we have
an urgency to do something? And as I look back
at my entire tenure in the Senate, the most indefensible
legislative decision was Mitch McConnell's decision in twenty eighteen not
to take up another reconciliation.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
And I fear that we're repeating them.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
And by the way, so look for the last couple
of months, I have been searching around for how do
we do another reconciliation. I've been making this case for
a while, but I've said, what we need is a
tent pole. What do I mean by a tentpole. I
mean an idea that is big enough, that is bold enough,
that is important enough that it will unify fifty Republicans
(30:21):
in the Senate and two it or eighteen.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Republicans in the House. Because we have really narrow majority.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
So you've got to have something big enough that everyone
gets behind, and then you could have other provisions carry
along if you have a tentpole. In my view, ICE
and CBP are the tentpole. There is not a Republican.
I don't care if you're the most rock rip conservative
or completely squishy mod No Republican wants to vote against
(30:47):
funding ICE and CBP. That is a tent pole that
can carry the rest of it. And so that's the
case I'm making to my colleagues right now. The White
House is not on board, and my intention is I'm
going to make this case to President Trump directly. I
have not done so yet. Today was the beginning of it,
making it to my colleagues in the Senate. But I
think this is a decision do we swing for the
(31:10):
fences and get victories, economic victories that we can campaign
on and win elections in November, or do we play
small ball? And by the way, one of the things
that leadership is saying is no, no, we'll do another
reconciliation after this. Well, you know what, the next reconciliation
will fail because without a tent poll, without something like
iceon CBP, you ain't getting fifty and you ain't getting
(31:32):
to eighteen because the Republicans will scatter on all sorts
of different grounds. So you've got to have something big
enough to bring them together and then we can win
real victories. That's the case I'm trying to make to
my colleagues.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Yeah, it's going to be really interesting how this plays out.
And you're right, I think Americans are like, what are
you doing for me right now? I wish all the
Republicans would understand that and be bold like you described it.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
We'll see if that happens.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Otherwise some of your colleagues may not be your colleagues
after the election this coming November.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
And Ben, by the way, one of the things that
I'm also urging my colleagues to include is election integrity,
to include as much of the Save America Act as
we can now. Now it is limited because of reconciliation.
There are rules under statute as to what you can
include in reconciliation. It has to be budgetary and not policy.
And so how you get you can't get the full
(32:24):
Save America Act in reconciliation, but you can get election
integrity provisions. You can, for example, condition federal grants, for example,
the Help America Vote Act grants, which are grants that
go to help fund elections. You can condition those on
election integrity. You can condition those. You can take those
away from sanctuary cities. So I'm arguing we ought to
(32:44):
be using like, let's take this opportunity to pass legislation
that Republicans agree with. Let's win victories. Let's not give
up the chance to win victories.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah, great point.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
We're gonna keep covering it and we'll keep you up
to day on what's happening in Washington, d C. Don't
forget the show. We do on YouTube as well, so
you can watch on YouTube. You can also download it
as a podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We do
the show Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and a weekend review on
Saturdays as well for what you may have missed during
the week and the Cina and I will see you
back here on Friday morning.
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