July 27, 2026 • 33 mins
This news packed episode opens with an extensive discussion about alleged illegal fishing activities conducted by vessels linked to the Chinese Communist Party. The Senator argues that Chinese distant-water fishing fleets operate on a massive scale, engaging in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing that harms marine ecosystems, depletes fish populations, damages local fishing industries, and relies on forced labor practices. He describes efforts to combat these operations through sanctions and increased Coast Guard monitoring.
The conversation then shifts to U.S. politics, focusing on the perceived rise of socialist and progressive influence within the Democratic Party. Ted and Ben discuss polling on socialism and reveal policy positions associated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), arguing that the movement is becoming increasingly influential in Democratic primary elections.
The final segment examines fundraising and management challenges at the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Using an article from The New York Times, Sen Cruz and Ben describe internal disputes, cash flow concerns, political leadership issues, and fundraising disadvantages compared to Republicans ahead of upcoming midterm elections.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
It is Verdict with Center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
It's so nice to have you with us wherever you
are listening to us around the country and Center. We've
got a big show today, including China yet again being
accused of not playing by the rules, having a shadow
fleet of fishing boats that are not a few, a
lot that are destroying international waters and hurting so many
(00:21):
other countries.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Well, on today's podcast, we're going to talk to you
about Chinese communists, We're going to talk to you about
American communists, and then we're going to talk to you
about the Democratic National Committee. And you will notice there
is a thread that connects them all. But let's start
with the Chikoms. Let's start with the Chinese Communist Party.
We all know the horrible.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Things they do.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
We know the murders, the tortures, the concentration camps, the genocide,
the lying, the producing COVID virus and causing massive damage
to the world and covering it up. All of those
are a given. But you know what you made. Maybe
didn't know that China is responsible for one of the
(01:01):
greatest ecological disasters across the globe and a systemic theft
in the oceans, and it's something that's called illegal, unreported
and unregulated fishing. I you you as the acronym. Now,
the Chinese Communist Party has a distant water fishing fleet.
(01:24):
How big do you think their fleet is that does
distant water fishing in other words, not around China. It's
not fishing around China, it's fishing on the other side
of the world. How big do you think their fleet is?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I mean fifty ships, sixty ships would be my guess.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
It is somewhere between two thousand vessels and sixteen thousand vessels.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
And they engage way the fact we don't know, as
you just mentioned and tells you how big the fleet is.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
It is a massive number. It's engaged in theft. But
it's illegal fishing at a scale that constitutes ecoside combined
with gross human rights violations. And so this is an
issue I've been involved with a long time and trying
to urge the federal government to use the tools we
(02:13):
have to stop this massive illegal fishing. By the way,
this illegal fishing, it happens in the Gulf of America,
it happens in the Atlantic Ocean, it happens all around Africa,
does massive damages to Africa. It happens in and around
South America, it happens in the Indian Ocean, it happens
all over the globe. And the consequence of it, it
(02:34):
is subsidized by billions of dollars from the People's Republic
of China. Between twenty twenty two and twenty twenty four,
Chinese illegal fishing accounted for forty four percent of global
fishing all over the world. Forty four percent, nearly half.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
You just said illegal.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
So that's outside of their quote legal fishing they're doing
in and around.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
China, Yes, measuring at least one hundred and ten million
hours of fishing in more than ninety countries. And by
the way, not only do they engage in illegal fishing,
they also kill hundreds of critically endangered animals, including sharks, whales, dolphins.
(03:22):
They've destroyed tens of thousands of acres of coral reefs.
And they use forced laborers, so they've got slave labor
that they put on the boats. That's who's doing the
illegal fishing. Are are people who are enslaved and they're
subjected to physical abuse, malnutrition, over work, and withheld pay.
(03:45):
In many instances for years, and so it is an
enormous challenge and one that I've had real progress fighting with.
There's a lot more that we can and need to do.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
It's incredible. We're going to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
We're also going to talk about the craziness happening with
the Democratic Socialist of America one hundred days out from
the midterms, and also the DNC Democratic National they're broke.
We're going to have all that for you coming up
in a moment. Before we get to that, I want
to talk to you a moment about what you can
do in simply praying for the people right now that
are under attack in Israel. The headlines move on, but
(04:20):
the Harday can tear.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
They do not.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Iran and its terrist proxies are continuing to target Israel,
and Hesblad continues its attacks in the North, forcing families
to live under constant threat. Israel is not only defitting
her people, she is standing on the front lines against
terror that literally threatens all of us now.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Even when the news crews leave.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Israel, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, they remain.
Every day they are on the ground, providing life saving
aid and near Israel's border with Lebanon. A hesblod drone
recently struck the home of Yolina. She was widowed earlier
this year, living alone, and she was trapped inside by
that blast. Now, thank she was not injured, but she
(05:01):
remained displaced. It's hard these days, she said, but I
don't want to leave, and honestly, why should she have
to leave her home. As Christians, we're called to stand
with God's people and pray for those defending Israel and
protecting the freedoms we hold. Dear, I want you to
join the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews and praying
for the peace of Jerusalem and for the soldiers, the
(05:24):
families and civilians carrying the burden of this fight. Right now,
you can go right now and help and learn who
you can pray for by visiting PRAYIFCJ dot org. That is,
pray IFCJ dot org. Pray IFCJ dot Org. Senator, I
want to go back to you mentioned Africa a moment ago,
(05:45):
and this is one of the things that's really come
out of this story is when you have a fleet
that is as large as as the Chinese Communist Party does,
and they're all over the world, and they're doing all
this illegal fishing twenty four to seven and using slave
labor to do it. They're also destroying the fishing around
many people who desperately need it for survival. And when
(06:05):
I say survival, I'm talking about life and death. Africa
is one of the countries they've targeted off there, off there,
you know, off their their shoreline, and it is having
it's decimating their local fishing, which is survival. Not only
for the food, right because that food's not going to
Africa when they catch us fish, they're going back to
the international market. They're not taking back to shore like
the local fishermen do. But also it's putting countless fishermen
(06:28):
out of work.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Yeah. Look, it's it's a huge problem from food supply,
especially in Africa where you have many countries that are
struggling have significant problems with food and security and hunger.
It also means the jobs of the local African fishermen
are imperiled because you have the Chinese stealing their fish.
They overfish it, so they destroy the fishing population. So
(06:49):
not only are they denying them food and denying them
jobs now, but if you responsibly fish, it's a sustainable
harvest and you can keep on fishing and keep on fishing.
The Chinese don't get dam and they will fish a
population out of existence and they'll just move on. I mean,
I mean, it's almost like locusts descending and just consuming everything,
so they don't engage in responsible fishing. Look, you and
(07:12):
I both live in Texas. There are a lot of
Texans who are fishermen. There's a big commercial fishing operation
in Texas, whether it's shrimpers or red snapper. It's an
important part of our economy. But it is it is
understandably and necessarily regulated because if you overfish a population,
it goes away and you destroy the ability to keep
(07:33):
going back and fishing it. We have this problem the
Gulf of America with Mexicans, many of whom are funded
by the Mexican drug cartels, using illegal lanchas to come
up and fish red snapper. And in fact they fish
snapper from the Gulf of America, they do it illegally,
they steal it, they take it back down to Mexico,
they smuggle into the United States and they sell it
(07:56):
here and pretend it's domestic cot And so it is
an other form of theft that tends to be more
of the Mexican drug cartels, where they'll get local Mexican
fishermen and literally put a gun to their head and say, okay,
go get us some snapper in violation of the laws.
The Chinese provide funds for that as well. But look
(08:16):
in and around the United States, we have the Coastguard,
we have our military, We're able to do a pretty
good job of guarding our waters. In a continent like
Africa that the nations there, their coastguards and navy are
just just much much smaller, so they have very limited
ability to counteract it. And the same is true around
(08:37):
South America where you see the Chinese taking advantage. Again.
And let me talk about the mechanics of how you
fight this, because this is it's interesting and complicated. Look, normally,
if you deal with a fleet that is doing something illegal,
you would sanction them out of existence. So to run
a fleet, you need flagging, you need findancing, you need insurance,
(09:01):
you need fuel, you need port services, you need customers
willing to purchase goods. You need crews, and the crews
themselves need food and medical care. So you can impose
sanctions on an illegal fleet and shut them down. Now
how does a Chinese fleet get around that? Well, ordinarily,
when a ship is out at sea, they keep what's
(09:22):
called their AIS, their automatic identification system turned on. It's
essentially the way everyone else can spot them, so that
you know if an illegal ship, if the USS ben
Ferguson is out fishing illegally, you can go see the
AIS and you can go in and addict them. Well,
what the Chinese do is they turn their AIS off
(09:42):
and so you're not able to spot them. And you
look at the capacity sixteen thousand ships with their AIS
af so you can't spot them. And the way they
make this operate is they have an elaborate hub and
spoke system. So they have fishing vessels that are out fishing,
they have their AIS off so you can't see them.
(10:04):
But then to make the fleet operate, they have refrigerated
reefers that collect the catches at sea and sell them
in bulk. And they have to keep their AIS on
because the illegal fishing vessels all have to know where
to go to drop off their catch. They also have
tankers that refuel the fishing vessels, so they have a
(10:26):
big tanker and the illegal fishing vessels will get up,
refill and go back to fish. And on top of that,
they have floating bases which provide the crews with their
medical care and other services. And so what I have
been leading the fight to do is to go after
the refrigerated reefers, the tankers, and the floating bases with
medical care. Because those support vessels can be sanctions. They
(10:49):
have to keep their ais on or the sixteen thousand
vessels can't figure out where they are and they're limited number.
So fifty five accounted for nearly half of the shipping.
Ten tankers represented sixty one percent of all global bunkering activities.
(11:10):
And so we have the ability by targeting those support
vessels to cripple the illegal fishing. Now, now here's where
it gets frustrating. Last year when we were passing the
Working Family's tax cut. As we talked about in this
podcast before, the way a big reconciliation bill works is
each committee chairman is responsible for writing the portion of
(11:34):
the bill that is within your committee's jurisdiction. So I'm
the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
We have jurisdiction over about forty percent of the US
economy that includes the Coastguard. So I wrote the entire
title on the Coast Guard that is within the Reconciliation Bill,
and we ended up providing twenty and a half billion
(11:56):
dollars in funding for the Coastguard. That is the single
largest investment in the Coast Guard in American history, and
it is having massive positive benefits, including we are now
bringing ship making back to America. I was at the
groundbreaking for Davy ship building in Galveston, Texas a billion
(12:17):
and a half dollars where they're going to build Arctic
ice cutters so that we can compete with China and
compete with the Russians in the Arctic. We're right now
getting our tails whipped. But the funding stream that we
put in place for the Coast Guard enables us to
sign contracts. By the way, we also had a huge
announcement ben just last week Saronic, which we've talked about before.
(12:40):
Saronic is the drone company based in Austin that builds
naval drones, that builds drones from little ones to big ones.
Remember we covered on this podcast how Saronic sent drones
to rescue the two Apache pilots who were shot down
over Iran, and also Saronic drones were us militarily to
(13:01):
attack Iranian facilities. Well, Saronic was just in the middle
of a big decision about where to build their brand
new shipyard, and the choice was Texas or Californian. They
were going back and forth, back and forth. They have
significant facilities in California. Two, you will not be surprised
to know Number one, I weighed in vigorously on that question,
(13:25):
and my views were not subtle or difficult to understand,
and I'm very glad to say they made exactly the
right choice. So Saronic is building a brand new shipyard
in Brownsville, Texas, right on the water. Three and a
half billion dollars. So all of this ship building is
coming to Texas, and it's a direct result of what
(13:46):
we did in the Working Family's tax cut that I
was able to write in the funding to provide for this. Well,
also as a part of that, I specifically allocated to
the Coastguard one hundred and seventy million dollars for marine
domain awareness that was to fight this Chinese illegal fishing,
so that we would know where the reefers are, know
(14:07):
where the tankers are know where the medical ships are.
That one hundred and seventy million dollars would have given
the Coastguard the tools to shut much of this down. Now,
this is where the story gets frustrating. We wrote that
in law it was specifically designated to go to marine
domain awareness. You know what happened.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
What happened, They let me gees. Somebody took it from you.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
DHS took the money go and allocated it to the
World Cup instead. And they can do that, right, No, No,
actually they can't. The law was very clear they can't
do that. They did it, And listen, World Cup security
is important. I don't dispute that having security at the
World Cup was important, but the law was very clear
(14:53):
that that money was designated for marine domain awareness to
fight a very real problem of Chinese illegal fishing that
is destroying entire fish populations, that is doing massive damage
to the environment, that is hurting jobs, and that is
continuing completely unabated right now. So listen my commitment. I
(15:13):
just just this week wrote this letter here joined by
nine other Senators to the Treasury Secretary, calling on the
Treasury Secretary to sanction these vessels. And you could actually
see in the letter. I identify quite quite a few
of these vessels by name. I give their their specifics,
(15:37):
and so the known Chinese supply vessels, I lay out
where they're flagged, their name and all their information, and
I'm calling on Treasury to sanction them. We're also going
to get that one hundred and seventy million back, and
so I'm irritated DHS did that, but we're going to
get that money and make sure it goes where it belongs,
which is to maritime domain awareness.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Final question on this, I took the boy fishing up
and if you've ever watched the TV show Wicked Tuna,
we went to the same port where a lot of
those ships come out of. And one of the things
that was interesting was the guy that took us out
fishing for summer vacation said that the tuna have moved
and it's much harder for than to fish compared to
what it used to be. Is that possibly because they
(16:20):
just said things have changed and there's not as much
there used to be?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Is part of that?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Because of what we're witnessing. I mean, it's not just
Africa it's being affected. It also is the United States
of America.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
It is the Atlantic and Pacific as well. And it
absolutely this is a worldwide problem. You're looking at roughly
half of fishing that's occurring in the world is Chinese
illegal fishing, and it's doing massive damage. And it's not
only illegal, but it's deliberately irresponsible. It's you know, and
this goes back to the principle. Look, do you know
(16:50):
who cares the most about preserving fish population?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I would have assume fishermen because they don't want to
be out of a job next year, right.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Right, And the principle is the same, Like when it
comes to conserving wildlife species, hunters are among the most
vigorous conservationists. You know, I'm friends with Ted Dujin. Ted
Ted lights up my phone texting all of these stories
about Look, hunters want to preserve biodiversity. They want now
(17:18):
they like to hunt the animals. But that means Look,
if there is a hunting market, there is incentive to
preserve and protect the species and grow the population. You
actually see this in different African countries. The African countries
that have prohibited safari hunting, they end up having their
populations dwindle mightily because there's no economic value in preserving
(17:40):
the species. Whereas those African countries that allow safari hunting,
that they regulate it, that they sell. You've got to
buy a tag to hunt a particular species. Suddenly that
species has economic value, and so the park are preserve
where they are. They invest real money in stop stopping poachers,
in protecting the animals, and you see the population grows.
(18:03):
It's a basic principle that if you have a property
rights system that allocates value to something, then there's an
incentive to protect it. If nobody has value on something,
then you end up having what the Chinese are doing,
which is just they would fish it till there were
no more fish in the world, and they just don't
give a.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Damn And then they've moved on to something else, like
they wouldn't care. They don't care if they extinct tune
or any other fish. They just say, move on next.
What can we do, What can we destroy and capture
now for our personal gain.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
It is incredible.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
And by the way, these are the same fishermen that
also do shark finning, which is a particularly grotesque process
where you catch a shark and you pull it up
and you just cut the fin, the dorsal fin off
and in Chinese cuisine that's considered a delicacy. I think
it's supposed to be an aphrodisiac and have all sorts
of medicinal qualities. But they cut the fin off and
(18:55):
then throw the shark back, and the shark diyes like
without thin the shark bleeds and dies, and they don't
care about how many animals they kill.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
The same with whaling. They have no problem with whaling. Yes,
at least the wailing is huge for China.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
It is a massive problem, and so I am fighting
hard to end it because it's the responsible thing to do,
from the environment, from preserving wildlife populations, from jobs, and
from food security across the globe.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, it's a great point. We're going to keep you
update on the story. It's an important one. I want
to move.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
We are one hundred days out from the midterms, and
if you thought the Democratic Party was going to make
a course correction with the Democratic Socialists of America, uh,
you would be wrong. We are now witnessing this midterm
election center. The best way I can describe it, it
is a Democratic Socialist midterm and the Democratic Party is
(19:50):
a part of it. They are involved in it, but
they're not calling the shots at this point. It is
the Democratic Socialist and the candidates that is the midterms.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Yeah, here listen to to left Wag journalist Steve Karnaki
described the current state of affairs.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
We've been seeing it in the primary season, socialists winning
Democratic primaries, candidates from the far left. And look at
this here among Democrats, this is that Fox pool. A
majority have a favorable view of socialism. Step outside the
Democratic Party, it's a totally different world. Look at Independence,
Socialism deeply unpopular there.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
This is interesting views of socialism Democrats fifty two percent favorable,
forty three percent unfavorable. It's what you and I have
been saying for a long time. I think the Democratic
Party is dead. I think it is Marxist socialism and communists.
They use the word democrat does not scare too many
people off. But this midterm is absolutely this agenda.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Well, and that clip. If you guys are not watching
the video on YouTube, you will not have seen it.
But the more general polling for the American people on
socialism socialism seventy seven percent unpopular, thirteen percent favorable. So
among normal people that includes Republicans and Independence, they're like, no,
we don't want socialism. And let's be clear, even socialism
(21:06):
is a euphemism. These people are Marxists, They're outright communists.
I want you to listen right now to the co
chair of the DSA, the Democrats Socialists of America, explaining
their radical agenda. Give a listen to the DSA co chair.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
So we're going to put up on the screen a
few of the things that are part of your platform,
and I want to ask you just give me sort
of a true false on these. Abolish the Senate, true okay.
Replace the Presidency and Supreme Court as we now know them. Yep.
Abolish ice. Absolutely, abolish borders and give amnesty to anyone
(21:42):
currently in the US illegally as a long term plan.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
Defund the Pentagon. Absolutely, abolish prisons, at least in large part.
Yeah again, that is part of a long term program.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Yeah okay.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
So no government or public ownership of most large corporations. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
You listen to that.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
And I got to give them credit. I love when
people in politics don't lie. It's very refreshing. This is
who they are. When they tell you who they are,
center believe them.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
They're not lying to you.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Look these are people that want to rip the Constitution
to shreds. They want to abolish the presidency, they want
to abolish the Senate. They want to abolish the Supreme Court.
So there's nothing protecting your rights. You have no rights
in their world, understand, abolishing the Supreme Court. That means
they can do anything you want, and you don't have
free speech, you don't have religious liberty, you don't have
a Second Amendment. The government is in charge of everything.
(22:42):
That's what they believe now. They also want to abolish
the Pentagon. So we have no military, we're unable to
defend ourselves. That means the Chinese and the Russians and
Hamas and Hesbal and every terrorist on Earth can run
all over us, and we have no military. We can't
defend ourselves. They want to abolish ice. We're not able
to enforce our borders, which is okay, because they want
(23:02):
to abolish borders. They want to say anyone on planet
Earth that wants to come to America can come to America.
They want to grant amnesty and American citizenship to every
illegal person here, so that every left wing radical everyone
has broken the law, every every human trafficker, every gang member.
(23:23):
All of them are the people who vote, and they
want to close down prisons. So they want murderers and
rapists and child molesters living right next to you. And
mind you, they're no police because they've abolished the police.
So let all the murderers go and eliminate the police.
And then and then, to be clear, this is why
I said these people are communists. They also Shannon, I'll
(23:45):
give her credit. She asked to you want the federal
government to own most big companies in America. She said yes,
So whatever company you work for, guess what, you just
become a federal government employee because the government seizes all
of the companies. Now, these young people are too ignorant
to know that what they're proposing has been implemented. It
has been implemented in the Soviet Union, it's been implemented
(24:08):
in Cambodia. It's been implemented in Vietnam. It's been implemented
in Cuba, it's been implemented in North Korea. It's been implemented,
although with a twist, in China, and every place it's
been implemented, it's been an absolute disaster. It doesn't work.
And here's what happens. You have massive human rights abuses.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Yep. You have people every time.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
In prisoned, tortured, murdered, you have genocide, You have concentration camps.
Right now, the Chinese communists have concentration camps with over
one million weekers, over one million people held in concentration camps.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Right now.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
The DSA wants to turn America into the equivalent of China,
the same sort of government. And when it comes to look,
they don't know or they don't care, because it is
all about power. And by the way, you know what,
these DSA guys just like you, you know the Black
Lives Matter, who are also a Marxist organization, a communist organization.
(25:05):
They raise lots of money, many of them from useful
idiots on the left and in big companies that wrote
checks and a bunch of giant American companies that wrote
checks to Black Lives Matter, who then used to try
to destroy the capitalist system and moves us towards a
Marxist system where the government takes over their companies. But
you know what, the people running DSA or Black Lives Matter,
(25:26):
they tend to live in multimillion dollar mansions. They're stealing
the money like blind And I'll give them credit for
that in this they are real communists because that's the
same thing Putin does. That's the same thing she does.
That's the same thing Castro does. That's the same thing
Kim Jong un does. Look, in communism you have billionaires.
(25:47):
The only billionaires though, are the ones with the machine
guns that are robbing the people. And actually there's a
reason we connected these two stories. Ask yourself, how does
the Chinese fishing fleet behave Do they demonstrate any responsibility,
do they demonstrate any concern about the environment, Do they
demonstrate any concern about people who need jobs, about people
(26:10):
who are hungry, about people who'd like a living or
do they act purely as rapacious theeves? And I think
that tells you where these radicals want the Democrat Party
to go and where they want America to go.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Well, and if you want to know how much the
Democratic sources of America have a hold right now on
the Democratic Party, this is abnormal going into a mid
terms that people understand. Usually the party that is out
of power the people that support them. Whether you're a
Republican or Democratic, you're in the minority, you usually have
a lot of fundraising because then you say, Okay, now
(26:45):
my ideals are under threat. I'm no longer taking them
for granted. This other side has got power, we want
to get it back. And usually you have a surge
in fundraising. It is typical to see the party out
of power have a great amount of cash come in
once they're ideals, what they believe in, or under attack.
The Democratic National Committee does not have the money. In fact,
(27:06):
we're now being told that going into the midterms, their
in essence completely broke.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Well, that's right, and our source for that is admittedly
a very right wing outlet. So you've got to take
what they say with a grain of salt. And that
would of course be the New York Times and the
New York Times. I want to read from the beginning
of the article inside the phone throwing drama at the
(27:31):
troubled broke Democratic Party. The Democrat should be well positioned
to make gains in this year's midterms, but inside party
headquarters every week brings paranoia, worries about money, and on occasion,
emotional eruptions. The Democratic Party is so short on cash
that leaders at its headquarters have undertaken a new gambit
(27:52):
to mass the severity of problems, asking vendors not to
send bills until after the midterm elections. The bookkeeping maneuver,
which was described by three people briefed on it, is
the latest sign of financial duress for the DNC, and
it's as it's embattled leader, as money troubles threatened to
undercut Democratic momentum with one hundred days until the mid terms.
(28:17):
And to give you a sense of the money differential directly,
here's what the New York Times says. The Democratic Party
and its allies are far beyond Republicans when it comes
to money. Mister Trump controls a four hundred million dollar
superpack and the Republican National Committee is sitting on nearly
one hundred and thirty million dollars. Where's the DNC two
(28:40):
million dollars in debt? Wow? When you have the New
York Times saying what in the hell is going on
with you people? You know it goes on to say trusted.
Mister Martin, the head of the DNC, was sapped by
his handling of a long promise autopsy of the twenty
twenty four election. Late last year. He said he would
not release the docum, but then his criticism mounted he
(29:02):
released an incomplete draft that featured searing annotations from the
DNC that undermined the report. Now, mister Martin is both
paralyzed by the idea of leaks and surrounded by them.
During a May meeting with the full staff of the
DNC days after the drafts autopsy's release, he admitted that
times were tough, and he chided his team for revealing
(29:22):
the reporters what was happening inside party headquarters. Quote. It
pisses me off when I see leaks out of this building.
No more, mister Martin said, he saw a lot of
down faces and people hanging their heads. Keep your heads up,
keep a smile on. My success is your success. So
the weaker, I am the weaker. All of you are, well,
what kind of manager it is this fellow? Let me
(29:46):
tell you, well, this is clearly someone who knows how
to watch his pennies. Here's another quote from the New
York Times article, the single biggest expense of the Martin era.
What do you think that was?
Speaker 4 (29:56):
Ben?
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I'm going to go with private jets just because I
know how much I'd say we love those private jets
in the DNC.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
I have every certainty of the private jet bill is massive,
but that was not the single biggest expenditure. The single
biggest expenditure was seven point three million dollars to buy
the remnants of Kamala Harris's campaign list from her failed
twenty twenty four bid. Miss harris Political Action Committee then
used that money to cover additional remaining debts. So that's
(30:26):
his biggest expenditure is bailing out Kamala Harris's bankrupt campaign
rather than actually trying to win elections going forward. And
here's a little more about his very gentle experience management style.
Another paragraph from The New York Times, mister Martin's fraying
nerves are showing. In a peak of frustration in early July,
(30:51):
he threw his phone at the desk of a junior
aid while upbraiding the person. The phone tossing in resulted
in a formal complaint to the DNC's human resources department.
The fallout from the phone throwing episode was described by
half a dozen people familiar with the incident, who spoke
(31:12):
on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized
to discuss internal party matters. None of them witnessed the account,
and there was some dispute over how aggressively the phone
was tossed. Mister Martin was said to have thrown the
phone at the desk.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Rather than the aid oh there you go, that makest.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
There you go. You know what, somehow I've managed to
live fifty five years on planet Earth, to work at
a bunch of different offices, to work with a lot
of people that have a lot of people working for me.
I've magically managed to refrain from from throwing a phone
at anybody. And you know, I got to says at
at a desk. I've got to say, it hasn't been difficult.
(31:52):
I think the only thing I've ever thrown at anyone
who works for me is I have thrown a nerf basketball.
So if that counts, please guilty to that. But but
but when it comes to like not throwing hard metal
objects at your employees, that does not take massive restraint.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Yeah, I guess it doesn't. It doesn't a boost morale.
It's incredible that is the Democratic Party.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Although although I do need to, I do need to
come clean. Although I haven't thrown anything at one, young Benjamin.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
This is this is true. You have broken bones.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
I have, in fact broken his finger, so so so
maybe maybe it's.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Folks there it is.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
You see the crookedness there, folks, you see I just
want everybody watching to see that is not straight anymore.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
That is a Ted Cruz broken bone right there.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
And it's just to clear that. Look, it's important to
acknowledge that you have this, you know, big strapping division
one college athlete. This like study. And if you don't
know how Studeley is, give Ben a minute. He'll tell
you how Studeley is. He's very proud of being a
Division one college athlete, and he's playing hoops with little
old me, a college debater, And I'm just saying the
(33:00):
consequence of playing hoops is his bones are broken.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
And when you're losing, Ted doesn't play fair. That's what
I learned from that. When you're losing, Ted doesn't play fair.
And this is what happens. It's crooked for life.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
It's so you're admitting to our listeners that not only
did your finger get broken, but you also lost that.
That's good.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
I don't think so that was broken?
Speaker 3 (33:24):
No, No, I think.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Lies.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Do you want to know what I keep on my desk?
This is the true story. So we were in Austin,
we were playing the game. This is the remnants of
the tape that is still left that I used to
tape said finger together, the crooked finger right there, and
keep playing an entire another game. So I kept it
as it. I just you know, that's just that's that's
that's right.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Well, be Ben, just Ben, just don't ever say I
never gave you anything.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
There you go, I like it, don't forget. We do
this show Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Hit that subscribe Rauto
download button in the Senate and I will see you
back here in a couple of days.
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
It is Verdict with Center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
It's so nice to have you with us wherever you
are listening to us around the country and Center. We've
got a big show today, including China yet again being
accused of not playing by the rules, having a shadow
fleet of fishing boats that are not a few, a
lot that are destroying international waters and hurting so many
(00:21):
other countries.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Well, on today's podcast, we're going to talk to you
about Chinese communists, We're going to talk to you about
American communists, and then we're going to talk to you
about the Democratic National Committee. And you will notice there
is a thread that connects them all. But let's start
with the Chikoms. Let's start with the Chinese Communist Party.
We all know the horrible.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Things they do.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
We know the murders, the tortures, the concentration camps, the genocide,
the lying, the producing COVID virus and causing massive damage
to the world and covering it up. All of those
are a given. But you know what you made. Maybe
didn't know that China is responsible for one of the
(01:01):
greatest ecological disasters across the globe and a systemic theft
in the oceans, and it's something that's called illegal, unreported
and unregulated fishing. I you you as the acronym. Now,
the Chinese Communist Party has a distant water fishing fleet.
(01:24):
How big do you think their fleet is that does
distant water fishing in other words, not around China. It's
not fishing around China, it's fishing on the other side
of the world. How big do you think their fleet is?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I mean fifty ships, sixty ships would be my guess.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
It is somewhere between two thousand vessels and sixteen thousand vessels.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
And they engage way the fact we don't know, as
you just mentioned and tells you how big the fleet is.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
It is a massive number. It's engaged in theft. But
it's illegal fishing at a scale that constitutes ecoside combined
with gross human rights violations. And so this is an
issue I've been involved with a long time and trying
to urge the federal government to use the tools we
(02:13):
have to stop this massive illegal fishing. By the way,
this illegal fishing, it happens in the Gulf of America,
it happens in the Atlantic Ocean, it happens all around Africa,
does massive damages to Africa. It happens in and around
South America, it happens in the Indian Ocean, it happens
all over the globe. And the consequence of it, it
(02:34):
is subsidized by billions of dollars from the People's Republic
of China. Between twenty twenty two and twenty twenty four,
Chinese illegal fishing accounted for forty four percent of global
fishing all over the world. Forty four percent, nearly half.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
You just said illegal.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
So that's outside of their quote legal fishing they're doing
in and around.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
China, Yes, measuring at least one hundred and ten million
hours of fishing in more than ninety countries. And by
the way, not only do they engage in illegal fishing,
they also kill hundreds of critically endangered animals, including sharks, whales, dolphins.
(03:22):
They've destroyed tens of thousands of acres of coral reefs.
And they use forced laborers, so they've got slave labor
that they put on the boats. That's who's doing the
illegal fishing. Are are people who are enslaved and they're
subjected to physical abuse, malnutrition, over work, and withheld pay.
(03:45):
In many instances for years, and so it is an
enormous challenge and one that I've had real progress fighting with.
There's a lot more that we can and need to do.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
It's incredible. We're going to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
We're also going to talk about the craziness happening with
the Democratic Socialist of America one hundred days out from
the midterms, and also the DNC Democratic National they're broke.
We're going to have all that for you coming up
in a moment. Before we get to that, I want
to talk to you a moment about what you can
do in simply praying for the people right now that
are under attack in Israel. The headlines move on, but
(04:20):
the Harday can tear.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
They do not.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Iran and its terrist proxies are continuing to target Israel,
and Hesblad continues its attacks in the North, forcing families
to live under constant threat. Israel is not only defitting
her people, she is standing on the front lines against
terror that literally threatens all of us now.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Even when the news crews leave.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Israel, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, they remain.
Every day they are on the ground, providing life saving
aid and near Israel's border with Lebanon. A hesblod drone
recently struck the home of Yolina. She was widowed earlier
this year, living alone, and she was trapped inside by
that blast. Now, thank she was not injured, but she
(05:01):
remained displaced. It's hard these days, she said, but I
don't want to leave, and honestly, why should she have
to leave her home. As Christians, we're called to stand
with God's people and pray for those defending Israel and
protecting the freedoms we hold. Dear, I want you to
join the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews and praying
for the peace of Jerusalem and for the soldiers, the
(05:24):
families and civilians carrying the burden of this fight. Right now,
you can go right now and help and learn who
you can pray for by visiting PRAYIFCJ dot org. That is,
pray IFCJ dot org. Pray IFCJ dot Org. Senator, I
want to go back to you mentioned Africa a moment ago,
(05:45):
and this is one of the things that's really come
out of this story is when you have a fleet
that is as large as as the Chinese Communist Party does,
and they're all over the world, and they're doing all
this illegal fishing twenty four to seven and using slave
labor to do it. They're also destroying the fishing around
many people who desperately need it for survival. And when
(06:05):
I say survival, I'm talking about life and death. Africa
is one of the countries they've targeted off there, off there,
you know, off their their shoreline, and it is having
it's decimating their local fishing, which is survival. Not only
for the food, right because that food's not going to
Africa when they catch us fish, they're going back to
the international market. They're not taking back to shore like
the local fishermen do. But also it's putting countless fishermen
(06:28):
out of work.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Yeah. Look, it's it's a huge problem from food supply,
especially in Africa where you have many countries that are
struggling have significant problems with food and security and hunger.
It also means the jobs of the local African fishermen
are imperiled because you have the Chinese stealing their fish.
They overfish it, so they destroy the fishing population. So
(06:49):
not only are they denying them food and denying them
jobs now, but if you responsibly fish, it's a sustainable
harvest and you can keep on fishing and keep on fishing.
The Chinese don't get dam and they will fish a
population out of existence and they'll just move on. I mean,
I mean, it's almost like locusts descending and just consuming everything,
so they don't engage in responsible fishing. Look, you and
(07:12):
I both live in Texas. There are a lot of
Texans who are fishermen. There's a big commercial fishing operation
in Texas, whether it's shrimpers or red snapper. It's an
important part of our economy. But it is it is
understandably and necessarily regulated because if you overfish a population,
it goes away and you destroy the ability to keep
(07:33):
going back and fishing it. We have this problem the
Gulf of America with Mexicans, many of whom are funded
by the Mexican drug cartels, using illegal lanchas to come
up and fish red snapper. And in fact they fish
snapper from the Gulf of America, they do it illegally,
they steal it, they take it back down to Mexico,
they smuggle into the United States and they sell it
(07:56):
here and pretend it's domestic cot And so it is
an other form of theft that tends to be more
of the Mexican drug cartels, where they'll get local Mexican
fishermen and literally put a gun to their head and say, okay,
go get us some snapper in violation of the laws.
The Chinese provide funds for that as well. But look
(08:16):
in and around the United States, we have the Coastguard,
we have our military, We're able to do a pretty
good job of guarding our waters. In a continent like
Africa that the nations there, their coastguards and navy are
just just much much smaller, so they have very limited
ability to counteract it. And the same is true around
(08:37):
South America where you see the Chinese taking advantage. Again.
And let me talk about the mechanics of how you
fight this, because this is it's interesting and complicated. Look, normally,
if you deal with a fleet that is doing something illegal,
you would sanction them out of existence. So to run
a fleet, you need flagging, you need findancing, you need insurance,
(09:01):
you need fuel, you need port services, you need customers
willing to purchase goods. You need crews, and the crews
themselves need food and medical care. So you can impose
sanctions on an illegal fleet and shut them down. Now
how does a Chinese fleet get around that? Well, ordinarily,
when a ship is out at sea, they keep what's
(09:22):
called their AIS, their automatic identification system turned on. It's
essentially the way everyone else can spot them, so that
you know if an illegal ship, if the USS ben
Ferguson is out fishing illegally, you can go see the
AIS and you can go in and addict them. Well,
what the Chinese do is they turn their AIS off
(09:42):
and so you're not able to spot them. And you
look at the capacity sixteen thousand ships with their AIS
af so you can't spot them. And the way they
make this operate is they have an elaborate hub and
spoke system. So they have fishing vessels that are out fishing,
they have their AIS off so you can't see them.
(10:04):
But then to make the fleet operate, they have refrigerated
reefers that collect the catches at sea and sell them
in bulk. And they have to keep their AIS on
because the illegal fishing vessels all have to know where
to go to drop off their catch. They also have
tankers that refuel the fishing vessels, so they have a
(10:26):
big tanker and the illegal fishing vessels will get up,
refill and go back to fish. And on top of that,
they have floating bases which provide the crews with their
medical care and other services. And so what I have
been leading the fight to do is to go after
the refrigerated reefers, the tankers, and the floating bases with
medical care. Because those support vessels can be sanctions. They
(10:49):
have to keep their ais on or the sixteen thousand
vessels can't figure out where they are and they're limited number.
So fifty five accounted for nearly half of the shipping.
Ten tankers represented sixty one percent of all global bunkering activities.
(11:10):
And so we have the ability by targeting those support
vessels to cripple the illegal fishing. Now, now here's where
it gets frustrating. Last year when we were passing the
Working Family's tax cut. As we talked about in this
podcast before, the way a big reconciliation bill works is
each committee chairman is responsible for writing the portion of
(11:34):
the bill that is within your committee's jurisdiction. So I'm
the chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
We have jurisdiction over about forty percent of the US
economy that includes the Coastguard. So I wrote the entire
title on the Coast Guard that is within the Reconciliation Bill,
and we ended up providing twenty and a half billion
(11:56):
dollars in funding for the Coastguard. That is the single
largest investment in the Coast Guard in American history, and
it is having massive positive benefits, including we are now
bringing ship making back to America. I was at the
groundbreaking for Davy ship building in Galveston, Texas a billion
(12:17):
and a half dollars where they're going to build Arctic
ice cutters so that we can compete with China and
compete with the Russians in the Arctic. We're right now
getting our tails whipped. But the funding stream that we
put in place for the Coast Guard enables us to
sign contracts. By the way, we also had a huge
announcement ben just last week Saronic, which we've talked about before.
(12:40):
Saronic is the drone company based in Austin that builds
naval drones, that builds drones from little ones to big ones.
Remember we covered on this podcast how Saronic sent drones
to rescue the two Apache pilots who were shot down
over Iran, and also Saronic drones were us militarily to
(13:01):
attack Iranian facilities. Well, Saronic was just in the middle
of a big decision about where to build their brand
new shipyard, and the choice was Texas or Californian. They
were going back and forth, back and forth. They have
significant facilities in California. Two, you will not be surprised
to know Number one, I weighed in vigorously on that question,
(13:25):
and my views were not subtle or difficult to understand,
and I'm very glad to say they made exactly the
right choice. So Saronic is building a brand new shipyard
in Brownsville, Texas, right on the water. Three and a
half billion dollars. So all of this ship building is
coming to Texas, and it's a direct result of what
(13:46):
we did in the Working Family's tax cut that I
was able to write in the funding to provide for this. Well,
also as a part of that, I specifically allocated to
the Coastguard one hundred and seventy million dollars for marine
domain awareness that was to fight this Chinese illegal fishing,
so that we would know where the reefers are, know
(14:07):
where the tankers are know where the medical ships are.
That one hundred and seventy million dollars would have given
the Coastguard the tools to shut much of this down. Now,
this is where the story gets frustrating. We wrote that
in law it was specifically designated to go to marine
domain awareness. You know what happened.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
What happened, They let me gees. Somebody took it from you.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
DHS took the money go and allocated it to the
World Cup instead. And they can do that, right, No, No,
actually they can't. The law was very clear they can't
do that. They did it, And listen, World Cup security
is important. I don't dispute that having security at the
World Cup was important, but the law was very clear
(14:53):
that that money was designated for marine domain awareness to
fight a very real problem of Chinese illegal fishing that
is destroying entire fish populations, that is doing massive damage
to the environment, that is hurting jobs, and that is
continuing completely unabated right now. So listen my commitment. I
(15:13):
just just this week wrote this letter here joined by
nine other Senators to the Treasury Secretary, calling on the
Treasury Secretary to sanction these vessels. And you could actually
see in the letter. I identify quite quite a few
of these vessels by name. I give their their specifics,
(15:37):
and so the known Chinese supply vessels, I lay out
where they're flagged, their name and all their information, and
I'm calling on Treasury to sanction them. We're also going
to get that one hundred and seventy million back, and
so I'm irritated DHS did that, but we're going to
get that money and make sure it goes where it belongs,
which is to maritime domain awareness.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Final question on this, I took the boy fishing up
and if you've ever watched the TV show Wicked Tuna,
we went to the same port where a lot of
those ships come out of. And one of the things
that was interesting was the guy that took us out
fishing for summer vacation said that the tuna have moved
and it's much harder for than to fish compared to
what it used to be. Is that possibly because they
(16:20):
just said things have changed and there's not as much
there used to be?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Is part of that?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Because of what we're witnessing. I mean, it's not just
Africa it's being affected. It also is the United States
of America.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
It is the Atlantic and Pacific as well. And it
absolutely this is a worldwide problem. You're looking at roughly
half of fishing that's occurring in the world is Chinese
illegal fishing, and it's doing massive damage. And it's not
only illegal, but it's deliberately irresponsible. It's you know, and
this goes back to the principle. Look, do you know
(16:50):
who cares the most about preserving fish population?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I would have assume fishermen because they don't want to
be out of a job next year, right.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Right, And the principle is the same, Like when it
comes to conserving wildlife species, hunters are among the most
vigorous conservationists. You know, I'm friends with Ted Dujin. Ted
Ted lights up my phone texting all of these stories
about Look, hunters want to preserve biodiversity. They want now
(17:18):
they like to hunt the animals. But that means Look,
if there is a hunting market, there is incentive to
preserve and protect the species and grow the population. You
actually see this in different African countries. The African countries
that have prohibited safari hunting, they end up having their
populations dwindle mightily because there's no economic value in preserving
(17:40):
the species. Whereas those African countries that allow safari hunting,
that they regulate it, that they sell. You've got to
buy a tag to hunt a particular species. Suddenly that
species has economic value, and so the park are preserve
where they are. They invest real money in stop stopping poachers,
in protecting the animals, and you see the population grows.
(18:03):
It's a basic principle that if you have a property
rights system that allocates value to something, then there's an
incentive to protect it. If nobody has value on something,
then you end up having what the Chinese are doing,
which is just they would fish it till there were
no more fish in the world, and they just don't
give a.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Damn And then they've moved on to something else, like
they wouldn't care. They don't care if they extinct tune
or any other fish. They just say, move on next.
What can we do, What can we destroy and capture
now for our personal gain.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
It is incredible.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
And by the way, these are the same fishermen that
also do shark finning, which is a particularly grotesque process
where you catch a shark and you pull it up
and you just cut the fin, the dorsal fin off
and in Chinese cuisine that's considered a delicacy. I think
it's supposed to be an aphrodisiac and have all sorts
of medicinal qualities. But they cut the fin off and
(18:55):
then throw the shark back, and the shark diyes like
without thin the shark bleeds and dies, and they don't
care about how many animals they kill.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
The same with whaling. They have no problem with whaling. Yes,
at least the wailing is huge for China.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
It is a massive problem, and so I am fighting
hard to end it because it's the responsible thing to do,
from the environment, from preserving wildlife populations, from jobs, and
from food security across the globe.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Yeah, it's a great point. We're going to keep you
update on the story. It's an important one. I want
to move.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
We are one hundred days out from the midterms, and
if you thought the Democratic Party was going to make
a course correction with the Democratic Socialists of America, uh,
you would be wrong. We are now witnessing this midterm
election center. The best way I can describe it, it
is a Democratic Socialist midterm and the Democratic Party is
(19:50):
a part of it. They are involved in it, but
they're not calling the shots at this point. It is
the Democratic Socialist and the candidates that is the midterms.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Yeah, here listen to to left Wag journalist Steve Karnaki
described the current state of affairs.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
We've been seeing it in the primary season, socialists winning
Democratic primaries, candidates from the far left. And look at
this here among Democrats, this is that Fox pool. A
majority have a favorable view of socialism. Step outside the
Democratic Party, it's a totally different world. Look at Independence,
Socialism deeply unpopular there.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
This is interesting views of socialism Democrats fifty two percent favorable,
forty three percent unfavorable. It's what you and I have
been saying for a long time. I think the Democratic
Party is dead. I think it is Marxist socialism and communists.
They use the word democrat does not scare too many
people off. But this midterm is absolutely this agenda.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Well, and that clip. If you guys are not watching
the video on YouTube, you will not have seen it.
But the more general polling for the American people on
socialism socialism seventy seven percent unpopular, thirteen percent favorable. So
among normal people that includes Republicans and Independence, they're like, no,
we don't want socialism. And let's be clear, even socialism
(21:06):
is a euphemism. These people are Marxists, They're outright communists.
I want you to listen right now to the co
chair of the DSA, the Democrats Socialists of America, explaining
their radical agenda. Give a listen to the DSA co chair.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
So we're going to put up on the screen a
few of the things that are part of your platform,
and I want to ask you just give me sort
of a true false on these. Abolish the Senate, true okay.
Replace the Presidency and Supreme Court as we now know them. Yep.
Abolish ice. Absolutely, abolish borders and give amnesty to anyone
(21:42):
currently in the US illegally as a long term plan.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
Defund the Pentagon. Absolutely, abolish prisons, at least in large part.
Yeah again, that is part of a long term program.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Yeah okay.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
So no government or public ownership of most large corporations. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
You listen to that.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
And I got to give them credit. I love when
people in politics don't lie. It's very refreshing. This is
who they are. When they tell you who they are,
center believe them.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
They're not lying to you.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Look these are people that want to rip the Constitution
to shreds. They want to abolish the presidency, they want
to abolish the Senate. They want to abolish the Supreme Court.
So there's nothing protecting your rights. You have no rights
in their world, understand, abolishing the Supreme Court. That means
they can do anything you want, and you don't have
free speech, you don't have religious liberty, you don't have
a Second Amendment. The government is in charge of everything.
(22:42):
That's what they believe now. They also want to abolish
the Pentagon. So we have no military, we're unable to
defend ourselves. That means the Chinese and the Russians and
Hamas and Hesbal and every terrorist on Earth can run
all over us, and we have no military. We can't
defend ourselves. They want to abolish ice. We're not able
to enforce our borders, which is okay, because they want
(23:02):
to abolish borders. They want to say anyone on planet
Earth that wants to come to America can come to America.
They want to grant amnesty and American citizenship to every
illegal person here, so that every left wing radical everyone
has broken the law, every every human trafficker, every gang member.
(23:23):
All of them are the people who vote, and they
want to close down prisons. So they want murderers and
rapists and child molesters living right next to you. And
mind you, they're no police because they've abolished the police.
So let all the murderers go and eliminate the police.
And then and then, to be clear, this is why
I said these people are communists. They also Shannon, I'll
(23:45):
give her credit. She asked to you want the federal
government to own most big companies in America. She said yes,
So whatever company you work for, guess what, you just
become a federal government employee because the government seizes all
of the companies. Now, these young people are too ignorant
to know that what they're proposing has been implemented. It
has been implemented in the Soviet Union, it's been implemented
(24:08):
in Cambodia. It's been implemented in Vietnam. It's been implemented
in Cuba, it's been implemented in North Korea. It's been implemented,
although with a twist, in China, and every place it's
been implemented, it's been an absolute disaster. It doesn't work.
And here's what happens. You have massive human rights abuses.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Yep. You have people every time.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
In prisoned, tortured, murdered, you have genocide, You have concentration camps.
Right now, the Chinese communists have concentration camps with over
one million weekers, over one million people held in concentration camps.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Right now.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
The DSA wants to turn America into the equivalent of China,
the same sort of government. And when it comes to look,
they don't know or they don't care, because it is
all about power. And by the way, you know what,
these DSA guys just like you, you know the Black
Lives Matter, who are also a Marxist organization, a communist organization.
(25:05):
They raise lots of money, many of them from useful
idiots on the left and in big companies that wrote
checks and a bunch of giant American companies that wrote
checks to Black Lives Matter, who then used to try
to destroy the capitalist system and moves us towards a
Marxist system where the government takes over their companies. But
you know what, the people running DSA or Black Lives Matter,
(25:26):
they tend to live in multimillion dollar mansions. They're stealing
the money like blind And I'll give them credit for
that in this they are real communists because that's the
same thing Putin does. That's the same thing she does.
That's the same thing Castro does. That's the same thing
Kim Jong un does. Look, in communism you have billionaires.
(25:47):
The only billionaires though, are the ones with the machine
guns that are robbing the people. And actually there's a
reason we connected these two stories. Ask yourself, how does
the Chinese fishing fleet behave Do they demonstrate any responsibility,
do they demonstrate any concern about the environment, Do they
demonstrate any concern about people who need jobs, about people
(26:10):
who are hungry, about people who'd like a living or
do they act purely as rapacious theeves? And I think
that tells you where these radicals want the Democrat Party
to go and where they want America to go.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Well, and if you want to know how much the
Democratic sources of America have a hold right now on
the Democratic Party, this is abnormal going into a mid
terms that people understand. Usually the party that is out
of power the people that support them. Whether you're a
Republican or Democratic, you're in the minority, you usually have
a lot of fundraising because then you say, Okay, now
(26:45):
my ideals are under threat. I'm no longer taking them
for granted. This other side has got power, we want
to get it back. And usually you have a surge
in fundraising. It is typical to see the party out
of power have a great amount of cash come in
once they're ideals, what they believe in, or under attack.
The Democratic National Committee does not have the money. In fact,
(27:06):
we're now being told that going into the midterms, their
in essence completely broke.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Well, that's right, and our source for that is admittedly
a very right wing outlet. So you've got to take
what they say with a grain of salt. And that
would of course be the New York Times and the
New York Times. I want to read from the beginning
of the article inside the phone throwing drama at the
(27:31):
troubled broke Democratic Party. The Democrat should be well positioned
to make gains in this year's midterms, but inside party
headquarters every week brings paranoia, worries about money, and on occasion,
emotional eruptions. The Democratic Party is so short on cash
that leaders at its headquarters have undertaken a new gambit
(27:52):
to mass the severity of problems, asking vendors not to
send bills until after the midterm elections. The bookkeeping maneuver,
which was described by three people briefed on it, is
the latest sign of financial duress for the DNC, and
it's as it's embattled leader, as money troubles threatened to
undercut Democratic momentum with one hundred days until the mid terms.
(28:17):
And to give you a sense of the money differential directly,
here's what the New York Times says. The Democratic Party
and its allies are far beyond Republicans when it comes
to money. Mister Trump controls a four hundred million dollar
superpack and the Republican National Committee is sitting on nearly
one hundred and thirty million dollars. Where's the DNC two
(28:40):
million dollars in debt? Wow? When you have the New
York Times saying what in the hell is going on
with you people? You know it goes on to say trusted.
Mister Martin, the head of the DNC, was sapped by
his handling of a long promise autopsy of the twenty
twenty four election. Late last year. He said he would
not release the docum, but then his criticism mounted he
(29:02):
released an incomplete draft that featured searing annotations from the
DNC that undermined the report. Now, mister Martin is both
paralyzed by the idea of leaks and surrounded by them.
During a May meeting with the full staff of the
DNC days after the drafts autopsy's release, he admitted that
times were tough, and he chided his team for revealing
(29:22):
the reporters what was happening inside party headquarters. Quote. It
pisses me off when I see leaks out of this building.
No more, mister Martin said, he saw a lot of
down faces and people hanging their heads. Keep your heads up,
keep a smile on. My success is your success. So
the weaker, I am the weaker. All of you are, well,
what kind of manager it is this fellow? Let me
(29:46):
tell you, well, this is clearly someone who knows how
to watch his pennies. Here's another quote from the New
York Times article, the single biggest expense of the Martin era.
What do you think that was?
Speaker 4 (29:56):
Ben?
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I'm going to go with private jets just because I
know how much I'd say we love those private jets
in the DNC.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
I have every certainty of the private jet bill is massive,
but that was not the single biggest expenditure. The single
biggest expenditure was seven point three million dollars to buy
the remnants of Kamala Harris's campaign list from her failed
twenty twenty four bid. Miss harris Political Action Committee then
used that money to cover additional remaining debts. So that's
(30:26):
his biggest expenditure is bailing out Kamala Harris's bankrupt campaign
rather than actually trying to win elections going forward. And
here's a little more about his very gentle experience management style.
Another paragraph from The New York Times, mister Martin's fraying
nerves are showing. In a peak of frustration in early July,
(30:51):
he threw his phone at the desk of a junior
aid while upbraiding the person. The phone tossing in resulted
in a formal complaint to the DNC's human resources department.
The fallout from the phone throwing episode was described by
half a dozen people familiar with the incident, who spoke
(31:12):
on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized
to discuss internal party matters. None of them witnessed the account,
and there was some dispute over how aggressively the phone
was tossed. Mister Martin was said to have thrown the
phone at the desk.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Rather than the aid oh there you go, that makest.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
There you go. You know what, somehow I've managed to
live fifty five years on planet Earth, to work at
a bunch of different offices, to work with a lot
of people that have a lot of people working for me.
I've magically managed to refrain from from throwing a phone
at anybody. And you know, I got to says at
at a desk. I've got to say, it hasn't been difficult.
(31:52):
I think the only thing I've ever thrown at anyone
who works for me is I have thrown a nerf basketball.
So if that counts, please guilty to that. But but
but when it comes to like not throwing hard metal
objects at your employees, that does not take massive restraint.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Yeah, I guess it doesn't. It doesn't a boost morale.
It's incredible that is the Democratic Party.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Although although I do need to, I do need to
come clean. Although I haven't thrown anything at one, young Benjamin.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
This is this is true. You have broken bones.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
I have, in fact broken his finger, so so so
maybe maybe it's.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Folks there it is.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
You see the crookedness there, folks, you see I just
want everybody watching to see that is not straight anymore.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
That is a Ted Cruz broken bone right there.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
And it's just to clear that. Look, it's important to
acknowledge that you have this, you know, big strapping division
one college athlete. This like study. And if you don't
know how Studeley is, give Ben a minute. He'll tell
you how Studeley is. He's very proud of being a
Division one college athlete, and he's playing hoops with little
old me, a college debater, And I'm just saying the
(33:00):
consequence of playing hoops is his bones are broken.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
And when you're losing, Ted doesn't play fair. That's what
I learned from that. When you're losing, Ted doesn't play fair.
And this is what happens. It's crooked for life.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
It's so you're admitting to our listeners that not only
did your finger get broken, but you also lost that.
That's good.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
I don't think so that was broken?
Speaker 3 (33:24):
No, No, I think.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Lies.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Do you want to know what I keep on my desk?
This is the true story. So we were in Austin,
we were playing the game. This is the remnants of
the tape that is still left that I used to
tape said finger together, the crooked finger right there, and
keep playing an entire another game. So I kept it
as it. I just you know, that's just that's that's
that's right.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Well, be Ben, just Ben, just don't ever say I
never gave you anything.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
There you go, I like it, don't forget. We do
this show Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Hit that subscribe Rauto
download button in the Senate and I will see you
back here in a couple of days.
Host
Ben Ferguson
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