🏫 Massive School Choice Victory in Texas & National Opportunity
Key Highlights:
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Historic Legislation in Texas: Texas passed the largest and most comprehensive school choice program in the U.S., allocating $1 billion for Education Savings Accounts (ESAs). These accounts provide up to $11,000 per student, and up to $30,000 for students with disabilities, allowing parents to choose the best educational setting for their children.
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Scope and Impact: With Texas representing about 10% of the U.S. student population, this move is seen as a game-changer for education reform nationwide.
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Political Strategy: Cruz detailed a multi-year political campaign, including endorsing primary challengers against anti-school choice Republicans, to build legislative support. He emphasized that this was not a partisan issue but a geographic and institutional battle, especially in rural areas where public schools are major employers.
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Federal Push: Cruz is advocating for a federal school choice initiative through budget reconciliation, which would allow passage with only Republican votes. The proposal includes $10 billion annually in federal tax credits for donations to scholarship-granting organizations, aiming to replicate Texas’s success on a national scale.
☢️ Stopping a Nuclear Iran
Key Points:
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Opposition to Iran Nuclear Deal: Cruz strongly opposes any new nuclear deal with Iran, citing the failures of the Obama-era agreement and the dangers of appeasement. He supports President Trump’s red line: Iran must fully dismantle its nuclear program, including shutting down centrifuges.
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National Security Threat: Cruz argues that Iran, under the Ayatollah, is a direct threat to the U.S. and Israel, citing attempts to assassinate U.S. officials and support for terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
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Policy Contrast: He contrasts the “maximum pressure” strategy under Trump—which included strict sanctions and oil embargoes—with the “appeasement” approach of the Biden administration, which he claims enabled Iran to rebuild its economy and fund terrorism.
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Call to Action: Cruz emphasizes the need for firm U.S. policy and warns against trusting Iran, advocating for either diplomatic dismantlement or, if necessary, military action to neutralize the threat.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good Monday morning.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Nice have you with us, It's verdict with Senator Ted Cruz,
Ben Ferguson with you and Senator I hope you had
a great Mother's Day with your family. I will start
with that as well. Happy Mother's Day to all the
mothers out there listening. And I know you wanted to
say something as well.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Well.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
I had a wonderful Mother's Day. We took my mom out.
My mom is ninety years old. We took her out
for a dinner in town. We took her out along
with Heidi and both the girls, and we had a
great dinner together as a family. We celebrated moms. My
mom is ninety and still going strong. HEDI is a
rock and I'm just grateful for all the moms in
(00:38):
our lives because there ain't nothing better.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Amen to that.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Am in too that We've got a big show today,
including a big victory in Texas that could have a
big impact on the country on the issue of school choice,
which is something you've been championing now for years.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Well, that's exactly right. We've got three big stories that
we're going to break down tonight. Number one, school choice
and school choice Texas just passed the biggest, the boldest,
the most significant school choice program in the entire country.
We're going to tell you all about it and what
it means for the school children in Texas.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
We're also going to talk to you about on school choice.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
We have an historic opportunity right now to win the
biggest victory in the country ever. On school choice is
part of budget reconciliation. I'm going to explain to you how.
We're going to talk also about Iran, and they're ongoing
negotiations right now with Iran. There are those who are
advocating for another Obama Iran nuclear deal, which would be disastrous.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
It would be terrible.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
I agree with President Trump and the red line that
he has drawn that any agreement with Iran must include
total dismantlement of Iran's nuclear capability.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
All of that up next.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, it's a great story and it's one that's important.
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So centator, let's start with this big story. It is
one that media really hasn't been covering. I think it's
because they're terrified that this is going to give parents
freedom to give their kids a great education. And there's
a bill that passed in Texas. It deals with school choice.
(04:17):
It's something that you have been acting for for such
a long time. Now it's becoming a reality. Talk about it.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Well.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Governor Abbott just signed in a law in the state
of Texas the biggest, the broadest, the most significant school
choice program in the entire country. This has been the
result of decades of battle and hard work, decades that
I've been fighting in the field. So I'm going to
walk you through number one, the details of the bill.
The details of the bill. It's a billion dollars that
the state is allocated as school choice. One billion dollars
(04:45):
that is going in the form of education savings accounts.
Education savings accounts that are going to be funded by
the state to the tune of just under eleven thousand
dollars for roughly ninety thousand school kids statewide. In addition,
kids with disability are education are eligible to get education
(05:06):
saving accounts that can be as high as thirty thousand dollars. Now,
these are not accounts that you're saving into. This is
the state putting funding, making it available to parents so
that they can choose the best school for their kids.
It is historic. Many other states have done small, little
pilot programs. The breadth the scope of this is massive,
(05:28):
and it's worth remembering Texas comprises ten percent of the
entire American population. Texas comprises roughly ten percent of the
school kids in America, So having robust school choice for
ten percent of the school kids in America is a
massive and game changing victory, and I got to tell you, Ben,
(05:52):
it's one that has been hard fought for a long time.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
You know, if you.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Look at school choice and over the past two decades,
the states that have led on it have been states
like Florida, Arizona, Ohio, and Texas had been lagging behind.
And I got to say, for Texans, it is infuriating
not to lead. It is infuriating not to be standing
up doing the right thing. And Texas, it was a
(06:18):
big battle, and our challenge was not partisan. It wasn't
Republican or democratic. It wasn't even ideological conservative versus moderate.
It was rather geographic in that Texas has a lot
of rural areas. And the challenge you faced is in
the Texas State House there were a number of rural
(06:38):
Republicans who were good guys, but the biggest employer in
their district is the public school district, and the school
superintendents in the rural districts vigorously opposed school choice, most
significantly because the urban superintendents and the teachers' unions hated
school choice. And so what we had in Texas for
(07:00):
a long time it is a bunch of urban Republicans
who would vote to kill choice programs. Now, I'll tell
you what changed that. What changed that was a massive
political effort and something I started six years ago. Six
years ago, I began intervening and making endorsements in primaries
all across the state. And I got to tell you, Ben,
(07:22):
out of one hundred US Senators, to the best of
my knowledge, ninety nine of them don't do that.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
They don't, yeah, because why take the political risk. And
it's where you said, this is how we get it changed.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
It is frankly politically stupid for a US Senator to
make endorsements in primary races in his own state. And
that's why none of my colleagues do so. Because when
you make an endorsement, the old rule of thumb is
you get half their friends and all their enemies, yep.
And so every time you do it, you're losing votes,
(07:56):
you're losing support. Well, what I've done for three cycles
in a row is I sit down with my team.
I have to make an Excel spreadsheet and I say
I want to see every vote that they've cast, every
state repid, every state senator on school choice. And my
rule is, if you voted in favor of school choice,
and you're otherwise relatively conservative, you're very likely to get
(08:18):
my support. If you voted against school choice, the chances
of my supporting your zero. And if you have anything
resembling a credible primary challenger, I'm going to endorse your
primary challenger. And when I do so, I don't do
so gently.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I come in and I hold on, are you saying
you're not subtle when it comes to your endorsing people?
Speaker 1 (08:39):
And it's shocking. This is so off brand for your centator.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Look, I come in, I cut radio, I cut TV,
I get kinetic, and my view is all right, if
you're not going to support choice, that's fine, but you're
gonna find something else to do because you're not going
to be representing the people of Texas. Because the people
of Exis want and deserve school choice. I think school
choice is the civil rights issue of the twenty first century.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
And so for three cycles I've done that.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
And there were a bunch of Republicans who voted against choice,
and you know what, we've beaten almost every one of
them that they came in, and we ran primary challengers
against them, and we beat them. And so this time
the state Senate passed a strong bill, they sent it
to the House, and I'll tell you, I went down
to the House. I spent an entire day on the
floor of the House.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
This wasn't that long ago, by the way, it was
an April last week. Went all in.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
I spent an entire day on the floor of the House. Okay,
it is weird for a US Senator to be on
the floor of the State House. That does not happen
very often. I sat the Speaker's office, and I was
there trying to shore up the votes while they're considered
school choice.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
And for everyone I'm in.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
I sat down and there's some great men and women
serving in the State House, and for those for those
that are there, I told every one of them, I said, listen,
this is the single most important vote you will cast
in your time. I'm in the legislature. I'm here to
tell you. The teachers' unions they're going to spend millions
attacking you when you stand up for the kids of Texas.
And I wanted to tell them I've got your back.
(10:09):
I'm going to support you. And in fact, when I
went and did that, I spent a quarter million dollars
in TV ads support Actually not TV as digital ads
supporting state reps and in particular freshman state reps who
were standing up for school choice, who were demonstrating courage.
And I did that to say, look, you've got friendly
air cover, you've got support. But at the same time
(10:33):
people understood the flip side. If you vote on the
other side, I'm going to do everything I can to
retire you and put someone in that position who actually
is going to fight to do the right thing for
the kids of Texas.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So let's talk about the practical aspect of this. What
does this mean for a parent moving forward when it
comes to their kid and practically apply school choice, Because look,
the Teachers' Union center made this incredible. I guess the
best way to put is they've complicated it with doom
(11:04):
and gloom and extremism instead of simplifying it, which is
part of the reason why we've seen some of you
worried about schooltures, like it seems too complicated, let's not
do it.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Well, look, the Teachers' Union scaremonger. But the good news
is we now know the truth. So it was literally
thirty years ago that I got involved with the school
choice movement. I was a young lawyer and early on
in the nineteen nineties, I was the national chairman of
the School Choice and Education Reform Committee for the Federal Society.
(11:34):
And I did that coming off of my clerkship with
Chief Justice Renquist, where Leonard Leo, who was helping run
the Federalist Society, asked me, would you lead this because
you're passionate about this issue, and I'll tell you what
I said. Actually when he did, he said, look, I
said I'd love to, but I said, to be honest,
I don't have a record on this. I've never done
anything on choice. I was a twenty seven year old lawyer. Sure,
(11:55):
and so I said, I'll do it, but I want
to have a co chair with me, and I asked
for the co chair to be a woman named Nicole Garnet.
Nicole is a good friend of mine. She was a
law clerk to Clarence Thomas. She was married to Rick Garnett,
who was my co clerk with Chief Justice Rehnquist. Both
Rick and Nicole a professors at Notre Dame. But Nicole
(12:18):
at the time was a lawyer at the Institute for Justice,
and she was litigating school choice cases all over the country,
and so she had been representing defending these programs and
winning victories. And I said, look, Nicole's got a record
on this, I've got passion, so I'm happy to do
the work.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
But I didn't want to do it alone. We did
it together. I got to tell you.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
So in the nineteen nineties when you were debating school choice,
like at nineteen ninety nine, all right, I had a
very odd speaking invitation. Where do you think I was
invited to speak in nineteen ninety nine?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
I genuinely have no clue at all on this one.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
I was the keynote speaker, or one of the keynote speakers.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
If you say the Democratic National Convention, I'm going to
laugh out.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Out worse at the National Convention of the ACLU, No
way in hell and the ACLU. They had a one
on one debate on school choice between me and Juan Williams.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Oh yeah, and you know Wan.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
And it was moderated by Barry Lynn, who runs American
United for Separation of Church and State, who's a big
left to you hate school choice? And I did it
in San Diego. There were over five hundred hardcore left
wing ACLU activists, maybe the most hostile audience I've ever
spoken in front of my life, but I was out
(13:36):
there pounding it away.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
I will tell you in the nineteen.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Nineties, when you were arguing about school choice, the teachers
unions would say, if kids have a choice, it'll destroy
the public schools. And I got to say, that's a
serious and powerful argument. If that were true, Ben, I
would oppose school choice sure, because the vast majority of
kids are educated by the public schools, and for the
(14:01):
foreseeable future will continue to be educated by the public schools.
Back then, school choice was a theoretical idea of Milton
Friedman and other free market economists that talked about it,
but it hadn't been implemented a lot of places. What
has happened in the last thirty years is we have
seen roughly thirty different school choice programs implemented all over
(14:21):
the country, and we now know the facts. Number one,
the claim that it destroys the public schools, we know
is objectively false because everywhere it's been implemented, that has
not happened. What has happened consistently when choices implemented.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
You see for the students.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Who exercise a scholarship, who take another choice and leave
off of a failing school to go somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
The results are unequivocal.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Their reading scores go up, their mass scores go up,
their high school graduation rates go up, their college admissions
go up. It has a profound effect on the students
that accept and use the scholarships or use the education
savings accounts to choose a preferred something they want more
than where they were already. But here's the striking thing
(15:09):
that is really important. We now know that choice is
also good for the public schools. So for the students
that never exercise choice, that stay at the same school
that had been struggling or failing, when the other students
have the ability to exercise choice, we've seen quality go up.
That competition is good. It turns out when you have
(15:32):
to fight for your customers, for your clients, for your students,
or else they leave, you end up providing a better product.
We know that consistently across the country, and we're about
to see it. I believe powerfully in Texas, in numbers
that are frankly just bigger than any other state.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
So, Santa, the next question I got to ask is
how do we get this federally? How do we have
the ability for so many people to get what we
just accomplish in Texas on the federal level.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
That seems like an uphill battle.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
It took you a long time to pull this off
in Texas, and you got your hands dirty in the process.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
Well, it is an uphill battle, and it's a battle
that I've been fighting for the past thirteen years. Since
I've been in the Senate, I've been the leading defender,
the leading advocate of school choice. The single biggest legislative
victory that I've had that I'm most proud of in
my entire time in the Senate concerned school choice. Back
in twenty seventeen, when we were passing the Trump tax cuts,
(16:32):
I introduced an amendment that expand expanded college five to
twenty nine savings plans to include K through twelve education.
So five twenty nine savings plans let parents and grandparents
save in a tax advantage way for college expenses. And
I headed amendment to say this can now apply to
K through twelve, to public schools, private schools, parochial schools,
(16:55):
your choice. It ended up passing on the floor of
the Senate at one in the morning, was a fifty
to fifty vote. It was tied, and so the Vice
President came down at one in the morning and broke
the vote. It remains to date the single most far
reaching federal school choice bill that's ever passed. Now, when
Trump was president, I then introduced a much broader school
(17:17):
choice bill, and it was a school choice bill that
I introduced along with President Trumps Secretary of Education at
the Department of Education. And it would create a federal
tax credit for contributions given to scholarship granting organizations in
the States. The states would administer them, the states would
run them, but you would get a dollar for dollar contribution.
(17:40):
So if Ben Ferguson gave money to a scholarship granting
organization in Texas, you would get a credit on your
federal income tax for the amount of your contribution. And
it was structured so it was ten billion dollars a year,
so one hundred billion dollars over ten years. Now there
are no federal strings on the money other than the
(18:00):
only requirement is that the scholarship granting organizations cannot discriminate
against private or parochial schools. They have to let the
parents and the kids actually decide. And as long as
the parents and kids are choosing. It is up to
the states to administer, and the parents and kids to administer.
So that bill I rolled out at the Department of Education.
(18:23):
President Trump in the State of the Union address called
on Congress to pass it, and we had a problem.
The problem is every Democrat in the Senate opposes school
choice because the teachers' unions are the single most important
donors and the most important foot soldiers for Democrat candidates.
And so every one of the Democrats is more afraid
(18:45):
of the teachers' union bosses than they are motivated to
help the kids who are trapped in failing schools. So
we couldn't get it passed. Now, your question, Ben is
how can we get it done at a federal level. Well,
you know what we're doing right now, doing budget reconciliation.
Budget reconciliation means that we can pass a tax bill
(19:07):
with only fifty votes of the Senate, with only Republican votes.
So I'll tell you, I am making the hard run
at my colleagues that we have the chance right now,
as a part of one big, bold, beautiful bill to
pass the biggest federal school choice bill in history. We
can get it done right now. The Democrats cannot stop
(19:28):
it if Republicans stand together.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
So I'm urging my colleagues.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
We had this past week, we had a retreat of
all the Senate Republicans and we're talking about all the
different priorities for budget reconciliation that we're trying to pass.
And one of the things I stood up and said
to my colleagues is, look, this bill is going to
be four trillion, four and a half trillion dollars. It's
going to be a big bill that impacts a lot
of things. A lot of what we're working on individual
(19:54):
individual tax cuts, corporate tax cuts, small business tax cuts,
those are all massively, massively important. But I said, we
ought to focus at least a little bit on legacy.
We ought to focus on ten, twenty, thirty, forty years
from now, what in this bill do people remember? What
will make a difference forty years from now that people
(20:15):
will say this changed the country, This changed my family.
And the case I made to my colleagues is is
there's just about nothing we could do that would have
a bigger legacy than school choice. Ten billion dollars a
year in federal tax credits for contributions to scholarship granting
organizations in the States. You would see ten billion dollars
(20:37):
worth of new scholarships in all fifty states. We can
get that done if we simply stand together.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Right now, I want to talk about what we also
some big news that deals with the issue of Iran.
You went on Life livertal event our good friend Mark
Levin show, and we're talking about Iran right now and
what they're actively trying to do.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Fill us in on that for a second.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Well, right now, they're ongoing negotiation going on with the
nation of Iran and the Iyahtola is a theocratic lunatic.
He regularly regularly leads mobs chanting death to America and
death to Israel. And by the way, if history teaches
us anything it's that if somebody tells you they want
(21:23):
to kill you, believe them. Yeah, And when it comes
to Iran, I'll tell you there are some voices in
Washington and the administration that are pushing for another Iran deal.
They really want an Iran deal and basically they want time.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Why did I got to ask, because as some of
you listening, they're going to say the same thing I'm
saying right now is why on earth would you want
an Iran deal if you know that they cheated on
the last deal.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
So look, I don't know. I'm not Sigmund Freud. I'm
not their psychoanalysts. I just know they're advocating for it.
If you look at the Obama Iran nuclear deal, the
elements of it, it lifted international sanctions, it allowed Iran
to sell oil on the global market, and it allowed
Iran to have its nuclear program continue unmolested. There are
(22:10):
voices within the administration, and by the way, I led
the charge to pull out of that disastrous deal, and
President Trump did exactly that.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
He did the right thing.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
It was the single most important decision, national security decision
of his first term to pull out of the disastrous
Obama Iran nuclear deal. And right now there's a battle
within the administration. But I agree with the red line
that President Trump has drawn, and he has said that
any deal must include full dismantlement, dismantling the centrifuges, shutting
(22:44):
them down, that anything short of that is unacceptable.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
When you look at that deal.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
And I want to play part of what you said
on Mark Levin's show, because it is more background just
on how crazy the IETOA is in Iran and how
big of a threat it is and why you shouldn't
trust them.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Take a listen.
Speaker 5 (23:04):
It's my understanding that the vast majority Republicans in the
Senate in the House are saying Iran must dismantle its
nuclear program.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
It's not a joke. He know what it.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Means when people talk about a civil or civilian nuclear program.
We're not going to be fooled. They must dismantle their program.
Is that what you understand? That?
Speaker 3 (23:26):
That is exactly right?
Speaker 4 (23:27):
And I got to say, Mark, there's a real contrast
between the strength that President Trump has shown with respect
to Iran and the weakness and appeasement that Joe Biden
showed for four years the first term President Trump took
on Iran directly pulled out of the disastrous Obama Iran
nuclear Deal. He ended the civilian nuclear waivers, he ended
(23:50):
the oil waivers, and the result maximum pressure put the
Iranian economy into freefall. Their oil sales fell from a
million barrels a day of oil down all the way
down to three hundred thousand barrels of oil. When Joe
Biden came into office, the Iranian economy was in shambles
and the Iotola and the Mullahs were teetering and near collapse.
(24:14):
But sadly, Biden reversed everything he did complete appeasement. He
stopped enforcing the oil sanctions, and as a result, the
Iatola's oil sales skyrocketed from three hundred thousand barrels a
day to two million barrels a day.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
That's one hundred billion dollars that.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Joe Biden, the Democrats gave the Iatola, and the Iatola
is using it to fund the RGC to attack and
kill Americans. The Iatola is using that to fund Hamas
and Hezbola. In a very real sense, Joe Biden and
the money he gave the Iatola funded October seventh. Now
that Donald Trump is back in office, he's drawn a
(24:54):
clear red line. Iran must dismantle their nuclear capacity.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
They must shut down.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Their centrifuge, as it is the only thing that is
verifiable is full dismantlement. And I have every confidence confidence
the president is going to hold that line.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
I do, But I don't have any confidence in the
Iranians who lie and cheat and still and murder.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
And so the question is, how can we expect a
regime that does all those things. It is not abided
by anything, it's agreed to anything. It has promised over
the course of the last fifteen years. So here we
are at the eleventh hour. Here we are at the
eleventh hour trying to deal with this. How can we
(25:38):
trust them? Or, better put, we're not going to trust them.
How do we make sure that they do what we
tell them they must do?
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Well, listen, we can't trust them because we know that
they lie, and they lie over and over and over again.
It's worth noting the IATOLA right now today is actively trying.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
To murder Donald J.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
Trump has hired hitmen trying to murder the President of
the United States. The IATOLA is also actively trying to
murder the former Secretary of State Mike Pompeio and the
former National Security Advisor John Bolton. They have hired hitmen
that are targeting former senior US officials and the sitting
president of the United States. These are not people who
(26:17):
can be trusted, which is why the objective must be
full dismantlement must be the centrifugeas disassembled, destroyed, taken out.
And as President Trump said recently, we can do that
either nicely or not so nicely. Nicely if they agree
and we go in and dismantle them ourselves, or not
(26:39):
so nicely is if Iran refuses to negotiate, we have
the capability to take out these nuclear facilities. And I
got to say, Mark, you and I have talked about this.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Listen.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
There are some voices in the Trump administration that are
on the isolationist wing of foreign policy that say, let's
not worry about Iran. Let's not let's not do anything
about Iran. And listen, I am someone who is very
reluctant to use military force. But Iran is trying to
build nuclear weapons because Iran wants to be able to
(27:11):
threaten to use nuclear weapons, and they might even use them.
And I believe a nuclear Iran is an unacceptable threat
of seeing an atomic bomb detonated in the skies of
New York or the skies of Los Angeles, and so
our commander in chief, President Trump, I don't think he's
going to.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Allow that risk.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
We are going to demand the centrifugas, the nuclear capability
be dismantled, and they either do so willingly or they'll
be dismantled unwillingly.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
It doesn't seem to be any gray area here from you,
I will bend there and the president. It seems to
be y'all are all in lockstep on the same thing here.
You cannot trust Iran at all.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
Well, and you asked, what why do people oppose this
the rhetoric they use as they say, Well, if you're
standing up to Iran and you're a warmonger. And let
me be clear, as I mentioned to Mark Levin, I
have consistently been very reluctant to use military force. You know,
you go back to twenty sixteen, the presidential race. You
(28:14):
had seventeen Republicans running for president that year, set ran
policide because Rand's views are unique in the Senate. Of
the remaining sixteen, there were only two of us on
that stage who believed and said the Iraq War was
a mistake. Donald Trump and me. Both of us said
the Iraq War was absolutely a mistake. I believe it
(28:36):
was a mistake because you had a dictator, a cruel dictator,
Saddam Hussein, who was killing terrorists. We came in and
we toppled that dictator, and the result was the terrorist
took over and they began killing Americans. That did not
help America. Toppling a dictator and putting the terrorists in
charge was a mistake. By the way, we made the
(28:57):
same mistake in Libya, where you had Kadafi and other
another very cruel dictator, but he was killing terrorists. We
came in and toppled him, and the terrorists took over
and they began killing Americans. I think that's a bad
trade off. So when I say that we need to
focus on American national security, it doesn't mean we should
(29:20):
invade other countries. It doesn't mean we should send the Marines.
It means we should look at serious, real threats to
our national security. And I think the single most acute
threat we face, the urgent threat we face right now,
is a nuclear Iran, because you've got a theocratic lunatic
who has said he wants to murder us, and by
(29:44):
the way, we know that he's willing to hire hitmen
to try to murder the president already, and if he
had nuclear weapons, I think the odds are unacceptably high
he would use them. And so in the first term,
what I advocated for and what President Trump agreed with,
was maximum pressure, using sanctions, cut cutting off their financial system.
(30:05):
Their economy went into freefall because President's Trump stood up
against the iotolin. It was incredibly effective until Joe Biden
undermined it by embracing appeasement. That was a massive mistake,
and I hope and believe President Trump is turning that
around right now.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Yeah, it is really incredible to see him standing up
and saying, hey, there are certain things that we're just
not gonna deal with and certain things that we're not
going to negotiate on. That's exactly what you're hearing from
the President.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Now.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Don't forget we did this show Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
So hit that subscriber auto download button wherever you're getting
this podcast, and make sure that you tell your friends
about it, put it up where you are on social media,
and then Senator I will see you back here on
Wednesday morning.
Good Monday morning.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Nice have you with us, It's verdict with Senator Ted Cruz,
Ben Ferguson with you and Senator I hope you had
a great Mother's Day with your family. I will start
with that as well. Happy Mother's Day to all the
mothers out there listening. And I know you wanted to
say something as well.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Well.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
I had a wonderful Mother's Day. We took my mom out.
My mom is ninety years old. We took her out
for a dinner in town. We took her out along
with Heidi and both the girls, and we had a
great dinner together as a family. We celebrated moms. My
mom is ninety and still going strong. HEDI is a
rock and I'm just grateful for all the moms in
(00:38):
our lives because there ain't nothing better.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Amen to that.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Am in too that We've got a big show today,
including a big victory in Texas that could have a
big impact on the country on the issue of school choice,
which is something you've been championing now for years.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Well, that's exactly right. We've got three big stories that
we're going to break down tonight. Number one, school choice
and school choice Texas just passed the biggest, the boldest,
the most significant school choice program in the entire country.
We're going to tell you all about it and what
it means for the school children in Texas.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
We're also going to talk to you about on school choice.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
We have an historic opportunity right now to win the
biggest victory in the country ever. On school choice is
part of budget reconciliation. I'm going to explain to you how.
We're going to talk also about Iran, and they're ongoing
negotiations right now with Iran. There are those who are
advocating for another Obama Iran nuclear deal, which would be disastrous.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
It would be terrible.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
I agree with President Trump and the red line that
he has drawn that any agreement with Iran must include
total dismantlement of Iran's nuclear capability.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
All of that up next.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, it's a great story and it's one that's important.
What I also tell you real quick about our friends
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So centator, let's start with this big story. It is
one that media really hasn't been covering. I think it's
because they're terrified that this is going to give parents
freedom to give their kids a great education. And there's
a bill that passed in Texas. It deals with school choice.
(04:17):
It's something that you have been acting for for such
a long time. Now it's becoming a reality. Talk about it.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Well.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Governor Abbott just signed in a law in the state
of Texas the biggest, the broadest, the most significant school
choice program in the entire country. This has been the
result of decades of battle and hard work, decades that
I've been fighting in the field. So I'm going to
walk you through number one, the details of the bill.
The details of the bill. It's a billion dollars that
the state is allocated as school choice. One billion dollars
(04:45):
that is going in the form of education savings accounts.
Education savings accounts that are going to be funded by
the state to the tune of just under eleven thousand
dollars for roughly ninety thousand school kids statewide. In addition,
kids with disability are education are eligible to get education
(05:06):
saving accounts that can be as high as thirty thousand dollars. Now,
these are not accounts that you're saving into. This is
the state putting funding, making it available to parents so
that they can choose the best school for their kids.
It is historic. Many other states have done small, little
pilot programs. The breadth the scope of this is massive,
(05:28):
and it's worth remembering Texas comprises ten percent of the
entire American population. Texas comprises roughly ten percent of the
school kids in America, So having robust school choice for
ten percent of the school kids in America is a
massive and game changing victory, and I got to tell you, Ben,
(05:52):
it's one that has been hard fought for a long time.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
You know, if you.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Look at school choice and over the past two decades,
the states that have led on it have been states
like Florida, Arizona, Ohio, and Texas had been lagging behind.
And I got to say, for Texans, it is infuriating
not to lead. It is infuriating not to be standing
up doing the right thing. And Texas, it was a
(06:18):
big battle, and our challenge was not partisan. It wasn't
Republican or democratic. It wasn't even ideological conservative versus moderate.
It was rather geographic in that Texas has a lot
of rural areas. And the challenge you faced is in
the Texas State House there were a number of rural
(06:38):
Republicans who were good guys, but the biggest employer in
their district is the public school district, and the school
superintendents in the rural districts vigorously opposed school choice, most
significantly because the urban superintendents and the teachers' unions hated
school choice. And so what we had in Texas for
(07:00):
a long time it is a bunch of urban Republicans
who would vote to kill choice programs. Now, I'll tell
you what changed that. What changed that was a massive
political effort and something I started six years ago. Six
years ago, I began intervening and making endorsements in primaries
all across the state. And I got to tell you, Ben,
(07:22):
out of one hundred US Senators, to the best of
my knowledge, ninety nine of them don't do that.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
They don't, yeah, because why take the political risk. And
it's where you said, this is how we get it changed.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
It is frankly politically stupid for a US Senator to
make endorsements in primary races in his own state. And
that's why none of my colleagues do so. Because when
you make an endorsement, the old rule of thumb is
you get half their friends and all their enemies, yep.
And so every time you do it, you're losing votes,
(07:56):
you're losing support. Well, what I've done for three cycles
in a row is I sit down with my team.
I have to make an Excel spreadsheet and I say
I want to see every vote that they've cast, every
state repid, every state senator on school choice. And my
rule is, if you voted in favor of school choice,
and you're otherwise relatively conservative, you're very likely to get
(08:18):
my support. If you voted against school choice, the chances
of my supporting your zero. And if you have anything
resembling a credible primary challenger, I'm going to endorse your
primary challenger. And when I do so, I don't do
so gently.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I come in and I hold on, are you saying
you're not subtle when it comes to your endorsing people?
Speaker 1 (08:39):
And it's shocking. This is so off brand for your centator.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Look, I come in, I cut radio, I cut TV,
I get kinetic, and my view is all right, if
you're not going to support choice, that's fine, but you're
gonna find something else to do because you're not going
to be representing the people of Texas. Because the people
of Exis want and deserve school choice. I think school
choice is the civil rights issue of the twenty first century.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
And so for three cycles I've done that.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
And there were a bunch of Republicans who voted against choice,
and you know what, we've beaten almost every one of
them that they came in, and we ran primary challengers
against them, and we beat them. And so this time
the state Senate passed a strong bill, they sent it
to the House, and I'll tell you, I went down
to the House. I spent an entire day on the
floor of the House.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
This wasn't that long ago, by the way, it was
an April last week. Went all in.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
I spent an entire day on the floor of the House. Okay,
it is weird for a US Senator to be on
the floor of the State House. That does not happen
very often. I sat the Speaker's office, and I was
there trying to shore up the votes while they're considered
school choice.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
And for everyone I'm in.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
I sat down and there's some great men and women
serving in the State House, and for those for those
that are there, I told every one of them, I said, listen,
this is the single most important vote you will cast
in your time. I'm in the legislature. I'm here to
tell you. The teachers' unions they're going to spend millions
attacking you when you stand up for the kids of Texas.
And I wanted to tell them I've got your back.
(10:09):
I'm going to support you. And in fact, when I
went and did that, I spent a quarter million dollars
in TV ads support Actually not TV as digital ads
supporting state reps and in particular freshman state reps who
were standing up for school choice, who were demonstrating courage.
And I did that to say, look, you've got friendly
air cover, you've got support. But at the same time
(10:33):
people understood the flip side. If you vote on the
other side, I'm going to do everything I can to
retire you and put someone in that position who actually
is going to fight to do the right thing for
the kids of Texas.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So let's talk about the practical aspect of this. What
does this mean for a parent moving forward when it
comes to their kid and practically apply school choice, Because look,
the Teachers' Union center made this incredible. I guess the
best way to put is they've complicated it with doom
(11:04):
and gloom and extremism instead of simplifying it, which is
part of the reason why we've seen some of you
worried about schooltures, like it seems too complicated, let's not
do it.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
Well, look, the Teachers' Union scaremonger. But the good news
is we now know the truth. So it was literally
thirty years ago that I got involved with the school
choice movement. I was a young lawyer and early on
in the nineteen nineties, I was the national chairman of
the School Choice and Education Reform Committee for the Federal Society.
(11:34):
And I did that coming off of my clerkship with
Chief Justice Renquist, where Leonard Leo, who was helping run
the Federalist Society, asked me, would you lead this because
you're passionate about this issue, and I'll tell you what
I said. Actually when he did, he said, look, I
said I'd love to, but I said, to be honest,
I don't have a record on this. I've never done
anything on choice. I was a twenty seven year old lawyer. Sure,
(11:55):
and so I said, I'll do it, but I want
to have a co chair with me, and I asked
for the co chair to be a woman named Nicole Garnet.
Nicole is a good friend of mine. She was a
law clerk to Clarence Thomas. She was married to Rick Garnett,
who was my co clerk with Chief Justice Rehnquist. Both
Rick and Nicole a professors at Notre Dame. But Nicole
(12:18):
at the time was a lawyer at the Institute for Justice,
and she was litigating school choice cases all over the country,
and so she had been representing defending these programs and
winning victories. And I said, look, Nicole's got a record
on this, I've got passion, so I'm happy to do
the work.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
But I didn't want to do it alone. We did
it together. I got to tell you.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
So in the nineteen nineties when you were debating school choice,
like at nineteen ninety nine, all right, I had a
very odd speaking invitation. Where do you think I was
invited to speak in nineteen ninety nine?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
I genuinely have no clue at all on this one.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
I was the keynote speaker, or one of the keynote speakers.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
If you say the Democratic National Convention, I'm going to
laugh out.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
Out worse at the National Convention of the ACLU, No
way in hell and the ACLU. They had a one
on one debate on school choice between me and Juan Williams.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Oh yeah, and you know Wan.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
And it was moderated by Barry Lynn, who runs American
United for Separation of Church and State, who's a big
left to you hate school choice? And I did it
in San Diego. There were over five hundred hardcore left
wing ACLU activists, maybe the most hostile audience I've ever
spoken in front of my life, but I was out
(13:36):
there pounding it away.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
I will tell you in the nineteen.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Nineties, when you were arguing about school choice, the teachers
unions would say, if kids have a choice, it'll destroy
the public schools. And I got to say, that's a
serious and powerful argument. If that were true, Ben, I
would oppose school choice sure, because the vast majority of
kids are educated by the public schools, and for the
(14:01):
foreseeable future will continue to be educated by the public schools.
Back then, school choice was a theoretical idea of Milton
Friedman and other free market economists that talked about it,
but it hadn't been implemented a lot of places. What
has happened in the last thirty years is we have
seen roughly thirty different school choice programs implemented all over
(14:21):
the country, and we now know the facts. Number one,
the claim that it destroys the public schools, we know
is objectively false because everywhere it's been implemented, that has
not happened. What has happened consistently when choices implemented.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
You see for the students.
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Who exercise a scholarship, who take another choice and leave
off of a failing school to go somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
The results are unequivocal.
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Their reading scores go up, their mass scores go up,
their high school graduation rates go up, their college admissions
go up. It has a profound effect on the students
that accept and use the scholarships or use the education
savings accounts to choose a preferred something they want more
than where they were already. But here's the striking thing
(15:09):
that is really important. We now know that choice is
also good for the public schools. So for the students
that never exercise choice, that stay at the same school
that had been struggling or failing, when the other students
have the ability to exercise choice, we've seen quality go up.
That competition is good. It turns out when you have
(15:32):
to fight for your customers, for your clients, for your students,
or else they leave, you end up providing a better product.
We know that consistently across the country, and we're about
to see it. I believe powerfully in Texas, in numbers
that are frankly just bigger than any other state.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
So, Santa, the next question I got to ask is
how do we get this federally? How do we have
the ability for so many people to get what we
just accomplish in Texas on the federal level.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
That seems like an uphill battle.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
It took you a long time to pull this off
in Texas, and you got your hands dirty in the process.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
Well, it is an uphill battle, and it's a battle
that I've been fighting for the past thirteen years. Since
I've been in the Senate, I've been the leading defender,
the leading advocate of school choice. The single biggest legislative
victory that I've had that I'm most proud of in
my entire time in the Senate concerned school choice. Back
in twenty seventeen, when we were passing the Trump tax cuts,
(16:32):
I introduced an amendment that expand expanded college five to
twenty nine savings plans to include K through twelve education.
So five twenty nine savings plans let parents and grandparents
save in a tax advantage way for college expenses. And
I headed amendment to say this can now apply to
K through twelve, to public schools, private schools, parochial schools,
(16:55):
your choice. It ended up passing on the floor of
the Senate at one in the morning, was a fifty
to fifty vote. It was tied, and so the Vice
President came down at one in the morning and broke
the vote. It remains to date the single most far
reaching federal school choice bill that's ever passed. Now, when
Trump was president, I then introduced a much broader school
(17:17):
choice bill, and it was a school choice bill that
I introduced along with President Trumps Secretary of Education at
the Department of Education. And it would create a federal
tax credit for contributions given to scholarship granting organizations in
the States. The states would administer them, the states would
run them, but you would get a dollar for dollar contribution.
(17:40):
So if Ben Ferguson gave money to a scholarship granting
organization in Texas, you would get a credit on your
federal income tax for the amount of your contribution. And
it was structured so it was ten billion dollars a year,
so one hundred billion dollars over ten years. Now there
are no federal strings on the money other than the
(18:00):
only requirement is that the scholarship granting organizations cannot discriminate
against private or parochial schools. They have to let the
parents and the kids actually decide. And as long as
the parents and kids are choosing. It is up to
the states to administer, and the parents and kids to administer.
So that bill I rolled out at the Department of Education.
(18:23):
President Trump in the State of the Union address called
on Congress to pass it, and we had a problem.
The problem is every Democrat in the Senate opposes school
choice because the teachers' unions are the single most important
donors and the most important foot soldiers for Democrat candidates.
And so every one of the Democrats is more afraid
(18:45):
of the teachers' union bosses than they are motivated to
help the kids who are trapped in failing schools. So
we couldn't get it passed. Now, your question, Ben is
how can we get it done at a federal level. Well,
you know what we're doing right now, doing budget reconciliation.
Budget reconciliation means that we can pass a tax bill
(19:07):
with only fifty votes of the Senate, with only Republican votes.
So I'll tell you, I am making the hard run
at my colleagues that we have the chance right now,
as a part of one big, bold, beautiful bill to
pass the biggest federal school choice bill in history. We
can get it done right now. The Democrats cannot stop
(19:28):
it if Republicans stand together.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
So I'm urging my colleagues.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
We had this past week, we had a retreat of
all the Senate Republicans and we're talking about all the
different priorities for budget reconciliation that we're trying to pass.
And one of the things I stood up and said
to my colleagues is, look, this bill is going to
be four trillion, four and a half trillion dollars. It's
going to be a big bill that impacts a lot
of things. A lot of what we're working on individual
(19:54):
individual tax cuts, corporate tax cuts, small business tax cuts,
those are all massively, massively important. But I said, we
ought to focus at least a little bit on legacy.
We ought to focus on ten, twenty, thirty, forty years
from now, what in this bill do people remember? What
will make a difference forty years from now that people
(20:15):
will say this changed the country, This changed my family.
And the case I made to my colleagues is is
there's just about nothing we could do that would have
a bigger legacy than school choice. Ten billion dollars a
year in federal tax credits for contributions to scholarship granting
organizations in the States. You would see ten billion dollars
(20:37):
worth of new scholarships in all fifty states. We can
get that done if we simply stand together.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Right now, I want to talk about what we also
some big news that deals with the issue of Iran.
You went on Life livertal event our good friend Mark
Levin show, and we're talking about Iran right now and
what they're actively trying to do.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Fill us in on that for a second.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
Well, right now, they're ongoing negotiation going on with the
nation of Iran and the Iyahtola is a theocratic lunatic.
He regularly regularly leads mobs chanting death to America and
death to Israel. And by the way, if history teaches
us anything it's that if somebody tells you they want
(21:23):
to kill you, believe them. Yeah, And when it comes
to Iran, I'll tell you there are some voices in
Washington and the administration that are pushing for another Iran deal.
They really want an Iran deal and basically they want time.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Why did I got to ask, because as some of
you listening, they're going to say the same thing I'm
saying right now is why on earth would you want
an Iran deal if you know that they cheated on
the last deal.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
So look, I don't know. I'm not Sigmund Freud. I'm
not their psychoanalysts. I just know they're advocating for it.
If you look at the Obama Iran nuclear deal, the
elements of it, it lifted international sanctions, it allowed Iran
to sell oil on the global market, and it allowed
Iran to have its nuclear program continue unmolested. There are
(22:10):
voices within the administration, and by the way, I led
the charge to pull out of that disastrous deal, and
President Trump did exactly that.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
He did the right thing.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
It was the single most important decision, national security decision
of his first term to pull out of the disastrous
Obama Iran nuclear deal. And right now there's a battle
within the administration. But I agree with the red line
that President Trump has drawn, and he has said that
any deal must include full dismantlement, dismantling the centrifuges, shutting
(22:44):
them down, that anything short of that is unacceptable.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
When you look at that deal.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
And I want to play part of what you said
on Mark Levin's show, because it is more background just
on how crazy the IETOA is in Iran and how
big of a threat it is and why you shouldn't
trust them.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Take a listen.
Speaker 5 (23:04):
It's my understanding that the vast majority Republicans in the
Senate in the House are saying Iran must dismantle its
nuclear program.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
It's not a joke. He know what it.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Means when people talk about a civil or civilian nuclear program.
We're not going to be fooled. They must dismantle their program.
Is that what you understand? That?
Speaker 3 (23:26):
That is exactly right?
Speaker 4 (23:27):
And I got to say, Mark, there's a real contrast
between the strength that President Trump has shown with respect
to Iran and the weakness and appeasement that Joe Biden
showed for four years the first term President Trump took
on Iran directly pulled out of the disastrous Obama Iran
nuclear Deal. He ended the civilian nuclear waivers, he ended
(23:50):
the oil waivers, and the result maximum pressure put the
Iranian economy into freefall. Their oil sales fell from a
million barrels a day of oil down all the way
down to three hundred thousand barrels of oil. When Joe
Biden came into office, the Iranian economy was in shambles
and the Iotola and the Mullahs were teetering and near collapse.
(24:14):
But sadly, Biden reversed everything he did complete appeasement. He
stopped enforcing the oil sanctions, and as a result, the
Iatola's oil sales skyrocketed from three hundred thousand barrels a
day to two million barrels a day.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
That's one hundred billion dollars that.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Joe Biden, the Democrats gave the Iatola, and the Iatola
is using it to fund the RGC to attack and
kill Americans. The Iatola is using that to fund Hamas
and Hezbola. In a very real sense, Joe Biden and
the money he gave the Iatola funded October seventh. Now
that Donald Trump is back in office, he's drawn a
(24:54):
clear red line. Iran must dismantle their nuclear capacity.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
They must shut down.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Their centrifuge, as it is the only thing that is
verifiable is full dismantlement. And I have every confidence confidence
the president is going to hold that line.
Speaker 5 (25:10):
I do, But I don't have any confidence in the
Iranians who lie and cheat and still and murder.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
And so the question is, how can we expect a
regime that does all those things. It is not abided
by anything, it's agreed to anything. It has promised over
the course of the last fifteen years. So here we
are at the eleventh hour. Here we are at the
eleventh hour trying to deal with this. How can we
(25:38):
trust them? Or, better put, we're not going to trust them.
How do we make sure that they do what we
tell them they must do?
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Well, listen, we can't trust them because we know that
they lie, and they lie over and over and over again.
It's worth noting the IATOLA right now today is actively trying.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
To murder Donald J.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
Trump has hired hitmen trying to murder the President of
the United States. The IATOLA is also actively trying to
murder the former Secretary of State Mike Pompeio and the
former National Security Advisor John Bolton. They have hired hitmen
that are targeting former senior US officials and the sitting
president of the United States. These are not people who
(26:17):
can be trusted, which is why the objective must be
full dismantlement must be the centrifugeas disassembled, destroyed, taken out.
And as President Trump said recently, we can do that
either nicely or not so nicely. Nicely if they agree
and we go in and dismantle them ourselves, or not
(26:39):
so nicely is if Iran refuses to negotiate, we have
the capability to take out these nuclear facilities. And I
got to say, Mark, you and I have talked about this.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Listen.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
There are some voices in the Trump administration that are
on the isolationist wing of foreign policy that say, let's
not worry about Iran. Let's not let's not do anything
about Iran. And listen, I am someone who is very
reluctant to use military force. But Iran is trying to
build nuclear weapons because Iran wants to be able to
(27:11):
threaten to use nuclear weapons, and they might even use them.
And I believe a nuclear Iran is an unacceptable threat
of seeing an atomic bomb detonated in the skies of
New York or the skies of Los Angeles, and so
our commander in chief, President Trump, I don't think he's
going to.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Allow that risk.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
We are going to demand the centrifugas, the nuclear capability
be dismantled, and they either do so willingly or they'll
be dismantled unwillingly.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
It doesn't seem to be any gray area here from you,
I will bend there and the president. It seems to
be y'all are all in lockstep on the same thing here.
You cannot trust Iran at all.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
Well, and you asked, what why do people oppose this
the rhetoric they use as they say, Well, if you're
standing up to Iran and you're a warmonger. And let
me be clear, as I mentioned to Mark Levin, I
have consistently been very reluctant to use military force. You know,
you go back to twenty sixteen, the presidential race. You
(28:14):
had seventeen Republicans running for president that year, set ran
policide because Rand's views are unique in the Senate. Of
the remaining sixteen, there were only two of us on
that stage who believed and said the Iraq War was
a mistake. Donald Trump and me. Both of us said
the Iraq War was absolutely a mistake. I believe it
(28:36):
was a mistake because you had a dictator, a cruel dictator,
Saddam Hussein, who was killing terrorists. We came in and
we toppled that dictator, and the result was the terrorist
took over and they began killing Americans. That did not
help America. Toppling a dictator and putting the terrorists in
charge was a mistake. By the way, we made the
(28:57):
same mistake in Libya, where you had Kadafi and other
another very cruel dictator, but he was killing terrorists. We
came in and toppled him, and the terrorists took over
and they began killing Americans. I think that's a bad
trade off. So when I say that we need to
focus on American national security, it doesn't mean we should
(29:20):
invade other countries. It doesn't mean we should send the Marines.
It means we should look at serious, real threats to
our national security. And I think the single most acute
threat we face, the urgent threat we face right now,
is a nuclear Iran, because you've got a theocratic lunatic
who has said he wants to murder us, and by
(29:44):
the way, we know that he's willing to hire hitmen
to try to murder the president already, and if he
had nuclear weapons, I think the odds are unacceptably high
he would use them. And so in the first term,
what I advocated for and what President Trump agreed with,
was maximum pressure, using sanctions, cut cutting off their financial system.
(30:05):
Their economy went into freefall because President's Trump stood up
against the iotolin. It was incredibly effective until Joe Biden
undermined it by embracing appeasement. That was a massive mistake,
and I hope and believe President Trump is turning that
around right now.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Yeah, it is really incredible to see him standing up
and saying, hey, there are certain things that we're just
not gonna deal with and certain things that we're not
going to negotiate on. That's exactly what you're hearing from
the President.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Now.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Don't forget we did this show Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
So hit that subscriber auto download button wherever you're getting
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and then Senator I will see you back here on
Wednesday morning.
Host
Ben Ferguson
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