September 6, 2025 • 34 mins
-
Criticism of JB Pritzker (Governor of Illinois):
The speakers argue that Pritzker downplays violent crime in Chicago despite high murder rates. They compare his leadership to officials in Mexico who claim progress while cartels commit violence unchecked. -
Broader critique of Democrats:
Democrats are portrayed as favoring criminals over victims, ignoring rising crime, and pushing policies that weaken law enforcement. The conversation frames them as ideologically extreme and out of touch with public safety concerns. -
Midterm election outlook (2025):
The senator and host discuss Republican opportunities in upcoming elections. They note Democratic fundraising strength but also claim voters are increasingly frustrated with crime and safety issues, which could benefit Republicans. -
The “Clean DC Act”:
The senator introduces legislation to roll back a 2022 D.C. law that reduced penalties for violent crimes. The bill is framed as a test of whether lawmakers side with “criminals or citizens.” -
Rumors about President Trump’s health:
A viral social media claim suggested Trump was dead or incapacitated because he wasn’t seen for a few days. The speakers mock Democrats and the media for allegedly celebrating or hoping it was true. Trump himself is quoted dismissing it as “fake news.” -
Drug cartels in the U.S.:
The conversation highlights a DEA operation in New England that arrested 171 members of the Sinaloa cartel. They emphasize the cartel’s national reach, its trafficking of fentanyl, and the dangers counterfeit pills pose to young people. The epidemic of fentanyl deaths is portrayed as a direct result of “Democratic open border policies.” -
Military and foreign policy against cartels:
The senator describes U.S. military operations in the Caribbean and Central America targeting drug traffickers, including deploying stealth jets and naval ships. He recounts visiting prisons in El Salvador housing violent gang members to illustrate cartel influence in U.S. communities.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome in is Verdict with Ted Cruz Weekend Review, Ben
Ferguson with you, and these are the stories that you
may have missed that we talked about this past week.
First up, Democrats, including the governor of Illinois. They're going
all in to defend their criminals and their cities that
are ruining it. So what is behind this logic? We're
(00:22):
going to break it down for you. Also, DC's getting
cleaned up and now we have the Clean DC Act,
and why other cities mayow to look at the exact
same blueprint. And finally, one hundred and seventeen narco terrace
caught in New England, all of them a part of
one major narcos gang. It's a week in review and
(00:44):
it starts right now, which centater brings us to part
two of this conversation. Let's bring it back home. JD.
Pritzker is a interesting man. He's got a lot of money.
He's a governor, and he thinks he's succeeding at fighting crime.
But getting illegal immigrant killers and rapists off our streets
(01:05):
is quote unquote dangerous, he says. And now it is
apparently anti American. Tie that into your trip to Mexico.
I mean, you want to talk about to people the
kid gotten together and had one heck of a lunch.
The people you met with with JD, they'd be like
kumbayayeing this stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Well.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
JB.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Pritzker, he is a billionaire, like many Democrat billionaires. He
did not make his money. He inherited it. He inherited
a vast fortune. And he's now the governor of Illinois
and presiding over a state where the people are fleeing,
a state where crime is out of control, where left
wing policies are are an absolute disaster, and it's striking.
(01:45):
He has the same reality denying vision. Gavin Newsom has
the same thing in California where they both You know,
it reminds me of that meme of the dumpster burning
in the background and saying, you know, everything's fine here.
That that is today's demoics just telling you don't believe
you're lying eyes. Just make sure to duck the bullets
when you're in your living room. But everything other than
(02:05):
that is great.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
JB.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Pritzer says he's succeeding at fighting violent crime in Chicago,
and you're right, it is reminiscent of these Mexican government
leaders who said they're handling it just fine. Look at
the great progress they're making, and you look at the
cartels who are murdering Mexicans with impunity and who are
committing vast numbers of crime in the United States here
give a listen to JB. Prisker, Governor Illinois.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
What we won't do, however, is engage in what is
a federal effort. That is to say, they have their
job immigration. We have our job, which is to fight
violent crime on the streets of our city. And by
the way, we're succeeding at that job. But when they
bring people in and don't coordinate with us, they're going
(02:49):
to cause enormous problems.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
So going to cause enormous problems they're center. I mean,
if that doesn't sound like a threat, I don't know
what is.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
So.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Pritzker claims he is succeeding at fighting violent crime in Chicago.
Chicago has had the most murders of any American city
for thirteen consecutive years thirteen years in a row. Chicago
is number one. Chicago's murder rate is three times higher
than Los Angeles. It is five times higher than New
(03:17):
York City. It is two times higher than Islamabad, that
it is fifteen times higher than Delhi. And the answer
to a billionaire Democrat who is surrounded by police officers
at all times, so he's not worried about being mugged
on the streets of Chicago. That's not a threat he's facing.
He says, we've got the highest murder rate in America.
(03:38):
We're succeeding. This is Democrats success, you know. But he
goes even further. He expresses great dismay that if President
Trump is successful in turning around crime in Chicago, that
would be a bad thing. Listen to the second clip.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
So this is dangerous. They shouldn't be doing it. It's
anti American American, and I would tell her to maybe
check herself for what does she really believe?
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Nothing says we're fighting crime like threatening the woman who's
out there in Department of Homescurity Secretary Nome and saying
you need to check yourself right and saying it's dangerous
and un American and anti American to go after a
legal American killers and rapists.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
It's stunning. The Democrats are becoming more and more open
that if they have a conflict between a murderer and
a victim, if they have a conflict between a Venezuelan
gang member and an innocent American citizen, if they have
a conflict between a rapist and a single mom, if
they have a conflict between a violent sexual predator and
(04:44):
your children, the Democrats will pick the criminal every single time.
They're not even pretending anymore to go after those criminals.
Democrat Governor Pritzker says is dangerous, anti American and un American,
and I think the American people are getting fed up.
You know, there was a new poll from ap slash
NRC that found that a large majority of Americans sixty
(05:08):
eight percent, see crime as a major problem in large cities,
and the approach of the Democrat Party is they're not
going to do anything about it. In fact, the highest
murder rate in the US they describe as a success.
And what it is, it's reminiscent of the leadership in
Al Salvador when they had the highest murder rate in
(05:29):
the world, and they describe what they were doing as
a success. And the only answer is new political leadership
that actually says keeping our citizens safe is our number
one priority and we're going to do so. We've seen
what happens when President Trump does so in the United
States and the border is immediately secured. We had a
ninety nine percent decrease in illegal crossings. We saw what
(05:50):
happened with President bucell in El Salvador, where they had
a ninety eight percent drop in homicides. Ironically, we saw
what happened in San Francisco, and she came to San
Francisco and Gavin Newsom immediately cleaned up San Francisco, removed
the homeless people, took the junkies off the street, and
cleaned up the human feces off the street, all of
(06:11):
which demonstrates they know how to do so. If they
could do so on Monday, they could do so on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
Saturday and Sunday. The reason they don't, the reason the
crime persists, the reason your family is threatened, is because
the Democrats politically, their ideology, they think it's better to
side with the criminals than it is with you and
(06:32):
that I don't get that, but that's where we are,
and I do think it's part of the reason we
see today's Democrat party getting more and more extreme and
appealing to a smaller and smaller sliver of our society.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Final question on this, I believe now that the Democratic
Party is in such shambles that they don't even know
how to get out of this. There is no real leader.
We're being told Obama's coming back and going to like
quote start mentoring people in the Democratic Party. That's how
desperate they are. The same guy that's the godfather, as
I described it on Laura Ingram's show on Fox Friday Night,
(07:07):
as the godfather of this type of insandi and anarchy.
He's the that created the aocs of the party and
gave them power. And so you look at the Democratic
Party now. I don't want to be over confident, but
what I do want to say is I feel like
these midterms may actually be a big opportunity for Republican
candidates coming up. Usually you give up seats when you
(07:29):
have all three branches in the midterms. There's a chance
this could actually work out for concernis, as you mentioned,
because the voters are so sick and tired of the
left not keeping them safe. It's not even about the economy,
It's about safety.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Look, I hope so Ben, I'll confess I'm significantly more
worried than you. We've got cross cutting forces for the midterms.
On the positive side, for Republicans, the Democrats have gotten
so extreme, so whack job out there that it seems
like they took a list of a dozen eighty twenty
issues and they said, let's take the twenty percent side
of all of them. And in some instances they've even
(08:05):
taken ninety ten issues and said, let's appeal to the
smallest liver of America we can. Generally speaking, that is
a really bad political strategy, so that augurs in our favor.
On the other side, we have a real enthusiasm gap,
and this worries me about the midterms, which is an
awful lot of Americans are really happy with the success
(08:26):
we've seen in the first eight months of twenty twenty five.
President Trump has been winning major victories. The danger is
that when people are happy, when they're seeing success, they're complacent,
they stay home. I'll tell you what. The left is
not complacent. They are in rage. They are out raising
Republicans three to one. They hate Donald Trump. And we
(08:47):
saw we just saw a special election in Iowa state
senator seat that Trump had won that district by eleven points.
They just elected a Democrat state senator in that district
that I believe was an enthusiasm gap. That the left
is motivated by rage and hate, and that means that
they are definitely showing up. And it's our job to
(09:08):
make sure that that the common sense majority of this
country is not complacent but realizes if we don't show
up to defend what we've got, that that's how you
get these whack jobs elected in the first place.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation,
you can go back and listen to the full podcast
from earlier this week. Now onto story number two. All Right, Senaer,
I want to bring it back home to something, and
you talk about cleaning things up. That's what President Trump
has said he's going to do with the terrorists, uh
and those that are bringing drugs in this country. But
(09:42):
he's also doing big things in different cities. And now
you have introduced the Clean DC Act. Explain to us
what this is.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Well, the principle is very much the same as we
were talking about in foreign policy with the terrorists, which
is when you react with weakness, the result is domestically,
you get more and more crime. When you react with weakness, abroad.
The result is internationally, you get more and more terrorism
and more and more enemies attacking. The converse is true
(10:13):
when you react with strength with regard to crime. When
you lock up murderers and rapists and child molesters, you
get fewer violent crimes number one because of deterrence. Number two,
because of prevention, you get the bad guys off the street.
In DC, the murder rate has consistently been one of
the highest in the entire country. Among large cities. It
is twenty seven homicides per one hundred thousand residents each year.
(10:36):
That is higher than Bogota, Columbia, DC. Not only that,
but if you look at at vehicle theft, vehicle theft
is eight hundred and forty two per one hundred thousand residents,
which is three times the national average, and carjackings have
tripled in recent years. I'll tell you actually, one time
I was filming several years ago, I was filming Verdict.
(10:57):
It was a little past midnight, and we had our
truck warked on the street. I was in the studio
filming it. The truck was broken into and my briefcase
was stolen on the streets of d C. If you
look at d C, which is our nation's capital. You've
got elected representatives and staff from all fifty states, from
all over the country. We had earlier this year we
(11:17):
had a staffer from the White House from DOGE who
was violently assaulted in d C, beaten up by ten
juvenile offenders. We had we hadn't in recent years. We
had a staffer for rand Paul who was stabbed in
the middle of the afternoon on d C Street. We
had a former official in the first Trump administration who
(11:37):
was shot and killed at five o'clock in the afternoon,
parked in his car on d C Street. The violence
is out of control, and it was made worse by
a twenty twenty two law. Twenty twenty two law in
the wake of the George Floyd killing in the Black
Lives Matter protest, when when anti police fervor was driving
(11:58):
the left crazy, the DC City Council and the DC
Mayor came in and they passed a law that lessened
the penalties for violent crimes almost entirely across the board.
They lessened the penalty for murder, they lessened the penalty
for carjacking, they lessened the penalty for violent assault, and
the effect, understandably was those crimes all increased. If you
(12:19):
lessen the penalty for violent crime, the crimes increase. And
this is the thing that the left doesn't understand. We
saw a Democrat Congressman Henry Quaar from Texas, who was
carjacked in his car at about eight or nine o'clock
at night. He was coming home with his dinner and
he was carjacked outside an apartment building that, if I
remember correctly, five other congressmen lived in. That's how bad
(12:43):
it was. Now, I will tell you in the past Congress,
Congress took up legislation to reverse that twenty twenty two law.
It passed the House, and it passed the Senate, and
then Joe Biden vetoed it. Joe Biden decided, all right,
we're not going to let this go into effect. Well,
i've it or again. Legislation that is called the Clean
d C Act, and the Clean d C Act is
(13:05):
very simple. It is designed to repeal the twenty twenty
two law lessening the penalty for violent crimes. And the
Clean d C Act we're pushing for a vote. I
think the House may vote on it as soon as
the next week or two I'll tell you the Clean
d C Act. It's supported by the DC Police Union,
(13:26):
it's supported by the Fraternal Order of the Police, and
it's a good opportunity. I think every member of Congress,
every Democrat, every House member, needs to decide, Okay, where
do you stand? Do you stand with the violent criminals?
Do you stand with the murderers, do you stand with
a rapist? Will you do you stand with the carjackers?
Or do you stand with the citizens of America? That
(13:47):
ought to be an easy vote, although sadly I'm going
to predict I think an awful lot of Democrats are
going to vote with criminals.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yeah. It really does tell you where the Democrats mindset
is right now, where they can't even agree that criminals
should be held accountable. And it also just tells you
about how sinister they are, which brings us to our
final story. The idea that because the president wasn't seen
like twenty four to seven, totally different than Joe Biden
when he was president, by the way, but somehow he
(14:15):
was dead was a trend on social media and Democrats
were celebrating it.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Now.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
It really was bizarre. The left was losing their mind
because a couple of days, President Trump hadn't done a
public event, and so suddenly the left, they were so excited,
they were so excited that, oh, this means Trump is
really sick. He's in the hospital, he's at a stroke,
he's dead. You know, Andrew Yang, you remember the Democratic
(14:43):
ran for president. He tweeted out, quote, I would be
pumped to have a president whose physical vitality or mental
fitness wasn't an ongoing issue or concern. It's like, what,
where the hell were the Democrats during the last four
years of Joe Biden. The man was almost publicly in
a coma for four years. He was drooling and coloring
(15:06):
with crayons. And the Democrats are like, nothing to see here, No, no, no,
it's perfectly fine. Yes, we have a White House staffer
we dress as a giant Easter bunny to lead him away,
to keep him out of trouble. But there's nothing to
see here. And I got to say so. So today
President Trump was asked about this by Peter Doucy, and
in fact, Peter Deucy asked about the stories that he'd
(15:28):
been dead. Listen to the exchange between Peter Doucy and
President Trump about a big viral social media trend over
the weekend.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
How did you find out over the weekend that you
were dead?
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Do you see that? No, people didn't see him for
a couple of days.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
One point three million user engagements as of Saturday morning
about your demise.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Really, I didn't see that, you know, I have heard
it's sort of crazy.
Speaker 6 (15:52):
But last week I did numerous news conferences, all successful.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
They went very well, like this is going very well.
Speaker 6 (15:59):
And then I didn't do any for two days, and
they said there must be something wrong with him.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Biden wouldn't do him for months.
Speaker 6 (16:06):
You wouldn't see him, and nobody ever said there was
ever anything wrong with him, and we know he wasn't
in the greatest of shape.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
No, I heard that. I get reports, now you knew.
Speaker 6 (16:16):
I did an interview that lasted for about an hour
and a half with somebody and everybody, So that was
on one of your competitors. I did numerous shows and
also did a number of truths, long truth so I
think pretty poignant truth now.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
I was very active over the weekend.
Speaker 6 (16:33):
They also went out to visit some people at the
club that I own pretty nearby on the Potomac River,
and now I've been very active actually over the weekend.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
I didn't hear that one. That's pretty serious. Well, it's
fake news, you.
Speaker 6 (16:47):
Know, it's just so it's so fake. That's why the
media has so little credibility. I knew that you were saying, like,
is he okay, how's he feeling?
Speaker 2 (16:58):
What's wrong?
Speaker 6 (16:59):
I said, just left. And it's also sort of a
longer weekend. You know, it's Labor Day weekend, so I
would say a lot of people. No, I was very
active this Labor Day. I had heard that, but I
didn't hear to that extent.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I love how the president just trolls the media on
this one, like, yeah, you guys are a bunch of scumbags,
and I'm not surprised that this is what you did.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Yeah, no, look, it was absurd. I mean, this president,
you can disagree with him on substance, you can disagree
with him on style, but the man has enormous energy.
I mean, if you look at the first seven months
of this administration, I think there's been no administration or
a lifetime that has had more velocity and volume and action.
And it has been incredible. And this president he is
(17:41):
going this weekend. Actually, President Trump called me. I talked
to him this weekend. He was in great spirits.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
We were talking talking Jim while he was dead but alive.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Oh yes, breaking, yeah, yeah. And oddly enough, I didn't
have a Ouiji board. I didn't have to do a seance,
and he was kind of and it was we were
not talking about are you are right? He was key
called me on an issue that he and I had
been working on, so he had a substance of conversation.
You know, today the President announced that there was going
to be a White House address at two o'clock and
I got to say, Twitter went crazy with anticipation, and
(18:12):
I think people expected them to announce. Okay, President Trump
is dead. He's entered a permanent vegetative state. He's resigning,
like like the left was. They were beside themselves, but
particularly egregious. I want you to listen to Tim Waltz.
Tim Waltz is the governor of Minnesota. He's a weird dude,
(18:32):
and and you'll remember, for like twelve seconds, he was
Kamala Harris's vice presidential nominee. Give a listen to what
Tim Waltz had to say about President Trump and his
hopes that the President was dead to get.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
Up in the morning and you doom scroll through things.
And although I will say this, the last few days
you woke up thinking there might be news, just saying,
just saying there will be news sometime, just so you
know there will be new.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
I mean, that's sick. And that's the guy who ran
for vice president of the Democratic Party.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Let me say that is sick. And I have never
wished death upon Joe Biden or Barack Obama or Hillary
Clinton or any of the Democrat leaders the president of
the United States, whether you agree with them or not.
What the hell is wrong with these people where they
say they wake up every day hoping, please, please, please,
let me see that he is dead. You know, there
(19:26):
used to be a notion. Listen, when Barack Obama was president.
I disagreed with a lot of the policies that he implemented.
I think they did a lot of damage, a lot
of harm to this country. But I wish success on him.
I wanted America to succeed. You know, we talked about
earlier this year President Trump's State of the Union address.
I've been to thirteen State of the Union addresses. Every
(19:48):
single one begins the same way with the sergeant at
arm calling out the President of the United States, and
twelve of the thirteen I've been to, every House member
and senator stand and applauds. And that's true, whether it's
a Democrat or Republican, whether it's your party of the
other party, you respect the office. And so when Barack
Obama walked onto the floor of the House, I stood
(20:11):
and applauded for him. When Joe Biden walked on the
floor of the House, I stood and applauded for him.
This year, when Trump walked under the floor, every single
Democrat I saw states sitting and would not applaud. And
there's something really wrong when you were openly cheering for
the President of the United States to die and the
(20:31):
people laughing, and I suspect there were reporters there, and
there were also leftist activists, the people laughing and cheering.
There's something just fundamentally wrong about that.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
As before, if you want to hear the rest of
this conversation on this topic, you can go back and
dow the podcasts from earlier this week to hear the
entire thing. I want to get back to the big
story number three of the week. You may have missed.
I want to also move on to the other story
that is one that is not getting a lot of coverage,
and it's really important. It's why I love doing this
(21:02):
show with you. The cinelo At Cartel is now in
essence in every single major city in America. They have
set up a massive network. They are making billions and
billions of dollars poisoning and killing Americans, human trafficking, sex trafficking,
child trafficking. The list goes on and on. Anything that's illegal,
(21:24):
they've got their tentacles in it. And you may think
that you're far away from the border, so this isn't
actually in your city, or your big city or your
area of the country. Great example of that is New England.
If you're a New England listening to us right now,
you're priving an AD's not near as bad as like
where we are in Houston at the moment. Well, guess
what you'd be wrong. A hundred and seventy one cinelo
(21:49):
At cartel members were arrested in New England. The DEA
has now announced.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
That was in a single week. In a single week,
one hundred and seventy one settle low of cartel members
arrested in Boston. The arrest also led to the seizure
of more than twenty two thousand counterfeit pills, fentanyl, powder,
and packaging branded with the Sineloa cartel logo, and the
DEA Agent in charge for the New England Field Division said,
(22:16):
the Cineloa cartel is quote public enemy number one in
New England. That's what the Democrats open border policies have done.
And listen to a local news story covering this arrest
of one hundred and seventy one Cineloa cartel members in Boston.
Give a listen.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah, And by the way, ask yourself this question, America,
why did you not hear about this on the national news.
This is Boston twenty five news covering it there.
Speaker 7 (22:42):
The Federal Drug Enforcement Administration says a week long cartel
crackdown led to nearly two hundred arrests just in New England.
The DEA says they were all members of the Cineloa cartel,
the largest drug cartel in the world. Twenty five investigates
went one on one with the DEA special Agent in
charge of out their recent operation. He says the vast
(23:02):
Sineloa network has deep roots in New.
Speaker 8 (23:04):
England, there are public Enemy number one.
Speaker 7 (23:07):
Jared Fourge, the special Agent in charge of DEA's New
England Field Division, says last week the DEA set out
to arrest as many members of the Mexico base Sinaloa
cartel as possible. New England saw the highest number of
regional arrests at one seventy one, with forty nine in Massachusetts,
thirty three in New Hampshire. Connecticut saw the most at
(23:28):
sixty four. Do you think people would be surprised to
learn how many members of that cartel are operating, probably
in plain sight, in their communities.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Sure so.
Speaker 8 (23:38):
Sineloa cartel in every single state across America, more than
forty countries around the world, and obviously they're at every
state throughout New England.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
What's their number one product they push?
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Is it the pills.
Speaker 8 (23:50):
So we see fetanoh powder, and we see counterfeit pills,
pills that are made to look like legitimate pills, notably
M thirty.
Speaker 7 (23:58):
S M thirty pills are counterfeit oxy codone. But Forge
says they're also increasingly seeing counterfeit stimulant pills made to
look like adderall Foge showed us some of the more
than twenty two thousand pills and other drug sees during
the operation, like signature purple fentanyl and some drug packaging
(24:18):
even displaying the Sinaloa cartel stamp.
Speaker 8 (24:21):
I'm a DEA agent. I cannot tell the difference between
a fake one and a real one. So we need
to remind parents, schools, caregivers, everybody in the community.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Have those conversations with each other, Have them with your kids.
Speaker 7 (24:34):
Forge says. The cartel targets unsuspecting young people online through
common social media apps. Many have no idea they're buying
potentially deadly counterfeit pills. One hundred and seventy one arrests
throughout New England.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Does that make a dent where the DEA.
Speaker 8 (24:50):
We're not going after low level retailed drug traffickers. We
are going after drug trafficking organizations the networks.
Speaker 7 (24:57):
How do you disrupt that something that is so large,
so vast, and seemingly so powerful.
Speaker 8 (25:03):
Right, it's an ongoing battle, one that we cannot we
can't afford to give up. Right it's the Cineloa cartel
is a threat to public safety, our public health, and
our national security as a country.
Speaker 7 (25:15):
This year, the Centers for Disease Control reported while drug
overdose deaths are declining, overdose is the leading cause of
death for young people ages eighteen to forty five Centator.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
You hear that report, it should be national news. It's not.
Thank goodness, we're doing the show to make it national.
But this is concerning because it's not just in New England.
This is in every major city in America. They've set
up shop.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Well, CNN won't cover it, MSNBC won't, but cover it.
I'm glad the local news covered it, and it is
critically important. The cartels Public enemy number one in New England,
brought to you by the Democrats is the Cineloa cartel.
And you know it was striking what they were arrested with.
They were arrested with with, among other things, counterfeit pills,
pills like adderall and and those are designed to be
(26:03):
sold to your kids. Ben, you and I are both parents.
I will tell you it is terrifying being the parents
of young kids today. Your kids are younger than mine. Ben,
My girls are teenagers. And you know, I think back
when you and I were teenagers. You go out to party,
there may be some kids in high school. They might
be drinking. Maybe someone would would would smoke some marijuana,
(26:24):
but the odds were that you were not going to
die going to a party when you and I were kids.
What is terrifying now is that kids go to a
party and someone says, here, hey, try a pill. It's
it's it's an adderall it's it's it's a riddle, and
it's something they think is fairly innocuous. And the kid
takes one pill and it is a counterfeit pill that
(26:47):
has fentanyl, and the child drops dead. And that is
happening at a scale that is truly terrifying. In twenty
twenty three, more than one hundred thousand Americans died of
over seventy percent of those we're fentanyl, and overdose is
the wrong word for those. Those are poisonings, because you know,
(27:07):
you think of an overdose. If you have a junkie
on the street who's shooting up heroin, he shoots up
a little bit too much heroin, that's a tragedy. But
there are a series of decisions that put the person
in that situation. This circumstance is much more frightening because
it can be one tiny mistaken decision made by a
(27:28):
fourteen year old. That ends that child's life, and that
is the result. Open borders are endangering our families in
a very fundamental way.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
It's an epidemic. And what's interesting is when you do
research on this, Senator, one of the things that's the
most shocking about it is a lot of police forces
are actually running out of their narcan, which is what
you can give to try to save someone's life when
they overdose. They're yearly supply, they're eating through it in
(27:59):
two to three months into the year, and they're having
to go to their city council and their board of aldermen,
the county commissioners, depending on where what type of government
they have, and they're having to beg them for more
money because they're running through the budget for what they
need to save people's lives. That's how big of an
epidemic it has become. And again it's the number one
killer of young people in this country. That is something
(28:22):
that needs to be said over and over again and
it's something that we must stop well.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
And and police officers and first responders they often wear gloves.
They're very frightened because if they inadvertently touch fentanyl, a
tiny amount can kill them. The level that this is
deadly is truly unprecedented. And you know, I'll say, I
want to share an illustration that a DA agent told
(28:47):
me a number of years ago, which we were sitting,
sitting and doing a round table with a DA agent
and with a mom who had lost lost her child
to fentanyl poisoning. And here's what the DA agent did
is he handed out everyone sweetened low packets of the
sweetener you put in your tea or coffee. And he said, okay,
tear open the sweetened low packet and he said empty
(29:07):
all the sweet and low under the table, So we
all did that. He then said, stick your pinky, your
little finger into the empty packet. So we did that
and he said pull it out. And you pull it out,
you have a handful of tiny little grains with sweet
and low that are on your finger. And he said,
that is enough fentanyl to kill you. And it's a
(29:30):
very effective illustration, I'll tell you. With both of our
teenage girls, I sat them down in the kitchen, I
hand them to them packets of sweet and low and
I had them do exactly that illustration. And if you
are a parent, if you are a grandparent, have this
conversation with your kids or your grandkids, because look, hopefully
(29:50):
your kids will not make catastrophically wrong decisions, but in
this circumstance, one small decision that seems easy. Hey, it's
a friend of theirs that as you know, hey, hey
try this pill. We're all at a party, and they
don't think they are risking their lives. I don't know
a parent who is not terrified about the risks that
(30:12):
their kids will make one wrong choice and it will
cost them their entire life.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Yeah, it really is scary, There's no doubt about it.
And this is part of the reason why I think
the President is also as you wrap up this last week,
going after these drug cartels and saying we're going to
use the full force of our government to go after
them since we've declared them terrorist organizations because they're killing Americans.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Look, obviously, the US military took out at Trenduragua Narco
terrorist boat off the shores of Venezuela just this past week.
As you know, last week I was in Mexico meeting
with senior government officials in Mexico and making clear to
them the United States is going after these cartels and
(30:58):
we're going to do so, either with or without you. Yet,
you know, listening to the story of one hundred and
seventy one Sineloa cartel members arrested New England reminded me
of the MS thirteen cartel member that I spoke with
down in El Salvador. I went to the SEACOT, the
maximum security terrorist prison. And if you didn't listen to
(31:18):
our podcast last week, I mean encourage every one of
you go back and listen to last week's podcast, or
I take you inside this prison, this maximum security prison
built for forty thousand gang members, mass murderers, and terrorists.
And I met with one MS thirteen gang member who
lived in Texas many years. He spoke perfectly fluent English.
(31:39):
He became an MS thirteen member when he was thirteen
years old, living in Falls Church, Virginia. That's the level
at which these gangs have penetrated our society. And by
the way, the only way you become a member of
MS thirteen is you have to murder someone. So at
age thirteen, he murdered someone to become a member of
(32:03):
this gang. When I asked him why he did it,
he said all of his friends were doing the same
thing that he was hanging out with other thirteen year
olds who were joining the same gang. And this is
now a forty two year old man who's spending the
rest of his life in a maximum security prison because
of the multiple murders he committed. That is not in Columbia,
(32:25):
that's not deep in Mexico City. That was Falls Church, Virginia,
and later he moved to Dallas, Texas. We've heard New England.
This is public enemy number one. You and I and
our families. We want the border secured. And I'm grateful
that we have a president commander in chief who says
we're going to stop the human trafficking, We're going to
stop the drug trafficking. We are securing the border. That's
(32:48):
an incredible success and it's incredibly important.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Yeah, you're absolutely right about that. And also Reuters is
now reporting and this is just showing I think the
president's commitment to fighting these narco terras. Ruters is now
saying the US is deploying stealth fighter jets to the
Caribbean for drug fight as the tensions of Venezuela continued
to rise. They're saying Axios is saying that ten f
(33:14):
thirty five jets are being dispatched also to Puerto Rico
to support the drug war there. And this is on
top of it them Ben Ben.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
When I was down at the Panama Canal, I actually
saw the USS Lake Erie that was transiting from the
Pacific to the Caribbean specifically to participate in the war
on drugs. This is a missileship with enormous capacity. I
don't know if this was the particular ship that took
out the trend Uragua, but I went and toured the ship,
(33:43):
met many of the sailors on board. We are moving
major assets to take on the cartels and to defeat
the cartels.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
As always, thank you for listening to Verdicts with Center
Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to deal
with my podcast and you can listen to my podcast
every other day you're not listening to Verdict or each
day when you listen to Verdict. Afterwards, I'd love to
have you as a listener to again the Ben Ferguson
podcasts and we will see you back here on Monday morning.
Welcome in is Verdict with Ted Cruz Weekend Review, Ben
Ferguson with you, and these are the stories that you
may have missed that we talked about this past week.
First up, Democrats, including the governor of Illinois. They're going
all in to defend their criminals and their cities that
are ruining it. So what is behind this logic? We're
(00:22):
going to break it down for you. Also, DC's getting
cleaned up and now we have the Clean DC Act,
and why other cities mayow to look at the exact
same blueprint. And finally, one hundred and seventeen narco terrace
caught in New England, all of them a part of
one major narcos gang. It's a week in review and
(00:44):
it starts right now, which centater brings us to part
two of this conversation. Let's bring it back home. JD.
Pritzker is a interesting man. He's got a lot of money.
He's a governor, and he thinks he's succeeding at fighting crime.
But getting illegal immigrant killers and rapists off our streets
(01:05):
is quote unquote dangerous, he says. And now it is
apparently anti American. Tie that into your trip to Mexico.
I mean, you want to talk about to people the
kid gotten together and had one heck of a lunch.
The people you met with with JD, they'd be like
kumbayayeing this stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Well.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
JB.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Pritzker, he is a billionaire, like many Democrat billionaires. He
did not make his money. He inherited it. He inherited
a vast fortune. And he's now the governor of Illinois
and presiding over a state where the people are fleeing,
a state where crime is out of control, where left
wing policies are are an absolute disaster, and it's striking.
(01:45):
He has the same reality denying vision. Gavin Newsom has
the same thing in California where they both You know,
it reminds me of that meme of the dumpster burning
in the background and saying, you know, everything's fine here.
That that is today's demoics just telling you don't believe
you're lying eyes. Just make sure to duck the bullets
when you're in your living room. But everything other than
(02:05):
that is great.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
JB.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Pritzer says he's succeeding at fighting violent crime in Chicago,
and you're right, it is reminiscent of these Mexican government
leaders who said they're handling it just fine. Look at
the great progress they're making, and you look at the
cartels who are murdering Mexicans with impunity and who are
committing vast numbers of crime in the United States here
give a listen to JB. Prisker, Governor Illinois.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
What we won't do, however, is engage in what is
a federal effort. That is to say, they have their
job immigration. We have our job, which is to fight
violent crime on the streets of our city. And by
the way, we're succeeding at that job. But when they
bring people in and don't coordinate with us, they're going
(02:49):
to cause enormous problems.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
So going to cause enormous problems they're center. I mean,
if that doesn't sound like a threat, I don't know
what is.
Speaker 5 (02:56):
So.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Pritzker claims he is succeeding at fighting violent crime in Chicago.
Chicago has had the most murders of any American city
for thirteen consecutive years thirteen years in a row. Chicago
is number one. Chicago's murder rate is three times higher
than Los Angeles. It is five times higher than New
(03:17):
York City. It is two times higher than Islamabad, that
it is fifteen times higher than Delhi. And the answer
to a billionaire Democrat who is surrounded by police officers
at all times, so he's not worried about being mugged
on the streets of Chicago. That's not a threat he's facing.
He says, we've got the highest murder rate in America.
(03:38):
We're succeeding. This is Democrats success, you know. But he
goes even further. He expresses great dismay that if President
Trump is successful in turning around crime in Chicago, that
would be a bad thing. Listen to the second clip.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
So this is dangerous. They shouldn't be doing it. It's
anti American American, and I would tell her to maybe
check herself for what does she really believe?
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Nothing says we're fighting crime like threatening the woman who's
out there in Department of Homescurity Secretary Nome and saying
you need to check yourself right and saying it's dangerous
and un American and anti American to go after a
legal American killers and rapists.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
It's stunning. The Democrats are becoming more and more open
that if they have a conflict between a murderer and
a victim, if they have a conflict between a Venezuelan
gang member and an innocent American citizen, if they have
a conflict between a rapist and a single mom, if
they have a conflict between a violent sexual predator and
(04:44):
your children, the Democrats will pick the criminal every single time.
They're not even pretending anymore to go after those criminals.
Democrat Governor Pritzker says is dangerous, anti American and un American,
and I think the American people are getting fed up.
You know, there was a new poll from ap slash
NRC that found that a large majority of Americans sixty
(05:08):
eight percent, see crime as a major problem in large cities,
and the approach of the Democrat Party is they're not
going to do anything about it. In fact, the highest
murder rate in the US they describe as a success.
And what it is, it's reminiscent of the leadership in
Al Salvador when they had the highest murder rate in
(05:29):
the world, and they describe what they were doing as
a success. And the only answer is new political leadership
that actually says keeping our citizens safe is our number
one priority and we're going to do so. We've seen
what happens when President Trump does so in the United
States and the border is immediately secured. We had a
ninety nine percent decrease in illegal crossings. We saw what
(05:50):
happened with President bucell in El Salvador, where they had
a ninety eight percent drop in homicides. Ironically, we saw
what happened in San Francisco, and she came to San
Francisco and Gavin Newsom immediately cleaned up San Francisco, removed
the homeless people, took the junkies off the street, and
cleaned up the human feces off the street, all of
(06:11):
which demonstrates they know how to do so. If they
could do so on Monday, they could do so on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
Saturday and Sunday. The reason they don't, the reason the
crime persists, the reason your family is threatened, is because
the Democrats politically, their ideology, they think it's better to
side with the criminals than it is with you and
(06:32):
that I don't get that, but that's where we are,
and I do think it's part of the reason we
see today's Democrat party getting more and more extreme and
appealing to a smaller and smaller sliver of our society.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Final question on this, I believe now that the Democratic
Party is in such shambles that they don't even know
how to get out of this. There is no real leader.
We're being told Obama's coming back and going to like
quote start mentoring people in the Democratic Party. That's how
desperate they are. The same guy that's the godfather, as
I described it on Laura Ingram's show on Fox Friday Night,
(07:07):
as the godfather of this type of insandi and anarchy.
He's the that created the aocs of the party and
gave them power. And so you look at the Democratic
Party now. I don't want to be over confident, but
what I do want to say is I feel like
these midterms may actually be a big opportunity for Republican
candidates coming up. Usually you give up seats when you
(07:29):
have all three branches in the midterms. There's a chance
this could actually work out for concernis, as you mentioned,
because the voters are so sick and tired of the
left not keeping them safe. It's not even about the economy,
It's about safety.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Look, I hope so Ben, I'll confess I'm significantly more
worried than you. We've got cross cutting forces for the midterms.
On the positive side, for Republicans, the Democrats have gotten
so extreme, so whack job out there that it seems
like they took a list of a dozen eighty twenty
issues and they said, let's take the twenty percent side
of all of them. And in some instances they've even
(08:05):
taken ninety ten issues and said, let's appeal to the
smallest liver of America we can. Generally speaking, that is
a really bad political strategy, so that augurs in our favor.
On the other side, we have a real enthusiasm gap,
and this worries me about the midterms, which is an
awful lot of Americans are really happy with the success
(08:26):
we've seen in the first eight months of twenty twenty five.
President Trump has been winning major victories. The danger is
that when people are happy, when they're seeing success, they're complacent,
they stay home. I'll tell you what. The left is
not complacent. They are in rage. They are out raising
Republicans three to one. They hate Donald Trump. And we
(08:47):
saw we just saw a special election in Iowa state
senator seat that Trump had won that district by eleven points.
They just elected a Democrat state senator in that district
that I believe was an enthusiasm gap. That the left
is motivated by rage and hate, and that means that
they are definitely showing up. And it's our job to
(09:08):
make sure that that the common sense majority of this
country is not complacent but realizes if we don't show
up to defend what we've got, that that's how you
get these whack jobs elected in the first place.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation,
you can go back and listen to the full podcast
from earlier this week. Now onto story number two. All Right, Senaer,
I want to bring it back home to something, and
you talk about cleaning things up. That's what President Trump
has said he's going to do with the terrorists, uh
and those that are bringing drugs in this country. But
(09:42):
he's also doing big things in different cities. And now
you have introduced the Clean DC Act. Explain to us
what this is.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Well, the principle is very much the same as we
were talking about in foreign policy with the terrorists, which
is when you react with weakness, the result is domestically,
you get more and more crime. When you react with weakness, abroad.
The result is internationally, you get more and more terrorism
and more and more enemies attacking. The converse is true
(10:13):
when you react with strength with regard to crime. When
you lock up murderers and rapists and child molesters, you
get fewer violent crimes number one because of deterrence. Number two,
because of prevention, you get the bad guys off the street.
In DC, the murder rate has consistently been one of
the highest in the entire country. Among large cities. It
is twenty seven homicides per one hundred thousand residents each year.
(10:36):
That is higher than Bogota, Columbia, DC. Not only that,
but if you look at at vehicle theft, vehicle theft
is eight hundred and forty two per one hundred thousand residents,
which is three times the national average, and carjackings have
tripled in recent years. I'll tell you actually, one time
I was filming several years ago, I was filming Verdict.
(10:57):
It was a little past midnight, and we had our
truck warked on the street. I was in the studio
filming it. The truck was broken into and my briefcase
was stolen on the streets of d C. If you
look at d C, which is our nation's capital. You've
got elected representatives and staff from all fifty states, from
all over the country. We had earlier this year we
(11:17):
had a staffer from the White House from DOGE who
was violently assaulted in d C, beaten up by ten
juvenile offenders. We had we hadn't in recent years. We
had a staffer for rand Paul who was stabbed in
the middle of the afternoon on d C Street. We
had a former official in the first Trump administration who
(11:37):
was shot and killed at five o'clock in the afternoon,
parked in his car on d C Street. The violence
is out of control, and it was made worse by
a twenty twenty two law. Twenty twenty two law in
the wake of the George Floyd killing in the Black
Lives Matter protest, when when anti police fervor was driving
(11:58):
the left crazy, the DC City Council and the DC
Mayor came in and they passed a law that lessened
the penalties for violent crimes almost entirely across the board.
They lessened the penalty for murder, they lessened the penalty
for carjacking, they lessened the penalty for violent assault, and
the effect, understandably was those crimes all increased. If you
(12:19):
lessen the penalty for violent crime, the crimes increase. And
this is the thing that the left doesn't understand. We
saw a Democrat Congressman Henry Quaar from Texas, who was
carjacked in his car at about eight or nine o'clock
at night. He was coming home with his dinner and
he was carjacked outside an apartment building that, if I
remember correctly, five other congressmen lived in. That's how bad
(12:43):
it was. Now, I will tell you in the past Congress,
Congress took up legislation to reverse that twenty twenty two law.
It passed the House, and it passed the Senate, and
then Joe Biden vetoed it. Joe Biden decided, all right,
we're not going to let this go into effect. Well,
i've it or again. Legislation that is called the Clean
d C Act, and the Clean d C Act is
(13:05):
very simple. It is designed to repeal the twenty twenty
two law lessening the penalty for violent crimes. And the
Clean d C Act we're pushing for a vote. I
think the House may vote on it as soon as
the next week or two I'll tell you the Clean
d C Act. It's supported by the DC Police Union,
(13:26):
it's supported by the Fraternal Order of the Police, and
it's a good opportunity. I think every member of Congress,
every Democrat, every House member, needs to decide, Okay, where
do you stand? Do you stand with the violent criminals?
Do you stand with the murderers, do you stand with
a rapist? Will you do you stand with the carjackers?
Or do you stand with the citizens of America? That
(13:47):
ought to be an easy vote, although sadly I'm going
to predict I think an awful lot of Democrats are
going to vote with criminals.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Yeah. It really does tell you where the Democrats mindset
is right now, where they can't even agree that criminals
should be held accountable. And it also just tells you
about how sinister they are, which brings us to our
final story. The idea that because the president wasn't seen
like twenty four to seven, totally different than Joe Biden
when he was president, by the way, but somehow he
(14:15):
was dead was a trend on social media and Democrats
were celebrating it.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Now.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
It really was bizarre. The left was losing their mind
because a couple of days, President Trump hadn't done a
public event, and so suddenly the left, they were so excited,
they were so excited that, oh, this means Trump is
really sick. He's in the hospital, he's at a stroke,
he's dead. You know, Andrew Yang, you remember the Democratic
(14:43):
ran for president. He tweeted out, quote, I would be
pumped to have a president whose physical vitality or mental
fitness wasn't an ongoing issue or concern. It's like, what,
where the hell were the Democrats during the last four
years of Joe Biden. The man was almost publicly in
a coma for four years. He was drooling and coloring
(15:06):
with crayons. And the Democrats are like, nothing to see here, No, no, no,
it's perfectly fine. Yes, we have a White House staffer
we dress as a giant Easter bunny to lead him away,
to keep him out of trouble. But there's nothing to
see here. And I got to say so. So today
President Trump was asked about this by Peter Doucy, and
in fact, Peter Deucy asked about the stories that he'd
(15:28):
been dead. Listen to the exchange between Peter Doucy and
President Trump about a big viral social media trend over
the weekend.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
How did you find out over the weekend that you
were dead?
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Do you see that? No, people didn't see him for
a couple of days.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
One point three million user engagements as of Saturday morning
about your demise.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Really, I didn't see that, you know, I have heard
it's sort of crazy.
Speaker 6 (15:52):
But last week I did numerous news conferences, all successful.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
They went very well, like this is going very well.
Speaker 6 (15:59):
And then I didn't do any for two days, and
they said there must be something wrong with him.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Biden wouldn't do him for months.
Speaker 6 (16:06):
You wouldn't see him, and nobody ever said there was
ever anything wrong with him, and we know he wasn't
in the greatest of shape.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
No, I heard that. I get reports, now you knew.
Speaker 6 (16:16):
I did an interview that lasted for about an hour
and a half with somebody and everybody, So that was
on one of your competitors. I did numerous shows and
also did a number of truths, long truth so I
think pretty poignant truth now.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
I was very active over the weekend.
Speaker 6 (16:33):
They also went out to visit some people at the
club that I own pretty nearby on the Potomac River,
and now I've been very active actually over the weekend.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
I didn't hear that one. That's pretty serious. Well, it's
fake news, you.
Speaker 6 (16:47):
Know, it's just so it's so fake. That's why the
media has so little credibility. I knew that you were saying, like,
is he okay, how's he feeling?
Speaker 2 (16:58):
What's wrong?
Speaker 6 (16:59):
I said, just left. And it's also sort of a
longer weekend. You know, it's Labor Day weekend, so I
would say a lot of people. No, I was very
active this Labor Day. I had heard that, but I
didn't hear to that extent.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
I love how the president just trolls the media on
this one, like, yeah, you guys are a bunch of scumbags,
and I'm not surprised that this is what you did.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Yeah, no, look, it was absurd. I mean, this president,
you can disagree with him on substance, you can disagree
with him on style, but the man has enormous energy.
I mean, if you look at the first seven months
of this administration, I think there's been no administration or
a lifetime that has had more velocity and volume and action.
And it has been incredible. And this president he is
(17:41):
going this weekend. Actually, President Trump called me. I talked
to him this weekend. He was in great spirits.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
We were talking talking Jim while he was dead but alive.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Oh yes, breaking, yeah, yeah. And oddly enough, I didn't
have a Ouiji board. I didn't have to do a seance,
and he was kind of and it was we were
not talking about are you are right? He was key
called me on an issue that he and I had
been working on, so he had a substance of conversation.
You know, today the President announced that there was going
to be a White House address at two o'clock and
I got to say, Twitter went crazy with anticipation, and
(18:12):
I think people expected them to announce. Okay, President Trump
is dead. He's entered a permanent vegetative state. He's resigning,
like like the left was. They were beside themselves, but
particularly egregious. I want you to listen to Tim Waltz.
Tim Waltz is the governor of Minnesota. He's a weird dude,
(18:32):
and and you'll remember, for like twelve seconds, he was
Kamala Harris's vice presidential nominee. Give a listen to what
Tim Waltz had to say about President Trump and his
hopes that the President was dead to get.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
Up in the morning and you doom scroll through things.
And although I will say this, the last few days
you woke up thinking there might be news, just saying,
just saying there will be news sometime, just so you
know there will be new.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
I mean, that's sick. And that's the guy who ran
for vice president of the Democratic Party.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Let me say that is sick. And I have never
wished death upon Joe Biden or Barack Obama or Hillary
Clinton or any of the Democrat leaders the president of
the United States, whether you agree with them or not.
What the hell is wrong with these people where they
say they wake up every day hoping, please, please, please,
let me see that he is dead. You know, there
(19:26):
used to be a notion. Listen, when Barack Obama was president.
I disagreed with a lot of the policies that he implemented.
I think they did a lot of damage, a lot
of harm to this country. But I wish success on him.
I wanted America to succeed. You know, we talked about
earlier this year President Trump's State of the Union address.
I've been to thirteen State of the Union addresses. Every
(19:48):
single one begins the same way with the sergeant at
arm calling out the President of the United States, and
twelve of the thirteen I've been to, every House member
and senator stand and applauds. And that's true, whether it's
a Democrat or Republican, whether it's your party of the
other party, you respect the office. And so when Barack
Obama walked onto the floor of the House, I stood
(20:11):
and applauded for him. When Joe Biden walked on the
floor of the House, I stood and applauded for him.
This year, when Trump walked under the floor, every single
Democrat I saw states sitting and would not applaud. And
there's something really wrong when you were openly cheering for
the President of the United States to die and the
(20:31):
people laughing, and I suspect there were reporters there, and
there were also leftist activists, the people laughing and cheering.
There's something just fundamentally wrong about that.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
As before, if you want to hear the rest of
this conversation on this topic, you can go back and
dow the podcasts from earlier this week to hear the
entire thing. I want to get back to the big
story number three of the week. You may have missed.
I want to also move on to the other story
that is one that is not getting a lot of coverage,
and it's really important. It's why I love doing this
(21:02):
show with you. The cinelo At Cartel is now in
essence in every single major city in America. They have
set up a massive network. They are making billions and
billions of dollars poisoning and killing Americans, human trafficking, sex trafficking,
child trafficking. The list goes on and on. Anything that's illegal,
(21:24):
they've got their tentacles in it. And you may think
that you're far away from the border, so this isn't
actually in your city, or your big city or your
area of the country. Great example of that is New England.
If you're a New England listening to us right now,
you're priving an AD's not near as bad as like
where we are in Houston at the moment. Well, guess
what you'd be wrong. A hundred and seventy one cinelo
(21:49):
At cartel members were arrested in New England. The DEA
has now announced.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
That was in a single week. In a single week,
one hundred and seventy one settle low of cartel members
arrested in Boston. The arrest also led to the seizure
of more than twenty two thousand counterfeit pills, fentanyl, powder,
and packaging branded with the Sineloa cartel logo, and the
DEA Agent in charge for the New England Field Division said,
(22:16):
the Cineloa cartel is quote public enemy number one in
New England. That's what the Democrats open border policies have done.
And listen to a local news story covering this arrest
of one hundred and seventy one Cineloa cartel members in Boston.
Give a listen.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Yeah, And by the way, ask yourself this question, America,
why did you not hear about this on the national news.
This is Boston twenty five news covering it there.
Speaker 7 (22:42):
The Federal Drug Enforcement Administration says a week long cartel
crackdown led to nearly two hundred arrests just in New England.
The DEA says they were all members of the Cineloa cartel,
the largest drug cartel in the world. Twenty five investigates
went one on one with the DEA special Agent in
charge of out their recent operation. He says the vast
(23:02):
Sineloa network has deep roots in New.
Speaker 8 (23:04):
England, there are public Enemy number one.
Speaker 7 (23:07):
Jared Fourge, the special Agent in charge of DEA's New
England Field Division, says last week the DEA set out
to arrest as many members of the Mexico base Sinaloa
cartel as possible. New England saw the highest number of
regional arrests at one seventy one, with forty nine in Massachusetts,
thirty three in New Hampshire. Connecticut saw the most at
(23:28):
sixty four. Do you think people would be surprised to
learn how many members of that cartel are operating, probably
in plain sight, in their communities.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Sure so.
Speaker 8 (23:38):
Sineloa cartel in every single state across America, more than
forty countries around the world, and obviously they're at every
state throughout New England.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
What's their number one product they push?
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Is it the pills.
Speaker 8 (23:50):
So we see fetanoh powder, and we see counterfeit pills,
pills that are made to look like legitimate pills, notably
M thirty.
Speaker 7 (23:58):
S M thirty pills are counterfeit oxy codone. But Forge
says they're also increasingly seeing counterfeit stimulant pills made to
look like adderall Foge showed us some of the more
than twenty two thousand pills and other drug sees during
the operation, like signature purple fentanyl and some drug packaging
(24:18):
even displaying the Sinaloa cartel stamp.
Speaker 8 (24:21):
I'm a DEA agent. I cannot tell the difference between
a fake one and a real one. So we need
to remind parents, schools, caregivers, everybody in the community.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Have those conversations with each other, Have them with your kids.
Speaker 7 (24:34):
Forge says. The cartel targets unsuspecting young people online through
common social media apps. Many have no idea they're buying
potentially deadly counterfeit pills. One hundred and seventy one arrests
throughout New England.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
Does that make a dent where the DEA.
Speaker 8 (24:50):
We're not going after low level retailed drug traffickers. We
are going after drug trafficking organizations the networks.
Speaker 7 (24:57):
How do you disrupt that something that is so large,
so vast, and seemingly so powerful.
Speaker 8 (25:03):
Right, it's an ongoing battle, one that we cannot we
can't afford to give up. Right it's the Cineloa cartel
is a threat to public safety, our public health, and
our national security as a country.
Speaker 7 (25:15):
This year, the Centers for Disease Control reported while drug
overdose deaths are declining, overdose is the leading cause of
death for young people ages eighteen to forty five Centator.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
You hear that report, it should be national news. It's not.
Thank goodness, we're doing the show to make it national.
But this is concerning because it's not just in New England.
This is in every major city in America. They've set
up shop.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
Well, CNN won't cover it, MSNBC won't, but cover it.
I'm glad the local news covered it, and it is
critically important. The cartels Public enemy number one in New England,
brought to you by the Democrats is the Cineloa cartel.
And you know it was striking what they were arrested with.
They were arrested with with, among other things, counterfeit pills,
pills like adderall and and those are designed to be
(26:03):
sold to your kids. Ben, you and I are both parents.
I will tell you it is terrifying being the parents
of young kids today. Your kids are younger than mine. Ben,
My girls are teenagers. And you know, I think back
when you and I were teenagers. You go out to party,
there may be some kids in high school. They might
be drinking. Maybe someone would would would smoke some marijuana,
(26:24):
but the odds were that you were not going to
die going to a party when you and I were kids.
What is terrifying now is that kids go to a
party and someone says, here, hey, try a pill. It's
it's it's an adderall it's it's it's a riddle, and
it's something they think is fairly innocuous. And the kid
takes one pill and it is a counterfeit pill that
(26:47):
has fentanyl, and the child drops dead. And that is
happening at a scale that is truly terrifying. In twenty
twenty three, more than one hundred thousand Americans died of
over seventy percent of those we're fentanyl, and overdose is
the wrong word for those. Those are poisonings, because you know,
(27:07):
you think of an overdose. If you have a junkie
on the street who's shooting up heroin, he shoots up
a little bit too much heroin, that's a tragedy. But
there are a series of decisions that put the person
in that situation. This circumstance is much more frightening because
it can be one tiny mistaken decision made by a
(27:28):
fourteen year old. That ends that child's life, and that
is the result. Open borders are endangering our families in
a very fundamental way.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
It's an epidemic. And what's interesting is when you do
research on this, Senator, one of the things that's the
most shocking about it is a lot of police forces
are actually running out of their narcan, which is what
you can give to try to save someone's life when
they overdose. They're yearly supply, they're eating through it in
(27:59):
two to three months into the year, and they're having
to go to their city council and their board of aldermen,
the county commissioners, depending on where what type of government
they have, and they're having to beg them for more
money because they're running through the budget for what they
need to save people's lives. That's how big of an
epidemic it has become. And again it's the number one
killer of young people in this country. That is something
(28:22):
that needs to be said over and over again and
it's something that we must stop well.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
And and police officers and first responders they often wear gloves.
They're very frightened because if they inadvertently touch fentanyl, a
tiny amount can kill them. The level that this is
deadly is truly unprecedented. And you know, I'll say, I
want to share an illustration that a DA agent told
(28:47):
me a number of years ago, which we were sitting,
sitting and doing a round table with a DA agent
and with a mom who had lost lost her child
to fentanyl poisoning. And here's what the DA agent did
is he handed out everyone sweetened low packets of the
sweetener you put in your tea or coffee. And he said, okay,
tear open the sweetened low packet and he said empty
(29:07):
all the sweet and low under the table, So we
all did that. He then said, stick your pinky, your
little finger into the empty packet. So we did that
and he said pull it out. And you pull it out,
you have a handful of tiny little grains with sweet
and low that are on your finger. And he said,
that is enough fentanyl to kill you. And it's a
(29:30):
very effective illustration, I'll tell you. With both of our
teenage girls, I sat them down in the kitchen, I
hand them to them packets of sweet and low and
I had them do exactly that illustration. And if you
are a parent, if you are a grandparent, have this
conversation with your kids or your grandkids, because look, hopefully
(29:50):
your kids will not make catastrophically wrong decisions, but in
this circumstance, one small decision that seems easy. Hey, it's
a friend of theirs that as you know, hey, hey
try this pill. We're all at a party, and they
don't think they are risking their lives. I don't know
a parent who is not terrified about the risks that
(30:12):
their kids will make one wrong choice and it will
cost them their entire life.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Yeah, it really is scary, There's no doubt about it.
And this is part of the reason why I think
the President is also as you wrap up this last week,
going after these drug cartels and saying we're going to
use the full force of our government to go after
them since we've declared them terrorist organizations because they're killing Americans.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
Look, obviously, the US military took out at Trenduragua Narco
terrorist boat off the shores of Venezuela just this past week.
As you know, last week I was in Mexico meeting
with senior government officials in Mexico and making clear to
them the United States is going after these cartels and
(30:58):
we're going to do so, either with or without you. Yet,
you know, listening to the story of one hundred and
seventy one Sineloa cartel members arrested New England reminded me
of the MS thirteen cartel member that I spoke with
down in El Salvador. I went to the SEACOT, the
maximum security terrorist prison. And if you didn't listen to
(31:18):
our podcast last week, I mean encourage every one of
you go back and listen to last week's podcast, or
I take you inside this prison, this maximum security prison
built for forty thousand gang members, mass murderers, and terrorists.
And I met with one MS thirteen gang member who
lived in Texas many years. He spoke perfectly fluent English.
(31:39):
He became an MS thirteen member when he was thirteen
years old, living in Falls Church, Virginia. That's the level
at which these gangs have penetrated our society. And by
the way, the only way you become a member of
MS thirteen is you have to murder someone. So at
age thirteen, he murdered someone to become a member of
(32:03):
this gang. When I asked him why he did it,
he said all of his friends were doing the same
thing that he was hanging out with other thirteen year
olds who were joining the same gang. And this is
now a forty two year old man who's spending the
rest of his life in a maximum security prison because
of the multiple murders he committed. That is not in Columbia,
(32:25):
that's not deep in Mexico City. That was Falls Church, Virginia,
and later he moved to Dallas, Texas. We've heard New England.
This is public enemy number one. You and I and
our families. We want the border secured. And I'm grateful
that we have a president commander in chief who says
we're going to stop the human trafficking, We're going to
stop the drug trafficking. We are securing the border. That's
(32:48):
an incredible success and it's incredibly important.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Yeah, you're absolutely right about that. And also Reuters is
now reporting and this is just showing I think the
president's commitment to fighting these narco terras. Ruters is now
saying the US is deploying stealth fighter jets to the
Caribbean for drug fight as the tensions of Venezuela continued
to rise. They're saying Axios is saying that ten f
(33:14):
thirty five jets are being dispatched also to Puerto Rico
to support the drug war there. And this is on
top of it them Ben Ben.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
When I was down at the Panama Canal, I actually
saw the USS Lake Erie that was transiting from the
Pacific to the Caribbean specifically to participate in the war
on drugs. This is a missileship with enormous capacity. I
don't know if this was the particular ship that took
out the trend Uragua, but I went and toured the ship,
(33:43):
met many of the sailors on board. We are moving
major assets to take on the cartels and to defeat
the cartels.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
As always, thank you for listening to Verdicts with Center
Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to deal
with my podcast and you can listen to my podcast
every other day you're not listening to Verdict or each
day when you listen to Verdict. Afterwards, I'd love to
have you as a listener to again the Ben Ferguson
podcasts and we will see you back here on Monday morning.
Host
Ben Ferguson
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