December 23, 2023 • 43 mins
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VerdictwithTedCruz
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you,
and Senator let's just start with congratulations. Your new book
is out, Unwoke, how to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America.
And I have to say when you get the book,
if you haven't gotten the book, the best, the best page,
just skip right ahead to page number forty. It's the
(00:24):
best page in the book. So congrats on that. Most importantly, Senator,
page forty phenomenal. You should definitely just go right there,
read that and then start the very beginning.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Ben, what the hell is on page forty? I don't
know what's on page forty.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Page forty it says, and I will quote here.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Every podcast is one alongside my cost today that's Ben
Ferguson the nationally Syndicate Radios has become a very dear friend.
I got a shout out. I thank you, sir. I
appreciate that now.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
So I actually think maybe the best page of the
book is the very first page of the book. Of
your copy, because I gave you a copy, I gave
you signed copy. You did, and if you recall the
inscription that I wrote on the front, I said, Ben,
you are one of the three best hosts in history
(01:15):
of the Verdict podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Don't leave out the word undoubtedly. You use that word.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Undoubtedly, there we go. I want to make sure I
get that in the history books.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Now. Never mind that there have only been three hosts
of Verdict, and that would be you and me and
Michael Knowles. But you are undoubtedly one of the three best.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yes, and that's and that's on the shelf right now.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
And the second sentence I actually liked even better than
the first. And I said, of all of the men
to play college tennis, you're one of them.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
There we go, you were one of them. So this
is the best part when you sign this. I didn't
want to travel with it, and you and I've been
on the road, and we were on the road last week,
and I didn't want to travel with the book because
I was like, all right, this is what I want
to genuinely say forever. So I was out home for
the trip and I didn't want to, you know, knock
the book around. So I was reading all day yesterday
(02:05):
and all day today to get to make sure that
we can have a stellar interview on your own show
about your book. So let's start with the title why
did you pick the title unwoke? And also for people
that don't understand what the definition of cultural Marxism is,
what is that mean?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Look?
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I wrote this book because the world has gone insane,
and my reaction is the same as as millions of people,
as the listeners of this podcast, that our reaction is
what the hell happened? How did things get so crazy
so fast? This book is my best effort to explain it,
and in particular, it's explaining how the radical left has
(02:48):
seized every major institution in America. And so the book
starts Chapter one is the universities, and I call the
universities the Wuhan lab of the woke virus. The universities
are where the virus was created, It's where it mutated,
and it's where it spread. Each chapter the book focuses
(03:13):
on a different institution the radical left is seized. So
Chapter two focuses on K through twelve education and all
the radical garbage being put in our kids, whether it's
critical race theory or radical transgenderism. Chapter three focuses on
journalism and how journalism has changed from covering the news
(03:35):
to propaganda. From there, I go to big business and
how big business today, the Fortune one hundred are the
economic enforcers of the radical left. From there, I go
to big tech and how big tech is pervasively censoring speech.
From there, I go to entertainment, and by the way,
if I could have just one back, I would have
(03:57):
entertainment back. Entertainment, I think is the most consequential of
all of these. And in entertainment we talk about Hollywood
and movies and television and sports and music.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
We break it all down.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
From there, we go to science and I talk about
how science has been corrupted and politicized. And the final
chapter in the book is on China and explains how
China is a nexus that links them all. And the
book was really designed to do two things. Number one,
explain how and why specifically the radical left took over
(04:31):
every one of those institutions, and they did it from
the inside. But secondly, to lay out a clear battle
plan how we take them back, how we fight back.
I believe we will take this country back. And this
book is laying out how we recapture the institutions of America.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
You know in this book, and I encourage people to
get it because there is just an incredible history in
the very beginning as well about your fa family. I
know your father and have gotten to spend some time
with him. He's an awesome just individual be around. He's jovial,
he can be funny. He loves this country. But there
(05:14):
is some incredible history not only about your family, but
also how your father was involved in Cuba in the
students and at a young age, and what was happening
really with the revolution down there, and how he was
(05:34):
I guess you could say, brought in to this revolution
with Castro, not realizing what Castro was doing, and it
started at a young age where they were targeting children,
and it was an incredible part of the story, not
just because of what happened, but also how he was
beaten and how his life was threatened, and how he
(05:55):
was a marked man who had to get out and
come to America. Talk a little about that story of
that being your history of your family, and also it's
a warning to what's happening in this country right now.
It's the beginning of the book and it's just an
It takes your breath away when you realize how close
your father was to death in Cuba.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Well, my family story is a huge part of why
this matters so much to me. It's personal, it's real,
and what I want to do is just read you
the first page of the book. His white linen suit
was stained red with blood, blood that had been beaten
out of him with a club regularly, each hour, breaking
his nose, shattering his teeth, Scarlet red blood, as if
(06:41):
his suit were emblazoned with the color of the Marxist
revolution of which he was a part. As my father
lay on that prison floor, crumpled and broken, not a
spot of white was visible on the now torn and
tattered suit he had been given for his seventeenth birthdayt
ed mud and dirt and grime and blood. To this day,
(07:06):
my dad remembers what he was thinking in that dark hole.
Nobody depends on me. I have no wife, no children.
It doesn't matter if I live or I die. Three
years earlier, when he was just fourteen, my father had
made the fateful decision to join up with the revolution
in his homeland of Cuba, to follow Fidel Castro. My
(07:31):
dad was young and ignorant and naive. Raphael bim Venilo
Cruz did not know that Castro was a Communist. He
didn't know the horrors that would befall the Cuban people
at the hands of his new comrades. He just knew
that the then dictator of Cuba, full of Gensio Bautista,
(07:53):
was corrupt and cruel and oppressive, as Francis Ford Coppola
immortally chronicled in The God Father Saga, Batista was in
bed with the American mafia, enjoying wealth and power purchased
with the blood beaten out of the Cuban people. Look,
that's my family story. My dad at seventeen was tortured.
(08:16):
He was in prison, he fled Qbi came to America.
My aunt, my Theo Sonya, whom I adore, who we
actually had on Verdict as a guest talking about Cuba.
She fought in the counter revolution. After Castro succeeded, she
was in prison, she was tortured by Castro's goons. I
tell her story in this book too. I also tell
(08:37):
the story of my grandmother, My Abuela. Miabuela was a
sixth grade teacher, and she told me she loved teaching,
She loved teaching her students, and she had a pure
photographic memory. Man, it was incredible. She literally everything she read,
she remembered word for word. She told me about when
(08:57):
Castro took over that they almost immediately targeted the children.
And one thing to understand, Marxists always begin with the kids, always, always, always,
As my father told me, the revolution, like he was,
were a bunch of fourteen and fifteen year old boys
who didn't know any better, teenagers. And you look at
(09:19):
every communist revolution in the world, whether you're talking about
Russia or China or North Korea, or Cuba or Venezuela,
it is always the young teenagers who are idealistic, who believe,
and who are naive, who don't have the world experience
to understand they're being lied to. But Communists start not
(09:39):
just with teenagers, they go younger. And what my grandmother
told me is she said, almost immediately after the revolution,
they sent the army into the elementary schools, and soldiers
would go into kindergartens in first grade and they would
tell all of the little kids, they'd say, close your
eyes and pray to God for candy, and the kids
(10:02):
all did so, and then they'd open their eyes and
there'd be no candy. And then the soldiers would tell them,
they'd say, close your eyes and pray to Fidel Castro
for candy, and the kids did so, and while their
eyes were closed, the soldiers would quietly slip a piece
of candy on each child's desk. That's not an aberration.
(10:25):
Chay Gavara, who was a vicious, bloodthirsty murderer. He was
Fidel Castro's right hand chay Gavara described children as malleable
clay that you can take the defects out of them.
You want to know why the cultural Marxists in America
started in the universities. You want to know why they've
gone into K through twelve, to elementary schools and junior
highs and high schools. Because if you take the children,
(10:48):
you take the nation. And this book is designed to
lay out how they did it and how we take
them back.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
You know, when I was reading this book, Sentator, I
go back to there's certain pivotal moments, and I think
everyone's life that you look back on and you go, wow,
if that would have gone differently, my whole life would
have gone differently, or may not even exist in the
first place. I was hit by a drunk driver when
I was a young kid. We were in a car wreck.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
He died.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
We lived, and I go back to that moment in
my life. Many times I was in, as you know,
a shooting where I was a target of a gang initiation.
I wonder if I would have been hit that night
in my life, would have you know, I wouldn't have
my kids. There's that moment in this book where you
wrote my father joined up and began doing acts of sabotage,
(11:34):
berning government buildings, throwing cocktails, whatever he could undermine the
oppressure regime. That's what it landed him in prison at seventeen.
But Tesus police had caught him and they were they
were extracting their brutal revenge. The next day was dragging
the office of a colonel who told him, I'm letting
you go, but if another bomb goes off, if another
(11:55):
fire starts, I'm blaming you. How can I be responsible
for every bad thing what happens in the city, my
father asked, I don't care, replied the commander, I'm holding
you responsible. Your father returned home. My wellow wept. Her
eldest child had walked in the door, beaten, cover in
his own blood. As she told me when I was
a child, that imagined that from that day was scared
(12:18):
into her mind forever, forever. My bod told him get
out of the country, and that was the turning point
for your entire family history, because not only did he
get out, but he applied to colleges in America, to
the University of Miami, to LSU, to the University of Texas.
Texas was the first one that led him in, and
(12:40):
that's how he came to America. That's how you became
a Texan, and that's how your family history started anew
with a clean slate in America. When you were writing that,
I'm assuming you've heard the story many times, but when
you put it on paper, it took my breath away.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Look the book, it is actually dedicated. I don't think
they know this yet, but it is dedicated to my father,
my Theo Sonya, and Myabuela in my family, the original
freedom fighters. I don't think Miabuela is dead, but I
don't think either my dad or the Asnia have seen
that yet. Now my dad listens to Verdict, so he
(13:21):
he may find it out right now listening to the podcast.
But it was I mean when I and it's actually
the very last thing I type on the book is
the dedication, and that was Look, it's why I am
who I am. I grew up as a kid sitting
at the feet of my father and my Theosnia and
hearing about freedom fighters. And it is an unbelievable blessing
(13:45):
when you were the child of someone who fled oppression
and came to America seeking freedom. Our freedom is not
a joke. It's not something of that's kind of interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
It is.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
It is incredibly serious. We either we defend our freedom
here or we lose America. I hate communists. I hate
them with a passion from the pit of my gut.
They are evil. Communism has been responsible for more death,
more misery, more destruction, more poverty, more suffering than any
force in the history of humanity. And this book is
(14:19):
all about how the same philosophy that has produced such
misery is taking over and has taken over the major
institutions of America. And look, you've heard me say this before,
but as a child, my father probably a thousand times
said to me, when we lost our freedom in Cuba,
I had a place to flee to. If we lose
(14:41):
our freedom here in America, where do we go? That's
what the stakes are right now.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
There is also a point in there that hit me,
and you said that your dad did something that I
think we've lost in this country, and that's admitting sometimes
that maybe we get things wrong.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Maybe this woke agenda is a failure.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Maybe green alternative energy is in this green religion is
a failure. We've tried this indoct you know, the government
taking over our kids. It's a failure. And your dad
was an advocate for Castro early on, and he was
ashamed by it. He advocated for him even in America.
And he set down, I'm reading from the book. He's
set down, and he made a list of every place
(15:23):
he'd spoken in Austin, Texas in support of Castro. He
then went back to each and every one of them
and stood before the same people to make amends. He said, quote,
I am here to apologize. He told them, I misled you.
I didn't do so knowingly, but I did so. Nonetheless,
I urge you to support an evil man and an
(15:45):
evil Marxist regime, and for that, I am truly sorry
for me. That's not just a point of incredible character.
But why don't we have that with politicians today where
they can admit, hey, I may have gotten something wrong,
and I'm sorry that I got it wrong.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
We tried this and it didn't work.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Because we are now, we have so many elected officials
that refused to ever admit they ever make a mistake.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
In as humans, we make mistakes.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Look, that's exactly right, and that story likewise, my father
told me thousands of times. I was probably, I don't know,
two or three years old the first time I heard that,
and I've admired it every time i've heard it, because
to have the courage, he had gone and spoken at
rotary clubs and Kowana's clubs in Austin supporting Castro when
he got here. He got here, it was nineteen fifty seven,
(16:36):
he was still a young revolutionary. He didn't know that
Castro was a communist, and he hated Batista. And then
when Castro took over and to clarity was a communist,
and in my dad saw the evil and oppression and
theft and murder and cruelty, and that as bad as
Batista was, Fidel Castro was a thousand times worse. He
(16:56):
had the character to admit he's wrong. Yet, you know,
I'm reminded of the clip recently where Barack Obama played that.
He said, you know, we all, we are all complicit
in the Middle East because he says, well, what Hamas
did was terrible, but he said, what's happening to the Palestinians.
The occupation is unbearable. And I got to admit, of
(17:19):
all the clips of Obama, that might be the one
that pisses me off the most. I actually did yesterday
Megan Kelly's show her podcast in New York and was
talking about the book, and she played that clip for me.
And I try to try to speak reasonably and respectably,
(17:39):
and I try to limit my cursing, but she played
it to me and I just said, what utter bullshit.
And by the way, anytime I say something like that,
my father will call or text me and say, would
you please watch your language. That's that's not really a
good thing to do. And my dad's right on that,
but it just it's infuriating. And it's like, look, Obama,
you sent over one hundred million dollars to the Ayatola,
(18:01):
to Iran, You funded these Hamas terrorists, You set flooded
money into the Gaza strip, you put money directly in
the hands of these death squads and you say we're
all complicit. And by the way, you're repeating the bigoted,
racist lie that there's an occupation. The Gaza Strip is
not occupied. Hamas controls the Gaza Strip. Israel left the
(18:21):
Gaza Strip. It's entirely the Palestinian There is no occupation
zero in Gaza. And yet you know, is Barack Obama
capable of saying it was a mistake to send a
hundred million dollars to the iatola who chanced death to
American death to Israel.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
No?
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Is Joe Biden capable of saying it was a mistake
for him to send nearly a hundred million dollars to
Iran subsequently when that money was used to fund the
worst terror attack on Israel in over fifty years. No,
they're not capable of admitting that, And I do think
admitting when something has failed is critic critically, critically important.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
For more than ten years, Patriot Mobile it's been America's
only Christian conservative wireless provider. They stand behind their values
and they stand behind exceptional service. They're an example of
putting the cause a head of profit, and that is
why I am proud to partner with them starting Today,
Patriot Mobile is extending their Black Friday deal with the
(19:19):
Every Friday Matters deal, and you can get a free
smartphone when you switch today. Patriot Mobile offers dependable nationwide coverage,
giving you access to all three major networks, which means
you get the same coverage you've been accustomed to without
funding the radical left. Now, when you switch to Patriot Mobile,
(19:40):
you're supporting free speech, religious freedom, the sanctity of life,
are veterans and first responders, and more than just that.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
They are actually.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
A one hundred percent US based company with customer service
teams that make switching easy so you can keep your
same number you have Right now, you can keep your
existing phone for a limited time get a free smartphone
from Patriot Mobile.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Go to Patriot Mobile.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Dot com slash ferguson or call them ninety seven to
two Patriot use the promo code Friday seven six. That's
Friday seven to six again. Get a free smartphone with
promo code Friday seven six.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
This the limited time offer. Joined me.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Make the switch today at Patriot Mobile dot com slash ferguson.
That's Patriot Mobile dot com slash ferguson or nine to
seven to two patriot. You mentioned education and how it's
easiest way to change a country in one generation, but
there was also one of the things you said on
page sixty four.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
It says how to fight back.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
You said, a few years ago, you walked in to
your daughter's bedroom and asked what she'd been learning about
in school. She said she had been learning about Christopher Columbus,
the quote unquote real story.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
I asked what that meant.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
For the next few minutes, I heard about the crimes
of Christopher Columbus in minute detail. Every murdered Native American,
transmitted disease, and stolen acre of lamb seemed to be
accounted for. I heard that Columbus, who claimed the land
for himself because his straight white privilege or something like that,
had not actually discovered anything at all, but rather had
(21:12):
landed on the shores of what would come to be
known as America by accident. This quote unquote revolution, familiar
to most adults in the United States, is something that
American children encounter sooner or later in a textbook, believing
that they've accessed some secret, hidden knowledge that the grown
ups don't want them to have. That moment, for me
(21:36):
is the moment that terrifies me for our kids in
this my kids generation, is that we have handed our
children over to this school systems. And it's not just
public schools now, it's private schools as well, who are
indoctrinating them in this idea that America somehow was started
on evil, bad motives and that you should not love
(21:57):
this country, but you should be ashamed this country.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
And you had to deal with this with your own daughter.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Look, that's exactly right. And the problem is this indoctrination
is happening in every school in America. It's happening to
every child in America. And what I describe part of
the way that this book is all about how we
fight back. But you know, as she was saying that
Columbus was evil and racist and genocidal and terrible, and
she hated Christopher Columbus, you know, I just just sat
(22:24):
down in her bedroom and I tried to have a
conversation with her, and I said, look, I'm not deeply
vested in making the argument that Christopher Columbus was some
incredible hero, But I said, you know what, we do
have a federal holiday named after him. Do we typically
name federal holidays after evil, racist, genocidal maniacs, like, might
(22:49):
there be another side of the story? Is there anything
admirable about them? And she was not really able to
see much that was admirble. I said, well, what do
you think about getting in three rooky rickety wooden ships,
and and and leaving Europe and and and heading heading
west when you think you're falling off the edge of
the world to explore and discover? I mean, I mean,
(23:11):
is that spirit, that intrepid spirit? Is that anything to
be admired? And and and I said, secondly, look, it
is true that Columbus and and and the man who
traveled with him, that that that they carried some some
germs that that that were that were new to to
the to the western hemisphere, and that when they got
(23:31):
here some of the some of the Native Americans died
from those germs. Now, it's also true it was the
fifteenth century. They didn't know what a germ was, so
they didn't know they were carrying it. And and when
you accuse him of mass murder, does culpability matter? Does
the fact that they didn't know what a germ was,
they had no idea they were doing it? That is
that at all relevant? If you're going to call him
(23:52):
this evil, terrible murder. And when I talk about in
the book is not long thereafter Thanksgiving of that year,
we were talking about Thanksgiving, and she and a friend
of hers from school and this is when they were
in grade school, said likewise, oh, Thanksgiving is terrible. It's
when the pilgrims were oppressing the Native Americans. And you know,
again I made the argument, I think even more vigorously
(24:14):
this time, and I said, listen, it is certainly right
that the settlers that came to America, that they settled America,
and they ultimately conquered America, and they they committed some
terrible acts to Native Americans. But if you look at
the history of humanity in every continent, every nation was
(24:37):
acquired by conquest. And every time there's conquest, you have
one group of people who are conquering another group of people.
By the way, in the United States, before we were
the United States, the Native Americans, one tribe conquered, another
conquered or another conquered another. And you look at Europe,
you look at Asia. That's the history of humanity, one
group of people conquering another. And anytime you have conquest,
(24:58):
there are are horrible things that happen. They're terrible things
that are done. But I said, look, in any war,
there were atrocities on both sides. And you know, I asked,
I asked my daughter. I said, you know, from whence
do you think the verb to scalp was derived? The
Native Americans did some horrible things to the settlers who
(25:20):
came here also, And the connection that I made for her,
and that I make in the book is those two
discussions are interlinked and intertwined. Which is for all of
the teachers and all of the professors, and all of
the people advocating that Columbus was evil and advocating that
Thanksgiving is evil because the pilgrims were stealing from the
(25:43):
Native Americans, it comes down to one antecedent question. Was
the settlement of the New World a good thing or
a bad thing? Was the formation of the United States
of America good or bad? And I'm not neutral or
ambivalent on that question. I think the United States of
America has been the greatest force for good of any
(26:06):
nation in the history of the world. That we have
produced more prosperity, more abundance, we have liberated more prisoners
and captives, We have shed our blood and treasure and
tears fighting tyranny more than any nation in the history
of the world. Do we have our flaws, yes, of course.
Do we have our problems, yes, of course. But America,
(26:28):
I believe, like Reagan said, is a shining city on hill.
And I want to make a special request of our
vertical listeners. You guys are incredible. You guys are patriots.
You guys give me hope and optimism in America. I
want to ask every one of you please today, when
you finished listening to this podcast, most of you are
listening on your cell phones, click over to Amazon, type
(26:53):
in unwoke and buy the book.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Right now.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
We have nearly a million unique listeners who listen to Verdict.
If every one of you goes online and buys the book,
it would soar to the very tops of the New
York Times bestseller list. That would drive them nuts. By
the way, and I wrote this book for the same reason, Ben,
(27:19):
that you and I do this podcast. It is right
now eleven three pm on Tuesday night. The podcast will
come out early Wednesday morning. Why am I sitting here
at eleven o three? Why are you sitting here at
eleven o three. Because we care about this. We want
we want our incredible listeners to be armed with information
and know how to fight to save this country. And
this book is exactly in the same spirit. The book
(27:42):
is I think, interesting and fun. It's not some abstract
academic treatise, but it's designed. When you read it, you'll
enjoy it. And by the way, I encourage you. Look,
if I can be immodest for a second, don't buy
just one. You know Christmas is coming up very soon.
Buy a copy for your mom, buy a copy for
your brother, buy a copy for your next door neighbor,
(28:04):
your best friend. Because the reason that I spend the
time to write these books, the reason that you and
I do this podcast, is we either persuade and win
hearts and minds or we lose America. That's what the
stakes are, and that's what this book is about. It's
the exact same thing the podcast is about.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
You mentioned that what we're up against in one of
your chapters is about the newsroom revolution, and you start
with a great story of a former colleague of mine
that is hard to deal with, Jake Tapper in a
fight is he's in essence calling you a liar and
This is the new thing that the media has done.
(28:45):
They've become so sanctimonious that they are always looking for
a moment to tell you why you're wrong and why
they're brilliant. We've seen this in the last several days
is they've been demanding a ceasefire to protect the terrorists
in Gaza. Who the who the Israelis are trying to
eradicate from the face of this earth with good reason
(29:07):
after what they did just one month ago. And we
talked about this on Verdict Israel. We knew was on
a on an artificial clock the day the terrorists attack
happened before the media, before the left started going to
the aid of Hamas and and and the Palaesinian people
that were backing Hamas, many them that were and saying, okay,
(29:28):
all right, you had a few days now to go
after these terrorists. Now you've got to stop it now.
Now it's your your your obligation to stop trying to
protect yourself.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
And this is our media now.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
And it goes back to this this idea that they have,
which is they're better than everyone else. They're not here
to report news anymore. They're here to go after people
like you. And others that they don't like and indoctrinate
a nation to believe in socialism and communism and Marxism.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Look that that is exactly right, and and and the
media has fundamentally changed. And so the chapter on on journalism,
I talk about how when I was first elected to
the Senate eleven years ago, and I actually focus on
CNN as really a case lesson eleven years ago CNN
they aspired to be journalists. If you ask them, they'd say,
we want to be journalists. We want to present both sides.
(30:16):
We want to be fair and objective and balanced, and
we want to focus on facts and not our opinion. Now,
they were terrible at it. They leaned hard left and
they couldn't help themselves. But that was the objective. Number one,
they would articulate to you they were trying to achieve.
But number two, I think they believed in their heart
they were trying to do that. And so when I
was first elected to the Senate. You may find this
(30:38):
hard to believe, but I went on CNN just about
every week. I went on there over and over and
over again, and they would give you a chance to
lay out a conservative argument, and they'd attack you from
the left, and they'd be unfair and they'd play gotcha questions,
but they would give you a chance to present the
other side. And what happened is when Donald Trump became president,
(31:00):
and I think it fundamentally broke the media. Their brains shattered.
They hated him so much that today the media no
longer views its vision as being journalists, as being fair
and impartial and presenting both sides. Instead, they have embraced
a vision that they are advocates, they are defenders of democracy,
(31:22):
and what they mean by democracy is left wing radical policies.
And so the story I tell in the very beginning
of the journalism chapter is during the presidential race, I
was out on the campaign trip, was actually in our
campaign bus, and I was doing an interview with Jake Tapper.
(31:43):
And look, I'll confess I like Jake. I've known Jake
for over twenty years. I've known Jake since he was
a CUB reporter on the George W. Bush two thousand
campaign and I was a baby staffer on it, and
so I've known him a long time. And he was
interviewing me for his Sunday show and we did an
interview and it was I don't remember, probably ten minutes
(32:04):
or so. And I had learned a lesson, and it's
something that I do with every Sunday show, which is
that I insist that the Sunday Show either be live
or it'd be live to tape. And the reason I
learned that is I had done just a few weeks
earlier in an interview with Bob Sheefer at CBS, and
Bob Schefer I hadn't insisted on that, and he'd done
the interview, and then afterwards his show had edited it
(32:27):
and it basically cut out every good argument I made
and just put this slash job where he decimated me
because he excluded all my good answers and just edited
it in a way that was really deceptive. And I said, okay,
never again. If we do one of these, they must
air what I actually say. And I said, look, if
you want to give me five minutes or six or
(32:49):
eight or ten or twelve or whatever, you can pick
the time. But when we film it, you air exactly
what happens during that time. So we had agreed with
that with CNN, and in the course of the interview,
we were talking about the shooting at Fort Hood and
Nadal Hassan, who was the radical Islamist who had walked
through and murdered fourteen innocent souls yelling at a Luha awkbar.
(33:12):
And I mentioned that the Obama administration knew that Hassan
was a radical jahadist. They knew that he had been
in email communication with Anwar al Alaki, who was the
Islamist cleric, the radical that he'd asked al Alaki about
the permissibility of waging jahad on his fellow soldiers. And
(33:34):
yet the Obama administration did nothing until he committed that
act of mass murder. And when I said all of that,
Jake immediately interrupted and he said, that's not true. No,
that's not right, and he said, what you're saying is
fundamentally false. That's a lie, it's not true. And you know,
I just kind of smiled, and I said, well, you know, Jakes,
as John Adams said, facts are stubborn things, and what
(33:56):
I'm saying is entirely accurate. And and you know, when
you reach search the issue, that's exactly what you're going
to find out. So we do the interview, Jake and
his production team leaves the bus, and I don't know
five ten minutes later, there's a knock on the door
of the bus and we open it. It's Jake and
he's very sheepish, and he said, hey, can to come
in and talk.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
For a second.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
I said, yeah, sure, come on in and he said, look,
after we did the interview, he said, I went and
got on the internet and I researched it, and actually,
you were right, he said. I didn't know that I
had missed. I just had not seen the revelation that
the Obama administration knew it. It just I couldn't believe it.
But turns out you were right.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
I was wrong.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
And Jake said, listen, I'll give you a choice. We
can do it one of two ways.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
He said.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
I agreed we would do this live to tape, and
so if you want, I will air it exactly as
it happened, and then after I air it, I will
come on live and I'll say after the interview, I
researched it, and it turns out I was wrong, and
Cruz was right. What he said was exactly right, and
I was an error when I said he was not
(35:00):
telling the truth. He said, that's option number one. He
said option number two, which he said, I'd really much
prefer is that we just edit out that segment. We
just remove it from the interview, and we air everything
else and just not include that segment. And I described
in the book that you know, I thought about it,
and it was obviously in my self interest to pick
(35:21):
option number one. That like having CNN having Tapper admit
he was full of crap. And I was right, that
was a big political victory. But I also expected that
I would be doing a whole lot more interviews with
Tapper and with CNN, and I frankly respected how he
approached it. That he came to me and he admitted
(35:42):
he was wrong, and he gave me that option I
thought was an honorable way to handle it. And so
I made what I would say is a long term
play rather than a short term play, and I said, Okay,
you can go ahead and cut the segment out, and
so they did, so the story I recount in the
book that segment never aired because CNN cut the segment out.
I focus on Tapper in particular because I think he's
(36:04):
a smart guy, and I think he wants to be
a journalist, and I think in his heart right now,
he knows that he's not that Trump broke Tapper that
now CNN will have a panel of five experts there
to discuss true or not Donald Trump is the devil,
and all five of them agree, of course he's the devil.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
No, he's worse than the devil. That's the whole debate.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
And you know, look, CNN used to be a place
if you go back to twenty seventeen. In twenty seventeen,
I did three town hall debates on CNN with Bernie Sanders.
We did one on healthcare and two on tax policy,
and they were great debates. I think they were among,
if not the highest rated shows on CNN that whole year.
(36:46):
They were ninety minutes. Bernie is an unapologetic defender of socialism.
I'm an unapologic defender of capitalism. And we had a
real and substim debate that CNN doesn't exist anymore, and
it's bad for America, it's bad for the world that
we don't have functioning journalism. And I describe all of
this in the book, but I also describe how because
(37:10):
journalism corporate media is broken, it's part of what makes
the radical Democrats so extreme, why they vote for such
ridiculous policy positions that are so out of the mainstream
because they know they will never ever ever get asked
about it by reporters back home. They will never have
to defend it, and so it's radicalized the Democrat Party
(37:30):
in Washington.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Senat.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
There's another part of your book that I want to
mention real quick, and it's a trend.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Whether it's you talking about big tech or the.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Schools or Marxism in Washington. The list goes on on,
especially when you have a lot talking here about science
and COVID. That chapter is probably my favorite. As I
was reading it today, I was marking it out. But
there's a trend in this book and I love this.
This may be my favorite part. Is you at each
(38:02):
in each chapter, in essence, ask how do you fight back?
Speaker 1 (38:06):
How to reclaim control? How do we win?
Speaker 2 (38:09):
It's not just a book of you ranting about issues,
but you actually lay out how we can succeed and
get our and win on our side of the argument.
And that's what empowers the reader to not just read
a book, but to take something from it.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
And I love that well. It is critically important. And
there are all sorts of elements of how we fight
back and win. One of it is transparency and sunshine.
The views of the radical left are wildly unpopular. Look,
no rational person supports abolishing the police. That's a nutty position.
(38:45):
No rational person supports open borders and the chaos at
our southern border. No rational person supports medically and surgically
sterilizing and castrating eight year old children. No rational person
is befuddled by the question what is a woman? All
of those are ninety ten issues, and the radical Left
(39:08):
is on the extreme minority position on every one of them.
It's why they rely on force rather than persuasion, because
their positions are out there and so often shining a
light is really, really potent. And I'm gonna give it
an example. I'm gonna give an example from Verdict. So
(39:30):
we had a podcast several weeks ago that was entitled
black Lives Matter is Hamas, and we walk through how
black lives matter as a statement is a truism. It's
absolutely true, yes, period the end. However, Black Lives Matter,
the organization Black Lives Matter, Inc. Is a very different thing.
(39:51):
It is found founded by a vowed Marxists who are
trained Marxists. They're trained and fomenting communist rev that's their
own self description, not our language, their language. They are
vicious racists and they are deeply, deeply antisemitic. They hate Israel. Indeed,
one of the co founders of Black Lives Matter has
(40:14):
called since nineteen ninety five for the destruction of the
state of Israel. And on our podcast, we laid out
all of that evidence, and then we named names of
all of the or number of the giant corporations who
had given millions of dollars to Black Lives Matter, and
then included Amazon and Apple and Coca Cola, and we said, listen,
do these companies do you support vicious racism, Do you
(40:38):
support vicious anti Semitism? Do you support demanding the destruction
of the state of Israel? Do you support these avowed
Marxists because you gave money to them? That podcast came out,
I believe, October eighteenth. The next day, Coca Cola went
online and they scrubbed their website to remove every reference
(41:04):
to the five hundred thousand dollars that they had given
to Black Lives Matter. And it was a direct result
of this Verdict podcast. We put the podcast out and
almost immediately they erased it. Now they thought they could
do it quietly they could just hide and evade responsibility.
I'm calling them out. I'm calling them out, and I'm
shining a light, and I'm saying, look, have you apologized
to the American people for why you were funding a
(41:26):
viciously racist and anti Semitic organization And it wasn't a secret,
they were open about it. Then you just didn't care
because your woke politics mattered more to you than doing
the right thing. And that's one of the strategies that
is inherent in this book is shining the light and
calling them out. And that's how you win victories. In
chapter after chapter, I talk about winning victories. Whether it's
(41:48):
winning school board seats back, or flipping Virginia Red as
parents got furious, or whether it's Elon Musk buying Twitter.
All of these are strategies where we take these institutions back.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
It's an incredible book, Center and congratulations on it. It's
one that I hope everybody listening will go grab. You
can go to Amazon right now, you can order it.
It's a fabulous Christmas gift. It is three hundred and
fifty six pages from beginning to end. One of the
chapters that you've got to read. If you get it,
(42:23):
make sure you read the big text chapter and also science.
The science chapter to me was one that as I
was reading it centator. I know you well enough to
know when you really get passionate about something.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
You were really really passionate.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
When writing that chapter on science and what has happened
and how science has just been totally corrupted, whether it's
by Fauci or others that are pushing agendas through science.
And those are two chapters I just want to mark
for people. Make sure you take a look at those
as well. Grab the book Unwoke How to defeed a
(43:00):
Cultural Marxism in America. You can get on Amazon. Order
it now wherever you get your books. Don't forget hit
that follow subscribe or auto download button wherever you're listening
to this podcast. We do this podcast Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays.
We also have a recap pod on Saturday mornings. That
is some of the things deeper in each podcast maybe
(43:22):
you miss because of time restraint, so make sure you
check that out as well. And on those in between days,
I'd love for you to join me as I'll keep
you update on breaking news on my podcast, The Ben
Ferguson podcasts as well on those in between days, so
make sure you download that as well in the center,
and I will see you back here in a couple
of days.
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you,
and Senator let's just start with congratulations. Your new book
is out, Unwoke, how to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America.
And I have to say when you get the book,
if you haven't gotten the book, the best, the best page,
just skip right ahead to page number forty. It's the
(00:24):
best page in the book. So congrats on that. Most importantly, Senator,
page forty phenomenal. You should definitely just go right there,
read that and then start the very beginning.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Ben, what the hell is on page forty? I don't
know what's on page forty.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Page forty it says, and I will quote here.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Every podcast is one alongside my cost today that's Ben
Ferguson the nationally Syndicate Radios has become a very dear friend.
I got a shout out. I thank you, sir. I
appreciate that now.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
So I actually think maybe the best page of the
book is the very first page of the book. Of
your copy, because I gave you a copy, I gave
you signed copy. You did, and if you recall the
inscription that I wrote on the front, I said, Ben,
you are one of the three best hosts in history
(01:15):
of the Verdict podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Don't leave out the word undoubtedly. You use that word.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Undoubtedly, there we go. I want to make sure I
get that in the history books.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Now. Never mind that there have only been three hosts
of Verdict, and that would be you and me and
Michael Knowles. But you are undoubtedly one of the three best.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yes, and that's and that's on the shelf right now.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
And the second sentence I actually liked even better than
the first. And I said, of all of the men
to play college tennis, you're one of them.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
There we go, you were one of them. So this
is the best part when you sign this. I didn't
want to travel with it, and you and I've been
on the road, and we were on the road last week,
and I didn't want to travel with the book because
I was like, all right, this is what I want
to genuinely say forever. So I was out home for
the trip and I didn't want to, you know, knock
the book around. So I was reading all day yesterday
(02:05):
and all day today to get to make sure that
we can have a stellar interview on your own show
about your book. So let's start with the title why
did you pick the title unwoke? And also for people
that don't understand what the definition of cultural Marxism is,
what is that mean?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Look?
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I wrote this book because the world has gone insane,
and my reaction is the same as as millions of people,
as the listeners of this podcast, that our reaction is
what the hell happened? How did things get so crazy
so fast? This book is my best effort to explain it,
and in particular, it's explaining how the radical left has
(02:48):
seized every major institution in America. And so the book
starts Chapter one is the universities, and I call the
universities the Wuhan lab of the woke virus. The universities
are where the virus was created, It's where it mutated,
and it's where it spread. Each chapter the book focuses
(03:13):
on a different institution the radical left is seized. So
Chapter two focuses on K through twelve education and all
the radical garbage being put in our kids, whether it's
critical race theory or radical transgenderism. Chapter three focuses on
journalism and how journalism has changed from covering the news
(03:35):
to propaganda. From there, I go to big business and
how big business today, the Fortune one hundred are the
economic enforcers of the radical left. From there, I go
to big tech and how big tech is pervasively censoring speech.
From there, I go to entertainment, and by the way,
if I could have just one back, I would have
(03:57):
entertainment back. Entertainment, I think is the most consequential of
all of these. And in entertainment we talk about Hollywood
and movies and television and sports and music.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
We break it all down.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
From there, we go to science and I talk about
how science has been corrupted and politicized. And the final
chapter in the book is on China and explains how
China is a nexus that links them all. And the
book was really designed to do two things. Number one,
explain how and why specifically the radical left took over
(04:31):
every one of those institutions, and they did it from
the inside. But secondly, to lay out a clear battle
plan how we take them back, how we fight back.
I believe we will take this country back. And this
book is laying out how we recapture the institutions of America.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
You know in this book, and I encourage people to
get it because there is just an incredible history in
the very beginning as well about your fa family. I
know your father and have gotten to spend some time
with him. He's an awesome just individual be around. He's jovial,
he can be funny. He loves this country. But there
(05:14):
is some incredible history not only about your family, but
also how your father was involved in Cuba in the
students and at a young age, and what was happening
really with the revolution down there, and how he was
(05:34):
I guess you could say, brought in to this revolution
with Castro, not realizing what Castro was doing, and it
started at a young age where they were targeting children,
and it was an incredible part of the story, not
just because of what happened, but also how he was
beaten and how his life was threatened, and how he
(05:55):
was a marked man who had to get out and
come to America. Talk a little about that story of
that being your history of your family, and also it's
a warning to what's happening in this country right now.
It's the beginning of the book and it's just an
It takes your breath away when you realize how close
your father was to death in Cuba.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Well, my family story is a huge part of why
this matters so much to me. It's personal, it's real,
and what I want to do is just read you
the first page of the book. His white linen suit
was stained red with blood, blood that had been beaten
out of him with a club regularly, each hour, breaking
his nose, shattering his teeth, Scarlet red blood, as if
(06:41):
his suit were emblazoned with the color of the Marxist
revolution of which he was a part. As my father
lay on that prison floor, crumpled and broken, not a
spot of white was visible on the now torn and
tattered suit he had been given for his seventeenth birthdayt
ed mud and dirt and grime and blood. To this day,
(07:06):
my dad remembers what he was thinking in that dark hole.
Nobody depends on me. I have no wife, no children.
It doesn't matter if I live or I die. Three
years earlier, when he was just fourteen, my father had
made the fateful decision to join up with the revolution
in his homeland of Cuba, to follow Fidel Castro. My
(07:31):
dad was young and ignorant and naive. Raphael bim Venilo
Cruz did not know that Castro was a Communist. He
didn't know the horrors that would befall the Cuban people
at the hands of his new comrades. He just knew
that the then dictator of Cuba, full of Gensio Bautista,
(07:53):
was corrupt and cruel and oppressive, as Francis Ford Coppola
immortally chronicled in The God Father Saga, Batista was in
bed with the American mafia, enjoying wealth and power purchased
with the blood beaten out of the Cuban people. Look,
that's my family story. My dad at seventeen was tortured.
(08:16):
He was in prison, he fled Qbi came to America.
My aunt, my Theo Sonya, whom I adore, who we
actually had on Verdict as a guest talking about Cuba.
She fought in the counter revolution. After Castro succeeded, she
was in prison, she was tortured by Castro's goons. I
tell her story in this book too. I also tell
(08:37):
the story of my grandmother, My Abuela. Miabuela was a
sixth grade teacher, and she told me she loved teaching,
She loved teaching her students, and she had a pure
photographic memory. Man, it was incredible. She literally everything she read,
she remembered word for word. She told me about when
(08:57):
Castro took over that they almost immediately targeted the children.
And one thing to understand, Marxists always begin with the kids, always, always, always,
As my father told me, the revolution, like he was,
were a bunch of fourteen and fifteen year old boys
who didn't know any better, teenagers. And you look at
(09:19):
every communist revolution in the world, whether you're talking about
Russia or China or North Korea, or Cuba or Venezuela,
it is always the young teenagers who are idealistic, who believe,
and who are naive, who don't have the world experience
to understand they're being lied to. But Communists start not
(09:39):
just with teenagers, they go younger. And what my grandmother
told me is she said, almost immediately after the revolution,
they sent the army into the elementary schools, and soldiers
would go into kindergartens in first grade and they would
tell all of the little kids, they'd say, close your
eyes and pray to God for candy, and the kids
(10:02):
all did so, and then they'd open their eyes and
there'd be no candy. And then the soldiers would tell them,
they'd say, close your eyes and pray to Fidel Castro
for candy, and the kids did so, and while their
eyes were closed, the soldiers would quietly slip a piece
of candy on each child's desk. That's not an aberration.
(10:25):
Chay Gavara, who was a vicious, bloodthirsty murderer. He was
Fidel Castro's right hand chay Gavara described children as malleable
clay that you can take the defects out of them.
You want to know why the cultural Marxists in America
started in the universities. You want to know why they've
gone into K through twelve, to elementary schools and junior
highs and high schools. Because if you take the children,
(10:48):
you take the nation. And this book is designed to
lay out how they did it and how we take
them back.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
You know, when I was reading this book, Sentator, I
go back to there's certain pivotal moments, and I think
everyone's life that you look back on and you go, wow,
if that would have gone differently, my whole life would
have gone differently, or may not even exist in the
first place. I was hit by a drunk driver when
I was a young kid. We were in a car wreck.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
He died.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
We lived, and I go back to that moment in
my life. Many times I was in, as you know,
a shooting where I was a target of a gang initiation.
I wonder if I would have been hit that night
in my life, would have you know, I wouldn't have
my kids. There's that moment in this book where you
wrote my father joined up and began doing acts of sabotage,
(11:34):
berning government buildings, throwing cocktails, whatever he could undermine the
oppressure regime. That's what it landed him in prison at seventeen.
But Tesus police had caught him and they were they
were extracting their brutal revenge. The next day was dragging
the office of a colonel who told him, I'm letting
you go, but if another bomb goes off, if another
(11:55):
fire starts, I'm blaming you. How can I be responsible
for every bad thing what happens in the city, my
father asked, I don't care, replied the commander, I'm holding
you responsible. Your father returned home. My wellow wept. Her
eldest child had walked in the door, beaten, cover in
his own blood. As she told me when I was
a child, that imagined that from that day was scared
(12:18):
into her mind forever, forever. My bod told him get
out of the country, and that was the turning point
for your entire family history, because not only did he
get out, but he applied to colleges in America, to
the University of Miami, to LSU, to the University of Texas.
Texas was the first one that led him in, and
(12:40):
that's how he came to America. That's how you became
a Texan, and that's how your family history started anew
with a clean slate in America. When you were writing that,
I'm assuming you've heard the story many times, but when
you put it on paper, it took my breath away.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Look the book, it is actually dedicated. I don't think
they know this yet, but it is dedicated to my father,
my Theo Sonya, and Myabuela in my family, the original
freedom fighters. I don't think Miabuela is dead, but I
don't think either my dad or the Asnia have seen
that yet. Now my dad listens to Verdict, so he
(13:21):
he may find it out right now listening to the podcast.
But it was I mean when I and it's actually
the very last thing I type on the book is
the dedication, and that was Look, it's why I am
who I am. I grew up as a kid sitting
at the feet of my father and my Theosnia and
hearing about freedom fighters. And it is an unbelievable blessing
(13:45):
when you were the child of someone who fled oppression
and came to America seeking freedom. Our freedom is not
a joke. It's not something of that's kind of interesting.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
It is.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
It is incredibly serious. We either we defend our freedom
here or we lose America. I hate communists. I hate
them with a passion from the pit of my gut.
They are evil. Communism has been responsible for more death,
more misery, more destruction, more poverty, more suffering than any
force in the history of humanity. And this book is
(14:19):
all about how the same philosophy that has produced such
misery is taking over and has taken over the major
institutions of America. And look, you've heard me say this before,
but as a child, my father probably a thousand times
said to me, when we lost our freedom in Cuba,
I had a place to flee to. If we lose
(14:41):
our freedom here in America, where do we go? That's
what the stakes are right now.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
There is also a point in there that hit me,
and you said that your dad did something that I
think we've lost in this country, and that's admitting sometimes
that maybe we get things wrong.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Maybe this woke agenda is a failure.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Maybe green alternative energy is in this green religion is
a failure. We've tried this indoct you know, the government
taking over our kids. It's a failure. And your dad
was an advocate for Castro early on, and he was
ashamed by it. He advocated for him even in America.
And he set down, I'm reading from the book. He's
set down, and he made a list of every place
(15:23):
he'd spoken in Austin, Texas in support of Castro. He
then went back to each and every one of them
and stood before the same people to make amends. He said, quote,
I am here to apologize. He told them, I misled you.
I didn't do so knowingly, but I did so. Nonetheless,
I urge you to support an evil man and an
(15:45):
evil Marxist regime, and for that, I am truly sorry
for me. That's not just a point of incredible character.
But why don't we have that with politicians today where
they can admit, hey, I may have gotten something wrong,
and I'm sorry that I got it wrong.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
We tried this and it didn't work.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Because we are now, we have so many elected officials
that refused to ever admit they ever make a mistake.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
In as humans, we make mistakes.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Look, that's exactly right, and that story likewise, my father
told me thousands of times. I was probably, I don't know,
two or three years old the first time I heard that,
and I've admired it every time i've heard it, because
to have the courage, he had gone and spoken at
rotary clubs and Kowana's clubs in Austin supporting Castro when
he got here. He got here, it was nineteen fifty seven,
(16:36):
he was still a young revolutionary. He didn't know that
Castro was a communist, and he hated Batista. And then
when Castro took over and to clarity was a communist,
and in my dad saw the evil and oppression and
theft and murder and cruelty, and that as bad as
Batista was, Fidel Castro was a thousand times worse. He
(16:56):
had the character to admit he's wrong. Yet, you know,
I'm reminded of the clip recently where Barack Obama played that.
He said, you know, we all, we are all complicit
in the Middle East because he says, well, what Hamas
did was terrible, but he said, what's happening to the Palestinians.
The occupation is unbearable. And I got to admit, of
(17:19):
all the clips of Obama, that might be the one
that pisses me off the most. I actually did yesterday
Megan Kelly's show her podcast in New York and was
talking about the book, and she played that clip for me.
And I try to try to speak reasonably and respectably,
(17:39):
and I try to limit my cursing, but she played
it to me and I just said, what utter bullshit.
And by the way, anytime I say something like that,
my father will call or text me and say, would
you please watch your language. That's that's not really a
good thing to do. And my dad's right on that,
but it just it's infuriating. And it's like, look, Obama,
you sent over one hundred million dollars to the Ayatola,
(18:01):
to Iran, You funded these Hamas terrorists, You set flooded
money into the Gaza strip, you put money directly in
the hands of these death squads and you say we're
all complicit. And by the way, you're repeating the bigoted,
racist lie that there's an occupation. The Gaza Strip is
not occupied. Hamas controls the Gaza Strip. Israel left the
(18:21):
Gaza Strip. It's entirely the Palestinian There is no occupation
zero in Gaza. And yet you know, is Barack Obama
capable of saying it was a mistake to send a
hundred million dollars to the iatola who chanced death to
American death to Israel.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
No?
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Is Joe Biden capable of saying it was a mistake
for him to send nearly a hundred million dollars to
Iran subsequently when that money was used to fund the
worst terror attack on Israel in over fifty years. No,
they're not capable of admitting that, And I do think
admitting when something has failed is critic critically, critically important.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
For more than ten years, Patriot Mobile it's been America's
only Christian conservative wireless provider. They stand behind their values
and they stand behind exceptional service. They're an example of
putting the cause a head of profit, and that is
why I am proud to partner with them starting Today,
Patriot Mobile is extending their Black Friday deal with the
(19:19):
Every Friday Matters deal, and you can get a free
smartphone when you switch today. Patriot Mobile offers dependable nationwide coverage,
giving you access to all three major networks, which means
you get the same coverage you've been accustomed to without
funding the radical left. Now, when you switch to Patriot Mobile,
(19:40):
you're supporting free speech, religious freedom, the sanctity of life,
are veterans and first responders, and more than just that.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
They are actually.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
A one hundred percent US based company with customer service
teams that make switching easy so you can keep your
same number you have Right now, you can keep your
existing phone for a limited time get a free smartphone
from Patriot Mobile.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Go to Patriot Mobile.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Dot com slash ferguson or call them ninety seven to
two Patriot use the promo code Friday seven six. That's
Friday seven to six again. Get a free smartphone with
promo code Friday seven six.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
This the limited time offer. Joined me.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Make the switch today at Patriot Mobile dot com slash ferguson.
That's Patriot Mobile dot com slash ferguson or nine to
seven to two patriot. You mentioned education and how it's
easiest way to change a country in one generation, but
there was also one of the things you said on
page sixty four.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
It says how to fight back.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
You said, a few years ago, you walked in to
your daughter's bedroom and asked what she'd been learning about
in school. She said she had been learning about Christopher Columbus,
the quote unquote real story.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
I asked what that meant.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
For the next few minutes, I heard about the crimes
of Christopher Columbus in minute detail. Every murdered Native American,
transmitted disease, and stolen acre of lamb seemed to be
accounted for. I heard that Columbus, who claimed the land
for himself because his straight white privilege or something like that,
had not actually discovered anything at all, but rather had
(21:12):
landed on the shores of what would come to be
known as America by accident. This quote unquote revolution, familiar
to most adults in the United States, is something that
American children encounter sooner or later in a textbook, believing
that they've accessed some secret, hidden knowledge that the grown
ups don't want them to have. That moment, for me
(21:36):
is the moment that terrifies me for our kids in
this my kids generation, is that we have handed our
children over to this school systems. And it's not just
public schools now, it's private schools as well, who are
indoctrinating them in this idea that America somehow was started
on evil, bad motives and that you should not love
(21:57):
this country, but you should be ashamed this country.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
And you had to deal with this with your own daughter.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Look, that's exactly right. And the problem is this indoctrination
is happening in every school in America. It's happening to
every child in America. And what I describe part of
the way that this book is all about how we
fight back. But you know, as she was saying that
Columbus was evil and racist and genocidal and terrible, and
she hated Christopher Columbus, you know, I just just sat
(22:24):
down in her bedroom and I tried to have a
conversation with her, and I said, look, I'm not deeply
vested in making the argument that Christopher Columbus was some
incredible hero, But I said, you know what, we do
have a federal holiday named after him. Do we typically
name federal holidays after evil, racist, genocidal maniacs, like, might
(22:49):
there be another side of the story? Is there anything
admirable about them? And she was not really able to
see much that was admirble. I said, well, what do
you think about getting in three rooky rickety wooden ships,
and and and leaving Europe and and and heading heading
west when you think you're falling off the edge of
the world to explore and discover? I mean, I mean,
(23:11):
is that spirit, that intrepid spirit? Is that anything to
be admired? And and and I said, secondly, look, it
is true that Columbus and and and the man who
traveled with him, that that that they carried some some
germs that that that were that were new to to
the to the western hemisphere, and that when they got
(23:31):
here some of the some of the Native Americans died
from those germs. Now, it's also true it was the
fifteenth century. They didn't know what a germ was, so
they didn't know they were carrying it. And and when
you accuse him of mass murder, does culpability matter? Does
the fact that they didn't know what a germ was,
they had no idea they were doing it? That is
that at all relevant? If you're going to call him
(23:52):
this evil, terrible murder. And when I talk about in
the book is not long thereafter Thanksgiving of that year,
we were talking about Thanksgiving, and she and a friend
of hers from school and this is when they were
in grade school, said likewise, oh, Thanksgiving is terrible. It's
when the pilgrims were oppressing the Native Americans. And you know,
again I made the argument, I think even more vigorously
(24:14):
this time, and I said, listen, it is certainly right
that the settlers that came to America, that they settled America,
and they ultimately conquered America, and they they committed some
terrible acts to Native Americans. But if you look at
the history of humanity in every continent, every nation was
(24:37):
acquired by conquest. And every time there's conquest, you have
one group of people who are conquering another group of people.
By the way, in the United States, before we were
the United States, the Native Americans, one tribe conquered, another
conquered or another conquered another. And you look at Europe,
you look at Asia. That's the history of humanity, one
group of people conquering another. And anytime you have conquest,
(24:58):
there are are horrible things that happen. They're terrible things
that are done. But I said, look, in any war,
there were atrocities on both sides. And you know, I asked,
I asked my daughter. I said, you know, from whence
do you think the verb to scalp was derived? The
Native Americans did some horrible things to the settlers who
(25:20):
came here also, And the connection that I made for her,
and that I make in the book is those two
discussions are interlinked and intertwined. Which is for all of
the teachers and all of the professors, and all of
the people advocating that Columbus was evil and advocating that
Thanksgiving is evil because the pilgrims were stealing from the
(25:43):
Native Americans, it comes down to one antecedent question. Was
the settlement of the New World a good thing or
a bad thing? Was the formation of the United States
of America good or bad? And I'm not neutral or
ambivalent on that question. I think the United States of
America has been the greatest force for good of any
(26:06):
nation in the history of the world. That we have
produced more prosperity, more abundance, we have liberated more prisoners
and captives, We have shed our blood and treasure and
tears fighting tyranny more than any nation in the history
of the world. Do we have our flaws, yes, of course.
Do we have our problems, yes, of course. But America,
(26:28):
I believe, like Reagan said, is a shining city on hill.
And I want to make a special request of our
vertical listeners. You guys are incredible. You guys are patriots.
You guys give me hope and optimism in America. I
want to ask every one of you please today, when
you finished listening to this podcast, most of you are
listening on your cell phones, click over to Amazon, type
(26:53):
in unwoke and buy the book.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Right now.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
We have nearly a million unique listeners who listen to Verdict.
If every one of you goes online and buys the book,
it would soar to the very tops of the New
York Times bestseller list. That would drive them nuts. By
the way, and I wrote this book for the same reason, Ben,
(27:19):
that you and I do this podcast. It is right
now eleven three pm on Tuesday night. The podcast will
come out early Wednesday morning. Why am I sitting here
at eleven o three? Why are you sitting here at
eleven o three. Because we care about this. We want
we want our incredible listeners to be armed with information
and know how to fight to save this country. And
this book is exactly in the same spirit. The book
(27:42):
is I think, interesting and fun. It's not some abstract
academic treatise, but it's designed. When you read it, you'll
enjoy it. And by the way, I encourage you. Look,
if I can be immodest for a second, don't buy
just one. You know Christmas is coming up very soon.
Buy a copy for your mom, buy a copy for
your brother, buy a copy for your next door neighbor,
(28:04):
your best friend. Because the reason that I spend the
time to write these books, the reason that you and
I do this podcast, is we either persuade and win
hearts and minds or we lose America. That's what the
stakes are, and that's what this book is about. It's
the exact same thing the podcast is about.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
You mentioned that what we're up against in one of
your chapters is about the newsroom revolution, and you start
with a great story of a former colleague of mine
that is hard to deal with, Jake Tapper in a
fight is he's in essence calling you a liar and
This is the new thing that the media has done.
(28:45):
They've become so sanctimonious that they are always looking for
a moment to tell you why you're wrong and why
they're brilliant. We've seen this in the last several days
is they've been demanding a ceasefire to protect the terrorists
in Gaza. Who the who the Israelis are trying to
eradicate from the face of this earth with good reason
(29:07):
after what they did just one month ago. And we
talked about this on Verdict Israel. We knew was on
a on an artificial clock the day the terrorists attack
happened before the media, before the left started going to
the aid of Hamas and and and the Palaesinian people
that were backing Hamas, many them that were and saying, okay,
(29:28):
all right, you had a few days now to go
after these terrorists. Now you've got to stop it now.
Now it's your your your obligation to stop trying to
protect yourself.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
And this is our media now.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
And it goes back to this this idea that they have,
which is they're better than everyone else. They're not here
to report news anymore. They're here to go after people
like you. And others that they don't like and indoctrinate
a nation to believe in socialism and communism and Marxism.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Look that that is exactly right, and and and the
media has fundamentally changed. And so the chapter on on journalism,
I talk about how when I was first elected to
the Senate eleven years ago, and I actually focus on
CNN as really a case lesson eleven years ago CNN
they aspired to be journalists. If you ask them, they'd say,
we want to be journalists. We want to present both sides.
(30:16):
We want to be fair and objective and balanced, and
we want to focus on facts and not our opinion. Now,
they were terrible at it. They leaned hard left and
they couldn't help themselves. But that was the objective. Number one,
they would articulate to you they were trying to achieve.
But number two, I think they believed in their heart
they were trying to do that. And so when I
was first elected to the Senate. You may find this
(30:38):
hard to believe, but I went on CNN just about
every week. I went on there over and over and
over again, and they would give you a chance to
lay out a conservative argument, and they'd attack you from
the left, and they'd be unfair and they'd play gotcha questions,
but they would give you a chance to present the
other side. And what happened is when Donald Trump became president,
(31:00):
and I think it fundamentally broke the media. Their brains shattered.
They hated him so much that today the media no
longer views its vision as being journalists, as being fair
and impartial and presenting both sides. Instead, they have embraced
a vision that they are advocates, they are defenders of democracy,
(31:22):
and what they mean by democracy is left wing radical policies.
And so the story I tell in the very beginning
of the journalism chapter is during the presidential race, I
was out on the campaign trip, was actually in our
campaign bus, and I was doing an interview with Jake Tapper.
(31:43):
And look, I'll confess I like Jake. I've known Jake
for over twenty years. I've known Jake since he was
a CUB reporter on the George W. Bush two thousand
campaign and I was a baby staffer on it, and
so I've known him a long time. And he was
interviewing me for his Sunday show and we did an
interview and it was I don't remember, probably ten minutes
(32:04):
or so. And I had learned a lesson, and it's
something that I do with every Sunday show, which is
that I insist that the Sunday Show either be live
or it'd be live to tape. And the reason I
learned that is I had done just a few weeks
earlier in an interview with Bob Sheefer at CBS, and
Bob Schefer I hadn't insisted on that, and he'd done
the interview, and then afterwards his show had edited it
(32:27):
and it basically cut out every good argument I made
and just put this slash job where he decimated me
because he excluded all my good answers and just edited
it in a way that was really deceptive. And I said, okay,
never again. If we do one of these, they must
air what I actually say. And I said, look, if
you want to give me five minutes or six or
(32:49):
eight or ten or twelve or whatever, you can pick
the time. But when we film it, you air exactly
what happens during that time. So we had agreed with
that with CNN, and in the course of the interview,
we were talking about the shooting at Fort Hood and
Nadal Hassan, who was the radical Islamist who had walked
through and murdered fourteen innocent souls yelling at a Luha awkbar.
(33:12):
And I mentioned that the Obama administration knew that Hassan
was a radical jahadist. They knew that he had been
in email communication with Anwar al Alaki, who was the
Islamist cleric, the radical that he'd asked al Alaki about
the permissibility of waging jahad on his fellow soldiers. And
(33:34):
yet the Obama administration did nothing until he committed that
act of mass murder. And when I said all of that,
Jake immediately interrupted and he said, that's not true. No,
that's not right, and he said, what you're saying is
fundamentally false. That's a lie, it's not true. And you know,
I just kind of smiled, and I said, well, you know, Jakes,
as John Adams said, facts are stubborn things, and what
(33:56):
I'm saying is entirely accurate. And and you know, when
you reach search the issue, that's exactly what you're going
to find out. So we do the interview, Jake and
his production team leaves the bus, and I don't know
five ten minutes later, there's a knock on the door
of the bus and we open it. It's Jake and
he's very sheepish, and he said, hey, can to come
in and talk.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
For a second.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
I said, yeah, sure, come on in and he said, look,
after we did the interview, he said, I went and
got on the internet and I researched it, and actually,
you were right, he said. I didn't know that I
had missed. I just had not seen the revelation that
the Obama administration knew it. It just I couldn't believe it.
But turns out you were right.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
I was wrong.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
And Jake said, listen, I'll give you a choice. We
can do it one of two ways.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
He said.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
I agreed we would do this live to tape, and
so if you want, I will air it exactly as
it happened, and then after I air it, I will
come on live and I'll say after the interview, I
researched it, and it turns out I was wrong, and
Cruz was right. What he said was exactly right, and
I was an error when I said he was not
(35:00):
telling the truth. He said, that's option number one. He
said option number two, which he said, I'd really much
prefer is that we just edit out that segment. We
just remove it from the interview, and we air everything
else and just not include that segment. And I described
in the book that you know, I thought about it,
and it was obviously in my self interest to pick
(35:21):
option number one. That like having CNN having Tapper admit
he was full of crap. And I was right, that
was a big political victory. But I also expected that
I would be doing a whole lot more interviews with
Tapper and with CNN, and I frankly respected how he
approached it. That he came to me and he admitted
(35:42):
he was wrong, and he gave me that option I
thought was an honorable way to handle it. And so
I made what I would say is a long term
play rather than a short term play, and I said, Okay,
you can go ahead and cut the segment out, and
so they did, so the story I recount in the
book that segment never aired because CNN cut the segment out.
I focus on Tapper in particular because I think he's
(36:04):
a smart guy, and I think he wants to be
a journalist, and I think in his heart right now,
he knows that he's not that Trump broke Tapper that
now CNN will have a panel of five experts there
to discuss true or not Donald Trump is the devil,
and all five of them agree, of course he's the devil.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
No, he's worse than the devil. That's the whole debate.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
And you know, look, CNN used to be a place
if you go back to twenty seventeen. In twenty seventeen,
I did three town hall debates on CNN with Bernie Sanders.
We did one on healthcare and two on tax policy,
and they were great debates. I think they were among,
if not the highest rated shows on CNN that whole year.
(36:46):
They were ninety minutes. Bernie is an unapologetic defender of socialism.
I'm an unapologic defender of capitalism. And we had a
real and substim debate that CNN doesn't exist anymore, and
it's bad for America, it's bad for the world that
we don't have functioning journalism. And I describe all of
this in the book, but I also describe how because
(37:10):
journalism corporate media is broken, it's part of what makes
the radical Democrats so extreme, why they vote for such
ridiculous policy positions that are so out of the mainstream
because they know they will never ever ever get asked
about it by reporters back home. They will never have
to defend it, and so it's radicalized the Democrat Party
(37:30):
in Washington.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Senat.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
There's another part of your book that I want to
mention real quick, and it's a trend.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Whether it's you talking about big tech or the.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Schools or Marxism in Washington. The list goes on on,
especially when you have a lot talking here about science
and COVID. That chapter is probably my favorite. As I
was reading it today, I was marking it out. But
there's a trend in this book and I love this.
This may be my favorite part. Is you at each
(38:02):
in each chapter, in essence, ask how do you fight back?
Speaker 1 (38:06):
How to reclaim control? How do we win?
Speaker 2 (38:09):
It's not just a book of you ranting about issues,
but you actually lay out how we can succeed and
get our and win on our side of the argument.
And that's what empowers the reader to not just read
a book, but to take something from it.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
And I love that well. It is critically important. And
there are all sorts of elements of how we fight
back and win. One of it is transparency and sunshine.
The views of the radical left are wildly unpopular. Look,
no rational person supports abolishing the police. That's a nutty position.
(38:45):
No rational person supports open borders and the chaos at
our southern border. No rational person supports medically and surgically
sterilizing and castrating eight year old children. No rational person
is befuddled by the question what is a woman? All
of those are ninety ten issues, and the radical Left
(39:08):
is on the extreme minority position on every one of them.
It's why they rely on force rather than persuasion, because
their positions are out there and so often shining a
light is really, really potent. And I'm gonna give it
an example. I'm gonna give an example from Verdict. So
(39:30):
we had a podcast several weeks ago that was entitled
black Lives Matter is Hamas, and we walk through how
black lives matter as a statement is a truism. It's
absolutely true, yes, period the end. However, Black Lives Matter,
the organization Black Lives Matter, Inc. Is a very different thing.
(39:51):
It is found founded by a vowed Marxists who are
trained Marxists. They're trained and fomenting communist rev that's their
own self description, not our language, their language. They are
vicious racists and they are deeply, deeply antisemitic. They hate Israel. Indeed,
one of the co founders of Black Lives Matter has
(40:14):
called since nineteen ninety five for the destruction of the
state of Israel. And on our podcast, we laid out
all of that evidence, and then we named names of
all of the or number of the giant corporations who
had given millions of dollars to Black Lives Matter, and
then included Amazon and Apple and Coca Cola, and we said, listen,
do these companies do you support vicious racism, Do you
(40:38):
support vicious anti Semitism? Do you support demanding the destruction
of the state of Israel? Do you support these avowed
Marxists because you gave money to them? That podcast came out,
I believe, October eighteenth. The next day, Coca Cola went
online and they scrubbed their website to remove every reference
(41:04):
to the five hundred thousand dollars that they had given
to Black Lives Matter. And it was a direct result
of this Verdict podcast. We put the podcast out and
almost immediately they erased it. Now they thought they could
do it quietly they could just hide and evade responsibility.
I'm calling them out. I'm calling them out, and I'm
shining a light, and I'm saying, look, have you apologized
to the American people for why you were funding a
(41:26):
viciously racist and anti Semitic organization And it wasn't a secret,
they were open about it. Then you just didn't care
because your woke politics mattered more to you than doing
the right thing. And that's one of the strategies that
is inherent in this book is shining the light and
calling them out. And that's how you win victories. In
chapter after chapter, I talk about winning victories. Whether it's
(41:48):
winning school board seats back, or flipping Virginia Red as
parents got furious, or whether it's Elon Musk buying Twitter.
All of these are strategies where we take these institutions back.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
It's an incredible book, Center and congratulations on it. It's
one that I hope everybody listening will go grab. You
can go to Amazon right now, you can order it.
It's a fabulous Christmas gift. It is three hundred and
fifty six pages from beginning to end. One of the
chapters that you've got to read. If you get it,
(42:23):
make sure you read the big text chapter and also science.
The science chapter to me was one that as I
was reading it centator. I know you well enough to
know when you really get passionate about something.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
You were really really passionate.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
When writing that chapter on science and what has happened
and how science has just been totally corrupted, whether it's
by Fauci or others that are pushing agendas through science.
And those are two chapters I just want to mark
for people. Make sure you take a look at those
as well. Grab the book Unwoke How to defeed a
(43:00):
Cultural Marxism in America. You can get on Amazon. Order
it now wherever you get your books. Don't forget hit
that follow subscribe or auto download button wherever you're listening
to this podcast. We do this podcast Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays.
We also have a recap pod on Saturday mornings. That
is some of the things deeper in each podcast maybe
(43:22):
you miss because of time restraint, so make sure you
check that out as well. And on those in between days,
I'd love for you to join me as I'll keep
you update on breaking news on my podcast, The Ben
Ferguson podcasts as well on those in between days, so
make sure you download that as well in the center,
and I will see you back here in a couple
of days.
Host
Ben Ferguson
Popular Podcasts
Cold Case Files: Miami
Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides. Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.