September 5, 2025 • 34 mins
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Debate on the Source of Rights
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The episode opens with criticism of Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, who argued in a Senate hearing that constitutional rights come from the government rather than from God.
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Cruz frames this as a radical departure from America’s founding principles, citing the Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson’s writings.
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The discussion emphasizes that if rights come from government, they can be taken away, whereas God-given rights are “unalienable.”
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Religion and the Democratic Party
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Cruz and Ferguson argue that the Democratic Party is increasingly hostile toward people of faith (Christian, Jewish, Catholic).
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They highlight responses from religious leaders, including Bishop Robert Barron, who strongly opposed Kaine’s remarks and defended the idea that rights come from God.
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Border Security and the Cartels
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The podcast shifts to the issue of border security and drug cartels, especially the Sinaloa cartel.
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They cite a DEA operation in New England that arrested 171 cartel members in one week, seizing fentanyl and counterfeit pills.
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Cruz and Ferguson warn about the danger of fentanyl-laced pills, especially for young people, describing it as a national epidemic and the leading cause of death among Americans aged 18–45.
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U.S. Government Action Against Cartels
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They discuss U.S. military and DEA efforts to combat cartels, including operations in Mexico, Venezuela, and the Caribbean.
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Cruz praises the government’s recent designation of cartels as terrorist organizations and the deployment of military assets to fight drug trafficking.
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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 we've got a packed show for you today. And
also I want to remind you that this show we
do as a podcast three days a week, So make
sure that you download Vertic with Ted Cruz wherever you
get your podcasts so you don't miss a single episode.
The Democratic Party senator is really starting to show their
(00:23):
true colors in a proud way. They're disdain for American values,
American families, and for God is on full display now.
Now we started to witness some of this when they
were going after the Jewish people with the war when
Israel was attacked. But Tim Kaine testifies that the constitutional
(00:44):
rights come from the government. Let me say that again,
come from the government, not from God. You had a
very interesting interaction with him, and this is something that
should terrify all Americans because now, wow, this is where
the Democratic Party truly is to stain for God and family.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Well, every day the Democrat Party gets more and more radical.
They have now decided that God has no place in
our nation, and God has no place in our founding documents,
and that our rights critically do not come from God,
this is truly an extreme position. Tim Kaine and I
went back and forth this week in the United States
Senate on the foundations of our nation. We're going to
(01:28):
get into that. We're also going to get into the
threat that Joe Biden and the Democrats open borders posed
to you. Even if you don't live in a border state,
you may think you live far far away from the border. Well,
four years of open borders has endangered every community, every
family up in New England. Just this week, one hundred
(01:50):
and seventy one Cineloda cartel members were arrested. New England
is nowhere near the southern border, and yet the Mexican
drug cartels have penetrated communities all across the country. We're
going to break that down as well.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, it's really important, and this is a big defining
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All right, So let's start with this. I actually am
shocked by this senator when I saw this come out,
I'm like, did did did? Did Tim Kaine really say
that the constitutional rights come from government, not God. And
(04:38):
that is exactly what he said. It wasn't a joke
on the internet.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah, And let me set the stage. This was a
Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing this week, and it was
a confirmation hearing for a number of nominees. And the
way hearings work in the Senate is often you have
multiple hearings simultaneously, and so that day I had a
Senate Foreign Relations hearing, I had a Commerce Committee hearing
that I was chairing and conducting, and then I also
(05:03):
had a Judiciary Committee hearing, and so you have to
go from hearing to hearing, so you're walking in and
out of each of the hearings, trying to make it
to all of them. And so I was just walking
into the Foreign Relations Committee hearing and Tim Kaine was
happened to be questioning and speaking, and I was getting
ready to speak myself. So I sat down and one
(05:23):
of the Trump Department nomine Trump administration nominees to the
State Department had included in his testimony the observation that
our rights come from God and not from government. And
Tim Kaine took offense to this, and he just teed
off on it, and I sat there dumbfounded listening to him,
and then I responded, So I'm going to play first
(05:46):
what Tim Kaine said, and then I'm going to play
my response that that I said afterwards. Here, give a listen.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
The notion that rights don't come from laws and don't
come from the government, but come from the creator. That's
what the Iranian government believes. It's a theocratic regime that
bases its rule on Shiah law and target soonies behinds, Jews, Christians,
and other religious minorities. And they do it because they
(06:14):
believe that they understand what natural rights are from their creator.
So the statement that our rights do not come from
our laws or our governments is extremely troubling. I think
the motto over the Supreme Court is equal justice under law.
The oath that you and I take pledged to support
and defend the Constitution of the United States, not arbitrarily
(06:36):
defined natural rights.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Mister Barnes, I'd actually like to go back to the
exchange you had with Senator Kane, and I wish Senator
Kane was still here. Senator Kane and I were elected
together thirteen years ago. He is a friend I would
actually encourage observers to go back and listen to what
Senator Kine said, because I have to say it I
(07:02):
think was disturbing and showed much of where today's Democrat
Party has gone wrong. So Senator Kine said in this
hearing that he founded a radical and dangerous notion that
you would say our rights came from God and not
from government. I've just walked into the hearing as he
(07:22):
was saying that, and I almost fell out of my
chair because that radical and dangerous notion, in his words,
is literally the founding principle upon which the United States
of America was created. And if you do not believe me,
and you made reference to this, mister Barnes, then you
can believe perhaps the most prominent Virginian to ever serve,
(07:48):
Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in the Declaration of Independence, we
hold these truths to be self evident, that all men
are created equal, and that they are endowed by by
their creator, not by government, not by the Democratic National Committee,
but by God, with certain unalienable rights, that among these
(08:10):
are life, liberty in the pursuit of happiness. I have
to say, it is stunning to me that the principle
that God has given us natural rights is now deemed
by Democrats some radical and dangerous notion. Mister Jefferson was
right when he wrote those words. Government exists to protect
(08:30):
those rights, but slavery was not okay when US law
allowed it. It was wrong. Then, it is wrong now
it is always wrong.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
So let's break this down. This seems to be where
the Democratic Party, not where it's going. This is where
it is. It's core right now.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yeah, No, that's exactly right. Tim Kaine is not some
fringe character in the Democrat Party. Tim Kaine, as you know,
was Hillary Clinton's vice president nominee. He came very close
to being vice president of the United States. Tim Kane
has been in the Senate for thirteen years. He was
elected to the Senate at the same time I was.
Tim is not a dumb man. He's very smart. He's
(09:12):
a lawyer. He's a serious guy. He's a careful thinker.
He knows what's in the Declaration of Independence. He just
doesn't agree with it. And what troubled me about this,
I actually had an entirely different line of questioning that
I was planning to get into at the hearing, and
I just walked in and heard him saying this, and
what troubled me was just how casually, how casually he said, Look,
(09:34):
the basic ideas that were the foundation of America. Those
ideas are radical, they're extreme. They are the ideas of Iran.
That's what he argued, that if you believe our rights
come from God, you are a theocratic mala in Iran.
I want to go back. I want to read the
first paragraph and a half of the Declaration of Independence.
(09:56):
You know, next summer, next July fourth, will be the
two of and fiftieth anniversary of the United States. So
it was two hundred and fifty years ago next summer
that the Declaration was signed on July fourth, seventeen seventy six.
Here's how it begins, in Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen
United States of America. When in the course of human events,
(10:17):
it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political
bands which have connected them with another, and to assume
among the powers of the earth the separate and equal
station to which the laws of nature and Nature's God
entitle them. A decent respect of the opinions of mankind
(10:38):
requires that they should declare the clauses causes which impel
them to the separation. We hold these truths to be
self evident, that all men are created equal, and that
they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights,
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happening.
(11:00):
And then I want you to listen to the next sentence,
because it really explains why Tim Kaine is fundamentally wrong
in the relationship between rights that come from God and
the role of government. That to secure these rights, governments
are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the
(11:22):
consent of the government. That whenever any form of government
becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of
the people to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form as to them shall
(11:44):
seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness. Now,
that's the right relationship, which is that government is not
the source of the rights. God is the source of
the rights. It is God who has given you and
me and everyone listening to this a right to life.
It is God who has given us a right to liberty.
It is God who has given us a right to
(12:05):
the pursuit of happiness. Historically, and if you go back
to some of the great English thinkers, people like John Locke,
the three standard natural rights that people were discussed having
were life, liberty, and property. And Jefferson did not include
property in the Declaration because he did not want to
get into the debate on slavery, and so in place
(12:26):
of property he put in pursuit of happiness. Pursuit of
happiness in many ways is just an aspect of liberty.
That is part of liberty is the pursuit of happiness.
But the relationship that is important. And every one of
our founding fathers knew this. Thomas Jefferson knew this. George
Washington knew this, James Madison knew this. Ben Franklin knew this.
(12:47):
Are they understood? Look, God has given us these rights.
Now Tim is saying no, No, it's government who gives
us as rights. That's backwards, as the Declaration says that too.
So to cure these rights, governments are instituted among men.
That means the purpose of government is to secure to
(13:07):
protect those rights. Do you need government to protect our rights? Absolutely?
And actually the point I made in the debate with
Tim Kaine, listen slavery was wrong. It was immoral, even
for the hundred plus years that it was legal here.
The fact that our laws allowed slavery didn't make it
suddenly moral and just and okay. It was a violation
(13:29):
of human rights. It was a violation of human rights.
As the Declaration promised all men are created equal. When
you had African Americans that could be held as slaves,
our country was not living up to that promise. And
so we fought a bloody civil war. Six hundred thousand
Americans died to end the scourge of slavery. And then
(13:51):
we amended the Constitution to explicitly end slavery. But slavery
was not magically okay before the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments.
And that's a point that Tim Kaine is really representing
well today's Democrat Party, because the entire party rejects that.
(14:11):
And I'll tell you why they reject that, because if
rights don't come from God, if they come from government,
then government can take them away. The Declaration refers to
these rights as unalienable. Unalienable means they can't be taken away.
The Democrats believe your rights are entirely alienable. That the
only God is government, and government can give, government can
(14:33):
take away. That's the fundamental debate, and it's a debate
right at the heart I think of where today's Democrat
Party has gone off the rails.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, final question on this, because I do believe we're
also witnessing a public disdain for people of faith coming
from the Democratic Party. We've seen the undertones of that,
but now it just seems to be at the forefront
that it's almost like they mock and roll their eyes
at people of faith. We I've seen this, certainly with
(15:01):
the debates and the conversations over people that are Jewish
and people of faith in Israel, and now this has
become mainstream.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
How dangerous is that? Look at it?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
It is very dangerous. The Democrat Party position often seems
to be people of faith need not apply. If you're
a Christian, the Democrats don't want you. If you're Jewish,
the Democrats don't want you. If you're Catholic. The Democrats
don't want you. If you believe your faith, if you
worship you, if you are faithful, and it matters to
(15:34):
you that the Democrats have said that is not welcome,
and you know it wasn't too long ago when there
was a real bipartisan commitment to religious liberty. You know,
you go back to the nineteen nineties, nineteen ninety three,
the Religious Freedom Restoration Act past Congress, protecting the religious
liberty of every American.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Senata.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
I want to ask you one other question about this
bigger issue with Tim Kaine. There have been some religious leaders,
thank goodness, that have actually stood up to him. Some
of the headlines the Federals had one that said Tim
kin thinks you're a terrorist if you believe rights come
from God. The Christian Post that Ted Cruz torches Tim
Kane for describing God given rights as very, very troubling.
(16:17):
And there's some religious leaders that have also gotten into
talk about this as well. That's a good sign.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah. One of the most thoughtful responses to what Tim
Kaine said came from Bishop Robert Baron, who is the
bishop of the Diocese of Wenona Rochester in Minnesota. And
I want you to listen to what the bishop had
to say, because I think this is very thoughtful and accurate.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
Everybody's Bishop Baron. I just feel obligated to speak out
against something that I came across today and I just
found it some outrageous and really so dangerous to our democracy.
It was Senator Tim Kaine at a I think it
was a Senate confirmation hearing, and he was actively contesting
the view that our rights come from God and not
(16:59):
from the government. And he said, this is very dangerous
if you claim that our rights don't come from laws
and from government. But what struck me was he's a
senator from Virginia. Virginia was a state of Thomas Jefferson
and James Madison, both of whom took it as fundamental
to our democracy that our rights don't come from the government,
(17:19):
they come from God. So we know the familiar words
of Jefferson right that we are created equal, created by God.
We're endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. Among
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You
see so basic that Jefferson was the fact that rights
(17:40):
come first. They're not invented by the government. Rather government exists.
And remember this language from the prologue of the Declaration
to secure these rights doesn't invent them, doesn't ground them,
It secures them. It recognizes them as objectively coming from God.
And then its whole purpose is to secure them, to
(18:01):
serve them. Think two of that familiar word from Jefferson, inalienable.
These rights are inalienable. Now why because they come not
from the government but from God. If the government creates
our rights, it can take them away. If the government
is responsible for our rights, well, then it can change them.
(18:21):
You think this never happens. You don't know much about
the history of the twentieth century. Look at the great
totalitarian systems of the twentieth century that followed from the
denial of God and denial of rights coming from God,
and so those rights became eminently alienable whenever it served
the purposes of the government. It just strikes me as
extraordinary that a major American politician wouldn't understand this. We
(18:46):
the elemental part of our system. God help us. I
mean that literally, God help us. If we say our
rights are coming to us from the government that gives
the government indeed, God like power, we are And this
is not pious boilerplate, it's basic democracy. We are a
nation under God, Lincoln says the Gettysburg addressed that this
(19:09):
nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom. Again,
that's not just pious decoration. That's a very important political statement.
We are a government that recognizes the objective rights that
come from outside of government. Government exists to serve them
and to secure them. Well, the fact that this rhetoric
and it's popped up elsewhere too in recent years I
(19:32):
spoke out against it a little while ago, is troubling
because it's a fruit I would say, of the increasing
marginalization and privatization of religion, if not outright hostility to it.
But see, everybody, religion is elemental, it's basic to our democracy.
So I'm speaking out against this statement I think is
really dangerous, both as a Catholic bishop and as a
(19:55):
proud American who's very happy to follow Thomas Jefferson.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I love what you said there as American as well,
Like you need to understand this is how our country
was founded. Let's not rewrite history and act like this
isn't what we are.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
I think that's exactly right, and this is something that
everyone to come together and say, Look, these are the
basic principles America was founded upon, and particularly as we
move into next year celebrating our nation's two hundred and
fiftieth anniversary, it's important that people understand them. And I
wish that the Democrat Party would get back to them
(20:32):
because the idea, you know, you look at the hat
that warned by Trump supporters, make America great again. I
got to say it infuriates so many Democrats, the idea
that America was ever great. I mean, I mean they're
offended by that. And this is why America was great,
because we were founded on principles that are true, that
(20:55):
our rights are derived from our creator, that our government
exists to protect those fundamental rights.
Speaker 6 (21:02):
That is.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
The genius idea right at the beginning of the American
experiment that put us on this journey to be the
shining city on hill that we are.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, great point.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
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.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
It's why I love doing this show with you.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
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. They've
(21:45):
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 probably it's not near as bad as like where
we are in Houston at the moment. Well, guess what
you'd be wrong. AE hundred and seventy one Cineloa cartel
(22:10):
members were arrested in New England. The DEA has now announced.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
That was in a single week. In a single week,
one hundred and seventy one Cineloa 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 the Cineloa
(22:37):
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 2 (22:54):
Yeah, and by the way, ask yourself this question, America,
why did you not hear about this on the national
news This is Boston and twenty five news covering it there.
Speaker 7 (23:02):
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 about their recent operation. He says the vast Sineloa
(23:23):
network has deep roots in New England.
Speaker 8 (23:25):
There are public Enemy number one.
Speaker 7 (23:27):
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
(23:48):
sixty four.
Speaker 6 (23:49):
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 8 (23:58):
Sure so, 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 6 (24:08):
What's their number one product they push? Is it the pills?
Speaker 8 (24:11):
So we see fetanyl powder, and we see counterfeit pills,
pills that are made to look like legitimate pills, notably
M thirty s M.
Speaker 7 (24:19):
Thirty pills are counterfeit oxy codone. But FOURGET says they're
also increasingly seeing counterfeit stimulant pills made to look like
Adderall FOURGE 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 even displaying
(24:39):
the Sinaloa cartel stamp.
Speaker 8 (24:41):
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 have
those conversations with each other, have them with your kids.
Speaker 7 (24:54):
Forge says. The cartel targets unsuspecting young people online through
common social media, as many have no idea they're buying
potentially deadly counterfeit pills. One hundred and seventy one arrests
throughout New England.
Speaker 6 (25:08):
Does that make a dent.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Where the DEA.
Speaker 8 (25:10):
We're not going after low level retail drug traffickers. We
are going after drug trafficking organizations, the networks.
Speaker 6 (25:17):
How do you disrupt that something that is so large,
so vast, and seemingly so powerful.
Speaker 8 (25:23):
Right, it's an ongoing battle, one that we cannot we
can't afford to give up. Right, it's the Cinelo cartel
is a threat to public safety, our public health, and
our national security as a country.
Speaker 7 (25:35):
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.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Senator, 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 (26:00):
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
(26:23):
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 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
(26:43):
some marijuana, but 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 it's an adderall, it's
it's it's it's a riddle, and it's something they think
is fairly innocuous. And the kid takes one pill, and
(27:05):
it is a counterfeit pill that 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 overdoses. Seventy percent of
those were fentanyl, and overdose is the wrong word for
those those are poisonings, because you know, you think of
(27:27):
an overdose. If you have a junkie on the street
who's shooting not 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 fourteen year old
(27:50):
that ends that child's life, and that is the result.
Open borders are endangering our families and in a very
fundamental way.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
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. Their yearly supply. They're eating through it in
(28:19):
two to three months into the year, and they're having
to go to their city council and their board of
aldermen and 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 this has become. And again it's the
number one killer of young people in this country. That
(28:41):
is something that needs to be said over and over
again and it's something that we must stop well.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
And police officers and first responders that 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 is truly unprecedented. And you know, I'll say,
I want to share an illustration that a DA agent
(29:06):
told 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 all the sweetened low onto the table,
(29:28):
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
of sweet and loath that are on your finger. And
he said, that is enough fentanyl to kill you. And
(29:49):
it's a 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. I and if
you are a parent, if you are a grandparent, have
this conversation with your kids or your grandkids, because look,
hopefully your kids will not make catastrophically wrong decisions, but
(30:13):
in this circumstance, one small decision that seems easy. Hey,
it's a friend of theirs that has 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
their kids will make one wrong choice and it will
(30:35):
cost them their entire life.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah, it really is scary, There's no doubt about it.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
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 (30:57):
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
(31:18):
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
(31:38):
our podcast last week, I me 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.
(31:59):
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
(32:23):
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 at a maximum security prison because of
the multiple murders he committed. That is not in Columbia,
(32:45):
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
great 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.
(33:07):
That's an incredible success and it's incredibly important.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yeah, you're absolutely right about that.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
And also Reuters is now reporting and this is just
showing I think the president's commitment to fighting these narco
terras Routers 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 thirty five jets are being dispatched
(33:36):
also to Puerto Rico to support the drug war there.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
And this is on top of it.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
And Ben Ben, 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 to Ragua, but I went and
(34:02):
toured the ship, met many of the sailors on board.
We are moving major assets to take on the cartels
and to defeat the cartels.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
We're going to keep covering this so now with Verdict
with Ted Cruz wherever you get your podcasts, don't miss
a single episode and the Senate and I will see
you back here on this radio station next week
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you,
and we've got a packed show for you today. And
also I want to remind you that this show we
do as a podcast three days a week, So make
sure that you download Vertic with Ted Cruz wherever you
get your podcasts so you don't miss a single episode.
The Democratic Party senator is really starting to show their
(00:23):
true colors in a proud way. They're disdain for American values,
American families, and for God is on full display now.
Now we started to witness some of this when they
were going after the Jewish people with the war when
Israel was attacked. But Tim Kaine testifies that the constitutional
(00:44):
rights come from the government. Let me say that again,
come from the government, not from God. You had a
very interesting interaction with him, and this is something that
should terrify all Americans because now, wow, this is where
the Democratic Party truly is to stain for God and family.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Well, every day the Democrat Party gets more and more radical.
They have now decided that God has no place in
our nation, and God has no place in our founding documents,
and that our rights critically do not come from God,
this is truly an extreme position. Tim Kaine and I
went back and forth this week in the United States
Senate on the foundations of our nation. We're going to
(01:28):
get into that. We're also going to get into the
threat that Joe Biden and the Democrats open borders posed
to you. Even if you don't live in a border state,
you may think you live far far away from the border. Well,
four years of open borders has endangered every community, every
family up in New England. Just this week, one hundred
(01:50):
and seventy one Cineloda cartel members were arrested. New England
is nowhere near the southern border, and yet the Mexican
drug cartels have penetrated communities all across the country. We're
going to break that down as well.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, it's really important, and this is a big defining
moment I think in this country, especially with the Democratic Party,
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All right, So let's start with this. I actually am
shocked by this senator when I saw this come out,
I'm like, did did did? Did Tim Kaine really say
that the constitutional rights come from government, not God. And
(04:38):
that is exactly what he said. It wasn't a joke
on the internet.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah, And let me set the stage. This was a
Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing this week, and it was
a confirmation hearing for a number of nominees. And the
way hearings work in the Senate is often you have
multiple hearings simultaneously, and so that day I had a
Senate Foreign Relations hearing, I had a Commerce Committee hearing
that I was chairing and conducting, and then I also
(05:03):
had a Judiciary Committee hearing, and so you have to
go from hearing to hearing, so you're walking in and
out of each of the hearings, trying to make it
to all of them. And so I was just walking
into the Foreign Relations Committee hearing and Tim Kaine was
happened to be questioning and speaking, and I was getting
ready to speak myself. So I sat down and one
(05:23):
of the Trump Department nomine Trump administration nominees to the
State Department had included in his testimony the observation that
our rights come from God and not from government. And
Tim Kaine took offense to this, and he just teed
off on it, and I sat there dumbfounded listening to him,
and then I responded, So I'm going to play first
(05:46):
what Tim Kaine said, and then I'm going to play
my response that that I said afterwards. Here, give a listen.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
The notion that rights don't come from laws and don't
come from the government, but come from the creator. That's
what the Iranian government believes. It's a theocratic regime that
bases its rule on Shiah law and target soonies behinds, Jews, Christians,
and other religious minorities. And they do it because they
(06:14):
believe that they understand what natural rights are from their creator.
So the statement that our rights do not come from
our laws or our governments is extremely troubling. I think
the motto over the Supreme Court is equal justice under law.
The oath that you and I take pledged to support
and defend the Constitution of the United States, not arbitrarily
(06:36):
defined natural rights.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Mister Barnes, I'd actually like to go back to the
exchange you had with Senator Kane, and I wish Senator
Kane was still here. Senator Kane and I were elected
together thirteen years ago. He is a friend I would
actually encourage observers to go back and listen to what
Senator Kine said, because I have to say it I
(07:02):
think was disturbing and showed much of where today's Democrat
Party has gone wrong. So Senator Kine said in this
hearing that he founded a radical and dangerous notion that
you would say our rights came from God and not
from government. I've just walked into the hearing as he
(07:22):
was saying that, and I almost fell out of my
chair because that radical and dangerous notion, in his words,
is literally the founding principle upon which the United States
of America was created. And if you do not believe me,
and you made reference to this, mister Barnes, then you
can believe perhaps the most prominent Virginian to ever serve,
(07:48):
Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in the Declaration of Independence, we
hold these truths to be self evident, that all men
are created equal, and that they are endowed by by
their creator, not by government, not by the Democratic National Committee,
but by God, with certain unalienable rights, that among these
(08:10):
are life, liberty in the pursuit of happiness. I have
to say, it is stunning to me that the principle
that God has given us natural rights is now deemed
by Democrats some radical and dangerous notion. Mister Jefferson was
right when he wrote those words. Government exists to protect
(08:30):
those rights, but slavery was not okay when US law
allowed it. It was wrong. Then, it is wrong now
it is always wrong.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
So let's break this down. This seems to be where
the Democratic Party, not where it's going. This is where
it is. It's core right now.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yeah, No, that's exactly right. Tim Kaine is not some
fringe character in the Democrat Party. Tim Kaine, as you know,
was Hillary Clinton's vice president nominee. He came very close
to being vice president of the United States. Tim Kane
has been in the Senate for thirteen years. He was
elected to the Senate at the same time I was.
Tim is not a dumb man. He's very smart. He's
(09:12):
a lawyer. He's a serious guy. He's a careful thinker.
He knows what's in the Declaration of Independence. He just
doesn't agree with it. And what troubled me about this,
I actually had an entirely different line of questioning that
I was planning to get into at the hearing, and
I just walked in and heard him saying this, and
what troubled me was just how casually, how casually he said, Look,
(09:34):
the basic ideas that were the foundation of America. Those
ideas are radical, they're extreme. They are the ideas of Iran.
That's what he argued, that if you believe our rights
come from God, you are a theocratic mala in Iran.
I want to go back. I want to read the
first paragraph and a half of the Declaration of Independence.
(09:56):
You know, next summer, next July fourth, will be the
two of and fiftieth anniversary of the United States. So
it was two hundred and fifty years ago next summer
that the Declaration was signed on July fourth, seventeen seventy six.
Here's how it begins, in Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen
United States of America. When in the course of human events,
(10:17):
it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political
bands which have connected them with another, and to assume
among the powers of the earth the separate and equal
station to which the laws of nature and Nature's God
entitle them. A decent respect of the opinions of mankind
(10:38):
requires that they should declare the clauses causes which impel
them to the separation. We hold these truths to be
self evident, that all men are created equal, and that
they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights,
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happening.
(11:00):
And then I want you to listen to the next sentence,
because it really explains why Tim Kaine is fundamentally wrong
in the relationship between rights that come from God and
the role of government. That to secure these rights, governments
are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the
(11:22):
consent of the government. That whenever any form of government
becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of
the people to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form as to them shall
(11:44):
seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness. Now,
that's the right relationship, which is that government is not
the source of the rights. God is the source of
the rights. It is God who has given you and
me and everyone listening to this a right to life.
It is God who has given us a right to liberty.
It is God who has given us a right to
(12:05):
the pursuit of happiness. Historically, and if you go back
to some of the great English thinkers, people like John Locke,
the three standard natural rights that people were discussed having
were life, liberty, and property. And Jefferson did not include
property in the Declaration because he did not want to
get into the debate on slavery, and so in place
(12:26):
of property he put in pursuit of happiness. Pursuit of
happiness in many ways is just an aspect of liberty.
That is part of liberty is the pursuit of happiness.
But the relationship that is important. And every one of
our founding fathers knew this. Thomas Jefferson knew this. George
Washington knew this, James Madison knew this. Ben Franklin knew this.
(12:47):
Are they understood? Look, God has given us these rights.
Now Tim is saying no, No, it's government who gives
us as rights. That's backwards, as the Declaration says that too.
So to cure these rights, governments are instituted among men.
That means the purpose of government is to secure to
(13:07):
protect those rights. Do you need government to protect our rights? Absolutely?
And actually the point I made in the debate with
Tim Kaine, listen slavery was wrong. It was immoral, even
for the hundred plus years that it was legal here.
The fact that our laws allowed slavery didn't make it
suddenly moral and just and okay. It was a violation
(13:29):
of human rights. It was a violation of human rights.
As the Declaration promised all men are created equal. When
you had African Americans that could be held as slaves,
our country was not living up to that promise. And
so we fought a bloody civil war. Six hundred thousand
Americans died to end the scourge of slavery. And then
(13:51):
we amended the Constitution to explicitly end slavery. But slavery
was not magically okay before the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments.
And that's a point that Tim Kaine is really representing
well today's Democrat Party, because the entire party rejects that.
(14:11):
And I'll tell you why they reject that, because if
rights don't come from God, if they come from government,
then government can take them away. The Declaration refers to
these rights as unalienable. Unalienable means they can't be taken away.
The Democrats believe your rights are entirely alienable. That the
only God is government, and government can give, government can
(14:33):
take away. That's the fundamental debate, and it's a debate
right at the heart I think of where today's Democrat
Party has gone off the rails.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, final question on this, because I do believe we're
also witnessing a public disdain for people of faith coming
from the Democratic Party. We've seen the undertones of that,
but now it just seems to be at the forefront
that it's almost like they mock and roll their eyes
at people of faith. We I've seen this, certainly with
(15:01):
the debates and the conversations over people that are Jewish
and people of faith in Israel, and now this has
become mainstream.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
How dangerous is that? Look at it?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
It is very dangerous. The Democrat Party position often seems
to be people of faith need not apply. If you're
a Christian, the Democrats don't want you. If you're Jewish,
the Democrats don't want you. If you're Catholic. The Democrats
don't want you. If you believe your faith, if you
worship you, if you are faithful, and it matters to
(15:34):
you that the Democrats have said that is not welcome,
and you know it wasn't too long ago when there
was a real bipartisan commitment to religious liberty. You know,
you go back to the nineteen nineties, nineteen ninety three,
the Religious Freedom Restoration Act past Congress, protecting the religious
liberty of every American.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Senata.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
I want to ask you one other question about this
bigger issue with Tim Kaine. There have been some religious leaders,
thank goodness, that have actually stood up to him. Some
of the headlines the Federals had one that said Tim
kin thinks you're a terrorist if you believe rights come
from God. The Christian Post that Ted Cruz torches Tim
Kane for describing God given rights as very, very troubling.
(16:17):
And there's some religious leaders that have also gotten into
talk about this as well. That's a good sign.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah. One of the most thoughtful responses to what Tim
Kaine said came from Bishop Robert Baron, who is the
bishop of the Diocese of Wenona Rochester in Minnesota. And
I want you to listen to what the bishop had
to say, because I think this is very thoughtful and accurate.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
Everybody's Bishop Baron. I just feel obligated to speak out
against something that I came across today and I just
found it some outrageous and really so dangerous to our democracy.
It was Senator Tim Kaine at a I think it
was a Senate confirmation hearing, and he was actively contesting
the view that our rights come from God and not
(16:59):
from the government. And he said, this is very dangerous
if you claim that our rights don't come from laws
and from government. But what struck me was he's a
senator from Virginia. Virginia was a state of Thomas Jefferson
and James Madison, both of whom took it as fundamental
to our democracy that our rights don't come from the government,
(17:19):
they come from God. So we know the familiar words
of Jefferson right that we are created equal, created by God.
We're endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. Among
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You
see so basic that Jefferson was the fact that rights
(17:40):
come first. They're not invented by the government. Rather government exists.
And remember this language from the prologue of the Declaration
to secure these rights doesn't invent them, doesn't ground them,
It secures them. It recognizes them as objectively coming from God.
And then its whole purpose is to secure them, to
(18:01):
serve them. Think two of that familiar word from Jefferson, inalienable.
These rights are inalienable. Now why because they come not
from the government but from God. If the government creates
our rights, it can take them away. If the government
is responsible for our rights, well, then it can change them.
(18:21):
You think this never happens. You don't know much about
the history of the twentieth century. Look at the great
totalitarian systems of the twentieth century that followed from the
denial of God and denial of rights coming from God,
and so those rights became eminently alienable whenever it served
the purposes of the government. It just strikes me as
extraordinary that a major American politician wouldn't understand this. We
(18:46):
the elemental part of our system. God help us. I
mean that literally, God help us. If we say our
rights are coming to us from the government that gives
the government indeed, God like power, we are And this
is not pious boilerplate, it's basic democracy. We are a
nation under God, Lincoln says the Gettysburg addressed that this
(19:09):
nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom. Again,
that's not just pious decoration. That's a very important political statement.
We are a government that recognizes the objective rights that
come from outside of government. Government exists to serve them
and to secure them. Well, the fact that this rhetoric
and it's popped up elsewhere too in recent years I
(19:32):
spoke out against it a little while ago, is troubling
because it's a fruit I would say, of the increasing
marginalization and privatization of religion, if not outright hostility to it.
But see, everybody, religion is elemental, it's basic to our democracy.
So I'm speaking out against this statement I think is
really dangerous, both as a Catholic bishop and as a
(19:55):
proud American who's very happy to follow Thomas Jefferson.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I love what you said there as American as well,
Like you need to understand this is how our country
was founded. Let's not rewrite history and act like this
isn't what we are.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
I think that's exactly right, and this is something that
everyone to come together and say, Look, these are the
basic principles America was founded upon, and particularly as we
move into next year celebrating our nation's two hundred and
fiftieth anniversary, it's important that people understand them. And I
wish that the Democrat Party would get back to them
(20:32):
because the idea, you know, you look at the hat
that warned by Trump supporters, make America great again. I
got to say it infuriates so many Democrats, the idea
that America was ever great. I mean, I mean they're
offended by that. And this is why America was great,
because we were founded on principles that are true, that
(20:55):
our rights are derived from our creator, that our government
exists to protect those fundamental rights.
Speaker 6 (21:02):
That is.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
The genius idea right at the beginning of the American
experiment that put us on this journey to be the
shining city on hill that we are.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Yeah, great point.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
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.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
It's why I love doing this show with you.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
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. They've
(21:45):
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 probably it's not near as bad as like where
we are in Houston at the moment. Well, guess what
you'd be wrong. AE hundred and seventy one Cineloa cartel
(22:10):
members were arrested in New England. The DEA has now announced.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
That was in a single week. In a single week,
one hundred and seventy one Cineloa 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 the Cineloa
(22:37):
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 2 (22:54):
Yeah, and by the way, ask yourself this question, America,
why did you not hear about this on the national
news This is Boston and twenty five news covering it there.
Speaker 7 (23:02):
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 about their recent operation. He says the vast Sineloa
(23:23):
network has deep roots in New England.
Speaker 8 (23:25):
There are public Enemy number one.
Speaker 7 (23:27):
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
(23:48):
sixty four.
Speaker 6 (23:49):
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 8 (23:58):
Sure so, 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 6 (24:08):
What's their number one product they push? Is it the pills?
Speaker 8 (24:11):
So we see fetanyl powder, and we see counterfeit pills,
pills that are made to look like legitimate pills, notably
M thirty s M.
Speaker 7 (24:19):
Thirty pills are counterfeit oxy codone. But FOURGET says they're
also increasingly seeing counterfeit stimulant pills made to look like
Adderall FOURGE 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 even displaying
(24:39):
the Sinaloa cartel stamp.
Speaker 8 (24:41):
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 have
those conversations with each other, have them with your kids.
Speaker 7 (24:54):
Forge says. The cartel targets unsuspecting young people online through
common social media, as many have no idea they're buying
potentially deadly counterfeit pills. One hundred and seventy one arrests
throughout New England.
Speaker 6 (25:08):
Does that make a dent.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Where the DEA.
Speaker 8 (25:10):
We're not going after low level retail drug traffickers. We
are going after drug trafficking organizations, the networks.
Speaker 6 (25:17):
How do you disrupt that something that is so large,
so vast, and seemingly so powerful.
Speaker 8 (25:23):
Right, it's an ongoing battle, one that we cannot we
can't afford to give up. Right, it's the Cinelo cartel
is a threat to public safety, our public health, and
our national security as a country.
Speaker 7 (25:35):
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.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Senator, 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 (26:00):
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
(26:23):
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 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
(26:43):
some marijuana, but 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 it's an adderall, it's
it's it's it's a riddle, and it's something they think
is fairly innocuous. And the kid takes one pill, and
(27:05):
it is a counterfeit pill that 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 overdoses. Seventy percent of
those were fentanyl, and overdose is the wrong word for
those those are poisonings, because you know, you think of
(27:27):
an overdose. If you have a junkie on the street
who's shooting not 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 fourteen year old
(27:50):
that ends that child's life, and that is the result.
Open borders are endangering our families and in a very
fundamental way.
Speaker 2 (27:57):
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. Their yearly supply. They're eating through it in
(28:19):
two to three months into the year, and they're having
to go to their city council and their board of
aldermen and 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 this has become. And again it's the
number one killer of young people in this country. That
(28:41):
is something that needs to be said over and over
again and it's something that we must stop well.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
And police officers and first responders that 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 is truly unprecedented. And you know, I'll say,
I want to share an illustration that a DA agent
(29:06):
told 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 all the sweetened low onto the table,
(29:28):
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
of sweet and loath that are on your finger. And
he said, that is enough fentanyl to kill you. And
(29:49):
it's a 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. I and if
you are a parent, if you are a grandparent, have
this conversation with your kids or your grandkids, because look,
hopefully your kids will not make catastrophically wrong decisions, but
(30:13):
in this circumstance, one small decision that seems easy. Hey,
it's a friend of theirs that has 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
their kids will make one wrong choice and it will
(30:35):
cost them their entire life.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Yeah, it really is scary, There's no doubt about it.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
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 (30:57):
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
(31:18):
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
(31:38):
our podcast last week, I me 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.
(31:59):
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
(32:23):
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 at a maximum security prison because of
the multiple murders he committed. That is not in Columbia,
(32:45):
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
great 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.
(33:07):
That's an incredible success and it's incredibly important.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yeah, you're absolutely right about that.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
And also Reuters is now reporting and this is just
showing I think the president's commitment to fighting these narco
terras Routers 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 thirty five jets are being dispatched
(33:36):
also to Puerto Rico to support the drug war there.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
And this is on top of it.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
And Ben Ben, 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 to Ragua, but I went and
(34:02):
toured the ship, met many of the sailors on board.
We are moving major assets to take on the cartels
and to defeat the cartels.
Speaker 1 (34:09):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
We're going to keep covering this so now with Verdict
with Ted Cruz wherever you get your podcasts, don't miss
a single episode and the Senate and I will see
you back here on this radio station next week
Host
Ben Ferguson
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