August 30, 2023 • 49 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is a verdict with Senator Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson
with you, and we've got a jam packed show, including
this pretty shocking number of emails that we now are
trying to get our hands on, and it's more than
five thousand, the deal with Biden's fake email addresses that
he had set up. We're also going to give you
(00:21):
an update on some pretty impressive legislative movements that have
happened through Senata Cruz's office.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
And also you're not going to want to miss this.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Into the show tonight, we have put together one of
the most incredible montages that deals with the media and
how they covered Donald Trump referring to Banana Republic issues
and they're completely silent right now. What's happening at the
DOJ covering for Biden. That is something that's going to
go viral. You're not going to want to miss that.
(00:51):
But first, Senator, I want to get your reaction to
this shocking new intel that is out and that is
former President of Barack Obama. They're now saying should allow
the National Archives to release President Joe Biden's emails and
records linked to his alias. These are his fake email
address accounts. That is now what people are calling for.
(01:13):
Explain this a little bit more so if you will
understand just how important these emails may be.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Well, sure, we did a previous podcast focused on the
fact that it's now come to light that Joe Biden,
when he was Vice president, he used fake emails.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
He had pseudonyms.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
The three that we know of that he used were
Robin Ware, Robert L. Peters, and j rb Ware. And
he would use these pseudonyms on official government emails that
were to and from Hunter Biden. Now, Hunter Biden was
not an employee of the US government. He was his son,
(01:52):
and what has been reported is that some, if not many,
of them concerned Ukraine. You know, if you're wondering how
much the Biden family business was Hunter selling access to
and more fundamentally favors from Daddy. The news that broke
this week is the number of emails with Joe Biden's
(02:16):
fake email addresses. The National Archives and Record Administration acknowledged
that they possessed up to five thousand, four hundred of them.
That's a stunning number. Look, as I said, we had
a prior pod where we discussed there is no legitimate
reason for the sitting Vice president of the United States
(02:37):
to use a fake email on official government emails to
his son about Ukraine at the same time that Hunter
Biden was making millions of dollars being paid by a
Ukrainian oligarch for Daddy's favors. The fact that the volume
of it now is up to five thousand, four hundred emails,
(02:57):
and by the way, the National Archives and Record Administration
still hasn't handed them over, So we don't know what
Joe Biden was saying. We don't know why it was,
why is it how did he determine when he used
his real email and when he used the fake names
Robin Ware, Robert L. Peters, or jrb Ware. We haven't
seen Joe Biden answer a question about this because the
(03:19):
White House believes he's not accountable to the American people.
And we've seen the corporate media completely silent on this. CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC.
They don't cover it. It's not news. Why because it
counters their official propaganda line and so they just utterly
ignore it. But on its face, there is no legitimate
(03:42):
explanation for this, and the Biden White House has not
even tried to suggest a legitimate explanation for this.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Do you remember when the media freaked out, and I
think it was on January the sixth, where they said
that the White House was it was a cover up
of Watergate proportions, and there were missing phone calls that
day from the phone logs, and then they had egg
on their face and they found out no, no, he
was just using a cell phone during that time, so
those calls wouldn't have actually been on the official transcripts
(04:10):
from the White House. They were talking about these missing
periods of time. They lost their mind over that. Can
you imagine if Donald Trump would have had alias email
it like Burner email accounts that he used while he
was the president, or anyone at the White House at
any level of importance, they would have gone full blown
investigation into this.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Well, listen, if you use a Burner email, a fake email,
if you use a Burner phone, as it's now been reported,
Joe Biden did the natural implication, as you're trying to
hide something, you're trying to get around the law, there's
a reason you're hiding who you are. If not, there's
no reason to have the fake email. And again, the
White House has not attempted to give any any innocent
(04:54):
explanation for this, and to be honest, I can't imagine
what an innocent explanation would be. But they're in a
An explanation is well, gosh, we're the White House and
so the media doesn't cover it.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
It's going to be very interesting, Senator, to see how
this plays out, because we do know the House Oversight
Committee Chairman James Comer, who we had on a two
part series here and I'll say it again if you
missed it, go back and listen to what he had
to say about the money coming into the family. But
he has requested the Archives hand over all documents and
communications in which then Vice President Joe Biden used these
(05:28):
names you just mentioned, Robert Peters, Robin.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Ware, jrb Ware.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
The Archives, he says, need to be transparent and provide
these unredacted records to the GOP Oversight. It will be
interesting to see how this plays out. We're going to
keep covering it for you, Senator. I also want to
move on to something else, and I don't think people
realize what a day in the life in Washington, or
a week in the life of Washington can look like
(05:54):
when it comes time to vote on important legislation. There's
a lot of it that happened recently. We've had so
much breaking news we didn't get to talk about as
much as I think we should have. And I want
to fix that right now, because there were some big
wins that you were leading on legislation, you were leading
on for the people in Texas and in this country
(06:15):
as well. Let's talk about how big these winds were
right before recess.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Well, sure, And I want to focus on a single day,
and that was Thursday, the last week of July, which
is the last day the Senate was in session. We've
been on recess for the past several weeks and so
I've been traveling across the state of Texas at doing
events all over Texas. But the last day we were
in session was the Thursday, the last week of July.
(06:41):
And on that one day, I passed eight separate pieces
of legislation.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
It was a big deal to.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Pass eight pieces of legislation. That there are a lot
of members of the Senate that don't pass eight pieces
of legislation after years of serving in this and I
passed eight in a single day. And so I just
wanted to walk through that day to give a sense
of what can be accomplished fighting for Texas in a
single day. So two of them passed out of the
(07:10):
Senate Commerce Committee. And as you know, I'm the ranking member,
the senior Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, and there
were two different bills that I'd introduced, both of which
passed the Senate Commerce Committee that day. One of them
focuses on AM radio, and we've talked about that bill
here on this podcast before, which is that eight automakers
announced they were pulling AM radios off of brand new
(07:31):
cars and trucks. I think that's a terrible step. It's
terrible for a lot of reasons, including that it denies
people disaster information in the case of a hurricane or
a fire or tornado or some other natural disaster. It
hurts rural Americans who rely on AM radio, and it
hurts conservative speech in particular. It's an example of corporate
(07:52):
America silencing one of the most important platforms for conservative speech. Well,
I teamed up with Ed Marquee, the single most liberal
member of the Senate, in legislation called the Am Radio
for Every Vehicle Act, which mandates that new cars and
trucks include AM radio, and that legislation passed. The Commerce
(08:16):
Committee passed it with overwhelming bipartisan support. So that was
victory number one.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
A big deal. That impacts you.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
You have a radio station, radio show, It impacts all
sorts of people on the radio, but it impacts up
to eighty million Americans who listen to AM radio every
single month.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
It's incredible legislation and it's also, as you mentioned as well,
a safety issue. You look at the hurricane that is
that we're dealing with right now in Forda. It's going
to be going up the East coast and I've already
heard it and talked to friends down there. They're already
reminding people grab your crank AM radios to keep up
when the power goes out so that you know what's
(08:55):
going on. And I think there were many that thought
of this as a way to silence con served a
talk radio. Yes, there's no doubt there was a political
side of this as well. But this other part was
a safety issue. When hurricanes hit, when there's natural disasters
that happened and they're talking about it. I was watching
the Weather Channel today as a storm was developing, this
hurricane and strengthening. They were saying, make sure you have
(09:17):
your crank AM radio. That is something that saves lives
and situations like this. And that's also why it was
so important to make sure these AM raiders, because there
are people after storms hit and even before they can
go out to their car, turn it on for a second,
listen to the latest updates of what's happening. And that's
something that happens or those crank radios or battery powered
radios with AM it's so vitally important for safety as well.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah, and other media often go down in the case
of a disaster, so's it's critical for getting people out
of harm's way. A second piece of legislation that I
authored that also passed the Conference Committee that day is
legislation called the Ticket Act, and it concerns if you
go online and you buy sports tickets, you go buy
baseball tickets, or football or basket tickets, or you buy
(10:01):
concert tickets you want to go see your favorite artists
pay and all of us have had the experience where
you go online to buy tickets and you pick out
your seats and you're really excited, and then you get
to the final step of the transaction and you see
fees that are just massive. The fees can be as
upwards of forty to fifty sixty percent of the total
amount you're paying, and you don't learn until the very
last step when you're entering your credit card. And so
(10:24):
I joined with Maria Cantwell, the Democrat from Washington State
is the chairman of the committee, and authored legislation that
requires online ticket brokers to disclose the total amount of
the ticket price with the fees up front, so that
when you're searching, you can know, Okay, if this ticket's
going to cost me one hundred dollars, I'm not going
to think it's fifty bucks and get surprised on the
(10:46):
back end as a consumer, I'm going to get to
know upfront and have the information to be able to comparison,
shop and make informed choices.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
It is an important piece as well, because, as you've mentioned,
it happens so often where people get to that end
and then and they're like, really, now, this is what
it is, and it's a surprise or shock. And that's
why it is another piece of just transparency. It shouldn't
be this hard, by the way, to be transparent when
it comes to basic things like this in commerce, and
yet you have to spend time doing this, and that's
(11:16):
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the time in so many different venues all over the
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Precious Metals dot com. Senator, you mentioned that there was
not just these two pieces of legislation, but more than
that that happened on this single day. Walk us down
that again, that path of what else happened.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Well, sure, the first two passed the Commerce Committee. The
remaining six pieces of legislation that I passed that day
all passed the entire Senate, the full Senate, and all
of them on that day, the last Thursday in July,
we passed the National Defense Authorization Act, which is the
big bill that passes every year that authorizes the Department
of Defense in our military, and it's critical for ensuring
(13:27):
that we can defend our nation, and it is considered
must pass legislation so that if you can author amendments
that get attached to it, those amendments get passed into
law and sign into law. I had six different amendments
that passed on this year's NDAA. So one of the
amendments I had was very focused on defense in the
state of Texas, and it was ensuring that B one
(13:50):
bomber wings remain in service for at least three more years,
at least until twenty twenty six, until they're actually replaced
by newer B TWE twenty one bombers. And this is
critically important number One, to preserve the US's long range
strike capabilities. But number two, many of those B one
bomber wings are right now housed at Dias Air Force
(14:14):
Base in Abilene, Texas, and we're in the process of
replacing B one bombers with B twenty ones. B twenty
ones are much more advanced bombers, but it takes time
to produce the B twenty ones, and there's great concern
number one in West Texas that the B ones will
be taken down before they're replaced by the B twenty ones.
And so there's been a battle year after year to
(14:35):
make sure that we don't decommission the b ones until
we have B twenty ones in place to replace them.
That battle's happened every year for a number of years,
and I've managed to win temporary delays in it. This
year we got a three year freeze, which is critically
important for ensuring our defense capability but also for protecting
(14:56):
West Texas and Dias Air Force Base.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
So a second.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Amendment that also passed that day is legislation that I
introduced that focused on what are called spy fridges, which
is there are all sorts of impliances that you buy,
whether they're refrigerators, whether they're microwaves, whether they're stoves or ovens,
that are smart devices, and they have built in cameras
(15:23):
and and or recorders, and often people don't know when
you're buying a fridge. You don't think to ask, gosh,
is is my refrigerator recording me in my kitchen? And
so I authored legislation. It's very very similar to the
legislation we talked about before in the Ticket Act. It's
disclosure legislation that says, if there's an appliance that's being
(15:44):
sold to consumers that can record you, that has a
camera either a video camera an audio recorder, that they
have to disclose to you the consumer. Hey, your your
fridge is spying on you. And that likewise was bipartisan
legislation that likewise passed on the floor of the Senate.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Senator, did you ever think you were ever going to
have to pass legislation that would tells like consumers if
their products would possibly be able to spy on them.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
I mean, it does sound insane.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
It's extremely important, but did you ever think when you
ran for the Senate that this would be something we
would need?
Speaker 1 (16:17):
And fast forward to twenty twenty three, it's insane to me.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
It really is nuts, and it's where technology is taking us.
It's where so much of corporate America violates the privacy
of consumers. And look, the next time, Ben, you're walking
to the fridge at two in the morning and your
box of shorts to get a midnight snack, just just
remember that video may be in the hands of whoever
sold you the fridge.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah, yeah, thank you for passing that. I do appreciate
that I think all of us can say yes on
that one. What else was on the list, all right, So.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Two other amendments that both concerned oil. One of them
concerns Nordstream two. We've talked a lot about Nordstream two,
which is the pipe line that Putin was building from
Russia to Germany. And I had an amendment that holds
accountable the corrupt responsible the corrupt officials who were responsible
(17:10):
for building and or maintaining Nordstream too, and so that
passed on that Thursday as well. The second one focused
on US oil, and in particular our strategic Petroleum Reserve.
And as you know, Joe Biden has sold down our
strategic petroleum reserve to the lowest level it's been at
in four decades. And the strategic Petroleum Reserve is there
(17:34):
to protect our economy, to protect our national security, to
ensure that we have energy in a time of crisis,
and Joe Biden's used it to try to temporarily lower
gas prices right before the last election to get a
political benefit from it. And so I teamed up with
Joe Manchin and authored legislation to prohibit the federal government
from selling oil from the Strategic petroleum reserve to China, Russia, Iran,
(18:01):
or North Korea, not to sell it to our enemies.
And that is not a hypothetical threat, because Joe Biden
in fact sold over a million barrels of oil from
the US's strategic petroleum reserve to Communist China. And given that,
I thought that was absurd. Joe Manchin and I teamed
up together to pass this legislation and that was the
(18:22):
fourth piece of legislation on the Senate floor that passed
on that Thursday.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
How concerned are you, real quick on that piece of
legislation that this administration is setting us up for a disaster.
Our strategical reserves are at the lowest levels I think
they've been in my lifetime. I can't remember how many
decades it is, but and they're getting lower. Also, the
shock that we've been allowing, when we do release some
of this oil for to actually go to our adversaries
(18:49):
is even more shocking, especially when some of it was
connected directly to companies that apparently the Biden crime family
had invested interest in a tanker that went straight to China.
But when you look at this from a standpoint of
national security, there doesn't seem to be a course correction.
Yet is there anything that you guys can do in
Congress in the Senate to correct this or this is
(19:10):
sole discretion where those reserves are of the president.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Well, when this legislation is signed into law, and I
fully expect that it will be, it will take out
of the President's hands the ability to sell that oil
to our enemies, to sell it to China or Russia,
or Iran in North Korea, and those four countries are specified.
And I'll tell you previously, I went to the Senate
floor and tried to pass this legislation as freestanding legislation,
(19:37):
and Senate Democrats came down and objected at that time,
and they countered with their own proposal to make it
illegal for any American company to sell any oil or
gas to any foreign nation, which is utterly bizarre, would
destroy tens of thousands of jobs in the United States.
And as I debated on the Senate floor and made
(19:59):
the case, I said, look, one of the reasons why
we shouldn't be selling oil to our enemies is we
ought to be instead sending it to our friends and
letting our friends come off of Russian oil where there's
a war waging in Ukraine, and Russia's getting its revenue
from selling oil and gas. And I put it out,
the Democrats take the proposition let's not sell oil to
(20:19):
our enemies, and they translate it to let's not sell
oil to our friends, which is an utterly bizarre next
step because it hurts US national security. And I got
to say, when it comes to energy policy, this administration
and congressional Democrats regularly hurt US national security by making
us more and more vulnerable to foreign players and by
(20:42):
weakening the US energy and industry and in fact waging
war on domestic oil and gas production. And so this
legislation that passed was a significant step to take away
the Biden administration's ability to undermine our security and in
pursuit of their own political edgita.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
And it truly is I think scary that in Washington
now you would even have to pass legislation that says, yeah,
don't give our old reserves to our enemies.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
This should be a no brainer, but at least for
the Biden White House. Not only is it not a
no brainer, it's directly contrary to what they've done, which
is why this legislation was necessary. The last two pieces
of legislation that I passed on that day are the
two biggest, and they both have huge consequences, not just
(21:31):
for the state of Texas and for the entire country.
One deals with four bridges from Texas to Mexico. And
we've talked about this at length on the POD as well,
so I'll just quickly summarize, but there are four bridge
projects right now pending in Texas to either build brand
new bridges that go from Texas to Mexico or to
expand existing bridges.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
And the way it works is to build any.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Bridge in the United States requires what's called a nipa
environmental review in that standard US law. But if you're
building an international bridge, if you're crossing a border to
another country, you are required to get a special permit
from the President of the United States. And the way
it used to operate is the President would grant that
permit contingent upon the neper review being completed, and that
(22:20):
expedited the whole process because it let you move through quickly.
When Biden came into power, they announced they were reversing
that process, and in particular, the President announced he would
grant no permits whatsoever for new bridges across the international
borders unless until the Neeper review was entirely concluded. What
(22:41):
that did is it delayed all four of these bridge
projects substantially, potentially two three four years. And not only
did it delay it that long, it potentially delayed it
even longer because a number of the project's sponsors were
having difficulty getting financing, because the banks didn't want to
commit to financing until the presidential permit was granted, and
(23:03):
because the Biden White House wouldn't grant the presidential permit,
everything slowed down.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
This was stupid.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
This hurt Texas, it hurt America, and so I introduced
legislation expediting the approval of these bridges and mandating in
particular that once the legislation is signed that Biden has
sixty days has a shot clock. He has sixty days
to grant the permits, and if he doesn't grant the
permits within sixty days, they're deemed automatically granted as a
(23:31):
matter of law. That legislation I got bipartisan support, and
it was passed on the Senate floor as part of
the NDAA. Ben This has massive impact for jobs and
economic growth in the state of Texas. Every year, we
have over eight hundred billion dollars of trade and commerce
(23:52):
between Texas and Mexico. And by speeding up the construction
of these bridges, or the expansion of these bridges, that
will result in thousands upon thousands of new jobs in Texas.
That will result in billions of dollars of new economic activity.
And it will benefit Texas farmers and ranchers and small
businesses and manufacturers. And it will benefit consumers all across
(24:15):
the country who will be able to get goods in
their stores cheaper, with less transportation costs, with less delay.
And it also benefits US national security by helping us
move more and more manufacturing out of China and closer home,
either to the United States or do our close neighbors,
which improves our national security as well. And that was
(24:35):
a massive victory that I'd spent two years fighting to get,
and we got it passed with overwhelming bipartisan support on
the Senate floor.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Why does something like that take two years to get
the votes when it seems like it's such a common
sense piece of legislation that helps not just Texas but
so many other states and individuals. And it really seems
like it's saying that's non political and sally it helps
Republicans more than Democrats.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
This helps everyone, well, it does.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
And look to this state. I can't figure out why
the Biden administration adopted this policy. We've never been able
to find a senior official who takes responsibility for it
or defends it. And my theory is there some bureaucrat,
either in the bowels of the State Department or in
the bowels of the White House, who is a little
(25:27):
green New Deal knucklehead and who just decided, no, we
don't want anything built, nothing until all the environmental stuff
is fully complete, because it makes this knucklehead feel good. Now, ironically,
the policy of the Biden administration not only was it
terrible for jobs, it was terrible for the environment. If
you look at the World Trade Bridge, the World Trade
(25:48):
Bridge is in Laredo and it is the largest land
port in the United States.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
It is a bridge on which there are.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Massive, massive amounts of commerce traveling through their every day.
On any given day, on the Mexican side of the bridge,
you will see a line of eighteen wheelers that will
extend four five six miles and those eighteen wheelers will
sit there sometimes four, five, six, seven, eight hours waiting
to cross the bridge in a giant bottleneck. And by
(26:17):
the way, when they're sitting there, they're spewing pollution in
the air. They're spewing carbon in the air. It is
terrible for the environment to force those eighteen wheelers to
sit there. And you also have a problem that when
they sit there that long, the drivers can time out.
There are limits on how long a driver can drive,
and if they sit there in a bottleneck all day long,
they then have to park overnight, and it extends the
(26:40):
transportation time even more. The city of Laredo and it
wants to expand the World Trade Bridge from eight lanes,
they want to add ten additional lanes that would dramatically
accelerate trade and commerce across that bridge. And yet, so
when I first found out about this issue, was was
(27:01):
a little over two years ago, and it was fairly
early in the Biden administration, and it was when the
city leaders from the city of Laredo came to meet
with me in DC and they came to my office.
And I regularly meet with leaders from cities all across
the state of Texas and counties across Texas and business
leaders across Texas, and this was a number of leaders
from Laredo who raised this issue said, gosh, the new
(27:24):
Biden administration, they just switched their policy and now they're
not granting these permits. And that was the first I'd
heard of it, because it was a new issue with
the new administration. And so the process it started with
me having my policy team say, okay, let's look into this.
Let's figure out how do these permits work, why do
you need them, what's the delay? And we started by
just pressing informally by making a call to the State Department,
(27:48):
by making multiple calls to the State Department, by pressing
pressing number one, mid level bureaucrats and ultimately senior level
leaders at the State Department. That unfortunately did not create move.
I sat down with Pete Buddhajege, the Secretary of Transportation,
in my office, and I leaned in hard on him
and I said, look, this is a stupid policy and
(28:10):
the administration is hurting the environment, hurting transportation. You need
to press state to change what they're doing. Buddha Judge
says he said he would try to be helpful, and
then as far as I can tell, uh did not
do anything, or if he did anything, it didn't succeed
because State did nothing to change their policy. The next
step is I worked to try to build bipartisan consensus
(28:31):
in the South Texas Congressional delegation and I wrote a
letter to Secretary of State Tony Blincoln. The letter was
joined by John Cornyn, my colleague in the Senate from Texas,
and then it was joined by Henry Quayar, who was
a Democrat from South Texas, Monica Dela Cruz who was
a Republican from South Texas, the Cente Gonzalez who is
(28:52):
a Democrat from South Texas, and Tony Gonzalez, who is
a Republican from South Texas. So we got all of
the South Texas congrest National delegation all to join my
letter to Tony Blinken saying this new policy is idiotic,
it hurts Texas, its hurts America.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
You need to change it.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
And unfortunately, once again the Biden administration basically said go
jump in a lake. They just they just stiff armed us.
They just did nothing. And this is a this is
a good one to go a little bit of a
deeper die because it actually shows how you fight and
win battles in the US Senate, and that I did
several things. One of the things I did is I
place holds on multiple State Department nominees, and I said,
(29:34):
they can't move forward until we get this bridge problem solved.
That has a way of really focusing the mind of
the senior leadership, both in the State Department and the
White House. And so I'm a big believer in using
both carrot and stick. The stick was you don't get
your nominees until you fix that problem. The carrot, because
(29:56):
I'm the ranking member on the Commerce Committee, I have
the ability to sign off or block legislation that is
moving through the Commerce Committee, and one piece of legislation
we're working on is the FAA reauthorization. There are lots
of senators who care about different elements of the FAA reauthorization,
and so some of my colleagues on the Foreign Relations
(30:18):
Committee had amendments they cared deeply about that I worked
to get included in that bill, which, in turn, when
I needed to move this bridge legislation on the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, they were more than willing to help
me move it forward. Ultimately, to move it through the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I had to get the chairman,
(30:38):
Bob Menendez to support me, and that took significant horse trading.
It took ultimately getting the Biden State Department and the
Biden White House to back down. We had an email
exchange where the Biden State Department said, so, let me
get this straight. If we agree to go along with
Cruise's legislation, he'll lift the holes on our nominees. And
(31:00):
my guys said, yeah, of course. The whole point of
these holesques to get the problem fixed. If you fix
the problem, yeah, we'll lift the holes. And both stayed
and the White House said, wow, that seems like a
really good deal to us. We want to get these
nominations moving. That's what it took to move the administration,
and that, in turn, along with some additional legislative negotiation,
(31:21):
is what it took to bring the Democrats on board.
But that process takes literally hundreds of hours and takes it.
It ultimately took two years to get done. But at
this point, this legislation I believe is extremely likely to
be signed into law by the end of the year,
and once it is, the sixty day shot clock starts
(31:42):
and that is going to benefit South Texas massively.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
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I know there's one more on your list you also
(33:11):
want to talk about.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Yeah, and this last one is a big deal. It
was the sixth piece of legislation that I passed on
the Senate floor that day, the eighth piece of legislation
altogether that I passed that day, and it concerns semiconductors.
And then we've talked about this on the pod before
as well. When it comes to economic and national security
vulnerabilities of the United States, there are few that are
more acute than our vulnerability on advanced semiconductors, which right
(33:38):
now the vast majority of advanced semiconductors are manufactured in
China or Taiwan, and we manufactured very few of them
here in the United States.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
And we didn't realize event ill.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
This was until COVID happened, and that's when it could
we realize this is a national security issue as well.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Just about every piece of electronics you use uses semiconductors.
And whether that is your iPhone, whether that's your computer,
whether that's your car or truck, we use them. And
where whether it's the spy fridge that is monitoring Ben
and his boxers getting midnight snacks, all of them are
using it. And that I apologize to our listeners for
(34:19):
that image. I really didn't mean to keep in your head.
It's cruel, but nonetheless, hopefully some of you chuckled as
you're listening. Not only is it an economic vulnerability, but
it's a military vulnerability. Just about every weapons system we
use in the military, whether it is a fighter jet,
whether it's a tank, whether it is a missile system,
(34:40):
whether it's radars, just about all of the equipment relies
on advanced semiconductors. And not only are we dependent on China,
but Taiwan. One of the reasons why China's military threat
to Taiwan is so profoundly dangerous is if China invaded
Taiwan and they took over that semiconductor manufacturing capacity, they
would have the ability to put a stranglehold to literally
(35:03):
crater the US economy at their whim, and also to
hold our military captive that we couldn't get the chips
we need. Remember during COVID and coming out of it,
the massive shortages there were of new cars and trucks.
That was because of a shortage and chips that you
couldn't get a new car truck because without the chips
they couldn't make them. So it is a national security imperative.
(35:28):
I believe to bring advanced semiconductor manufacturing back to the
United States, and in the last Congress, Congress passed a
bill called the Chips Act. The Chips Act had two elements.
One element of it was what was called the fabs AC.
The fabs AC lessened the tax burden on new semiconductor manufacturing.
I was a co sponsor of the fabs Act and
(35:50):
enthusiastically supported it. The second component of the Chips Act
was direct federal funds billions of dollars in subsidies for
building semiconduct manufacturing. I voted against that because I think
that corporate welfare is a bad idea and I think
you get into the specter of corruption when US taxpayer
dollars are going in multi billion dollar corporate checks to
(36:14):
giant corporations. That being said, it passed. Once it passed,
my view is, okay, if the federal government's going to
spend that money, it ought to spend it in a
way that meets clear objective standards and metrics based on merit,
and it shouldn't be politicized. And in Texas there are
(36:34):
tens of billions of dollars of new manufacturing that that
that is currently in planning and underway to manufacture semiconductors.
And what's happening now is suddenly people, as they're building
these new fabs are discovering that the federal environmental regulations,
that the NIPA regulations, can be unbelievably burdensome and they
(36:57):
can delay a new semiconductor FACS potentially for years. And
even Democrats were discovering, wait a second, if we want
to build these plants, we've got to expedite, we've got
to streamline these regulatory burdens. So what happened is there
was what was initially pitched as bipartisan legislation in the
(37:19):
House and also in the Senate that would lessen the
regulatory burdens on new new fabs, and so I looked
at that legislation, and the sponsors of it wanted to
attach it to the NDAA. Now for them to be
able to attach it, that legislation is in the jurisdiction
of the Commerce Committee, which means they needed the sign
(37:39):
off of the Chairman and of myself.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
I had an absolute veto.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
As I studied the legislation, I discovered that what they
said in their press releases, which is this lessens the
regulatory burdens on new plants, was not entirely accurate because
as drafted, it functioned as essentially a subsidy for blue states,
a subsidy because what it's said was if your states
state environmental standards are stricter, if they are tougher than
(38:07):
the federal standards, then you get an exemption from the
federal requirements. But if not, you're out of luck. You
got to comply with all the federal regulatory provisions. Now
what that meant is if it had passed, it would
have been basically a subsidy for states like New York
and California, and it would have screwed Texas. It was
a harm to the state of Texas. And so since
(38:29):
they needed my approval, to get it on the NDAA.
When they sent it over to me, my answer was,
which part of hell, no, do you not understand a
subsidy for blue states that hurts Texas. I'm not signing
off on what I did next, Ben, And this is
again important in terms of how you win these legislative fights.
I directed my legislative staff, let's draft legislation that actually
(38:52):
does what their press release says, that lessens the regulatory
burdens on building.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
New fabs in the United States. We did that.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Mark Kelly, who had been the lead sponsor of the
original legislation, the Democrat from Arizona. Mark came to me
and he said, ted, would you be willing to work
with me on drafting legislation that could actually pass? And
look there looking at it again, billions of dollars of
semiconductor manufacturing in Arizona. So Mark cared deeply about it,
(39:22):
and I said, sure, I'm happy to do that. And
so my office redrafted the legislation, working with Mark Kelly's
legislation a legislative team, and we ended up attaching that bill.
It was Kelly Cruz to the NDAA. It is a big,
big deal. It will produce billions of dollars of economic
(39:43):
activity in Texas and in states across the country. It
will produce thousands of new jobs, and critically, it does
so in a way that it doesn't put a finger
on the scale benefiting big blue states at the expense
of the state of Texas. It was a massive victory
and a hea and have eight victories simultaneously in one
(40:03):
single day at the Senate.
Speaker 4 (40:05):
That was a big, big deal.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Yeah, a huge deal, and congrats on those victories because
they're gonna have a huge impact for people in Texas
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Now why do I.
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Speaker 2 (41:58):
Finally, I want to pay off on what we tease
at the very beginning. We know just how corrupt the
media is, and lately it feels like we are in
a banana republic.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
What's funny is it's actually the media that was.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Talking about the banana banana Republic when Donald Trump was
looking to investigate the corruption of the Biden crime family.
Now that we actually have that level of corruption in
our White House and the DOJ that is trying to
cover it up, in the FBI that's trying to cover
it up, what's funny is now no one's talking about
the banana republic that we're living in. We have it
(42:39):
montage that we put together and we want to play
it for you. You're gonna want to share this with
your family and your friends. This is an incredible moment,
and we're going to go back and forth. You're going
to hear them talking about Donald Trump and Bill Barr
back in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty with the election, and
then you're going to hear some of the different things
they said back and forth about it with today.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Take a listen carefully.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
This is truly shocking, and share this on your social
media platforms.
Speaker 5 (43:08):
Right Attorney General and position to do it. We now
know they really have been trying to gin up criminal
prosecutions and criminal investigations into the president's perceived enemies, politically
motivated persecution. Right courtesy of Bill Barr. I'll roll in
the FBI on you. That's how banana republics work.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Right.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
The home of the forty fifth president of the United
States has been rated by the FBI.
Speaker 5 (43:31):
Mister Trump is using the Justice Department to go after
his perceived enemies.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
I feel worried.
Speaker 5 (43:37):
About the prospect of the Justice Department being used as
a tool of this president or any our little banana republic.
Any capable prosecutor can get a grand jury to hand
down an indictment of something as innocent as a ham Sandway.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
An indictment was unsealed charging Donald J. Trump. He news
on former President Trump. He's been indicted for the fourth
time in five months.
Speaker 5 (44:00):
The bar on the present's behalf is weaponizing the Justice
Department to go after the president's enemies. When you win
an election, you don't seek to just prosecute the losing side.
President using the Justice Department as a weapon to get
what he wants.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
The Department of Justice is totally politicized, seeking the Department
of Justice on political opponents.
Speaker 6 (44:19):
Threatening to imprison his political rival Banana Republic style.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Trying to exact revenge against all of his enemies.
Speaker 6 (44:26):
Timp dictator and a Banana Republic.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Is acting more like a Banana Republic dictator.
Speaker 5 (44:31):
He's using government resources to go after his political opponent.
Speaker 6 (44:36):
Essentially, we are a Banana republic that we are seeking
to have a bogus in criminal investigation into a political opponent.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
And that's using the Department of Justice to also target
trust's political opponent for nefarious reasons.
Speaker 5 (44:52):
This is a massive abuse of power and a betrayal
of our value.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
President of the United States is targeting a family member
of a political opponent. This is the type of thing
that happens in a Banana Republic.
Speaker 5 (45:03):
And trying to take out a political rival in Joe Biden,
criminally investigating an American political rival, someone the president's worried
about losing to in the next election, to investigate my
principal opponent or a principal opponent in the upcoming election.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Houston, we have a problem. Don't you think that's something
that should be investigated.
Speaker 6 (45:21):
When the incumbent political party opens a counter intelligence investigation
on the candidate of the opposing party.
Speaker 4 (45:29):
You know.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Trump is itching to politicize the Justice Department and the
Attorney General has been super shady.
Speaker 5 (45:34):
A president is weaponizing the Department of Justice to bring
cases against his enemies to the Department of Justice is
in an existential crisis.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Again.
Speaker 5 (45:42):
It's yet another example of the Justice Department basically losing
all of its independence in this administration. This is now
about corrupting the next election, and for me, this was
crossing the red line. A president who is actively trying
to potentially steal the upcoming election, but.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
To try to take at a political rival, the end goal.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
Being twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
Donald Trump and his Attorney General are using the Justice Department.
Speaker 5 (46:07):
The only difference between this and a Banana Republic is.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
That Trump does not eat fruit.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
The twenty twenty election is really the last chance we
have to stop our system from fully sliding into a
corrupt Banana Republic. Bill Barr has done everything that Donald
Trump has wanted him to.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
Living in a Banana Republic right now.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
When you start using the Justice Department to go after your.
Speaker 4 (46:26):
Enemies, that's very very dangerous.
Speaker 5 (46:29):
Donald Trump is using the Department of Justice to go
after his enemies in any way that he can, having
the head of the chief federal law enforcement agency essentially
working on his behalf to investigate a political rival.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
To investigate the family of a political opponent.
Speaker 4 (46:47):
Basically banana republic behavior.
Speaker 6 (46:49):
We're no better than some some banana republic and he's.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Using the abuse of power in every.
Speaker 4 (46:57):
Element or the presidency to try to do something to
smear me. We just have to demonstrate that he will
not take power if he does run.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
If he does run.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Wow, Centaer when you hear it together, there is no
such thing as as a media that's authentic or genuine anymore.
This is all straight up propaganda. And they accuse the
Trump administration of doing exactly what's happening in real life
right now.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Well, that's exactly right. The corporate media today is utterly
and completely corrupt. It's hypocritical. The irony is what they
were accusing Trump of doing and the Trump doj of doing.
Speaker 4 (47:41):
They weren't doing.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
You didn't see the Trump Department of Justice trying to
indict Joe Biden. You didn't see them using the Trump
Department of Justice to go after their enemies. You didn't
see this kind of abuse of power, the politicization that
is unfolded. Look in over two hundred years of our
nation's history, we've never indicted a president or a former president,
(48:05):
and now we have done so not just once, but
four separate times in the last year. And you want
to talk about a banana republic, that's what banana republics do.
Speaker 4 (48:18):
And the fact that all of.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
These useful idiots on TV use that language, it shows
that they actually understand what abuse of power looks like,
what it means, but they just don't care. It is
only from their perspective an abuse of power if it's
the side they don't like, even if the side they
(48:43):
don't like isn't doing it. And it's a principle we've
talked about quite a bit, which is what the left
accuses their opponents of doing is almost without exception, what
they are in fact doing themselves.
Speaker 4 (48:57):
And I got to say.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
That is powerful, powerfully true in that montage, because every
single thing they falsely accused the Trump Department of Justice
and the Trump FBI of doing is exactly what the
Biden DOJ and the Biden FBI has been doing.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Yeah, make sure you take this podcast, share this with
your family and friends. They can hear that montage because
it is so powerful.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Don't forget.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
We do this show Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, So hit
that follow button if you are listening on Apple, or
the auto download or subscribe button. They call it different
things on different platforms. Make sure that you do that. Also,
listen to my podcast, the Ben Ferguson Podcast on those
days when we don't publish on Monday, Wednday and Fridays,
as I do a podcast every one of those days,
(49:43):
so we'll keep you informed of the latest breaking news.
So download that as well, and we will see you
back here in a couple of days.
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is a verdict with Senator Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson
with you, and we've got a jam packed show, including
this pretty shocking number of emails that we now are
trying to get our hands on, and it's more than
five thousand, the deal with Biden's fake email addresses that
he had set up. We're also going to give you
(00:21):
an update on some pretty impressive legislative movements that have
happened through Senata Cruz's office.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
And also you're not going to want to miss this.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Into the show tonight, we have put together one of
the most incredible montages that deals with the media and
how they covered Donald Trump referring to Banana Republic issues
and they're completely silent right now. What's happening at the
DOJ covering for Biden. That is something that's going to
go viral. You're not going to want to miss that.
(00:51):
But first, Senator, I want to get your reaction to
this shocking new intel that is out and that is
former President of Barack Obama. They're now saying should allow
the National Archives to release President Joe Biden's emails and
records linked to his alias. These are his fake email
address accounts. That is now what people are calling for.
(01:13):
Explain this a little bit more so if you will
understand just how important these emails may be.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Well, sure, we did a previous podcast focused on the
fact that it's now come to light that Joe Biden,
when he was Vice president, he used fake emails.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
He had pseudonyms.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
The three that we know of that he used were
Robin Ware, Robert L. Peters, and j rb Ware. And
he would use these pseudonyms on official government emails that
were to and from Hunter Biden. Now, Hunter Biden was
not an employee of the US government. He was his son,
(01:52):
and what has been reported is that some, if not many,
of them concerned Ukraine. You know, if you're wondering how
much the Biden family business was Hunter selling access to
and more fundamentally favors from Daddy. The news that broke
this week is the number of emails with Joe Biden's
(02:16):
fake email addresses. The National Archives and Record Administration acknowledged
that they possessed up to five thousand, four hundred of them.
That's a stunning number. Look, as I said, we had
a prior pod where we discussed there is no legitimate
reason for the sitting Vice president of the United States
(02:37):
to use a fake email on official government emails to
his son about Ukraine at the same time that Hunter
Biden was making millions of dollars being paid by a
Ukrainian oligarch for Daddy's favors. The fact that the volume
of it now is up to five thousand, four hundred emails,
(02:57):
and by the way, the National Archives and Record Administration
still hasn't handed them over, So we don't know what
Joe Biden was saying. We don't know why it was,
why is it how did he determine when he used
his real email and when he used the fake names
Robin Ware, Robert L. Peters, or jrb Ware. We haven't
seen Joe Biden answer a question about this because the
(03:19):
White House believes he's not accountable to the American people.
And we've seen the corporate media completely silent on this. CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC.
They don't cover it. It's not news. Why because it
counters their official propaganda line and so they just utterly
ignore it. But on its face, there is no legitimate
(03:42):
explanation for this, and the Biden White House has not
even tried to suggest a legitimate explanation for this.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Do you remember when the media freaked out, and I
think it was on January the sixth, where they said
that the White House was it was a cover up
of Watergate proportions, and there were missing phone calls that
day from the phone logs, and then they had egg
on their face and they found out no, no, he
was just using a cell phone during that time, so
those calls wouldn't have actually been on the official transcripts
(04:10):
from the White House. They were talking about these missing
periods of time. They lost their mind over that. Can
you imagine if Donald Trump would have had alias email
it like Burner email accounts that he used while he
was the president, or anyone at the White House at
any level of importance, they would have gone full blown
investigation into this.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Well, listen, if you use a Burner email, a fake email,
if you use a Burner phone, as it's now been reported,
Joe Biden did the natural implication, as you're trying to
hide something, you're trying to get around the law, there's
a reason you're hiding who you are. If not, there's
no reason to have the fake email. And again, the
White House has not attempted to give any any innocent
(04:54):
explanation for this, and to be honest, I can't imagine
what an innocent explanation would be. But they're in a
An explanation is well, gosh, we're the White House and
so the media doesn't cover it.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
It's going to be very interesting, Senator, to see how
this plays out, because we do know the House Oversight
Committee Chairman James Comer, who we had on a two
part series here and I'll say it again if you
missed it, go back and listen to what he had
to say about the money coming into the family. But
he has requested the Archives hand over all documents and
communications in which then Vice President Joe Biden used these
(05:28):
names you just mentioned, Robert Peters, Robin.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Ware, jrb Ware.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
The Archives, he says, need to be transparent and provide
these unredacted records to the GOP Oversight. It will be
interesting to see how this plays out. We're going to
keep covering it for you, Senator. I also want to
move on to something else, and I don't think people
realize what a day in the life in Washington, or
a week in the life of Washington can look like
(05:54):
when it comes time to vote on important legislation. There's
a lot of it that happened recently. We've had so
much breaking news we didn't get to talk about as
much as I think we should have. And I want
to fix that right now, because there were some big
wins that you were leading on legislation, you were leading
on for the people in Texas and in this country
(06:15):
as well. Let's talk about how big these winds were
right before recess.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Well, sure, And I want to focus on a single day,
and that was Thursday, the last week of July, which
is the last day the Senate was in session. We've
been on recess for the past several weeks and so
I've been traveling across the state of Texas at doing
events all over Texas. But the last day we were
in session was the Thursday, the last week of July.
(06:41):
And on that one day, I passed eight separate pieces
of legislation.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
It was a big deal to.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Pass eight pieces of legislation. That there are a lot
of members of the Senate that don't pass eight pieces
of legislation after years of serving in this and I
passed eight in a single day. And so I just
wanted to walk through that day to give a sense
of what can be accomplished fighting for Texas in a
single day. So two of them passed out of the
(07:10):
Senate Commerce Committee. And as you know, I'm the ranking member,
the senior Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, and there
were two different bills that I'd introduced, both of which
passed the Senate Commerce Committee that day. One of them
focuses on AM radio, and we've talked about that bill
here on this podcast before, which is that eight automakers
announced they were pulling AM radios off of brand new
(07:31):
cars and trucks. I think that's a terrible step. It's
terrible for a lot of reasons, including that it denies
people disaster information in the case of a hurricane or
a fire or tornado or some other natural disaster. It
hurts rural Americans who rely on AM radio, and it
hurts conservative speech in particular. It's an example of corporate
(07:52):
America silencing one of the most important platforms for conservative speech. Well,
I teamed up with Ed Marquee, the single most liberal
member of the Senate, in legislation called the Am Radio
for Every Vehicle Act, which mandates that new cars and
trucks include AM radio, and that legislation passed. The Commerce
(08:16):
Committee passed it with overwhelming bipartisan support. So that was
victory number one.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
A big deal. That impacts you.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
You have a radio station, radio show, It impacts all
sorts of people on the radio, but it impacts up
to eighty million Americans who listen to AM radio every
single month.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
It's incredible legislation and it's also, as you mentioned as well,
a safety issue. You look at the hurricane that is
that we're dealing with right now in Forda. It's going
to be going up the East coast and I've already
heard it and talked to friends down there. They're already
reminding people grab your crank AM radios to keep up
when the power goes out so that you know what's
(08:55):
going on. And I think there were many that thought
of this as a way to silence con served a
talk radio. Yes, there's no doubt there was a political
side of this as well. But this other part was
a safety issue. When hurricanes hit, when there's natural disasters
that happened and they're talking about it. I was watching
the Weather Channel today as a storm was developing, this
hurricane and strengthening. They were saying, make sure you have
(09:17):
your crank AM radio. That is something that saves lives
and situations like this. And that's also why it was
so important to make sure these AM raiders, because there
are people after storms hit and even before they can
go out to their car, turn it on for a second,
listen to the latest updates of what's happening. And that's
something that happens or those crank radios or battery powered
radios with AM it's so vitally important for safety as well.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah, and other media often go down in the case
of a disaster, so's it's critical for getting people out
of harm's way. A second piece of legislation that I
authored that also passed the Conference Committee that day is
legislation called the Ticket Act, and it concerns if you
go online and you buy sports tickets, you go buy
baseball tickets, or football or basket tickets, or you buy
(10:01):
concert tickets you want to go see your favorite artists
pay and all of us have had the experience where
you go online to buy tickets and you pick out
your seats and you're really excited, and then you get
to the final step of the transaction and you see
fees that are just massive. The fees can be as
upwards of forty to fifty sixty percent of the total
amount you're paying, and you don't learn until the very
last step when you're entering your credit card. And so
(10:24):
I joined with Maria Cantwell, the Democrat from Washington State
is the chairman of the committee, and authored legislation that
requires online ticket brokers to disclose the total amount of
the ticket price with the fees up front, so that
when you're searching, you can know, Okay, if this ticket's
going to cost me one hundred dollars, I'm not going
to think it's fifty bucks and get surprised on the
(10:46):
back end as a consumer, I'm going to get to
know upfront and have the information to be able to comparison,
shop and make informed choices.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
It is an important piece as well, because, as you've mentioned,
it happens so often where people get to that end
and then and they're like, really, now, this is what
it is, and it's a surprise or shock. And that's
why it is another piece of just transparency. It shouldn't
be this hard, by the way, to be transparent when
it comes to basic things like this in commerce, and
yet you have to spend time doing this, and that's
(11:16):
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the time in so many different venues all over the
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Precious Metals dot com. Senator, you mentioned that there was
not just these two pieces of legislation, but more than
that that happened on this single day. Walk us down
that again, that path of what else happened.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Well, sure, the first two passed the Commerce Committee. The
remaining six pieces of legislation that I passed that day
all passed the entire Senate, the full Senate, and all
of them on that day, the last Thursday in July,
we passed the National Defense Authorization Act, which is the
big bill that passes every year that authorizes the Department
of Defense in our military, and it's critical for ensuring
(13:27):
that we can defend our nation, and it is considered
must pass legislation so that if you can author amendments
that get attached to it, those amendments get passed into
law and sign into law. I had six different amendments
that passed on this year's NDAA. So one of the
amendments I had was very focused on defense in the
state of Texas, and it was ensuring that B one
(13:50):
bomber wings remain in service for at least three more years,
at least until twenty twenty six, until they're actually replaced
by newer B TWE twenty one bombers. And this is
critically important number One, to preserve the US's long range
strike capabilities. But number two, many of those B one
bomber wings are right now housed at Dias Air Force
(14:14):
Base in Abilene, Texas, and we're in the process of
replacing B one bombers with B twenty ones. B twenty
ones are much more advanced bombers, but it takes time
to produce the B twenty ones, and there's great concern
number one in West Texas that the B ones will
be taken down before they're replaced by the B twenty ones.
And so there's been a battle year after year to
(14:35):
make sure that we don't decommission the b ones until
we have B twenty ones in place to replace them.
That battle's happened every year for a number of years,
and I've managed to win temporary delays in it. This
year we got a three year freeze, which is critically
important for ensuring our defense capability but also for protecting
(14:56):
West Texas and Dias Air Force Base.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
So a second.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Amendment that also passed that day is legislation that I
introduced that focused on what are called spy fridges, which
is there are all sorts of impliances that you buy,
whether they're refrigerators, whether they're microwaves, whether they're stoves or ovens,
that are smart devices, and they have built in cameras
(15:23):
and and or recorders, and often people don't know when
you're buying a fridge. You don't think to ask, gosh,
is is my refrigerator recording me in my kitchen? And
so I authored legislation. It's very very similar to the
legislation we talked about before in the Ticket Act. It's
disclosure legislation that says, if there's an appliance that's being
(15:44):
sold to consumers that can record you, that has a
camera either a video camera an audio recorder, that they
have to disclose to you the consumer. Hey, your your
fridge is spying on you. And that likewise was bipartisan
legislation that likewise passed on the floor of the Senate.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Senator, did you ever think you were ever going to
have to pass legislation that would tells like consumers if
their products would possibly be able to spy on them.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
I mean, it does sound insane.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
It's extremely important, but did you ever think when you
ran for the Senate that this would be something we
would need?
Speaker 1 (16:17):
And fast forward to twenty twenty three, it's insane to me.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
It really is nuts, and it's where technology is taking us.
It's where so much of corporate America violates the privacy
of consumers. And look, the next time, Ben, you're walking
to the fridge at two in the morning and your
box of shorts to get a midnight snack, just just
remember that video may be in the hands of whoever
sold you the fridge.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah, yeah, thank you for passing that. I do appreciate
that I think all of us can say yes on
that one. What else was on the list, all right, So.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
Two other amendments that both concerned oil. One of them
concerns Nordstream two. We've talked a lot about Nordstream two,
which is the pipe line that Putin was building from
Russia to Germany. And I had an amendment that holds
accountable the corrupt responsible the corrupt officials who were responsible
(17:10):
for building and or maintaining Nordstream too, and so that
passed on that Thursday as well. The second one focused
on US oil, and in particular our strategic Petroleum Reserve.
And as you know, Joe Biden has sold down our
strategic petroleum reserve to the lowest level it's been at
in four decades. And the strategic Petroleum Reserve is there
(17:34):
to protect our economy, to protect our national security, to
ensure that we have energy in a time of crisis,
and Joe Biden's used it to try to temporarily lower
gas prices right before the last election to get a
political benefit from it. And so I teamed up with
Joe Manchin and authored legislation to prohibit the federal government
from selling oil from the Strategic petroleum reserve to China, Russia, Iran,
(18:01):
or North Korea, not to sell it to our enemies.
And that is not a hypothetical threat, because Joe Biden
in fact sold over a million barrels of oil from
the US's strategic petroleum reserve to Communist China. And given that,
I thought that was absurd. Joe Manchin and I teamed
up together to pass this legislation and that was the
(18:22):
fourth piece of legislation on the Senate floor that passed
on that Thursday.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
How concerned are you, real quick on that piece of
legislation that this administration is setting us up for a disaster.
Our strategical reserves are at the lowest levels I think
they've been in my lifetime. I can't remember how many
decades it is, but and they're getting lower. Also, the
shock that we've been allowing, when we do release some
of this oil for to actually go to our adversaries
(18:49):
is even more shocking, especially when some of it was
connected directly to companies that apparently the Biden crime family
had invested interest in a tanker that went straight to China.
But when you look at this from a standpoint of
national security, there doesn't seem to be a course correction.
Yet is there anything that you guys can do in
Congress in the Senate to correct this or this is
(19:10):
sole discretion where those reserves are of the president.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Well, when this legislation is signed into law, and I
fully expect that it will be, it will take out
of the President's hands the ability to sell that oil
to our enemies, to sell it to China or Russia,
or Iran in North Korea, and those four countries are specified.
And I'll tell you previously, I went to the Senate
floor and tried to pass this legislation as freestanding legislation,
(19:37):
and Senate Democrats came down and objected at that time,
and they countered with their own proposal to make it
illegal for any American company to sell any oil or
gas to any foreign nation, which is utterly bizarre, would
destroy tens of thousands of jobs in the United States.
And as I debated on the Senate floor and made
(19:59):
the case, I said, look, one of the reasons why
we shouldn't be selling oil to our enemies is we
ought to be instead sending it to our friends and
letting our friends come off of Russian oil where there's
a war waging in Ukraine, and Russia's getting its revenue
from selling oil and gas. And I put it out,
the Democrats take the proposition let's not sell oil to
(20:19):
our enemies, and they translate it to let's not sell
oil to our friends, which is an utterly bizarre next
step because it hurts US national security. And I got
to say, when it comes to energy policy, this administration
and congressional Democrats regularly hurt US national security by making
us more and more vulnerable to foreign players and by
(20:42):
weakening the US energy and industry and in fact waging
war on domestic oil and gas production. And so this
legislation that passed was a significant step to take away
the Biden administration's ability to undermine our security and in
pursuit of their own political edgita.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
And it truly is I think scary that in Washington
now you would even have to pass legislation that says, yeah,
don't give our old reserves to our enemies.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
This should be a no brainer, but at least for
the Biden White House. Not only is it not a
no brainer, it's directly contrary to what they've done, which
is why this legislation was necessary. The last two pieces
of legislation that I passed on that day are the
two biggest, and they both have huge consequences, not just
(21:31):
for the state of Texas and for the entire country.
One deals with four bridges from Texas to Mexico. And
we've talked about this at length on the POD as well,
so I'll just quickly summarize, but there are four bridge
projects right now pending in Texas to either build brand
new bridges that go from Texas to Mexico or to
expand existing bridges.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
And the way it works is to build any.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Bridge in the United States requires what's called a nipa
environmental review in that standard US law. But if you're
building an international bridge, if you're crossing a border to
another country, you are required to get a special permit
from the President of the United States. And the way
it used to operate is the President would grant that
permit contingent upon the neper review being completed, and that
(22:20):
expedited the whole process because it let you move through quickly.
When Biden came into power, they announced they were reversing
that process, and in particular, the President announced he would
grant no permits whatsoever for new bridges across the international
borders unless until the Neeper review was entirely concluded. What
(22:41):
that did is it delayed all four of these bridge
projects substantially, potentially two three four years. And not only
did it delay it that long, it potentially delayed it
even longer because a number of the project's sponsors were
having difficulty getting financing, because the banks didn't want to
commit to financing until the presidential permit was granted, and
(23:03):
because the Biden White House wouldn't grant the presidential permit,
everything slowed down.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
This was stupid.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
This hurt Texas, it hurt America, and so I introduced
legislation expediting the approval of these bridges and mandating in
particular that once the legislation is signed that Biden has
sixty days has a shot clock. He has sixty days
to grant the permits, and if he doesn't grant the
permits within sixty days, they're deemed automatically granted as a
(23:31):
matter of law. That legislation I got bipartisan support, and
it was passed on the Senate floor as part of
the NDAA. Ben This has massive impact for jobs and
economic growth in the state of Texas. Every year, we
have over eight hundred billion dollars of trade and commerce
(23:52):
between Texas and Mexico. And by speeding up the construction
of these bridges, or the expansion of these bridges, that
will result in thousands upon thousands of new jobs in Texas.
That will result in billions of dollars of new economic activity.
And it will benefit Texas farmers and ranchers and small
businesses and manufacturers. And it will benefit consumers all across
(24:15):
the country who will be able to get goods in
their stores cheaper, with less transportation costs, with less delay.
And it also benefits US national security by helping us
move more and more manufacturing out of China and closer home,
either to the United States or do our close neighbors,
which improves our national security as well. And that was
(24:35):
a massive victory that I'd spent two years fighting to get,
and we got it passed with overwhelming bipartisan support on
the Senate floor.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Why does something like that take two years to get
the votes when it seems like it's such a common
sense piece of legislation that helps not just Texas but
so many other states and individuals. And it really seems
like it's saying that's non political and sally it helps
Republicans more than Democrats.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
This helps everyone, well, it does.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
And look to this state. I can't figure out why
the Biden administration adopted this policy. We've never been able
to find a senior official who takes responsibility for it
or defends it. And my theory is there some bureaucrat,
either in the bowels of the State Department or in
the bowels of the White House, who is a little
(25:27):
green New Deal knucklehead and who just decided, no, we
don't want anything built, nothing until all the environmental stuff
is fully complete, because it makes this knucklehead feel good. Now, ironically,
the policy of the Biden administration not only was it
terrible for jobs, it was terrible for the environment. If
you look at the World Trade Bridge, the World Trade
(25:48):
Bridge is in Laredo and it is the largest land
port in the United States.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
It is a bridge on which there are.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Massive, massive amounts of commerce traveling through their every day.
On any given day, on the Mexican side of the bridge,
you will see a line of eighteen wheelers that will
extend four five six miles and those eighteen wheelers will
sit there sometimes four, five, six, seven, eight hours waiting
to cross the bridge in a giant bottleneck. And by
(26:17):
the way, when they're sitting there, they're spewing pollution in
the air. They're spewing carbon in the air. It is
terrible for the environment to force those eighteen wheelers to
sit there. And you also have a problem that when
they sit there that long, the drivers can time out.
There are limits on how long a driver can drive,
and if they sit there in a bottleneck all day long,
they then have to park overnight, and it extends the
(26:40):
transportation time even more. The city of Laredo and it
wants to expand the World Trade Bridge from eight lanes,
they want to add ten additional lanes that would dramatically
accelerate trade and commerce across that bridge. And yet, so
when I first found out about this issue, was was
(27:01):
a little over two years ago, and it was fairly
early in the Biden administration, and it was when the
city leaders from the city of Laredo came to meet
with me in DC and they came to my office.
And I regularly meet with leaders from cities all across
the state of Texas and counties across Texas and business
leaders across Texas, and this was a number of leaders
from Laredo who raised this issue said, gosh, the new
(27:24):
Biden administration, they just switched their policy and now they're
not granting these permits. And that was the first I'd
heard of it, because it was a new issue with
the new administration. And so the process it started with
me having my policy team say, okay, let's look into this.
Let's figure out how do these permits work, why do
you need them, what's the delay? And we started by
just pressing informally by making a call to the State Department,
(27:48):
by making multiple calls to the State Department, by pressing
pressing number one, mid level bureaucrats and ultimately senior level
leaders at the State Department. That unfortunately did not create move.
I sat down with Pete Buddhajege, the Secretary of Transportation,
in my office, and I leaned in hard on him
and I said, look, this is a stupid policy and
(28:10):
the administration is hurting the environment, hurting transportation. You need
to press state to change what they're doing. Buddha Judge
says he said he would try to be helpful, and
then as far as I can tell, uh did not
do anything, or if he did anything, it didn't succeed
because State did nothing to change their policy. The next
step is I worked to try to build bipartisan consensus
(28:31):
in the South Texas Congressional delegation and I wrote a
letter to Secretary of State Tony Blincoln. The letter was
joined by John Cornyn, my colleague in the Senate from Texas,
and then it was joined by Henry Quayar, who was
a Democrat from South Texas, Monica Dela Cruz who was
a Republican from South Texas, the Cente Gonzalez who is
(28:52):
a Democrat from South Texas, and Tony Gonzalez, who is
a Republican from South Texas. So we got all of
the South Texas congrest National delegation all to join my
letter to Tony Blinken saying this new policy is idiotic,
it hurts Texas, its hurts America.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
You need to change it.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
And unfortunately, once again the Biden administration basically said go
jump in a lake. They just they just stiff armed us.
They just did nothing. And this is a this is
a good one to go a little bit of a
deeper die because it actually shows how you fight and
win battles in the US Senate, and that I did
several things. One of the things I did is I
place holds on multiple State Department nominees, and I said,
(29:34):
they can't move forward until we get this bridge problem solved.
That has a way of really focusing the mind of
the senior leadership, both in the State Department and the
White House. And so I'm a big believer in using
both carrot and stick. The stick was you don't get
your nominees until you fix that problem. The carrot, because
(29:56):
I'm the ranking member on the Commerce Committee, I have
the ability to sign off or block legislation that is
moving through the Commerce Committee, and one piece of legislation
we're working on is the FAA reauthorization. There are lots
of senators who care about different elements of the FAA reauthorization,
and so some of my colleagues on the Foreign Relations
(30:18):
Committee had amendments they cared deeply about that I worked
to get included in that bill, which, in turn, when
I needed to move this bridge legislation on the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, they were more than willing to help
me move it forward. Ultimately, to move it through the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I had to get the chairman,
(30:38):
Bob Menendez to support me, and that took significant horse trading.
It took ultimately getting the Biden State Department and the
Biden White House to back down. We had an email
exchange where the Biden State Department said, so, let me
get this straight. If we agree to go along with
Cruise's legislation, he'll lift the holes on our nominees. And
(31:00):
my guys said, yeah, of course. The whole point of
these holesques to get the problem fixed. If you fix
the problem, yeah, we'll lift the holes. And both stayed
and the White House said, wow, that seems like a
really good deal to us. We want to get these
nominations moving. That's what it took to move the administration,
and that, in turn, along with some additional legislative negotiation,
(31:21):
is what it took to bring the Democrats on board.
But that process takes literally hundreds of hours and takes it.
It ultimately took two years to get done. But at
this point, this legislation I believe is extremely likely to
be signed into law by the end of the year,
and once it is, the sixty day shot clock starts
(31:42):
and that is going to benefit South Texas massively.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
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I know there's one more on your list you also
(33:11):
want to talk about.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Yeah, and this last one is a big deal. It
was the sixth piece of legislation that I passed on
the Senate floor that day, the eighth piece of legislation
altogether that I passed that day, and it concerns semiconductors.
And then we've talked about this on the pod before
as well. When it comes to economic and national security
vulnerabilities of the United States, there are few that are
more acute than our vulnerability on advanced semiconductors, which right
(33:38):
now the vast majority of advanced semiconductors are manufactured in
China or Taiwan, and we manufactured very few of them
here in the United States.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
And we didn't realize event ill.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
This was until COVID happened, and that's when it could
we realize this is a national security issue as well.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Just about every piece of electronics you use uses semiconductors.
And whether that is your iPhone, whether that's your computer,
whether that's your car or truck, we use them. And
where whether it's the spy fridge that is monitoring Ben
and his boxers getting midnight snacks, all of them are
using it. And that I apologize to our listeners for
(34:19):
that image. I really didn't mean to keep in your head.
It's cruel, but nonetheless, hopefully some of you chuckled as
you're listening. Not only is it an economic vulnerability, but
it's a military vulnerability. Just about every weapons system we
use in the military, whether it is a fighter jet,
whether it's a tank, whether it is a missile system,
(34:40):
whether it's radars, just about all of the equipment relies
on advanced semiconductors. And not only are we dependent on China,
but Taiwan. One of the reasons why China's military threat
to Taiwan is so profoundly dangerous is if China invaded
Taiwan and they took over that semiconductor manufacturing capacity, they
would have the ability to put a stranglehold to literally
(35:03):
crater the US economy at their whim, and also to
hold our military captive that we couldn't get the chips
we need. Remember during COVID and coming out of it,
the massive shortages there were of new cars and trucks.
That was because of a shortage and chips that you
couldn't get a new car truck because without the chips
they couldn't make them. So it is a national security imperative.
(35:28):
I believe to bring advanced semiconductor manufacturing back to the
United States, and in the last Congress, Congress passed a
bill called the Chips Act. The Chips Act had two elements.
One element of it was what was called the fabs AC.
The fabs AC lessened the tax burden on new semiconductor manufacturing.
I was a co sponsor of the fabs Act and
(35:50):
enthusiastically supported it. The second component of the Chips Act
was direct federal funds billions of dollars in subsidies for
building semiconduct manufacturing. I voted against that because I think
that corporate welfare is a bad idea and I think
you get into the specter of corruption when US taxpayer
dollars are going in multi billion dollar corporate checks to
(36:14):
giant corporations. That being said, it passed. Once it passed,
my view is, okay, if the federal government's going to
spend that money, it ought to spend it in a
way that meets clear objective standards and metrics based on merit,
and it shouldn't be politicized. And in Texas there are
(36:34):
tens of billions of dollars of new manufacturing that that
that is currently in planning and underway to manufacture semiconductors.
And what's happening now is suddenly people, as they're building
these new fabs are discovering that the federal environmental regulations,
that the NIPA regulations, can be unbelievably burdensome and they
(36:57):
can delay a new semiconductor FACS potentially for years. And
even Democrats were discovering, wait a second, if we want
to build these plants, we've got to expedite, we've got
to streamline these regulatory burdens. So what happened is there
was what was initially pitched as bipartisan legislation in the
(37:19):
House and also in the Senate that would lessen the
regulatory burdens on new new fabs, and so I looked
at that legislation, and the sponsors of it wanted to
attach it to the NDAA. Now for them to be
able to attach it, that legislation is in the jurisdiction
of the Commerce Committee, which means they needed the sign
(37:39):
off of the Chairman and of myself.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
I had an absolute veto.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
As I studied the legislation, I discovered that what they
said in their press releases, which is this lessens the
regulatory burdens on new plants, was not entirely accurate because
as drafted, it functioned as essentially a subsidy for blue states,
a subsidy because what it's said was if your states
state environmental standards are stricter, if they are tougher than
(38:07):
the federal standards, then you get an exemption from the
federal requirements. But if not, you're out of luck. You
got to comply with all the federal regulatory provisions. Now
what that meant is if it had passed, it would
have been basically a subsidy for states like New York
and California, and it would have screwed Texas. It was
a harm to the state of Texas. And so since
(38:29):
they needed my approval, to get it on the NDAA.
When they sent it over to me, my answer was,
which part of hell, no, do you not understand a
subsidy for blue states that hurts Texas. I'm not signing
off on what I did next, Ben, And this is
again important in terms of how you win these legislative fights.
I directed my legislative staff, let's draft legislation that actually
(38:52):
does what their press release says, that lessens the regulatory
burdens on building.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
New fabs in the United States. We did that.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Mark Kelly, who had been the lead sponsor of the
original legislation, the Democrat from Arizona. Mark came to me
and he said, ted, would you be willing to work
with me on drafting legislation that could actually pass? And
look there looking at it again, billions of dollars of
semiconductor manufacturing in Arizona. So Mark cared deeply about it,
(39:22):
and I said, sure, I'm happy to do that. And
so my office redrafted the legislation, working with Mark Kelly's
legislation a legislative team, and we ended up attaching that bill.
It was Kelly Cruz to the NDAA. It is a big,
big deal. It will produce billions of dollars of economic
(39:43):
activity in Texas and in states across the country. It
will produce thousands of new jobs, and critically, it does
so in a way that it doesn't put a finger
on the scale benefiting big blue states at the expense
of the state of Texas. It was a massive victory
and a hea and have eight victories simultaneously in one
(40:03):
single day at the Senate.
Speaker 4 (40:05):
That was a big, big deal.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Yeah, a huge deal, and congrats on those victories because
they're gonna have a huge impact for people in Texas
and also around the country. I want to tell you
about Patriot Mobile. If you have a cell phone like
I do, and ninety nine percent of the people out
there do, Uh, there's one thing that is pretty crazy,
and that is where many companies are giving your money.
(40:27):
Did you know that some of the big mobile companies
are massive donors to Plan Parenthood. Did you know they're
actually fighting against your values? Now, people that did find
this out, there was a problem. Where else were you
going to go to get dependable nationwide coverage. There wasn't
an option. Well there is now, and that's Patriot Mobile.
They offer you that dependable nationwide coverage, giving you the
(40:48):
ability to access all three major networks, which means you
get the same coverage that you have been accustomed to
without funding the woke left when you switch to Patriot Mobile.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
And this is the part I love the most.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
You're sending a clear message that you support free speech,
religious freedom, sanctity of life, the Second Amendment, and our military,
our veterans and first responder heroes.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Now why do I.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Say that, Because they take a portion of your bill
and they give it back to these causes. Now, they
have a one hundred percent US based customer service team,
So you are dealing with a company that values American
workers and they make switching easy, whether it's for you, your
entire family, or a business or a small business. You
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(41:32):
or upgrade. The team will help you find the best
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You'll also get free activation when you use that promo
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(41:53):
Patriot or Patriot Mobile dot com.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
Slash Verdict Center.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Finally, I want to pay off on what we tease
at the very beginning. We know just how corrupt the
media is, and lately it feels like we are in
a banana republic.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
What's funny is it's actually the media that was.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Talking about the banana banana Republic when Donald Trump was
looking to investigate the corruption of the Biden crime family.
Now that we actually have that level of corruption in
our White House and the DOJ that is trying to
cover it up, in the FBI that's trying to cover
it up, what's funny is now no one's talking about
the banana republic that we're living in. We have it
(42:39):
montage that we put together and we want to play
it for you. You're gonna want to share this with
your family and your friends. This is an incredible moment,
and we're going to go back and forth. You're going
to hear them talking about Donald Trump and Bill Barr
back in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty with the election, and
then you're going to hear some of the different things
they said back and forth about it with today.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Take a listen carefully.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
This is truly shocking, and share this on your social
media platforms.
Speaker 5 (43:08):
Right Attorney General and position to do it. We now
know they really have been trying to gin up criminal
prosecutions and criminal investigations into the president's perceived enemies, politically
motivated persecution. Right courtesy of Bill Barr. I'll roll in
the FBI on you. That's how banana republics work.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Right.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
The home of the forty fifth president of the United
States has been rated by the FBI.
Speaker 5 (43:31):
Mister Trump is using the Justice Department to go after
his perceived enemies.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
I feel worried.
Speaker 5 (43:37):
About the prospect of the Justice Department being used as
a tool of this president or any our little banana republic.
Any capable prosecutor can get a grand jury to hand
down an indictment of something as innocent as a ham Sandway.
Speaker 1 (43:52):
An indictment was unsealed charging Donald J. Trump. He news
on former President Trump. He's been indicted for the fourth
time in five months.
Speaker 5 (44:00):
The bar on the present's behalf is weaponizing the Justice
Department to go after the president's enemies. When you win
an election, you don't seek to just prosecute the losing side.
President using the Justice Department as a weapon to get
what he wants.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
The Department of Justice is totally politicized, seeking the Department
of Justice on political opponents.
Speaker 6 (44:19):
Threatening to imprison his political rival Banana Republic style.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Trying to exact revenge against all of his enemies.
Speaker 6 (44:26):
Timp dictator and a Banana Republic.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Is acting more like a Banana Republic dictator.
Speaker 5 (44:31):
He's using government resources to go after his political opponent.
Speaker 6 (44:36):
Essentially, we are a Banana republic that we are seeking
to have a bogus in criminal investigation into a political opponent.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
And that's using the Department of Justice to also target
trust's political opponent for nefarious reasons.
Speaker 5 (44:52):
This is a massive abuse of power and a betrayal
of our value.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
President of the United States is targeting a family member
of a political opponent. This is the type of thing
that happens in a Banana Republic.
Speaker 5 (45:03):
And trying to take out a political rival in Joe Biden,
criminally investigating an American political rival, someone the president's worried
about losing to in the next election, to investigate my
principal opponent or a principal opponent in the upcoming election.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Houston, we have a problem. Don't you think that's something
that should be investigated.
Speaker 6 (45:21):
When the incumbent political party opens a counter intelligence investigation
on the candidate of the opposing party.
Speaker 4 (45:29):
You know.
Speaker 3 (45:29):
Trump is itching to politicize the Justice Department and the
Attorney General has been super shady.
Speaker 5 (45:34):
A president is weaponizing the Department of Justice to bring
cases against his enemies to the Department of Justice is
in an existential crisis.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Again.
Speaker 5 (45:42):
It's yet another example of the Justice Department basically losing
all of its independence in this administration. This is now
about corrupting the next election, and for me, this was
crossing the red line. A president who is actively trying
to potentially steal the upcoming election, but.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
To try to take at a political rival, the end goal.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
Being twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (46:03):
Donald Trump and his Attorney General are using the Justice Department.
Speaker 5 (46:07):
The only difference between this and a Banana Republic is.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
That Trump does not eat fruit.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
The twenty twenty election is really the last chance we
have to stop our system from fully sliding into a
corrupt Banana Republic. Bill Barr has done everything that Donald
Trump has wanted him to.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
Living in a Banana Republic right now.
Speaker 3 (46:23):
When you start using the Justice Department to go after your.
Speaker 4 (46:26):
Enemies, that's very very dangerous.
Speaker 5 (46:29):
Donald Trump is using the Department of Justice to go
after his enemies in any way that he can, having
the head of the chief federal law enforcement agency essentially
working on his behalf to investigate a political rival.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
To investigate the family of a political opponent.
Speaker 4 (46:47):
Basically banana republic behavior.
Speaker 6 (46:49):
We're no better than some some banana republic and he's.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
Using the abuse of power in every.
Speaker 4 (46:57):
Element or the presidency to try to do something to
smear me. We just have to demonstrate that he will
not take power if he does run.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
If he does run.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
Wow, Centaer when you hear it together, there is no
such thing as as a media that's authentic or genuine anymore.
This is all straight up propaganda. And they accuse the
Trump administration of doing exactly what's happening in real life
right now.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Well, that's exactly right. The corporate media today is utterly
and completely corrupt. It's hypocritical. The irony is what they
were accusing Trump of doing and the Trump doj of doing.
Speaker 4 (47:41):
They weren't doing.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
You didn't see the Trump Department of Justice trying to
indict Joe Biden. You didn't see them using the Trump
Department of Justice to go after their enemies. You didn't
see this kind of abuse of power, the politicization that
is unfolded. Look in over two hundred years of our
nation's history, we've never indicted a president or a former president,
(48:05):
and now we have done so not just once, but
four separate times in the last year. And you want
to talk about a banana republic, that's what banana republics do.
Speaker 4 (48:18):
And the fact that all of.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
These useful idiots on TV use that language, it shows
that they actually understand what abuse of power looks like,
what it means, but they just don't care. It is
only from their perspective an abuse of power if it's
the side they don't like, even if the side they
(48:43):
don't like isn't doing it. And it's a principle we've
talked about quite a bit, which is what the left
accuses their opponents of doing is almost without exception, what
they are in fact doing themselves.
Speaker 4 (48:57):
And I got to say.
Speaker 3 (48:58):
That is powerful, powerfully true in that montage, because every
single thing they falsely accused the Trump Department of Justice
and the Trump FBI of doing is exactly what the
Biden DOJ and the Biden FBI has been doing.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Yeah, make sure you take this podcast, share this with
your family and friends. They can hear that montage because
it is so powerful.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Don't forget.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
We do this show Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, So hit
that follow button if you are listening on Apple, or
the auto download or subscribe button. They call it different
things on different platforms. Make sure that you do that. Also,
listen to my podcast, the Ben Ferguson Podcast on those
days when we don't publish on Monday, Wednday and Fridays,
as I do a podcast every one of those days,
(49:43):
so we'll keep you informed of the latest breaking news.
So download that as well, and we will see you
back here in a couple of days.
Host
Ben Ferguson
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