September 9, 2023 • 35 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Verdict Weekend Review. Ben Ferguson with you and
each Saturday, we are going to give you some of
the best moments of the Verdict podcast with center Ted
Cruz from the past week. This week, there are three
points that we want to make sure that you hear
about that if you missed it, that's where this Weekend
Review will come in. Number one, we're gonna be talking
(00:22):
about climate change and the new threat of one billion
people dying if we don't fix the problem. That's what
Democrats are now threatening you with. Also Joe Biden do
as I say, not as I do, mandating that others
wear masks, but he's already taken his off after he
promised he was gonna wear it, and a huge victory
because of Verdict listeners. That deals with the issue of
(00:46):
nine to eleven. It is the Weekend Review and it
starts right now. Climate change has become obviously an election
year issue, at least for the Democrats. You can see
it over the last couple of weeks. They're kind of
testing things, they're pushing things here. But now we're finding
out how academia deceives people about climate change. And this
(01:09):
is something that I think is not just disingenuous, but
it's really disgusting. They put out a new report that
has actually come out and they say that there's there's
a new prediction that one billion deaths will happen from
climate change this century, so you better get on board.
(01:29):
Researchers from Canada Australia have published this new study predicting
one billion deaths from climate change over the next hundred years,
citing a scientific quote consensus.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
The author's analyze.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
They say, one hundred and eighty studies on climate change
immortality covering on a one thousand ton rules. So this
is a new theory which means for every thousand tons
of fossil fuels burn, a person dies. Now this article
is published and it contends that a future person, a
future person is killed every every time humanity burns to
(02:01):
a thousand tons of fossil carbon. They say, based on
that calculation, that burning a trillion tons of fossil carbon
will cause two degrees celsius of global warming or ag W,
which in turn they say will cause roughly a billion
future premature death spread over a period of very roughly
(02:22):
one century. I wish they use this type of logic
when they were talking about unborn children that are killed.
But of course they'll never do that. But this might
be the most ridiculous, fear mongering article. And they say
it's a scientific consensus.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Now, well, look, there is an enormous problem with the
politicization of science, and particularly what it concerns climate change,
the dishonesty of science. I'm going to make a radical
claim right now. I predict with absolute certainty that seven
billion people alive today will die in the next one
(02:58):
hundred years of clilimate change. Now, mind you, they are
a little over seven billion people alive today, and it
is a virtual certainty that all of us will die
in the next one hundred years. And whether there was
climate change or not, that assertion is unquestionably true.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
It just is.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Utterly disingenuous to claim it's climate change that will cause it.
Let me focus on There was an article that came
out on September fifth from guy named Patrick Brown. Now,
Patrick Brown is a PhD climate scientist and he is
the co director of the Climate and Energy Team at
(03:40):
the Breakthrough Institute, and he wrote an article in the
Free Press that I think is really consequential. I want
to just read from you the beginning of the article quote,
if you've been reading any news about wildfires this summer,
from Canada to Europe to Maui, you will surely get
the impression that there are mostly the result of climate change.
(04:02):
Here's the ap quote climate change keeps making wild fires
and smoke worse. Scientists call it the new abnormal. From
PBS News Hour quote wildfires driven by climate change are
on the rise. Spain must do more to prepare, experts say,
And from The New York Times, how climate changed turn
(04:24):
lush Hawaii into a tinder box? And from Bloomberg quote,
Maui fires show climate change's ugly reach. Now here's doctor
Brown continuing from this quote. I am a climate scientist,
and while climate change is an important factor affecting wildfires
(04:45):
over many parts of the world, it isn't close to
the only factor that deserves our sole focus. So why
does the press focus so intently on climate change? Is
the root cause? Perhaps for the same reasons I just
did in an an academic paper about wildfires in Nature,
one of the world's most prestigious journals. It fits a
(05:09):
simple storyline that rewards the person telling it. The paper
I just published, climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth
risk in California focuses exclusively on how climate change has
affected extreme wildfire behavior. I knew not to try to
(05:31):
quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research
because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like
Nature and its rival Science want to tell. This matters
because it is critically important for scientists to be published
in high profile journals. In many ways, they are the
gatekeepers for career success in academia, and the editors of
(05:54):
these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what
they publish and what they reject, that they want climate
papers that support certain pre approved narratives, even when those
narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.
To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about
(06:17):
understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving
as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about
the dangers of climate change. However understandable this instinct may be,
it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms
(06:38):
the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult
to achieve. This is a stunning indictment of the machinery
and apparatus around quote unquote science today, the journals publish
(07:01):
quote unquote research that echoes the pre approved political orthodoxy
they want published, and if you don't echo that, they
don't publish you. And it is one of the many
really corrupt aspects of how science and climate change reporting
and academic work is really doing a disservice to the
(07:25):
American people.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
When you look at not only the fact that this
is how you get the money. And I do think
it's an issue of follow the money as you just
describe it. Certainly it's an indoctrination on college campuses and
among researchers, and the cash flow is if you believe
in this, we will fund you. But when you make
these outlateist claims and then you treat them as fact,
there's nothing you can do to debate this with them.
(07:48):
When you look at what they said here, they said
this is a scientific consensus, and the authors say they
analyze one hundred and eighty studies, all of them, I'm
sure were studies that were funded by radical left and
global warming activists, right, those that raise money, etc. But
when they come out and say that, you know, we're
gonna lose a billion people. You make it sound that bad.
(08:12):
Is there any way to overcome that with anything else
but this propaganda? And I think that's why they make
these outlangeous claims.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Well, it's why we need people in colleges and universities
and think tanks, in the academic world and in the
scientific world to reject politicized science. Let me read a
little more from doctor Brown. Doctor Brown says quote. So
in my recent Nature paper, which I authored with seven others,
(08:40):
I focused narrowly on the influence of climate change on
extreme wildfire behavior. Make no mistake that influence is very real.
But there are also other factors that can be just
as or more important, such as poor forest management and
the increasing number of people who start wildfires, either accidentally
(09:03):
or purposely. A startling fact, over eighty percent of wildfires
in the US are ignited by humans. I want to
repeat that sentence because the corporate media will never say it.
A startling fact, over eighty percent of wildfires in the
US are ignited by humans. Now here's what doctor Brown
(09:26):
continues to say. In my paper, we didn't bother to
study the influence of these other obviously relevant factors, did
I know that including them would make for a more
realistic and useful analysis. I did, but I also knew
that it would detract from the clean narratives centered on
the negative impact of climate change, and thus decrease the
(09:46):
odds that the paper would pass Muster with Natures editors
and reviewers. This type of framing with the influence of
climate change unrealistically considered n isolation is the norm for
high profile research papers. For example, in another recent influential
Nature paper, scientists calculated that the two largest climate change
(10:10):
impacts on society are deaths related to extreme heat and
damage to agriculture. However, the authors never mentioned that climate
change is not the dominant driver for either one of
these impacts. Heat related deaths have been declining and crop
yields have been increasing for decades despite climate change. To
(10:36):
acknowledge this would imply that the world has succeeded in
some areas despite climate change, which the thinking goes, would
undermine the motivation for emissions reductions. This is a narrative
of so called scientific inquiry scientific journals academic journals that
(10:57):
have abandoned the mission of science. Science is about examining
evidence following the scientific method beginning with a hypothesis, looking
to evidence to disprove that hypothesis, and determining what's happening today.
An enormous amount of science is simply politics covered in
(11:19):
scientific garb, and in no places that more profound than
in the world of climate change, where there are billions
of dollars connected to so called scientists telling the preferred
political narrative. Facts be damned.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, it is no longer about facts, certainly an academya
where it's supposed to be about that. Now it's about
propaganda and indoctrinating people to this while they all find
their private jets to climate change events, which I still
laugh at the hypocrisy of that. Now, if you want
to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go
back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week.
(11:55):
Now onto story number two, Senator, I also want to
deal with COVID. We were talking about the lies and
they seem to be coming back. Now the White House
now letting everybody know that Joe Biden is going to
start wearing a mask indoors this after Joe Biden has
come down with COVID. Even though Joe Biden has tested
negative for COVID yesterday and the day before the day
(12:19):
before that.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
President Biden tested negative last night for COVID nineteen and
tested negative again today. He's not experiencing any symptoms as
far as the steps he's taking. Since the President was
with the First Lady yesterday. He will be masking while
indoors and around people in alignment with CDC guidance, and
as has been the practice in the past, the President
(12:42):
will remove his mask when sufficiently distanced from others indoors
and while outside as well.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Now the funny part is Senator. This is said from
the punium at the White House. Moments later, the President
is on stage and ceremony. He's not the appropriate distance
of the White House, says is appropriate from other people,
and then he takes his mask off that they just
said to everybody's gonna be wearing if he's in closed
quarters with a lot of different people. And you add
that in with a DC area elementary school Montgomery County,
(13:13):
Maryland is now reinstating a mass mandate. And the mass
mandate isn't just for those little masks, No, No, n
ninety five masks for all their third graders because a
few kids tested positive for COVID. They send out a
letter telling parents that these masks, these IN ninety five masks.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Are going to be mandated in class.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
These masks, they they have been distributed, and students and
staff and identified classes and or activities will be required
to mask while in school for at least the next
ten days, except of course, while eating and drinking, and
the mask will become optional, they claim. After the quote
outbreak has dissipated, here it is mass mandates coming back.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Look, this is utterly absurd. Mass mandates are wrong. And
for the Left, this has become a it's a combination
of a number of things. Number one, it's an article
of faith. Number two, it's a virtue signal. It shows
just how self righteous they think they are. You know,
as I was walking down the halls of the Capitol today,
one very prominent Democrat senator was walking along with his
(14:21):
N ninety five mask, and behind him was his staffer
wearing his N ninety five mask. And it shows virtue.
But number three, it's about control. And this is all
about controlling people. Whether it's mask mandates, whether it's vaccine mandates,
whether it's having the four hundred and thirty seventh booster.
Enough is enough is enough. This is crap and no
(14:43):
look I recognize. And by the way, a year from
now we are going to see the most deadly COVID
variant ever seen, the election variant. And before the election,
it's they're going to need to shut everything down because
they want to have mail in balloting for everyone because
they think it helps elect demots. Enough is enough is enough.
If you want to wear a damn mask, fine, but
(15:04):
don't be a hypocrite and don't try to force other
people to. And all right, listen. So many of the
people who listen to this podcast are conservatives, but some
are not. Some are open minded. Someone to hear both sides.
So maybe you think, all right, I'm not going to
trust crews. I'm not going to trust Ferguson on this.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
All right.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
If you don't trust me, listen to CNN Left Wing
CNN confronting doctor Fauci this past weekend about his false
claims about masks. Give a listen.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
There is a perception out there by many how many
I don't know, that they don't work, and that the
data concludes that they didn't work in the first go round.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Respond to that on masks. Yeah, well that's not so.
Speaker 6 (15:50):
I mean, when you're talking about at the population level,
that the data are less strong than knowing that if
you look on a situation as an individual themselves or
protecting them from spreading it, there's no doubt that masks work.
Different studies give different percentages of advantage of wearing it,
but there's no doubt that the weight of the studies,
(16:12):
and there have been many studies indicate the benefit of
wearing masks.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
I'm going to refer to one of them. You've heard
about it before. I heard about it from a number
of radio callers. Brett Stevens in The Times talked about
Cochrane put that on the screen. The most rigorous and
comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of
masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illness, including COVID nineteen,
was published last month. Its conclusions, said Tom Jefferson, the
(16:40):
Oxford epidemiologist who is the lead author, were unambiguous. There
is just no evidence that they masks make any difference,
he told the journalist Mayen de Maasi.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Full stop. But wait, hold on, what about the N ninety.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
Five masks As opposed to the lower quality surgical or
cloth masks.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Makes no difference, none of it.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
He said, Well, what about the studies that initially persuaded
policymakers to impose mass mandates? They were convinced by non
randomized studies, flawed observational studies. How do we get beyond
that finding of that particular review.
Speaker 6 (17:15):
Yeah, but there are other studies, Michael, that show at
an individual level, for individual, when you're talking about the
effect on the epidemic or the pandemic as a whole,
the data are less strong. But when you talk about
as an individual basis of someone protecting themselves or protecting
themselves from spreading it to others, there's no doubt that
(17:37):
there are many studies that show that there is an advantage.
When you took at the broad population level, like the
Cockman study, the data are less firm with regard to
the effect on the overall pandemic, But we're.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Not talking about that.
Speaker 6 (17:51):
We're talking about an individual's effect on their own safety.
That's a bit different than the broad population level.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
I mean, you hear there and even he's being questioned
fauci by a guy who's not conservative at CNN and
it's for kind and she's like, well, hold on, I'll
read for you what they say. And yet Fauci is
still siteing their center saying no, no, these things work.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
You're somehow still wrong.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Well, look two things. Number one, Fauci himself knows what
he's saying is wrong. And if you go back to
the beginning of COVID February fifth, twenty twenty, Sylvia Burwell,
who was the Secretary of Health and Human Services for
three years under Barack Obama, emailed Fauci and asks asks
if she should wear a mask. And by the way,
(18:35):
his whole defense was well individually, it makes sense, just
not for society. Here's what Fauci wrote on February fifth
of twenty twenty. Quote. Masks are not are really for
infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people
who are not infected, rather than protecting uninfected people from
acquiring infection. Fauci continues, the typical mask you buying the
(18:57):
drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus,
which is small enough to pass through material. It might, however,
provide some slight benefit to keep out gross droplets. If
someone costs or sneezes on you, and he added, quote,
I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly
since you are going to a very low risk location.
(19:20):
That's what he said in twenty twenty. Then he decided
that it was politically beneficial to mandate that everyone had
to wear a mask. And yet now look the second
point I'd make, the fact that CNN is turning on
this in the height of the pandemic. The words that
you just played from CNN, they would not utter. There
(19:40):
was no brooking descent from whatever Saint Fauci said. Whatever
the mandate was, mask today, not mask tomorrow, mass the
next day, you couldn't disagree. The fact that even CNN
is turning, I think is significant. I think if the
Biden administration tries another round of shutdown and mask mandates,
(20:01):
I think a lot of the country is going to
say no, and hell no. I'll tell you the state
of Texas has zero interest in shutting down.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
And I.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Think you're going to see resistance not just in Texas
but all over the country.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah. I think you're right.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
And the other thing that worries many people is this
the president and this idea that we could go back
into some sort of government shutdown There was that awkward
interview that he did with Kamala Harris, far away from
the social distancing back in the early days of COVID
and his administration, sitting next to you know, far away
from David Muiror's interviewing them in a weird triangle, and
he said he would have no problem if the scientist
(20:39):
told him to shut down our entire economy.
Speaker 7 (20:42):
I would be prepared to do what ever it takes
to save lives, because we cannot get the country moving
until we control the virus. That is the fundamental flaw
of this administration thinking to begin with. In order to
keep the country running and moving and the economy growing
and people employed, you have to fix the virus.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
You have to deal with the virus.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
So if the scientists say shut it down.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
I would shut it down.
Speaker 7 (21:07):
I would listen to the scientist.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
I mean, that's apparently still on the table. And if
they bring the mass back where I mean, how far
away are we from having another fall where they start
shutting things down?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
And what should the American people do?
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Look, the Democrats want to shut it down. They want
to impose mandates. And I got to say, one of
the biggest lies of that exchange is I would listen
to the scientists. The only scientists that he listens to
are the ones who say what he wants to hear.
You know, the very last podcast we did, we did
a two part episode with an interview with doctor Phil
and one of the interesting things look. Doctor Phil has
(21:44):
been the number one ranked daytime TV host for a decade,
and he talked about how the data are that the
school shutdowns from COVID cost many, many more lives than
the virus would have cost. Another ords. Listen to the scientists.
The Democrats aren't listening to the scientists because if they did,
(22:04):
they'd look at the harm from the shutdowns. They look
at the harm for businesses shut down. They'd look at
the harm from churches shutdown. They'd look at the harm
from school shut down, the kids who face learning loss
for the rest of their life. They look at the
mental health numbers that have gone up. They'd look at
the kids who didn't go to school and didn't have
physical wellness checks, didn't have mental health checks, didn't have
(22:25):
daily food because for low income kids, for many of them,
their principal source of food is at school. They didn't
have the counselors who could observe whether kids are subject
to physical abuse or sexual abuse, because when they shut
down schools, they sent them at home and the data.
What doctor Phil told us that if you didn't listen
to those two podcasts, you got to go back and
listen to them. But what doctor Phil said on this
(22:46):
podcast was that the data show that many, many more
lives were lost because of the shutdowns. But the Democrats
don't want to listen to the scientists. They have a
political agenda, so they'll cherry pick whatever scientists repeat the
politically favored outcome that support the result they want.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Anyway, Centaur, last question for you, what do you think
states should be doing? Because Texas has banned the mass
mandate since COVID restrictions are being imposed in other states.
There was a Newsweek headline, this is a ban on
COVID nineteen restrictions and imposed a mandate to wear face
mask in public spaces when to affect in Texas after
a number of institutions across the US reinstaid the policy
(23:27):
do to a rise in new infections fueled by the
emergence of two.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
New variants of the virus. Now that's the GISTs of this.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
But Texas is saying, hey, we're going to stand up
to this type of insanity. Do other people need to
be calling their legislators and asking for the same thing.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Look, absolutely yes, Listen. States need to embrace common sense.
States need to defend liberty. States need to defend individual choice.
If someone wants to wear a mask, knock yourself out.
You can still You know, I flew from Texas to
DC today there were still a hand full of people
in the airport that choose to wear a mask. Okay,
if you want to wear a mask, that's fine, you
(24:03):
got an individual choice. You can wear a ski mask
if you want. That's your choice. But government shouldn't be
forcing people to wear a mask. Airlines shouldn't be forcing
people to make wear a mask, airport shouldn't be forcing
people to wear a mask. Restaurants shouldn't be forcing people
to wear a mask. Nobody should be forcing anyone to
wear a mask. And even more so, governors and states
(24:26):
need to say not just no, but hell no to
the shutdowns. We will look back in the future. Years
in the future, we will look back and say, what
in the hell did America do? Shutting much of the
country down for a year or more. Many parts of
the country, almost all Democrat parts of the country, shut
(24:47):
businesses down, shut churches down, shut schools down, many schools.
Tens of millions of kids were out of school for
over a year, and the consequence was cataclysmic. It is,
without exaggeration, the most catastrophic public policy decision of our lifetimes.
And so states need to say we're not going down
(25:10):
that road again. No, we're not gonna do it. Look,
you know the school shutdowns were bad. When Randy Weinngarten,
the head of one of the big teachers unions, is
now suddenly claiming I wasn't for school shutdowns, despite the
fact that she fought relentlessly for school shutdowns and caused
Democratic politicians to jump on a string when she demanded it.
Now even she's running away from it. States need to
(25:33):
stand up and say we're not shutting anything down. Look,
if there's another public health crisis, and at some point
there will be, protect people who are vulnerable, work to
provide treatment options, give people advice on how to keep safe,
but respect their individual liberty, and don't engage in arbitrary
shutdowns and mandates. The mandates are wrong say no to
(25:55):
the mandates as before.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
If you want to hear the rest of this conversation
on this time, you can go back and download the
podcasts from early this week to hear the entire thing.
I want to get back to the big story number
three of the week. You may have missed. The listeners
did an amazing job of sharing. It was one of
the biggest podcasts I think we've ever done together, and
it dealt with the issue of nine to eleven. You
(26:20):
issued a statement afterwards and that also went viral, and
you have a new statement and update I want you
to tell you about tonight. This goes back to that
letter that the doj or I should say, the d
sent out to families victims of nine to eleven, and
they were letting them know and a heads up that
we were probably going to do a plea deal with
(26:42):
Khalead shak Muhammad, and I think it was three or
four other terrorists at Guantanamo Bay Khalead shake Mohammad. We
went through the history of who he is the mastermind
of nine to eleven, but also killed many other people
and many other attacks around the world, innocent children, women,
et cetera. And they were going to do a deal
to spare him the death penalty so we could get
him out of Gitmo and then close down Getmo. That's
(27:02):
the ultimate goal for the DoD and the Biden administration.
We now have an update because of the outrage of
so many listeners of this show and others and that
story going viral.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
It looks like they're not going to get away with it.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
That's exactly right, and I would to take a minute
to thank the listeners a verdict because I actually think
you guys made a real difference in something that matters
enormously in this country, which is as we discussed on
this podcast, the Biden administration sent out letters to the
families of the victims who were murdered on September eleventh
(27:40):
and said, hey, we're contemplating a plea deal where Khaled
Shigmuhammad and other conspirators behind the mass murder on September
eleventh would be spared the death penalty. They'd give it
life in prison. They would be exempted from capital punishment.
Despite the fact that they committed an active war, despite
the fact that they killed nearly three thousand people, We'd
(28:03):
spare them. And you know, when they sent this letter.
It was initially getting almost no press coverage. No one
was covering it, no one was discussing it. ABC didn't
discuss it at the six o'clock news, NBC didn't discuss
at CBS didn't discuss at CNN didn't discuss at MSNBC
didn't discuss it. The entire corporate media ignored it. You
(28:25):
and I were so outraged by it that we sat
down to do our pod and we actually had three topics.
This was topic number one. We had two other topics,
and we ended up deciding, you know what, the entire
podcast is going to focus on this issue on September eleventh,
on the horrific terrorist attack that came after America, on
what it meant, and on the outrage listen the Biden
(28:48):
administration and we talked about in that podcast. And by
the way, you got to go back and listen to
that podcast. You can go back and find we did
a full podcast on this September eleventh effort of the
Biden administration to spare the mastermind of September eleventh, but
I believe this is part and parcel of the Biden
administration's effort to essentially abolish the federal death penalty, and
(29:10):
before Joe Biden leaves the White House, I think he
is going to pardon or commute the sentences of every
single federal death penalty prisoner, including the racist lunatic who
murdered nine African Americans at the Mother Emmanuel Church in Charleston,
South Carolina, including multiple vicious terrorists and murderers. But as
(29:39):
a result of this podcast, we focused the entire thirty
minutes of the pod on the facts behind it, and
we asked you. We said, if you're outraged, pick up
the phone, call your house member, call your senator, call
the White House, and say do not spare the September
eleventh mastermind. Well, we were about the only people shining
(30:00):
a light on this, and it ended up people got
worked up, which is good. They should have been worked up.
We were worked up. It was wrong, it was outrageous,
it was astonishing what they're doing. Well, I got to say.
On Wednesday, the administration came out and announce that it
was not going to accept the Plea deal. And here's
what prosecutors said in the filing quote. The Administration declined
(30:22):
to declines to accept the terms of the proposed joint
Policy principles offered by the accused of the Military Commission's case,
United States versus Mohammed at all. And so I think
that is a real victory verdict listeners ought to feel
proud of.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Now.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
To be clear, the Biden administration gave themselves some wiggle
rooms so they may go back and take the deal,
but they at least filed a court pleading saying they're
rejecting the deal. That's a major victory. It was only
the political pressure that came, and that political pressure was
generated in very significant respect by the listeners of this podcast.
(31:02):
But my view is the bastards that attacked America, that
murdered nearly three thousand Americans, they ought to be prosecuted.
They ought to be sentenced to death, and they ought
to be executed because I think it's a matter of
justice that people that committed horrific terrorist attacks on America
they should face the ultimate punishment. But the only way
(31:23):
we'll be sure that happens is if the American people
hold this administration to account and if they're too embarrassed
and ashamed to let these guys off.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
My next question for you is this, is this just
a pause and delay strategy, Senator, And do we have
to keep monitoring them or does this put this to bed,
especially for the victims and the families that were affected
by nine to eleven. They got these these you know,
I would say horrific letters to the Department of Defense
(31:56):
saying that they may spare these guys' lives after these
men and did all that they did to kill their
family members.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Well, we don't know entirely. What we know is that
the prisoners not only wanted to be spared the death penalty,
but they wanted the Department of Defense to accept a
guarantee that they would not serve their sentences in solitary
confinement and that would allow them to eat and pray
with other prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. They also wanted a
(32:25):
civilian run program to treat brain disorders, to treat sleep disorders,
and to treat gastro intestinal damage that they say the
CIA caused during investigations. That's the demand the Biden administration
turned down. There is a tiny bit of wiggle room
that they could come back and say, Okay, we're not
(32:47):
going to give you those concessions, but we are going
to take the death penalty off the table. And one
of the key reasons I think there are two things
going on in the Biden administration. One, these left wing
radicals or ideologically opposed the death penalty. They don't want
anyone executed. Ever, they want to essentially repeal the federal
(33:09):
death penalty. Now. They don't want to go through the
constitutional process of supporting legislation and Congress trying to get
the votes and repealing it as a matter of law.
They just want to say, we the executive branch are
going to refuse to enforce the death penalty and in fact,
are going to commute or pardon anyone convicted of the
most egregious offenses in the country. I think a second objective,
(33:33):
and again we talked about this at length on the
prior pod on this topic, is they want to close
Guantanamo and listen. When it comes to foreign policy, the
Biden administration is a press release administration. In other words,
they don't follow coherent foreign policy objectives. They don't have
a strategic vision for defending this nation. Instead, they want
(33:57):
a simple press release that lets them at their moral virtue.
So in Afghanistan, you know, you ask yourself, why was
the surrender to the Taliban the withdrawal from Afghanistan so
utterly incompetent such a disaster. A big part of the
reason is the Biden White House viewed as hey, we
want to be out of there by September eleventh, because
(34:20):
then we can show how virtuous we are that we
withdrew from the war by September eleventh. The problem is
when the military said, Okay, if we leave that early,
we need sufficient troops to maintain Bogram Air Force Base
and also maintain Kabbal Airport, and the Biden White House said, nope, nope,
we don't care. Pull them out abandoned Bogram Air Force Base.
We don't need a secure airfield. We haven't evacuated anyone.
(34:43):
We haven't evacuated Americans, we haven't evacuated the Afghans who
assisted us. But we have a press release to issue,
So ignore the national security imperatives. Let's issue our press release.
I think in the case of GETMO, their objective is
the same. They want to press release, say we are
closing GITTMO. In order to do that, they've got to
remove the most dangerous terrorists from GITTMO. In order to
(35:06):
do that, they have to send them to prisons in
the continental United States, and in order to do that,
they either have to get a conviction or get a
plea deal. And so I think part of the reason
they want the plea deal is to shut Gitmo because
they get a good press release from it. But I
think the listeners of Verdicts and millions of Americans stood
up and said no and hell no.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with senter
Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to deal
with my podcast, and you can listen to my podcast
every other day you're not listening to Verdict or each
day when you listen to Verdict. Afterwards, I'd love to
have you as a listener to again, Ben Ferguson Podcasts,
and we will see you back here on Monday morning.
Welcome to Verdict Weekend Review. Ben Ferguson with you and
each Saturday, we are going to give you some of
the best moments of the Verdict podcast with center Ted
Cruz from the past week. This week, there are three
points that we want to make sure that you hear
about that if you missed it, that's where this Weekend
Review will come in. Number one, we're gonna be talking
(00:22):
about climate change and the new threat of one billion
people dying if we don't fix the problem. That's what
Democrats are now threatening you with. Also Joe Biden do
as I say, not as I do, mandating that others
wear masks, but he's already taken his off after he
promised he was gonna wear it, and a huge victory
because of Verdict listeners. That deals with the issue of
(00:46):
nine to eleven. It is the Weekend Review and it
starts right now. Climate change has become obviously an election
year issue, at least for the Democrats. You can see
it over the last couple of weeks. They're kind of
testing things, they're pushing things here. But now we're finding
out how academia deceives people about climate change. And this
(01:09):
is something that I think is not just disingenuous, but
it's really disgusting. They put out a new report that
has actually come out and they say that there's there's
a new prediction that one billion deaths will happen from
climate change this century, so you better get on board.
(01:29):
Researchers from Canada Australia have published this new study predicting
one billion deaths from climate change over the next hundred years,
citing a scientific quote consensus.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
The author's analyze.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
They say, one hundred and eighty studies on climate change
immortality covering on a one thousand ton rules. So this
is a new theory which means for every thousand tons
of fossil fuels burn, a person dies. Now this article
is published and it contends that a future person, a
future person is killed every every time humanity burns to
(02:01):
a thousand tons of fossil carbon. They say, based on
that calculation, that burning a trillion tons of fossil carbon
will cause two degrees celsius of global warming or ag W,
which in turn they say will cause roughly a billion
future premature death spread over a period of very roughly
(02:22):
one century. I wish they use this type of logic
when they were talking about unborn children that are killed.
But of course they'll never do that. But this might
be the most ridiculous, fear mongering article. And they say
it's a scientific consensus.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Now, well, look, there is an enormous problem with the
politicization of science, and particularly what it concerns climate change,
the dishonesty of science. I'm going to make a radical
claim right now. I predict with absolute certainty that seven
billion people alive today will die in the next one
(02:58):
hundred years of clilimate change. Now, mind you, they are
a little over seven billion people alive today, and it
is a virtual certainty that all of us will die
in the next one hundred years. And whether there was
climate change or not, that assertion is unquestionably true.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
It just is.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Utterly disingenuous to claim it's climate change that will cause it.
Let me focus on There was an article that came
out on September fifth from guy named Patrick Brown. Now,
Patrick Brown is a PhD climate scientist and he is
the co director of the Climate and Energy Team at
(03:40):
the Breakthrough Institute, and he wrote an article in the
Free Press that I think is really consequential. I want
to just read from you the beginning of the article quote,
if you've been reading any news about wildfires this summer,
from Canada to Europe to Maui, you will surely get
the impression that there are mostly the result of climate change.
(04:02):
Here's the ap quote climate change keeps making wild fires
and smoke worse. Scientists call it the new abnormal. From
PBS News Hour quote wildfires driven by climate change are
on the rise. Spain must do more to prepare, experts say,
And from The New York Times, how climate changed turn
(04:24):
lush Hawaii into a tinder box? And from Bloomberg quote,
Maui fires show climate change's ugly reach. Now here's doctor
Brown continuing from this quote. I am a climate scientist,
and while climate change is an important factor affecting wildfires
(04:45):
over many parts of the world, it isn't close to
the only factor that deserves our sole focus. So why
does the press focus so intently on climate change? Is
the root cause? Perhaps for the same reasons I just
did in an an academic paper about wildfires in Nature,
one of the world's most prestigious journals. It fits a
(05:09):
simple storyline that rewards the person telling it. The paper
I just published, climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth
risk in California focuses exclusively on how climate change has
affected extreme wildfire behavior. I knew not to try to
(05:31):
quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research
because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like
Nature and its rival Science want to tell. This matters
because it is critically important for scientists to be published
in high profile journals. In many ways, they are the
gatekeepers for career success in academia, and the editors of
(05:54):
these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what
they publish and what they reject, that they want climate
papers that support certain pre approved narratives, even when those
narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.
To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about
(06:17):
understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving
as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about
the dangers of climate change. However understandable this instinct may be,
it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms
(06:38):
the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult
to achieve. This is a stunning indictment of the machinery
and apparatus around quote unquote science today, the journals publish
(07:01):
quote unquote research that echoes the pre approved political orthodoxy
they want published, and if you don't echo that, they
don't publish you. And it is one of the many
really corrupt aspects of how science and climate change reporting
and academic work is really doing a disservice to the
(07:25):
American people.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
When you look at not only the fact that this
is how you get the money. And I do think
it's an issue of follow the money as you just
describe it. Certainly it's an indoctrination on college campuses and
among researchers, and the cash flow is if you believe
in this, we will fund you. But when you make
these outlateist claims and then you treat them as fact,
there's nothing you can do to debate this with them.
(07:48):
When you look at what they said here, they said
this is a scientific consensus, and the authors say they
analyze one hundred and eighty studies, all of them, I'm
sure were studies that were funded by radical left and
global warming activists, right, those that raise money, etc. But
when they come out and say that, you know, we're
gonna lose a billion people. You make it sound that bad.
(08:12):
Is there any way to overcome that with anything else
but this propaganda? And I think that's why they make
these outlangeous claims.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Well, it's why we need people in colleges and universities
and think tanks, in the academic world and in the
scientific world to reject politicized science. Let me read a
little more from doctor Brown. Doctor Brown says quote. So
in my recent Nature paper, which I authored with seven others,
(08:40):
I focused narrowly on the influence of climate change on
extreme wildfire behavior. Make no mistake that influence is very real.
But there are also other factors that can be just
as or more important, such as poor forest management and
the increasing number of people who start wildfires, either accidentally
(09:03):
or purposely. A startling fact, over eighty percent of wildfires
in the US are ignited by humans. I want to
repeat that sentence because the corporate media will never say it.
A startling fact, over eighty percent of wildfires in the
US are ignited by humans. Now here's what doctor Brown
(09:26):
continues to say. In my paper, we didn't bother to
study the influence of these other obviously relevant factors, did
I know that including them would make for a more
realistic and useful analysis. I did, but I also knew
that it would detract from the clean narratives centered on
the negative impact of climate change, and thus decrease the
(09:46):
odds that the paper would pass Muster with Natures editors
and reviewers. This type of framing with the influence of
climate change unrealistically considered n isolation is the norm for
high profile research papers. For example, in another recent influential
Nature paper, scientists calculated that the two largest climate change
(10:10):
impacts on society are deaths related to extreme heat and
damage to agriculture. However, the authors never mentioned that climate
change is not the dominant driver for either one of
these impacts. Heat related deaths have been declining and crop
yields have been increasing for decades despite climate change. To
(10:36):
acknowledge this would imply that the world has succeeded in
some areas despite climate change, which the thinking goes, would
undermine the motivation for emissions reductions. This is a narrative
of so called scientific inquiry scientific journals academic journals that
(10:57):
have abandoned the mission of science. Science is about examining
evidence following the scientific method beginning with a hypothesis, looking
to evidence to disprove that hypothesis, and determining what's happening today.
An enormous amount of science is simply politics covered in
(11:19):
scientific garb, and in no places that more profound than
in the world of climate change, where there are billions
of dollars connected to so called scientists telling the preferred
political narrative. Facts be damned.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah, it is no longer about facts, certainly an academya
where it's supposed to be about that. Now it's about
propaganda and indoctrinating people to this while they all find
their private jets to climate change events, which I still
laugh at the hypocrisy of that. Now, if you want
to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go
back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week.
(11:55):
Now onto story number two, Senator, I also want to
deal with COVID. We were talking about the lies and
they seem to be coming back. Now the White House
now letting everybody know that Joe Biden is going to
start wearing a mask indoors this after Joe Biden has
come down with COVID. Even though Joe Biden has tested
negative for COVID yesterday and the day before the day
(12:19):
before that.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
President Biden tested negative last night for COVID nineteen and
tested negative again today. He's not experiencing any symptoms as
far as the steps he's taking. Since the President was
with the First Lady yesterday. He will be masking while
indoors and around people in alignment with CDC guidance, and
as has been the practice in the past, the President
(12:42):
will remove his mask when sufficiently distanced from others indoors
and while outside as well.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Now the funny part is Senator. This is said from
the punium at the White House. Moments later, the President
is on stage and ceremony. He's not the appropriate distance
of the White House, says is appropriate from other people,
and then he takes his mask off that they just
said to everybody's gonna be wearing if he's in closed
quarters with a lot of different people. And you add
that in with a DC area elementary school Montgomery County,
(13:13):
Maryland is now reinstating a mass mandate. And the mass
mandate isn't just for those little masks, No, No, n
ninety five masks for all their third graders because a
few kids tested positive for COVID. They send out a
letter telling parents that these masks, these IN ninety five masks.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Are going to be mandated in class.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
These masks, they they have been distributed, and students and
staff and identified classes and or activities will be required
to mask while in school for at least the next
ten days, except of course, while eating and drinking, and
the mask will become optional, they claim. After the quote
outbreak has dissipated, here it is mass mandates coming back.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Look, this is utterly absurd. Mass mandates are wrong. And
for the Left, this has become a it's a combination
of a number of things. Number one, it's an article
of faith. Number two, it's a virtue signal. It shows
just how self righteous they think they are. You know,
as I was walking down the halls of the Capitol today,
one very prominent Democrat senator was walking along with his
(14:21):
N ninety five mask, and behind him was his staffer
wearing his N ninety five mask. And it shows virtue.
But number three, it's about control. And this is all
about controlling people. Whether it's mask mandates, whether it's vaccine mandates,
whether it's having the four hundred and thirty seventh booster.
Enough is enough is enough. This is crap and no
(14:43):
look I recognize. And by the way, a year from
now we are going to see the most deadly COVID
variant ever seen, the election variant. And before the election,
it's they're going to need to shut everything down because
they want to have mail in balloting for everyone because
they think it helps elect demots. Enough is enough is enough.
If you want to wear a damn mask, fine, but
(15:04):
don't be a hypocrite and don't try to force other
people to. And all right, listen. So many of the
people who listen to this podcast are conservatives, but some
are not. Some are open minded. Someone to hear both sides.
So maybe you think, all right, I'm not going to
trust crews. I'm not going to trust Ferguson on this.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
All right.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
If you don't trust me, listen to CNN Left Wing
CNN confronting doctor Fauci this past weekend about his false
claims about masks. Give a listen.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
There is a perception out there by many how many
I don't know, that they don't work, and that the
data concludes that they didn't work in the first go round.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Respond to that on masks. Yeah, well that's not so.
Speaker 6 (15:50):
I mean, when you're talking about at the population level,
that the data are less strong than knowing that if
you look on a situation as an individual themselves or
protecting them from spreading it, there's no doubt that masks work.
Different studies give different percentages of advantage of wearing it,
but there's no doubt that the weight of the studies,
(16:12):
and there have been many studies indicate the benefit of
wearing masks.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
I'm going to refer to one of them. You've heard
about it before. I heard about it from a number
of radio callers. Brett Stevens in The Times talked about
Cochrane put that on the screen. The most rigorous and
comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of
masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illness, including COVID nineteen,
was published last month. Its conclusions, said Tom Jefferson, the
(16:40):
Oxford epidemiologist who is the lead author, were unambiguous. There
is just no evidence that they masks make any difference,
he told the journalist Mayen de Maasi.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Full stop. But wait, hold on, what about the N ninety.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
Five masks As opposed to the lower quality surgical or
cloth masks.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Makes no difference, none of it.
Speaker 5 (17:00):
He said, Well, what about the studies that initially persuaded
policymakers to impose mass mandates? They were convinced by non
randomized studies, flawed observational studies. How do we get beyond
that finding of that particular review.
Speaker 6 (17:15):
Yeah, but there are other studies, Michael, that show at
an individual level, for individual, when you're talking about the
effect on the epidemic or the pandemic as a whole,
the data are less strong. But when you talk about
as an individual basis of someone protecting themselves or protecting
themselves from spreading it to others, there's no doubt that
(17:37):
there are many studies that show that there is an advantage.
When you took at the broad population level, like the
Cockman study, the data are less firm with regard to
the effect on the overall pandemic, But we're.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Not talking about that.
Speaker 6 (17:51):
We're talking about an individual's effect on their own safety.
That's a bit different than the broad population level.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
I mean, you hear there and even he's being questioned
fauci by a guy who's not conservative at CNN and
it's for kind and she's like, well, hold on, I'll
read for you what they say. And yet Fauci is
still siteing their center saying no, no, these things work.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
You're somehow still wrong.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Well, look two things. Number one, Fauci himself knows what
he's saying is wrong. And if you go back to
the beginning of COVID February fifth, twenty twenty, Sylvia Burwell,
who was the Secretary of Health and Human Services for
three years under Barack Obama, emailed Fauci and asks asks
if she should wear a mask. And by the way,
(18:35):
his whole defense was well individually, it makes sense, just
not for society. Here's what Fauci wrote on February fifth
of twenty twenty. Quote. Masks are not are really for
infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people
who are not infected, rather than protecting uninfected people from
acquiring infection. Fauci continues, the typical mask you buying the
(18:57):
drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus,
which is small enough to pass through material. It might, however,
provide some slight benefit to keep out gross droplets. If
someone costs or sneezes on you, and he added, quote,
I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly
since you are going to a very low risk location.
(19:20):
That's what he said in twenty twenty. Then he decided
that it was politically beneficial to mandate that everyone had
to wear a mask. And yet now look the second
point I'd make, the fact that CNN is turning on
this in the height of the pandemic. The words that
you just played from CNN, they would not utter. There
(19:40):
was no brooking descent from whatever Saint Fauci said. Whatever
the mandate was, mask today, not mask tomorrow, mass the
next day, you couldn't disagree. The fact that even CNN
is turning, I think is significant. I think if the
Biden administration tries another round of shutdown and mask mandates,
(20:01):
I think a lot of the country is going to
say no, and hell no. I'll tell you the state
of Texas has zero interest in shutting down.
Speaker 5 (20:08):
And I.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Think you're going to see resistance not just in Texas
but all over the country.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah. I think you're right.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
And the other thing that worries many people is this
the president and this idea that we could go back
into some sort of government shutdown There was that awkward
interview that he did with Kamala Harris, far away from
the social distancing back in the early days of COVID
and his administration, sitting next to you know, far away
from David Muiror's interviewing them in a weird triangle, and
he said he would have no problem if the scientist
(20:39):
told him to shut down our entire economy.
Speaker 7 (20:42):
I would be prepared to do what ever it takes
to save lives, because we cannot get the country moving
until we control the virus. That is the fundamental flaw
of this administration thinking to begin with. In order to
keep the country running and moving and the economy growing
and people employed, you have to fix the virus.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
You have to deal with the virus.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
So if the scientists say shut it down.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
I would shut it down.
Speaker 7 (21:07):
I would listen to the scientist.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
I mean, that's apparently still on the table. And if
they bring the mass back where I mean, how far
away are we from having another fall where they start
shutting things down?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
And what should the American people do?
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Look, the Democrats want to shut it down. They want
to impose mandates. And I got to say, one of
the biggest lies of that exchange is I would listen
to the scientists. The only scientists that he listens to
are the ones who say what he wants to hear.
You know, the very last podcast we did, we did
a two part episode with an interview with doctor Phil
and one of the interesting things look. Doctor Phil has
(21:44):
been the number one ranked daytime TV host for a decade,
and he talked about how the data are that the
school shutdowns from COVID cost many, many more lives than
the virus would have cost. Another ords. Listen to the scientists.
The Democrats aren't listening to the scientists because if they did,
(22:04):
they'd look at the harm from the shutdowns. They look
at the harm for businesses shut down. They'd look at
the harm from churches shutdown. They'd look at the harm
from school shut down, the kids who face learning loss
for the rest of their life. They look at the
mental health numbers that have gone up. They'd look at
the kids who didn't go to school and didn't have
physical wellness checks, didn't have mental health checks, didn't have
(22:25):
daily food because for low income kids, for many of them,
their principal source of food is at school. They didn't
have the counselors who could observe whether kids are subject
to physical abuse or sexual abuse, because when they shut
down schools, they sent them at home and the data.
What doctor Phil told us that if you didn't listen
to those two podcasts, you got to go back and
listen to them. But what doctor Phil said on this
(22:46):
podcast was that the data show that many, many more
lives were lost because of the shutdowns. But the Democrats
don't want to listen to the scientists. They have a
political agenda, so they'll cherry pick whatever scientists repeat the
politically favored outcome that support the result they want.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Anyway, Centaur, last question for you, what do you think
states should be doing? Because Texas has banned the mass
mandate since COVID restrictions are being imposed in other states.
There was a Newsweek headline, this is a ban on
COVID nineteen restrictions and imposed a mandate to wear face
mask in public spaces when to affect in Texas after
a number of institutions across the US reinstaid the policy
(23:27):
do to a rise in new infections fueled by the
emergence of two.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
New variants of the virus. Now that's the GISTs of this.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
But Texas is saying, hey, we're going to stand up
to this type of insanity. Do other people need to
be calling their legislators and asking for the same thing.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Look, absolutely yes, Listen. States need to embrace common sense.
States need to defend liberty. States need to defend individual choice.
If someone wants to wear a mask, knock yourself out.
You can still You know, I flew from Texas to
DC today there were still a hand full of people
in the airport that choose to wear a mask. Okay,
if you want to wear a mask, that's fine, you
(24:03):
got an individual choice. You can wear a ski mask
if you want. That's your choice. But government shouldn't be
forcing people to wear a mask. Airlines shouldn't be forcing
people to make wear a mask, airport shouldn't be forcing
people to wear a mask. Restaurants shouldn't be forcing people
to wear a mask. Nobody should be forcing anyone to
wear a mask. And even more so, governors and states
(24:26):
need to say not just no, but hell no to
the shutdowns. We will look back in the future. Years
in the future, we will look back and say, what
in the hell did America do? Shutting much of the
country down for a year or more. Many parts of
the country, almost all Democrat parts of the country, shut
(24:47):
businesses down, shut churches down, shut schools down, many schools.
Tens of millions of kids were out of school for
over a year, and the consequence was cataclysmic. It is,
without exaggeration, the most catastrophic public policy decision of our lifetimes.
And so states need to say we're not going down
(25:10):
that road again. No, we're not gonna do it. Look,
you know the school shutdowns were bad. When Randy Weinngarten,
the head of one of the big teachers unions, is
now suddenly claiming I wasn't for school shutdowns, despite the
fact that she fought relentlessly for school shutdowns and caused
Democratic politicians to jump on a string when she demanded it.
Now even she's running away from it. States need to
(25:33):
stand up and say we're not shutting anything down. Look,
if there's another public health crisis, and at some point
there will be, protect people who are vulnerable, work to
provide treatment options, give people advice on how to keep safe,
but respect their individual liberty, and don't engage in arbitrary
shutdowns and mandates. The mandates are wrong say no to
(25:55):
the mandates as before.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
If you want to hear the rest of this conversation
on this time, you can go back and download the
podcasts from early this week to hear the entire thing.
I want to get back to the big story number
three of the week. You may have missed. The listeners
did an amazing job of sharing. It was one of
the biggest podcasts I think we've ever done together, and
it dealt with the issue of nine to eleven. You
(26:20):
issued a statement afterwards and that also went viral, and
you have a new statement and update I want you
to tell you about tonight. This goes back to that
letter that the doj or I should say, the d
sent out to families victims of nine to eleven, and
they were letting them know and a heads up that
we were probably going to do a plea deal with
(26:42):
Khalead shak Muhammad, and I think it was three or
four other terrorists at Guantanamo Bay Khalead shake Mohammad. We
went through the history of who he is the mastermind
of nine to eleven, but also killed many other people
and many other attacks around the world, innocent children, women,
et cetera. And they were going to do a deal
to spare him the death penalty so we could get
him out of Gitmo and then close down Getmo. That's
(27:02):
the ultimate goal for the DoD and the Biden administration.
We now have an update because of the outrage of
so many listeners of this show and others and that
story going viral.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
It looks like they're not going to get away with it.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
That's exactly right, and I would to take a minute
to thank the listeners a verdict because I actually think
you guys made a real difference in something that matters
enormously in this country, which is as we discussed on
this podcast, the Biden administration sent out letters to the
families of the victims who were murdered on September eleventh
(27:40):
and said, hey, we're contemplating a plea deal where Khaled
Shigmuhammad and other conspirators behind the mass murder on September
eleventh would be spared the death penalty. They'd give it
life in prison. They would be exempted from capital punishment.
Despite the fact that they committed an active war, despite
the fact that they killed nearly three thousand people, We'd
(28:03):
spare them. And you know, when they sent this letter.
It was initially getting almost no press coverage. No one
was covering it, no one was discussing it. ABC didn't
discuss it at the six o'clock news, NBC didn't discuss
at CBS didn't discuss at CNN didn't discuss at MSNBC
didn't discuss it. The entire corporate media ignored it. You
(28:25):
and I were so outraged by it that we sat
down to do our pod and we actually had three topics.
This was topic number one. We had two other topics,
and we ended up deciding, you know what, the entire
podcast is going to focus on this issue on September eleventh,
on the horrific terrorist attack that came after America, on
what it meant, and on the outrage listen the Biden
(28:48):
administration and we talked about in that podcast. And by
the way, you got to go back and listen to
that podcast. You can go back and find we did
a full podcast on this September eleventh effort of the
Biden administration to spare the mastermind of September eleventh, but
I believe this is part and parcel of the Biden
administration's effort to essentially abolish the federal death penalty, and
(29:10):
before Joe Biden leaves the White House, I think he
is going to pardon or commute the sentences of every
single federal death penalty prisoner, including the racist lunatic who
murdered nine African Americans at the Mother Emmanuel Church in Charleston,
South Carolina, including multiple vicious terrorists and murderers. But as
(29:39):
a result of this podcast, we focused the entire thirty
minutes of the pod on the facts behind it, and
we asked you. We said, if you're outraged, pick up
the phone, call your house member, call your senator, call
the White House, and say do not spare the September
eleventh mastermind. Well, we were about the only people shining
(30:00):
a light on this, and it ended up people got
worked up, which is good. They should have been worked up.
We were worked up. It was wrong, it was outrageous,
it was astonishing what they're doing. Well, I got to say.
On Wednesday, the administration came out and announce that it
was not going to accept the Plea deal. And here's
what prosecutors said in the filing quote. The Administration declined
(30:22):
to declines to accept the terms of the proposed joint
Policy principles offered by the accused of the Military Commission's case,
United States versus Mohammed at all. And so I think
that is a real victory verdict listeners ought to feel
proud of.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Now.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
To be clear, the Biden administration gave themselves some wiggle
rooms so they may go back and take the deal,
but they at least filed a court pleading saying they're
rejecting the deal. That's a major victory. It was only
the political pressure that came, and that political pressure was
generated in very significant respect by the listeners of this podcast.
(31:02):
But my view is the bastards that attacked America, that
murdered nearly three thousand Americans, they ought to be prosecuted.
They ought to be sentenced to death, and they ought
to be executed because I think it's a matter of
justice that people that committed horrific terrorist attacks on America
they should face the ultimate punishment. But the only way
(31:23):
we'll be sure that happens is if the American people
hold this administration to account and if they're too embarrassed
and ashamed to let these guys off.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
My next question for you is this, is this just
a pause and delay strategy, Senator, And do we have
to keep monitoring them or does this put this to bed,
especially for the victims and the families that were affected
by nine to eleven. They got these these you know,
I would say horrific letters to the Department of Defense
(31:56):
saying that they may spare these guys' lives after these
men and did all that they did to kill their
family members.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Well, we don't know entirely. What we know is that
the prisoners not only wanted to be spared the death penalty,
but they wanted the Department of Defense to accept a
guarantee that they would not serve their sentences in solitary
confinement and that would allow them to eat and pray
with other prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. They also wanted a
(32:25):
civilian run program to treat brain disorders, to treat sleep disorders,
and to treat gastro intestinal damage that they say the
CIA caused during investigations. That's the demand the Biden administration
turned down. There is a tiny bit of wiggle room
that they could come back and say, Okay, we're not
(32:47):
going to give you those concessions, but we are going
to take the death penalty off the table. And one
of the key reasons I think there are two things
going on in the Biden administration. One, these left wing
radicals or ideologically opposed the death penalty. They don't want
anyone executed. Ever, they want to essentially repeal the federal
(33:09):
death penalty. Now. They don't want to go through the
constitutional process of supporting legislation and Congress trying to get
the votes and repealing it as a matter of law.
They just want to say, we the executive branch are
going to refuse to enforce the death penalty and in fact,
are going to commute or pardon anyone convicted of the
most egregious offenses in the country. I think a second objective,
(33:33):
and again we talked about this at length on the
prior pod on this topic, is they want to close
Guantanamo and listen. When it comes to foreign policy, the
Biden administration is a press release administration. In other words,
they don't follow coherent foreign policy objectives. They don't have
a strategic vision for defending this nation. Instead, they want
(33:57):
a simple press release that lets them at their moral virtue.
So in Afghanistan, you know, you ask yourself, why was
the surrender to the Taliban the withdrawal from Afghanistan so
utterly incompetent such a disaster. A big part of the
reason is the Biden White House viewed as hey, we
want to be out of there by September eleventh, because
(34:20):
then we can show how virtuous we are that we
withdrew from the war by September eleventh. The problem is
when the military said, Okay, if we leave that early,
we need sufficient troops to maintain Bogram Air Force Base
and also maintain Kabbal Airport, and the Biden White House said, nope, nope,
we don't care. Pull them out abandoned Bogram Air Force Base.
We don't need a secure airfield. We haven't evacuated anyone.
(34:43):
We haven't evacuated Americans, we haven't evacuated the Afghans who
assisted us. But we have a press release to issue,
So ignore the national security imperatives. Let's issue our press release.
I think in the case of GETMO, their objective is
the same. They want to press release, say we are
closing GITTMO. In order to do that, they've got to
remove the most dangerous terrorists from GITTMO. In order to
(35:06):
do that, they have to send them to prisons in
the continental United States, and in order to do that,
they either have to get a conviction or get a
plea deal. And so I think part of the reason
they want the plea deal is to shut Gitmo because
they get a good press release from it. But I
think the listeners of Verdicts and millions of Americans stood
up and said no and hell no.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with senter
Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to deal
with my podcast, and you can listen to my podcast
every other day you're not listening to Verdict or each
day when you listen to Verdict. Afterwards, I'd love to
have you as a listener to again, Ben Ferguson Podcasts,
and we will see you back here on Monday morning.
Host
Ben Ferguson
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