Welcome, it is Verdict with Ted Cruz, and it's the Week in Review.Ben Ferguson with you, and we had some major stories this week that you may have missed.First up, voters, you've heard it before about the idea of draining the swamp.
What does it actually look like this time with a Trump presidency, and will it be different than 2016?The answer is yes, and we'll explain just how big of a difference it could be.
Also, Kamala Harris was cornered about lying to the American people on the cognitive decline of Joe Biden.She now has a new date when she says she noticed a difference, but also defended him as being a brilliant man.
It didn't go well in an NBC interview, and we're going to play that for you.And finally, Kamala Harris, just days away from Election Day, is in Texas. Why?
Well, she wants to tell you Texas is evil and that you should be able to kill your babies whenever you want to on demand with abortion.Is that going to play with voters across the country?It's the Weekend Review and it starts right now.
Not, yeah, not at all.And this goes back to the coverup.I don't think this was an accident.This was deliberate by them because they knew they needed this to be a campaign issue that, hey, things aren't that bad, right?
Inflation's actually not that bad.Immigration, we saw them do this deal with Mexico to make the numbers artificially go down in August and September going into the election going, see, we're securing the border.
It's no different with the violent crime stats here.
This is why so many americans now Don't trust the government certainly the deep state Certainly, unfortunately the fbi And yet no one's going to get fired for screwing up their job this bad because it wasn't a screw-up.It was done deliberately
Well, you may be wrong that no one's going to get fired because... Well, that would be amazing and a first in my lifetime.Well, if we have a good election, I think if Donald Trump gets elected, we will see a new Attorney General.
I think we will see a new head of the FBI. Oh, for sure.And I am praying the people involved in this will be fired.If we win a majority in the Senate, I think we're likely to win and the Republicans are likely to win a majority in the Senate.
As you know, I'm on the Senate Judiciary Committee.I'm going to press the Judiciary Committee to launch an investigation into the FBI as to who specifically put out the false data.
And I think we should push to get every email exchange, every conversation.I think it is likely that this was partisan, but we need to get to the bottom of it.
And the fact that the FBI is not even providing any explanation when they're caught red-handed really does damage.And by the way, look, I'll tell you something.Again, as I travel around campaigning, regularly people ask me, should we abolish the FBI?
And I gotta tell you that actually, that question concerns me because the FBI does a lot of things that are incredibly important.The FBI is designed to battle terrorism, to catch terrorists before they commit another 9-11.The FBI
catches serial killers.The FBI catches child predators.The FBI helps with kidnapped children.
I mean, there is a very, very important law enforcement mission of the FBI, and I'll tell you, with first James Comey and now Chris Wray running the FBI, I think the integrity and the reputation of the FBI has been so profoundly tarnished
that half the country wants to get rid of the damn thing altogether.That is really bad from a law enforcement perspective, from a perspective in stopping terrorists and stopping criminals.
And I'll tell you, I have chewed out Chris Wray, that when he circles the wagons and defends the hardcore partisans who have politicized the FBI, he is lighting on fire the FBI's credibility and its reputation.
And I think if Trump wins, there needs to be a wholesale cleaning house getting rid of the wildly partisan career bureaucrats who burrowed into senior leadership positions at the FBI.
All right, let's let's dive into this even on it on a more intense level, because this is one of those moments where I think there's a lot of voters that are listening right now.
They're saying, OK, my worry is we've heard this before that there's going to be a real draining of the swamp. What how different do you think a Trump administration will be this time?
compared to 2016 When there was a lot of people that were on a list and and and you've done transitions.I've done it Before when when people win and what you go through is you say, okay.
Well, there's a certain group people over here These are non-political we don't mess with that right they stay throughout administrations and And then here's your political ones, and you can deal with them how you want.
But there's these certain areas where you don't touch it.I think Donald Trump learned there's a lot of these, quote, non-political positions that have become highly political.And this is a great example of that.
So do you believe that there is the political will to actually clean house the way that many voters are expecting?And I say that.I think there's a lot of voters that are expecting it.
They're like, OK, if we're going to put you back in there, Republicans, a.k.a.Trump, then you guys better do what you said you're going to do this time and clean house, because that's what we're voting for.
Well, as you know, this is the topic of the third book that I wrote, which is called Justice Corrupted, How the Left Has Weaponized the Legal System.
And in the book Justice Corrupted, I lay out how Barack Obama weaponized the Department of Justice and the FBI and the IRS and the alphabet soup of federal agencies to target and attack his political enemies.
And then when Trump became president, by that point, Many of these hard partisans had burrowed into senior career positions in the agency and they spent the four years of the Trump presidency waging war on Donald Trump.
They hated him, they tried to destroy the president, they tried to to frustrate and oppose every aspect of his agenda and now under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris they're brazen and out in the open.They are nakedly politicized
that they repeatedly are employed to target and persecute the political opponents of the White House and it is disastrous.I think it is one of the most important things in a Trump administration to depoliticize the Department of Justice and the FBI.
I've said a lot of times I don't want a Republican DOJ.I don't want a Democrat DOJ.I want a DOJ that follows the law and that prosecutes people when they break the law regardless of their party.I want an FBI that does the same thing.
And look, will it be better the second time around?Absolutely.I don't think Trump and I know his senior team in the White House, they didn't realize what it is they were fighting.
They didn't realize how the swamp operated and they left in place a lot of people who actively waged war against the Trump administration.Look, classic example of that is James Comey.
I believe that the Trump White House should have fired James Comey on January 20, 2017.No one would have blinked.First day Trump comes into office, Mr. Comey, thank you for your services.He was the old head of the FBI.You're gone. They didn't.
They thought, oh, we can co-op this guy and get him to work with us.Well, it was a disaster and the whole Russia, Russia, Russia nonsense.James Comey was behind a lot of that.
And so, this time around, I think they're certainly, they realize the threat.Now, fighting is not easy.I'm not going to, you know, just blow smoke at you and say it's all going to be rosy if Trump wins again.Fighting the swamp
uh... and the career bureaucrats is incredibly difficult but i do think you will see a much much greater seriousness of purpose from the trump white house this time around i think they realize much more the magnitude of the threat they're dealing with final question for you uh... senator there's a story and we're getting more details on it but we're going to talk about this one wednesday i'm sure but there is a headline that just popped and it says big tech censoring ahead of the elections
I was not surprised by this.I think it's a no-brainer.But we're seeing now that this is a real problem yet again weeks before election day.
Yeah, the Washington Post had an investigation that said that Instagram, which is part of Meta, buries political posts and it slashes the audience by 63% when the word vote is posted.And one influencer faced, as I said, a 63% drop.
And this is an investigation done by Washington Post tech columnist Jeffrey Fowler. that showed that meta across its platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and threads, actively suppress content related to the upcoming 2024 election.
And it affects partisan political posts, but it also just non-partisan content like vote, that they are suppressing it.And Fowler found that whenever an Instagram account creator named Mrs. Frazzled, whose real name is Ariel Fodor,
Whenever Fodor mentioned anything related to politics over the last six months, her audience size decreased by about 40% compared to her non-political posts.
And when she used the word vote in a caption across 11 posts, the average audience was 63% smaller.And her experience is not isolated.
Fowler, this is a Washington Post investigative reporter, found several other Instagram creators who noticed a similar pattern.And it's not unique to individual accounts.
There was a wider study by an advocacy group called Accountable Tech that quantified the audience drops for five prominent leftist Instagram accounts, including the Human Rights Campaign and Feminist, and over 10 weeks this spring, their average audiences fell by 65 percent.
The study found that conservative accounts experienced a similar drop in engagement when discussing political topics.
Meta suppression of political content happened when Zuckerberg in 2021 decided to pull back on political content and just try to avoid politics.
Now look, I'd rather they avoid politics than actively be biased, which is how they were in the 2020 election. but silencing the ability of citizens to talk about politics is a really bad dynamic.
And you contrast that to X, which I think X, with Elon Musk's having purchased it, is the new town square.But Facebook and Instagram have huge reaches and silencing politics is really harmful for democracy.
Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week. Now on to story number two.
MSNBC pushes her on Joe Biden's cognitive state.And again, her answer is terrible.Give a listen.
Can you say that you were honest with the American people about what you saw in those moments with President Biden as you were with him again and again, repeatedly in that time?
Of course.Joe Biden is an extremely accomplished, experienced, and capable in every way that anyone would want if they're president.
You never saw anything like what happened at the debate night behind closed doors with him?It was a bad debate.People have bad debates.He is absolutely... But that's the reason why you're here, and he's not, running for the top of the ticket.
Well, you'd have to ask him if that's the only reason why.What do you think?I am running for president of the United States.Joe Biden is not.
And my presidency will be about bringing a new generation of leadership to America that is focused on the work that we need to do to invest in the ambitions and aspirations of the American people.
I mean that's just a bad answer.Like it's an answer that you're sitting there and if you work on her staff you can't think that this is going well.
Well and she continued to get pressed on the fact that Biden is obviously diminished and she dug in even more.Give a listen to how she continued.
It's a judgment question, that's why I ask.Can the American people trust you in these moments, even when it's maybe uncomfortable for Americans to have, to level with Americans in that way?
So that's why I ask, and it sounds like what you're saying is you feel like you never saw anything like that from President Biden.
I have worked with Joe Biden, whether, hours and hours and hours over these four years, whether it be in the Situation Room or the Oval Office.Joe Biden is the one who was able to bring NATO together.
during a crisis where for the first time in 70 years Europe saw and has seen war.
Joe Biden has done the work that has been about being a leader on what we have done to fix so much of what has been broken in terms of the economy because of Donald Trump's mismanagement.
I speak with not only sincerity, but with a real first-hand account of watching him do this work.I have no reluctance in saying that.No, of course I don't.
She, by the way, was not happy at the end of that question because I think she knew this was a screw-up for her.
Well, look, in a lot of ways, it's an impossible question for her. Because let's assume for a second that Kamala Harris hires Ben Ferguson to coach her on this question.
And let's assume that Ben Ferguson, his brain is captured by body snatchers and he decides he's willing to work for Kamala Harris. I ask you in all seriousness, what would you tell her?Because there's nothing she can say.
There is no answer to give to this question.Because the truth of the matter, okay, here's the honest answer.Yes, of course I knew he was senile.Of course I knew he was incompetent.Every person in the room knew he was incompetent.
The guy couldn't tie his shoes.He was utterly and completely in the full throes of dementia that was obvious to every person there.Now, that would have the advantage of being true.
but it would also be an admission that she spent four years lying to the American people on a daily basis.So she can't say that.So she has to instead say, nope, nothing seemed wrong to me.Everything seemed fine.
He was the smartest, most handsome, most amazing leader I've ever seen.Huh. Who knew?Who knew that there were issues there?Mind you, you and I were talking about this years ago.
Anyone observing knew this years ago, but she is trapped by her own misconduct because the truth, I guess she figures, is more damning than the lie.I mean, seriously, what would you advise her, Ben, if she hired you?
Yeah I would have told her look I think you can say hey I saw the man this if I was writing a response I would have said do it this way I look I worked with a man every day
I, I, I, when you see somebody every day, sometimes you may not realize how much there is a decline.But when I watched him during the debate, many of us privately after that knew that we need to have a conversation.
That conversation took place and, and he did the right thing for the country.And that's why I'm sitting here in front of you today.But you also have to understand then she could give him smack.
that he did this well and this well and well and this well and i think even now joe biden understands it's time for him to retire that's why i'm sitting in front of you that would have been a better answer just straight up lying to the american people saying i saw nothing at all because that's when they don't believe you yeah look hers is the the sergeant schultz answer from hogan's hearing i see nothing i know nothing that that was her answer
Yeah, it is and and this is goes back to the trustworthy aspect of Kamala And if you look at her she was confronted for example on by dynamics, which she's touted as being Amazing, right?She's obsessed with it.It was awesome.
We've got a great economy by dynamics is everything it's doing well, and then she's asked about it and Now, because the majority of American voters and minority voters especially are going, no, it's not great.We're suffering.We're hurting.
And I wonder, are the last four years an obstacle to you in this race?
Here's how I look at it.First of all, let me be very clear.Mine will not be a continuation of the Biden administration.I bring my own experiences, my own ideas to it.
And it has informed a number of my areas of focus, most of which are on, to your point, lowering costs.
So part of my plan includes what we need to do to bring down the price of groceries, including the work I will do dealing with price gouging, something I dealt with when I was attorney general, something I will deal with going forward.
Then why do you think that's not landing with voters?Because in the numbers, it's the opposite.Former President Trump leads you on this issue.
Well, when I'm out, this is why I'm going out to Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, excuse me.Just got in late this morning, actually.But going to three states yesterday, and I'm going to continue being on the road.I have to earn the vote.
That's breaking news.My administration will not be a continuation of his.In other words, yes, what we did sucked.It was bad for the American people and so therefore I don't want to be connected.
But then I want to immediately tell you that I'm proud of what we've done together while I was in office.It's like, if you say that to the American people that are hurting, I don't see how that ends well for you.
Well, and remember, that's the exact opposite of what she told The View.The View asked her, how will your administration be different from the Biden administration?She said, oh, I can't think of a thing I'd do differently.I can't think of anything.
And yet now she's saying, mine will not be continuation of the Biden administration.How is it different?Well, I'm me.I'm not him.I'll just do exactly the same thing he was doing.But we're different people.That's how it's different.
Senator, one other question I want to ask you about this interview with Harris is they say that she took a day off.
When you ran for president, did you ever take a day off in the last two weeks when you're running in a primary to get ready for an interview?The whole entire campaign right now
Seems to be in at least a strategy in shambles like you're coming to Texas where you're not competitive Because you want to highlight abortion issues I get it, but why not do that in Pennsylvania?Why not do it in a swing state?
Why not do in a place that you think you're gonna win, but it's gotten tight in the polls
Yeah, I'll confess, I'm a lot less critical of her on that front than some folks are.Even in the most intense campaigning times, I try to take a down day a week.
I try to take Sundays down and be home with the kids, home with Heidi, home with the girls. And look, do I do that 100% of the time?No.So for example, right before election day, I might not do that a day or two before election day.
But even through a long campaign, a campaign is a grind.A campaign you're going 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 hours a day, it's exhausting.
And so I actually think it matters to take a down day, to be with your family, to unplug, to sleep in, to go to church at home, to sleep in your own bed.And I find you come back a better candidate.So on that piece, I'm not particularly critical.
I think almost every candidate you're better off.If you just grind yourself to where you can't see anymore, it ends up doing more harm than good.
Well, and the last thing I want to ask you is the news that has come out and it's quietly broken.The mainstream media is not talking about it.But Harris's town hall moderator admitted the questions were, quote, predetermined.
The moderator, Maria Shriver, admitted that the questions, again, were predetermined.This is her in her own words.
You're not, unfortunately.We have some predetermined questions, and hopefully I'll be able to ask some of the questions that might be in your head.I hope so.
That was her talking to the audience.That video has been leaked.Someone said, are we going to be able to ask her questions?And she says, no, you can't.They've been predetermined, meaning the campaign's got them.Kamala knew it.
This whole thing was a ruse from the very beginning.It wasn't an authentic or real town hall.
Well, look, I can tell you I've done hundreds of town halls.I don't think I've ever known the questions before in any of them.
It is not 100% clear from what Maria Shriver said whether they were predetermined by the network or by the Kamala Harris campaign, and I will say those are different.
It is possible that she's saying, no, no, no, we the network picked which one of the audience questions we want to ask because we wanted to divvy up the topics and not have 19 questions on abortion.We wanted to talk about something else.
That's possible. And that might be more understandable, but I'll tell you if that's the case, they certainly haven't clarified it.
It absolutely raised the inference that the Kamala Harris campaign had information about what the predetermined questions were.
And if that's true, then it makes a laughingstock about what is supposed to be journalism, because that's certainly not like any town hall I've ever done.
As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and download the podcast from earlier this week to hear the entire thing.I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed.
This is, I do believe, going to be the Achilles heel for her on election day, and that is this overall lack of cohesion of ideas.I think the flip-flopping is hurting her, which brings me to what she's doing today in Texas.
She's not coming to campaign necessarily in texas because i don't think she believes she's going to win in texas She is coming however to attack texas and texas laws To say to the rest of the country better vote for me so that you don't have people and things and and ideas that actually are Brought to light like they've done in texas that go against what we believe in which is for example abortion on demand
this is a very interesting and radical strategy all at the same time.Do you believe it's going to work?
Well I don't and I think Kamala one of the things the left has decided is that they're going to describe Texas as this horrible hellhole and like her message is going to be vote for me to avoid America becoming like Texas and I gotta say you do have sort of facts and reality that crashes into that which is
For more than a decade, Texas has had over a thousand people a day moving to our state.People are voting with their feet.They want to be here.And where do they come from?They come from bright blue states.They come from her state.
They come from California.They come from Illinois.They come from New York.They come from New Jersey.They come from Connecticut.They come from states that have adopted these high tax, high regulation, terrible environment
for small businesses, terrible environment for jobs, and then soft on crime.And by the way, all right, let's listen to her answer when she was confronted about her soft on crime policies.Let's listen to what she says on that.
On the issue of law and order, as you mentioned, I think there's just a whole lot of misinformation, to be honest with you.I have personally prosecuted
very serious crime it's how i started my career i spent most of my career as a prosecutor not in washington dc and as my first priority had and and remains as a first priority to me the safety of the american people so that has not changed and sadly i think that there is uh... a bit of misinformation if not more than a bit uh... but i'm glad that you raise the subject so that i can address it
She, again, generalities, no actual real answer to the question.
Yeah, does she address, true or false, you have repeatedly called for defunding the police, answer true.True or false, you voted for defunding the police, answer true.True or false, you've called for abolishing and defunding ICE, answer true.
True or false, you've called for shutting down ICE detention centers and pledged to do so on your first day as president, answer true.True or false, you've advocated for releasing violent criminals from jail.True.
True or false, you've advocated for ending cash bail and letting criminals out without even paying bail.True.True or false, you've advocated for decriminalizing illegal border crossings.True.True or false, you raised bail money to bail out
violent rioters in Minneapolis.Answer true.Now, in the face of all those facts, what does she say?Misinformation.By the way, with no counter narrative, she just says, no, no, no, I'm a prosecutor.Look, I was raised in the middle class.
Look, I'm a prosecutor.Those are two crutches that she goes to repeatedly, but then she actually does not address anything that resembles facts.
Let me also ask you another question about this town hall and it dealt with her Plan and it's the socialist plan her plan on groceries She's now tripling down.
She tried to run away from it that didn't work So now she's back at it again saying if you vote for me, I'm gonna give you a communist price control She was actually asked a question from someone in the audience about this.Listen, I
Prices have gone up quite a bit in the last four years, and some people blame former President Trump, some people blame President Biden.Who would you say is correct, and what would you do to bring prices down for Americans?
Thank you, Eric, and you're absolutely right.You know it, I know it, I think most Americans know it.Price of groceries is still too high. And we need to address it in a number of ways.
One of my aspects of doing what we need to do to bring down the cost of living for working people and the middle class in America is to address the issue of grocery prices.
Part of my background and how I come to it is probably a new approach, grounded in a lot of my experiences as a former Attorney General, where I took on price gouging.
And part of my plan is to create a new approach that is the first time that we will have a national ban on price gouging.
Mean that that seems like the most ridiculous answer this national ban on price gouging We already have a lot of laws on price gouging a lot of states have those laws And they're the ones that usually are implementing them so what is she actually offering up here this that that everybody that has That's a as a big store is evil if I don't like their price today.
Well, and listen, in the grocery context it's particularly absurd.So states that have price gouging laws, and by the way, Texas has a price gouging law, they're typically focused on emergencies.
So if you have, say, a hurricane, price gouging laws are if ordinarily you charge a dollar for a bottle of water and a hurricane hits and you decide you're going to charge $50 for a bottle of water.
That's when price gouging kicks in, is that when you're taking a disaster and just taking advantage of people in a time of crisis.And states do have laws for that.They don't apply just to day in, day out, the ordinary pricing of goods and services.
And particularly in the grocery context, the average profit margin in a grocery store is typically one or two percent.So the idea that the feds are going to come like forced grocery stores.
It's big grocery that is the cause of inflation rather than the disastrous policies she has led is asinine.But I will say, look, to Anderson Cooper's question, to his credit, He pointed out, wait a second, you're in the White House right now.
If this is a good idea, why aren't you doing it?And listen to her response about why she hasn't done what she's proposing, despite the fact that she's been in the White House four years and in power.
Take a listen.Simple question from Anderson Cooper asked to Kamala Harris and her response is laughable.
some voters though might ask you've been in the white house for for four years your vice president not the president but why wasn't any of that done the last four years well there was a lot that was done but there's more to do anderson and and i'm pointing out things that need to be done that haven't been done but need to be done you couldn't write a better script for saturday night live
There you go.I'm pointing out the things that need to be done, that haven't been done, that need to be done.And by the way, I'm the one that didn't do them, but I'm the one you can count to do them.
But actually, compare that and combine that with, let's remember her biggest mistake, but when she's asked, look, people want to change the page.They want to turn the page.They recognize that the Biden-Harris record is a disaster.
So when she's asked how she's different from Joe Biden, take a listen to her answer.
Considering you have been in the position of Vice President for the past four years under the Biden administration, how can we expect you to deviate from the direction of that administration compared to your own?
How can we differentiate your policy and your beliefs from that of Biden's?
That's a great question and thank you.Well, first of all, My administration will not be a continuation of the Biden administration.I bring to this role my own ideas and my own experience.
I represent a new generation of leadership on a number of issues and believe that we have to actually take new approaches.For example, what we talked about in terms of housing.My experience that leads to that
priority includes what I did to take on the big banks around the foreclosure crisis when I brought billions of dollars to homeowners that were the subject of predatory lending.
I know what home ownership means to the American people not to mention what it meant to my mother who worked very hard and saved up so that by the time I was a teenager she was able to buy our first home.
I bring to it my experience actually taking care of my mother when she was sick and it was as it turned out dying from cancer. And so I know what it means and have the experience of taking care of an elderly relative and I have raised children.
And so I bring to my priorities and will as president a new approach and a new idea frankly about what we need to do to deal with the sandwich generation.
There it is.It's, it's, I'm not him.His policies are terrible.I'm different.But a month ago, I told you we were amazing together and his policies were amazing.
and the difference is I'm a new generation.I actually care about people unlike that old geezer.By the way I know what it's like to care for old geezers.
Look at the one I care for in the White House right now that I lied to you about and said was brilliant and engaged when he actually isn't.I mean it truly is a miracle of circularity but We actually should close on what we opened on.
We talked about how she held a press conference to say that Trump is a fascist and Trump is Hitler.She's not running away from that.That's her big October surprise.So give a listen when she's asked whether she thinks Trump is a fascist.
Do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?
Yes, I do.Yes, I do.And I also believe that the people who know him best on this subject should be trusted.
Senator, I go back to the dog whistle.
This is so concerning to me because all I hear is, hey, if there's someone out there that wants to finish the job these other two attempted assassins were trying to finish, the president's already been shot once.
We've dehumanized him to the point where we're right back to calling him a fascist.And earlier today in front of the official American flag at the home of the vice president, I'm telling you he's Hitler.
I cannot believe the level of hatred and irresponsibility from Kamala Harris in this moment.
At the same time that they're sending out Barack Obama to say we need more civility and decency and this bitterness is too much and by the way my opponent is Hitler.They managed to say those without taking a breath between those two statements.
As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz.Ben Ferguson with you.
Don't forget to download my podcast so you can listen to my podcast every other day you're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards.I'd love to have you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson podcast.
And we will see you back here on Monday morning.
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