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It's great to be joined again by the Republican Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, who chairs the Commerce Committee. Senator, welcome back.
It's good to see you.
A busy day when it comes to the reconciliation process as we track the parliamentarian in your chamber, a rules committee in the House. I'm just wondering, broadly, what's the first thing you take out.
Of this bill.
Is it the new cap on salt or are you more focused on enhancing what is in the bill, like making business tax cuts permanent.
Well, listen, I think the House did a good job starting this process.
We're going to get this bill accomplished.
We're going to get it passed because it's the main vehicle to deliver on the promises we made to the American people in November, and so it's the main vehicle to deliver the funding to secure the border. It's the main vehicle to rebuild our military. It's the main vehicle to extend the twenty seventeen tax cuts and make them bigger and bolder, and that's critical for economic growth and jobs.
The process of the back and forth is ongoing, and so in the Senate right now, Each committee right is releasing its language and the Senate is going to take some different approaches than the House did, and ultimately there will be a conference and the two will come together, and I think through that process the bill will get better well.
And certainly the Commerce Committee has made some changes to the House legislation, including in the bill you released last week, a tweak to the moratorium on state AI laws, tying it to the federal broadband expansion program. Mister Chairman, are you confident that can get through the Senate? Frankly, has the parliamentarian suggested to you that will pass muster when it comes to the.
Bird rule, Well, we have yet to argue this before the Parliamentary and I anticipate that we will do so this week, either this week or next week, and it certainly will be challenged. That provision will be challenged in front of the Parliamentary and I don't know how she'll rule.
Listen, I think it is very sound policy.
If you look at just a few weeks ago, I chaired a hearing on AI, and I think AI is transformational technology that is going to have a massive impact on productivity and jobs across the country, and I think it is critical that America win the race to AI, that we not lose to China. And the hearing I chared,
we had witnesses from across the industry testifying. Everyone agreed there is a real danger of state legislation and in particular states like California adopting a heavy handed nanny state approach, much like the European Union, which would cripple America's leadership at AI. And so I think it is sound policy. Whether it gets enacted on reconciliation or not, it is a question that's still being argued.
You've got the FAA, of course in your purview, Senator, and it's an agency that we've all, as Americans, talked about a lot recently. This is something that touches all of our viewers and listeners.
You've got a little.
Over twelve billion dollars here for enhancements in improvements. Is that enough money to replace the nation's air traffic control system?
Well, twelve and a half billion dollars is a major investment in modernizing air traffic control. There's no doubt we need to do so. It's something I've been fighting for for over a decade. In the Senate that if you look right now at our air traffic control system, it's outdated equipment that they use radars from the nineteen fifties. They use little slips of paper and computers that have
floppy discs. My guess is a lot of your viewers don't even remember what floppy discs were, and yet that's what we rely on to keep our flying public safe.
That's unacceptable.
We need to embrace modern day technology and GPS. They're enormous upsides, and so twelve and a half billion dollars is a major investment. I also think we need to need reforms to improve the system. That's something that's going to be a real priority for the Commerce Committee.
I'm saving my floppies in case they become collectors items someday. Senator, I wonder if you still feel like starlink is part of this solution, and if you've had a chance to talk with Elon Musk about it since his apparent breakup with the president.
Oh look, I think starlink is amazing technology. And my view is that technology decisions throughout the government ought to be based on the merits you look at. For example, the bad program, which which Congress authorized forty two billion dollars to provide connections to high quality broadband, and the entire BIDE administration they didn't connect even a single home
in America. It was an absolute boondoggle and failure. The President President Trump's administration is rightly focused on using that money to actually have connectivity. One of the reasons the BIDE administration didn't connect anyone is they decided they hated Elon, Musket, hated starlink, and so we're not going to consider that as an option. And the reality when you're talking about broadband is the right technology depends upon the right location.
So in a dense herbit environment, fiber makes a lot of sense. If you're out in the mountains or the middle of the wilderness with very sparse population, satellite or or less expensive infrastructure solutions make a lot more sense. And so I think the government ought to make those decisions based on the technology that best meets the need.
Mister Chairman, I'd like to ask you about words we heard from another Senate Chairman, Lindsay Graham of the Budget Committee, who suggested in an interview today that this package may end up needing to be broken up in different parts after all, which of course was the original plan of the Majority Leader John Thune. Is it acceptable to you? Do you think it would be acceptable for the President to not get his entire legislative agenda done in one single beautiful bill.
Listen.
I think we're going to get it done, and it early on I advocated for doing it in two bills. I would have been certainly supportive of that. But we're going to get this bill accomplished. And the reason is, I think the stakes of failure are too high. If Congress does not act by December thirty. First, there's an automatic four trillion dollar tax increase that will hurt every working family in America, that will hurt every small business in America. And that's an outcome that the Democrats are
quite happy with. But there's not a single Republican in the House or Senate who wants that to happen.
So is it going to be complicated?
Yes, are there a million trade offs, yets, But we're going to get it done. And you know, look, I'll reflect back to twenty seventeen, the last big tax cut we passed under President Trump. I spent hundreds of hours in twenty seventeen negotiating provisions in that bill.
And if you look at how that bill came.
To pass, the House passed a good bill, it went to the Senate, the Senate made it substantially better, and then we went to conference committee and it got better as well. My hope is the same thing happens this time. I'd like to see the Senate be bigger and bolder. I'd like to see us have more fiscal responsibility and cut unnecessary waste and fraud and abuse. And so that's certainly what I'm urging my colleagues in the Senate to do.
Well.
And you'd like to see Trump savings accounts for newborn's become a reality. That, of course was your brainchild, Senator. The law stipulates the baby must be a United States citizen at birth, and I wonder what assumptions you are making about the status of birthright citizenship here.
Well, look, this particular provision doesn't resolve that. It just relies on US law, and so right now, US law confers citizenship on birth. I think birthright citizenship is a policy that doesn't make sense because it encourages illegal immigration. So I've long advocated for changing that policy. But this bill is an economic bill, so it's not purporting to resolve immigration questions. What this bill is doing and I'm proud to have introduced it and to be fighting for it.
It's in the bill, it's going to be enacted. This will create an investment account for every child in America and newborn children.
Newborn children born.
This year would receive one thousand dollars to see that account. And then each year, parents and family and employers would be able to contribute up to five thousand a year in a tax advantaged account. That money would grow and it would be invested in the stock market in the s and P. Five hundred, and if you assume, let's assume a little girl little boy born this year has one thousand dollars and then has five thousand dollars invested
each year. If you assume historic rates of growth of the s and P. Five hundred, that little baby, by the time here she turns eighteen would have one hundred and seventy thousand dollars in their account. If they kept on investing five thousand a year, by the time they turned thirty five, they would have seven hundred thousand dollars in that account. And that's for every child in America. That is a really powerful way to enable every child to have the benefits of compound growth.
Senator, I want to go to la with you for a moment here, because i know you're very sensitive to constitutional law, and I'm sure you have very strong feelings about some of the things that we've seen on the streets of America's second largest city over the past four days. We received a statement from the Chief of Police LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell responding to the possible deployment of Marines, which now, of course, has happened. We've got seven hundred
deployed from Camp Pendleton. He starts by writing, the LAPD has not received any formal notification the Marines will be arriving. However, their arrival of federal military forces in Los Angeles, absent clear coordination, presents a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us charged with safeguarding this city. Is what the President is doing right now fair to the police in Los Angeles.
Well, listen, what is not fair to the police in Los Angeles is the actions of Karen Bass, the Democrat mayor, and the actions of Gavin Newsom, the Democrat governor. What we're seeing in La is horrific. We're seeing violent riots that are breaking out and spilling on day after day after day.
We're seeing police cars firebombed.
We're seeing protesters protesting against the enforcement of federal immigration law.
And I got to say, it is a bizarre.
Image to see protesters who say, do not enforce immigration law. We want to be here illegally. To see them waving Mexican flags for the proposition, don't you dare back dare send us back to the country whose flag we're waving.
That makes no sense.
And whether the troops are deployed though, well, look, the problem we've seen in places like La is the cops.
And I think I.
Support law enforcement and the police, but unfortunately today's Democrats do not. When they are given a choice between siding with illegal immigrants or Venezuelan and gang members or violent criminals, or siding with the police, Today's Democrats do what Gavin Newsom does, which is he's suing the Trump administration saying do not enforce law and order, do not protect our citizens.
I gotta say that's backwards.
I think we ought to be keeping our cities safe and that should be regardless of the circumstance.
Answers. We should be against violence, but should.
We be against states rights? Senator? Is that not something you stand for? Does this not risk setting a dangerous president of the federal government coming in and overtaking the will of an individual state.
You know what, there's a long tradition when you have local politicians who are lawless, who are defying federal law. The federal government has the authority and has an obligation to enforce federal law. Look, you saw when you had Southern Democrat governors in the civil rights movement resist integrating schools, saying we are not going to allow African American children
in our schools. You saw President Dwight D. Eisenhower send in the National Guard and say you are going to follow federal law and you don't have the right to defy federal law.
Well, the new.
The new massive resistance Democrats are now fighting against federal immigration law. The federal government has a responsibility to keep the American people safe. And I got to say, we're seeing a replay of what happened during the Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots where Democrat politicians prevented the police from protecting their citizens and allowed people to be murdered, allowed stores to be looted, and allowed police to be assaulted.
And so I'm glad President Trump is stepping forward saying we're going to keep you safe from violence on the streets.
Well, when we consider what he's keeping Americans sefe from Senator, there's a difference between resistance and insurrection. And the President today did not rule out invoking the Insurrection Act.
Should he?
Well, look, that'll be a question that will depend on the circumstances. But I got to tell you the problem is made worse when you have Democrat mayors and governors that refuse to enforce the law. And that's what we're seeing in California. If you break the law, if you commit acts of violence, you should be arrested. And these are lawless protests in support of further lawlessness.
Why are they mad?
They're mad because President Trump is deporting illegal immigrants, because he's deporting Venezuelan gang members and murderers and child rapists. And I don't get the Democrats calculus when they look at that and say, you know what America needs. We need more MS thirteen members, we need more human traffickers and criminals. I think the vast majority of Americans don't agree with that.
All right, Senator, we appreciate your time. Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, of course, the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, here with us on Bloomberg TV and radio