A Day In The Life

I want to get your thoughts on the likelihood of that. I want to get your strategy on the last day of questions today. There are some reports coming out that John Barrasso, the number three Republican in the Senate, says that the momentum is heading in the direction of not calling additional witnesses. There are other reports that we might get a fifty fifty vote perfectly split, in which case I want to know who breaks the tie. You know,

it's an open question. It is close right now. We need fifty one votes to definitively say the trial is done. Don't need additional witnesses. Let's move on to final judgment. If we have fifty one votes, we can wrap this up in the next couple of days. If we don't, and I hope the momentum's going that way. As we talked about in the last podcast, I think they're at least two Republicans who are pretty clearly going to vote with the Democrats, Mitt Romney and Susan Collins. That means

they have forty nine votes. There are the two next most likely or Lisa Murkowski and Lamar Alexander. I don't know where they're going to be. They're very They're holding their cards very close to the vest. They could end up on either side of that, and I think they're considering it carefully. They seem to be genuinely struggling with this decision. If it ends up fifty fifty, we're in a little bit of uncharted territory under the scheduling order

we adopted. I think Republican leadership argument would be fifty fifty means witnesses or not in order. In other words, let's move on. I can't have additional witnesses, okay. I am certain that the Democrats will argue if it's fifty fifty, it means witnesses are in order, so who decides them? Who knows. Look, look, there's not a whole lot of precedent here. There's under the Senate rules, it's not I can make the arguments on both sides of that. I

understand the arguments on both sides of that. It is possible the Chief Justice will have of you. It is not clear. So the Chief Justice doesn't play the role of the Vice president. You know, normally in the Senate, the vice President breaks ties. That's not the Chief Justice's role. The Chief Justice's role is to preside. Now, there's some historical precedent for the Chief Justice breaking a fifty fifty tie.

That happened in the impeachment of Andrew Johnson twice. But then the Senator's got unhappy with that, and the Chief Justice receded and said, Okay, I'm not going to do that anymore. So, as with so many aspects of this trial, we really don't have a lot of precedent to go on. We are in on charted territory. If if Chief Justice Roberts decided to vigorously assert himself and make a ruling, I don't know what would happen. I don't think that's all that likely. I think, you know, you may recall

it as confirmation hearing. He used the analogy of wanting to be an umpire in baseball. I think that's what he wants to do. And so one of the nice things he did, which he didn't have to do. But but yesterday he enforced a five minute time limit on answers to question. That was the same thing Ranquist had done.

There's nothing the rules that makes him do five minutes. Yeah, but I think every senator was grateful because if it hadn't been a five minute time limit, he would have just seen the lawyers on both sides filibuster forever and so, and you would have only gotten into a handful of questions instead of all okay. But that's an example where that was within his discretion. Although that being said, if

enough senators disagreed, fifty one of us could have overruled it. Right, So it's it's that sort of ruling is a perfect example of everyone agreed with it. So it was fine. But where it runs into problems if the chief Justice is is disagreeing with the majority. By the way, you saw the House managers suggest something last night. They said, we're perfectly fine with the Chief Justice deciding everything, deciding evidentry emotions, deciding everything. Now, look, you gotta understand that

argument makes perfect sense when you're in the minority. They're forty seven Democrats. On any party line vote, they're gonna lose. They know that. Remember we had eleven motions on day one. They'll host all eleven. They understand that. So if you're going to lose on any party line vote, it's in your interest to find any other decision maker. Give the

power away, let somebody else make them. Even if they think they're not going to win with the Chief, they got a better chance if they know that they're outvoted. It's sort of like, all right, an election recounts. Have you noticed that when an election is close, the prevailing party never calls for a recount, right like whoever has been declared the winner, even if by one vote. You don't see that person saying we need a recount. It's always the guy who's lost. Yes, because if you've lost,

recount is the only thing that can benefit you. That's a little bit the same as what's going on here. So obviously then today is going to matter a lot before we get to this vote. The reason I wanted to sit down today before we get to the impeachment trial is I want to hear a little bit about your strategy, how you prepare when you're going in, when you're writing these questions, What are you trying to accomplish? What are you going to ask today when you get

to the hill. Well you're looking at all, right, what parts of the story haven't been told, What hasn't been told as effectively as it should, What additional facts need to be brought out? What weaknesses in the defenses or the house manager's case. Should you shine a light on some of what I'm looking at some of the areas that there are still aspects of the evidence of corruption, the evidence of corruption a bearisma the Ukrainian Natural Gas company of Joe Biden and Hunter Biden that that still

haven't been fleshed out. And then I think need to um so for example, uh, there there is an email exchange that that happened when when Chris Hines. So, Chris Hines is the stepson of John Kerry. John Kerry was was Obama's Secretary of State. Chris Hines was business partners with Hunter Biden and with this guy Devin Archer, who was Chris Hines's college roommates. Three of them were business partners. First Devin Archer and then Hunter Biden both joined the

board of Barisma. They both are getting paid a million bucks a year. And Chris Hines does a couple of things. Number One, he sends an email to the to his stepfather's chief of staff, to John Kerry's chief of staff, and and and he says, apparently Devin and Hunter both joined the board of Barisma and made a press and a press release went out today. I can speak to why they decided to do so, but there was no

investment by our firm in that company. Trying to clear his name, to associate himself, It's fascinating that he sends this email. It's also fascinating John Kerry's chief of staff. Notice he doesn't say Devin Archer and Hunter Biden. He says Devin and Hunter. So the chief of staff knows exactly who these guys are. He knows what Barisma is. He doesn't explain Barisma is this Ukrainian company. You may

not know it. Chief of staff knew exactly what Barisma was, knew exactly who Devin and Archer was, and what did Chris Hines do? He went on to say he terminated his business relationships with Hunter and Biden, and he said it was unacceptable to work for Barisma. Now, the White House Defense team briefly got into this, but the House managers have never had to ask a question and answer a question on this. They've they've never had to address. Now,

wait a second. If Chris Hines thought it was unacceptable to work for Barisma, did John Kerry think that? Did his stepfather think that? And did Joe Biden that? And Look, one of the things to keep in mind also what really matters legally? We've talked about in any litigation, you want to simplify. Your enemy is getting so complicated and you get bogged down in the weeds. You want to simplify the question that matters. You know, I did Sean Hannay a couple of days ago, and he had five

points that are critical. Remember, look, that's fine, I said, Sean, there's one you want to simplify to what matters? What matters legally? As does a president have the authority to investigate corruption and credible evidence of corruption? If the answer is yes, that's game over. This this case is done now. And on the fact side, it's worth remembering that. Listen, the question is not really whether Hunter Biden is corrupt. Hunter Biden, by all appearances, has led a troubled life.

This is someone with who's made some unfortunate decisions in his life. The question is whether Joe Biden made decisions that made him part of that corruption. And I don't think so far the connection as to why this is Joe Biden's decision. I'll give you another example. So there

was a question and I joined it. It was a question that Josh Holly asked that I joined, and the two of us asked together, and it was about did Joe Biden never seek an opinion from the White House Counsel's office if he could keep being the point man on Ukraine while his son was getting paid a million

bucks a year from Barisma. And the White House team said, not that we know it, We have no you know, you know, one of the things one does in government, if one has a potential conflict, you should go to the lawyers and say, hey, do I got a conflict here? And you get an opinion and they tell you what to do, and sometimes they tell you recuse yourself, don't be involved. So Joe Biden could have said, you know what, this doesn't look good a ton of countries on planet Earth.

I'm just gonna stay to Ukraine stuff. I'll worry about all the other countries. I'm not going to get involved in Ukraine because my son's getting rich off of Ukraine and maybe it's not right for me to do this. So the house managers, the Democrats did not have to answer this question yesterday, and you're going to ask it today. That's exactly. Are you worried that Adam Schiff listens to this podcast and he's going to get a heads up?

You know? No? Um and And look, I will say this though Schiff is talented, he's good on his feet, but it's interesting the questions that rattle him. The questions that rattle him are when you're getting close to the target. So you're going to ask this question, are you going are there going to be questions on the same topic you're hitting, or are you going to change it up and go after another angle in question time today as well? Well, Look,

I'll give you another example. So Joe Biden told reporters that he's never discussed his son's business dealings with him and that it was discussed yesterday. But what wasn't discussed is there somebody who disagrees with that. And that's somebody who disagrees with that is Hunter Biden. And Hunter Biden said that he talked to his dad about his serving on the Barisma board and Hunter said, quote, dad said, I hope you know what you're doing. So one of

the guys said I do. So why is it that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden are telling different stories that Joe says he's never talked to about it and Hunter's like, oh, yeah, I talked to you about it. One of these guys is lying, Joe Biden or Hunter Biden, They're not telling the truth another way to put it so, well, this sounds very interesting. I mean, I assume that the Democratic House managers are going to just try to evade the question and filibuster, but it sounds like you've got a

couple different angles to come at today. I want to know, beyond the impeachment trial you have, you have more work to do than just sit on this impeachment trial. What is is a day in the life waking up doing whatever you do in the morning, then going to the impeachment trial. I know what you do from ten pm until about two in the morning. But what does a day in the life look like? All right, So let's

take yesterday. Yeah, yesterday I got up. First meeting I had was at nine was a meeting with Benjamin nah Prime Minister of Israel. And so he's staying at Blair House, which is the residence right next to the White House. So I went over to Blair House and met with him from nine to nine thirty. And I know Babie quite well. I've met with him many times in Israel and in the US. We're friends. When he and I meet, it's it's nice because they're one on once. We don't

have staff in there, just the two of us. We sat and had a cup of coffee. We talked. We talked some politics. Look, he's in a crazy situation in Israel. They keep having elections that he hasn't been able to form a government, and so I was getting his thoughts on what's going on on that and what the dynamics are.

We also talked a lot about Iran. I think Beebe's leadership when it comes to stopping a rand from getting nuclear weapons has been extraordinarily important, particularly when Obama was president, and when Net and Yahoo we invited him to speak on the Joint Session of Congress and he called out the danger of the Ayatola Kamayee with nuclear weapons, and the adjective I've used a bunch of times for Net and Yahoo is church Chillian, because it was like Winston

Churchill when the Nazis were a gathering storm that he spoke out. He spoke out with a clarity, spoke out with a gravity and a weight, and it helped stiffen the spine, frankly of a lot of members of Congress. One of the reasons Trump pulled out of the Obama nuclear deal is because Beebe was so strong that he had that. You didn't have Republicans in Congress just to give up on it, say oh well, this is this is done. Let's move on. And so I think that

was very important. So I started the day meeting with Beebe, met with him from nine to nine thirty, then went and met with my staff, my team, and we talked strategy for the impeachment hearing. We worked on questions for the impeachment hearing. We just went back and forth. Okay, where do we want to press and spend about an

hour doing that. Then I went back back to the White House and and was there we talked yesterday about the signing of the USMCA, the US Mexico Canada trade agreement, that was out on the south lawn of the White House. President was there, Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas, was there. A bunch of senators, a bunch of House members were there. You know, wait, look, it was fun. We heard heard speeches. The President gave him, gave a pretty good speech. He

was He was pretty funny. Actually, he was almost like a stand up comedian. He was spending a lot of times sort of almost tongue in cheek, kissing up to the senators and saying, hey, I need your votes, guys, my fate is in your hands. And what was amusing is he said, House members, I don't need you, guys. You already voted. So you're like, yeah, I can ignore you. But hey, the senators, you know, I mean it was and so he signed it. He was giving out signing pens.

I've got a sighting pen from USMCA. So that was fun. And then from there went back to the back to the Capitol and we went into the trial. Trial started at one o'clock and the trial went from one o'clock till about eleven fifteen at night. Yeah, stayed in the cloak room for about forty five minutes trying to see if we could find a deal to get us to fifty one and end this trial. So it was negotiating with other senators. Got in the truck headed over here.

We recorded the podcast. I got home, oh, probably about two in the morning last night, turned on the DVR, and watched about a quarter of the Rockets Jazz game. Don't tell me who won. I only watched the quarter and then although if I will be amazed if the Rockets won, because we're so shorthanded, we're missing Harden and Westbrook and Capella, so if we want to it's a miracle. But I have to believe in miracles. I have to admit I missed the Rockets Jazz game last night. I'll

try to catch it tonight. And then went to sleep about two thirty. Woke up this morning. First thing I had this morning was a text for my scheduler saying, Hey, Lindsay grit Graham, Ney's talk to you on impeachment. So I called Lindsay. Lindsay had just gotten off the phone with the President, and so we talked about he and I are both working to see is there a way to get the senators who are not sure where they are on additional witnesses, to get them, get them to yes,

to get them to ending this trial now. And so we're continuing to negotiate and discuss that. And then I headed back to see you. Then you came here. We had a cup of coffee and did the show. This brings up a fascinating point because in the way that I was imagining how impeachment goes, and I think for a lot of Americans, it's all kind of pre planned.

It's all scripted. Nothing is happening in the moment. Nobody needs to wake up and call the White House and then call your other senator friend and this and yet, from what you're describing to me, running into the cloakroom, hearing something, writing down a new question, calling Lindsey Graham, he's on the phone with the President. A lot of this is happening in real time. It's not inevitable. We

don't really know how this story ends. But look, I think that's very much right and that's not true of every senator. There are a lot of senators who are just kind of sitting there listening. They're going to cast their vote and that's it. I like to be active, I like to be engaged. As as as I told Lindsey this morning, I have to admit I'm I'm having a hell of a lot of fun now. It's not good for the country. I don't want to see it dragged on. I'd like to see it ended. But but

it is. These are complicated, tough, strategic, legal, political factual questions that are there nuanced. They're difficult, and and I think we're going to end up in the right place, which is the president being acquitted. But how long that takes, how long that takes and how we get there is a different story. Could you just take us really quickly through. You're going to get this vote tomorrow, I guess, And

whether to call additional witnesses. If they vote no no additional witnesses, what do the next two weeks look like? So if we vote no additional witnesses, if we get fifty one who say no additional witnesses, that we've heard enough. I expect that the Democrats will have kind of paroxysms of rage. So we'll see several motions. Then the motions will kind of be screw you. It'll be there's something like, I can't believe you did this to me, so I

have another motion, I have another motion. And some of it is the Democrats will just need to get that out of their system. And one of the strategies Mitch McConnell is employed, which I actually think is has been wise and the right thing is to make this long and brutal and painful to all one hundred senators. Mitch just told us a hundred times this is not going to be pleasant because he wants the senators to want to end this. That's exactly right, and there are a

few things more motivating. This is a strange place. So typically we fly out Thursday afternoons to get back home, and we're in our home states Fridays through the weekends. Often how things get done in the Senate is is you're getting to Thursday, everything's at an impass. People are there's a roadblock, and then people want to get out. They've got a plane flight. And so the phrase is jet fumes are in the air, and when jet fumes

are in the air. You got a bunch of senators and some of them are in their seventies and eighties. They're looking to get out of here, and they'll agree to damn near anything to get out of here. Some of the angriest I've ever made my colleagues is on fights trying to limit out of control spending when I've ended up saying no, I'm going to object, and it's

ruined their weekend plans. And I mean, you cannot overstate how I mean how screaming and in race you're joking, I am not at all, I mean literally screaming at the top of their lungness. Mitch knows that that's being used right now. By having these be long, grueling days, what he is counting on his senators, both wobbly Republicans and Democrats, will say I gotta get out of here

enough already that they won't want to extend things forever. Tomorrow, if we have a vote no additional witnesses, I think you'll see several Democratic motions. By the way, each motion you've got an hour on each side to argue it, so it will be I expect tomorrow is likely to be a long night, but then I think we we will move to the final judgment, so that would be

that would be Saturday. You would say, yeah, there's there's a period of deliberation, and that deliberation is in close session, so the TV cameras are off, the reporters are thrown out, and it's just senators giving speeches and talking to each other,

and then we vote. I'm not sure the exact timing of a vote, but but if we if we conclude that the additional witnesses are not needed, I am confident that that by Monday, this will be Stay of the Union is Tuesday, right, and and so if if we conclude there are no additional witnesses, I have full confidence we will push through whatever is necessary to get this

resolved before the State of the Union. And it will be a very funny State of the Union if this is all resolved before then what if it's not What if they vote to call more witnesses, what are the next two, three, four weeks look like? Nobody knows. I mean it is presumably you'll have a motion from the Democrats to call John Bolton. If they're fifty one who just voted for more witnesses, you have to assume they're fifty one for that, presumably you'll have a motion on

the other side to call Hunter Biden. I am very confident we'll get fifty one for that. You know, Chuck Schumer's telling reporters there will never be fifty one to call Hunter Biden. He is full of it, really, I mean it is total spin because he's saying, well, our Democrats will vote. Now, we'll look even if four Republicans join with the Democrats in calling Bolton, those four are not going to say we will only call prosecution witnesses

and not defense witnesses. I'm confident if we're calling witnesses, if John Bolton is getting called, that we'll have at least fifty three votes to call Hunter Biden. By the way, Joe Mansion also said he might vote Democrat from West Virginia. He might vote for Hunter Biden. The point is, if we go down this road, we'll have at least those

two witnesses. An interesting bit of speculation. I've heard several Senators say this in the cloak room, that they think the Democrats are voting for more witnesses but hoping, desperately hoping they lose that vote because a lot of these Democrats are terrified if we open the door to more witnesses and we bring in, say Hunter Biden, or we bring in Joe Bide, or we bring in the whistleblower, that things get really bad because what they've managed to

do in the House proceedings is cover up all of the evidence of corruption. We start bringing in witnesses and suddenly that corruption. You know, it's going to be real interesting seeing Hunter Biden on the floor of the Senate be asked million bucks a year? What'd you do for that? What services did you provide for a million bucks a year? And what'd your dad do to help you out that? This almost has me hoping for more witnesses. But I

just want to be clear. If more witnesses are called, this is not going to continue to be in every single day, ten hours a day now. I think that's right. So if the Senate votes to subpoena let's say that we subpoena both John Bolton and Hunter Biden, that's going to take some time to shake out. Then those subpoenas will be served. I think it's likely you'll see litigation, at least on the John Bolton side with the White House asserting executive privilege try to block his testimony. That

could take weeks or even months. And so I think what is likely as the Senate would go back to regular business for a period of time until such time as those witnesses can come. And by the way, usually with witnesses, you have a deposition first, and then you have trial testimony. So if we go down the road of more witnesses, I would anticipate that being sometime in

the future minimum of a couple weeks. Okay, so we'll get a little bit of a break, and then the Senate has to go from this very intense trial back into the normal business of the Senate, back into possibly removing the president from office. Yep, that seems like a lot of whiplash. It is. And listen, I think there are a lot of Democrats really nervous about the direction

these facts are going. I'll give it example. Yesterday, in questioning Adam Schiff said early on he said, if any part of the president's motivation is corrupt, then that's enough to convict Hi. No, does this mean there is a big angle on this Yesterday, which was the difference between a private motive and a public motive you know, private interest or the national good. So and I think actually Dershowitz did a really good job of sort of breaking

out three scenarios. Yeah, there is one scenario, which is the sort of mother Teresa that you're making a decision because of love of humanity and the greater good, no selfishness, no selfishness. And he said, look, there are not a lot of people in politics making a lot of decisions like that. And he is right in that, right, he said, there's the other scenario that is the corrupt and venal that your motive is purely selfish. Look it's give me a bag of cash. It's bribery or for that matter,

look that's what's alleged about Joe Biden. Give my son a bag of cash. I mean it is. You want to talk about the three scenarios. The Biden allegations at a minimum are in category three, and then category two is the big one, and it's mixed motives where you have some public interest, you want to do good, but

you're also looking to political self interest. And one thing to keep in mind, listen with elected politicians, just about everything you do, one of the considerations you're thinking about is will the folks back home like it, and will this help me get reelected? And that Look, I think politicians think about that far too often. I'm a big believer in the proposition that good policy is good politics. If you do the right thing substantively, it'll play well back.

But you see, you know, we just passed the USMCA. A bunch of senators, a bunch of House members voted for that. A big reason they voted for that is their constituents want them to. It's good politics just about everything. All right, let me ask this, Let's apply the Adam Schift test. If any part of the motive is corrupt, and by corrupt he means thinking it will advance his partisan interest, that it's impeachable and you should remove him from office. Me ask you a question, Michael, do you

believe any part of Adam Shift's motivation is partisan? Oh? It couldn't possibly be, not at it? Well? Maybe yes, I think we would all have to say, of course, part of Adam Shift's motivation is partisan. What a ludicrous standard, right? He literally argued if the president had even the tiniest bit of political motivation, he should be impeached and removed for office. For high crimes and misdemean So if the politician had a political motivation at all, in any degree,

then he's got to be thrown out. A look, it shows this is a game. They know it's a game. They know that standard. You know, no politician could survive that stage. Look, I'm shocked, shocked, there's gambling in Casablanca. But I mean that. Do you remember the compliment that was made of Bill Clinton that he's an exceptionally good liar? Yeah? Yes, I'm just going to leave it at that. I'm ready. I'm not even going to connect that thing. We'll just leave it at that. And it seems as though you

might be paying somebody a compliment. We have got to get you to Capitol Hill. We've run a little late anyway, and we need to make sure that you ask all of those questions of the House impeachment managers, and then we will be right back tomorrow to see how it all turns out. I do have to make one point. Okay, we talked before about milk. This is the most important point. Two liquids are allowed on the Senate floor. I need to tell you a major landmark currents this week. Please

go on, let's make some news. Yesterday, I was looking over at Richard Burr from North Carolina, and I looked over at his desk. On his desk, a page brought him chocolate milk. Chocolate milk, What what is the well? So I took one of the witness cards, the question cards that you write to the Chief Justice, and I wrote out a question from Senator Cruz, Mister Chief Justice, is is it the case that Senator Burr is the first Senator in the history of the US Senate to

have chocolate milk at his desk? And I didn't send it to the Chief Justice, but I did pass it over to Richard, who cracked up laughing. So we have apparently made a new precedent that I don't think has ever occurred, and the Nestle's precedent has been set. When the historians look at this moment, they might say, third time ever that a president was impeached, first time ever a president was impeached without being accused of a crime.

That's going to be a footnote because the big precedent is the first time ever chocolate milk was drunk on the Senate floor. And next podcast asked me about what John Thune and I are planning to do about this, Khalua. We'll have to wait and see to find out. I'm

Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations, and candidates across the country. In twenty twenty two, Jobs Freedom and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.