A Senator, a Catholic, and a Cactus Walk Onto a Campus

this very popish place. Here, a Southern Baptist and a Catholic and a cactus walk onto a university campus. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. It is really terrific to be here, a Catholic University of America. You know, we just came from the Land of Freedom in Texas and I landed here, and I got to tell you, I was I was pretty shocked because there's this mask mandate in place. Every single person in Washington, DC needs to wear a mask except the President of the United States.

Do I have that right? Look, only if he's out at a restaurant powering around with rich people. That then the mask mandate doesn't work it And to be fair, he didn't know there was a camera. Most importantly, you didn't know about it. Yeah, this is a very tricky virus. You put a camera on you, my god, you need sixteen masks. You take the camera off, no problem at all. I have to say it is pretty audacious. Right now.

We've been talking about this vaccine mandate, the mask mandates that is actually shutting down segments of our economy, and amid all of this, with such hubris, with no shame at all, the President and his wife walk into this restaurant. The security detail is masked. Everyone else there is mask

but the rules don't apply to him. By the way, you know that is the same restaurant are actually the sister restaurant of If you remember a couple of years ago when Heidi and I were going out to dinner in DC and this group of Antifa protesters surrounded us, yelled at us, ended up following us out of the restaurant, exact same restaurant that Joe Biden is walking around in without masks, you know. To Biden's credit, though, I think

we need to give him credit. He, unlike the Transportation Secretary, has ostensively been showing up for work over the past two months. But the Transportation Secretary, amid the worst supply chain crisis certainly of my lifetime, he's on two months, going on three months of paternity leave. You know, I gotta say this story actually pisses me off. Look. Number one, people are walking on eggshells around this story. Yeah, they're like nervous about Oh well, it's paternity leave. You're not

supposed to say anything bad about that. You know, we're really we're we're woke, we're sensitive, and you know he's gay, so that I really can't hit you can't talk about don't say it, senator, And like, Okay, our country, it is over two hundred years old. I am pretty sure Pete Bootage Edge is the first and only cabinet secretary in the history of our country to take a paternity early. Yes, yeah, that's fair, you know, not just okay, stay home, be a few days with the kid, be a week with

the kid, but two damn months. Yeah, and and counting. And he said he won't he won't stop, he won't come back to work even with the supply chain crisis. I suppose the only thing you have to recommend it is that probably if Bootage Edge were doing his job, the crisis would be worse. I have to assume. Look, this story actually encapsulates a lot of the things that are infuriating. Number One, Buddha Jedge doesn't show up to work for two months. Ye. Number two, they keep it

a secret. They don't tell anyone. There's no public announcement, there's no he's a cabinet member. If you're a cabinet member, you've got a responsibility to show up to work. Number Three, it was fascinating none of the press reports on it. Ye. Is there any reporter at the Department of Transportation who sixty days in would say, you don't know, we haven't seen in sixty days. That's Secretary guy. Does he still

work here? And it's okay? Look, you might say, the Secretary of Transportation doesn't show up to work, and it's like a tree falling in the woods. Who noticed? Who cares? Right? But it happens to be right in the middle of a transportation crisis that is impacting the whole country. Well, now, listen, I'm not an economist, so I would like to hear your thoughts as a as a lawmaker, someone who sees

this up close. I have been reliably informed that historic inflation and an historic supply chain crisis is one a high class problem. That's what the White House Chief of Staff said. And two it's actually a good thing. That's what Jensaki at the White House and Pee Boodha judge have both said in the last two days. Look, there is an arrogance to this, and all of these themes

are connected together. The arrogance is that this administration wants to implement policies on working people, on the little people that they themselves don't follow. Ye and when you look at something like inflation. So the White House Chief of Staff Ron Clane tweeted out that that it's it's a high class problem inflation. You know, last I checked, buying food is not a high class problem. Yea. The last I checked, rent isn't a high class problem. Gas isn't

a high class problem. Diapers aren't a high class problem. You know. It's easy to sit back and say, oh, what difference does it make as inflations going up and up and up. But listen, and I gotta say, we're with mostly college students. By the way, I loved the astros shirt. Awesome shirt, by the way. In nineteen when the Astros played the Nationals. I went to one of the games here in DC. Sat behind home plate was

the lone orange shirt in a sea of red. And remember that was a weird series where the away team won every game. So I was literally surrounded by Nationals fans. I'm wearing Astros. It is a miracle I didn't get my ass kicked. I'm seeing a theme here that restaurant in DC with Antifa, and then you're the orange shirt at the game. It had nothing to do with politics. It was all baseball and we were winning, and so I was pretty loud and obnoxious about it. But look

the double standard. You know, for all of y'all in college. The last twenty years, we've lived in this sort of weird holiday from history because inflation hasn't really exist. We've had inflation one and two percent for about twenty years now. I'll tell you, I remember the nineteen seventy So I was born in seventy. I was a kid in the seventies, and I mean, I remember when we had double digit inflation. I remember when you had home loans, home mortgage loans

of twenty one and twenty two percent. That's massive. And the thing about inflation, we're up at about five or six percent now, so we're several times higher than what's historically been true. And I'll tell you really gets hit by that our seniors. If you're a senior year on a fixed income and suddenly all your expenses are going up, rent, food, gas, utilities, everything you're paying for and so the income doesn't move,

the outflow goes up. You know, there's an irony where the White House Chief of Staff and the whole Biden apparatus now is trying to pretend that inflation and supply chain issues are a high class problem. Actually the opposite is true. These issues disproportionately affect poorer people. You know, historically speaking, wealthier people can just make they tend to make more money even as inflation goes up. But also basic goods gas, heating your home, food. I mean, that

will disproportionately affect people on smaller incomes. But it's the speaking of gas. It's the it's the gas lighting that's going on. Now. We're being told that up is down and black is white and right is left. And meanwhile, by the way, while we're debating paternity leave for our transportation secretary. And let me be clear about something, because look, you and I are both fathers. In fact, you're you're

a new father. I am, yeah, thank you. You know, babies always get applause, and a Catholic university, you can count on it. So you know, I remember when when our girls were born. So our girls are thirteen and ten. Katherine's about turn eleven, um and listen, I'm a maternity leave is awesome. Heidi took a full maternity leave. It was wonderful with a newborn. So our girls were born ten and thirteen years ago. I have to admit ten and thirteen years ago, i'd never heard a paternity leave.

Ten months ago, i'd never heard of. We didn't talk about it. It wasn't like we made a conscious decision not to talk about it. It was okay. She was caring and I love my girls, but we just it wasn't a thing, all right. So now it's a thing, and that's fine. You know a lot of jobs that can be fine, but but being in the cabinet is different. Yeah, but like you have a responsibility not to disappear from

the job for two months. Yeah, and you know, what it's not that damn hard to pick up a zoom in the in the in the middle of in the middle of a pandemic. You can zoom. You can be on the job at home, and it says something that that there's a view that this is not a problem. We can do what we want. And it's the same

double standard that applies in a lot of contact. And meanwhile, if you zoom out and you look at the geo political picture, here we're sitting around debating whether cabinet secretary should just disappear for family time for more than two months, we're debating whether it woke. Generals in the military ought to be sending critical race theory texts to the troops. Me. Look, it's not like there's anything important to monitor. No, there's nothing.

It's not like the Chinese or testing hypersonics or anything. Yeah, that's the thing I just read about. So our greatest geopolitical foe is testing out weapons that are blowing us away that we didn't know we're possible at the moment, And meanwhile we're twiddling our thumbs. So look a hypersonic You look at a ballistic missile that goes up in the air, goes up into the atmosphere, comes down, and

missile defense systems to take them out. I mean, you put a nuclear warhead on the top of an ICBM and you can Our missile defense systems are designed to try to take them out. A hypersonic is very dangerous because in what China tested is something that goes up on a rocket, but then very load of the atmosphere goes about five times the speed of sound and is

able to orbit the Earth is able to steer. Suddenly missile defense doesn't work that well, and they were testing it with the ability to put a nuclear warhead on the front end of it. It also means one of the potentials. So our missile defense is all keyed on missiles coming over the North Pole. Look, a lot of it was developed with the Soviet Union, where naturally the North Pole is the shortest distance there. With China also the North Pole is the most natural, So you've got

in Alaska big missile defense batteries. With a problem with a hypersonic is they can now come over the South Pole. They can come over the potentially the technology would let them come over the South Pole where we don't have the missile defense on our southern border, or for that matter, our southern border of the real Grand They could just give it to a drug cartel and carry an That's probably the easiest way. It's the most direct way, far

closer than the South Pole. And listen, hypersonics technologies moving forward. We're developing them, our enemies are developing them. But I gotta say, reading the stories, the Biden administration repeatedly said we were shocked, we were astonished, we had no idea they had this technology. And it reminded me of the disaster and Afghanistan, where they said we were shocked, we were astonished, we had the no idea. The Taliban were bad guys. Yeah, if only someone had told us, and

maybe they should be shocked a little less. Look like if they weren't concentrating on putting out cartoon recruiting ads. Yeah, yeah, maybe we could be focused on our enemies who want to kill us. Right. You know, when you look at the current crop of leadership, whether it's in agencies, or it's in the White House or wherever, or it's the Joint chiefs of Staff, it's pretty depressing when you look at the future of America. Though, when you look at

the young people, especially the ones assembled here. It gives you a little more hope. Should should we get to their questions? That's what I'm here for. Should we bring out our friend Liz Wheeler to moderate an open discussion. We're gonna be taking all of your questions, so make sure that you line up. If you disagree with us, all of them, not not all. If they're tough, please,

we don't want it. We don't need to hear that. Okay, And just for the role, if you if you start with with lnear algebra, I'm gonna make the Yale graduate answer that one. That's great. Yeah, you know I mostly studied lesbian dance theory, underwater basket weaving, you know, all the top majors at Yale. So but you know what we can do. We'll kick it to Liz. She can answer those questions. You know. If you make that promise, we may demand performance. Good to see you would just

see you good to see a senator. Whinney said that a Catholic, a senator, and a cactus. We're coming to a campus that I hope you weren't talking about me when you say you are not the cactus. You are the second Catholic. Actually we brought reinforcements. Should we take some questions? Good? Yes. Do we know the rules of the questions. We know the rules of the questions. Ask one question, not two, not three, not two, part not three, part one question. Make it succinct so that we can

get to as many questions as possible. If you disagree with the senator, if you disagree with Michael, our producers will bring you to the front of the line, because that's why we're here. We're also going to while everyone gets lined up, I want to talk to you for just a second about Verdict Plus. It's a portal for access to Senator Ted Cruise where not just tonight, but every night, or not every night, but frequently we will get together and do question an answer, So you can

submit questions through that portal. It's Verdict with Ted Cruise dot Com slash plus. You probably have a little card that was on your seat when you sat down. There's a promo code on that car. I think the promo code says live you will get a month free trial to Verdict Plus if you use that promo code. So that's Verdict with Ted Cruz dot Com slash plus and the promo code is live, and while everyone is lining up, we're actually going to take our first question directly from Verdict.

Plus there's some great questions that have already been already been submitted. So this first question, Senator, is directed obviously at you. It's from an Iraqi war veteran, and he says, as we all know, there have been over one hundred and sixty thousand quote unquote migrants released into the country since March. With that being said, why are we still not processing k one fiance visas? Why punish those who are trying to do immigration the legal way? Yeah, look,

I think it's a very good question. You know, my view and immigration I've always summarized in four words legal, good, illegal bad. I think there's a right way to come to this country. The right way is to stand in line, to follow the rules and come here legally, and fiance visas have been one of the long and traditional ways of doing that. You know. One of the strange things about how the Biden administration has handled immigration is on

the southern border. We have an open border. We've had over one point three million people cross illegally just since Biden has become president. But at the same time, they've shut the border down to legal commerce. It's it's a very strange combination where where they're not allowing So you have Mexican citizens, for example, who routinely would come up to Texas and they'd go shopping, they go out to dinner, they would come there. There's a heavy traffic back and forth.

That is a legal commerce back and forth. The Biden administration shut that all down. So it is a bizarre. If you're coming with a cartel to break the law, they're fine with it. If you're actually coming legally to drive the economy, they're not. I think that's backwards and we ought to be prioritizing doing it the right way. But do you think, Senator, I mean to the viewer's question, is it incompetence from the Biden administration? Were to quote

your colleague Marco Rubio from the campaign? You know, does Biden know exactly what he's doing. Let's dispel with the fiction that he doesn't know what he's doing. I mean, is is this intentional? So? I think the open borders are intentional, and it's because it's two things. One, Biden and Harris essentially made promises to the radical left in the Democratic Party that they would have open borders, that they wouldn't enforce the law, and so far they haven't

been willing to renege on those those promises. But secondly, I think more broadly, they view unlimited illegal immigration as as future Democratic voter. Yeah. I think this is a crass political decision, and I got to tell you it's horrific. I've spent a lot of time at the border. The kids who are coming in are being brought in by traffickers, They're being abused. It is. It takes your breath the way to see what's happening, you know, on the legal side,

I don't have a good answer for it. So why, for example, they shut down legal commerce across the bridges. I don't know. It doesn't make any sense, you know. I actually I've called for them to open it up. Democrats have called for them to open it up, but they don't do it. I have never been able to get a good answer as to why. It's interesting too. I think to note that the Biden administration tried to prevent the media from covering this. They tried to prevent

the drones that were showing footage in del Rio. I mean, you were actually the first one. You can talk your cell phone down there to show the American people what was happening. Because clearly the Biden administration knows that what's happening isn't just arbitrarily happening, that it's happening as a direct result of their political choices. So it does beg the question whether it's being done or for what intention it is being done, since they know that their choices

are causing that problem. Yeah, all right, are you guys ready? So when you step up to the mic, introduce yourself first, and then you can address your question to the senator, to Michael or to me. What's your name? Hi, My name's Nick. I'm a senior history major here at CUA, and for the record, the history department rocks here. Great. I love to hear it. So, Senator Um, I want

to ask you about freedom. You talk a lot about freedom, you talk a lot about liberty, but with all respect, I haven't heard you talk a lot about throughout your career. What is the purpose of human freedom? So I want to ask you tonight what is the purpose of human freedom? And is it the ultimate virtue as human beings that

we should seek or is there something more. Wow. So Nick, let me say you have just demonstrated your first statement, which is the history department rocks here that that is a great and profound question, and we're starting with depth. Look at at the end of the day, I think every human yearns for meaning, yearns for a purpose larger than ourselves, a purpose larger than our lives. That is a purpose that that for billions for the time of

humanity has been filled for many with faith. As for me, I'm a Christian and my faith is a very important part of who I am. But I think when it comes to freedom, there's a different role. If you're assessing how am I going to live my life, then there is a question of what are the governmental policies that

should be in place. And and you know, if you look at the founding of our country, we were founded by people fleeing religious oppression and coming to a place where where we could live according to our faith and worship God and live live our lives according to our faith, according to our conscience. And from a governmental perspective, I think government should not have its finger on the scale

one way or the other. We should protect rules that allow everyone to go and seek whatever faith questions, whatever faith journey. And by the way, look I'm a Christian now, but but all of us have had a faith journey. I was raised as a Christian. I had a period when I was in school where I was probably fairly described as an agnostic. I had doubts, which which a lot of young people certainly do. Actually, Heidi had a similar journey questioning her faith when she was in school.

I think that's a very common part of life. I think we ought to have legal rules in place that protect the ability of each of us to try to answer the ultimate question, to try to answer what has our purpose. I can tell you one thing I point out a lot, particularly when I talk to young people, as I say, look, think about what people will say at your funeral, little macab But but when you're dead and buried, what are they going to say? And nobody is going to remember how big of a flat screen

TV you had. Nobody is going to remember if you had a fancy car or not. I mean the material possessions in life. Look, you need enough money to have food and shelter and provide for your family. But the only thing anyone ever talks about at a funeral are the lives that you touched. Are the people whose lives were made better because you lived? Are the people you inspired? Are the people you helped, Are the people whose world

was bettered because of your effort. And so I think that's a big part of having a higher purpose is making a positive difference in your home and your family, and your neighborhood and your community and your state in your country. And I think each of us is on a journey to figure that out. It's also worth remembering aligned from Saint Paul when we're trying to make sense

of what do we really mean by freedom? Saint Paul says, the things that I want to do I don't do, and the things that I don't want to do I do. Now is that is he just speaking gibberish? Is what does that even mean? Well, what he's describing as the difference between his appetite, his base desires, and his higher

rational will. And we all know, I mean, the clearest example of this, I guess, would be a drug addict, right who at the very base appetite level, wants to shoot up a bunch of drugs, but at the higher level he does he wants to quit. He wants to be in control of himself and have freedom. You know that the Founding Fathers describe this distinction as one between

liberty and licentiousness. And you know, we all used to understand, not just conservatives, everybody in this country used to understand that. And I think recently we've kind of redefined liberty as this idea of just doing whatever you want, you know, no matter how base that is. And you know, the Founding Fathers warned that this would be the end of liberty.

This is why when John Adam says that the Constitution is built for a moral and religious people and it's not fit to the government of any other, he's not Bible thumping. John Adams was not a Bible thumper, and he's not being superstitious. He's describing this this complex fact of human freedom. And I mean, I think that's what you're speaking to, Senator. I suspect that's what the question

is getting at. That if we if we want self government, if we want to keep the project of the republic going, we need to be able first to govern ourselves, and in recent years we've had trouble doing them. And on the question of licentiousness, for what it's worth the brownies here we're provided by the state of Colorado. I think too, if I may interject here, I think to as Catholics and as Christians, we should recognize that freedom as protected by the government is a vehicle for us to make

the right decision. It allows us, as Christians and as Catholics to choose virtue, to choose Christ. It almost mirrors the choice that Christ gives us, you know, giving us free will. We can choose Him or we can choose to reject Him. And that's why it's incumbent on us, as both Catholics and Christians, but also political activists, to defend freedom in as many aspects of life as we can, because it allows us to be, as Christians and Catholics closer to God by making those decisions. So it's also

a vehicle that mirrors our faith. I think, thank you, Hi. What's your name? Hi? I'm Jane Edwards. So I actually have a question regarding immigration. I am a history major here at Catholic University, and my question for the immigration is for legal immigration, because it is often on a case by case basis. Will you actively seek to fund immigration courts and lawyers? So it's a great question. The answer, at least on the court side, is yes. And I can tell you so back a couple of years ago.

You remember when suddenly the news was dominated with the phrase kids and cages, and it was said over and over again. Look, I was very concerned then and now about the kids in cages, and and I actually introduced legislation to address it. And in particular, you had a phenomenon. So if you go back to the history of where this came from, why is it that there are kids in cages? The initial cages were built by Barack Obama.

And what happened if you go back to and my numbers are if you go back to I believe it's twenty thirteen, the number of unaccompanied children that came to the US in that year was I believe six thousand. Shortly thereafter, as when Obama announced Dhaka, which was the executive amnesty for people who came illegally to the country

as children. Now, if you announce amnesty for people who come as kids, you create a massive incentive for people to come as kids kids, And the very next year, the number of unaccompanied children that came illegally to this country went from six thousand all the way up to ninety three thousand. It was a massive explosion. And so the first time I saw the kids in cages was in twenty fourteen. They were in Texas. Barack Obama was president.

They were in Lackland Air Force Base, and they built them because the numbers, the massive numbers were coming in as a response to the executive amnesty. And actually the border patrol interviewed the kids and said why are you coming, and the kids said, over and over again, they said, because we get a permiso, which is if we come, we get to stay. It's very difficult to get the press to cover all of the kids that were in cages that and kids, by the way, that we're being

physically assaulted, sexually assaulted. The traffickers that are bringing them in are bad, bad guys. Fast forward to the Trump presidency, then suddenly the kids in cages that were still there. That became a major issue, and we saw a new phenomenon, which was family units coming over. And so that was

a different form of migration. And what drove that is something called Flores So Flores was a lawsuit that the Obama administration had settled, and it's a settlement that they entered into in the Ninth Circuit that provided a strict time limit on how long a child could be kept in detention if they came illegally, and the Obama administration agreed to it. It was entered into as a consent

decree by the Federal Court under Flores. What it then became the case was that if an adult came with a child, all of them would be released within the time limits of Flores, and so it would force them all to be released. And we started to see a phenomenon that was a terrible phenomenon where adults were showing up with kids that were not their kids, so they would present as a family unit, and border patrol would do a DNA test and a very significant percentage of

them were completely unrelated to the kids. And in fact, we were seeing a horrific phenomenon of children being rented out that if you were a single adult man who wanted to come to the United States, if you brought a kid, that kid was a get out of jail free card. Well, in light of all of that, I introduced legislation and I tried to team up with a Democrat, so I spent oh probably twenty hours negotiating with Diane Feinstein and trying to say, Diane, Okay, let's not have

family separation. I agree emphatically family should stay together. That if you have a mom and dad and kids, they should all stay together. No one wants to see the kids separated from the family. But the answer can't be so release everybody, because that creates much more illegal immigration. So the bill I introduced kept families together. It created safe, secure family detention facilities where you would you would keep

a family all together. And then it funded if I remember correctly, I think it was five hundred new immigration judges to provide for expedited hearings, so that if you have a family presenting a claim of asylum, presenting a credible fear of persecution, that you would have the courts right there to adjudicate it right then get a swift answer, and if they meet the legal standard, they stay, and if they don't meet the legal standard, you put them on a plane and send them home. And so I

filed this legislation. You can read the bill. You know. It was interesting negotiating with Diane. When she and I would talk, we actually had quite a bit of agreement, and she was when we talk about what was happening at the border, and she was disturbed by it. You know, I have to say her staff, I think was far to the left of where she was, and actually democratic leadership they sent Dick Durbin to basically monitor Diane because they didn't want her to greet anything with me. We

ended up not being able to get bipartisan agreement. So I filed my bill, but no Democrats joined together. I said, look, we can end family separation right here, and we can also fund the immigration courts to resolve these claims. There was no democratic appetite to do that. Thank you, all right. For those watching online, those watching the event live streaming on YouTube, make sure you subscribe to the Young America's Foundation YouTube page and ring that bell. I'm talking to

you those who are watching online right now. Before we got to your question, I do want to take another question from Verdict Plus. Is a little bit of a saucy question about big tech, and I'm very interested to hear your answer. Actually, and this is the user name of this individual I thought was very funny too. It's a real truth captus. Yes, I love the real truths um he asks, is it's a yeah, oh well, my

apologies of course. Um this is what she asks. Is it a coincidence that Facebook shut down the same day that Francis Howan, that's the Facebook whistleblower that testified in Congress blew the whistle on them? Or am I just crazy? You know? I have to admit I thought the same thing, and and that day tweeted out a gift of uh Facebook headquarters running through the hallways going shred it all. You know, I don't know, but it was. It sure

was an interesting quinkydink. You know, if the last few years have taught us anything, I think it's that the difference between a wild, crazy conspiracy theory and the truth is about six to twelve months. You know, that would be the big distinction. So here here's my follow up question. That was I have it on good authority. It came from Russia to begin with. Here's that's a joke for the Internet censors. That's a joke. I didn't get it

on good authority. I got it from the Hillary Clinton campaign. You can't can't stand when we call him out for subscriptions. So we got to balance that out a little bit. Let's get to your question. What's your name? Hi? My name's Ali Trust. I'm a double major here in philosophy, pre law, and history. I have thank you. I have

a question about immigration regarding the humanitarian crisis at the border. Um, what are you or what would you do regarding all the abuse and sexual assault going on at the border right now with those kids in cages. Yeah, look, it's it's what is happening now. I've been to the border a lot of times that I've represented Texas nine years in the Senate. Going down to the border something I do frequently. I've never seen it remotely this bad, and it's worth noting, you know, when you ask what can

we do about it? Sometimes when the press asked that question, what they mean is there's no way to solve it. I'm not suggesting that's what you mean by it, but that's what the press means when they ask it. And we know that's actually not true because last year we had the lowest rate of illegal immigration in forty five years. So what we were doing a year ago was working.

What were we doing a year ago? Well, the best way to understand how we got into this crisis now is the first week Joe Biden was in office, he made three decisions on immigration that had massive consequences. First thing he did is he immediately halted construction of the wall. And so if you go down to the wall there portions of it they're built that are big, beautiful wall, as someone might say. And then on January twentieth, they literally dropped their tools. You see rebar that's just rusting

that down on the ground. You see bulldozers that are just parked, and they we are paying contract actors millions of dollars not to build the wall. That was step number one. Step number two is the Biden administration reinstated catching release. Catching release was the policy where you apprehend someone, you give him a court date sometime in the future, you let them go, say hey, please show up at court. The vast majority of them are never seen again. Catching

release doesn't work. If you want a secure border, you can't have catching release. The third decision, and this was probably the most significant, was that Joe Biden ended the Remain in Mexico policy. Now Remain in Mexico was an agreement that President Trump negotiated with the government of Mexico and Mexico agreed that people crossing illegally into the United into Mexico, typically from Central or South America, would remain in Mexico where the US asylum case was cases were proceeding.

Remain in Mexico proved to be an incredible success and it's what produced I mentioned a moment ago. We had the lowest rate of illegal immigration last year in forty five years because of remain in Mexico, our government working cooperatively with the government of Mexico. On day one Biden tour that into pieces and we have today the highest rate of illegal immigration in twenty one years. And let me take a minute to talk about So what is happening?

You know? A few weeks ago, I was down in South Texas, did a bunch of roundtables and sat down with law enforcement and sheriffs and ranch owners and farmers and local elected officials. So the ranchers, I remember there were two different ranchers, both women, who described almost the

exact same thing. They said, they don't allow their teenage kids to go out on their property without an armed firearm, that they're just so many traffickers crossing their property on a daily basis, that it's not safe for their kids to be out there and they were mad, they were ticked off. You know, how is my country not allowing these criminal cartels just to ignore the law with impunity.

We also heard from law enforcement who describes so many of the illegal immigrants who come across, they're wearing a colored wristband and the color corresponds. So to cross the border, you have to pay the cartels. You can't if you're in Mexico. You want to cross in the US. If you try to swim on your own, they'll kill you. The cartels have a total monopoly, and you pay them anywhere between three and eight thousand dollars. And what happens when people come across is typically they get put in

stash houses just north of the river. The stash houses are really violent, dangerous places. There are a lot of physical assaults there. There are a lot of rapes that happen in these stash houses, and often they will extort thousands more once you're there. And so the color coded wristbands correspond to how many thousands of dollars you paid

and how many you owe. Now what happens next. Many of these folks then go turn themselves in to the border patrol, and the Biden administration sends them to cities throughout the country. So you may think, you know, maybe you're from New York or LA or Chicago, or maybe you're from DC. You may think, well, gosh, I'm not

on the border, this is not a problem that impacts me. Well, there are hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants that the Biden administration is sending to every city across the country. And you get, for example, teenage boys that arrive here in DC who owe the cartels several thousands of dollars, and so they're working for the cartels and they have to pay it off. Remember the cartels they know who

their families are. And so if you're a teenage boy and you owe four thousand dollars, if you don't pay that all, they will kill your mother, they'll kill your sister. And so you now have all of these, many of them are teenagers working for the drug cartels in every city across the country. You also tragically have, particularly with teenage girls, many of them are put into forced prostitution and it is horrific. So the prostitution houses that the

cartels have set up are like an old plantation. They keep a ledger of every expense. So they charge you for your room, they charge you for your board, they charge you for utilities, they charge you for every different fact. I was told the cost for the scissors to cut the ankle monitor bracelet off your ankle was thirty dollars. They charge you thirty dollars to cut the bracelet off. And so if you can imagine a fifteen year old girl from Hondura, Sir Nicaragua, Guatemala, who came north because

she wanted to come to the Promised Land. She wanted to live free. She was inspired by America and a few months later she is living in Hell enforced prostitution in an establishment run by the drug cartels. This is horrific and it's one of the things that frustrates me politically when we talk about it, is that the defenders of this policy say they're being humane and compassionate. There's

nothing humane about what is happening to these people. I think the answer to fix it is reversed the three decisions Joe Biden made, which is returned to building the border wall, end catch and release, and reinstate the remain in Mexico policy. And we know that worked because it worked last year dramatically well. But right now, at least Joe Biden Kamala Harris don't want to do it. There was an incredible statific stick. It came out a few

years ago. It was actually reported in the Huffington Post, left wing outlet. It was relying on data from Fusion and Amnesty International that sixty to eighty percent of women and girls who crossed the border illegally are raped or otherwise sexually assaulted on the journey. Senator, to your point, there are politicians in this country, and I'm not going

to both sides it. It's politicians on the left, overwhelmingly on the left, who are incentivising people to do this and incentivizing this perilous, violent journey because they think they can score some votes out of it, in some cases

cheap labor, but mostly it's votes. And if you are doing that, if you are opposing a border wall, if you are opposing border enforcement, if you are doing all the things that the left is doing in this country, as far as I'm concerned, you've got blood on your hands. And it's not going to be solved as a both sides question. It's the left needs to grow a conscience and look at the numbers and look at the reality of what's happening and cut it out. Yeah, and Michael,

I think too. It's especially pertinent being at Catholic University that sometimes the leadership in the church misunderstands the church doctrine on compassion, on humanitarianism, and teaches instead social justice. Because we know Biblically we're taught to welcome the traveler, welcome the stranger, and that the church. Sometimes the leadership of the church teaches that this is equal to an open borders policy. Speak to why this is not correct, Well,

you have a right to a country. You know, there's nothing in Catholic doctrine saying that you don't have a right to have your own country, or that patriotism is wrong, or that enforcing the law is wrong. Actually, the civil authority is instituted with the authority of God, and the Saint Paul writes about this. You see this throughout the Bible. And the love of country is an extension of the love of one's own family. It's perfectly natural and it's perfectly right. So we want to be very kind and

very welcoming, and we do all of these things. We do it in private charity, and we do it at the national level too. But this does not mean tearing down borders. That actually can have a very negative consequence because, by the way, if you erase the borders of this country, you're erasing the national identity itself. And then where is it exactly that the people are fleeing to. It's an incoherent action. Well, and Liz, I think you raise a good question, and I'd say a couple of things on

that point. Number one, I will say that charities and churches, but in particular Catholic charities in South Texas does an incredible job caring for these children, caring for these women who are abused. That there is in the Rio Grand Valley sister Norma who leads that effort, and I know her. She is there constantly, She works tirelessly, and you know, these children who are going through unspeakable horrors. It's not the kid's fault. And we should certainly show these children

and these people love and compassion. But the real love and compassion would be not to create a legal system that incentivizes hundreds of thousands or millions of people to be brutalized by these cartoons. And you know, it is absolutely true that that that the Catholic Church and the Bible teach to welcome the traveler. But often what has missed there is no country on the face of the planet that welcomes more immigrants than the United States of America.

We are the most generous and welcoming country in the history of the world. And in fact, the countries that that lecture us on how dare you secure your borders, they don't let people in. I mean, it's utter and complete hypocrisy. We're a country built by Look, my dad came as an immigrant from Cuba. I love that. We are a melting pot and and we are built by people seeking freedom. We should keep that. But but simply having a lawless system where innocent people are abused, used

by vicious criminal cartels. That's not compassionate. That is being willfully blind to the horrific crimes that are being carried out as a result of failed government policies. Yep, I think that's I think that's correct, and it's it's the right thing to do to note which side of the aisle those policies are being carried out. Thank you for your question. All right, Well, we're teeing up at the next very good. While we're teeing up the next question.

That card that I mentioned before that's on your seat that has that promo code, make sure to visit verdict with Ted Cruise dot com slash shop. You can see this hat that's sitting very comfortably back here on the cactus. We have some pretty cool cactus merch that's now for sale. You can get ten percent off that merch by using that promo code live if you get a Verdict with Ted Cruise dot com it slash So. I gotta say that's very churesque of the cactus wearing a hat with

a cactus on it. It just sort of just folding in upon itself. And I don't know if I was supposed to mention tonight that the cactus beat both of your faces onto the surprised. I'm not surprised. We have a face for podcast, but the cactus is the real star of the show. Yeah, that's exactly right. All right, are you ready with your question? Introduce yourself clear body. I'm Sam, I'm a working professional, but Senator Cruz, I was actually one of your interns back in college in Houston.

I see Grant over there, So hey, Grant, I don't know if he remembers me, but hey, and you know, Michael and Liz obviously were both your All of us are part of the mystical body of Christ. So I feel like I already know you guys are ready here. That's where I knew you from. Okay, So my question is to both Michael and Senator Cruz and Liz as well,

if you'd like surrounding the definition of liberty. Liberty is a word that's kind of used as a buzzword on the right, but it is also used by many on the right to justify and perhaps even passively allowed the cultivation of very vicious acts. So I was wondering if Michael and Senator Cruz, if you could both give your own definition of the word liberty and maybe comparing contrast, because something tells me you might not perfectly agree on

the definition. Sure, I'll borrow my definition of liberty from Lord Acton. Winston Churchill famously said that if you don't have a good education, you should just quote really smart people. So i'll quote quote Michael knows all the time. So Lord Acton points out that liberty is not the ability to do whatever you want to do, but rather the

right to do what you ought to do. And we touched on this a little bit earlier when we talked about how liberty and licentiousness are not the same thing, about how the rational will exists to mediate between the appetite, the base passion, and the divine will, and it's what separates us from from the beasts. So I guess the example I would use to bring all of that down to earth is education. The point of education is to make us free, right, That's why we call it liberal education.

We call it the liberal arts. So the whole point of it is to make us free. And when you are free, you are not being coerced, right. That's I think that's probably the basic thing we would all say about freedom. But the iron here, or the complication, is that in order to attain this freedom, you need to be coerced by your teachers, by the exams, by the grades. I mean, you're coerced for twelve years, thirteen year, oh, fifteen, depends on how much schooling you're going to go through.

By the time that this administration is over. With free college in PreK, it's going to be thirty five years. So it's a lot of coercion, but it does serve a purpose. You do actually have to train your will, and this is a difficult process. And when people are in college sometimes they make some mistakes. They let their appetites run away with them. It's not so good. The George W. Bush famously said, when I was young and ear responsible. I was young and ear responsible. But the

idea is, you want to mature and grow up. And so I think we have this mistaken conception of liberty that really comes from Freud. We have this kind of steam engine idea of liberty, which is that I've got all of these appetites and desires, and if I don't engage in even the base ones, even the one the naughty ones that I'm not supposed to do, if I don't let off a little steam every once in a while,

then I'm just going to explode. This is different from say Aristotle's understanding of behavior of vice and virtue, and the Catholic understanding and my own understanding, which is that when you practice the virtues, which are habits, they get a little bit easier. This is a fallen world. We're all sinful. It's we're going to stumble. We're probably not going to act perfectly in this world. In fact, I know that we're not, but it is going to become

easier the more you practice these virtues. And the same is true of the vices. And I say this with a great deal of experience. When you practice the vices, it's kind of hard to do it the first couple of times, and then it's easier and easier, and then it's harder to stop. And this I think it would be the description of addiction. And so any coherent understanding of liberty I think has to take into account virtue. It certainly did for the founding fathers, it has for

statesmen for all time. You mentioned the mystical body of Christ. Christ says in the Gospels the man who sins is a slave to sin, and we just know that to be true in our own lives. Anyone who's ever sinned knows that that is the case. And so I think I agree with you. I think sometimes and just in recent decades, we've taken a more shallow view of liberty,

and liberty is not a shallow thing. And to quote Ronald Reagan, it's not passed in the bloodstream either, Okay, it's one generation away from being lost, which is why it's so important to educate people in freedom. That's what YAF is trying to do. That's part of the purpose of this podcast. And while the left, I think wants to really suppress our freedom by appealing to all of our vices. Senator Cruz and I talked about this on

the Prager Yu book show. We talked about Brave New World and the conquering of a people by cultivating vice. I think we need to recognize that to have true freedom, we have to have some idea of what's good. So that was an amazingly erudite and well thought out answer.

You know, I will say that the number one Michael talked about practicing vices, um And I will note that after the last verdict we did at Texas a at M that you and the entire team came back to my house in Houston and we practiced vices until about three in the morning. We had some very expensive scotch and some very cigars. Um And and I'll say, you know, your practice makes perfect. This is the thing I keep

working on it. Um. You know. But but Senator, to be fair, the body is a temple, and the temple needs incense, Okay, so I'm gonna defend that. So one of the things I find interesting in your question is you said you guys may disagree on this, And I think that was insightful because I listened to what Michael said and I thought it was quite learned, and yet I didn't really agree with it. Um. And and you know, I would say there's a distinction. It may be the

Catholic Protestant distinction. Um. I would say I have a more libertarian bent, perhaps than Michael. I would say most people. I think at Tilla the Hume has a more libertarian look. When you ask what liberty is, Liberty is the right to make your own choices in your own life, to think, to speak, to the right too. As as John Locke put it, life, liberty, and property the liberty. One of the famous formulations of liberty is my right to swing swing my fist ends at the tip of your lip.

Knows you have a right to do whatever you wish with your life. You don't have a right to impinge on the liberties of others. You don't have a right to impinge on the rights of others. There's some in the philosophical world or legal world that a positive distinction between negative liberties and positive liberties. Negative liberties are essentially lead me alone, don't silence my speech, don't prevent me from practicing my faith, don't take away my right to

keep in bare arms. Those are negati of liberties positive liberties, and they're typically folks on the left that are advocating this. Are a liberty to have healthcare, a liberty to have housing, a liberty to have and there it's an entitlement that is framed as a liberty. In my view, liberty as the former and not the latter. Liberty is the right to be left alone. Now what Michael said about the right to do as you ought. Look, I yes, I think you ought do as you ought. That's what ought means,

the power of tautology. But I also think you have every right not to do as you ought. And so if you want to exercise your free will to be a sloth or a drunkard, or to fritter away your life, you have a right to do that. Now, I would hope you wouldn't. I would encourage you not to, but it is within the realm, the realm of choice for you to make it so in the legal world, and

I'll shift to law. There's a big debate in constitutional law that is sometimes viewed as a debate between Scalia and Thomas, and it is whether the law protects whether the Constitution protects natural rights. And my view is that the Constitution limits the power of government. And they're a host of things. So, for example, school choice is an issue I am deeply passionate about. I've spent twenty five

years of my life fighting for school choice. As much as I believe in school choice, I don't think you should have judges mandating school choice, even though it would help kids enormously, because I don't think we should be reading into the Constitution a mandate for our own personal policy choices. So when it comes to what liberty is, I would say I have a more capacious framing of it, and I would leave in terms of urging the virtuous

life as a very Aristotilian call on your part. I think that's a great That is a great calling for pastors and priests and motivational speakers and anyone seeking to teachers, anyone seeking to help people find their calling in life. But at the same time, we shouldn't force it. And by the way, a natural area. This is playing out as vaccine mandates, where you have government trying to force people to make a healthcare decision. I've been vaccinated. I

believe in vaccines. I encourage people to get the vaccine. I also believe you have individual liberty and the right not to get the vaccine if you choose not to, and you're an adult and make your own choices. And I will say in response to that, I did tweet out the hashtag your body, your choice, and left lost their mind and they just say they're no, you're not allowed to say that. I'm like, why are you telling people they got to stick a damn shot in their arm.

I think liberty should have a lot of flexibility and a lot of room in it, including the liberty to make stupid decisions, because, to be honest, we learn more by mistakes anyway, and you have the right to do dumb things too, right, And I think it matters to what liberty is in relation to. So if you're talking about liberty in a community, or liberty and a culture, or liberty in your you know, church group, that's different. You know, the cultural stigma that might be on certain

actions versus whether it's legal. And we know, you know, many politicians are abusive. We know people in power like to exercise that power, and so we have to we have to, I think take the more libertarian view on liberty to allow us to make the choice to be holy, because that's what liberty should be for conservatives and Christian conservatives, is the ability for us to choose that virtue that you're talking about, because it's like, it's like personal charity

versus welfare. Right. You know, if you are forced by the government to give money, it's it does nothing for you. You're not giving up your own free will, You're not giving up your heart versus when you know you're giving by your own choice, that is an act of charity that benefits both you as the giver and the recipient

of that. So I lean more libertarian on liberty too, to make sure that your right to live your life, or as the Founders say, life liberty, the pursuit of happiness, which obviously means property, which means the extension of person, the fruits of your labor, is protected because that allows us the right to make the right choices. Well, you know,

while I may disagree with that particular libertarian view. I will point out to the senator's point on our staying out late and smoking cigars and you know, having with scotch and things like that, we burn the evidence and burn and burning the evidence. I will say, I have always relied on the compatientiousness of libertarians when I myself, I am indulging in this behavior. And in my defense, I went home and fed my baby, did virtuous thing. Yes,

thank you for your question. I appreciate it. All right, this is going to be the final question. But for everybody who I appreciate getting in line. If you didn't get a chance to ask your question, you can go to Verdict with Ted Cruise dot com slash plus and you can submit your questions there. And like I said, Senator Cruise and I will be taking questions on a fairly regular basis from those who are part of that community. So Hi, what's your name? Hi there, my name is Peter.

I actually work here in the DMV area. I have a question for you, Senator, for mister owls um, why does it not like you work better to work across the aisles with people that have a platonic idea of the way that the world works versus us as a as an Aristotilian view we have. We both have the theme idea of you diamond Ea, but it doesn't seem like you work well across the aisle enough to do

meaningful changes. So Peter that that again is a very learned question, and I will say Catholic University is coming through powerfully strong look In many ways, the failure of both parties to work across the aisle is a symptom of a broader phenomenon that's playing out in our society and culture, which is that we're getting more and more polarized and tribalized and atomized. And I think social media

contributes to that powerfully. You know, it used to be that we had homogenizing institutions in our lives, that we might be a Republican, we might be a Democrat, and yet we went to work with someone of the opposite party, we went to church with someone of the opposite party. Our kids played together on the playground, and it's hard to believe someone's the devil if you're sharing a burger at a backyard barbecue. Today we're so separated that the

right listens to right wing news. The left listens to left wing news on social media. If someone disagrees with you, just unfriend them. They disappear, and we end up in these feedback loops where we only hear views we agree with, and we think that's the only thing. We began this. This podcast got a couple of questions and immigration. If you watch Fox News or Newsmax or o An, you know about the immigration crisis. If you watch and it

doesn't exist, it's simply there is no immigration crisis. That is a really harmful dynamic. How does it play out on Capitol Hill? I'll say in the Senate at least, here here's an encouraging thing. By and large, the senators get along pretty well. There's very little direct personal incivility one to the other, which is good. There's more of that in the House. The House is a more bare knuckle place, and people can be nastier to each other.

There's very little of it in the Senate. There are a number of Democrats I get along with very well. You know, Corey Booker and I are friends. Kirston Gillibrand and I are friends. Actually three different Democratic candidates for president, Corey Kirston and Amy Klobuchar all campaigned and used as a laugh line in the Democratic primary. Heck, I can even work with Ted Krits. But it was just kind of like, Okay, apparently I'm unifying Democrats somehow obliquely, there

are and there is some bipartisan cooperation. So let's take, for example, Kirsten Jellabrand. Kirston and I have worked on a number of matters together. We started working together my first year in the Senate where we're both on Senate Armed Services Committee, and she's been really heroic in leading the fight to change how the military handles rape and

sexual assault. And there's been a long persistent problem in the military of far too many instances of sexual assault and victims of assault being afraid to come forward and report. And what Kirston had been advocating was moving the decision and the prosecution of sexual assault out of the direct chain of command rather than the commanding officer making that decision,

moving the decision to a professional, career military prosecutor. And then that's a change other countries, our allies, the United Kingdom has done that. Israel has done that, and it's seen significant improvements in terms of preventing us AL. Kirsten made those arguments, actually went into we were having a hearing in a markup. I went in with an open mind. I listened to the arguments she made, thought that were persuasive, and I teamed up with her. And so for eight

years we've been working side by side. She's been leading the Democratic efforts, I've been leading the Republican efforts. I think we're likely to finally win that victory this year. I think we're right on the cusp of victory. That was an example where we were able gradually to build bipartisan support. The problem more broadly, because the electorate is polarized. Let's take right now the Bernie Sanders budget. We're getting ready to vote on the Bernie Sanders budget. It's a

five point five trillion dollar budget. It is massive in size, it has trillions of dollars in tax increases, and the congressional Democrats have decided they want to use route power to ram it through. So there are no Democrats talking to Republicans about this. They don't intend to get a single Republican vote in the House. They don't intend to

get a single Republican vote in the Senate. Right now, they're trying to pound the living daylights out of Joe Mansion and Kirsten Cinema, the two loan Democratic holdouts in the Senate, to get them to submit. They're talking to an echo chamber that is amplifying the extremes, and to be honest, the right as too. That ends up producing far less cooperation and common ground. I think we can move beyond this. I'll tell you I am in terms of the polarization and fighting we've had, I am short

term pessimistic and I'm long term optimistic. Short term, I think that the Democratic leadership in Congress in this administration are really radical right now. That I think, and in many ways that's an outgrowth of the Trump presidency. Is the left hated Trump so much that it radicalized them and that's being reflected in policy after policy after policy. I don't see a whole lot of common ground right now.

As they're trying to ram through the Bernie Sanders budget, you're not going to get Republicans going along with that. I do think, however, going forward, there is the potential for common ground, particularly if we don't demonize or vilify each other. So this is a nasty business. I mean you get in alt you get, I mean they go after your family, to go after your kids. It is.

It is brutal. And by the way, like I'm on Twitter, I read just about every nasty thing people say on me about Twitter, and there are a lot of them. I mean, you get and the funny ones I enjoy, Like if someone just says f you, it's like, oh, that's that's very clever. You know, let's go brandon um. But I try, and I hope others try not to

engage in nasty personal slanders. I mean, even as we discussed things here, I'll disagree on policy, I'll explain why a policy decision I think is a bad idea, and look, I will tell a joke. So, I mean, it doesn't the fact that you don't you know, you don't have to talk like you got a ruler inserted somewhere. I mean, you're gonna have some fun. But but if you're criticizing, I think it's better to have a light touch and a smile rather than you know, the typical political attack

at is this you know, super deep voice. My opponent hates kitten ten crew. Gosh, what do I sounds scary? So across the aisle though with them on meaningful changes to bring this back to a republic from the democracy than it is, say using the can you hold the microphone ups saying phasing out the phasing out the positive human rights that the federal government does, to increase, say like a UBI, phasing out the rest of the positive

human rights that the federal government does. Doing that, and to restructure the to restructure the IRS to be to do ah attacks on the velocity of money. And that's it. So I think those are creative ideas. I think those are when it comes to the IRS. I've long advocated abolishing the IRS and simply having a simple flat tax. And by the way, to understand the dangers of it,

we didn't get into it. But one of the elements of the Bernie Sanders budget right now is requiring your bank to the report to the IRS every single transaction you make of six hundred dollars or more. And you want to talk about big brother monitoring that that is a terrifying thing. And I'll say, you know, the press will characterize that is, oh, that's just monitoring big money rich people. Look, we're the room of college kids. Every

one of you that has an apartment. If you're in DC, you're paying more than six hundred bucks and rent unless you got forty two roommates. That I am very skeptical of government power, and I think the more you can protect liberty against government power, against government spying, against government control, the better. Those are ideas that get a lot of resonance. I think when you talk to people, and it's frankly, it's one of the purposes of this podcast is that

we try to engage in substance on issues. You know, as Michael knows, my wife Heidie listens to the podcast and if if she thinks we get too dogmatic, if we're suddenly like pounding the table and repeating Republican talking points, she'll call Michael or me and say that sucked. You know, it's never compliments when the number comes up, I don't think it's not true. Sometimes she'll say, Michael was really good,

not much. But you know, frankly, I appreciate the honesty because you do want to make sure that you're engaging with real issues. You're not just straw manning the other side. You're not. Increasingly it's we're not even speaking the same language. Very we can't even agree on the definition of man and woman these days, so it can be difficult to communicate with the other side, and you want to be

engaging with the best arguments that they have. But there is another side to it, which comes from Ronald Reagan. He was famously asked his strategy on the Soviet Union and the Cold War, and they were waiting for some three hour lecture on the Cold War, and he said, my strategy is simple, we win and they lose. Is there is there some element here of is? And let me suggest, I mean, look, you you invoke Reagan, and Reagan has been my political hero my whole life. You look, well,

you're going back a little further than I am. You look at Reagan, and let's take Reagan came in in nineteen elected eighty, came in in eighty one. You know, in Washington, there's a little bit of a folklore which is that Reagan and Tip O'Neill, it was the Democratic Speaker of the House. They were good old Irish pauls, and they'd sit around and they'd have a drink and they'd yuck it up, and they were friends and they reached common ground. And that's usually told in contradistinction to

the horrible crass s obs we have today. That was always a bit of a rose colored glasses telling. You know, go back and read what Tip O'Neill said about Ronald Reagan. I mean he unloaded on him bare knuckles. And so let's take, for example, the Reagan tax cuts. So Reagan passed major tax cuts in eighty one eighty six, he came back with major tax simplification. Both of them were

overwhelmingly bipartisan. How did they get get done. The way they got done is Reagan made the case to the American people, and he directly went to the American people and said, if we cut taxes, we need to get the economy moving. Under Jimmy Carter, it was stagnant. If we cut taxes on families and small businesses and job creators, we're going to get jobs back. At the economy movie.

And what happened was he persuaded millions of Americans who proceeded to pick up the phone and call their congressmen, call their congresswomen, and a bunch of Democratic House members Bolton crossed over and and and voted for the tax cuts because it was overwhelmingly popular with the people, And I think the most powerful tool in all of politics is the bully pulpit of the presidency is the ability.

Ronald Reagan would go on TV and he wasn't mean about it, and in fact, maybe this is a good thing because we've got a little bit long, but but a good story to wrap up one of my favorite Reagan stories. He was doing a press conference, so a bunch of reporters there, and one of the reporters was Sam Donaldson, and Sam Donaldson was the kind of tough ABC reporters, you know what, kind of mean and Donaldson goes, mister President, mister President, you have blamed the problems in

this country on everybody else. You blame them on Tip O'Neil, you blame them on Democrats in Congress, you blame them on everybody else. But you're president of the United States. Don't you bear any of the responsibility for the problems we have in this country? And Reagan smiled and they leaned forward, or the twinkle in his eye, and he said, well, Sam, yes, yes, I do. I bear considerable responsibility because for many years

I was a Democrat. Ladies and gentlemen, on that note, I want to thank our friend Liz Wheeler, host of the Liz Wheelers Show. You can bring her to your campus with Young America's Foundation head on over to YF dot org. Thank you, Liz, I want to thank Senator Cruz, and I mostly want to thank all of you. Thank you for being here. This is Verdict Vitech Cruiz