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I'm joined as ever by the Senator. Senator. Before we begin, I gotta tell you your hair today looks excellent. Have you have you done something new with it? Well? As

it so happens, I got a haircut this morning. I got on a plane first thing this morning, and it flew to Dallas and went to Shelley Luther, who, as you know, she has a hair salon, and she was sentenced insanely to seven days in jail for daring to open a hair salon during the coronavirus crisis, and she spent two nights in jail and then yesterday, thankfully, the Texas Supreme Court unanimously ruled that she'd be released, and so I got on a plane and flew up there

today to get a haircut. Well, she obviously did a very good job. The hair looks good, and more importantly, I think it's good to send that message out. There have been a lot of oversteps during this whole lockdown, pastors getting arrested and things like that. But I think Shelley Luther she might take the cake. You know, she's just dares to try to put some food on the table for her kids, and some judge in Dallas decides

she's got to go to the slammer for seven days. Well, you know, it really was outrageous, and if you haven't seen it, i'd encourage folks watch the video of her sentencing. I watched that when it came down, and the judge, who was an elected Democrat in Dallas, he demands of her. He says, apologize to the elected officials who issued these edicts, and if you apologize to them, I won't send you to jail. And to her credit, she says, I can't apologize.

I can't apologize for wanting people, wanting the people who worked for me to be able to feed their kids. I can't apologize for that. And you know, it was impressive. She was not angry, she wasn't disrespectful, she was just very matter of fact saying, look, these folks, they need to feed their kids. They're hurting. And I gotta say it is ridiculous. Elected officials don't have the right to demand to the people apologize to me, that's not the way it works in the United States. We work for

the people, not the other way around. And the arrogance of our benevolent overlords demanding an apology from the citizenry, it was ridiculous. I tweeted that out a couple of days ago, how absurd it was. And I was really glad to get a chance to meet her in person. I'd never met her um and uh now now, my dad and my cousin they had spoken to her boyfriend

on the phone when she was in jail. They had actually prayed with with him on the phone, and my cousin talked with Shelley just right when she got out of jail. But I wanted to be there just to say, look, we stand with you, and and and it is wrong particularly you know what, you've got local officials that are releasing violent criminals from jail because they say coronavirus, we don't want it to spread. So they're releasing murderers, they're

they're releasing rapists and child molesters. But god forbid, you have a hairdresser, Well, we need to lock her up because she's not properly kissing the asses of the politicians that that that that are issuing decrees. I was a little pissed off. You can tell fair enough. I think you should be. And I think it sends a great statement. If we had a whole country full of Shelley Luther's, I think probably the culture would be a whole lot healthier.

Speaking of unfair sentencing, there's another. And actually, hold on, before we shifted that, I want to make one other point that I made. We did a press conference afterwards, and it's a point I made, but I haven't seen in any of the coverage and it doesn't strike me as entirely accidental. Which is listen, I hadn't had a haircut, as you know we've been doing this. I'd had a haircut in three months. Yeah, I was getting to be

that Smalls kind of tiger king. It was, Heidi said, I was bringing mullets back, and you know, look, I was going more for a BG's thing, but but Joe dirt is an underappreciated look, so I'll go either way on that. But you know, it was interesting this week we were back in DC in the Senate, and I couldn't help but look around at my colleagues, and it sure looked like most of them had gotten a haircut. And it's just kind of interesting for those who are

defending people's freedom. Fine, but we're seeing some politicians posture how to how terrible it is, and and and and and and it was a good thing that she should be locked up. Well, it's just an interesting question who's

gotten a haircut? And how right haircuts? For me? But not for thee as the prevailing wisdom, I think, Well, what was it Bill de Blasio said when he went to the gym after shutting down the gyms, Well, I've got to stay healthy, like like, oh okay, not not the people and and and look, it's also easy to mischaracterize this. Nobody is saying that that that that that everyone should just behave business as usual and ignore ignore

the epidemic, ignore the crisis. You know, Shelley at her hair salon when when I got my hair cut, I was wearing a mask. I was wearing gloves. She was wearing a mask. All of the stylists that worked for were wearing masks. They use disinfectant. They wipe down the seat before I sat down. The stylists used disinfectant on

her hand. They're trying to be sad if they're trying to use common sense measures to mitigate the spread of the virus, but they're also trying to trying to let these stylists be able to feed their kids, right right, Yeah, you know, being able to feed your family is important to public health as well. And you know, you have the Shelley Luther case that was obviously this gross miscarriage of justice and then luckily got overturned yet another one

on the national level, which just came out yesterday. This was the case of Michael Flynn. He was selected by President Trump to become the National Security Advisor. He was then we were told, a traitor to his country, he colluded with Russia. He was going to go to jail, people told us. And then the dj dropped the case yesterday and Michael Flynn, from what we can tell totally exonerated. Well, obviously don't have a law degree. What was going on here?

What does this mean for the DOJ, for the Obama administration, for politics? Look that there are a couple of things at play here. One, Michael Flynn is a decorated general and he as a leader until he was fired by the Obama administration because he had the courage to resist some of their willingness to just whitewash and and and cover up radical Islamic terrorists and be apologists for Islamism. He lost his job for that. But but it's interesting that you know, there's been a lot said about the

deep state. The deep state despises him for that, and what has come out recently about the prosecution has really been disgraceful. How the Department of Justice, the FBI. I mean, they were politicized at a level under Barack Obama that's never happened before. They were turned into political weapons. And I got to say the notes that have been released of the senior folks going after Flynn, where they say say the objective was to get him to lie h that so that we can either convict him for lying

or get him fired. Right, get him fired. I mean it was I gotta say, I commend Bill Barr. What Bill Barr has done, frankly takes backbone because the media is savaging because he came in as Attorney General and said he was going to follow the law and there was going to be accountability, and he directed a US attorney to review this case, and all of these records that had been hidden were suddenly made public, and and and and Barr made the determination, DIOJ made the determination

that there was not sufficient evidence. What this was was a phishing expedition. Yeah, where they wanted to get rid of Flynn. And you know, they were getting ready to close the case until Peter Struck, this hard partisan dam who as all of these you know, nasty partisan text back and forth with with a woman with whom he was having an affair. Peter Struck said, keep keep the case open. And what's interesting about it when they went to interview Michael Flynn. You know, Komey has been bragging

about how he convinced them. I don't know, you don't need a lawyer, You don't need a lawyer, you don't need to tell the White House counts. No, we're just chatting. No, big, you know, just hanging out and it was an old fashioned game of entrapment. And by the way, the alleged predicate for this is the Logan Act. Now look, most people don't know what the Logan Act is. I'll tell you.

The Logan Act is uttering complete garbage. It is a bill that is ostensibly in the US Code that that makes it a crime for a private citizen to interact and conduct foreign policy with with with foreign leaders. Here's the problem. In two centuries, it has been enforced zero times, and there's a reason for it. There's no constitutional basis for it, and it is something that that is routine. I guarantee you today, Michael, I guarantee you John Kerry

violated the Logan Gact. Certainly he did by the Logan Act as a crime. Because John Kerry runs around bragging about how he's telling the Iranians, don't worry, we'll come back to the deal. Ignore. Ignore President Trump's foreign policy. You have Democrats all the time who run around and engage in foreign policy in folks out of office. And let's be clear. So the alleged violation for Flynn, it's

important to understand this. He's a retired general. He's just been named the incoming national security advisor for the new president. This is after the presidential election, so the incoming national security advisor is putting his team together to come in and lead the president's national security team. And what they were allegedly investigating him is that he talked to the

Russian ambassador. I guarantee you every single national security advice going back to the staff of George Washington, was talking to our allies and our enemies that that's actually what you want leaders in government to do. And so it was an assinine phishing expedition based on a laughable claim, and it was all the entire game was, well, let's get him on tape and then let's interview him and see if he says something that contradicts what he says on tape. And and I got to say, look, prosecutors

have played that game all the time. There's a reason in trapment is not allowed because because you're just trying to you're trying to set up what's called a perjury trap. And it was obvious that that these partisan, these partisans who who were at the helm of DJ and FBI, that that was the game they were playing. And it wasn't law enforcement. And I think Bill Barr showed a lot of courage for saying we're going to follow the law and not let this be just just a a

partisan hammer. Right the way you can tell in the notes that were released from the FBI, the way you can tell that this wasn't even just a regular you know, investigation or entrapment is that phrase, or get him fired. It wasn't just we're gonna see if we catch him in a lie, or we'll get him to admit it was that, or get him fired. They had a political interest in getting this appointee removed. So it's great that

this is coming to light, I know that. And there's an old crudge, there's I mean, remember he had been fired from the Obama administration. They didn't like that he was outing what the administration was doing, and they were they were mad at him, and and and that that was evidenced by by the partisan attack. That's right. So we're and of course the irony of all of this is that the media and the Democrats are savaging bar

yeah for being partisan. I mean, I mean, it is the biggest case of projection because he says that Apartment of Justice is not going to be a partisan cudgel. They accuse him of being partisan, and it's it's it's a game, and I think a lot of people are sick of that game. Absolutely. So we've got about a million questions here from the viewers. Obviously this is live, so send your questions in now on Twitter with the hashtag verdict. First one is from Rhino Dino. I don't

think that's his name at birth. I think that's the Twitter name. When does an executive's emergency power? Yeah, there's some colleagues of mine that go by that. From Rhino Dinah's that is true. It's a little long in the tooth in that institution. When does an executive's emergency power overstep the constitution? Are there any rights that are absolute regardless of circumstance. Should there be a way for the legislature of the state or federal government to end a

state of emergency or a lockdown? I suppose. So. Look, that's a that's a complicated question, and even the question an executive there's a difference between the president, a governor, a mayor in times of emergency. The constitutional law has always given some degree of discretion and some degree of deference to emergency powers that are short term, that are temporary, that are designed to address the emergency. Now you can

go too far. So for example, there's the famous steel seizure cases where the federal government tried to seize steel mills. In the Supreme Court said, no, you can't do that. That's going too far. You know, when it comes to pandemics, there is the authority to quarantine people, and that's that's actually got a long history and pedigree. Now you think

about it. In an ordinary case, the government can't come along and say, Michael, we're going to lock you in one place and not let you go for something that you didn't do. Like normally, to be locked up, you got to do something, You got to break the law to be locked up. Quarantines are an accepted exception into that if you have a contagious disease and or a threat to others. But you know what we're seeing where it crosses the line. We're seeing it every day in

the course of this crisis. We're seeing it was Shelley Luthor locking someone up seven days in jail for cutting hair. That's ridiculous. We're seeing it in Colorado with the dad who was who was playing softball with a six year old daughter in a public park and they threatened to give him a ticket. There Pennsylvania, where they gave a woman a ticket for driving a car. She didn't violate any laws by the way, she was driving a car alone, She posed no public health threat to anyone, and yet

she got a ticket. We saw the governor of New Jersey, a Democrat, who said, well, figuring out the constitution, that that's above my pay grade. Well, no, actually, as governor of New Jersey, the oath you take is an oath to uphold the Constitution. It's not above your pay grade. So are there are exceptions and for example, in times of war a president it can suspend habeas corpus, but

in limited circumstances. And what the Supreme Court has said is that the power of the government is at its height when the executive and the legislature are joined together, because they're a check on each other, right, And so that doesn't mean it's unlimited, but it is at its highest point when they are working together, and you have

multiple branches of government together. They are at the lowest point at the federal level, where the executive is on one side and the legislature is on the other because those two are in conflict. And what's interesting, Look, this crisis reveals character and they're just a lot of petty authoritarians running around, right. Many of them are Democrats, but not all. And they just like power. You know, California,

I sent out a video of that. You know, they pulled out bulldozers and filled a skate park with sand to stop teenagers from skating. And I took the chance to tweet out and said, okay, skaters, this this is what big government lefties want to do. They want to take away your freedom and this is stupid. And by the way, it would have been perfectly fine for them to insist on social distancing. Say, listen, we're in the middle of a public health crisis. You need to spread

out a little bit. But the idea that you can't go outside, that you can't go to the beach, that you can't paddleboard, that you can't go jogging, all of that is an overreach. And it's an overreach because people are statists, are gonna status that's what they do, and that's not right. And there's I guess the question a lot of people are asking is is there some hard and fast rules. So you know, the government is allowed to fill the skate park with sand, but it's not

allowed to stop the paddle boarder. I mean, obviously there's no way you could control for all of these details. So how do we know when the government's gone too far? It listened. There is no magic rule on it. You've got the Bill of Rights and so for example, all right, let's take religious liberty. Yeah, religious liberty is a hard question in this circumstance because, for example, churches, Um, Heidi and I go to First Baptist Church in Houston. It's

a big church. My pastor is a good friend. Our church hasn't met in person for two months. Yeah, it's really strange. I mean, we do our family. We do church on Sunday mornings where we I log on on my phone and and and put it on the TV and we watch it in our living room. Hum. Now, the church is planning to start meeting at the end of the month, and I've talked with with our pastor about it. He doesn't want to spread the disease. He doesn't want to contribute to people getting sick or losing

their lives. That's I think that's a reasonable common sense judgment for pastors to make. We've seen Bill de Blasio where he threatened if a church or synagogue dares meet, I will shut you down permanently. Yeah. Who the hell are you to shut a church or synagogue down permanently? And by the way, Nablasio also, you know he showed up at the funeral of a revered rabbi to personally disburse the crowd and then send out this tweet threatening

the Jewish community. You know why exactly is he singling out the Jewish community again? I mean that you start to reveal the willingness to persecute people because of faith. Yes, you can, you can work to protect public safety. But when you start signaling it, singling out faith and religious exercise or speech and punishing what you don't like, that's when you clearly cross the line. Right now, speaking of some maybe clearer steps we could be taking, this comes

in from Aunt Betty. What actions are being taken right now to remove Chinese Communist Party sponsored programs in higher education and public school rules, Confucius schools and jong Su. I don't even know what those are. I do know that the Chinese government has infiltrated some educational institutions. There

are there steps to remove them. So there are so Confucius institutes have been established at universities all over the country, and they're typically funded by the Chinese government, and they serve as propaganda arms that they serve as efforts that they offer universities help on Chinese language instruction. Yeah. And and China's approach is they use their vast economic resources a little bit like a drug dealer going to a junior or high where they say, you know, hey, kid,

let me give you a free sample. Yeah. So Chinese communists go to universities and say the same thing. Hey, we'll give you really cheap or even free Chinese language instruction. Isn't this great? And all you have to do is let us conduct espionage on your campus and and let us let us push propaganda. So Tianamen Square, Nope, never heard of it. There is no Eneman Square. So the

question is is there anything we can do? Yes. So several years ago I introduced and passed legislation on the Senate Armed Services Committee, got bipartisan support, and got it written into law, a restriction and a prohibition on Department of Defense funding if a university has a Confucius institute on campus, and it was like, look, we're not going to send your d D money if you've got an

outlet for the Chinese government right there. And that legislation that I authored and passed into law has resulted in over a dozen of those confucious institutes shutting down. I'll give you another example is actually legislation I just introduced this week. Phoenix TV. It is a TV station owned by the Chinese government. Do you remember the exchange. It was a couple of weeks ago at a White House

press conference. There was that report, this reporter and she was questioning the president and I got to give President Trump credit here. He said, you know who do you work for? China? She goes, no, no, no, Hong Kong. And I don't know if he had been brief beforehand or if he just had good instincts on the moment, But it turns out yes, in their name it's Hong Kong, but it's controlled by the Chinese government and it is

a propaganda outlet. And in the US, so that same company, Phoenix TV, purchased a radio station in Mexico which has a huge transmitter pointed north, pointed at the United States, and they changed it from a Spanish language station to a Chinese language station, and they put in an application

at the FCC to broadcast into the US. Now, two years ago, in twenty eighteen, I sent a letter to the FCC saying, don't let a propaganda station owned by the Chinese government broadcast propaganda into the US, and the FCC denied them their license. Now, unfortunately, the way it works under the FCC is they even though they'd been denied, they appealed and they got a provisional license while the appeals pending. So right now you're in California. This TV

station is broadcasting, saturating southern California. At times it makes it all the way up to northern California Chinese language propaganda through the radio waves. And so I introduce legislation to eliminate the provisional appeal and say, look, if it's if it's controlled by a foreign government broadcasting in a foreign language, we're not going to be simple patsies and let them pump propaganda into our country. And so that's legislation I just filed this week. Right, that's actually some

concrete work that's being done it. You know, sometimes everything's been so vague in this lockdown. Those are real steps that are being taken, and hopefully there's more on the horizon. This question from Magoo asks about another concrete step. Do you think there will be another stimulus to help those who are waiting for unemployment? I'd much rather be working though hashtag verdict. Do you think there's another going to

be another infusion of cash and people's bank accounts? Maybe? So. We've passed a total of four different bills in response to this major bills in response to this crisis. They were numbered Bill one, Bill two, Bill three, and then kind of Bill three point five that was supplementing the paycheck Protection Plan. The big one was Bill three, the Cares Act. All told, all four of those bills have been nearly three trillion dollars, a whole lot of money. Well,

we're now back in session. The Senator is back in session. We were back this week. I was in DC all week and it is being vigorously debated what Congress should do next. And I got to say, they're wildly different views. So the Democra crats want to spend trillions more, and

they've got a couple of things they're pushing to do. One, they're trying to do their whole partisan wish list that they tried to do on all the past legislation, things like codifying the Green New Deal, things like um like changing election standards nationally to benefit Democrats at the polls. They're pushing that hard. But their biggest priority seems to be bailouts for big blue states that have huge pension

liabilities that long preceded this crisis. Have nothing to do with coronavirus, but but the Democrats want to use that to bail the states out. Anyway, what I've been arguing, and what a fair number of Republicans have been saying, is slow down here. We've spent three trillion dollars. And by the way, it's not like the money sitting there an evolved. We're just borrowing it, right, We're borrowing it and racking up the credit card. We're not going to

get out of this crisis through debt. We're not going to get out through borrowing. The only way to get out it's to restart the economy, and to do so, I think the next bill should be a recovery bill. It should focus on tax reform and regulatory reform. As small businesses are starting to open up, small businesses like Cherry Loo hair salon, we ought to be lessening the tax burden, the regulatory burden, making it easier for those businesses to survive and thrive. That's the only thing powerful

enough to actually turn this around. We can't borrow enough money in Washington and spend enough money to get there, and so at this point, I think it's very much in flux what Congress will do. But this debate is live and raging right now. Well, especially because the country that we most often borrow from happens to be China. And one of the consequences of this pandemic is we're now trying to decouple ourselves a little bit from China. You can't do that if you keep taking all of

their money, you know. I also want to take a moment just to thank all of the listeners. I just saw this number come across the screen. We have now had five million, more than five million audio downloads alone, just the audio from the podcast. I don't think Senator I felt confident going in, but I didn't feel that confident. I don't think either of us thought that the show would would go that big and be listened to by

that many people. So thank you so much. You can always subscribe at Apple Podcasts or Google Play or Stitcher or I don't If you ask us nicely, we'll send an audio casset with a carrier pigeon to your house, you know, get it anywhere on the internet, and please send your questions in with hashtag verdict. This question comes in from Mahi. Is that like the Hawaiian fish? I don't know. How do you feel about Andrew Cuomo's handling

of the situation. It seems to me like other states suffered as a result of Cuomo's into Blasio's handling, And I'm from the Bronx by the way, Look, I don't know Cuomo personally. I do think New York has had a incredibly hard run of it. What's happening in New York City is horrific. I think Cuomo has been markedly better than Deblasio. That's not a very high bar. But de Blasio has been so overeager, so willing to put

the jack boot on, that has really been dismaying. I've seen a fair amount written about Cuomo's decision to send people to nursing homes and to force nursing homes to take people with coronavirus. And obviously many of the deaths that have occurred nationally have occurred in nursing homes. More than half of the deaths in the US from COVID nineteen have occurred in New York and New Jersey, and so that that really is the locus of that, and it's horrific. I don't want to throw rocks at Cuomo

in the midst of a crisis like this. I do think there will be serious questions asked, especially about the nursing home issue. But in a time of crisis, we ought to be coming together and solving the public health crisis and also solving the economic catastrophe that has come hand in hand with that. Yeah, I agree. I think that's probably a good impulse to try to bring people together. I just think a lot of people it's not even that they're upset with Andrew Cuomo specifically, it's that they're

upset at the double standard, the hypocrisy. You know, Andrew Cuomo, who maybe he did an okay job, maybe he didn't. I don't know. There's some evidence that he didn't. He's being hailed as the great hero of coronavirus, and yet other governors or the president who have done at least as good a job as Cuomo did are being pilloried for, you know, just destroying the whole country. It's it's that

double standard. I think it's very difficult for people to swallow. Well, listen, I think one of the biggest shifts in the age of Trump is the utter fraud of the media has been exposed. Yeah, you remember three, three or four years ago, people used to argue, oh, the media isn't biased, and somebody argues that even lefties you can't watch the media. They hate Trump so much. I mean Trump derangement syndrome. I mean they twitch and foam at the mouth and

anything he does. Look, there are things that Trump does that I wish he didn't do. The things he says I wish you didn't say. But when the media is just the only thing they can do is scream orange man bad, Orange man bad, it starts to get ludicrous. And when the media is just a willing shill for Chinese communist propaganda, so I it pisses me off every time I see the media saying, oh, so and so country has has has a worst case of coronavirus than China.

Well that's only because they're doctoring their numbers of the lying to us. And the story that was the most ridiculous was was CNN did a story so the Chinese government, their military propaganda site put out a story that says the Chinese military is dealing with coronavirus much better than the American military. And CNN wrote a whole story saying the Chinese military is doing a better job than the

American military with coronavirus. Source the government website from the Chinese Communist government, and it was literally they're repeating Chinese communist propaganda and it so of course the media bestill my beating heart. These democratic governors are wonderful, and every Republican governor, the president, you know, apparently they were all in the wet market in Wuhan, and Donald Trump is

personally responsible for this virus, as the media tells. Look, I mean, it's it's the double standard and hypocrisy is a little ridiculous. Sure, and I think you're probably right. I think a lot of people are tuning them out. This from Cheyenne the Wolf, who I think as a person, but that's the Twitter name. How do we get the churches open again? I think that frankly, from my perspective, that's the question on top of my mind. I think that's true for a lot of people. So I did

last weekend. I went and did an interview, did a podcast with my pastor. And I actually feel kind of bad, Michael. I feel like I'm confessing infidelity to you. Yeah, what the heckcast I you know, so I hadn't admitted that to you that But anyway, the pastor said, come to the church, and we did. We did, Uh said, it's probably forty five minutes an hour. We talked back and forth, and you know, it's interesting in our church. What the

pastor did. He sent out an email to all the members and said, what do you think where what's the right balance of when are you comfortable coming back? Look, we've seen I think it will vary geographically. It needs to be based on sound science and medicine. So, for example, New York City, the infection rate and the fatalities there are are horrific, and I think it makes sense for people to be have much more rigorous standards trying to

enforce social distancing in New York City right now. There are other parts of the country with the numbers are much less. We've seen local officials abusing their power. So Tennessee and Mississippi, both instances you had people that are actually Kentucky and Mississippi. Both instances you had people who went to church, went to church in their cars, were listening to the pastor over the radio, so they didn't

get out of their cars. They were all parked together in the parking lot listening to the service over the radio. But they wanted to be parked together, and and and the politicians sent in police to ticke at them all. Now that's just absurd, that's just abusive. But let me give a different encouragement, which is the church is not

a building. The church is not bricks or mortis one of the things when I did the podcast with my pastor last week, I was saying, look, this is an opportunity for the church, an opportunity for the church to show show the love of Jesus, show to show care and concern and to help others, to help you know, elderly people who are alone, who are isolated, they need love, they need people to reach out to them. Maybe not physically,

but they need to not feel alone and scared. There's so many people who are understandably scared of their own mortality, and this is an opportunity for the church, I think, not to worry about the physical building, but to worry about the community we're in and to be the church, to be the body of Christ and show that love that I think is is much much more important than the exact date and time we're able to gather in

large groups. Again, sure that's true, and that date and time will be different, you know, as you say, for different places, and as it should be. Maybe if if we could all take a little note of federalism out of this pandemic, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Absolutely from the seer, this might be the most important question yet, what number guard do you use for your beard? I assume that question is to you, not to me. I don't know, is the short answer.

So I bought this this beard tremor right. So I first grew the beard Thanksgiving, not last Thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving before, and I just went on Thanksgiving break and I usually on holiday don't shave, and at the end of vacation I usually shave and I just came back and decide, all right, what the heck I'm not going to And I'd like to say it was some profound statement or and it was just kind of a hadn't grown a beard since law school, and I figured, all right, this

would be fun. And I gotta say. My campaign manager sends me this email when he sees this picture of me circulating around with sort of the whispy beginnings of a beard, and he's just like, worst decision. Really. He was anti beard, hard anti beard, and so I kind of taunted him and we I am not surrounded by yes man, let me say that it is. It is. We all hold our own well. So the beard started growing in and then it started getting fairly unruly, and

I was doing some some press interview. It was a Sunday show at my house, and like like, the team started getting upset that the beard was a little too duck dynasty for their taste, and so they they asked a young guy to run over to the house and buy a beard trimmer and be like, here, trimmed that

damn thing. And I'd never trimmed a beard. I'm like, I don't know, So I just I got a beard trimmer, And they have different clips that you clip on the thing, and so I just clipped on whatever the biggest one is, So the long ish whatever the longest clip is that fits on the beard trimmer, that's the one I used and cut it down some. And you know, I'm imagining so so I don't know what number is the short age. I'm imagining if you hadn't trimmed it by now, you'd

you'd look like one of those Russian Orthodox priests. And then some crook at the FBI might accuse you of colluding or something. I don't know. I mean, I think it's probably lucky that you were able to trim that beard. So I've I ever told you. A good friend of mine who was used to be on my senate staff, um he had right about when I grew the beard. He had left and was living in Jerusalem, and was was it was it yeshiva yea? And he sent me an email he said a friend of his was a

rabbi who had seen a picture of the beard. He said, the beard has a Rabbinical and Talmudic look to it that will bring peace to the Middle East and put the fear of God in the enemies of Israel I like cracked up. There's a real email, And so I actually literally cut and pasted it and I tweeted it out. I'm like, Okay, this may be a bit much. I'm not sure about I'm glad you're like the beard, but but it did at least make me laugh. Wow, that's great. I would probably at that line in my Twitter bio.

That's a very very good feedback. Nevertheless, from John James. With thirty trillion dollars in debt, two hundred trillion dollars in obligations, and one hundred trillion dollars in state debts, how will we ever get our finances in order when the GOP as well as the Democrats keep kicking the can down the road. Look at it. It is a massive problem. It was a massive problem three months ago, and now it's even worse. We've spent three trillion dollars in just a couple of months. And the problem is

it's a bipartisan problem in the Senate. For in ordinary times, for any trillion dollars spending bill, you get all the Democrats, and you get half to two thirds of the Republicans. There maybe twenty of us that try to hold a lot and try to push back, but but those votes are usually about eighty twenty. The only way you will get that is with presidential leadership. And there are areas where the president has been vigorous and aggressive. He didn't

run in twenty sixteen promising to cut spending. He didn't run campaigning against debt, and so when the president is supporting it, that makes it easy for a whole bunch of Republicans to support it, and all the Democrats always support spending. The answer in terms of how we turn it around, I'd say a couple of things. One you need presidential leadership that's willing to take it on. But two,

you've got to have economic growth. So if you look at the numbers, you look at all the variables that go into our federal budget, there is only one first order variable, which is there's only one variable that has just just a dramatic impact, and it is economic growth. If we're at anemic level of growth, if we're at one and two percent growth, which is what we had for the Obama administration for eight years, with anemic growth, you can't solve this problem with robust growth, three four

five percent growth. The debt becomes much easier to solve. If you look at the last time the federal deficit went to zero and we actually had a surplus. It was after twelve years of Reagan Bush. It was after twelve years of cutting taxes, reducing regulations, and the economic growth was such that when it got to Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton inherited a four trillion dollars surplus that wasn't that long ago. And it was the incredible economic growth

that came from tax reform and reg reform. A little bit of a Johnny one note, growth, growth, growth, and you get it from tax reform and reg reform. Now we're in we're in a situation economic this country hasn't seen since the Great Depression. It's frightening is this is thirty three million Americans have lost their job in two months. We had we had strong growth until three months ago. Yeah, we've got to turn it around. I will say as

we start shifting the conversation into a growth conversation. Look, when you're shoveling cash out the door by the trillions, that's kind of naturally the democrats playing field. If you're a status if you're a socialist, shoveling cash, you'd love to do if we start shifting into the recovery debate, which is where I think we should be. How do we bring growth back? How do we bring those jobs back?

That then is a conservative or a libertarian's battlefield where the only way to do it is tax reform and reag reform. And so if we can get growth up, and for someone who says, well it seems hopeless, I mean, things are so bad as is it? Just are we doomed? From World War Two to the present, GDP growth has averaged about three point three percent a year from two thousand and eight to twenty twelve. Under Barack Obama it averaged zero point nine percent a year, less than one

percent over four years. The last four year period before that we're GDP growth average less than one percent was seventy eight to eighty two. Is coming out of Jimmy Carter YEP. And what happened then? What happened then, and by the way, what produced it in both instances was high taxes, high regulation, strangly small businesses, and growth becomes anemic. Now Reagan comes in in eighty one, cuts taxes, simplifies the tax code, repeals job killing regulations. We go from

four years of GDP growth less than one percent. Do you know what GDP growth was in nineteen eighty four? I don't remember. Seven point two percent. Man, those are crazy numbers, and we did that. That's what fueled the incredible growth. By the way, JFK. JFK campaigned on five percent GDP growth and then he cut taxes and repealed regulations, and we got five percent GDP growth. You want to turn the debt around, the only thing strong enough to do it is the incredible engine of the American free

enterprise system and its growth. Growth. Growth has got to be our fun right, and we're not going to be able to get there if we're a lockdown for two years. So I think that's another reason to be eager to start to lift some of these lockdowns from Joe. Joe wants to know do you think central banks issuing digital cryptocurrency will lead to the government keeping us from buying and selling? It's a question. I know absolutely nothing about it. Yeah,

I gotta admit I don't know much about that question either. Look, when it comes to the FED, I am nervous about the FED. I'm nervous about unchecked power I've long been a co sponsor of audit the FED legislation. I think we need to audit the FED. Right now, the FED is doing a lot to provide liquidity to all sorts of players in the economy. I'm glad if that helps our helps our economy make it through this. But I suspect they're going to be some ugly components there that

will come out later. And so the cryptocurrency world, you know, bitcoin, I have to admit, I like, I have some friends that have gotten into the bitcoin world, and I'm all, I'm quite libertarian, so I'm like, great, knock yourself out. A couple who are like, hey, you know, you ought to put a thousand dollars into this, and I don't entirely understand it. Yeah, Like I just they've tried to explain it to me, and I'm like, okay, I'm not sure.

And so I don't, like, I don't have that much money to invest to begin with, but but I don't like to put put money I have in something that I don't don't fundamentally understand. And it seems to be very volatile and some people it's gone way up, and then usually things that can go way up really fast. You can go way down really fast. So I don't know.

I will say, when it comes to policy makers regulating things like cryptocurrency, I think most of the federal government doesn't know what it's doing yet is not sure Yeah, what the right answer is. I don't doubt there's some big government folks that want to take over everything with it. Is there a role for combating fraud and money laundering? And sure? But I don't know, is the short sure? Well, I'm basically with youth senator, including on the investment front.

I spoke to George Gilder, who I think he was the most cited writer by Ronald Reagan during his entire presidency. George Guilder, very very insightful guy, and he wrote this whole book about how blockchain, you know, the essence of bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Blockchain is the future of the Internet. And I have no doubt that he's He's right, But I don't understand it either. It certainly doesn't appear to

be happening right now. And so obviously the government is going to weigh in on this more as it develops, and in the meantime, there's a tendency you know the famous story of the Emperor's new clothes, where the Emperor's riding naked down the street because because some unscrupulous tailors convinced him they had invisible thread, and everyone was afraid to say, this guy's naked, he's not wearing anything. Like

groupthink can be really dangerous. And you look at like Hollands the tulip bulbs that like there was an investment mania where everyone wanted tulip bulbs, and so happens. I bought Heidi some purple tulips yesterday, and I don't know why I thought of the tulip bulbs, but they became incredibly valuable, like like flower bulbs, Like why would you be spending tons of money on flower bulls? I don't get it, but it became everyone was afraid to say

the emperor has no clothes, and everyone wanted tullibubs. And then they went way up and then they collapsed. And I do think there are tendencies people are scared to say they don't understand something, and that that can be a very dangerous place to get involved. I'm still waiting for my beanie babies to shoot right back up through the roof I'm going to be a wealthy man when that happens. It's probably just right around the corner. And that in the Tulips as well. This question from Cbe.

I am a waitress. My governor's orders are a slap in the face to me. Mister Cruz, what is the most effective way, in your opinion, to end these restrictions. I've heard people say called the doj the Supreme Court refused to hear the Pennsylvania case. I'm not quite sure what that's referring to. For people who can't work at all, you know, like a waitress simply cannot work during this Obviously it's much more urgent to restart the economy than for people who can work from home. Should they write

to their congressmen? I mean, what is best for them to do right now? So did c me say where she was? No? Okay, Look, I mean it's it's harder because it's varying state by state, and some of it is depending on the facts and circumstances. If the infection is really bad and widespread, then then the restrictions will probably be around for a while. I think there's also a pretty sharp difference here between Republicans and democra rats. So if you're in she mentioned Pennsylvania. Look, if she's

in Pennsylvania, they have a democratic governor. Yeah, and you're seeing. Part of the messed up thing about where we are today is everything in life seems to be defined based on what you think about Donald Trump. And it's it's weird. I mean, I mean it's so so. For Democrats who hate Trump, everything is about Trump and it's just and and so this virus, this pandemic, it's all his fault. And their view is everything's got to stay shut down forever.

And we're seeing democratic politicians that are saying, until there's not one case, yeah, right, we'll just shut down everyone forever. Look, that's a little nuney and Okay, I'm sorry you don't like Trump, but but that's that doesn't make any it's just impossible. Look to be fair. On the flip side, there are folks who loved Trump who I think are too quick to dismiss this pandemic as it's a hoax. It's not real. This thing's real. It's dangerous. People are

dying and we need to treat it seriously. And I gotta say where I am and where I think most Texans are is let's use common sense, Let's treat it seriously. Let's let's do what we can to slow and stop the spread of the virus. But let's not at the same time strangle small businesses and destroy people's livelihood. So Texas, we we just rolled out. So for example, CB said she's a waitress. We've now Texas has laid out guidelines that has allowed restaurants to reopen. Now they're reopening at

twenty five percent capacity. So Sunday night, Heidi and I and the girls we went out to dinner for the first time. We hadn't been out to dinner and I don't know two three months, and so we went out. We went out to sushi, which the girls love. Heidi, I actually like sushi too, although Fred of mine was laughing, went your first meal, you went out for bait. But well yeah, um, but now look, we we wore masks into the restaurant. You had to take them off. You

obviously can't eat with a mask on. But all the tables were spread apart, pretty far apart um. And it's at twenty five percent capacity. And the plan hopefully if if, if the numbers supported in Texas. What the governor's laid out is to shift to fifty percent capacity and then keep keep going to you till you get up that

very state by state. I gotta say, if if if CB is in a blue state with a Democratic governor who is focused on I hate Trump and want to stay shut down forever, you know, my advice might be moved somewhere. Yeah, right where where you don't have politicians who are as crazy. I've been thinking about that everyday. Senator from Quentin, do you think that China should just cancel the debt that we owe them since they've cost the US trillions? That seems like a simple answer to

the debt one? Why can't we do that? Oh? Look, if I had a magic wand sure, um, they're not going to Um. We need to deal with them seriously. But there's some folks saying, okay, let's seize Chinese assets. Okay, but look, when you're dealing with foreign policy, right we seize a bunch of Chinese assets, you know what they're gonna do. They're gonna see a bunch of American assets like you know, you know that that's that is a dangerous road to go down. So would I love it.

You know if if I'd also love it, if my mortgage company forgave my death, that'd be nice. So yes, But would it would I love it? Of course I would. Do I really have any ability to make it happen? No, um. When it comes to China, I think of it in phases number one. We need a real accounting. We need a real accounting of their responsibility. You and I have

talked at length on this podcast. We were among the first to talk about how the preponderance of the evidence is this virus likely came from one of the two Chinese labs in Wuhan that was studying coronaviruses derived from bats. One of those labs was three hundred yards from the wet market in Wuhan where this outbreak occurred. By the way, the nearest bats we know of that have have comparable viruses are a thousand miles away in caves in China. Right.

Not only that, we know that the Chinese government demanded of these labs they destroy their samples. Now, when you destroy, you when you destroy evidence that raises an inference, and by the way, courts do this all the time. If you destroy avidace, you're in litigation, you go destroy adace, that raises an inference that the evidence would have revealed something damning to use something that shows your responsibility. The

fact that they destroyed those samples does a lot. And let me say something also, So there are lots of people pretending to be learned saying, oh, the evidence is all circumstantial. Yea, that's actually true. Most people, Michael, who are not lawyers, don't know the difference between circumstantial and direct evidence. Direct evidence is let's say an eyewitness, if I see you point a gun at somebody and shoot them, and I testify I saw Michael shoot so and so

that's direct evidence. Circumstantial evidence. Let's say you've gone to the opera and you're watching the opera and suddenly you see an you hear a gunshot, you see a man leap from the balcony holding a gun saying six semper turannis and run off. Now that's all circumstantial evidence that you just saw John Wilkes Booth shoot Abraham Lincoln. But if you didn't see it, that is circumstantial. By the way,

people get convicted on circumstantial evidence all the time. It is simply looking to the circumstances and drawing reasonable inferences the evidence we have, and it suggests the most rational assessment is this lab, one of these two labs or both was studying this virus and presumably it escaped accidentally. And the media fact checkers that try to refute this, what they keep saying is there's no evidence this was

a bioweapon released deliberately. Well do even as bad as the Chinese are, right, Okay, maybe look at anything's possible. But I agree that there is not evidence that they released a bioweapon to kill their own own people. But we do know that they were studying bat coronaviruses in these labs right there where the outbreak occurred. Let's start with a real accounting was the novel coronavirus in those labs?

What were the safety protocols? We know also the State Department had two internal wires before this crisis, raising concerns about the shoddy security protocols and actually warning that the security was so shoddy it could lead to a global

pandemic of coronavirus. That sounds kind of relevant. Yeah, we also know for a fact that the Chinese government covered it up, that they suppressed it, that they hit it, and so I think we should start with a serious accounting, driven by US, driven by third parties, driven by other countries, to ascertain it's clear China's directly responsible. We need to get the facts. The harder question will be then, therefore, what, yes they should pay, how they should pay? To be honest,

we're going to be addling with them. I don't think they're going to pull out a checkbook willingly anytime soon. So we're going to have to figure that out back and forth. And one of the things that will make us more able to be vigorous in solving that is decoupling from China. So much of our supply chain right now is dependent on China. So many of our life

saving medicines are manufactured in China. I am fighting hard to bring that manufacturing back to the US so that they don't have the ability to do what they threatened to do during this crisis, which has cut off life saving medicines and kill Americans. As long as we're intertwined with them, the ability to lean in is constrained and dangerous. But let's start with a full accounting, and at the same time, let's be decoupling. That's such an important point.

It seems like common sense. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Right, So I've lost audio. You've lost me. I wonder if the rest of the audience can hear me. But it's a good thing that, Michael, you're such a good actor, because the next question is going to have to be mine. See. I don't know if you can hear me, but can you do a box? Yes, I would say for the next question. Okab still I have zero audio. I'll, i'll, I will learn sign language before

the next episode. But until then, I will take that as a providential sign, either from the heavens above or from the Chinese government you know that's tapping into our streams or anything in the middle, that that will have to be the end of this episode. Almost at one hour by the dot, I'm back, Senator, you're back. You know. I have a theory that it was the Chinese government hacking into our streamline because they didn't like all the things that you were saying. I think that's right. By

the way, could you hear me? Yes, I could hear you, and I guess you couldn't understand my sign language. In my miming, I must say you know, for someone that makes a living in Hollywood as an actor, an exceptionally poor box. You know. I'm just listen, Senator. You say you don't surround yourself with yes men. Clearly I don't surround myself with yes men either. I take your constructive criticism.

You know, though, what's amazing is that audio cut out almost exactly at one hour, so we I think we've exhausted not even one tenth of the questions, but we'll have to save the rest for the next episode. In the meantime, Senator, I look forward to hopefully seeing you in person one of these days sometime soon. We'll have to wait and see as we reopen. I'm Michael Knowles. This is verdict with Ted Cruz.