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nish dot com slash cactus. Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz for now until the Disinformation Governance Board gets its way. You can subscribe to Verdict over an Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. For now, Senator, how much time do we have left? Well, I don't know, but I just got an order from Big Cis that from now on, this podcast must be done entirely by

singing Broadway show tunes. Oh is that is a fate worse than cancelation, Big Cis, I suspect you're referring to is Nina Jankowitz, the Biden pick to lead the Disinformation Governance Board, about whom I know only two things. One she spread misinformation about the Hunter Biden laptop, and two she loves singing show tunes on camera. And to a credit, she's actually a pretty good singer. It's a little bizarre and creepy what she sings, but she I don't know

as a professional or semi professional singer. But she's this hard knee jerk leftist. And you know watching number one Secretary may orchis who has presided over the most lawless cabinet agency in the history of our country, which the Department of Homeland Security has decided we don't enforce the border. We let two million illegal aliens come in. The law

means nothing to US. So now he's created this misinformation board in charge of fighting misinformation, and you know you pointed out he did it literally within hours of Elon Musk's buying Twitter. It is stunning. Listen, the left ideas are crap. They cannot defend them. They don't want to defend them. They want to silence everyone who disagrees. I mean, let's show you something amazing about Elon buying Twitter, which is Twitter accepted Elon Musk's offer to buy Twitter on

April twenty fifth. The very next day, literally the next day, April twenty sixth, my new Twitter followers skyrocket. So I'm just gonna read you the daily count of it, because it's stunning. So on April nineteenth, I gained one seventeen hundred and thirteen followers. April twenty fourth, one four hundred and eighty six. April twenty fifth, the day Twitter says yes to Elon Musk one thousand, two hundred and fourteen. So consistently, day after day, I'm between a thousand and

two thousand new followers the next day. What's your guest is to how many new followers I got the next day, I'm gonna say it doubled at least on April twenty twenty sixth fifty one thousand, four hundred and five, April twenty seventh, sixty one thousand, two hundred and fifty one, on April twenty eighth, seventy thousand, five hundred and eighty four. The level of shadow banning, it's as if And by the way, this is true for conservatives across the board

that they're seeing their numbers. Mine literally went from one to two thousand a day to fifty sixty seventy thousand. I've gone from four point eight million followers to five point one million followers in a week, and all it took was Elon buying it. This is the same thing has happened with me. I am not a United States senator, I have not run for president. I am but a

humble podcaster. I've gained at least one hundred thousand followers in the what is a week since Elon took over, It's been something like a clip of twenty thousand per day. So either that means that they've unleashed the bots, which I don't think it is, by the way, because my engagement on Twitter is up. I'm seeing new people new

blue checkmark people who are ostensibly verified human beings. It seems as though because don't forget, this deal hasn't even gone through yet, so it's just the threat that Elan is going to buy it. It seems as though this

has lifted a major shadow banning of conservatives. You know, it's like they're sitting there running the shredders, going oh crap, they're going to find out all the stuff we've done shred at all, turned the algorithm off, and then within hours the Biden administration announces we have a new board to fight misinformation. I gotta tell you I had so this week. I've had two hearings where I've asked Biden officials about this. First of all, I had a Foreign

Relations Committee hearing with the Deputy Secretary of State. Okay, so ma Orchus got popped on Sunday about this, and he says, no, no no, no, this is not to go after American speech. This is all about foreign speech. This is foreign disinformation only. Now, mind you, this office is not at the US Department of State, It's at the Department of Homeland Security. It's directed at Americans in the homeland. But their talking point is no no, no, this is

only foreign disinformation. So I asked the Department of State today, the Deputy Secretary of State, I said, it so happens. There actually is a long standing office at the State Department whose statutory mission is to fight disinformation abroad from foreign governments, and it's funded. Congress just funded them one hundred and fifty million dollars. It's statutory mission is exactly what these clowns are claiming the new office is going to do. So I asked the State Department, gush, did

anybody talk to you about this? No? Do you know anything about it? No? I have no idea. Is it concerning to you that they've announced a new office that they're claiming is doing the same thing your existing office is doing. I have no idea. Nobody consulted us. We know nothing. So that was lie number one. Number two.

We also had Pete boodhag Edge, the Secretary of Transportation, testifying before the Senate today, and I asked him about this, and I said, look, I read a quote from the presidential campaign where he gave he waxed poetically about free speech is wonderful, it's incredible, It's what makes America America. I value free speech. When I was a soldier fighting for America, the flag on my shoulder, it represented free speech. It was you know, he's a pretty eloquent guy. And

I read the whole quote. I said, you know, gosh, I agree with every word of that. That's beautifully stated. Do you still agree with that? Do you still agree with free speech? Yes? Well, then why did the Biden administration announce an office, the Ministry of Truth to silence people who disagree with you? And he immediately backtracks. He's like, well, well, well, I don't know. I don't know. Like, well, come on, I mean, you're you're aware of this, right, And he's like, well, well, well,

I don't know. But it's to stop disinformation, to stop Russian disinformation. I said, really, like Hunter Biden's laptop. Is that what you mean by disinformation? He's like, well, I don't know anything about Hunter Biden's laptop. It's like, oh, really, nobody seems to know anything about Hunter Biden's laptop, do they. Well, and in this case, the woman who's going to be running the Ministry of truthier for Biden, used that specific example,

so this is not just a hypothetical. She said, the Hunter Biden laptop was a case of Russian disinformation, and so presumably this board would have completely wiped away that news story, had Big Tech and the the establishment media not already done that for them two years ago. Now

that's exactly right. And as you know, the talking point, there were fifty former leaders from the intelligence community community that put out a letter when Hunter Biden's laptop broke that said, this has all the classic signs of Russian disinformation, which we've learned now is code for this is really bad for the Democratic presidential nominee. But we now know

that letter was an outright blatant lie. We know the talking point that that that I don't know whether we should call Nina the Minister of Truth or the commissary. I'm kind of on the fence as to what her tatalitarian titles should be. But she was out there pushing this is Russian disinformation, and that's an uttered lie. And leftists define as disinformation anything that is inconvenient for them, anything they disagree with, and especially anything that is politically

damaging they call disinformation. And this is the Biden administration nakedly getting getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar to mix my metaphors pretty badly. I'm going to upset my Yale colleague here with with that rather mangled illusion. That is exactly the kind of thing that the new censorship board is going to censor, the mixing of metaphors. And that's that's a wonderful thing. There's a little silver

lining in that storm cloud, Senator. The White House has given two examples of the kind of thing that the board is going to shut down. That is calls to violent extremism and as you say, foreign disinformation, specifically Russian disinformation. And the problem it would seem to me is that the White House accuses everything that Republicans say of being a called to violent extremism or Russian disinformation. So we're

joking about it. It's absurd, and it's funny to make fun of this, this power hungry lady and the whole bind administration. But what are they going to do? And what are we going to do about it? Look, it is so bad that this week Jake Tapper from CNN was forced to go on TV and acknowledge, Yeah, she does really seem to be a partisan where she echoes the Democratic talking points and she's skeptical of everything Republicans say, and there's a clear political bias in her take on things.

Now when Jake Tapper, who has become a mouthpiece for the hard left, he didn't used to be, but he's become that. When even he says that, like, holy cow, So what are we going to do about it? Listen? I think one thing we're doing about it, we're doing right now, which is just shining enough of a light on it that it prevents them from going forward. I do think you're seeing the Biden administration backpedaling. There's been

enough of a blowpack. I actually think labeling it the Ministry of Truth is really powerful, because look, obviously there are communist regimes that have ministries of truth and and that throw you in the gulag for daring to speak other than than the government line and calling this out for what it is. My hope is that that that we, you know, cut it off right at the beginning. If not, then there's a reason why I asked about it twice this week to two different Biden officials, because I want

to keep the pressure on. I want to keep the light on. I want to force them to defend this, this ridiculous abuse of power. And if they continue to try to go forward with it next year, I believe we're going to have majorities in both the House and send it. We had to use the majorities in the House and send it to cut off the funding and to shut it down because the government has no business silencing what the American people say. I don't think the

timing is coincidental. It's just too perfect, right after we've been joking about it. But I think I think it's legit. Right after Elon Musk announces this, you get the announcement from the White House. So then turning to Musk, do you think this deal is going to go through? One? And two? What does that mean for conservatives on social media? Whether we're talking about how the other big tech platforms are going to react, or whether we're talking about how

the government is going to react. Joe Biden is already talking about clamping down on Twitter the minute they free up speech for conservatives. Yeah. And by the way, the European Union is rattling its swords and reminding Twitter we have rules to follow. Look, I think the deal is going to go through. I don't know for sure. I don't know the inside details of the deal. But Elon seems very committed and certainly vocally committed. The board has

accepted it. According to the public reporting, he had financing lockdown. The financing may change in terms of the mix of debt and equity. That wouldn't surprise me. But it certainly seems like it's going forward. You know, I will say there is an irony that Elon Mosque has suddenly become the champion and the defender of conservatives. Elon vocally supported

and voted for Barack Obama not once, but twice. You know, Joe Rogan the other person who has become that They may be the two most important people concerning free speech in the entire country, Joe Rogan and Dorris Bernie Sanders. So neither one of them meets the standard definition of a conservative, but they both appreciate liberty. They both value

free speech. You know, it's spoke volumes. I don't know if you saw last week a journalist at Time magazine and I put journalists in scare quotes, said that free speech is an obsession of rich white guys like the today's corporate media wants to silence everybody except themselves. They want to have a monopoly on speech, only the corporate

media and only big tech. And I know you've seen the meme that that Elon tweeted out, which I think is incredibly accurate, that it showed him previously where you had the right, the left, the center, and it had him left of center, and then what it showed was the left running full speed to the left, and suddenly the center moved, so he was right of center. But in the meme he hadn't moved an end. Shit's just

the crazies had taken over the Democratic Party. By the way, Bill Maher's in the same boat, where these are old school liberals that just happened to believe in actual liberty, and that in today's Democratic Party that is not only not the mainstream anymore, that is a heretical view that must be demonized and quashed. What do you think the electoral politics of this look like. Do you think that

this plays for Democrats? Do you think this ministry of truth is going to help them in the mid terms, whether through the operation of the agency or just through the public perception of it. Or are they stepping on a rake here? I think they're stepping on a rake.

But a word you use there that is important and that we don't know yet is operation like whether this board will actually have any legal power or authority if they engage how they intend to engage, if it's just a look an example, an example we've talked about early on when it happened on this podcast was doctor Fauci in emails asking Mark Zuckerberg to silence and censor any discussions of the origins of COVID nineteen, and in particular

discussions that it had escaped from a Chinese government lab in Wohan. And we talked about two years ago. This podcast walked through exhaustively the evidence that suggests and suggest overwhelmingly that COVID nineteen escape from a Chinese government lab in Wuhan. Zuckerberg was more than happy to comply. He said, yes, we will censor it, we will keep it silent. I could see this board playing a similar role and for example, emailing Zuckerberg and and Facebook going along. I don't know

whether there are media outlets that will go along. I feel confident Elon Musk won't go along. And it's why his buying Twitter is so important, because it creates a significant avenue by the way, one thing people may not realize as to why Twitter matters so much. So so a tiny percentage of Americans actually listen follow Twitter, and those that do skew pretty heavily left. If the world were the Twitter sphere, we'd all be screwed. It would be sunk. Yeah, you know, AOC would be president. So

I'm glad that the world is not the Twitter sphere. Now, some of that is is amplified by the shadow banning and practices, so we may find out that the Twitter sphere is not as left as it appears. But most normal Americans are not on Twitter. The reason it matters, One of the reasons it matters so much is every

reporter in the universe is on Twitter. And so I could tell you in politics, frankly, the way you get out a statement and get it out quickly as you go to Twitter and you put it out, and it's an amazing thing. Look, Donald Trump pioneered this in twenty sixteen, and I was on the opposing side, and he captured how to use Twitter and just dominate the news within instances.

And it is a wild thing that I will pull out my phone and I'll send a tweet and within minutes I can turn on the TV and see my tweet on the news, driving the news and driving messaging. That's part of why free speech on Twitter matters, because it influences everyone that has outlets of communication that is potent for the overall public discourse. Right. I agree, it does set the news in a way that Facebook and

YouTube and Google don't. I think that's why they are absolutely losing it that Elon is promising conservatives a little more freedom on this question of political speech. I am ashamed to say that I have neglected our Verdict listeners, but I will do that no more. There's a question I really want to get to here in the mail bag. You of course can join Verdict plus over on locals, the Verdict plus community, and you can subscribe to Verdict

wherever you get your podcasts. This question comes to us from Al who says, Senator Cruz, how do you think the court will rule on Ted Cruz versus fec A question not only about political speech, but about a case that you are heavily involved in. Yeah. No, it's a case I care a great deal about. It is a case challenging, and I'm the name plainiff. I brought the lawsuit. It is challenging an element of McCain finegold, which is

the big campaign finance law. It's a terrible law. One element of the law limits the ability of a political candidate to pay themselves back for loans they make to their campaign. And so it caps it at paying yourself back at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars is the most you can pay yourself back from funds received after

the campaign. And so you know, you have lots of candidates who put their life savings into into a campaign, and they may put five hundred thousand or more into a campaign, and McCain finegold says, well, tough, you're not allowed to pay yourself back. You've just basically given a gift to democracy. And doesn't it suck to be you?

And by the way, the reason that Congress passed it, if you go look at the debates, it's an incumbent protection plan because one of the ways incumbents avoid being beat is their challengers raise any money and they don't have the name idea to raise money. And so what happens often as someone will invest their own money into the race, and it is how challengers get the initial oxygen to get their message out, well, if you make

it that. You know, Michael, you put your money into the race, and even if you win, you can't get it back, and it's going to cost you. You might be willing to do it, but a lot of people are not. And so it's designed to protect incumbents from challengers taking them on. So I brought a constitutional challenge to this provision. I want a unanimous decision in the lower courts. So a three judge district courts struck down this provision of McCain fine Gold. The appeal is pending

at the Supreme Court. It's been briefed, it's been argued. We're waiting on the decision. I think the decision will be very soon. It could literally be any day now. I think we're in the sweet spot of when the decision is going to come down. I am cautiously optimistic. I think the chances are good that we prevail if the court addresses the merits. In other words, if the court answers the question is this provision of law unconstitutional?

I think the odds are extremely high we win. I think it is on the merits we are very very likely to win. There is some chance that we lose on a procedural ground. That Biden Justice Department had a procedural ground that was a technicality that was based on a factual mistake. But I will say it the oral argument, it sure seemed like John Roberts was fishing around trying to get some justices to basically throw the lawsuit out

on the procedural ground. I don't know if he will succeed with that or not, but that's how the argument came across. So if they get to the merits, we are very very likely to win, but there's some chance they punted and avoid the merits altogether. Perhaps I will be nicer to Chief Justice Roberts on this show for just the next couple of weeks to make sure this thing doesn't get thrown out on dural grounds, because that would be an interesting free speech case and we'll look

forward to seeing it. Last question also has to do with the court. This is from Michael, who says, how do you believe the leak of the Alito opinion in the Dobbs case? How do you believe the Supreme Court leak will affect the midterm elections? And he has two hashtags. He says, hashtag verdict hashtag cruise twenty twenty four, just reading the whole message. So I don't know that the

league itself has a significant impact on the midterms. I do think the League is a manifestation of how the Democrats are destroying our institutions, trying to burn them down, and in particular the degree to which the leftists are cheering it on and literally saying burn it down. I think that is beneficial for the midterms, and in terms of people realizing the radicals really are in charge of

this party. It's it's not unlike the Antifa riots ins of just showing that these guys are extreme and crazy. In terms of the underlying decision, I think what is likely to be more consequential in the midterm is the decision itself and if the majority opinion continues to be the majority opinion, and if the outcome is that the Court does strike down roversus Wade. I can tell you Democrats in Washington are holding onto that as their Hail Mary chance to save the midterms. They believe that people

will be horrified and that'll help them win. And I gotta tell you more than a few Republican senators are nervous. That's the case. There are several of us who are conservatives who've been trying to make the case to the nervous nellies in our conference It'll be okay, this is going to be fine. And I actually think it probably will not have much of an effect on the midterms, and to the extent it has an effect, it will

be a positive effect. Here's why I think it will have less of an effect than the democratic strategist think because the people who are most dismayed about that are hard leftists that are clustered in bright blue states like New York California. Nothing's going to change in those states, at least for the immediate term. California is going to continue to allow unlimited abortion on demand. ROVERSUS weight is if it's struck down, California ain't changing their laws until

we get new elected officials in California. And so I think the kind of angry leftists, many of whom are pretty ignorant and don't even know what overturning Row means. I think a month afterwards, are going to be surprised. Wait, nothing about my life changed in other parts of the country that are not bright blue and redder states, In states like Tennessee states like Texas, you're going to see some meaningful restrictions on abortion, and it's going to vary

state by state how extensive those restrictions are. That is the Framer's view in the Constitution is to let the rules in each state reflect the values of the citizens of those states. But in the redder states, there are fewer people that are going to be horrified by that. And I think you're going to have a positive effect of people in the pro life community who have been

fighting for this for fifty years being energized. And I am hopeful that that being energized is going to cause them to turn out and vote at the polls, and I think that could lead to an even bigger majority

in the House and the Senate next year. Right. That's a great point because not only is nothing going to change in terms of abortion law in the most pro abortion places, but even if something did change and the Democrats were irate and steamwork coming out of their ears, nothing's going to change about whom they're electing, and nothing's going to change about the members of Congress or the

Senators or anything else. That is a hopeful note to end on Senator that this case might not only come out with a good end for the pro life movement, but also might not hurt us at the pulse. Frankly, it might even might even help us. Before we go, we've got to bring on our friend Liz Wheeler, because you're not done yet, sir. We've finished our episode, but you've got an episode of cloak Room coming up. Liz,

what are you going to talk about? Hi, Michael High, Senator Cruz, I know that we've been talking about this leaked draft majority opinion from the Supreme Court overturning Rovwade, or at leasted it does in this draft opinion. You guys have talked about it a lot, We've heard about it a lot, but there are more details that need

to be discussed. So we are going to do a little investigative dive into who exactly might have leaked this opinion, how this might have happened, and whether the Supreme Court actually will overturn Roe v. Wade. So join us on the cloak Room on Verdict Plus. You can go to Verdict with Ted Cruise dot com slash plus. If you use my promo code, which as always is cloak Room, you can watch for free for a month on your annual subscription that is Verdict with Ted Cruise dot com

slash Plus and your promo code is Cloakroom. It's going to be quite the discussion. I hope you'll join us, So, Michael, yes, Senator, in honor of Big Ciss, will you close us on a show tune? Senator? I absolutely will? And do you know why? Because I feel pretty and I feel witty. I feel pretty and witty and gay, and I pity any podcaster who isn't me today, I'm Michael Knowles. This

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