Welcome. It is Verdict with Center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you, and I want to give a very special welcome to so many of you that are joining this podcast for the very first time. As many of you that are listening to podcast may have heard, we are now a syndicated radio show on the weekend's nationwide, so you can listen to show wherever you have a lot of local news talk stations. So we're really excited to bring in new listeners with this first show since we
went live this weekend with that syndicated show Center. It was really fun. By the way, we even had some friends that sent you some warm wishes, which included Sean Handy, and that was really cool as well, welcoming you as the first sitting senator and actually national politician to ever have a syndicated radio show while also in office. It's pretty awesome.
Well, we launched the podcast as a said syndicated radio show this weekend. We started on eighty four stations nationwide eighty four, and we're anticipating a lot more stations picking it up. We're going to be every weekend all across the country, and it'll be our Friday podcast that will air on Saturdays and Sundays throughout the weekend, and it's a great opportunity just to take listeners behind the scenes, behind the curtain. What's going on today. What we're talking
about is we're talking about two battles. One a battle in the United States Senate, the second a battle in the US Supreme Court. All of these battles number one in the Senate, the Democrat senators have decided they have found their issue to campaign on in twenty twenty six. Their issue is illegals. They want more of them, and especially MS thirteen gang members. They're all in. It's an
amazing decision. Chris van Holland, Democrat from Maryland, flew down Delle Salvador to play foot seat with a gang member.
We're going to talk about that.
We're also going to talk about a big decision at the Supreme Court halting I hope temporarily deportations of Venezuelans. You had a vigorous descent from Justice Eleide and Justice Thomas.
All of that on today's pod.
Before we get to that, though, I want to talk to you about how Israel is still under attack. Missile fire has resumed from Israel's enemies and terrasts are seeking utter death and destruction here in America. We can't imagine what it's like to live in constant fear like this, and that is the reality for many in Israel. That
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or eight A eight for eight eight IFCJ. All right, Senator, So let's start with this big first issue. I still can't get my head around the fact that this is clearly the political issue, as you mentioned, a moment ago Democrats believe is like a big moment for them and an issue to run on in less than two years in the midterms. And that's not to defend Americans, but to defend a terrorist organization and their members.
Well, it really is astonishing. This individual that they're focusing on, who's been deported to El Salvador. He is an illegal alien. No one disputes that he came illegally. He had an order of deportation against him, the court ordered him deported. Nobody disputes that either. And twice he's been adjudicated to be a member of MS thirteen. As President Trump tweeted out, he has tattoos on his fist, on his fingers that
correspond with MS thirteen gang tattoos. It is really a remarkable thing that the Democrats look at this situation and say, this is the issue that is going to move the American people to our side. I don't know anybody who thinks at least, I don't know anyone normal and rational who thinks what we need is more gang members and illegal aliens. And in fact, look, I'm gonna read to you a text. I'm not going to identify who it is, but but but it's a buddy of mine who's a Democrat,
who who's a Democrat. He's on the left, and and and he just just texted me and said, your colleague, Maryland Senator van Holland flew to El Salvador to see Garcia. My wife's friends are very upset. The senators cares more about one non citizen than many innocent American hostages.
Your thoughts and and and to be.
Clear, this this is a friend of mine who is a Democrat, who is solidly left of center, and and and his wife is looking at this going what the hell are these people doing? That says something And I'll tell you something else that that's interesting. This is not just a one off. The Democrats have decided this is our issue. So Sunday, Chris van Holland, senator from from Maryland, who flew down Del Salvador, he did the full Ginsburg. Now, now what is the let's see, man, how good is
your recollection? Do you remember what the full Ginsburg is?
See? These are the moments for people that are just listening for the first time that make me laugh because these are the I got you co host questions, get used to them. They happen about once per episode, And this is where I say.
Ginsburg is okay, the full Ginsburg and it's it's a thing. It was named for William Ginsburg, who was Monica Lewinsky's lawyer during during the scandal against Bill Clinton, and he went on all major Sunday morning talk shows. He went on this week on the ABC, Face the Nation, Meet the Press, and State of.
The Union on CNN.
So doing all five is called the full Ginsburgh because he he's the first one anyone remembers doing it.
And it's actually interesting. I went and googled it just a minute.
Ago and Wikipedia oddly has a list of everyone who's done the full Ginsburg, and it turns out quite quite a lot of people have done it. So it started off with William gins Burg. Then it was Congressman Rick Lazio when he was running for Senate. Then it was Dick Cheney, then it was John Edwards when he was running for President. Then it was Michael Chertoff when he was Secretary of Homeland Security. Then it was Hillary Clinton.
Then it was Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary Janet Napolitano. Then it was doctor Richard Besser of the CDC. That it was Bill Clinton. Then it was George W.
Bush.
Then it was Rogie Shaw. Then it was Lieutenant General Ken Keene. That it was Michelle Bachman. Then it was Jack Lou. Then it was Susan Rice. That it was Timothy the Geitner. Then it was Jeb Bush. Then it was Marco Rubio. That it was Daniel Pfeiffer. Then it was John Kerrey. That it was Dennis McDonough. Then it was Jack Lou. That it was John Kerrey. Then it was Dennis McDonough again he was White House Chief of Staff. Then it was Robert Sunwalt, a board member of the
National Transportation Safety Board. Then it was Paul Ryan. Then it was Marco Rubio. And you know what I discovered. And the next person to make the list actually was me, which I didn't remember, but I'm looking at this Wikipedia article. And when I ran for president twenty sixteen, a parent I did it February twenty eighth of twenty sixteen, which I didn't remember.
But I'm one of the ones who's done full Ginsburg.
So just to be clear, I got asked if I knew what the Ginsburg was. I didn't know the answer, but you were one of the people on the Ginsburg listen, and you forgot it. So we're just full circling that right.
Well, and then the last two who've done it have been John Kirby, who was a White House spokesman for Joe Biden, and then on Sunday Chris van Holland. And so I make this point. Look, someone does the full Ginsburg. They go on every Sunday show when they really really want to draw attention to something, when they want to highlight it, when they want to say, hey, this matters, and listen, the Democrat Party as a whole, they are all in on this strategy. The media as a whole,
they're all in on this strategy. And I got to say, that's just I think that has a real danger of of backfiring on him.
So let's play part of what he had to say on this visit with a guy that's not only a not because I say so, multiple courts have said so. Government agencies have confirmed it as well. Is an MS thirteen gang member which has been declared to terrorist organization. And this is part of what he had to say on ABC this week. Take a listen.
As you know, the President himself has been attacking you by pointing out some of the aspects of Abrego Garcia's record, including the fact that his wife had an order of protection against him in twenty twenty one and alleged some pretty serious allegations of abuse, and even that that he had detained her. Are you concerned about your defense of somebody. Obviously everybody in this country, even those undocumented immigrants, have rights.
But are you concerned about standing so forcefully with somebody that has, you know, at least a questionable record.
I am not defending the man.
I'm defending the rights of this man to do process, and the Trump administration has admitted in court that he was wrongfully detained and wrongfully deported.
My mission, of.
My purpose is to make sure that we uphold the rule of law, because if we take it away from him, we do jeopardize it for everybody else. And I do want to point out, Carl, Yes, the Trump administration is trying to change the story. They're trying to detract attention. Here's where they should put their facts. They should put it before the court. They should put up or shut up in court.
I mean, it's amazing that he tries to spin it this way. It's also amazing that ABC tries to kind of downplay the fact that this is a guy that attacked his wife. She had a protective order. Oh and by the way, on top of these an MS thirteen gang member, and you're trying to act like this is the guy we need to go protect and save.
And let me point out what Ben Holland says there is is just wrong. So there was an order of deportation against this guy. Court had ruled he should be deported. It is true. The Trump administration has admitted they made a mistake. And the mistake they made is that there was a court order prohibiting his deportation to l Salvador.
It was an older order.
They didn't see it, and so they missed it. And so the state of the law was the federal government could deport him to literally any country on planet Earth except El Salvador.
But because of that order, you had a court order.
Saying don't send him to El Salvador, and they did so because they didn't see that order until after the fact. Now that also means if he came back, they could literally deport him ten seconds later to another country. Because listen, if you are here illegally, and in particular, if you are a member of a terrorist organization, you don't have a right to remain. You know, Jonathan Carl calls him an undocumented alien. No, the term under the statute is
illegal alien, and they are an illegal alien. It's not that they're just missing some piece of paper. It's that they came here illegally, and the administration has the power to remove him. I want you to listen to this clip on another part of the full Ginsburg when he's on CNN and Dana Bash questioned him, give a listen to this.
Now.
President Trump says that some of Abrego Garcia's tattoos signify that he's a member of MS thirteen. In twenty nineteen, police alleged a confidential informant claimed that Abrego Garcia was an active MS thirteen member. His wife and his attorney deny that, of course, can you say with absolute certainty that he is not, nor has he ever been a member of the MS thirteen gang. And did you ask him point blank?
Well, Dana, what Donald Trump is trying to do here is change the subject. The subject at hand is that he and his administration are define a court order to give people to give a Brego Garcia his due process rights. They are trying to litigate on social media what they should be doing in the courts. They need to put up or shut up in the courts. Let me tell you. I decided to write this down so I could be absolutely accurate as to what Federal District Courts Judge Zennis
said about these allegations by the Trump administration. Quote, no evidence linking a Brego Garcia to MS thirteen or any terrorist activity has been presented to the court. That's where to litigate this. It's been litigated in many other places. So I'm not going to get into the details because the whole purpose of our court system is for them to adjudicate these things, not for Donald Trump to go off on social media.
Yeah, you're right, they have not. There hasn't been a court hearing for them to put forward evidence in the first place, which is your whole point. But since you were the one person to have met with him. This is a thing you say on social media. It's what we hear from Donald Trump and Republicans every day, all day long. You didn't ask him.
I didn't ask him that because I know what his answer is. What he told me was he was sad and traumatized that he was being in prison because he has committed no crimes. And that goes to the heart of this issue, because he's being denied his due process rights.
And Donald Trump is trying to change the subject. And you know, when people start asking about asking that question, in my view, they're falling into the president's trap, because what the president wants to do is talk about that as if we can't all fight gang violence, which I've been doing for much longer than Donald Trump. Right. His argument is you can't fight that and at the same time uphold people's constitutional rights. That's a very dangerous view.
And if we deny the constitutional rights of this one man, it threatens the constitutional rights of everybody in the mind America.
So there's several things that are remarkable in what Van Hollen is doing. Number One, he keeps saying Trump is trying to change the subject. Now mind you, that's exactly what Van Holland is doing. I mean, it really is Freudian projection. He gets asked about the restraining order and the evidence that this illegal alien committed domestic violence and was a wife beater. He said nope, nope, never mind, never mind. And he gets asked, okay, well, is the guy in MS thirteen gang member?
Yes? No, did you ask him?
And he says no, no, no Trump Trump Trump range man bad Trump Trump Trump, And remarkably, Dana Bash goes back again and says, well, yeah, but you sat down with him.
Did you ask him?
And Van Holland says no, because it turns out so in his view, it is quote changing the subject to discuss the facts of who it is that was deported. I think that is the subject, who it was that was deported. And by the way, one of the things Van Holland says is he has committed no crimes. That would be factually incorrect. Crossing illegally into the United States is a crime. The Democrats want everyone to do that,
and even if you're a gang member. At look at the very same time that the Democrats are embracing this admitted illegal alien and person who's been found by two courts to be affiliated with MS thirteen. While they're defending him as a quote Maryland man, we had simultaneously the mom of Rachel Morin, who is also a Maryland resident, and yet the senator from Maryland cannot bother to be worried about Rachel Morin, a woman who was raped and murdered, a mom of five kids, raped and murdered by an
illegal immigrant. That the Democrats released, their priorities are, I think abundantly.
And by the way, this pr stunt by Van Hollen. If you want to know who had to pay for it, well, here's his answer on that.
Who did pay for this trip? This was an officially cleared congressional trips, Yes, like every other trip.
Yes, like every other trip. So that just you know, yeah, we waste your money all the time. We waste your money on this trip too. Why would that be out of the ordinary.
It is standard practice for members of both parties to travel abroad, and it's part of doing the job responsibility. So I don't fault him for traveling Dale Salvador. I fault him for deciding that he wants to stake everything he stands for on the proposition that we need more illegal aliens in this country, that the federal government cannot deport illegal aliens, and that we need more gang members
in this country. And as he lays out, he doesn't care and he didn't ask if this guy's a gang member, and apparently he didn't care if he all so as committing domestic violence and beating up his wife, those are not his concerns either.
I want to move also to this second big story, and there's some people that are confused. I also think very frustrated by the Supreme Court halting the deportations of illegal immigrants in some cases. Can you break down what this ruling is. Alito was in the descent here and the headlines over Easter weekend, people are like, wait, what, how, why is this happening. I don't understand how we're protecting
people that are illegal immigrants. Yet again, at the level of the Supreme Court, break this down so it makes sense.
Well, the Supreme Court early Saturday morning issued in order blocking the deportation of Venezuelan illegal immigrants under an eighteenth century law, and what it says is that they had to halt the deportations until quote further order of this Court, and I got to say, just to Alito, joined by Justice Thomas, wrote a very fiery descent, really disagreeing with it. I'm going to read you part of the descent. Here's what Justice Alito and Justice Thomas wrote.
Quote.
Shortly after midnight yesterday, the Court hastily and prematurely granted unprecedented emergency relief proceeding under the all Ritz Act. The Court ordered the quote government not to remove a quote putative class of detainees until this Court issues a superseding order.
Although the order does not define the quote putative class, it appears that the Court means all members of the class that the Habeas petitioners sought to have certified, namely, quote, all non citizens in custody in the Northern District of Texas who were, are, and will be subject to the March twenty twenty five Presidential Proclamation entitled Invocation of the Alien Enemies Acts regarding the Invasion of the United States
by trender Aragua and or its implementation. It also appears that applicants have recently moved to amend their class petition for Habeas Corpus and their motion for class certification, So it is not clear if the applicants will continue to defend this specific definition or will argue for a new one. And although the Court does not specify what it means by the government, it appears that term is intended to
embrace all the name defendants, including the President. The Court did all of this even though it is not clear that the Court had jurisdiction. The Allrits Act does not provide an independent grant of jurisdiction. Therefore, the Court had jurisdiction only if the Court of Appeals had jurisdictions of the applicants appeal, and the Court of Appeals had jurisdiction only if the supposed order that the applicants appealed amounted
to a denial of a preliminary injunction. But here the order that applicants appealed was what they viewed as the District court's constructive denial of their request for a temporary restraining order. That is, the district Court did not actually deny their most recent request for a tro but they inferred that it was constructively denied because the District Court failed a rule on that request before the expiration of
a truncated council imposed deadline. The denial of a true tro is not appealable, and here it is not clear that the applicant's tro request was actually denied. Indeed, an order issued last night the Fifth Circuit held that it lacked jurisdiction. For this reason, it is questionable whether the applicant complied with a general obligation to seek emergency and junctive relief in the district court before asking for such
relief from an appellate court. When applicants requested such relief in the district Court, they insisted on a ruling within forty five minutes on Good Friday afternoon, and when the District Court did not act within one hundred and thirty three minutes, they filed a notice of appeal, which the District Court held deprived it of its jurisdiction. Now a lot of that that jurisdictional language seems confusing, but understand
what happened. They went to the district Court and they said we want an answer within forty five minutes, and the court did not respond one way another forty five minutes. They immediately appealed and said, up, they haven't answered. That means you've denied it. And the Court of Appeals ruled that, well, we're not going to act on this, and unfortunately seven
too the Supreme Court jumped in. And in fact, here's how Justice to Leado and Justice Thomas end their dissent quote in some literally, in the middle of the night, the Court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief, without giving the lower courts a chance to rule, without hearing from the opposing party, within eight hours of receiving the application, with ubious factual support for its order, and without providing
any explanation for its order. I refuse to join the Court's order because we had no good reason to think that under the circumstances, issuing the order at midnight was necessary or appropriate. Both the executive and the judiciary have an obligation to follow the law. The executive must proceed under the terms of our order, and this Court should follow established procedures.
So you look at this and what is this going to mean moving forward? And how big of a roadblock is this going to be for the Trump administration to do what they've said and promised the American people, And by the way, the American people voted for, which was we want to secure the border and we want to get rid of all the illegal immigrants that came into this country, especially those that are violent.
Well, look, it's not clear how big a challenge it's going to be. The most distressing thing about this order was that it was seven to two.
Seven to two is not good.
It means everybody by Alito and voted to stay to halt the deportations of Venezuelans.
It's not clear. Presumably they're going to write a more.
Extended opinion at some point, and so we'll find out more their reasoning. But I got to say, look, look, these two stories, this story in the first one are connected because I will say the Democrats strategy in doing the full Ginsburg in some ways, I think their audience is not the American people. They've got to know somebody on the Democrat side of the aisle has got to know, Hey,
this is not earning us votes. When we say we're the party of illegal aliens and criminals and gang members and wife beaters, that's us that.
You don't have to be.
A rocket scientist when it comes to reading public opinion to know that's not the most popular of issues to stake your entire party platform on. But in many ways they're aiming at a much smaller audience. They're aiming at five. They're hoping to get five justices pissed off, and and to get them pissed off enough that we see a series of Supreme Court orders against the Trump administration trying
to halt these deportations. Now, I don't think that's going to happen, but but this ruling is troubling that it was seven to two.
Alito's descent.
Look, Alito was was was very concerned about this, and the procedural minutia that he that he recounts as is very unusual. Uh, and so that dynamic, it is a dangerous process.
It is.
Right now, there's a little bit of a game of chicken, and I think what the Democrats are trying to do is is piss off a couple of Supreme Court justices and get them to rule decisively against the president. That would be very unfortunate if that starts to happen.
Well, another question, real quick before we move on, is part of this Could it just be the quickness that they were asking for the ruling from the court. Is that something that you could change moving forward? Could that be part of that issue?
Yeah, Look, it was done it as an emergency appeal, and there are times, you know, there's another context to where this happens a lot, which is dealing with death penalty appeals. And when you have death penalty appeals, you have someone who's been convicted of a capital offense and they're set to be executed, and very frequently you have last minute appeals that are filed. And I'll tell you
when I was a law clerk. I was a law clerk for Chief Justice Renquist in nineteen ninety six and nineteen ninety seven and at the time, so this gives you a sense you can now make a crack about how old I am at the time. The way we would get these emergency appeals is they would be faxed in,
so they weren't emailed at the time. They'd be faxed in and you'd get it off the facts and you would get say, if the midnight was if the execution was scheduled to happen at midnight, and by the way, if it was midnight on the West coast, that meant it was three am in d C. But if the execution was scheduled at midnight, you would get sometimes one hundred page appeal faxed in at ten thirty pm and what would happen. So what plays out when that gets faxed in is is the justice who is the lead
justice for that circuit. So each circuit, each region of the country has a lead justice who is the justice to whom emergency appeals go. Initially, Chief Justice Renquest was the lead justice for the fourth circuit was concerned death penalty appeals, and so that was Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia. In particularly there were fair number capital cases. So you would get it faxed to you, You, as the law clerk, would read through it. You'd have
to read through it very quickly. You have to prepare a memo, write a memo. You then send it to your justice. And a lot of times, if this was at midnight or one or two or three in the morning, you'd have to call home and wake your justice up. Your justice would be asleep. You'd call home, you'd say, Chief, we had an emergency appeal.
Now.
Now the justice would know there was an execution set that night, and so would know that there is likely to be a call. But you'd call, wake your justice up and ask okay, here's the arguments, here's what I think about it, and you would write a memo from your justice saying summarizing the arguments in the appeal and
making the recommendation. So for Chief Justice Renquist, in virtually every circumstance, if someone was seeking to halt an execution at the last minute, he would recommend that that be denied. You would then forward it to the other eight chambers. To the other eight chambers, and there was a law clerk, so in the night of execution, at least nine of us were there till midnight or one or two or
three in the morning. And so when you would forward your memo, in a memo in a case like this, would be anywhere from two to maybe eight pages, depending on how complicated the issues were. They would then get your memo, and they've gotten the appeal as well, so they're reading the appeal at the same time. They would then call their justice, wake him er her up at home, and they would cast votes at midnight or one or
two or three in the morning. And a strategy that is still quite frequent when it comes to death penalty appeals is just throw so much crap at the wall that they're hoping the justices say, I don't know, I can't figure this out this quickly, all right, just stay the execution, halt the execution so we can figure this all out. And unfortunately that strategy that that strategy can work.
That there may have been some of that that this was being done over Easter weekend very quickly, and it may be that the justices wanted to say, hold on a second, we want to understand what's going on here.
That's possible, but.
I do think the democrats entire strategy is try to see if they can get a majority of the Supreme Court ticked off. And I don't think that's happened, but I do think that would be very dangerous and harmful if it did happen.
Yeah, that's a really great point. And by the way, don't forget if you are new to this podcast. Is this your first time listening, Maybe you caught us on
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