Welcome. It is verdicuous center. Ted Cruz week in Review. Ben Ferguson with you, and these are the big stories that you may have missed that we talked about this week. First up, where are the Democrats on the issue of hostages that are still being held by Hamas? And why are they not talking about many of them that are Americans. It is months into this conflict and yet no one seems to care. We're going to talk about that. Also, CNN thought they knew what RFK Junior was going to
say about Donald Trump. It backfired in a big way, and you're not going to want to miss what he had to say about the biggest threat to democracy. It was Joe Biden. And finally NBC and MSNBC, they united the biggest hosts and the biggest talent to make sure that the former RNC chairwoman was basically fired before she ever got started in her new job. What's behind this?
We're going to talk about it all. It is the weekend Review, and it starts right now, Senat you and I want to go back in time because it's amazing how quick people forget about what happened on that day. I've met with the Israeli government independently. You've obviously met with them and representatives countless times. You watched a long version of the atrocities of that day. I have seen more than I wanted to, but I think it was important with the platform that I have to be an
advocate for Israel to see it and witness it. And I saw it much more recently. I can't get those images out of my head, just how orchestrated, how barbaric, how evil the people were that were doing these things to As we talked about children to the elderly, the elderly is somewhat been overlooked. And I was watching some
of this, and you watch these elderly people. Not only were they killing the grandfathers and great grandfathers in front of the great grandmothers and their kids and grandkids, but they were ripping them away and then taunting because they were going to go after the women. And this was all caught on video. And yet no one seems to be reminding people that those are the hostages that are still being held captive right now.
They are And where is America? Where is the president? Where is a Democrat calling for the release of the American hostages. By the way, these are not many of them are Israelis, but there are multiple American hostages that this White House A wall doesn't even begin. It's worse than a wall. If they were silent, that would be disgraceful. But they're not silent. They're telling Israel stop trying to
kill the terrorists. Instead, reward the terrorists and give them a nation state that is stronger than it was before and in a better position to wage war with Israel into murder innocent civilians going forward. That is a bizarre way to respond to a horrific atrocity carried out by.
Hamas Jensaki, White House Press Secretary. She obviously and this is when you know it's a coordinated and orchestrated effort by talking heads, former White House pressingre terry, people in the media, people in the State Department, people in social media circles on the left, and celebrities and others. This is what she had to say on Israel on MSNBC.
Well, and Jen, it's very easy for people to say the president should do a the president should do BC. There is also the very real possibility, and he say, understand this, if the president turns on met Yahoo to belief. The President says, we're going to stop sending weapons that met and Yahoo actually uses that to gain more power inside of Israel, saying, see, we have been abandoned even by the United States.
We have to fight on That's right, Joe, and I think that's important too.
Look, clearly, the strategy that the United States is implementing at this point is not working to change the behavior of Prime Minister net Yahoo, is not working to end the war. So obviously something has to change, and I think it's pretty clear they're discussing that, I think in the White House and I hope in the White House in this situation room at this point in time.
The question is what that will be.
And there's a number of allies of President Biden's in the Senate, Democratic senators and others who've been pretty outspoken about the need for conditioning AID at least as a consideration. That's obviously something that is being considered should be considered. The question is will that change the behavior and what additional leverage needs to be put on Prime Minister net Yahoo at this point in time to change the trajectory.
But you're right, there's a calculation if you're discussing this, if you're the president, if you're the national security team, about what would prompt Prime Minister who to be more aggressive, what would prompt him to be less aggressive.
Obviously nothing has worked to date.
But it's not as easy as it sounds to make that determination.
Center.
Not one time did she say anything about putting pressure on Hamas the terrorist organization, or the Palestinian that are supporting the terrorists to stop them. They don't care about Israel, like Israel is the terrorist organization that started all this, They were the ones that were attacked.
Look that they treat Israel as a client state. They treat Israel as the oppressors, and understand the base of their party believes Israel as their oppressors. And also get you know, you know, there's some folks. There's a popular media narrative that, hey, Joe Biden is really pro Israel, but he's just got a political problem that his party is not. That's actually not accurate. Joe Biden has been undermining Israel for more than fifty years. Let's go back
to nineteen eighty two. Nineteen eight two was a long time ago. Nineteen eighty two, Joe Biden was in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He had a private meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Man Knock and Began and Joe Biden decided to do what he's doing now, to threaten Israel, to threaten We're going to cut off usaid if Israel did not stop quote settlements in Judaea and Samaria. So it's frankly, the same thing he was saying in eighty two is what he's saying now. We don't like Israel.
You don't have any right to settle the land of Israel, and if you do, we're going to cut you off. And here's what Began responded to. And this is one of the most famous responses by any Israeli prime minister, and it was in nineteen eighty two, so a long long time ago. Here's what Began said to Joe Biden. Then a senator quote, don't threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with
three thousand, seven hundred years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it, we fought for it, we died for it. We will stand by our principles, we will defend them, and when necessary, we will die for them again with or without your aid. That's what the Prime Minister of Israel said to Joe
Biden over forty years ago. You know what, the Prime Minister of Israel is still saying that to Joe Biden. But sadly, the entire Democrat Party is with Biden, undermining Israel and effectively forming a protective shield around the hamas Terrace, who committed the most unspeakable acts of modern times that we have seen.
Senat our last question for you, and it's a really important one. If the Elizabeth Warrens the Democratic Party, and if the aocs and Rashida Leeves and others are able to flip the script the way it seems like we're going with the help of the media, what happens if, in fact, we don't give the a needed and the military weaponry needed that Israel is willing to buy from us because this president caves and blocks it. What happens to Israel?
Then well, listen, the Biden administration and the Democrats in the Congress hope that Israel will give in, that they want to number one undermine Benjamin net Yahu. And I'm not listen, I'm not being partisan in this. I'm not not intuiting or supposing this. Chuck Schumer said it on the Senate floor. He said he wants Netanyahu to be forced out of office. He wants Israel to have a new election and for them to allot to prime minister whose views he likes. And apparently the voters of Israel don't
have a right to choose their own leader. That it's going to be the Democrats in Washington to choose that. But look the White House and the Congressional Democrats, they hope that by attacking Israel relentlessly, by threatening to cut off money, by undermining their international support, that Israel will get cold feet, that they will get weakknees, they will stop attacking Hamas and in particular Rafa. Look, the Hamas leadership,
the Hamas terrorists are all gathered in Rafa. Now, I'll tell you I sat down doing a zoom call two weeks ago with Prime Minister Netanyahu. He joined all the Republican senators at our lunch. I can tell you two weeks ago he was unequivocal. He said, we will go to Rafa, we will enter Rafa, we will engage in a military campaign, and we will utterly eliminate Hamas, and if America is not there, we'll do it on our own.
To be honest, what Netanyahu said it was almost word for word, web knock and Bagan said that has not changed. It's one of the reasons. Listen, as a tech I've explained. People have asked me a lot of times. They've said, how is it? How did it come to pass that a Cuban techxan Southern Baptist became the leading defender of Israel in the Senate. And there are lots of reasons for that, but I'll tell you one of the biggest
is the attitude of Israel. Israel is surrounded by nations that would drive it into the sea, that would murder every Israeli, every Jew if they could, and the only reason they don't is because Israel is strong enough to defeat them all. I got to say that is an incredibly Texan foreign policy. It is a national security policy.
I have more than once wished that American foreign policy could have the clarity and strength that Israel's does, and so I'm not surprised that NATANYAHUO is saying the same thing monach and began said forty plus years later, which is Israel only survives because they could serve they are not dependent on the large Yes, the welfare from Democrats
who are condescending to flick breadcrumbs from their table. But I really do wonder Ben, is there one Democrat in Congress with the guts to stand up to Biden and say this is wrong. We stand with Israel, we stand against Tamas, and all of the rest of this is garbage. If they have I haven't seen it.
Now.
If you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week. Now onto story number two, Senator Finally, I want to talk about our RFK Junior. CNN decide to have him on, and they thought they were giving him a softball question that was going to be easy, and he's gonna rip on Donald Trump tee it up from there because it didn't go the way they thought it was going to go at all.
Well, that's exactly right. CNN tossed to RFK juniors a question that they thought RFK would say, Oh, yes, Trump is clearly the manifest threat to democracy and so you really should vote for Joe Biden instead. Well, RFK did not play along and listen to this exchange because CNN was astonished at what RFK had to say.
I've done too many issues.
While I admire his high minded ideals, his suggestion that there's no difference between mister Ware and mister Bush is irresponsible. A moment ago, you said, you essentially see Trump and Biden as.
Saying different different issues.
But do you really believe that when people talk about the threat of democracy that Trump poses, do you really think that that is an.
Equal Listen, I can make the argument that President Biden is a much worse threat to democracy. And the reason for that is President Biden is the first candidate in history, the first president history has used the federal agencies to censor political speech. So the sensor his opponent. I you know, I can say that because I just want a case in the Federal Court of Appeals and now before the
Supreme Court. It shows that he started censoring not just me, for thirty seven hours after he took the other office. He was censoring me. No president in the country has
ever done that. The greatest threat democracy is not somebody who questions election returns, but a president of the United States who used the power of his office to force the social media company's Facebook, Instagram, Twitter to open a portal and give the access to that portal to the FBI, to the CIA, the IRS, the SISA, the NIH to
censor his political critics. Becausident Biden for the first first president of history to use the secret his power over the Secret Service to deny Secret Service protection to one of his political opponents for political reasons. He's weaponizing the federal agency. Those are really critical.
Threatsource tried to overturn a free and fair election.
He tried to overturn one.
Right is he still finding How is that not a threat to democracy?
Well, I think that is a threat to democracy. Him of it were trying to overthrow the election. Clearly is the threat democracy. But the question was who is the worse threat to democracy? And what I would say is, you know, I'm not going to answer that question, but I can argue that President Biden is because the First
Amendment Aaron is the most important. But Adams and Hamilton and Madison said, we put the guarantee of freedom expression in the First Amendment because all of our other constitutional.
Rights depend on it.
If you have a government that can silence its opponent, it has license for any atrocity.
So, just to be clear, you're saying you could make an argument that President Biden is a worse threat to democracy.
Then you listen to that a senator and it's like they're like, well, I will whoa, this is not what you're supposed to say. This is not you were supposed to say Donald Trump orange Man's bad and a threat to democracy. Obviously you weren't supposed to say Joe Biden's actually a bigger threat. And by the way, explain exactly how he is.
Warning Will Robinson warning Will Robinson, danger danger danger Aboart run away, run away. That's what CNN is saying. They're losing their minds. No, No, that that's not the message. The only message we allow on CNN is Trump bad, Trump bad, Trump bad. You're RFK jor your dad was RFK, your uncle was JFK. You're supposed to echo our message Trump orange man bad, orange man bad. Look I got to say listening to that. I agree with every single word.
Robert F.
Kennedy Jr. Said right there. When it comes to a threat to democracy, number one, Joe Biden and for that matter, congressional Democrats are perfectly happy to use government power and big tech to censor you, to silence you, to prevent you from engaging in political speech, to prevent you from
disagreeing with them. They want to use force to silence you. Secondly, he pointed out, Joe Biden is disgracefully denying Robert F. Kennedy Junior Secret Service protection that despite the fact that he is clearly pulling at the thresholds that would bear at that protection, that he is facing significant threats of
political violence against him, and the tragic family history. His father was assassinated when he was running for president, his uncle was assassinated when he was president, and Joe Biden and the Democrats are cynical enough that they're willing to risk well, okay, if our FK Junior gets assassinated, that's a risk Joe Biden's willing to take. It is disgraceful, and we've called that out on this podcast before that, of course, Joe Biden should give our FK Secret Service protection.
That's following the law, that is consistent with the law, it's consistent with precedent, and the only reason not to is pure partisan politics. Let me say something else. Look, I have conversations with people all the time. I had conversations with people today where they make comments about, Gosh, I'm worried if Trump wins. He's an authoritarian, he's a dictator. I'm worried what he will do. And you know, my standard response is listen, I understand that. And sometimes Trump
has rhetoric that can be used to suggest that. That being said, we don't have to hypothesize what Trump will do as president. He was president for four years and if you look at the time he was president, he didn't abuse his power. He followed the law. If you look at the policies he implemented, and I worked hand in hand with Donald Trump, the policies he implemented worked. We saw the lowest unemployment race in fifty years. We saw the lowest African American unemployment ever recorded. We saw
the lowest Hispanic employment ever recorded. We saw peace and prosperity, we saw the border secured, we saw peace breaking out in the Middle East, and the Abraham Accords. All of that played out. And if you look at what Trump did, he didn't defy the law. He didn't ignore the law. He didn't issue lawless executive orders. He followed the law. Now, he demonstrated courage. He made decisions that were bold, but they were within the law. Contrast that to Joe Biden.
Joe Biden number one is responsible for profoundly politicizing the Department of Justice of the FBI. Number two is responsible for the greatest assault on democracy we've ever seen, which is the four indictments of Donald Trump, the abuse of the legal process designed. Mind you, Trump is not the target,
the voters of the target. They're terrified the voters will vote for Trump, and they're trying to prosecute for the first time in history, and the second time in history, and the third time in history, and the fourth time in history, a former president and a leading presidential candidate
because they want to stop democracy from playing out. To be clear, also, these are the same Democrats that in Colorado, in Illinois and Maine threw Donald Trump off the ballot because you know, nothing says defending democracy like stopping the damn voters from voting. For the person you don't want them to. This is Democrats. And let's be clear also, Joe Biden when it comes to being a dictator to being lawless. Look at what he's doing on the southern border.
He's utterly ignoring federal immigration law. He's releasing people into this country. He's releasing criminals into this country. He's endangering this country ten point four million illegal immigrants. It is lawless. No president has ever done this. Barack Obama didn't do this. Bill Clinton didn't do this. Jimmy Carter didn't do this.
Only Joe Biden is brazenly lawless. Let's be clear also when it came to student loans, Joe Biden trying to buy votes, tried to give away trillion dollars a trillion dollars just in an effort to buy votes and win elections. Now, a president can't give away a trillion dollars without Congress passing legislation to do so. Joe Biden knows that the lawyers and his administration know that they didn't care. They
wanted to lawlessly be political. And so, of course what happened to the Supreme Court struck it down and said no, the president doesn't have the ability to give away a trillion dollars just to buy votes. By the way, same thing happened with COVID vaccine mandates, utterly lawless, abusive, trying to force people to get COVID vaccines. The president had no authority to do it. Biden administration did so anyway, what happened. The Supreme Court struck it down, said this
is lawless, this is not the federal law. You look at who actually has been lawless and dictatorial? And I agree with RFK, there's a powerful argument. The answer to that is Joe Biden and not Donald Donald J. Trump, And that makes CNN and every other corporate media entity their heads explode.
As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and now the pod casts from earlier this week to hear the entire thing. I want to get back to the big story, number three of the week you may have missed. Finally, Senator, I want to ask you about saying that happened this last week, and it was a story that was I was even shocked by it. The former RNC chairwoman was hired by NBC News to become a commentator slash NBC News.
She was hired, It came out, and what ended up happening was virtually every name that was a host of a show, a big talent at NBC, including Met, the press said we're not going to work with her, she's a radical Trump extremist. January sixther We're not going to work with her. And they literally ripped her on air in a way that I didn't even think they would do, but they did it. And here's a montage of just how bad.
It was joined by former r and C chair Roni McDaniel in her first interview since stepping down as party chair. In full disclosure to our viewers, this interview was scheduled weeks before it was announced that McDaniel would become a paid NBC News contributor. This will be a news interview and I was not involved in her hiring.
I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation. And look, there's a reason why there's a lot of journalists at NBC News uncomfortable with this, because many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with catilighting, have been met with characters fascination.
We weren't asked our opinion of the hiring, but if we were, we would have strongly objected to it.
At NBC News, either wittingly or unwittingly, is teaching election deniers that what they can do stretches well beyond appearing on our air and interviews to pedal lies about the sanctity and integrity of our elections so that they can do that as one of us, as badge carrying employees of.
NBC News, there is an easy way to avoid the controversy NBC News has stumbled into.
Don't hire anyone close to the crimes.
She literally backed an illegal scheme to steal an election in the.
State of Mission.
That is the type of experience that Ronald McDaniel brings to the table, and that experience does not get us to a deeper understanding of anything in the public debate.
I want to associate myself with all my colleagues, both at MSNBC and at NBC News who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company putting on the payroll someone who hasn't just attacked us as journalists, but someone who is part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government.
Senator that was clearly orchestrated by the talent. They were not going to work with her, and they were going to ruin her career before it even started.
Well, look, NBC News sadly is a joke MSNBC News. It would be a joke if anyone watched it. But it's just sort of a left wing primal scream and the utter hypocrisy of everyone else. So much of this was started by Chuck Todd, and Chuck Todd had this whole screed, this self righteous holier than the nou screed that he did on Meet the Press. Now, here's an interesting bit you may not know. Do you know how
Chuck Todd got his start? How was that as a staffer in nineteen ninety two for the presidential campaign of Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat. So Chuck Todd was a Democrat staffer on a presidential campaign. Mind, you're not just in passing. But let's go back to Chuck Todd's predecessor, Tim Russert. Tim Russer the gold standard of Meet the Press, the gold standard of NBC News. Did you know what Tim Russer did before he went NBC.
I'm gonna go out on a lem and say a Democratic staffer.
He worked for US Senator Daniel Patrick Moore, a Democrat from New York. He served as special counsel to Daniel Patrick boynihan. He served as chief of staff to Daniel Patrick Boynihan, and then in nineteen eighty three he became a top aid to New York Governor Mario Cuomo, also a Democrat. So he was a senior Democrat staffer over and over again for multiple Democrats, and then he went
to NBC News. Let's fast forward George Stephanopolis. Where did George Stephanopolis make his name as a senior press hack for the Clinton White House? He was a political staffer his entire life. By the way, he's the premier political commentator at ABC now. And let's not forget Jensaki happily ensconced at MSNBC. She was, of course Joe Biden's White
House press secretary. She stood up there and spin, baby spin, baby spin, and she got hired basically straight from the White House, where she continues to do the same job. She is still, as far as I'm concerned, the White House Press secretary she's actually a much better press secretary, thank Karee John Pierre. Why because Kreen John Pierre is not very good at her job. All she does is lie.
To Sak's credit, she actually rarely directly lied. She just pivoted, she circled back, she spun, but she rarely made flat out, demonstrably provable falsehoods, whereas Karan John Pierre seems to do so on an almost daily basis. But the entirety of that, understand, The position of NBC is, essentially, we cannot tolerate an actual Republican who works for us. And by the way, there were a few folks who got online and they said, no, no, no,
that's not true. That's not true. That's not true. Because Nicole Wallace is on MSNBC and she was a Republican staffer, and Joe Scarborough he was a Republican congressman. Well that's true. They were in a prior life Republicans. But both Nicole Wallace and Joe's Garber voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. So the position of NBC News is we cannot actually hire anybody who voted for Donald Trump as long as
you vote for Democrats. You could have been a Republican long in your distant life, but you must have abandoned half of the country and decided they're evil deplorables. Those are the only people we are willing to hire.
Welcome to MSNBC and NBC News as you described it. And again I'm not a big person advocating or supporting, like oh, sue somebody, but I hope she gets a big payday the way they treat her. And apparently she found out she was fired through media reports, not even from a phone call from NBC News. I hope that she gets a huge payout from this. She deserves every dime after watching her colleagues run her name through the mud the way they did and treat her the way they did so.
And let me make an important point on this. So MSNBC has a niche as a hard left netwe that's why they have so few viewers. But they're hard left. Let me ask you something. Why does NBC, I mean and and NBC pretends to actually be a real journalistic outfit. Why do they have a subsidiary that is just a hard left platform. By the way, they all decry Fox News, but MSNBC is hard left unapologetically so. And by the way, you know what the MS stands for Microsoft. Why exactly
is Microsoft funding hard left propaganda? Why is NBC? Why are they okay with a network that has an explicit ideological agenda. And one of the points to understand it was NBC News that that hired Ron McDaniel. And and I'm going to make the case to you there is no difference between MSNBC and NBC. They are one and the same. NBC no longer pretends to be journalists. They are advocate hits. They are in MSNBC. They are the
left wing of the Democrat Party. There's a reason, by the way, in the last presidential cycle they were thrown out of moderating because they're so hardcore and partisan. Now, I guess somebody in their corporate leadership decided they wanted to at least have a nod of having somebody on the staff who had voted with half of the country. But let me ask you, Ben So, you actually have been a paid conservative at a left wing network at CNA, you were paid for a number of years. What was
that like then? And give us your perspectives from having been in Rana's shoes. Although at a different time.
It's funny that you asked us because I was doing out Numbered, hosting out Numbered on I think it was Wednesday when this story broke and they came to me. They're like, look, you've got an insting perspective. I said, yeah, I was hired for My contract was extended when I was at sen and I was there total of seven years, but the last year was just and this is how
much it even changed. At CNN. They used to want when they when Jeff Zucker took over a Grand Debate, they wanted conservatives to have people that they thought were well representing them so that consertives wouldn't, you know, basically immediately skip over the channel. One Stunnald Trump. One in
sixteen Wills came off at CNN. They hated him. They hated and they yelled and screamed and tried to turn you into bigot, racist homophobes, NFOI everything they could and try to ruin your career when you were on because they couldn't yell at Trump, but they could yell at you and you were supporting Trump or defending Trump. But in the last year that I was there, they hired me just to have my name on a piece of
paper as it get out a free jail card. When someone said you guys have no conservatives, and they would say no, no, no, no no. Look over here, we have Ben Ferguson. In my last year, I did two appearances on CNN. Now that's absurd from a financial standpoint. If you were a financial person, why would you hire a guy a salary and only have him come to work two days out of three hundred and sixty five days
in a year. One of those two appearances was after the Hollywood Reporter Today's story about me being benched, and then they put me on the next day on a Saturday, for four minutes just to say no, se he's not benched. We just used him today and then never used me again. And with Ronald McDowell, I have to say with her, I think that's part of what they wanted. They wanted to go into this election cycle saying, yes, we've got a token concern. This lady just ran the RNC. See
we're not biased. We've got her on the air as always. Thank you for listening to Verdict with Center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to deal with my podcast, and you can listen to my podcast every other day you're not listening to Verdict, or each day when you listen to Verdict. Afterwards, I'd love to have you as a listener to again the Ben Ferguson Podcasts, and we will see you back here on Monday morning.