Welcome.
It is verdict with Senator Ted Cruz. Ben Ferguson with you, Senator, We've got a lot to talk about with a Senate immigration bill and a lot of questions I want to ask you, But before we even get into the details of that, I want to talk about the stay of the country with immigration and illegal immigration. And there is a flash point that has happened this past week with an illegal immigrant who flicked off basically the United States of America after trying, I would say, to kill a
police officer. Where they beat police officers. There's a group of them and they all walk free, and apparently, from what we've been told, they may even be on their way or already in California right now. Your reaction to that moment.
Ben, I don't know that there's a story that has pissed me off more in a long long time than what the New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg did here. So the story, as you know, is a group of illegal immigrants, basically a gang of them, beat up two NYPD cops, beat them, kicked them, aside them, and then they were arrested and they got released within hours with no bail. They were just let go. And as you noted, the image of them walking out and with both hands
flipping off the entire country. I think that is the image of this election. When people go vote in November, just remember that guy with both middle fingers extended, because that's what Joe Biden is saying to you. That's what the Democrats are saying to you. They are saying, screw you, they don't care, and they are destroying They're they're destroying our country. And it is the idea that illegal immigrants
can beat up cops and there are no consequences. It's perfectly okay, according to Democrats, is so toxic every every elected Democrat should be forced to address this and to denounce Alvin Bragg.
There's also a brazenness aspect of this attack and these police officers. It was caught on camera because it was at Times Square. This wasn't in some back alley and another part of the city where there was some sort of major crime that was happening and then the police got involved in there was a fight.
This was just an assault on police officers.
At Times Square, in an area where these illegal immigrants clearly felt like they can do whatever they want to do. There's no reason to believe honestly otherwise, because we allow them into this country, we give them a coordinate. They could be seven years from now and the reaction coming out of jail because of Alan Bragg, and I want you to go in Alan Bragg as well. This is an activist, George Soros DA, and he's been confronted by this and he basically is doing the same thing as
those illegal immigrants. He's flicking off the justice system saying I'm in charge, I'm an activist DA, and there's nothing you can do to stop me.
Now, that is exactly right. Alvin Bragg is one of the sadly many Soros DA's across the country. George Soros has spent millions of dollars electing radical left wing das who let violent criminals out of jail and they go commit more and more and more violent crimes. And we've seen it across the country. We've seen it in New York, We've seen it in Philadelphia, We've seen it in San Francisco, we've seen it in La You know, Alvin Bragg, right after they let these illegal immigrants out of jail with
no bail. Reporters tried to get Bragg to comment, to answer why he had done so, and he basically ran away from the reporters, refused to answer, and then subsequently, here is the explanation Bragg gave. I'm going to quote it quote in a court of law, our profound obligation is to make sure we have right people charged with the right crimes. I don't think New Yorkers want to charge the wrong person. There is a presumption of pre trial non incarceration for every case except those with charges
of homicide or the death of a victim. Now that is utterly insane. I want you to focus on what he is saying. I'm going to read it again. There is a presumption. Actually the first part, well, we want to make sure the right people are charged with the right crimes. These guys are on video. We've all watched the video. We know exactly who it is, we know what they did. There's a video of it. They do it brazenly in the middle of Times Square. Nobody is
worried that you got the wrong guys here. We know they're guilty. They were videotape. When you beat up a cop and kick two cops repeatedly on the ground. There is no defense to that. So the first part of his statement makes no sense. But the second part, if anything, is even crazier. Let me read you the second part again. There is a presumption a pre trial non incarceration for every case except those with charges of homicide or the
death of a victim. Other words, ben your wife or your mother, or your daughter or sister is violently raped, Alvin Bragg is saying, we will release the rapist if she's not dead, will release the rapist before the trial. Someone commits horrific child abuse and child molestation. What is Alvin Bragg saying, we will release the child molester before the trial. Someone beats you your son within inches of
his life, almost to death, and you don't die. Alvin Bragg is saying you can beat someone almost to death and he's going to release the criminal. That is so utterly insane. It is a policy that on its face just produces chaos and lawlessness, and it produces what New York City has right now. It's not just in New York.
This is something that we're seeing all over the country where illegal immigrants are able to commit heinous crimes. People die, as you just mentioned, and there's no accountability. And Congress, by the way back that up this week, there was a bill I call this a no brainer bill. That was a bill that was really simple to deport illegal
immigrants if they are caught driving under the influence. Now, there's a shocking number of people that have died at the hands of illegal immigrants who have been driving drunk. And so this bill was to say, look, you're in this country illegally. You get caught with the dui, we are going to deport you. And one hundred and fifty Democrats Center voted against that bill. A no brainer bill. What the heck is going on? That's the words literally from Elon Musk on this.
Today's Democrat Party systematically puts criminals and illegal immigrants ahead of the interests of American citizens. So if you're out driving on the road, if if your wife is out driving on the road, if your kids are out and and a drunk driver slams into them, who's an illegal alien? The Democrats are saying, Nope, don't deport him. Then they are literally endangering our families. And listen, this has gotten so bad that that even even some folks in Hollywood
are jumping ship you know the comedian, this guy, Michael Rapaport. Look, he's a loud mouth. He puts these you know, profane Twitter rants online.
Uh.
He hates Trump, he hates me. He is a big, big leftist. And you know how he responded to what happened in New York. He put out this rant and I'm gonna I'm gonna quote from it, although I'm going to try to sanitize it a little bit. He slams his fist on the table and says, quote, this is why when I say, voting for explative, Donald Trump is on the voting for explative Donald Trump is on the table. And he goes on to say, the other day in New York City, six illegal aliens jumped a New York
City cop NYPD's finest. They jumped a New York City cop in Times Square and were arrested and released without bail. And he continues quote released without bail, came out of the courtroom on some two pack, raising the middle finger with the Detroit Red Wings Jersey. Let me tell you something, what the f is the world coming to? If you could be from another country beat up a cop in New York City and walk out with no f and bail.
What the f is the world coming to when you have angry left wing comedians now ready to vote for Trump the Democrat Party that they've lost their minds.
And there's also in You and I have talked about this, and I think this is a really important moment. We should just highlight it again. Don't look at what they say, look at what they do. You look at Mayor Adams in New York City and what he says is we're a sanctuary city early on where loving city, come one, come all, will accept all the illegal immorrants. Now he's saying we can't afford it. Now he's saying to humanitarian crisis. Now he's saying this is all the fault of the
Texas Governor Greg Abbott for busting people there. And so he's saying one thing but doing another. And then he says we have a problem. Yet New York comes out. New York City has come out, and now they're giving pre paid credit cards with real cash on them to illegal immigrants. Even the rapper fifty cent has said, maybe Trump is the answered.
This is the second you know, basically liberal that you just mentioned.
The first Committian there now an African American famous rapper saying, I don't understand how this works. So am I explaining this to me? How we're giving money to illegal immigrants. It's clearly incentivizing them. And when I say it's not a little bit of money, it's fifty three million. It's going to be distributed among illegal immigrants in the city in the form of prepaid credit cards. So when you say don't come here, as Mayor Adams has said, but
he says, here's fifty three million. If you do come here, what do you think is gonna happen? They want them to come.
Look, that is exactly right. They are literally paying illegal immigrants. They are giving them, giving them prepaid credit cards. Now, now, mind you New Yorkers, who do you think is paying for that? That's coming from New York taxpayers. So they come to New York, they beat up cops, they get released, and they get paid to do it. And by the way, it is not just New York. We are seeing this
pattern consistently in terms of Democrats. So another story that broke also in just the last couple of days, Washington eight took three hundred and forty million dollars of money from the federal government during COVID, and it was COVID
relief funds, And what did they do with it? They voted to give give that money three hundred and forty million dollars illegally to illegal aliens and and to send them checks, to send checks one thousand dollars cash giveaways to illegal aliens who were not eligible under the congressional stimulus program. Well, Washington State says, well, gosh, we're gonna
take the Fed's money and just pay illegal aliens. Well, you know what, if you pay people to come there, you shouldn't be surprised when more of them come there.
Yeah.
Mayor Adams also said this this week. He insists that the New York City migrant crisis quote has nothing to do with sanctuary city status. Your reaction to that, that that total incompetency.
Well, he wants to blame it on that madman in Texas, and that would be greg A. But as you know, I'm kind of offended that he's referring to Abbott and not me when he talks about a madman in Texas. But you know that's who he was talking about. And all right, I'm going to do something I've never before, quoted Michael Rappaport. But I'm going to go back to something he closes his rant with. He says, quote, and he's a New Yorker. He says, quote, maybe my city
is not the greatest city on earth anymore. If you could beat up cops, if you could beat up cops and the greatest city in the world and be released without bail, are we the greatest city on earth? Cadaver Joe Biden, we see you, we efing see you.
And Mayor Adam is taking a lot of heat this week. He may be, by the way, centered the first Democrat that I've seen so far in this cycle to actually say that we need to start deporting people. He says, only if they're doing violent acts. This was on local news in New York City doing damage control.
Well, I've been saying this over and over again. The national government must do its job. This is not a responsibility that should be placed in the lap of all of these big cities.
With sin we's taking.
Place in Chicago and Denver and Boston all across our country. Big cities are having to do the national government job. And those migrants who are here because they want to be part of the American dream. That's we say yesterday. But those who are breaking our laws, we need to re examine the laws that don't allow us to deport them because they're doing violent acts. We cannot clean an atmosphere where you're going to bring violence in our city.
I mean, he says one thing like that.
He's actually saying we should deport violent people that do violent acts. Yet he's giving out millions and millions and millions of dollars to legal immigrants to come to a city.
Yep.
And the elected DA is letting violent criminals go who are assaulting cops. And by the way, it's not just Alvin Bragg's fault, it's not just George Soros's fault. It's also the governor's vault. Kathy Hochel, under the New York laws, has the authority to dismiss Brag. And if you remember, there was a very hotly contested gubernatorial race. Lee Zelden ran against her, and he promised if he was elected governor, he would fire Alvin Bragg. And and so the voters
of New York had the opportunity to fire Brag. And if you remember, during that campaign, Lee Zelden was on the campaign trail and a deranged man assaulted him. Leapt on stage had had a keychain with with with it was actually a hardened plastic keychain in the shape of cat ears, but the ears were like a knife, and he tried to basically cut Zelden's throat, and Zelden is a veteran. Zelden served in the Navy, and so Lee
defended himself and the guy was arrested. And the guy who tried to assault and murder the Republican candidate for governor was released the same day without bail, just like these guys. And so this is a problem that has been going on a long time. And Alvin Bragg is doing exactly what George Soros put him there to do, which is to release violent criminals into New York City. I don't know why Soros wants that, but he clearly wants it because he's put in place das that are doing exactly that.
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That's Patriotmobile dot com slash verdict or nine seven to two Patriot Center. There's a bill, and I want to talk about the side of the Senate bill on immigration reform. There have been words thrown out this last week about mass amnesty. Could be a possibility about brokering some sort of deal that would basically say, if you're in this country, you've been here for you know, year two, we're just going to hand you over the American dream with no
accountability for you breaking into this country. Where are we with this bill and what's happening right now?
Well, the so called Senate immigration bill is an absolute mess, and I've been leading the fight against it. In fact, I did a press conference about a week ago where I described it as is a steaming pile of crap. So my views on this are not ambiguous.
And that was putting it mildly, by the way, because it really is that bad.
So let's step back, let's give some context. And one of the reasons we do this podcast is we have a chance to explain things at a level of detail you can't get anywhere else. So why is there an immigration deal that's being discussed at all? And the reason is the Biden administration desperately wants a supplemental funding bill to pass, and in particular, they want more money for Ukraine. They want more money for Ukraine, and they've wrapped the
Ukraine funding together with emergency military funding for Israel. They wrapped the two of them together, along with some funds for Taiwan. Well, Senate Republicans took the position that we will not vote to move that forward unless we have a deal to secure the border. And we were actually all of the Senate Republicans were united a month ago
in saying you've got to secure the border. We're not going to secure Ukraine's border until we secure our own, and that has to be part of this funding deal. So what happened. What happened is is Mitch McConnell deputized James Lankford, Republican Senator from Oklahoma to negotiate with Chris Murphy, very liberal Democrat from Connecticut, and Kirsten Cinema Democrats slash independent from Arizona. The three of them have been negotiating for several months now and trying to reach a deal.
They're saying that they essentially have a deal. The problem is the deal they've reached I think is a terrible deal and it does not fix the problem. Now that being said, Chuck Schumer desperately wants this deal to pass, and Mitch McConnell desperately wants this deal to pass.
Why is that.
Well, for Mitch, his number one one priority is Ukraine funding. It is clear that he is deeply committed to funding Ukraine. And so when it became clear that the Ukraine funding would not have the votes to pass, especially in the House where a lot of House Republicans are vocally opposed to additional funding for Ukraine, Mitch, I think seized upon Okay, let's see if we can get something that that that
we can say secure. Is the border and if that will get Republicans in the House to vote for Ukraine funding, Mitch will be happy. Initially, as this deal was discussed, we were being told by the by h James Lankford and and and by the negotiating UH lead by leadership that the deal would force Biden to secure the border to fix the problem now. And my view was, great, Look, if we can do that, If we can force Biden
to secure the border, that is worth doing. It's interesting, However, as we sit here, you and I are recording this on Sunday, it's going to come out Monday morning. As we sit here today on Sunday, I still have not seen the text of the bill. Wow, Virtually nobody else has either, So I have no idea what's in the bill.
But hold on.
That's what Nancy Pelosi says is good about Congress, right, we don't know what's in the bill until we passed the bill. Sentator, Isn't that like a normal day of business, isn't in at this point?
Yeap?
That is exactly what Nancy Pelosi said about Obamacare. You've got to pass it to figure out what's in it. Now, Chuck Schumer is announced he's going to force a vote on this bill on Wednesday, And as I said, we still haven't seen what's in it. So what's happened. Look, James Langford, he's a friend of mine. He is a good and decent man. He was a pastor before he was a senator. He's got a good heart, he is earnest,
He's well liked on both sides of the aisle. He came back from negotiating this deal and he went and visited every Republican senator. So James came to my office. He sat in my office and talked through orally different elements that he said were in the bill, And so there are different elements. One of the elements that he emphasizes is he says this bill will tighten the asylum standards,
make it harder to qualify for asylum. He also has said this bill will limit the use of parrole, which is the legal authority that Biden has used to release millions of illegal immigrants. Now, both of those are good if it in fact does that, But as I said, we haven't seen the text, so I'm not convinced it even does that. The fact that they're not willing to release the text is a big, big, big warning sign. It also apparently has some concessions for the Democrats in
terms of giving work permits to illegal immigrants. I don't know the details of that, but I certainly don't like that. And then the provision that has attracted the most attention is it has what Langford characterizes as a safety valve that says if the number of illegal immigrants exceeds five thousand a day, then extra tough sanctions kick in. And the way Langford describes it, it quote shuts down the border. It prevents it prevents the Biden administration, he says, from
accepting any asylum applications. And he said that's designed as like an emergency release. Now, in December, the last month, we have data for the number of illegal aliens coming in what was over three hundred thousand. It was more than ten thousand a day. That is the highest month in the history of our country. We've never had a month with that many illegal immigrants come. Langford is arguing, well, this emergency relief valve would force the administration to cut
that in half from ten thousand to five thousand. Now, look, I agree cutting it in half would be good. Here's the problem that I think effectively normalizes five thousand a day. It says we're okay with five thousand a day, and by the way, five thousand a day, if you do the math, that is over one point eight million illegal aliens a year. It is almost two million a year.
So if you look at over the three plus years of the Biden presidency, we have seen over nine point six million illegal immigrants come into the country one point eight million a year. That's nearly six million. So it's basically Republicans saying, you know what, we're good with two thirds of Biden's illegal immigration with the invasion, and by the way, with that essentially extending into perpetuity. I think that makes no sense whatsoever.
Why why is he forcing this bill if there's still this much opposition to it? Does he think that he could truly get this ram through and somehow the House would go along with this?
So understand what's happening. Senate Republican leadership has basically declared war on House Republicans. So I have been leading the fight against this bill, and we have the last two weeks our Senate Republican lunches to say we have had energetic disagreements on this would be the understatement of the century. And I had been standing up as of a number of other conservatives making the case against this, and many
of my Republican colleagues are getting really pissed off. I've asked them, so the question I asked my colleagues, I've said, listen, I think the chances of this bill passing the House are zero percent. And by the way, when I first said that, the proponents of the bill were like, no, no, no, no, no, it's going to pass the House. The Speaker loves it, he thinks it's great. And I'm like, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, But that's what they were claiming.
Then last week Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, came out and said this bill is dead on arrival in the House, which is exactly what I told my colleagues. But you've got somewhere between a third and two thirds of the Senate Republicans that desperately want to vote for this bill, and in our lunches are arguing vociferously for this bill. Mind you, they don't know what's in it, but they just want to vote for a deal. And look, a lot of the usual suspects who are out being
self righteous and saying we've got to do something. By the way, the Wall Street Journal has done multiple editorials urging Republicans, you've got to pass this Senate deal. Presumably they don't know what's in it. We haven't gotten text.
I don't know.
Maybe they gave the journal text. But their view, and what I've said is listen. Initially, the argument that was given was we were going to force Biden to actually secure the border. If this bill did that, I'd support the bill. Yeah, But as the negotiations went on, the talking points change, and so it started with we're going to force Biden and secure the bill. Now here's what their talking point is. Well, okay, we agree Biden will continue to have an open border and the crisis will continue.
But they say this creates new tools that if if Donald Trump is elected, he can use to secure the border. So you want to talk about moving the goalpost. First of all, we were going to force Biden to do it. Now they can see now we're not doing that. But gosh, go lickety split. This is good for Donald Trump because it'll give him new legal tools, to which I've responded to my colleagues. Donald Trump doesn't need new legal tools to secure the border. How do we know that, because
he did it already. When Joe Biden became president, we had the lowest rate of illegal immigration in forty five years. He did it by ending catch and release. He did it with the remain in Mexico agreement. He did it by building the wall. We can do that again. Trump can do that again. And mark my words, if and when Trump is re elected, you will see illegal immigration drop instantaneously, because we've seen that movie before. That's what
happened previously. And when Biden became president, we saw immigration jump skyrocket instantaneously. And so the arguments being presented in support of this bill are utterly disingenuous. It's we've got to do it to give Trump tools that he doesn't need. And by the way, he doesn't want. He said, don't pass a bad bill. I don't want this bill. I don't need those tools. And yet the proponents of the bill are saying that we should do it anyway.
Final question on this, and that goes back to something you mentioned earlier when you were talking about the image of those legal immigrants who had beaten the new York Police Department officer, they get out of jail, apparently they get to go on the run and get on a bus that was from Catholic charities from what we've been told, and headed to California by by the way, lying about their name. Shocker there. And this is the world that we have now. And you mentioned quickly you said this
needs to be the center of the campaign. When you say that, that's not just the presidential you're talking about everyone that's running for office that's a conservative, and not even just running for federal office. This is a state's issue very much as well, no matter where you are in the country.
Absolutely yes, and understand how spectacularly stupid what Senate Republican leadership is doing. This is the number one issue in the country. People are furious, they understand Joe Biden created it. I've asked leadership. I've turned to Mitch and said, Mitch, tell me how this bill. In what universe does this bill pass the House? And if the answer is it doesn't, then what is accomplish by forcing a vote on this bill that will split our conference that a bunch of
Republicans were self righteously vote yes. Others myself included will vote no, what is accomplished, and they give no answer to that. They don't have a response. But here's really what's accomplished. It is all about political messaging. This enables Chuck Schumer, It enables every Democrat running for reelection. It enables Joe Biden to say number one to not secure the border, to leave the crisis exactly as it is, but number two to say, well, we wanted to secure
the border, but the Republicans stopped us. This is all about giving political cover for Democrats. And I'll tell you why Republican leadership in the Senate wants to ram this through in the Senate. And listen, they probably can get the votes in the Senate. They'll get all the Democrats, and they'll get a dozen or more Republicans in the
Senate that will pass it in the Senate. The reason they want to do it is then once they've passed it in the Senate, use it as a club to beat the crap out of House Republicans and to defeat the House Republican majority. It is literally Senate Republican leadership helping the Democrats in the House because every Democrat in the House will say, well, gosh, we had a bill that would have stopped illegal immigration, but you know you Republicans didn't want to do it. And I will tell
you the argument that is making me most angry. They're a number of my Senate Republican colleagues are going out to reporters and they're puffing out their chests and explaining what self righteously, what great statesmen they are, and they say, the only reason someone's opposing this is that quote. We want the issue rather than to solve it, so they're blaming it on Trump. They say, everyone opposes this, Billy, you're just taking Trump's orders, and it's because we don't
want to secure the border. We want it to remain bad in order to be able to campaign on it. And I will tell you this past week, I yelled at my colleagues. I said, screw you, because I want to secure the border desperately, and the reason I oppose this is it does not do that. But I said, you know what you're doing. You are reading Chuck Schumer's talking points, and your lie will be used to re
elect Democrats to the Senate. In the House, you're not even you're simply being useful idiots and Sadly, they have no response to that. They just go back out and tell the reporters the same damn thing all over again.
Yeah, I agree with you.
I think this is the issue of the year right now national security standpoint. We talked about the illegal immigrants on the Tarif Squatch lists coming across the southern border as well.
We're gonna keep covering it for you.
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