Welcome.
It is Verdict with Center Ted Cruz week in Review, Ben Ferguson with you, and here are the big stories that you may have missed that we talked about this week. First up, a New Mexico judge now behind bars for housing an illegal gang member and the AG is not backing down on activist judges either. I'll have that for you in just a second. Also, Donald Trump ross ABC News in a one hundred day interview in the Oval office and what he had to say, it went viral,
and we'll play it for you as well. And finally, DOGE and the Institute for Peace, well they're exposing they weren't actually very peaceful. Is they were giving money to former terrorist members. It's the weekend review and it starts right now. So when you combine this and this these types of arrests, there is no inclination here that this is preemptively a idea or a mindset by the DOJ
or anybody else. This is reactionary to these activist judges, and that's something that the media is also distorting.
Well it is, and I will say, look, there's another story out of New Mexico, which is former Donya Anna County Magistrate Judge Joel Kano sixty seven his wife, Nancy Conos sixty eight are in custody right now. They were arrested by Homeland Security at their La Cruze Las Cruces home. They were arrested for harboring a gang member, a trender Aragua gang member in their home. And this trend to Iragua gang member. He's covered in gang tattoos, tattoos, and
the judge faces charges of tampering with evidence. Now you know what he did? What was that he took this Venezuelan gang member's cell phone, smashed it with a hammer because it had incriminating evidence of the gang member with firearms. And then he went and disposed of of the of the cell phone. So who's trying to hide evidence? Now? Do you know one of the pictures that was on the cell phone allegedly that the judge destroyed with a hammer.
I'm gonna guess it's probably one of those good old gang sign pictures, right, because that's always what the gang members have on their phone.
Now it's worse than that. It's a picture of two victims who are decapitated. We're not talking nice, fuzzy friendly gang members. We're not talking as the media loves to call call the illegal immigrant up in Maryland a quote Maryland band. This is a gang member who allegedly had pictures of two people with their heads cut off on the cell phone. And what does a Democrat judge do
in New Mexico, Well, you got a gang member. He says, Hey, let me hide you in my house and here give me that phone because they could use that to prosecute you. I'm going to smash it with a hammer and dispose of it so they don't have the evidence to convict you. That is bizarre, and that is a Democrat judge.
The Attorney General, by the way, she came out strong and said we're not backing down when we see this type of activism. Here's part of what she had to say on Fox.
And to set the stage for you and Sandra, this was truly horrific. This guy was in court being prosecuted by a state prosecutor for domestic violence battery. He had beat up two people, a guy and a girl. Beat the guy, hit guy thirty times, knocked him to the ground, choked him, beat up a woman so badly they both had to go to the hospital. And John. You know, it's so rare for victims to want to cooperate. They wanted to cooperate. They were sitting in the courtroom with
the state prosecutor. The judge learns that Ice was outside to get the guy because he had been deported in twenty thirteen, came back in our country, commits these crimes, charged with committing these crimes, victims in court. Judge finds out. She goes out in the hallway, screams at the immigration officers. She's furious, visibly shaken, upset, sends them off to talk
to the chief judge. She comes back in the courtroom here going to believe this, takes the defendant and the defense attorney back in her chambers, takes them out of private exit and tells them to leave. While a state prosecutor and victims of domestic violence are sitting in the courtroom.
You hear her explaining this, and you got to think the majority of Americans, if they know that story, they're going to be outraged, just as outrage as she is.
Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And I want to play a second clip from Pambondi where she's talking about the new Mexico judge, because this is not a crazy outlier. Unfortunately, this is a pattern. Listen to the Attorney General talking about this new Mexico judge harboring a trender Ragua gang member in his home.
I mean, when you look at the associations with this Violet Venezuelan gang Trende Arragua and this person that they harbored in their home, he was showing signs through clothing, We're told, tattoos. There was evidence through voice messages and text messages of his association to TDA. So what charges will Cano and his wife face if any?
So, Judge Cano seemed to be former Judge Cano got, he got. His charges were just unsealed. He's charged with obstruction. He is charged. He admitted posts Miranda, he took one of the TDA members cell phones himself, took it, beat it with a hammer, destroyed it, and then walked to the pieces to a city dumpster to dispose of it to protect him. The wife also is charged with destroying evidence, Sandra. Not only that this TDA member and he had on
a necklace that said kill, something about death. He had tattoos all over him. He also had on his cell phone pictures of two decapitated victims, two victims, decapitated, gruesome photos, and he was sending them out, and whoever he was sending them to was sending back saying, Hey, you need to be careful. You shouldn't be sending these You shouldn't be texting these photos out. Not only that, these two the judge and his wife gave him assault rifles that
belonged to their daughter. That's what they're charged with in the criminal report. Effi, David. He goes to a shooting range with these assault rifles with a suppressor, with other known TDA members and they're shooting. This is the last person that we want in our country, nor will we ever tolerate a judge or anyone else harboring them lit.
I'm just so glad we have an attorney general. You're good friends of Pam. We've had her on the show that is able to articulate this the way that she is to continue to combat the lies they're being put out there about who is actually getting arrested, who were targeting, and who we're trying to get out of the country.
No, that's exactly right, and it's the simple principle that no one is above the law. Here's what Cash Betel, the head of the FBI, to tweet it out. Quote just now, the FBI arrested Judge Hannah Dugan out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on charges of obstruction after evidence of Judge Dugan obstructing
an immigration arrest operation last week. We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject, an illegal alien, to evade arrest. Thankfully, our agents chase down the purp on foot and he's been in custody since. But the judge's obstruction created increased danger to the public.
We will have more to share soon. Excellent work. And then the Attorney General Pambondi, she tweeted, I can confirm that our FBI agents just arrested Hanna Dugan, a county judge in Milwaukee, for allegedly helping an illegal alien avoid arrest by ice. No one is above the law. Somehow, Democrats believe that if they don't like a law, they can just ignore it. They can defy it, by the way, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did that for four years,
they just utterly ignored federal immigration law. And unfortunately this attitude of lawlessness, we're not bound by the law. Not only that, we're going to actively fight federal law enforcement. Who is trying to enforce the law, And what are they doing this for. I mean, Ben seriously explained to me, help me get in the head of let's say this, New Mexico judge, New Mexico Judge, you and your wife say, hey, we got some gang members from Venezuela. They're covered in tattoos,
They've got a necklace that says kill. They have cell phones with pictures of people with their heads cut off. Let's bring them to my house. Like, how explain to me that thought process. My brain is not nimble enough to get around this.
See this is where I think to myself. I'm like, all right, well, then there's got to be some sort of incentive that is connecting them. There's got to be something to gain here personally, because I can't just imagine this judge is just like, yeah, we genuinely want to hang out with people that are celebrating or involved in this type of criminal activity, including as you described it, beheadings.
Yeah, look, you and I watch breaking bad. I don't know if this is a judge that's on the take, if there's corruption, if he's been paid by the gang. I don't know if he's ideological and stupid or corrupt or what. There's clearly more to this story we will learn, but the facts on the face of it are astonishing. And what's amazing, I don't know of a single Democrat
elected official who's denounced this conduct by the judges. Instead, what they're saying is they're rushing to defend these judges that are brazenly, brazenly defying the law.
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.
Here's something else that President Trump said at the rally where he actually reprised my favorite line from his State of the Union address this year, where he talked about how Joe Biden had said just one year earlier that he the only way to secure the border is if Congress passed new legislation. Give a listen to what President Trump said.
For years, Joe Biden and the media told us that stopping the flood of illegal immigration was absolutely impossible. He said it was impossible. He didn't know what the hell anybody was talking about. He said it was impossible. That the president had no power to stop what was needed in the form of legislation. He needed legislation, he had.
No power to get.
But it turned out that all we needed was a new president.
He's right, all we need was a new president. And they said that wouldn't even get it done. Well, guess what, not only did you get it done, but even the mainstream media now Senator is forced to report on just how big of a victory this is for Trump at the border. ABC News they put it this way in their own interview with the President.
Here in the Oval office. It's special. One hundred days into your second term. So what's the one thing, just one thing that you think is the most significant thing you've done so far in these hundred days.
Well, I think maybe the border is the most significant because our country was.
Really going bad.
They were allowing people to come in from prisons, as you know, and you've heard me say it, but you've heard a lot of people say it. Prisons, mental institutions, gang members, murderers, We had many murders, eleven eight hundred and eighty eight. They think some murdered more than one person. So yet murderers coming in. You had everybody coming in, and not just South America, from all over the world that were emptying their prisons into our country. And now
it's totally closed down. And you've seen just yesterday they announced ninety nine point nine percent. Nobody thought that could happen. Then it happened quickly, very quickly, and I think that's very significant. But we're doing other things that are very significant. Results will take a little bit longer because it's one of those you know, it's complicated. It's many years of trading abuse. We've been abused by other countries for years and years. They laughed at us, they thought we were
stupid people. And we're fixing it. And I think that's going to be very very important.
But I have a lot of ground to cover.
Yeah, I would really say that that the border is so important, you know, just we'll get there.
The immigration is huge, and we're going to get there, but I want to start.
You hear him say the southern border is totally closed down ninety nine point nine percent. I'll be honest, I don't even think Americans that voted for Donald Trump, that believed in him, thought he could get this done this quick with those types of numbers.
The numbers are staggering. He said, nobody believed we could get there. I actually think that's wrong. I think Donald Trump believed he could get there. He knew he could get there. And I'll tell you, you and I we both predicted it that we would see the numbers absolutely plummet. Although it's a fair point, we said absolutely plummet. I don't think I said ninety nine point nine percent. I might have thought it'd be ninety percent or ninety five percent,
but ninety nine point nine is. To be honest, Trump might even be surprised. It's that high. It's staggering, and and it's an example of a commander in chief who's actually following the law.
You know.
I got to say that ABC interview was really striking that there's a great exchange where the ABC reporter comes after him and Trump just just body slams him. Here here, give a listen.
Do you think the reputation in the United States has gone down under your presence?
No, I think it's gone way up. And I think we're respected country again. We were left at all over the world. We had a president that couldn't walk up a flight of stairs, couldn't walk down a flight of stairs, couldn't walk across the stage without falling. We had a president that was grossly incompetent.
You knew it.
I knew it, and everybody knew it, but you guys didn't want to write it because you're fake news.
All right, thank you.
By the way, ABC is one of the worst.
I have to be honest, Okay, thank you.
I'm sorry that that's just amazing. He's looking at the main guy. He's like roasting them to their faces. He's like, by the way, ABC, yeah, you're you guys, by the way, one of the worst. He's like, thank you, we're going to wrap now.
He's thank you. Think and you actually have to watch it watching the and I will say, one of the things Trump doesn't get nearly enough credit for it is how damn funny he is where he's like, look, it's one thing if he could just say, look, Joe Biden wasn't competent.
But he's like, he.
Couldn't walk up the stairs, he couldn't walk down the stairs. He falled, like you couldn't walk in the room like it's just it is funny, but it's true, and he's right. He's like, you knew it, I knew it, Everyone knew it, and yet you were lying about it, and nobody in the media. Have you seen a single maya culpa from anyone in the media saying we knew Joe Biden wasn't mentally incompetent and we deliberately lied to the American people about it. Nobody's done that.
No, no one has it all. One other thing I do have to say about all of this one hundred days is the speed at which this administration is working and how well this team is working in the White House is really impressive. You and I have been over there with Doge when we were interviewing Eglon Musk. I've been back last week as well to the White House. This team around him is just incredible compared to what he had in twenty sixteen, and I think that's part
of the reason why he's getting so much done. Would you agree with that.
But fully agree.
I think the cabinet is much stronger than the twenty sixteen or the twenty seventeen cabinet. I think in the first term, he made some appointment that frankly did not serve him well. He put people in place who disagreed with him, who undermined him. And I think this second term, I think he learned. I think he learned during the four years of his first term as president. I think he learned during the four years he was out of office.
I think he had a lot of time to think about if and when he came back, what he would do. And I think he put in place change agents. And you know, there's another exchange in that ABC News interview that I really like, where ABC News is defending illeal immigration and the open borders under the Democrats, and he just utterly calls them out here, give and listen to that you're talking about.
You know, you're making this person sound This is a MS thirteen gang member, a tough cookie, been in lots of skirmishes, beat the hell out of his wife, and the wife was petrified to even talk about him. Okay, this is not an innocent, wonderful gentleman from Man.
I'm not saying he's a good guy. It's about the rule of law. The order from the Supreme Court stamp into our country illegally you could.
I mean, I love it. He's not going to back down. He's not afraid of the guys in the press at all.
And the Democrats, you want to talk about stepping into their trap. The Democrats have happily embraced we, the Democrat Party, are the party of illegal immigrants. We are the party of gang members. We are you know are pod two days ago if you didn't listen to it. Really is astonishing.
They're two different Democrat judges in jail right now for obstructing justice, for blocking federal law enforcement for arresting illegal immigrants, and one of the two at a judge from New Mexico, is charged with sheltering a trend de Aragua Venezuelan gang member in his home and destroying evidence. It's really shocking.
So this gang member had a cell phone, and this Democrat judge took the cell phone, smashed it with a hammer, went and threw the cell phone away in a dumpster, all in an effort to cover up the evidence of
this gang member's criminality. And one of the astonishing things that the Department of Justice has told us is that cell phone that the Democrat judge destroyed had pictures of two people who had been decapitated, two victims presumably of gang violence who had their heads cut off, and ben like, like, what does it say that today's Democrat party what they're about is there for venezuela and gang members who cut
people's heads off. Literally, I don't know how you could be in a more radical position than where they are right now as before.
If you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and dow the podcast 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 center. I want to talk about what we just found out with DOGE and and I think it's an important point to reset because we saw a lot of oppress about DOAGE early on. We've now moved on to other topics, or I should say the media has moved on to other topics.
It does not mean that Elon Musk and the DOGE staff have stopped doing their job. In fact, they are still finding incredible amounts of waste, fraud and abuse. And they sat down with Jesse Waters at Fox to kind of give an update of like, hey, here we are It was also a very cool interview because what we're witnessing is Elon Musk showing these do gooders that he has brought in they can be making a lot more
money in the private sector. There are a lot of young, brilliant minds that are finding all of this information and digging and digging in our government, and he's letting them tell the stories of what they're finding. I love this management style from him.
Well, I got to say, every week they're new bombshells that are coming out from doze of just astonishing waste, fraud and abuse. And so this latest interview that the Elon did with Jesse Waters, he laid out, for example, that the Institute of Peace had a one hundred and thirty thousand dollars contract with a former member of the Taliban. Now now just let that sink in.
For a minute.
One hundred and thirty grand to a former member of the Taliban, and that is from the quote Institute of Peace. Nothing like paying a terrorist if you're the Institute of Peace. And by the way, that same institute a piece deleted one terabyte of accounting records when DOGE entered their headquarters.
So they came in I got to tell you. If you're prosecuting criminal conduct at a court of law and a defendant destroys evidence, deletes data on their computer, burns papers, burns receipts, burns photographs, that can be taken as evidence of guilt the fact that you are deleting evidence. But here give a listen to the description of what they found about from the Institute a piece.
Yeah, so it was by far the least peaceful agency that we've worked with. Ironically, of course, Additionally, we found that they were spending money on things like private jets, and they even had a one hundred and thirty thousand dollars contract with a former member of the Taliban.
This is real. We don't encounter that at most agencies.
What was the money going to the Taliban for?
So it was a contractor.
They received one hundred and thirty thousand dollars for generic services, And to Elon's point, there was not actually a clear description of what the contractor services were for.
But was it for opium unclear? Or weapons? Yeah? Or nothing for a broad or yeah?
And you naturally have to ask the question how did we get here? Like when the country was founded, there were only four agencies. Today there are over four hundred, so there's been a one hundred xc increase in the number of agencies since the.
Foundering of the nation.
And thanks to President Trump, he's now signed to executive orders to start to reduce the number of Asians season the government and the Institute Apiece was one of them, which is why our team went into try and understand what was going on, and that's when we found all the craziness, like the weapons and their armory. We found the payments to the Taliban.
Oh yeah, that the evidence, right.
So just a few hours after we got into their headquarters, we found that their chief accountant had actually deleted over a terabyte.
Of accounting records from several leaders.
So you'd have to ask the question, well, why would somebody do that if the Doch team fortunately was able to recover that data with the help of a few great employees at the Institute a Piece. And I think the most troubling thing was they received fifty five million dollars a year from Congress, and any money that went unspent, instead of returning that to Congress, they would sweep it into a private bank account which had no Congressional oversight.
And that's what they would use to fund things like events at their headquarters and the private jets. And so I think it's a great example because most Americans don't know what's going on at a lot of these smaller agencies, and this is a I think the most extreme case of some of the.
Wasteful spend that we're finding.
So the agencies are high money from you, they're sending into the Taliban. They have loaded weapons in the.
Department buildings at the Institute of Peace.
At the Institute of Peace, that's right, So this is a cover up.
When you guys roll in this wanted a cover up, they delete a vast amount of financial information. That's really a definition of a cover up.
Isn't that illegal to delete evidence? Yes, shred documents?
It is.
It's it's certainly illegal to delete accounting records that the Congress would certainly want to know where the Congressional appropriated funds are going from taxpayers.
When you catch them going Hillary style on their computers, do you refer this to the Department of Justice?
In this case, we did refer the evidence in the accounting example to the FBI and d OJ.
We're proud to do that. So yes, we did. Instance has shown.
I mean, let's just go back to what you said center a moment ago and and dive into this a little bit more. If this is that type of activity, in this type of cover up and referring this to the DOJ, what would the next step be on that? And then also what can Congress do if anything, knowing now what they've just told you.
Look, I got to say almost every word of that is shocking. That they gave one hundred and thirty grand to a for a member of the Taliban, that's astonishing. That they spent taxpayer money on private jets. That's astonishing. That the Institute of Peace had an armory with a whole bunch of weapons. Now let me repeat that the Institute of Peace apparently felt the need to be packing and when does showed up, they started deleting their accounting records,
which screams guilt. By the way, when when President Trump did the interview with ABC News in the Oval, one of the things ABC News says as well, there have been no referrals to the Apartment of Justice, and President Trump quite rightly says, how do you know that, Well, this is this is one. It turns out there have been multiple referrals to the Apartment of Justice for fraud. It's just ABC News doesn't want people to know that. Here,
I want you to listen to another clip. This is another clip where the Department of Education had a four billion dollar COVID fund that let government employees draw down. They used it for things like parties and to rent out venues like Caesar's Palace. Give a listen.
Yeah, there was a four billion dollar COVID fund in the Department of Education and there was no receipts required, so people we just drawed down on it. And when people looked into it, this wasn't just this was before us. They found that money was being used to rent out Caesar's Palace for parties, rent out stadiums, et cetera. And so the one change that Doze made with our education is we had the simple requirement that if you draw down money, you must first upload a receipt. That was
the only change that was made. You must upload your receipt, and upon doing so, nobody drew down any money anymore.
Yes, but we didn't say that we'd checked the receipt. You could send a fank receipt, you could send a picture of your dog, anything, anything, anything, And as soon as we asked for anything at all, that something, the requests were like, Oh, we don't need it anymore. That's interesting.
They were renting Caesar's palace.
Yes, they're like basically partying on the tax chair.
Of money, basically partying on the taxpayer's money. Okay, it sounds criminal.
Let me just ask, like, like the man on the street, did you think the Department of Education was spending your money, your taxpayer money to rent out Caesar's palace. That is the very definition of waste, fraud and abuse. Four billion dollars in a COVID slush fund with zero receipts required. Let me just say thank god for President Trump and Elon Musk and Doge uncovering this revealing it because it
is completely indefensible. And by the way, the Democrats, just like they've decided they're all in for illegal immigrants and gang members and violent criminals and white theaters, they're also all in for this kind of waste, fraud and abuse, including renting out Caesar's palace with your tax payer money.
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.