Killers and Insurrectionists

And on that point, on killers and insurrectionists and the coronavirus and our rights being taken away, my very own co host, Senator Ted Cruz, has been accused of being tantamount to a murderer because he refuses to wear his mask almost two years after the beginning of slowing the spread after his own vaccination. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. Today's episode A Verdict is sponsored by American Hartford Gold. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed everything

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digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts, just go to stamps dot com, click the microphone at the top of the page and enter code Verdict. Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles astounded that here in the twelfth month of the Year of Our Lord twenty twenty one, we are still talking about January sixth, even after so many of the media narratives about what happened that day have fallen apart the idea that police

officers were murdered by these violent white supremacist people. So many of these claims have been retracted by the mainstream media. And yet, Liz, we were just talking and you told me that there is a major bombshell from the January sixth committee. What's the bombshell? Michael, I think you might be mistaking which Liz is propagating the idea that there is a bombshell, because if it's Liz Cheney that you're talking about, I think I speak for the American people here.

I presume I take that presumption to speak for the American people here when I say, what exactly is this bombshell that Liz Cheney is talking about? What exactly is this smoking gun? Because what she did is she read in the January sixth committee, she read a list of text messages that Mark Meadows, who was at the time of coorse, President Trump's chief of staff, text messages he

received on January sixth. These are These are texts from Fox News personalities like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingram and Brian kill Me. These are text messages from Don Junior, obviously President Trump's son, all all saying condemning the violence, saying the President should speak out and condemn this loudly so it's not conflated with the peaceful protesters. Liz Cheney portrayed this as if it was an indictment on those sending the text messages, on the conservatives who were condemning

the violence. And the mainstream media, of course, just picked up this narrative that this was some kind of bombshell revelation. These text messages were, and this clip, this video of Liz Cheney went viral. Take a look at this. These text messages leave no doubt the White House knew exactly what was happening here at the Capitol. Members of Congress, the press, and others wrote to Mark Meadows as the attack was under way. One text mister Meadows received said quote,

we are under siege here at the Capitol. Another quote, they have breached the capitol. In a third, mark, protesters are literally storming the Capitol, breaking windows on doors, rushing in. Is Trump going to say something? A fourth there's an armed standoff at the House Chamber door. And another from someone inside the capitol, we are all helpless. Dozens of texts, including from Trump administration officials, urged immediate action by the president.

Quote Hodas has to come out firmly and tell the protesters to dissipate. Someone is going to get killed. In another mark, he needs to stop this now. A third in all caps, tell them to go home. A force and I quote Hodas needs to calm this ship down. Indeed, according to the records, multiple Fox News hosts new the president needed to act immediately. They texted mister Meadows and he has turned over those texts. Quote Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home.

This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy. Laura Ingram wrote, please get him on TV, destroying everything you have accomplished. Brian Kilmeade texted quote, can he make a statement, ask people to leave the Capitol. Sean Hannity urged. As the violence continued, one of the president's sons texted, mister Meadows quote, he's got to condemn this shit asap. The Capitol police tweet is not enough. Donald Trump Junior texted, all right, Senator, am I missing something here? Is this

a smoke? Is this a smoking gun? Is this a bombshell? No? Not not remotely. You had a bunch of folks saying violence is bad and the violence should stop. That that that should not be a smoking gun. I will say you noted the confusion between Lizzes and Lizes. I think in the future will simply refer to the greater Liz and the lesser Liz and and and I'm very pleased the greater Liz as our co host. Well, thank you

for that compliment. Let me just pivot to Michael. Does this not exonerate these folks that sent the text messages, because these are people that have spent the last year facing accusations of encouraging or being complicit with this violence, and yet they proved that even behind the scenes, they

were condemning this from moment one. Of course, I don't really see what the story is you had all of these prominent conservatives, some of whom we're at Fox News, some of whom were lawyers, and they texted Mark Meadows, who's been on this program before, White s chief of staff, and they said, hey, the President should address the country. And then he addressed the country and he said all that stuff. And that does not exactly seem like a man bites dog story to me. But Senator, you know

you're you're there. You were there at the Capitol that day, and you're at the Capitol around these people every single day. What is the outcome of this January sixth commission? If this is the best they've got, well, listen. I think you have to distinguish from the substance of the issue versus the politics of the issue the substance, and it's

very easy. You know. In some ways, this reminds me of the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, where everything was so polarized that it was either one hundred percent one direction or one hundred percent the other direction. And I think this podcast was one of the few places that we tried to say, Okay, let's assess what occurred, let's assess what the facts are. If you look at January sixth, it's a little bit the same way, where where if you listen to democrats, if you listen to the corporate media,

it was Pearl Harbor, it was nine to eleven. It was cats and dogs living together, ar mcgeddon. I mean, it was the worst day in the history of the universe. On the other hand, there's some that defend January six it's just another day that was perfectly fine. I view it somewhere in the middle, which is I think where reality lives. My view, straightforward violence is wrong. If you commit an act of violence, you should be prosecuted. If you violently assault a police officer, you should go to

jail for a very very long time. And I don't care if you're left wing or right wing, or you don't have any wings at all. If you violently assault a cop, you're going to the slabber. That ought to be non controversial, That ought to be really straightforward. What we see with January six and the media right now

is hyperventilating. I had multiple reporters stopped me in the Capitol to day and say we want you to reflect on the anniversary of jail Anuary sixth, and and my response, I said, you know what, when I hear from Texans, I don't hear from Texans on that. What I hear from Texans on is they're upset about inflation. They're upset about the chaos at the open borders. They're upset about illegal vaccine mandates. They're upset about the disaster and Afghanistan

and weak for and policy. They're upset about all of the things that are impacting their lives and their families. But that doesn't fit with the political narrative. And Democrats seized upon the aftermath of that day to try to score political points. And so one of the ways they score political points is in language. And listen, language matters immensely in all forms of discourse, but especially political communication. The word insurrection, what nonsense. Insurrection. This wasn't an army

that that like was trying to conquer America. I mean, like insurrection is you know, we had an inc it was called the Civil War. Six hundred thousand people died. That was an insurrection, really bad one. This was it was a riot. It was and in fact, I would say it was a terrorist attack. When you have a mob that is attacking police officers, that's a terrorist attack. But we came out of a year in which we had an entire year of terrorist attacks all over the

country and cities all over the country. We had fires, we had stores looted, we had police cars fire bond, we had police officers murdered. And the Democrats spent the entire year ignoring, whitewashing, covering it up, apologizing it, but even worse, celebrating the violence, celebrating the terrorist attack. You know, I remember the mayor of Seattle went on TV and said, oh, it's the Summer of love, man, It's the summer of love. And this is where leftist terrorists had declared remember the

Chaz Autonomous Zone. The whole thing was out of a bad South Park episode where they declared, we the warlords are in charge. And you had women being raped, you had assault, you had ongoing you want to talk about an insurrection, These numb nuts were actually trying to do the violent overthrow of the government, and because the Democrats were such knitwits, they rolled over and let them succeed an insurrection for weeks at a time, and yet that

became the Summer of Love. There is a real threat to our political rights and our way of life that was just handed down from the Supreme Court. So I want to get to that, Liz the Greater Liz, you will be getting back to us in the mailbag though. That is correct, Yes, And if anybody wants to ask a question, head on over to Verdict with Ted Cruz dot com slash locals and submit those questions. We'll get

to the mailbag shortly. I want to go back to January sixth for a minute, because there's another component that for five months after January sixth, the United States Capital was surrounded with fences, big giant, black, scary fences, chain lick fences that at the top of them they had razor wire, and it was frightening looking. It looked like Baghdad. It looked like our capital was under siege. And in front of the fences you had thousands of National Guardsmen.

Now the National Guardsmen are there in uniform in camo and they're holding machine guns with no magazines, they had no bullets in them. And it was the most absurd exercise of political theater. Why did that happen. It happened because Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer wanted to say that every person in America who voted for Donald Trump, every Republican, every conservative an, everyone who loves liberty were all terrorists,

were all insurrectionists, were all violently attacking the capital. And very quickly it became clear that's what was going on, and so the Red state governor said, all right, bring our guardsmen home. We're not sending them up there to be part of a set in a studio production. So the only guys left were guardsmen from Blue states, and they were from New York and New Jersey and Rhode Island. And I'd go talk with them. A number of them would come in and meet with me in my office.

I take pictures with them, and I visit with them, and it was interesting, almost to a person, they recognized this was ludicrous theater, that they were actors in a democratic play that had a political purpose, and the machine guns with no bullets really captured at all. The cherry on top of the hypocrisy Sunday from Democrats and the media is that Kamala Harris, our vice president, raised money to bail out of jail violent rioters and terrorists who

had committed acts of violence. So she actively supported the violence. And it was very funny. One of the reporters today was in the Capitol said said, well, well, okay, yes, I understand that that that you know, there were protests elsewhere, And I laughed and said protests, Oh, really, is that what you call it? Protest? When they're firebombing police officers, when when officer David Dorne is shot and murdered, that's a protest. And the reporter like almost had to step

back and met, okay, yeah, I guess calling them protests. No, they were violent riots that democratic officials were complicit in refused to send the police, refused to allow the police to do their jobs, and and and effectively sponsored And my view, as we ought to be consistent, whether you agree with the ideology or not of a violent criminal, nobody has a right to commit an act of violence on another American, of course, And where does the real threat to our way of life in our system of

government come from the horn guy or the other eccentric who tried to take Nancy Pelosi's lectern, or the people who wield actual political power in the United States, Which is why I'm quite concerned about this Supreme Court decision. The Justice has rejected this petition of the New York healthcare workers who did not want to take the vaccine for any number of reasons why they didn't want to take the vaccine. The Court, as I understand it, came

down and said, nope, sorry, the mandate stands now. Senator, you know, I don't know anything about the law. I know a tiny little bit about the Constitution. What is the deal with the court? Justice Courseus wrote a a fourteen page descent, which which I commend to you. I've read the whole thing. It's worth reading. It is exceptionally well done. It details what happened, which is that that New York state has a vaccine mandate for healthcare workers.

And it actually talks about how under Governor Andrew Cuomo, it was fine. When Cuomo rolled out the mandate, he said he was going to allow an exception for religious objections. And so that was Cuomo's rule, which was fine. It

protected religious liberty, protected writes a conscience. And then you know, Cuomo kind of got himself in trouble and and uh, you know he's now with his younger brother in in in the ranks of the unemployed, and then his successor, Kathy Hochel or Hotchel or I'm not sure hown't pronounced something like um. Anyway, she came in. Look, she was lieutenant governor. Nobody knew anything about her other than she was Cuomo's number two. Suddenly she's governor. And this woman

was a zealot. And so she changed the policy to eliminate the exception for religious liberty. And you know, Justice Corset writes about that, and it explains that she explained why, and in her press conferences she said, quote, we left off the religious exception in our regulations intentionally, so it had been there in the original version that they carved out religious exceptions. And she asked why. The governor answered that there is quote no sanctioned religious exemption from any

organized religion. And she goes on to say, quote everybody from the Pope on down is encouraging people to get vaccinated. Then to a different audience, she says, quote, how can you believe that God would give a vaccine that would cause you harm? That is not truth. Those are just lies that are out there on social media. And then even further, she specified, quote all of you, yes, I

know you're vaccinated, you're the smart ones. But you know there's people out there who aren't listening to God and what God wants. You know who they are. So think of the arrogance of an elected official who now claims to speak for God. And if you don't share her view, you're not listening to God and what God wants. Who the hell are you, Cathy? What's your name? You know what? Just because you are an elected of power, you don't

get to decide questions of faith for the people. And so she carved it out by the way that there are exceptions for health issues. So if you have a doctor who says, for some reason, the vaccine is a health risk for you, there's an exception for that. There's also an exception for people that were given the placebos in tests of the vaccine. So they're two exceptions. But they decided religious liberty doesn't count. And this was a lawsuit is brought by about twenty healthcare workers who had

been providing care to COVID peoples. These were the heroes on the front lines that are not only about to get fired, but the New York governor also decided they don't get unemployment benefits. So we're going to fire you, and you are categorically ineligible for unemployment because apparently you're not listening to God. It's clearly vindictive, you know, going

after the unemployment. And she's presuming not only to speak for God, but to speak for the Pope, who I suppose himself speaks for God, but's and she's misrepresenting the position by the way. It is true that many Catholic bishops, including the Pope, have encouraged people to get the vaccine

or said that it's permissible to get the vaccine. But the way that they have said it is permissible is by saying that even though the vaccine involves a remote cooperation with evil, the evil of the aborted fetal cells, or the evil of the abortion from which the fetal cells that were used in the development and production of the vaccine came the which is not compelling anybody to do that. The Church can't. The position of the Church is that it cannot force you to cooperate with evil,

no matter how remote. So this glib governor of New York is presuming not only to speak for God, which is outrageous enough, but to speak for other people who have their own religious views, and to misrepresent those views. It is so arrogant, But it is also so ignorant, and I suppose new in American jurisprudence well, and the fact that she says there are no organized religions, big formal organized religion here, no religious liberty. It is not. You don't have to have a big organized religion to

sign off on it. The Constitution protects your faith, and you know it can be challenged on whether it's sincere. But if there's no dispute with these planets that their faith is sincere, if they're acting according to their faith, and the Constitution protects it. Whether you're in a religion of a billion people or a religion of just a handful, there are protections of religious liberty. And I got to

say it was disappointing. So you had three justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch who would have stayed the mandate, in other words, said you can't fire these healthcare workers until the court decides whether to grant sirci or whether to hear the case. Yeah, but the other supposed conservatives, John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett all voted no. If one of them had voted yes, they could have granted cert if two of them had voted yes. They

could have stayed the order. All three of them voted no, and you know, I got to say justice. Gorsuch wrote in the end a comparison that was really powerful, and he talked about World War two. World War two, and in the time leading up to World War two, people were freaked out and they were concerned, and obviously it was a major war, and local jurisdictions passed laws in public schools requiring students to say the pledge of allegiance to the flag. They wanted national unity because we were

heading into a war. And one public school in Minersville, Pennsylvania, had that mandate. And there was a family, Lillian and William Gobitis, who were Jehovah's witnesses and their their child was in the schools. And Jehovah's witnesses believe as a matter of faith that they should not pledge to anything but God, and that includes a pledge of allegiance to the flag. And so they had a genuine and heartfelt religious objection to to their their child being forced to

pledge allegiance to the flag. They brought a lawsuit, went all the way to the Supreme Court, and in nineteen forty right at the dawn of World War two. The Court rejected their claim and said, no, this is this is an emergency, it's a crisis. You don't have a religious liberty right, and so they throw them out. Now. Three years later, ninety three, in another decision called Barnet,

Supreme Court reversed itself. It reversed itself and said we were wrong, we were wrong, and this religious liberty right it was a different Jehovah's witness who was bringing a challenge to a similar mandate. And they reversed itself. And here's what justice coursed its wrote that I think was really powerful. He said, quote today our nation faces not

a world war, but a pandemic. Like wars, though pandemics often produced demanding new social rules aimed at promoting collective interests, and with those rules can come fear and anger at individuals unable to conform for religious reasons. If cases like Gobitis bear any good, it is as their cautionary tale they remind us that in the end, it is always the failure to defend the Constitution's promises that leads to this quart's greatest regrets. And that is a powerful, powerful

analogy that. I think it's disappointing that we didn't see all nine justices say we're going to defend the religious liberty rights of these doctors and nurses who were the heroes of this pandemic, and now they're going to be fired and denied unemployment for daring to stand for their faith right. It does raise questions about where are the real threats to liberty and our way of life and

our rights really come from. I think we should hear from some of our wonderful viewers and listeners from a Verdict. So we should bring on not Liz the Lesser, but Liz de Greater with the mailbag. Liz, thank you, Michael. We have a lot of good questions tonight. As always, if you want to submit a question to ask to Senator Cruz, to ask to Michael Knowles, or to ask to me, you can do so at Verdict with Ted

Cruz dot com slash plus. If you are a subscriber on Verdict Plus, well you get access to ask question since that we'll be answered right here live on episodes of Verdict. So, Senator I'll let's start with UM, Well, an obvious fact here, this is a reality you were trending on Twitter this week because of Senator Bob Dole's funeral was this week you attended. Of course, he was a great man, a great conservative. That is not why

you were trending, though. You were trending because left wing blue check marks on Twitter were angry because you were not wearing a mask at this funeral, and they essentially, I mean, these people were hysterical. They were essentially accusing you of murder, of homicide because you didn't wear a mask to protect others. They said against covidndew. Do you how do you respond to this? Well? You know, it was interesting how the whole thing spun out of control

on Twitter and online. I went to Bob Dole's funeral. I didn't know Bob personally. We didn't serve together. He was obviously a national figure. I knew of him, but

we didn't We didn't know each other personally. But I respected his service, and in particular his his heroic service in World War Two, where where he's you know, he really embodied the greatest generation, the heroism he lived his whole life with with serious injuries that that that that he suffered in World War Two, and were at time when when the very last of the greatest generation are passing from us, that there are only a handful that are left. And so I wanted to go to honor

his his life and service and legacy. And I went in their whole bunch of senators that went um but I did not wear a mask. I wasn't the only senator not wearing a mask. Roger Marshall, whose senator from Kansas, as a medical doctor, he didn't wear a mask. Alphonse Dematto from from New York state, former senator, he didn't wear a mask. But most of the senators wore masks, most of the all the Democrats wore masks, most of the Republicans wore masks, and Twitter went nuts. H and

the corporate media then through gasoline on the fire. It culminated in in this past Sunday on Tapper Show on CNN, Jake Tapper was interviewing Amy Klobuchart, Democrat from Minnesota, and Amy and I were sitting next to each other, and she was on Tapper Show, and Tapper and I'm gonna paraphrase, but he basically said, so, you were at Bob Dole's funeral, and Ted Cruz was sitting next to you, and you're a breast cancer survivor, and didn't Ted in danger your

life put your life in danger because he was next to you without a mask. Now, Amy to her credit, and I will give her credit. She didn't take the bait. She actually took the high road. She didn't take a shot at me. She didn't go as as Jake was begging her to do and say, you know, yes, Ted and endangered my life. But I will say a couple of observations that were particularly ironic. Number one, Jake Tapper asked this question sitting just a couple of feet from

maybe Klobuchar, not wearing a mask. He didn't have a mask on, she didn't have a mask on. They're facing each other. Now, his premise is to be in the room, to be next to Amy Klobuchar without a mask, you are endangering her life. And they're both staring at each other with no mask while making that point. It is the absolute hypocrisy. We were talking about it on January six, We're talking about it on CNN. It is political theater in kabuki theater. Let me tell you a second component,

which is how did I get to the funeral? Well, I got to the funeral the way most of the other senators got to the funeral, which is we all loaded up into a bus that met in the capital and we rode in the bus from the Capitol to the funeral. Now, on the bus, you have a whole bunch of current senators former senators on the bus. Almost every single senator took their mask off. So on the bus, we're sitting next to each other, we're all together, Democrats

and Republicans. Almost to a person, I'd say the senators took their masks off on the bus, including most of the Democrats. We're next to each other, chatting, and then we step off the bus and suddenly the masks go on. And it is because there are political There are TV cameras there, and apparently a TV camera something in the lens makes the virus more dangerous that when you're on a bus and there are no cameras, everything's hunky dory.

But when you're when you're performing for theater, that's what was going on there. And so look, I think it real It revealed the utter, utter hypocrisy. And by the way, that hypocrisy continues if you look at the Senate when democratic senators get together in the capital today, most of them take their masks off. It's only when the cameras are there they're putting it on. So it it showed the masks are an aspect of theater, just like the razor wire and the National Guard with machine guns and

no bullets, or an element of political theater. And ridiculously, CNN and other folks in the corporate media are enthusiastic participants in the charade. And Michael very similar question to you. Have you ever worn your mask over your nose? Almost never. I actually I was on an airline a few weeks ago. I'm not going to say which airline. I don't want to get them in trouble. But the stewardists came over. The speaker admitted that they all hate the stupid masks

and they don't want to enforce it. One of the stewardists had a mesh mask on. It was fully mesh. My mind was on my chin for the entire flight. But of course, for you to Senator Cruz's point, there is no virtue signaling theatrical benefit to us putting on the mask for the cameras or aut in public. If we are conservatives or Republicans or sensible ordinary people. But for Democrat ardent democrats and Democrat elected officials, they really do because it has taken on this symbolism. It's almost

a religious symbolism, certainly a political symbolism. And so you get to that case and one point, Senator, I'm actually envious that you got to go to Bob Dole's funeral. I loved Bob Dole. I was just a child. I really liked the guy. I was a Republican, basically straight out of the womb. And there was a great line and here's farewell letter in which he said he looked forward to seeing if heaven really looked a lot like Kansas, and if he would still be able to vote in Chicago.

So even among the political theater, Dole was still cracking jokes, even at the very end well. And in fact, his line was if he would still be able to vote in Chicago, like so many who have gone before me have done, which and it was funny. The Democrats were all nervous, Oh, dead people voting inst Chicago. We're not allowed to laugh at that. The Republicans we were a howling laughing. And I gotta say all right, Norm did

a fabulous Bob Dole. And after the ninety six election, Dole went on SNL with Norm playing him, and and you know, he blasts him for you know, and why are you speaking in the third person? Bob Dole wouldn't do that. Bob Dole would not be speaking in the third person. So I have one Bob Dole anecdote, which is a good friend of mine. Was an intern in Dole's office in ninety one in the First Persian Gulf War.

And I guess the Iraq ambassador, foreign minister, some senior Iraqi official came by his office to meet with him, and Dole apparently walked out into the hallway of the Senate Office building, and you know, lots of people walking up and down the hallway, and he says, there any military men here, and and two young men step forward and they go, yes, sir, we're both United States Marines. And Dole goes, good, there's an Iraqi in my office. He'll kick his ass. And that apparently is a true story.

That is magnet. They don't make them like that anymore. All right, Senator, this is a little bit more serious of a question. This is from Daniel read over at Verdict Plus. He says, Senator, other than registering more voters and electing more Conservatives in thirteen months, what steps can you in Congress or us in the community take to prevent wild left policies like Build back Broke or Corrupt Politicians Act from being enacted. Well, we've got to keep

shining a light on how bad they are. We got to make it clear to the American people. We've got to mobilize and educate to be honest, this podcast tries to do that. I mean a big purpose of this pod it is to give the Verdict community the information, the facts, the background, so that when you're talking with your friends, when you're talking with your families and your co workers, when you're posting on social media, you can spread the word about how disastrous the Corrupt Politicians Act is.

How does astros the Build back Broke bill is? To defeat them, We've got to get Democrats on the fence like a Joe Mansion or a Kirsten Cinema, to continue to vote no on Build back Broke. They are right now, that could change any day now. And I think the more we highlight the substance the policy, the more unpopular it gets, the less likely it is that you'll get all Democrats uniting like lemmings to jump off a cliff. But but, but we'll see right now, the Democrats have

all the levers of power. But but the most important lever of power is the American people. And the more we can inform and educate and mobilize the American people, the more we have a chance at stopping the bad things, and also the more likely we are to reach take the House and hopefully the Senate as well in twenty two. And Michael, let me ask you about retaking the House

and Senate. Give us a prediction here. I mean, most of the time, the first midterm election of a first term of a sitting president, that president's party loses both the House and Senate by a significant amount. What do you think it's going to look like in twenty twenty two. Well, I like to think that part of the reason I've been able to keep my podcasts in my career in political commentary is I don't make very many predictions. I

did make one prediction once. I had a bet with Ben Shapiro over who would win in twenty sixteen, and I won four hundred bucks off the guy. So I'm batting a thousand basically on my predictions. And I look, if you're looking at the polls, then yes, the Republicans are looking really great in twenty twenty two. Certainly we'll

see what happens in twenty twenty four. The one objection I have heard is that if the Supreme Court over rules ro versus Wade, that that will galvanize the Democrats and they will suddenly be motivated to go out and get to the polls. And that's why we all need to, you know, not save all the babies and save the series reading the Constitution. But other polls do not back that up, and so this should give a lot of

hope to conservatives here. Yes, many Democrats care about abortion, but according to polls, a relatively small number of voters of the Democrat or Republican party are actually motivated to show up to the polls given a candidates stance on abortion. I don't think that's going to be a big motivator. And so then then you're looking at all of the other issues, and on all of the other issues, the Republicans are winning. So I think it is a safe bet to say that, right now the Republicans are looking

at a very very good midterm election. I certainly hope. So this this next question from Nancy. I'm excited to hear both of your answers on this. Senator, I want to go to you first. Nancy says Julian Assange, hero villain or pawn um. I don't like people that reveal

information that endangers national security. And I am grateful for highlighting abuses of government power, but doing so in ways that put put our country's security at risk are not great, and so I would rather have the abuses of power highlighted in ways that don't endanger covert operatives, don't endanger people who are actively fighting to protect our security. So somewhere in between is my answer for that. All right,

and Michael, what is your analysis? This, by the way, is coming on the heels of Julian Assange is very likely to be extradited back to the US, so that's why he's in the news again. Well, the reason this is a tricky question, as Senator Cruz has alluded to, is because the corruption within the American intelligence community. If the American intelligence community, at the highest levels of leadership were not incredibly corrupt, then this would be an easy answer.

Who do you side with the United States government or the guy who's publishing secrets of the American government. But because of the intense corruption of the intelligence community and more broadly, what we call the deep state, we've seen this play out time and time again. They tried to subvert the twenty sixteen presidential election. They spied on Donald Trump as a candidate, and then they tried to undermine

his whole presidency. Because of that, it's very difficult to defend the IC, certainly the leadership of the intelligence community. And what does this mean for Julian Assange. I don't know. I don't know anything about Julian Assange, But in the political battle that we're talking here between this guy, mister Assange, and the political leaders of the IC, it strikes me that it's similar to the Iran Iraq war. I hope

they both lose well. And if he is in fact extradited to the United States and there's a trial, we may get greater assessment about the extent to which the secrets he revealed genuinely endangered Americans. If they did, that's a real problem. We right now have just sort of broad assertions about that and the facts and substance matter. Yep,

it's great points. So basically, to summarize the answer, the very non vegue answers all of the above hero, villain and pawn at this moment until we get more information. If you want to submit a question to ask Senator Cruse, Michael Noise, or me, please join us over on Verdict Plus. It's Verdict with Ted Cruise dot com slash plus. If you want your questions answered live on air. That's the best place to get inside access to the Senator and

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